Chapter XII.

So far I had had more good fortune than falls to the lot of most youths

starting in life; now I was to taste ill-luck and be tried as with fire.

I had been so taken up with my own concerns that I had hardly given a

thought to public affairs; now I was forced to take a wider view.

One day Kate told me that Willie was heavily in arrears: he had gone

back to Deacon Conkling’s to live on the other side of the Kaw River and

I had naturally supposed that he had paid up everything before leaving.

Now I found that he owed the Gregorys sixty dollars on his own account

and more than that on mine.

I went across to him really enraged. If he had warned me, I should not

have minded so much; but to leave the Gregorys to tell me, made me

positively dislike him and I did not know then the full extent of his

selfishness. Years later my sister told me that he had written time and

again to my father and got money from him, alleging that it was for me

and that I was studying and couldn’t earn anything: “Willie kept us

poor, Frank”, she said, and I could only bow my head; but if I had known

this fact at the time, it would have changed all my relations with

Willie.

As it was, I found him in the depths. Carried away by his optimism, he

had bought real estate in 1871 and 1872, mortgaged it for more than he

gave and as the boom continued, he had repeated this game time and again

till on paper and in paper he reckoned he had made a hundred thousand

dollars. This he had told me and I was glad of it for his sake,

unfeignedly glad.

It was easy to see that the boom and inflation period had been based at

first on the extraordinary growth of the country through the immigration

and trade that had followed the Civil War. But the Franco-German war had

wasted wealth prodigiously, deranged trade too, and diverted commerce

into new channels. France and then England first felt the shock: London

had to call in monies lent to American railways and other enterprises.

Bit by bit even American optimism was overcome for immigration in 1871

and 1872 fell off greatly and the foreign calls for cash exhausted our

banks. The crash came in 1873; nothing like it was seen again in these

States till the slump of 1907 which led to the founding of the Federal

Reserve Bank.

Willie’s fortune melted almost in a moment: this mortgage and that, had

to be met and could only be met by forced sales with no buyers except at

minimum values. When I talked to him, he was almost in despair; no

money: no property: all lost; the product of three years’ hard work and

successful speculation all swept away. Could I help him? If not, he was

ruined. He told me then he had drawn all he could from my father:

naturally I promised to help him; but first I had to pay the Gregorys

and to my astonishment he begged me to let him have the money instead.

“Mrs. Gregory and all of ’em like you”, he pleaded, “they can wait, I

cannot; I know of a purchase that could be made that would make me rich

again!”

I realised then that he was selfish through and through, conscienceless

in egotistic greed. I gave up my faint hope that he would ever repay me:

henceforth he was a stranger to me and one that I did not even respect,

though he had some fine, ingratiating qualities.

I left him to walk across the river and in a few blocks met Rose. She

looked prettier than ever and I turned and walked with her, praising her

beauty to the skies and indeed she deserved it; short green sleeves, I

remember, set off her exquisite, plump, white arms. I promised her some

books and made her say she would read them; indeed I was astonished by

the warmth of her gratitude: she told me it was sweet of me, gave me her

eyes and we parted the best of friends, with just a hint of warmer

relationship in the future.

That evening I paid the Gregorys, Willie’s debt and my own and—did not

send him the balance of what I possessed as I had promised; but instead,

a letter telling him I had preferred to cancel his debt to the Gregorys.

Next day he came and assured me he had promised monies on the strength

of my promise, had bought a hundred crates, too, of chickens to ship to

Denver and had already an offer from the Mayor of Denver at double what

he had given. I read the letters and wire he showed me and let him have

four hundred dollars, which drained me and kept me poor for months;

indeed, till I brought off the deal with Dingwall which I am about to

relate which put me on my feet again in comfort.

I should now tell of Willie’s misadventure with his car-load of

chickens: it suffices here to say that he was cheated by his purchaser

and that I never saw a dollar of all I had loaned him.

Looking back I understand that it was probably the slump of 1873 that

induced the Mayhews to go to Denver; but after they left, I was at a

loose end for some months. I could not get work though I tried

everything: I was met everywhere with the excuse: “hard times: hard

times!” At length I took a place as waiter in the Eldridge House, the

only job I could find that left most of the forenoon free for the

University. Smith disliked this new departure of mine and told me he

would soon find me a better post, and Mrs. Gregory was disgusted and

resentful—partly out of snobbishness, I think. From this time on I felt

her against me and gradually she undermined my influence with Kate: I

soon knew I had fallen in public esteem too, but not for long.

