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The Senses in Self Society and Culture A Sociology of the
Senses 1st Edition Phillip Vannini Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Phillip Vannini, Dennis Waskul, Simon Gottschalk
ISBN(s): 9780415879910, 0415879914
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.36 MB
Year: 2011
Language: english
THE SENSES IN SELF,
SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture is the definitive guide to the sociological
and anthropological study of the senses. Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk
provide a comprehensive map of the social and cultural significance of the
senses that is woven in a thorough analytical review of classical, recent, and
emerging scholarship and grounded in original empirical data that deepens the
review and analysis. By bridging cultural/qualitative sociology and cultural/
humanistic anthropology, The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture explicitly blurs
boundaries that are particularly weak in this field due to the ethnographic scope
of much research. Serving both the sociological and anthropological constituen-
cies at once means bridging ethnographic traditions, cultural foci, and socio-
ecological approaches to embodiment and sensuousness. The Senses in Self,
Society, and Culture is intended to be a milestone in the social sciences’ somatic
turn.

Phillip Vannini is Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at

Royal Roads University, Victoria, Canada, and Canada Research Chair in
Innovative Learning and Public Ethnography. He is author and editor of eight
books, including Understanding Society through Popular Music (with Joe
Kotarba, 2006, Routledge), and Ferry Tales: An Ethnography of Mobilities, Place,
and Time on Canada’s West Coast (2011, Routledge).

Dennis Waskul is Professor of Sociology at Minnesota State University,

Mankato. He is author of Self-Games and Body-Play (2003, Peter Lang),
production editor for Symbolic Interaction, editor of net.seXXX (2004, Peter
Lang), and co-editor of Body/Embodiment (2006, Ashgate). He has published
numerous studies on the sociology of the body, senses, sexualities, and
computer-mediated communications.

Simon Gottschalk is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of

Nevada, Las Vegas. He was editor of Symbolic Interaction (2003–2007), and
is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on self-environment
relations, postmodern culture, social psychology, qualitative research, the mass
media, and interaction in virtual environments.
Contemporary Sociological Perspectives
Edited by Valerie Jenness, University of California, Irvine and Jodi O’Brien, Seattle University

This innovative series is for all readers interested in books that provide frameworks for making
sense of the complexities of contemporary social life. Each of the books in this series uses a
sociological lens to provide current critical and analytical perspectives on significant social
issues, patterns, and trends. The series consists of books that integrate the best ideas in
sociological thought with an aim toward public education and engagement. These books are
designed for use in the classroom as well as for scholars and socially curious general readers.

Published:
Political Justice and Religious Values by Charles F. Andrain
GIS and Spatial Analysis for the Social Sciences by Robert Nash Parker and Emily K. Asencio
Hoop Dreams on Wheels: Disability and the Competitive Wheelchair Athlete by Ronald J. Berger
The Internet and Social Inequalities by James C. Witte and Susan E. Mannon
Media and Middle Class Mom: Images and Realities of Work and Family by Lara Descartes and
Conrad Kottak
Watching TV Is Not Required: Thinking about Media and Thinking about Thinking by Bernard
McGrane and John Gunderson
Violence against Women: Vulnerable Populations by Douglas Brownridge
State of Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland by Barbara G. Brents, Crystal
A. Jackson and Kate Hausbeck
Social Statistics: The Basics and Beyond by Thomas J. Linneman
Sociologists Backstage: Answers to 10 Questions about What They Do by Sarah Fenstermaker and
Nikki Jones
Gender Circuits by Eve Shapiro
Transform Yourself, Transform the World: A Practical Guide to Women’s and Gender Studies by
Michelle Berger and Cheryl Radeloff
Stargazing: Celebrity, Fame, and Social Interaction by Kerry Ferris and Scott Harris

Forthcoming:
Surviving Dictatorship: Visual and Social Representations by Jacqueline Adams
Social Theory: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives by Wesley Longhofer
The Womanist Idea by Layli Phillips Maparyan
Families Worldwide by Agnes Riedmann
Issues, Implications, and Practices in Mixed Method Designs by Jodi O’Brien
Law in Action by Ryken Grattet
Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides? by Sheldon Ekland-Olson
THE SENSES IN
SELF, SOCIETY,
AND CULTURE
A Sociology of the Senses

Phillip Vannini, Dennis Waskul,

and Simon Gottschalk
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of Phillip Vannini, Dennis Waskul, and Simon
Gottschalk to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vannini, Phillip.
The senses in self, society, and culture : a sociology of the senses /
Phillip Vannini, Dennis Waskul, Simon Gottschalk.
p. cm. – (Contemporary sociological perspectives)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Senses and sensation–Social aspects. 2. Ethnopsychology.
I. Waskul, Dennis D., 1969– II. Gottschalk, Simon. III. Title.
BF233.V36 2011
302'.1–dc22
2011008517

ISBN13: 978-0-415-87991-0 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-80598-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Abode Caslon

by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper
by Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, MO
CONTENTS

Series Editors’ Foreword vii

Preface and Acknowledgments ix

PART I: UNDERSTANDING SENSORY STUDIES 1

1 Toward a Sociology of the Senses 3

2 The Sensual Body 23

3 Sensual Ritual and Performance 40

4 Sensuous Scholarship 61

PART II: DOING SENSORY RESEARCH 81

5 The Sensuous Self and Identity 83

6 A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time 103

7 The Sensory Order 126

8 Media, Consumer, and Material Culture 148

Notes 170
References 172
Index 188

CONTENTS v
SERIES EDITORS’
FOREWORD

This innovative series is for all readers interested in books that provide
frameworks for making sense of the complexities of contemporary social life.
Each of the books in this series uses a sociological lens to provide current
critical and analytical perspectives on significant social issues, patterns, and
trends. The series consists of books that integrate the best ideas in sociological
thought with an aim toward public education and engagement. These books
are designed for use in the classroom as well as for scholars and socially curious
general readers.
The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture contributes to a newly emerging
literature on the connections between the body, mind, and culture. Most
people assume their sensory responses are automatic and purely physical, but
recent studies in the cultural processes of physical experience teach us that our
responses are more complex than we realize. In this breakthrough book, Phillip
Vannini, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk identify the social processes
that shape the seemingly physical responses associated with the five senses.
Using empirical studies and provocative everyday examples, the authors
illustrate the social construction of sensory experience. The book is ideal for
anyone interested in sensory experiences such as “acquired taste” for specific
foods, shifting changes in color preferences for fashion, smell memories, or
cultural concepts of hygiene and odor.
Valerie Jenness and Jodi O’Brien
Series Editors

SERIES EDITORS’ FOREWORD vii

PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Fueled by the cultural and the bodily turn, for the last decade the social sciences
have been witnessing a rapid growth of new subfields of study, such as the
sociology and anthropology of the body and of the senses. Whereas the study
of the body has enjoyed tremendous growth over the past decades and has
perhaps by now reached maturity, the study of the senses is only recently
coming into its own with the recent (2006) publication of the peer-reviewed
journal The Senses and Society, the production of a few interdisciplinary readers,
and the publication of a handful of foundational scholarly essays and mono-
graphs. Still absent, however, is a focused and comprehensive book that works
as a map to the field and as the engine for further intellectual growth.
Combining a thorough review of classical, recent, and emerging scholarship
with grounded original empirical material as a strategy for sparking interest
and deepening review and analysis, this book intends to be a key reference tool.
In contrast to books that separate the five (or six, or seven) senses from one
another, our book is divided alongside points of intersections with existing
sociological and anthropological fields of study. In doing so, we intend to appeal
to a wide variety of scholars and students who are interested in a particular
field of study other than the senses and who are keen on exploring linkages.
Therefore, both our review of the literature and utilization of our own original
empirical material unfold as “bridge-crossing” endeavors. Furthermore, we put
a premium not only on the senses as subject matter of our interest, but also on
sensuousness as a paradigm. Thus, this book does not solely review the literature
but also develops—whenever possible—embodied knowledge-making by
sensuously evoking concrete instances from everyday life.
The integrating theme running throughout the book links the past,
present, and future significance of the “sensory,” “sensual,” “sensuous,” and/or

