are the men all doing the housework?”
“You call that ‘the worst,’ do you?” inquired Nellie, cocking her head to one side and looking at me affectionately, and yet quizzically. “Well, I guess it was — pretty near ‘the worst!’ No dear, men are doing just as many kinds of business as they ever were.”
I heaved a sigh of relief and chucked my magazine under the chair.
“I’d begun to think there weren’t any men left. And they still wear trousers, don’t they?”
She laughed outright.
“Oh, yes. They wear just as many trousers as they did before.”
“And what do the women wear,” I demanded suspiciously.
“Whatever kind of clothing their work demands,” she answered.
“Their work? What kind of work do they do?”
“All kinds — anything they like.”
I groaned and shut my eyes. I could see the world as I left it, with only a small proportion of malcontents and a large majority of contented and happy homes; and then I saw this awful place I was coming to, with strange, masculine women and subdued men.
“How does it happen that there aren’t any on this ship?” I inquired.
“Any what?” asked Nellie.
“Any of these — New Women?”
“Why, there are. They’re all new, except Mrs. Talbot. She’s older than I am, and rather reactionary.”
This Mrs. Talbot was a stiff, pious, narrow-minded old lady, and I had liked her the least of any on board.
“Do you mean to tell me that pretty Mrs. Exeter is — one of this new kind?”
“Mrs. Exeter owns — and manages — a large store, if that is what you mean.”
“And those pretty Borden girls?”
“They do house decorating — have been abroad on business.”
“And Mrs. Green — and Miss Sandwich?”
“One of them is a hat designer, one a teacher. This is toward the end of vacation, and they’re all coming home, you see.”
“And Miss Elwell?”
Miss Elwell was quite the prettiest woman on board, and seemed to have plenty of attention — just like the girls I remembered.
“Miss Elwell is a civil engineer,” said my sister.
“It’s horrid,” I said. “It’s perfectly horrid! And aren’t there any women left?”
“There’s Aunt Dorcas,” said Nellie, mischievously, “and Cousin Drusilla. You remember Drusilla?”
Chapter 2.
THE day after tomorrow! I was to see it the day after tomorrow — this strange, new, abhorrent world!
The more I considered what bits of information I had gleaned already, the more I disliked what lay before me. In the first blazing light of returned memory and knowledge, the first joy of meeting my sister, the hope of seeing home again, I had not distinguished very sharply between what was new to my bewildered condition and what was new indeed — new to the world as well as to me. But now a queer feeling of disproportion and unreality began to haunt me.
As my head cleared, and such knowledge as I was now gathering began to help towards some sense of perspective and relation, even my immediate surroundings began to assume a sinister importance.
Any change, to any person, is something of a shock, though sometimes a beneficial one. Changes too sudden, and too great, are hard to bear, for any one. But who can understand the peculiar horror of my unparalleled experience?
Slowly the thing took shape in my mind.
There was the first, irrevocable loss — my life!
Thirty years — the thirty years in which a man may really live — these were gone from me forever.
I was coming back; strong to be sure; well enough in health; even, I hoped, with my old mental vigor — but not to the same world.
Even the convict who survives thirty years imprisonment, may return at length to the same kind of world he had left so long.
But I! It was as if I had slept, and, in my sleep, they had stolen my world.
I threw off the thought, and started in to action.
Here was a small world — the big steamer beneath me. I had already learned much about her. In the first place, she was not a
“steamer,” but a thing for which I had no name; her power was electric,
“Oh, well,” I thought, as I examined her machinery, “this I might have expected. Thirty years of such advances as we were making in 1910 were sure to develop electric motors of all sorts.”
The engineer was a pleasant, gentlemanly fellow, more than willing to talk about his profession and its marvellous advances. The ship was well manned, certainly; though the work required was far less than it used to be, the crew were about as numerous. I had made some acquaintances among the ship’s officers — even among the men, who were astonishingly civil and well-mannered — but I had not at first noticed the many points of novelty in their attitude or in my surroundings.
Now I paced the deck and considered the facts I had observed — the perfect ventilation of the vessel, the absence of the smell of cooking and of bilge water, the dainty convenience and appropriate beauty of all the fittings and furnishings, the smooth speed and steadiness of her,
The quarters of the crew I found as remarkable as anything else about the vessel; indeed the forecastle and steerage differed more from what I remembered than from any other part. Every person on board had a clean and comfortable lodging, though there were grades of distinction in size and decoration. But any gentleman could have lived in that “foks’le” without discomfort. Indeed, I soon found that many gentlemen did. I discovered, quite by accident, that one of the crew was a Harvard man. He was not at all loath to talk of it, either — was evidently no black sheep of any sort.
Why had he chosen this work?
Oh, he wanted the experience — it widened life, knowing different trades.
Why was he not an officer then?
He didn’t care to work at it long enough — this was only experience work, you see.
I did not see, nor ask, but I inferred, and it gave me again that feeling as if the ground underfoot had wiggled slightly.
Was that old dream of Bellamy’s