One day in the fall Smith introduced me to a Mr. Rankin, the cashier of

the First National Bank, who handed over to me at once the letting of

Liberty Hall, the one hall in the town large enough to accommodate a

thousand people: it had a stage, too, and so could be used for

theatrical performances. I gave up my work in the Eldridge House and

instead used to sit in the box-office of the Hall from two every

afternoon till seven, and did my best to let it advantageously to the

advance agents of the various travelling shows or lecturers. I received

sixty dollars a month for this work and one day got an experience which

has modified my whole life, for it taught me how money is made in this

world and can be made by any intelligent man.

One afternoon the advance agent of the Hatherly Minstrels came into my

room and threw down his card.

“This old one-hoss shay of a town”, he cried, “should wear

grave-clothes.”

“What’s the matter!” I asked. “Matter!” he repeated scornfully, “I don’t

believe there’s a place in the hull God d—d town big enough to show our

double-crown Bills! Not one: not a place. And I meant to spend ten

thousand dollars here in advertising the great Hatherly Minstrels, the

best show on earth: they’ll be here for a hull fortnight and by God, you

won’t take my money: you don’t want money in this dead-and-alive hole!”

The fellow amused me: he was so convinced and outspoken that I took to

him. As luck would have it I had been at the University till late that

day and had not gone to the Gregory’s for dinner: I was healthily

hungry: I asked Mr. Dingwall whether he had dined?

“No, Sir”, was his reply, “Can one dine in this place?”

“I guess so”, I replied, “if you’ll do me the honor of being my guest,

I’ll take you to a good porterhouse steak at least” and I took him

across to the Eldridge House, a short distance away, leaving a young

friend, Will Thomson, a doctor’s son whom I knew, in my place.

I gave Dingwall the best dinner I could and drew him out: he was,

indeed, “a live wire” as he phrased it and suddenly inspired by his

optimism the idea came to me that if he would deposit the ten thousand

dollars he had talked of, I could put up hoardings on all the vacant

lots in Massachusetts Street and make a good thing out of exhibiting the

bills of the various travelling shows that visited Lawrence. It wasn’t

the first time I had been asked to help advertise this or that

entertainment. I put forward my idea timidly, yet Dingwall took it up at

once: “if you can find good security, or a good surety”, he said, “I’ll

leave five thousand dollars with you: I’ve no right to, but I like you

and I’ll risk it.”

I took him across to Mr. Rankin, the banker, who listened to me

benevolently and finally said:

“Yes”, he’d go surety that I’d exhibit a thousand bills for a fortnight

all down the chief street on hoardings to be erected at once, on

condition that Mr. Dingwall paid five thousand dollars in advance, and

he gave Mr. Dingwall a letter to that effect and then told me pleasantly

he held five thousand and some odd dollars at my service.

Dingwall took the next train west, leaving me to put up hoardings in a

month, after getting first of all the permission from the lot-owners. To

cut a long story short, I got the permission from a hundred lot-owners

in a week through my brother Willie, who as an estate agent knew them

all. Then I made a contract with a little English carpenter and put the

hoardings up and got the bills all posted three days before the date

agreed upon. Hatherly’s Minstrels had a great fortnight and everyone was

content. From that time on, I drew about fifty dollars a week as my

profit from letting the hoardings, in spite of the slump.

Suddenly Smith got a bad cold: Lawrence is nearly a thousand feet above

sea-level and in winter can be as icy as the Pole. He began to cough, a

nasty, little, dry hacking cough: I persuaded him to see a doctor and

then to have a consultation, the result being that the specialists all

diagnosed tuberculosis and recommended immediate change to the milder

east. For some reason or other, I believe because an editorial post on

the “Press” in Philadelphia was offered to him, he left Lawrence hastily

and took up his residence in the Quaker City.

His departure had notable results for me. First of all, the spiritual

effect astonished me. As soon as he went, I began going over all he had

taught me, especially in economics and metaphysics: bit by bit I came to

the conclusion that his Marxian communism was only half the truth and

probably the least important half: his Hegelianism, too, which I have

hardly mentioned, was pure moonshine in my opinion: extremely beautiful

at moments, as the moon is when silvering purple clouds: “history is the

development of the Spirit in time: Nature is the projection of the idea

in space”, sounds wonderful; but it’s moon-shiney, and not very

enlightening.