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

 “somatic turn” to sociological and anthropological scholarship on the senses
and through the senses. In bridging cultural sciences such as qualitative sociol-
ogy, social and cultural anthropology, human geography, and cultural studies
we intend explicitly to blur boundaries that, in this field, are particularly porous
in light of the qualitative, phenomenological, interpretive, and ethnographic
scope of much research. Simultaneously, given our interest in developing a
sociological approach to the study of the senses, we hope this book will put the
sociology of the senses on the map for good. In sum, the present book has been
written for a wide audience comprised of advanced undergraduate students,
graduate students, and scholars who are either entirely new to the field or
already familiar with it but not with its most recent developments. Because we
have such a wide audience in mind, our approach is comprehensive and we
have taken care to use the richest literature possible.
This book would not have been possible without the assistance and support
of many people. Our gratitude goes to Royal Roads University (RRU), which
has supported our research through internal grants that have paid for some of
the fieldwork expenses, as well as for travel to conferences where our findings
and ideas have been shared. Jodi O’Brien and Steve Rutter at Routledge pro-
vided us with advice, direction, and support. Guppy Ahluwalia-Lopez assisted
with data collection, analysis, and writing. Portions of the research cited in this
book were aided by the collaboration of various co-authors, including Janelle
Wilson, Carol Rambo, Toby Ellis-Newstead, and Desiree Wiesen. Their input
was priceless.
Phillip, Dennis, and Simon also wish to acknowledge the kind permissions
received by the University of California Press, Berg Publishers, Ashgate
Publishing, and SAGE to reproduce excerpts from the following publica-
tions: “Sound Acts: Elocution, Somatic Work, and the Performance of Sonic
Alignment,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, (2010) 39:328–353;
“Toward a Sensuous Understanding of Material Culture: Representing and
Performing Taste at Wine Festivals,” Qualitative Inquiry, (2010) 16:378–396;
“The Aroma of Recollection: Olfaction, Nostalgia, and the Shaping of the
Sensuous Self,” The Senses and Society, (2008) 4:5–22; “Smell, Odor, and
Somatic Work: Sense-Making and Sensory Management,” Social Psychology
Quarterly, (2008) 71:53–71; “Women and Their Clitoris: Personal Discovery,
Signification, and Use,” Symbolic Interaction, (2007) 30:151–174; and “Paddle
and Portage: The Travail of BWCA Canoe Travel,” in P. Vannini (ed.) (2009),
The Cultures of Alternative Mobility: Routes Less Travelled, 21–37.

x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Part I
Understanding Sensory Studies
1
TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY
OF THE SENSES

eturning home from a doctor’s appointment, I (Dennis) park my vehicle

R in the garage and enter my home through the rear porch. Nobody is
home. Walking in the porch, I immediately smell a potent and toxic aroma that
unleashes a flow of adrenalin, quickens my heartbeat, and accelerates my
breathing. “Natural gas,” I quickly decide. My four-year-old son has in the past
managed to turn on the oven burners, causing them to belch deadly gas into
our home. Bolting indoors, I immediately race to the stove to check whether
it is the source of the noxious odor. Not this time. The oven and burners are
off. I check to make sure the pilot lights are working properly. Yep. Everything
seems normal. I continue to investigate my home and make my way toward
the basement. Perhaps the pilot light on the furnace has gone out. Maybe the
water heater? By now, the toxic odor has dissipated. I no longer smell anything
unusual or out of the ordinary, but I am still anxious. For the next fifteen
minutes, I find myself sniff-testing the various zones of my home. Something
caused that odor. What was it?
I am pacing aimlessly about the house, still trying to trace the source
of the odor. Along the way I notice that our dog has once again eaten all of
the cat’s food. Irritated with our fattening mutt, I grab the cat’s tiny food
dish and return to the back porch where we store the pet food. As I open the
porch door, I am again assaulted by the toxic odor. This time, however, I
notice something I previously missed: four large latex balloons that our
children had purchased on a recent shopping trip. The day before, my wife
and I needed a reprieve from their loud and rowdy playing with the balloons.
Taking advantage of a moment when they were preoccupied with something
else, we quickly and quietly moved the balloons into the back porch where
they have since remained, and now the tiny enclosed porch is filled with the

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF THE SENSES 3

 potent aroma of latex. Mystery solved. Relieved, I proceed with my usual
activities.
What does smell indicate? How do we interpret its meaning? How does
the perception of an odor that we do not expect or anticipate compel us to make
sense of what we are sensing? How could I have mistaken the smell of latex for
natural gas, and why did it bother me so? Perhaps because I perceive that same
antiseptic latex aroma in hospitals and doctors’ offices, from whence I had just
returned, and it is a smell I dislike because I associate it with bad memories.
Perhaps it is because my son in the past has turned on the burners on the stove
and left them on. In either case, how does memory inform sensory perception?
What if I were not alone during this moment of olfactory uncertainty—what
if my wife were home? I have no doubt the dialogue would be something like
this:
“Honey, what’s that smell?”
“I don’t know. What smell?”
“Come over here. Can’t you smell it? It smells like gas.”
[Sniff-sniff, sniff-sniff ] “Oh, I smell it now. Smells more like rubber
to me.”
And the conversation would carry on until we mutually agreed on a
common somatic definition of the situation—or gave up trying altogether.
Why was it so important for me to identify that odor? Why did I even notice
it in the first place? After all, the balloons had been in our home for several
days, and I had not noticed the odor before. Clearly, many biographical,
contextual, social, and cultural factors entered my sense-making practices that,
until moments like these, are barely noticeable. Perhaps, as anthropologist Paul
Stoller illustrates, the same may be said of all sensory experience.
Few scholars have more passionately called for a heightened awareness
and appreciation of the senses than Paul Stoller. His vision of a “sensuous
awakening” closely approximates our ambitions in this book. The challenge,
according to Stoller, is twofold. First, scholars need to learn to rediscover the
deep significance of sensations. This may require re-learning to sense,
especially in environments that are foreign to a researcher. Second, scholars
need to present sensations in evocative, passionate, carnal, and imaginative
ways. This may require experimenting with writing, with organization of one’s
work, and with different modes of representation (e.g. film, performing arts,
etc.):

Stiffened from long sleep in the background of scholarly life, the scholar’s
body yearns to exercise its muscles. Sleepy from long inactivity, it aches to
restore its sensibilities. Adrift in a sea of half-lives, it wants to breathe in
the pungent odors of social life, to run its palms over the jagged surface of
social reality, to hear the wondrous symphonies of social experience, to
see the sensuous shapes and colors that fill windows of consciousness.
It wants to awaken the imagination and bring scholarship back to “the

4 UNDERSTANDING SENSORY STUDIES

 things themselves.” Wants, however, are far from being deeds, for a
sensuous awakening is a very tall order in an academy where mind has long
been separated from the body, sense long revered from sensibility. This
scholarly disconnectedness is the very antithesis of Mojud’s sensuous
celebrations of life. What can his embodied example mean to fin de siècle
scholars?
(Stoller 1997:xii)

THE SOCIAL SENSES

It would appear that “the five senses” are a matter of common sense, and yet
few experiences are more socially constructed. The fact that we may see, hear,
smell, taste, and feel through touch makes it, perhaps, all too difficult to
recognize that we experience these sensations in ways that are much more
“contaminated” than they appear to be. For example, every morning I enjoy a
cup or two of strong coffee—and not only for a caffeinated jolt to my groggy
mind. I genuinely enjoy the total sensual experience of fresh-brewed morning
coffee. The taste of coffee incorporates its smell, but the smell of the coffee I
drink is quite different from the tantalizing aroma of brewing coffee, a scent
that, in fact, seems to awaken my senses. Even though the two aromas are
different, I know that the smell of brewing coffee anticipates and lubricates
how I both taste and smell coffee when I drink it. When I am traveling,
a morning cup of coffee is not nearly so satisfying. This is partly because, at a
restaurant or gas station, I am usually not seduced by the aroma of the brewing
process.
The flavor of coffee also includes the feel of hot liquid. In the morning, it
has to be hot. I occasionally enjoy iced-coffee, but iced-coffee would never
satisfy me in the morning, regardless of environmental temperature. Even the
weight and feel of the mug are significant. I find it hard to get a satisfying swig
from those dainty, undersized, bourgeois, espresso cups. Conversely, if the mug
is too large the coffee is cold before I’m finished. Glass mugs are cute, but they
hopelessly fail to insulate and quickly become scalding hot to grasp with my
hands. I prefer a mid-size, thick ceramic mug.
The taste, the smell, the tactile feel of coffee in the morning—all these
sensations blend into a total sensual experience in which the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts.
As we will see in Chapter 3, the same can be said of wine connoisseurs,
and we can all recognize these same kinds of total sensual experience in our
lives—those moments of multi-sensuality when the experience of one sense
cannot be separated from others. Moreover, these experiences are not exactly
synesthesia-like either; we merely experience “the five senses” in ways that are
not as discrete as “common sense” seems to imply. In fact, in most circum-
stances, when I seek to specify a sensual experience, I am rarely able to pin it