In the first three months of Smith’s absence, my own individuality

sprang upright, like a sapling that has long been bent almost to

breaking, so to speak, by a superincumbent weight and I began to grow

with a sort of renewed youth. Now for the first time, when about

nineteen years of age, I came to self-consciousness as Frank Harris and

began to deal with life in my own way and under this name, Frank.

As soon as I returned from the Eldridge House to lodge with the Gregorys

again, Kate showed herself just as kind to me as ever; she would come to

my bedroom twice or thrice a week and was always welcome; but again and

again I felt that her mother was intent on keeping us apart as much as

possible and at length she arranged that Kate should pay a visit to some

English friends who were settled in Kansas City. Kate postponed the

visit several times: but at length she had to yield to her mother’s

entreaties and advice. By this time my hoardings were bringing me in a

good deal and so I proposed to accompany Kate and spend the whole night

with her in some Kansas City hotel.

We got to the hotel about ten and bold as brass I registered as Mr. and

Mrs. William Wallace and went up to our room with Kate’s luggage, my

heart beating in my throat: Kate, too, was “all of a quiver” as she

confessed to me a little later; but what a night we had! Kate resolved

to show me all her love and gave herself to me passionately; but she

never took the initiative, I noticed, as Mrs. Mayhew used to do.

At first I kissed her and talked a little; but as soon as she had

arranged her things, I began to undress her: when her chemise fell, all

glowing with my caressings she asked: “You really like that?” and she

put her hand over her sex, standing there naked like a Greek Venus.

“Naturally”, I exclaimed, “and these too” and I kissed and sucked her

nipples till they grew rosy-red.

“Is it possible to do it—standing up?” she asked in some confusion. “Of

course”, I replied, “let’s try! But what put that into your head?”

“I saw a man and girl once behind the Church near our house!” she

whispered, “and I wondered how—” and she blushed rosily. As I got into

her, I felt difficulty: her pussy was really small and this time seemed

hot and dry: I felt her wince and at once withdrew: “does it still hurt,

Kate?” I asked.

“A little at first,” she replied; “but I don’t mind”, she hastened to

add, “I like the pain!”

By way of answer I slipped my arms around her under her bottom and

carried her to the bed: “I will not hurt you tonight”, I said, “I’ll

make you give down your love-juice first and then there’ll be no pain.”

A few kisses and she sighed: “I’m wet now”, and I got into bed and put

my sex against hers. “I’m going to leave everything to you”, I said,

“but please don’t hurt yourself.” She put her hand down to my sex and

guided it in sighing a little with satisfaction as bit by bit it slipped

home.

After the first ecstasy I got her to use the syringe while I watched her

curiously. When she came back to bed, “No danger now”, I cried, “no

danger, my love is queen!”

“You darling lover!” she cried, her eyes wide as if in wonder, “my sex

throbs and itches and oh! I feel prickings on the inside of my thighs: I

want you dreadfully, Frank”, and she stretched out as she spoke, drawing

up her knees.

I got on top of her and softly, slowly let my sex slide into her and

then began the love-play. When my second orgasm came, I indulged myself

with quick, short strokes, though I knew that she preferred the long,

slow movement, for I was resolved to give her every sensation this

golden night. When she felt me begin again the long slow movement she

loved, she sighed two or three times and putting her hands on my

buttocks drew me close; but otherwise made little sign of feeling for

perhaps half an hour. I kept right on: the slow movement now gave me but

little pleasure: it was rather a task than a joy; but I was resolved to

give her a feast. I don’t know how long the bout lasted: but once I

withdrew and began rubbing her clitoris and the front of her sex, and

panting she nodded her head and rubbed herself ecstatically against my

sex, and after I had begun the slow movement again: “please, Frank!” she

gasped, “I can’t stand more: I’m going crazy—choking!”