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF THE SENSES 5

 entirely on one mode of sensing. Can you? Can anyone? Indeed, if it were
possible to characterize sensations and feelings precisely, would poetry
continue to exist? Would language not work more like math? Would all of the
arts not feel like positive sciences?
To suggest that the senses are socially constructed is not an excuse for yet
again invoking an old metaphor. After all, most social scientists agree that,
regardless of what it may be, their topic of interest is subject to social con-
struction, negotiation, regulation, and control. Rather, the claim that the senses
are constructions suggests that they are not passive receptors, and that
sensations are not the passive objects of those receptors. By claiming that they
are constructions, we highlight their quality as products and practice, as action
and interaction, as work and performance. Whether the senses are constructed
by sensory orders that stipulate which sensory domain is more “important”
(e.g. Classen 1993, 1998), whether sensations are actively sought by hedonistic
wine drinkers in search of the perfect taste (e.g. Hennion 2007), or whether
sensual cultures are built through rituals that stipulate somatic rules and
sensuous performances (e.g. Stoller 1989), the human senses and sensations
are certainly the subject matter of cultural and social scientists, and not the sole
domain of physiology and cognition.
Furthermore, the very notion that there are five senses is purely arbitrary
(see Classen 1993; Geurts 2003). Why only five? If we wished to, we could
identify at least eight, and perhaps divide them into two categories. The taken-
for-granted five senses belong to those sensory modes that provide information
about the world external to us. Those are our exteroceptive senses: sight,
hearing, taste, smell, and touch. It is easy enough to identify at least three more
senses that provide information about the internal world of the human body,
our interoceptive senses: the sense of pain (nociception), thirst, and hunger.
Yet, eight is not nearly enough. What about our sense of our own internal
muscles and organs (proprioception)? What about the sensations that mediate
between conditions in the external world and internal body, such as our sense
of balance (equilibrioception), movement (kinesthesia), temperature (thermo-
ception), or even our sense of time (at least in terms of polychronicity and
monochronicity, if not more)? Now our list has grown from five senses to
thirteen, and still we experience senses that are not clearly accounted for in
these categories. After all, which category accounts for the sensual experience
of orgasm? Assuming one can come up with an answer, which is doubtful, it is
unlikely that we would agree—especially considering that even within the
experiences of one individual, not all orgasms are the same.
We may even suggest that to divide the senses into categories is itself an
arbitrary act that reproduces our cultural frames of reference. In fact, why
divide “external” from “internal” senses at all? Is doing so not an exercise in
dualism, atomism, and individualism so typical of Western culture? And
because understanding most of our sensations, and thus our senses, depends
so heavily on the language that we use (Geurts 2003), should we not treat

6 UNDERSTANDING SENSORY STUDIES

the senses in their own cultural contexts and within “their own foundational
schemas through which the world is . . . sensed as a continuous whole”
(Edwards, Gosden, and Phillips 2006:6)? And finally, are we even certain that
sensations can be so clearly separated from emotions, or even from the material
stimuli that are the object of sensations (see Geurts 2003; Ingold 2000; Thrift
2008)? What we do know for sure is that to think of the senses as only confined
to five exteroceptive sensory modes is grossly to oversimplify human sensual
experience, both within and across cultures. Maybe that is the key point: modes
of sensing inevitably blend and blur into one another, thus making their alleged
boundaries fuzzy and indistinct in experience. It is this ecology of affective
relations that should be the focus of our attention (see Howes 2003; Ingold
2000; Thrift 2008).
Conversely, the codes we rely on to classify sensory experience are
mutable into seemingly infinite ways that socially and culturally carve out what
Zerubavel (1991) called “islands of meaning.” It is, in fact, those islands of
meaning that largely (but not entirely) make sensory experience perceptible,
namely by transforming them into arbitrary yet significant symbols (Mead
1934). As Zerubavel (1996) argued, the worlds in which we live are essentially
continuous, yet we experience them in discrete chunks. This is especially true
of the ever-discerning sensual body and the ever-selective nature of sensual
experience. We understand, and indeed make sense out of, sensory experience
by creating distinct mental clusters through processes that Zerubavel (1996)
calls “lumping” and “splitting.” Lumping “entails grouping ‘similar’ things
together in a single mental cluster,” while splitting “involves perceiving ‘differ-
ent’ clusters as separate from one another” (Zerubavel 1996:421). While the
processes of lumping and splitting may seem “natural,” they actively construct
significant distinctions that, once acquired (most often through linguistic
constructs), we treat “as if they were part of nature” because “we have been
socialized to ‘see’ them” (Zerubavel 1996:426–427). For example, as Zerubavel
points out, it is by sheer convention that we perceive grape juice as similar to
orange juice, and dissimilar from wine. This distinction has little to do with
the taste of either wine or grape juice; instead, it has everything to do with a
cultural process of lumping that is made possible by the splitting construct of
“alcohol.” The concept of alcohol, not the sensory experience of the drink, leads
us to perceive wine as more similar to whisky than to grape juice. Yet, without
the ability to lump and split, it is impossible to envision any mental cluster at
all (Zerubavel 1996). While the mind organizes reality into separate chunks,
we do not do this as individuals, but as members of social and cultural “thought
communities” (Zerubavel 1996), and, extrapolating from Zerubavel, as mem-
bers of social and cultural sensory communities: groups of people who share
common ways of using their senses and making sense of sensations.
There are countless ways in which the human senses are subject to the
reach of sensory communities across cultures and societies. For example, our
individual and collective memories include what we eat and drink, how food