Strange to say, her words excited me more than the act: I felt my spasm

coming and roughly, savagely I thrust in my sex at the same time

kneeling between her legs so as to be able to play back and forth on her

tickler as well. “I’ll ravish you!” I cried and gave myself to the keen

delight. As my seed spirted, she didn’t speak, but lay there still and

white; I jumped out of the bed, got a spongeful of cold water and used

it on her forehead. At once to my joy she opened her eyes: “I’m sorry”,

she gasped, and took a drink of water, “but I was so tired, I must have

slept. You dear heart!” When I had put down the sponge and glass, I

slipped into her again and in a little while she became hysterical: “I

can’t help crying, Frank love”, she sighed, “I’m so happy, dear! You’ll

always love me? Won’t you? sweet!” Naturally I reassured her with

promises of enduring affection and many kisses; finally I put my left

arm round her neck and so fell asleep with my head on her soft breast.

In the morning we ran another course, though sooth to say, Kate was more

curious than passionate.

“I want to study you!” she said and took my sex in her hands and then my

balls: “What are they for?” she asked and I had to explain that that was

where my seed was secreted: she made a face, so I added, “You have a

similar manufactory, my dear; but it’s inside you, the ovaries they are

called, and it takes them a month to make one egg whereas my balls make

millions of tadpoles in an hour. I often wonder why?”

After getting Kate an excellent breakfast, I put her in a cab and she

reached her friend’s house just at the proper time; but the girl-friend

could never understand how they had missed each other at the station.

I returned to Lawrence the same day, wondering what Fortune had in store

for me! I was soon to find out that life could be disagreeable.

The University of Kansas had been established by the first Western

outwanderers and like most pioneers they had brains and courage and

accordingly they put in the statutes that there should be no religious

teaching of any kind in the University, still less should religion ever

be exalted into a test or qualification.

But in due course Yankees from New England swarmed out to prevent Kansas

from being made into a slave-state and these Yankees were all fanatical

so-called Christians belonging to every known sect; but all

distinguished or rather deformed by an intolerant bigotry in matters of

religion and sex. Their honesty was by no means so pronounced: each sect

had to have its own professor; thus history got an Episcopalian

clergyman who knew no history, and Latin a Baptist who, when Smith

greeted him in Latin, could only blush and beg him not to expose his

shameful ignorance; the lady who taught French was a joke but a good

Methodist, I believe, and so forth and so on: education degraded by

sectarian jealousies.

As soon as Professor Smith left the University, the Faculty passed a

resolution establishing “College Chapel” in imitation of an English

University custom. At once I wrote to the Faculty protesting and citing

the Statutes of the Founders. The Faculty did not answer my letter; but

instituted roll-call instead of chapel and when they got all the

students assembled for roll-call, they had the doors locked and began

prayers, ending with a hymn.

After the roll-call I got up and walked to the door and tried in vain to

open it. Fortunately the door on this side the hall was only a makeshift

structure of thin wooden planks. I stepped back a pace or two and

appealed again to the Professors seated on the platform: when they paid

no heed, I ran and jumped with my foot against the lock; it sprang and

the door flew open with a crash.

Next day by an unanimous vote of the Faculty, I was expelled from the

University and was free to turn all my attention to law. Judge Stevens

told me he would bring action on my behalf against the Faculty if I

wished and felt sure he’d get damages and reinstate me. But the

University without Smith meant less than nothing to me and why should I

waste time fighting brainless bigots? I little knew then that that would

be the main work of my life; but this first time I left my enemies the

victory and the field, as I probably shall at long last.

I made up my mind to study law and as a beginning induced Barker of

Barker & Sommerfeld to let me study in his law office. I don’t remember

how I got to know them; but Barker, an immensely fat man, was a famous

advocate and very kind to me for no apparent reason. Sommerfeld was a

tall, fair, German-looking Jew, peculiarly inarticulate, almost

tongue-tied, indeed, in English; but an excellent lawyer and a kindly,

honest man who commanded the respect of all the Germans and Jews in

Douglas County partly because his fat little father had been one of the

earliest settlers in Lawrence and one of the most successful tradesmen.

He kept a general provision store and had been kind to all his

compatriots in their early struggling days.

It was an admirable partnership: Sommerfeld had the clients and prepared

the briefs; while Barker did the talking in court with a sort of

invincible good humor which I never saw equalled save in the notorious

Englishman, Bottomley. Barker before a jury used to exude good-nature

and commonsense and thus gain even bad cases. Sommerfeld, I’ll tell more

about in due time.