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF THE SENSES 7

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
lie down, if you understand, and deep, cretonne-covered chairs.
When you opened the cupboard door the cupboard lit up, and there
were hangers inside, and it was scented. I went around touching
things very timidly and looking. And, as I said before, it was the
most beautiful bedroom I ever saw, and at that time frankly awed
me; but--it showed how little things count. For I wanted my own,
bare-floored little bedroom with no decoration except two fish-nets
and a mounted eagle, and which held nothing but a straight-backed
chair, a bed, and a bureau with a wavery mirror. . . . I wanted it
terribly. . . . I wanted to hear Uncle Frank “Ho hum” and to have
Mrs. Bradly scold me, when all the time she was loving me--inside. I
wanted to hear Willy Jepson whistle and yell: “Come on, Nat! Let’s
go fishing!” I wanted home!
But I swallowed hard and began to unpack. When I found the
china cat I held him awfully close between my hands, and then--
when I found the bug that stays in the ground three years, I stood
up.
“I’ve got to,” I said unsteadily, “for Uncle Frank and my mother.
I’ve got to--and--I will!”
And then I set those things on the bureau and began to undress.
I looked at them a lot as I did. And after I was ready for bed I said
my prayers awfully hard, the way you do when things go wrong and
it is nice to remember that there is someone who will do His best to
right fouls, if you need it. And then I turned off the lights and got in
bed. I couldn’t sleep. So after quite a while I got up and fumbled
around to find the Jumel bracelet, Bradly-dear’s cat, and the bug.
And I put them all on the table by my bed, and then, after I’d
touched them now and again, I slipped into dreams.
And I dreamed that Uncle Frank said: “Ho hum, ho hum! She’s a
pretty nice little bug!”
 Chapter VI--The Second Bracelet
The whole mystery really began the next afternoon. But I must
begin by telling of what happened in the morning. I got up and met
my aunt. She sent for me, and I went to her room, where she,
dressed in a beautiful négligé, was eating her breakfast.
She looked a little tired and white, but she didn’t let herself seem
so when she talked.
“My dear child,” she said, “we are so happy to have you here. Sit
down--not there, dear; that’s a frock I’ve had sent up on approval,
and one doesn’t like to crush them more than so much. . . . I was so
sorry I couldn’t meet you last night, but I was persuaded to stay
down-town and go to see something light with a group of
friends. . . . So seldom have an evening free. . . . Not that blouse,
Jane! . . . Now let me see you, Natalie. Stand up.”
I did so, and she said, “Hum----” in a lingering, speculative way. I
didn’t feel very comfortable.
“Well, we must go shopping,” she said with a sigh. “Jane, go ask
Miss Evelyn to be kind enough to come here a moment----”
Jane vanished, and my aunt went on looking me over.
“Some gray mixture for your day frocks, I think,” she said at
length. “With your gray eyes--yes, gray. And we’ll look at something
soft in rose and in pink for evening. . . . Lovely hair you have, dear.
Like your mother’s. But it looks more like New Orleans than Virginia.
I wonder whether there was Creole blood in your mother’s mother’s
family?”
I said I didn’t know, and then Evelyn came in. She spoke to me
pleasantly, although carelessly, and then to her mother. The way she
spoke to her was not pleasant. “What is it?” she almost whined. “I
was right in the middle of notes, mother!”
“I wanted you to telephone Mrs. Lethridge-Guth; tell her I’m
indisposed--can’t play this morning. . . . This child will have to have
some clothes. . . .”
Evelyn looked at me.
“She most certainly will!” she admitted. “I should think some of
that braid could come off before you go out----”
Aunt Penelope nodded, got a scissors, and I slipped from my
frock. Then I sat down and began to rip off the braid which I had so
painfully attached.
“My dear child,” Evelyn broke out, after a look at my arm, “where
did you get that? Have you been in my things?”
I hated that last, and I suppose I showed it, for I know my head
went up, and I answered coldly.
“That,” I said, “is the Jumel bracelet, and it is mine. It belonged
to my mother.”
“Almost forgotten it,” said Aunt Penelope; “let’s see the
thing. . . .” I slipped it off and handed it to her.
“Evelyn’s father had one like this made for her,” said Aunt
Penelope. “He had Tiffany send a man up to the Jumel Mansion and
make drawings of the mate of this, which is in a case by the
painting. I think Eve is a little annoyed at your having the real one
while hers is a copy.” And Aunt Penelope looked shrewdly at Evelyn
and laughed a little.
“How silly of you, mother!” said Evelyn hotly. “I’m nothing of the
sort!” And then she spoke of the dent in mine, and handed it back to
me. You could see she thought mine was very unimportant. After
that, she asked some fretful questions about what she should say at
the telephone and left.
“A little out of sorts,” said my aunt, as Jane came back with her
street things; “late hours, you know. . . . We’ll have to get you
something that you can put on immediately, for there is a friend of
your mother’s coming in to tea, whom you must see--dear old soul.
Not that one, Jane. . . . Mercy, my girl, can I never teach you--no,
the gray----”
 After my aunt had dressed for forty-five minutes, she was at last
ready to start, and we did. But we didn’t go down to the shopping
district by motor, for aunt said that took too long, so we walked a
little way and then went in the subway, which was hot, and that
made everyone look sleepy and yawn. Aunt Penelope bought me a
great many things, and enough underclothes to change every day!
They were very pretty. And I must say I did enjoy trying on the soft
things I was to wear in the house at night. There was a white crêpe
de chine, with a broad yellow sash and hand-embroidered scallops
done in yellow around the collar. The woman who sold us things,
who had a beautiful voice, and who was very polite and
complimentary, said: “Beautiful with her hair and skin. The two are a
rare combination.”
And my aunt said: “Yes, let me see that gray, with the rose
girdle----”
And she bought that too. And then she bought a rose-coloured
dress which was untrimmed except for broad collars and cuffs of
scrim, and a plain heavy white dress, untrimmed except for buttons
and stitching. And she bought stockings to match all these. She
selected shoes for me, skirts for me, morning frocks, as she called
them, a motor-coat, a suit, and several hats, all of which were very
plain, and a squashy black tam made of lovely soft velvet. I could
only gasp. Oh, yes--I almost forgot. She bought brushes and combs
for me too, and a little tiny brush to brush my eyebrows with! I
almost fainted. And all that took us quite a while, of course. We had
lunch in the store, but I didn’t enjoy it much, because my aunt
selected it, and naturally it was nourishing, which always detracts
from the interest of food.
And then we went home.
As we walked down a side street I saw the loveliest white house
on a hill and realized it stood only a few blocks from aunt’s. I asked
what it was, and found it was the Jumel Mansion.
Some of the things had reached home before we had--those that
we bought first--and it was while I was standing and gazing
rapturously at that pink dress that I saw the note.
It was scrawled on my telephone pad, and it said: “Do not wear
the Jumel bracelet to-day. It is my wish that you do not.--E.J.” I read
it two or three times and then I went to the drawing-room. Jane was
dusting, and I asked her what I wanted to know.
“Jane,” I said, “what was Madam Jumel’s first name?”
“I can’t say, miss,” she replied, “but if she is important, you’ll find
her in the New York Guide, perhaps.”
I thanked her and went to look it up. And I found that Madam
Jumel’s name was Eliza. . . . Well, I’d heard of spirits writing, but I
hadn’t believed it before; and I really didn’t believe it then; I thought
it was a joke. But I decided I would go over to the Jumel Mansion
for a few moments if my aunt would let me. I felt as if I must. So I
asked her, and she said I might--for “just a little while.” . . . I put on
my new suit and the tam (which I had worn home), defiantly
clasped that bracelet around my arm, and started.
And when I got there I found that it was open and that anyone
might go in, so I did, and I did enjoy it! . . . In the first place, it is a
lovely old house, and it has in it everything in the way of interesting
relics that you can imagine. It was Washington’s headquarters for
more than a month during the Revolution, and the room where he
slept especially interested me. It proved to me that good deeds
don’t die. For Washington, who did lots of them, is remembered
because he always did his best and was upright and fine and true.
And now--every little thing that he even touched is kept and
treasured. I stood looking at the Washington relics for a long time,
and then one of the curators asked me whether I would like to see
the door through which the Indian braves came to pledge allegiance
to Washington, and I said I would. So he showed it to me.
“Through this,” he said, “they trooped in; soft-footed, I suppose
they were, since they all wore moccasins; and they carried laurel
branches as an outward sign of the tune of their spirits.”
And then he told me that the British occupied the house later--
they captured it November 16, 1776, to be exact--but he said there
was no soft-footed approach with them. He said they were a noisy
crowd who liked their ale.
I said: “Perhaps they were homesick and had to do something to
cheer themselves up.” I could understand that.
“Why,” he said, “perhaps they were!” and he smiled at me. Then