A little later I got depressing news from Smith: his cough had not

diminished and he missed our companionship: there was a hopelessness in

the letter which hurt my very heart: but what could I do? I could only

keep on working hard at law, while using every spare moment to increase

my income by adding to my hoardings in two senses.

One evening I almost ran into Lily. Kate was still away in Kansas City,

so I stopped eagerly enough to have a talk, for Lily had always

interested me. After the first greetings she told me she was going home:

“they are all out, I believe”, she added. At once I offered to accompany

her and she consented. It was early in summer but already warm, and when

we went into the parlor and Lily took a seat on the sofa, her thin white

dress defined her slim figure seductively.

“What do you do?” she asked mischievously, “now that dear Mrs. Mayhew’s

gone? You must miss her!” she added suggestively.

“I do,” I confessed boldly; “I wonder if you’d have pluck enough to tell

me the truth?” I went on.

“Pluck?” She wrinkled her forehead and pursed her large mouth; “Courage,

I mean”, I said.

“Oh, I have courage!” she rejoined.

“Did you ever come upstairs to Mrs. Mayhew’s bedroom”, I asked, “when I

had gone up for a book?” The black eyes danced and she laughed

knowingly.

“Mrs. Mayhew said that she had taken you upstairs to bathe your poor

head after dancing”, she retorted disdainfully, “but I don’t care: it’s

nothing to do with me what you do!”

“It has too,” I went on, carrying the war into her country. “How?” she

asked.

“Why, the first day you went away and left me though I was really ill”,

I said, “so I naturally believed that you disliked me though I thought

you lovely!”

“I’m not lovely,” she said, “my mouth’s too big and I’m too slight.”

“Don’t malign yourself,” I replied earnestly, “that’s just why you are

seductive and excite a man.”

“Really?” she cried, and so the talk went on while I cudgeled my brains

for an opportunity but found none and all the while was in fear lest her

father and mother should return. At length angry with myself, I got up

to go on some pretext and she accompanied me to the stoop. I said

“Good-bye” on the top step and then jumped down by the side with a

prayer in my heart that she’d come a step or two down and she did. There

she stood, her hips on a level with my mouth; in a moment my hands went

up her dress, the right to her sex, the left to her bottom behind to

hold her: the thrill as I touched her half-fledged sex was almost

painful in intensity. Her first movement brought her sitting down on the

step above me and at once my finger was busy in her slit.

“How dare you!” she cried, but not angrily, “take your hand away!”

“Oh, how lovely your sex is!” I exclaimed as if astounded, “Oh, I must

see it and have you, you miracle of beauty!” and my left hand drew down

her head for a long kiss while my middle finger still continued its

caress. Of a sudden her lips grew hot and at once I whispered.

“Won’t you love me, dear? I want you so: I’m burning and itching with

desire (I knew she was!) Please, I won’t hurt you and I’ll take care;

please, love, no one will know”, and the end of it was that right there

on the porch I drew her to me and put my sex against hers and began the

rubbing of her tickler and front part of her sex that I knew would

excite her. In a moment she came and her love-dew wet my sex and excited

me terribly; but I kept on frigging her with my manroot while

restraining myself from coming by thinking of other things, till she

kissed me of her own accord and suddenly moving forward pushed my prick

right into her pussy.

To my astonishment, there was no obstacle, no maidenhead to break

through, though her sex itself was astonishingly small and tight. I

didn’t scruple then to let my seed come, only withdrawing to the lips

and rubbing her clitoris the while, and as soon as my spirting ceased,

my root glided again into her and continued the slow in-and-out movement

till she panted with her head on my shoulder and asked me to stop. I did

as she wished, for I knew I had won another wonderful mistress.

We went into the house again for she insisted I should meet her father

and mother, and while we were waiting she showed me her lovely tiny

breasts, scarcely larger than small apples, and I became aware of

something childish in her mind which matched the childish outlines of

her lovely, half-formed hips and pussy.

“I thought that you were in love with Mrs. Mayhew,” she confessed, “and

I couldn’t make out why she made such funny noises; but now I know”, she

added, “you naughty dear; for I felt my heart fluttering just now and I

was nearly choking—”

I don’t know why; but that ravishing of Lily made her dear to me: I

resolved to see her naked and to make her thrill to ecstasy as soon as

possible, and then and there we made a meeting-place on the far side of

the church, whence I knew I could bring her to my room at the Gregory’s

in a minute, and then I went home, for it was late and I didn’t

particularly want to meet her folks.