he asked me if I was from the South. He said he rather noticed it in
my voice, and he smiled again. I told him yes, and then I thought
perhaps he would be interested in my bracelet, and so I showed it to
him, and my! the confusion that ensued! . . . He called everyone
else who took care of the house, and they all came, and I had to tell
my story at least six separate times, and quite an interested crowd
of visitors listened and looked at it too. . . . I simply told them how it
came to me, and not about the tragic happenings that it made, for
at that time I had made up my mind I would not believe in that tale!
Well, we stood around talking and then we went over to the
painting of Madam Jumel, and near that I saw the bracelet she had
kept. It was in a little case.
“A great many people admire that,” said one of the women who
stayed there, “especially the women. There was a little Spanish
woman in here the other day who was simply mad about it. All she
could say was, ‘Es incomparable lindo y yo lo deseo!’ ” which the
man said meant: “Incomparably beautiful! How greatly do I desire it!
. . .” She said that men liked the Washington things best, but that
women almost always liked the bracelet.
Then, because it was growing late, I knew I must go, although I
hated to. The people who took care of the house all asked me to
come soon again, and I said I would, for I liked them and the house.
And, after good-byes and a promise to return and show them the
bracelet again, I hurried off.
And outside it began. . . . I don’t know how you know that you
are being followed, but I did then. And suddenly--I heard soft,
scuddy footsteps drawing closer to me at every second. . . . I ran,
and then--I stopped, for I meant to be brave and face it, and I give
you my word, although not a second before I had heard those
hurrying feet, when I turned there was no one in sight except an old
man, who was sitting on the kerb and holding out a tin cup. He wore
dark glasses, so I knew he was blind. . . . I went back to him.
“Did you,” I asked, and foolishly, I realized afterward, “see
anyone pass?”
“I am blind,” he replied.
And then I said that I knew that was silly to say and that I was
sorry. And I gave him fifteen cents, which was all I had with me. . . .
I went on, and I began to hear those footsteps again, coming closer
and closer--and then ahead of me I saw the man that Evelyn said
was “romantically thrilling,” and I ran for him.
“Someone,” I gasped, “is following me.”
He stopped and looked down, and I saw that he didn’t recognize
me, and then he looked back, as I had, and saw nothing.
“There’s no one in sight,” he said soothingly, “and I’m sure
there’s nothing to be frightened about.”
“Perhaps not,” I answered, “but if you are going home, I’ll go
with you.” And then I told him that I was Evelyn’s cousin, and when
he said he hadn’t recognized me I told him my aunt had bought me
a lot of new clothes. And I told him quite a little about them,
because he was sympathetic and easy to talk to. He is a little lame
and has to use a cane all the time, and somehow his being not just
like other people makes you want to be kind to him; and that--or
something else--has made him very kind.
As we turned in the apartment-house I saw the blind man going
along the other side of the street, his cane doing the feeling for him,
and his movements awkward and stiff. There are a great many
things that are sad in New York, which seems strange, for so many
people are so wealthy. Now, in Queensburg no one has much
money, but no one could go in want, for the people who have just a
little more than they have wouldn’t let them.
I told Mr. Kempwood a little about Queensburg too, and he was
really interested. And that helped me, for not even Amy will listen to
that. He rode up to our floor with me, and stepped off to wait until I
got in. Then he shook hands and said good-bye. As he rang for the
elevator he said: “If that hat is one of the new ones, you did well.
It’s a corker!”
I thanked him and admitted it had some sense, for you could
keep it on if you wanted to make a home run. He said I seemed to
be doing that when we met, and then the elevator came and he
went down. And I went in, remembering his smile so hard that I
almost forgot about being followed.
My mother’s friend was there, and I liked her, and I enjoyed the
tea, although Aunt Penelope suppressed my natural tendency to
engulf cakes and indicated thin bread and butter sandwiches. Then
Amy came in, and I went with her to dress. Aunt told me to bathe
and put on one of my soft frocks, and to do that each evening at the
same hour; but not to wear one frock continually, simply because I
liked it. I said I wouldn’t, and decided to wear the pink one every
other evening.
I slipped off the bracelet and laid it on my bureau. When I was
bathing I heard a little noise, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I
thought that Amy had come in my room to get a pin, or to borrow
some hairpins. She uses invisible ones to make her hair look curlier
around her face. But when I got out and was doing my hair I saw
another note. It lay where my bracelet had been. On it was written:
“I told you not to wear this. My warnings are not given without
reason. When I deem it wise this will be returned.--E. J.”
 Chapter VII--Real Excitement
If the bracelet had not been gone I would have thought I
imagined everything of the afternoon before, but when morning light
and a real search revealed no trace of it, I believed I had been
followed and had heard those footsteps drawing closer and closer to
me as I ran. And it did not make me comfortable. I wondered what
to do all morning, and after reflection decided not to speak of it to
my cousins, aunt, or uncle (my uncle I had met the night before; he
had just come in from a business trip), for somehow I knew they
would not believe it, and I didn’t want them to laugh.
My Uncle Archie has a great big stomach and says “Huh?” if
anyone speaks to him, which they don’t often. He eats a great deal,
and tells Ito to “hurry up.” He said something about bills to Aunt
Penelope. They don’t seem to be very congenial. But he can talk, for
I heard him at the telephone. “Sold it to-day!” he simply yelled;
then, “Fools! I’ll teach ’em! I’ll--the----” and he simply spluttered. It
was becoming interesting when Aunt Penelope said, “Ito, close the
door,” and, of course, when Ito did, the rest was lost.
I was sorry, but Amy only looked bored. Evelyn, after having tea
with us, had gone out to a dinner dance. Aunt Penelope at tea told
the other women what a great treat it was to have Evelyn at home.
She did it a great many times, and it almost seemed as if she
wanted them to know that Evelyn went out a great deal, although
why she didn’t say it outright, if she did want them to know, I don’t
see. But that’s the way a great many people in New York act. They
sort of sidle around back of the truth and shout around it--about the
weather. Which I think is silly. Well, to get on. After dinner Amy and
I sat. I never have done so much sitting as I have done since
coming to New York. The chairs and davenports are so luxurious
they just must be sat on or curled up in. Amy and I each have our
pet arm-chair and way of sitting in it. But this is beside the subject.
 I found that Amy had never done any hazing. And she was much
interested in my accounts of it. I told her how we had had a secret
society called “The Ancient and Effervescent Order of Yellow Pups,”
and how we made the new members get down on all fours and
chew at a ham-bone, and she honestly giggled. And then I told her
how Willy Jepson had filled his aunt’s bedroom slippers full of tar,
and she was interested in that and a description of how his aunt
acted when she slipped her feet in the slippers. You see, she was
still half asleep and sort of blinky, the way you are in the morning.
“Who would we haze?” she asked. I suggested Evelyn. And not
alone because I wanted to, but because I thought she honestly
needed it. I decided it would do wonders for her character.
“How would we do it?” Amy next asked, and I suggested the
“cold bottle trick,” which is simple, but satisfactory.
You take a bottle and fill it with cold water, the colder the better.
And if you can get ice in it, that adds a great deal. Then you tie a
ribbon around the cork, awfully tight, and pin the other end of the
ribbon to the bottom of the mattress, and the bottle, then in place
and at the foot of some dear friend’s bed, awaits. When their feet hit
it, they naturally reach down and pull, and when they do it uncorks
and the puller wades. And I can tell you, it is one thing to wade in
the babbling brook, and another to wade in an Ostermoor! Willy
Jepson put green paint in the bottle he put in his brother’s bed, and
his brother looked like the first note of spring for weeks, but we
decided that wouldn’t do for Evelyn, because the sort of stockings
she wears show the colour of her skin.
Amy said people would comment on it if her ankles were green,
and I believed it. “We could blame it on Jane,” said Amy. I didn’t
think that was fair, until she explained. It seems Jane is exceptional
because she is willing to be a parlourmaid and help Aunt Penelope
dress too, which combination is not often found. “Mother wouldn’t
think of dismissing her,” said Amy, “so that would be all right.”
I agreed. Then Amy told me that they were bitterly poor and
lived like paupers, and my chin did drop! And she went on to say
that her mother encouraged her father to make money all the time,
but that he didn’t make nearly all that they really needed, now that
Evelyn was out and had to have about sixty costumes to the minute.
I just listened. It was the only thing to do. But I thought too! And
I decided that it is bad to want things so much. And that it is
especially easy for a girl to do, and so it is well to guard against it.