The next night I met Lily by the church and took her to my room: she

laughed aloud with delight as we entered; for indeed she was almost like

a boy of bold, adventurous spirit. She confessed to me that my challenge

of her pluck had pleased her intimately:

“I never took a ‘dare’!” she cried in her American slang, tossing her

head.

“I’ll give you two,” I whispered, “right now: the first is, I dare you

to strip naked as I’m going to do, and I’ll tell you the other when

we’re in bed.” Again she tossed her little blue-black head: “pooh!” she

cried, “I’ll be undressed first”, and she was. Her beauty made my pulses

hammer and parched my mouth. No one could help admiring her: she was

very slight, with tiny breasts, as I have said, flat belly and straight

flanks and hips: her triangle was only brushed in, so to speak, with

fluffy soft hairs, and as I held her naked body against mine, the look

and feel of her exasperated my desire. I still admired Kate’s riper,

richer, more luscious outlines; her figure was nearer my boyish ideal;

but Lily represented a type of adolescence destined to grow on me

mightily. In fact as my youthful virility decreased, my love of opulent

feminine charms diminished, and I grew more and more to love slender,

youthful outlines with the signs of sex rather indicated than

pronounced. What an all-devouring appetite Rubens confesses with the

great, hanging breasts and uncouth fat pink bottoms of his Venuses!

I lifted Lily on to the bed and separated her legs to study her pussy.

She made a face at me; but as I rubbed my hot sex against her little

button that I could hardly see, she smiled and lay back contentedly. In

a minute or two her love-juice came and I got into bed on her and

slipped my root into her small cunt: even when the lips were wide open

it was closed to the eye and this and her slim nakedness excited me

uncontrollably. I continued the slow movements for a few minutes; but

once she moved her sex quickly down on mine as I drew out to the lips,

and gave me an intense thrill: I felt my seed coming and I let myself go

in short, quick thrusts that soon brought on my spasm of pleasure and I

lifted her little body against mine and crushed my lips on hers: she was

strangely tantalizing, exciting like strong drink.

I took her out of bed and used the syringe in her, explaining its

purpose, and then went to bed again and gave her the time of her life!

Lying between her legs but side by side an hour later, I dared her to

tell me how she had lost her maidenhead. I had to tell her first what it

was. She maintained stoutly that no “feller” had ever touched her except

me and I believed her, for she admitted having caressed herself ever

since she was ten: at first she could not even get her forefinger into

her pussy she told me. “What are you now?” I asked. “I shall be sixteen

next April”, was her reply.

About eleven o’clock she dressed and went home, after making another

appointment with me.

The haste of this narrative has many unforeseen drawbacks: it makes it

appear as if I had had conquest after conquest and little or no

difficulty in my efforts to win love. In reality my half dozen victories

were spread out over nearly as many years, and time and again I met

rebuffs and refusals quite sufficient to keep even my conceit in decent

bounds. But I want to emphasize the fact that success in love, like

success in every department of life, falls usually to the tough man

unwearied in pursuit. Chaucer was right when he makes his Old Wyfe of

Bath confess:

And by a close attendance and attention

Are we caught, more or less the truth to mention.

It is not the handsomest man or the most virile who has most success

with women, though both qualities smooth the way; but that man who

pursues them most assiduously, flatters them most constantly and

cleverly, and always insists on taking the girl’s “No” for consent, her

reproofs for endearments and even a little crossness for a new charm.

Above all, it is necessary to push forward after every refusal, for as

soon as a girl refuses, she is apt to regret and may grant then what she

expressly denied the moment before. Yet I could give dozens of instances

where assiduity and flattery, love-looks and words were all ineffective,

so much so that I should never say with Shakespeare: “he’s not a man who

cannot win a woman.” I have generally found, too, that the easiest to

win were the best worth winning for me, for women have finer senses for

suitability in love than any man.

Now for an example of one of my many failures which took place when I

was still a student and had fair opportunity to succeed.