Here was my cousin Evelyn with this lovely home, and simply
beautiful clothes--wanting more and fretting because she can’t have
them. And my aunt hurrying my uncle so that he hasn’t time or
energy left to do anything but eat and say “Huh?” when he’s at
home, and Amy--being sorry for herself because she hasn’t all the
pretty things that her wealthiest friend has. And I saw that wanting
was just a habit, and a bad one.
I said: “I think it would be a fine thing for you to take account of
stock, Amy, and count all the lovely things you have. Maybe you’d
feel better.” But she said: “I haven’t time; I’m too busy thinking of
the things I haven’t----” And the whole trouble lay right there.
Well, as I said, we talked a lot, played the victrola a little, and
then we got a long-necked mint-sauce bottle from the cook and
fixed Evelyn’s bed. And then we turned in, or, as Miss Hooker would
say, “retired.”
And I thought, as I always do, about Uncle Frank and Bradly-
dear, and the Cranes, Willy Jepson, and baseball. But I went to sleep
feeling less badly than I had the night before, for I felt confident
that the bracelet would come back to me, and somehow Mr.
Kempwood had made me less afraid, and home seemed nearer.
Evelyn found that bottle. I never heard such a noise. She said
someone was trying to murder her! And everyone got up except
Amy and me. We giggled until Aunt Penelope came in and said,
“Does either of you know anything about this?” (Amy had come over
in my bed), and then Amy said, “Maybe Jane did it,” but her mother
didn’t seem convinced. She only said, “I will attend to you two in the
morning!” and she said it sternly. When she went out we giggled
some more. It was impossible to help, for Evelyn’s room is near
ours, and we could hear her gasp and threaten to sit up all night,
and then sort of hiccup and say she thought she was getting
hysterics and that she hoped her mother would beat me. . . . And
we could hear Aunt Penelope and Jane flop around and bells ring
and hot drinks ordered, and all because Evelyn’s feet were a little
wet, which was irrational, since she puts them in the tub at least
once every day.
But as Uncle Archie said to me much later, “There is no reasoning
with a woman,” and there is a lot in that statement. We giggled until
Aunt Penelope returned, when we pretended to be asleep. I hoped
the way we looked in sleep would soften her, but it didn’t.
I was in disgrace until about seven the next evening, but that
comes later.
The next morning I will pass over hurriedly, as it was not
pleasant. Aunt talked to us frankly, and Amy put the blame on me,
where it belonged. But I would have liked her better if she’d let me
step forward and take it, as I intended to. “You know it was your
fault,” she said, after we went out of her mother’s room.
I said I knew it was.
“Well,” she said, “you needn’t be annoyed because I said so.”
I wasn’t annoyed. I was sorry that she was so poor a sport, but I
wasn’t angry. I pitied her. I think you always feel sorry for a person
when they don’t play the best game they can.
Because Amy had failed to stick to fair rules, I didn’t care so
much for her that day, and I suppose because she dimly felt that
she’d failed, she avoided me; so, after lunch, I asked aunt if I might
go walking. She said yes, if I was careful not to get lost, adding that
she would rather not have me leave the immediate neighbourhood. I
said I wouldn’t, and then I started out. I put on the tam again
because it sticks and doesn’t have to have pins. And then Mr.
Kempwood said it was becoming. I will acknowledge that that
influenced me a little.
After I’d walked around several blocks and seen nothing but the
same sort of houses and pavements and babies, all with nurses, I
turned toward the Jumel Mansion. And again the people who take
care of it were kind to me, and I enjoyed my visit.
And I learned some more about the place. It seemed the French
merchant, Stephen Jumel, did not build it, but Roger Morris, then
loyal servant of the King, built it for his wife, seven years after they
were married. Before she became Mrs. Morris she was Mary Philipse,
nicknamed “The Charming Polly.” He built it well and strongly, which
was fortunate, since it was to have so many inmates and so much
wear. When you think of it, a house that was put up in 1765 and
1766 would have to be splendidly made to stand the years.
“The Charming Polly” must have been indeed charming, for her
descendants say that Washington, who was, just before her
marriage, a man of twenty-five, offered her his hand and name, but
from the look of things it would not seem so. For a friend of
Washington’s, Joseph Chew, wrote him that Captain Roger Morris,
who was a “lady’s man, always something to say,” was breakfasting
often with Mistress Philipse, and that the “town talk’t of it as a sure
& settled affair,” and he added an urgent appeal for Washington to
return, as he was sure Charming Mistress Polly must prefer
Washington to all others. . . . But perhaps Washington had found
another “Charming” somebody, for the letter of July brought no visit
from Washington until late one winter’s eve, when, the descendants
of Mary Philipse say, he “arrived post haste, and demanded an
interview immediate, notwithstanding that the hour was late. . . .”
However, whether or not it was more than a flirtation or a light
admiration, it does seem strange, does it not, that Washington
should direct his army from the house that his rival built for the
much-admired and talked-of Mistress Polly Philipse?
Mary Philipse and Captain Morris were married in 1758. They had
four children, two boys and two girls, if I recall correctly what I was
told; and when General Washington took command at Cambridge,
they had been married for seventeen years.
Now, to me there is something unsatisfactory about a man who
doesn’t take sides, and Captain Morris didn’t. In fact, the builder of
that lovely house evaded siding with either the British or the United
States, at the time of the Revolution, and one day while the mails
were being taken aboard The Harriet Packet he quietly slipped
aboard with John Watts, who, with Roger Morris, was a member of
His Majesty’s Council for this province. Together they sailed for
England, and Captain Morris remained abroad for almost two years.
And unhappy years they were too, for he was homesick for the big
white house, his lovely wife and children. (And I can understand the
first, although no one who hadn’t lived in it would think that Uncle
Frank’s house was lovely.)
Rumour states that Captain Roger Morris took rooms in “London
Town,” so to be nearer the mails of the ships, that his wife’s letters
would come to him without delay. . . . And can you see him waiting
for those, wanting them, and looking for the crosses that his girls
and boys wrote at the bottom of the letter? . . . I am sure they were
there. . . . Perhaps his littlest girl wrote, “For my dearest father,
whom I do so greatly love. . . . Dear kisses,” and, of course, one of
every doubled s was written like an f, for that is the way they did it
in that time.
Can you see it? The little girl in quaint, long frock, painfully
writing out a message, while her mother looked on and wondered
whether the “dearest father” would ever reach home? . . . The
letters he wrote her were lovely, but I didn’t see those that day. Mr.
Kempwood showed me those after he began to teach me to SEE
history. For history, he says, is not a dead thing although it is about
dead people. . . . All you have to do is to remember that they LIVED,
just as we do, and to shut your eyes, not to think dates most
important, and to remember those people as living. And he taught
me to do that. But that comes later.
Well, after I’d learned quite a little bit about the Morrises and had
felt ever so glad that he did get back, the man who had so kindly
told me these things had to leave me, and I was alone. I wandered
over to stand before Madam Jumel’s portrait. . . . And here, I leaned
forward and whispered to her, and I said: “Won’t you please return
it? . . . My mother wore it. Won’t you, please?”
 And then I went out and turned toward home. I saw the blind
man again, but no one followed me. I went up in the elevator with
Mr. Kempwood, and I was so glad.
“Any more home runs?” he asked. I shook my head.
“And how does New York please you?” he asked further.
And to that I replied that it was all right, but made an involved
living, since my aunt insisted on my changing my clothes all the way
through every day, and eating in a different dress at night. I said it
was simpler at home, where you dressed for dinner when you got
up. I told him it left you more time for fishing and baseball and the
more serious things of life. He laughed, and then looked suspicious.
“Young woman,” he said, “that country bloom doesn’t hide a
brain-picker, does it?”
And I didn’t understand him then, but he explained. It seemed
that Robert Louis Stevenson had lived on an island in the Pacific, and
when someone had asked whether they dressed for dinner, he had
said just as I did: “No, we dress when we get up.”
I said I hadn’t quoted, and that I hadn’t read Stevenson, liking
Alger best of anyone, but Mr. Kempwood said that “Treasure Island”
couldn’t be beaten and that he’d loan it to me, and then I found out
what he meant by brain-picker. He meant someone who pikes.
Evelyn reads book covers and reviews and then talks of the books as
if she’d read them. I told Mr. Kempwood so. He said she wouldn’t
thank me for doing so, and then--it was our floor, and again he
stepped out, waited until Jane opened the door, and then said good-
night. And I remembered his smile, as I had the night before.
On a long hall table I found a letter from Bradly-dear, and I was
so glad to see it! And it made me laugh, but felt ever so tight in my
throat too. Here is what she wrote, or some of it:

“Dear Natalie,
“We miss you fierce. Willy Jepson run a nail in his foot
and fell offa the back ruf. Don’t you climb no fences at your
aunt’s or ride a cow if they keep one. Your uncle is deep in
 bugs and has a mess of them in my tubs, with netting over
the top. And the Lord knows when I will get the wash to
soak. We miss you.”

There was a lot more. Bradly-dear had been fine about writing
the news. I went to my room with it, sat down, and then got up and
went over to Amy’s, for my radiator had cooled off and I didn’t know
how to turn it on. It was not easy for me to ask servants to do
things then; I had not learned how. . . . Well, I read that letter a
great many times, and there was no one to interrupt me, and I was
glad. Everyone but Evelyn was out, and she was lying down.
Somewhere I heard a clock strike seven and realized they would
soon be in and that I must begin to change my clothes for dinner. I
heard a little noise in my room, a little, scratching noise, and I got
up and looked in, but no one was there. Then I heard a noise in
Amy’s room, but, going back there, I found that empty. I turned on
all the lights and read Bradly-dear’s letter again. . . . I felt curiously
nervous and oppressed. Quite as if I were breathing something
poisonous. . . . And my heart began to pump. I thought I was simply
letting myself be silly from nervousness. . . . “You silly thing!” I said
scornfully. And I read the end of Mrs. Bradly’s letter. It said: “Now,
dearie, I must stop. I love you and I pray God for your safety and
happiness.” And then: “Yours sincerely, Mrs. G. N. Bradly.” . . . It
helped me a lot, that about loving and praying. I looked at it, and
then I did hear something; there was a step behind me and a voice,
a high-pitched voice, said very slowly: “Do not turn. You will be sorry
if you turn. Do not turn. . . .” I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was absolutely
frozen. I felt something drop over my face, and then things began to
swim and grow black. . . . I think I struggled a little and tried to
scream, but I am not sure of anything but horror--and the horror I
felt at that moment will live in my soul until I am an old, old woman,
and am allowed to forget all the things that hurt me and to have
another start.
 Chapter VIII--Again Awake
When I was again aware of living I heard things hazily, quite as if
there were a thick wall between me and the voices of the people
who stood so anxiously bending over me.
“I tell you, Archie, the child was strangled,” I heard Aunt
Penelope say. “And Heaven only knows what may happen next, with
all the Bolsheviki around--can’t you do something (Amy, put down
that revolver, you are driving me crazy!)--and Evelyn, right in the
next room, hearing nothing. . . . And said she wasn’t asleep. . . .
Amy, if you don’t sit down I will scream! And Ito, right in the pantry,
by the fire-escape, on which he must have climbed (if it was a he),
and how he got up I don’t know. . . . And you say there’s no danger,
doctor? . . . The only child of my dear dead sister, and what will
happen next? . . . The only thing, of course, is to remain calm (Amy,
can’t you stop wiggling? There are limits.), and I suppose to
maintain calm is the only sensible proceeding---- What was that?”
She screamed the last, and I sat up.
The doctor was almost rude about telling her to be quiet. And
then he ordered them all out and sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Anyone you especially want to see?” he asked.
I said I didn’t think so.
“Sure?” he asked.
“You’d better not sit with your back to the window,” I advised.
Then he took hold of my hand. “There is no danger in windows,” he
said in a level, awfully sure voice. “What hurt you won’t hurt you
again. . .” And he said it so that I believed him at the time.
“Now about someone to sit with you to-night. The ladies, it
seems, all have engagements, and I’ve urged them to keep them.
Thought the normal might give them a balance.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” I answered. “Jane can look in once in a
while.” But without meaning to I looked at the window. The doctor
frowned, and I was ashamed. I told him about how I had been
chased and that that had upset me a little. And that I was usually
brave. He said he thought I was splendid, and that he wasn’t angry
with me.
“Sam Kempwood who helped you out of that scrape?” he
questioned.
I nodded.
“Bully chap,” he said. “I know him.”
I said I thought he was one of the nicest men that I’d ever met.
That you could tell it.
“Suppose he comes up and plays nurse?” the doctor suggested.
I smiled. “That would be lovely,” I admitted after a long breath,
for even then I really loved Mr. Kempwood, “but I am sure it will
bore him. You see, I don’t know how to entertain people the way my
cousin Evelyn does.”
But the doctor said that I was to be entertained, and that he’d
stop at Mr. Kempwood’s on the way down. And then he wrapped me
up in a pink comforter and carried me out to the living-room, where
he put me on a wide lounge which stands before the fire.
“Now Hannah, or Molly, or whatever your name is,” he said to
Jane, “you stay with this child until I come back.” And Jane did, but
she wasn’t much help. She was so awfully frightened and kept
jumping and looking around. . . . In just a few moments the bell
rang, and I heard the men in the hall. . . . “Just a little while will
change the trend and help her,” the doctor said. “The rest have
cleared out and good riddance! Weren’t any good. . . . Awfully
decent of you, Kempwood.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Kempwood; “hadn’t anything to do.”
“Well, don’t make a long business of it,” said the doctor; “just a
few moments will help. The child’s evident admiration for you led me
to think that you could help her most.” And then they stopped
talking and tiptoed in. I smiled at Mr. Kempwood and tried to tell him
how grateful I was to him for coming up, but it was not easy to talk.
 “Never mind about that,” he said gently. And then he sat down
by me, and showed me some pictures which I couldn’t see very well,
because my sight was so blurred.
“Suppose,” he said, “we’re quiet----” And I nodded. And then he
took hold of my hand and patted it, and it helped a great deal. And I
don’t know how it happened, but, somehow, I was telling him how I
had hated coming to New York, how I missed Uncle Frank and
Bradly-dear, and about the cricket that stays in the earth for three
years. Then my eyes filled--I could feel them--and I whispered: “It’s
only been three days.”
“My dear child!” he answered, and I could see he was awfully
sorry for me. He patted terribly hard. That helped too, but it made
me smile. After that one tear slipped over the edge, and, because I
hadn’t a handkerchief, he wiped it off with his. I thanked him very
much, and then I said: “I don’t ever cry.”
“So I see,” he answered, and he smiled, but so gently that I
didn’t mind.
I said: “I don’t really. That is, not when I’m well. I hadn’t before
to-night for ages.”
“You didn’t to-night,” he answered, and so cheerfully. “ ‘One
swallow doesn’t make a summer,’ so certainly one tear doesn’t make
a cry!” And I was so glad he thought I hadn’t.
“When you want to cry hard,” I confided further, “swallowing very
quickly again and again will stall it. It’s a great help----”
And he said: “You little sport!” And I began to feel happier. He
looked at me so nicely, it warmed me up, and my throat began to
feel better. I asked him when he had to go, and he said not until I
was so sick of him that I would have Jane throw him out. Then
again we were quiet.
“Look here,” he said after a few moments, “don’t you like
baseball?”
I nodded as hard as my stiff throat would let me.
 “Well,” he went on, “don’t you think your aunt would let you go
to the big games with me next year?”
I sat up. “Oh,” I said, “if she only would!”
“We’ll see that she will. But that’s a long way off. We’ll have to
have good times before that. Ever been to the Hippodrome?” I said I
hadn’t, and he described it. I became very interested, for it sounded
like a sort of glorified circus. I had to lie down again, for I began to
feel dizzy and sick, but he went right on talking of it as he arranged
the pillows for me and made me comfortable.
Then I thought of the bracelet and asked for Jane. Mr.
Kempwood rang, and she came. I told her I wanted a white satin
box that stood on my bureau, and asked her please to get it. When
she brought it back I held it for several minutes without opening it,
and then I shut my eyes and felt. The bracelet was there.
I put it on, and then after a little interval I told Mr. Kempwood
the whole story. I couldn’t talk loudly, but he leaned over and got it
all.
“Dear child,” he said, “that’s utter nonsense.”
I looked at it and shook my head.
“Give it to me,” he said; “I have a wall safe, and I’ll take charge
of it for you.”
I shook my head. “You said you’d take me to the league games,”
I answered. “I’m not going to run any risks!” And then we both
laughed. He did some more urgings, but I did not give in, for I knew
that it was my battle, and I meant to fight it out. I didn’t think I
could ever hold up my head if I evaded it, and then--I couldn’t bear
the idea of its hurting Mr. Kempwood. I told him so. “And not entirely
because of those games,” I admitted honestly, “but because I like
you, a great deal.”
He answered me quickly. “Natalie,” he said (I had told him my
name as I related the story of the bracelet), “let’s be friends. For I
like you too, and,” he added after a pause, “a great deal.”
 That began my friendship with Mr. Kempwood, which helped me
in so many ways and came to mean so much.
 Chapter IX--A Strange Happening
A week went by and not much happened. And, while I was not
actively unhappy, I was never once happy. Amy had lots to do, and I
didn’t see her often, and of course Evelyn was hardly in at all, and,
when she rarely was, she was too cross to talk to. I wondered about
her, as I had about Uncle Archie--whether the return paid for what
they both gave up? For Evelyn was tired and strained and losing all
her sweetness, and Uncle Archie had lost all his talk. I came to feel
that it wasn’t worth while in either case.
I thought a great deal those days. Thought is almost forced upon
you, if you aren’t a social success, or can’t play baseball. You see, in
such case, there is nothing to divert you and keep you from
reflection. So, I thought. I also wrote home often and sent Willy
Jepson post-cards, because he sent me one of the gaol, on which he
had written: “My room is marked with a cross.” (There was a cross
over the only window that is barred.) And he also sent me a picture
of Miss Hooker, taken, I imagine, in 1892, on which he had written:
“She has consented to be mine! Sweet love has bloomed within my
heart at last!” But I knew he got that out of a book, because it didn’t
sound like Willy. Those, with a letter from Uncle Frank, which
contained much information about the larvæ of the bee, cheered me
greatly. The letter sounded so like Uncle Frank that all I had to do
was to shut my eyes, and then I could hear him “Ho hum.” And I did
that quite a good deal as I re-read his letter.
That week was, I found afterward, a normal week for my aunt
and cousins and uncle, but it seemed frightfully hurried to me.
Everyone had decided that I had been choked and chloroformed by
a sneak thief, and after uncle muttered about speaking to the
building’s owner about the fire-escapes, and aunt’s warning Ito and
Jane about the pantry window, and one of mine (which opens on an
iron balcony, as does one of Amy’s), everyone forgot the episode. It
seemed Evelyn once lost a fur coat that way, and that upstairs
thieving was not uncommon. But I knew they were wrong. However,
nothing strengthened my belief until the event which came in the
first part of the following week. But that comes later.
As I said, the week dragged by. I lived through it very slowly (it
is strange how time is affected by the way YOU feel, isn’t it?), and at
last it was Friday.
My aunt was going out to a luncheon, and because I had been
alone all morning and wanted company, I followed her to the hall,
and there we found Mr. Kempwood’s letter.
“My dear,” said Aunt Penelope, “what a stunning hand, and what
a charming shade for letter paper. . . . For you. Do let’s see whom
it’s from.”
I opened it, feeling excited. It was from Mr. Kempwood, and he
asked if I would come down and have tea with him at four o’clock on
Saturday, and he said that if I liked we would afterward take a drive.
My aunt said I most certainly could, and then she kissed me with
unusual interest, and left. And I took the letter and read it three
more times, especially the end, where he had written: “And it is with
genuine pleasure and great pride, my dear Miss Natalie, that I sign
myself your friend, Samuel Kempwood.” I did like that!
Well, I went in my room, and thought about all the things I
would wear, and I hoped so much that my aunt would let me wear
my pink dress, but she didn’t. However, I had such a good time that
my disappointment was soon forgotten. I decided I would wear my
jewellery, which consists of the Jumel bracelet and a ring with a
silver skull on it which Willy Jepson gave me.
I thought my tam would be best for motoring, because it sticks
on and Mr. Kempwood likes it. And I meant to accept that part of the
invitation very hard, because I love it, and there never seems to be
enough room in aunt’s motor. Everyone is always sorry, but someone
else always has to go. Amy has so many friends that it is difficult to
pay them all sufficient attention. This week she took them motoring
each morning--different sets--and deeply regretted she couldn’t take
me. But I understood how it was, and said so. I tried to make her
just as comfortable as I could about it. They are all being very kind
to me.
That night Evelyn had dinner at home; Uncle Archie was there
too, and it might have been nice if they’d acted so. But aunt sighed
a great deal and said Evelyn needed a new fur coat and that there
was a beauty on Fifth Avenue for only twenty-two hundred (and she