It was a custom in the University for every professor to lecture for

forty-five minutes, thus leaving each student fifteen minutes at least

free to go back to his private class-room to prepare for the next

lecture. All the students took turns to use these classrooms for their

private pleasure. For example, from 11:45 to noon each day I was

supposed to be working in the Junior Class-room and no student would

interfere with me or molest me in any way.

One day, a girl Fresher, Grace Weldon by name, the daughter of the owner

of the biggest department store in Lawrence, came to Smith when Miss

Stevens and I were with him, about the translation of a phrase or two in

Xenophon.

“Explain it to Miss Weldon, Frank!” said Smith and in a few moments I

had made the passage clear to her. She thanked me prettily and I said,

“If you ever want anything I can do, I’ll be happy to make it clear to

you, Miss Weldon; I’m in the Junior class-room from 11:45 to noon

always.”

She thanked me and a day or two later came to me in the class-room with

another puzzle and so our acquaintance ripened. Almost at once she let

me kiss her; but as soon as I tried to put my hand up her clothes, she

stopped me. We were friends for nearly a year, close friends, and I

remember trying all I knew one Saturday when I spent the whole day with

her in our class-room, till dusk came and I could not get her to yield.

The curious thing was I could not even soothe the smart to my vanity

with the belief that she was physically cold: on the contrary she was

very passionate; but she had simply made up her mind and would not

change.

That Saturday in the class-room she told me if she yielded she would

hate me: I could see no sense in this, even though I was to find out

later what a terrible weapon the Confessional is as used by Irish

Catholic Priests. To commit a sin is easy; to confess it to your priest

is for many women an absolute deterrent.

A few days later, I think, I got a letter from Smith that determined me

to go to Philadelphia as soon as my hoardings provided me with

sufficient money. I wrote and told him I’d come and cheered him up: I

had not long to wait.

Early that fall Bradlaugh came to lecture in Liberty Hall on the French

Revolution—a giant of a man with a great head, rough-hewn, irregular

features and stentorian voice: no better figure of a rebel could be

imagined. I knew he had been an English private soldier for a dozen

years; but I soon found that in spite of his passionate revolt against

the Christian religion and all its cheap moralistic conventions, he was

a convinced individualist and saw nothing wrong in the despotism of

Money which had already established itself in Britain, though condemned

by Carlyle at the end of his “French Revolution” as the vilest of all

tyrannies.

Bradlaugh’s speech taught me that a notorious and popular man, earnest

and gifted, too, and intellectually honest might be fifty years before

his time in one respect and fifty years behind the best opinion of the

age in another province of thought. In the great conflict of our day

between the “Haves” and the “Have-nots”, Bradlaugh played no part

whatever: he wasted his great powers in a vain attack on the rotten

branches of the Christian tree, while he should have assimilated the

spirit of Jesus and used it to gild his loyalty to truth.

About this time Kate wrote that she would not be back for some weeks:

she declared she was feeling another woman; I felt tempted to write, “So

am I, stay as long as you please”; but instead I wrote an affectionate,

tempting letter; for I had a real affection for her, I discovered.

When she returned a few weeks later, I felt as if she were new and

unknown and I had to win her again; but as soon as my hand touched her

sex, the strangeness disappeared and she gave herself to me with renewed

zest.

I teased her to tell me just what she felt and at length she consented.

“Begin with the first time” I begged, “and then tell what you felt in

Kansas City.”

“It will be very hard”, she said, “I’d rather write it for you.”

“That’ll do just as well”, I replied, and here is the story she sent me

the next day.

[Illustration]

“I think the first time you had me,” she began “I felt more curiosity

than desire: I had so often tried to picture it all to myself. When I

saw your sex, I was astonished, for it looked very big to me and I

wondered whether you could really get it into my sex which I knew was

just big enough for my finger to go in. Still I did want to feel your

sex pushing into me, and your kisses and the touch of your hand on my

sex made me even more eager. When you slipped the head of your sex into

mine, it hurt dreadfully; it was almost like a knife cutting into me,

but the pain for some reason seemed to excite me and I pushed forward so

as to get you further in me; I think that’s what broke my maidenhead. At

first I was disappointed because I felt no thrill, only the pain; but

when my sex became all wet and open and yours could slip in and out

easily, I began to feel real pleasure. I liked the slow movement best;

it excited me to feel the head of your sex just touching the lips of

mine and when you pushed in slowly all the way, it gave me a gasp of

breathless delight; when you drew your sex out, I wanted to hold it in

me. And the longer you kept on, the more pleasure you gave me. For hours

afterwards my sex was sensitive; if I rubbed it ever so gently, it would

begin to itch and burn.