made a long lecture about getting good things when you bought,
because they lasted and it really was an economy), and then Amy
began to whine and say that if Evelyn had a new coat she didn’t see
why she, Amy, couldn’t have one, and that she felt like a pauper
when she went to school. I felt sorry for Uncle Archie. He didn’t
seem to mind, but I think it must have bothered him. After he said
“Huh” a few times he turned to me and really spoke to me for the
first time.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Must want something.”
But I said I didn’t. And I added that I was grateful for all the
lovely things aunt had bought me. I told him that they were
beautiful. He looked at me hard, said “Huh!” and went on eating.
Then I asked aunt if I could wear the pink dress to Mr.
Kempwood’s party.
“Mr. Kempwood’s?” echoed Evelyn, and she did not seem pleased
when her mother told her about it. “I think that’s very kind of him,”
she said, after her mother finished.
Uncle Archie went out after dinner, and Evelyn went to a dance
with some friends at about nine; and Aunt Penelope, sighing and
saying thank Heaven she actually had an evening free, wrote a lot of
notes, and telephoned friends, making engagements for all the
evenings of the next week.
Amy and I went to bed at nine-thirty because we are supposed
to at nine. Amy sleeps with me now, because she thinks I may be
frightened. At least, that is what she says, but I, privately, think she
is scared to be alone. However, that is not vital. After we got in bed
Amy told me that lots of men had proposed to Evelyn, but that she
had “scorned them all.” However, she said that there was a man in
the next house whom Evelyn really liked.
“She’s dippy about him,” Amy said. “You can see it. They both
simper and act silly when they meet, and they have a basket strung
between the houses on a wire (you know they’re ever so close), and
they pass notes that way!”
“Honestly?” I said. It didn’t sound like Evelyn. She seems too
hard for anything romantic.
“Honestly,” Amy assured me. “She doesn’t think anyone will
notice the wire, and the basket is hidden under her window-box.”
“I see,” I said, and I did. There are flower-boxes on the outsides
of a good many of the windows. It would be easy enough to
manage to make one a garage for her basket mail-carrier, if she
wanted to.
“She’d die if anyone knew it,” Amy confided. “It would fuss
her. . . . I just can’t imagine Evelyn mooning around in the dark,
waiting for that basket to slide across. I’m dying to get one of those
notes.”
“Wouldn’t it be funny to fill that basket full of cold flour paste,” I
said. “Just think how she’d jump, if she slid her hand in it--up to the
wrist.”
“Wouldn’t she!” agreed Amy, and giggled. “But of course we
mustn’t,” she added in a sobered tone.
“Of course not,” I said, adding: “She couldn’t tell on us, either.”
“No,” said Amy. “But we mustn’t let that influence us. Where
could we get the paste?”
I suggested that we ask the cook to let us make candy Saturday
night. Then we giggled a good deal. And after that Amy said “darn”
awfully hard, and got out of bed growling and fussing terribly, for
she’d forgotten to say her prayers.
The next morning when I got up I found my bracelet was gone,
and I was upset by it, and disappointed, because I had wanted to
wear it down to Mr. Kempwood’s. I decided to ask Madam Jumel to
return it again, although the recollection of the way it came back
before made me so frightened that my palms grew damp, even
though my hands were cold. But I did want it. Even at that time I
had made up my mind I would win. For Madam Jumel had given it to
us; it was ours, and she had no right to make everyone miserable.
So--at about three-thirty I went over to the Jumel Mansion. I
asked which room Madam Jumel slept in, this time, and they told
me. I went up to stand at the door. Some visitors went past me
talking of the room where Lafayette had slept and of Washington’s
bedroom, but neither Washington nor Lafayette interested me that
day.
“You know,” I whispered, “it isn’t fair. You gave it to her, and
since you did----” And then I stopped, for one of the curators came
by and heard me.
“Absorbing the habit from one of the old mistresses?” he asked. I
didn’t know what he meant, and he explained. It seemed Madam
Jumel’s mind had wavered as she grew older, and she did strange
things, among them--talking to herself of the great people she had
entertained and the power she had been.
“Absolutely mad,” said the gentleman, whom I had come to know
well in those few visits. “Why, she employed a lot of French refugees
who were out of work and would take any--starving, I suppose--
brought them up here, and drilled them as her army. Boys who were
fishing on the other side of the river would look up to see the old
woman heading a little crowd of ragged men, who carried sticks for
guns. She always rode a horse, sitting erect, and now and again
they said she would turn proudly to survey her troops. . . . She was
a queer one. . . . They say”--he paused and looked in the room-
-“that she haunts this room. I don’t believe in such things, but her
relatives who lived here afterward (three families, they were) swore
that she came back to rap so hard that the walls shook. . . . They all
quarrelled, and none spoke to each other; but having no money,
while they waited for the will to be settled, they lived here; the
Nelson Chase family, the Will Chase family, and the Pérys. The
Chases were her nephews, Mrs. Péry her niece. Mademoiselle
Nitschke, the governess of small Mathilde Péry, did not believe in
ghosts, but--one night even she was convinced. . . . You’ll find all
that story in a book called ‘The Jumel Mansion,’ which Mr. William
Henry Shelton, whom you have seen here, wrote.”
I hunted Mr. Shelton, and he showed me this. I won’t quote it
entire, but only in part. It is in his book, as Mademoiselle Nitschke
told it.
“I came to live at the Mansion three years after Madam Jumel
died, or about 1868. My room was on the third floor. . . . After a little
time I was moved down to the Lafayette Room, to be nearer Mrs.
Péry, who was in nightly terror of the ghost of Madam Jumel, which,
she claimed, came with terrible rappings between twelve and one
o’clock, or about midnight.
“Mrs. Péry would come to my room in the night in great
excitement to escape the ghost. . . . One night she insisted on my
coming to their bedroom and awaiting the ghost. I had always told
them there was no such thing as a ghost.
“On that particular night the trouble began as early as seven
o’clock in the evening. They had just come up from supper when
Mrs. Péry rushed into the hall, trembling with fright and calling:
‘Mademoiselle!’ . . . At about that same time, probably hearing cries,
Mr. Péry came up the stairs from the kitchen where he had been
toasting cheese. He disliked to sleep in the room in question,
claiming that Madam Jumel had come to the side of his bed in
white. . . .”
And she described it quite a while. Mademoiselle Nitschke said it
was a very quiet September night and hardly a leaf stirred. . . . She
said they all sat in absolute silence, and things seemed to grow even
more still as midnight approached. . . . And when it came, a loud
rap, such as a wooden mallet might make, came directly under Mr.
Péry’s chair--“From which,” she said, “he leaped as if he had been
shot. . . .” And I, for one, don’t blame him. . . . Well, then
Mademoiselle, who must have been very brave, asked if Madam
Jumel desired prayers said for her, and Madam replied with three
knocks, which is knock-language for yes.
Mr. Shelton told me more. And I enjoyed it so much. But--I could
not understand it, and it made me feel creepy. I think it is pleasanter
not to believe in ghosts.
After this, since it was getting late, I went downstairs and stood
before the portrait. And here I again asked for my bracelet. It
seemed to me the portrait smiled--unpleasantly, but I suppose that
was only my imagination. For when you are nervous, you cannot tell
what you see, or what you don’t. And the real becomes hazy and the
unreal real. I was glad to go to Mr. Kempwood’s. But I will tell about
that later.
That night the bracelet came back.
Amy slept with me, and we were ready to sleep, having worked
very hard to make flour paste of the right consistency. It had to be
sloppy, and so that it wouldn’t harden when cold. We also had to
arrange an inner holder for it, since the basket was not built to hold
juice. We didn’t get started undressing until ten, and Jane, who is
supposed to remind us of bedtime, became very disagreeable. But
we ignored her and didn’t let her irritate us. We fixed a heavy paper
inside to the basket and then poured the stuff in, and then Amy
pulled it halfway out on the line, so that Evelyn would think he’d
started something. We put ice in it, and it began to feel far from
pleasant. We both tried it. “Sort of like cold frogs--mashed,” said
Amy, which was an admirable description.
Then after this we went to bed. We decided we needn’t stay
awake, for we felt sure that Evelyn would yell. And she did, but that
comes later.
I didn’t go to sleep early. I have not since the bracelet was first
returned. And the consciousness that it might come back again, in
the same way, made me lie awake and feel gaspy. So--when I heard
a little noise I was not surprised. . . . Our door was open a little way,
and there was a noise at this. . . . Then a scratching noise by my
bedside (the bed head is by the door). . . . In the tiniest light
something glittered and made a bright point SLOWLY MOVING ACROSS THE
FLOOR. . . . I struggled up, and somehow found my searchlight. . . .
Swallowing hard and feeling sick, I pressed it. The Jumel bracelet lay
one yard inside the door on the floor. . . . It was the glitter on the
gold that had let me see it, as it moved.
It had come back again.
 Chapter X--What Mr. Kempwood Told Me
Mr. Kempwood’s “rooms,” as he called them, were lovely. And I had
a fine time going around and looking at things. His furniture is more
than pretty; it has a reason. Everything is either very comfortable, or
very interesting. And it all makes you want to linger.
For instance, he opened a cabinette which honestly held
interesting things, not like Aunt Penelope’s, which has only six fancy
fans and a lot of ancient scent-bottles and an autographed book of
poems and such truck. His has really fascinating things in it, and it
is, therefore, worth the dusting trouble. There were all sorts of
books in it, written in different ways. I mean scrolls--simply yards of
those, and an East Indian one written on reeds all strung together,
and even one on a brick. We agreed that it would be frightful to
have to scratch out a best seller with a chisel. He said, “Think how
your wrist would feel by the time your hero gets his best girl!” and I
agreed. That brick was Assyrian. Then he had little tiny gods that
the Egyptians buried with people. And he even had the toilet things
of an ancient queen, and it had a tweezers in it, which led me to
believe that even then they pulled out the extra eyebrows and made
them skinny and beautiful, as women do to-day.
Evelyn has a woman come to do it each week, if she can’t get
down to Elizabeth Varden’s. And she squawls--there are no other
words for this--while it is being done. But her eyebrows are arched
and beautifully shaped. I told Mr. Kempwood how she yelled, as I
suggested the eyebrow theory. He laughed a good deal and said
maybe I was right. Then he said I really oughtn’t to tell him things
like that, and, although I didn’t see why I shouldn’t, I said I would
not.
Then he asked me to sit down, and I did (and even I wanted to
stay sitting, for his chairs are wonderfully sittable), after which he
rang and we had tea, and since there were no plain bread and
butter sandwiches I felt no obligation to eat any. I thanked Mr.
Kempwood for omitting them, and I ate a good deal and enjoyed
myself more than I have since reaching New York.
I told him a lot about Uncle Frank and Bradly-dear and even
about Willy Jepson. And he asked me whether I thought I would
marry Willy, and I said not if anyone else asked me. And then I had
some more tea.
He asked me how old I was, at that point, and when I said
sixteen, he was surprised. I don’t seem it. I know that. . . . That is
one reason Amy never has room in the motor for me. I know I
humiliate her by my lack of polish. Baseball doesn’t develop much
beside muscle and quickness and a certain sort of flash judgment, I
have realized lately. But I shall acquire those other things in the
three years, of which over a week has passed.
“Where’s the bracelet to-day, Natalie?” Mr. Kempwood asked,
after looking at my arms. . . . I wore a gray silk which has short
sleeves. It has broad white cuffs and a big flaring white collar, and is
pretty. . . . I replied that I thought I wouldn’t wear it, for I knew no
one would believe my story.
“I suppose you’re interested in the Mansion?” he questioned
further.
I said I was, decidedly.
“Know its history?” he asked.
“In a way,” I answered. “But not as well as I shall. . . . History
has never interested me. I didn’t think things that happened to dead
people vital, but lately----”
“Well,” he said, “they may not be vital; nothing but food and
sleep really is, you know. But the things that have happened are
interesting, because they make you think. Beside making you realize
what helped to form the great country in which you live. Perhaps
you haven’t seen History. Perhaps you’ve just said, ‘In 1776
Washington occupied the Jumel Mansion for some time’; or, ‘On
Wednesday, July 3, 1833, Reverend Doctor Bogart married the
celebrated Col. Burr and Madam Jumel, widow of the late Stephen
Jumel,’ instead of seeing Washington step out of that door and stand
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vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
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Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
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Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

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ebookultra.com