“But that night in the hotel at Kansas City I really wanted you and the

pleasure you gave me then was much keener than the first time. You

kissed and caressed me for a few minutes and I soon felt my love-dew

coming and the button of my sex began to throb. As you thrust your shaft

in and out of me, I felt such a strange sort of pleasure: every little

nerve on the inside of my thighs and belly seemed to thrill and quiver:

it was almost a feeling of pain. At first the sensation was not so

intense, but when you stopped and made me wash, I was shaken by quick,

short spasms in my thighs and my sex was burning and throbbing; I wanted

you more than ever.

“When you began the slow movement again, I felt the same sensations in

my thighs and belly, only more keenly, and as you kept on, the pleasure

became so intense that I could scarcely bear it. Suddenly you rubbed

your sex against mine and my button began to throb: I could almost feel

it move. Then you began to move your sex quickly in and out of me; in a

moment I was breathless with emotion and I felt so faint and exhausted

that I suppose I fell asleep for a few minutes, for I knew nothing more

till I felt the cold water trickling down my face. When you began again,

you made me cry; perhaps because I was all dissolved in feeling and too,

too happy. Ah, love is divine: isn’t it?”

Kate was really of the highest woman-type, mother and mistress in one.

She used to come down and spend the night with me oftener than ever and

on one of these occasions she found a new word for her passion: she

declared she felt her womb move in yearning for me when I talked my best

or recited poetry to her in what I had christened her Holy Week. Kate,

it was, who taught me first that women could be even more moved and

excited by words than by deeds: once, I remember, when I had talked

sentimentally, she embraced me of her own accord and we had each other

with wet eyes.

Another effect of Smith’s absence was important; for it threw me a good

deal with Miss Stevens. I soon found that she had inherited the best of

her father’s brains and much of his strength of character. If she had

married Smith, she might have done something noteworthy: as it was, she

was very attractive and well-read as a girl and would have made Smith, I

am sure, a most excellent wife.

Once and once only I tried to hint to her that her sweetness to Smith

might do him harm physically; but the suspicion of reproof made her

angry and she evidently couldn’t or wouldn’t understand what I meant

without a physical explanation, which she would certainly have resented.

I had to leave her to what she would have called her daimon; for she was

as prettily pedantic as Tennyson’s Princess, or any other mid-Victorian

heroine.

Her brother Ned, too, I came to know pretty well. He was a tall,

handsome youth with fine grey eyes: a good athlete, but of commonplace

mind.

The father was the most interesting of the whole family, were it only

for his prodigious conceit. He was of noble appearance: a large,

handsome head with silver grey hairs setting off a portly figure well

above middle height. In spite of his assumption of superiority, I felt

him hide-bound in thought; for he accepted all the familiar American

conventions, believing or rather knowing that the American people, “the

good old New England stock in particular, were the salt of the earth,

the best breed to be seen anywhere....”

It showed his brains that he tried to find a reason for this belief.

“English oak is good”, he remarked one day sententiously, “but American

hickory is tougher still. Reasonable, too, this belief of mine”, he

added, “for the last glacial period skinned all the good soil off of New

England and made it bitterly hard to get a living and the English who

came out for conscience sake were the pick of the Old Country and they

were forced for generations to scratch a living out of the poorest kind

of soil with the worst climate in the world, and hostile Indians all

round to sharpen their combativeness and weed out the weaklings and

wastrels.”

There was a certain amount of truth in his contention; but this was the

nearest to an original thought I ever heard him express and his intense

patriotic fervor moved me to doubt his intelligence.

I was delighted to find that Smith rated him just as I did: “a

first-rate lawyer, I believe”, was his judgment, “a sensible, kindly

man.”

“A little above middle height”, I interpreted and Smith added smiling,

“and considerably above average weight: he would never have done

anything notable in literature or thought.”

As the year wore on, Smith’s letters called for me more and more

insistently and at length I went to join him in Philadelphia.

[Illustration]

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NEW EXPERIENCES.

Emerson, Walt Whitman, Bret Harte.