Papa's own girl: A novel

“Have you noticed,” asked Mrs. Kendrick of her friend, “how deliciously cool it is in here? and yet this is one of the warmest days of this warm summer.”

“It is always cool here compared with other places,” replied Mrs. Müller. “Great buildings, you know, keep their own temperature very evenly all the year round; and then these walls being of great thickness, and having an air-chamber between the outer and the inner, neither heat nor cold affects us greatly. Everybody was astonished at the small amount of coal used last winter in heating the building. The mercury in the great court hardly ever went down to fifty degrees.”

The little ones were greatly delighted with their baths, which were in a large one-story brick-building, covered with a handsome glass roof. The floor of the bath in the children’s room was brought up to within about three inches of the surface of the water at one end, and sloping down to two feet below at the other end. At the shallow part the babies rolled about and splashed and crowed, while they continually tried to dare deeper and deeper water, imitating the poupons and the bambins, some of whom, Min among the rest, swam like little South Sea Islanders.

Passing from this room into the next, through a thick partition some seven feet high, the visitors were in the presence of some two or three hundred bathers, men and women, dressed so exactly alike that it was often impossible to tell one sex from the other. At the upper end, where the visitors entered, the water was deep, for swimming; while further down, beyond the island, the water was shallow enough for the most timid. Mrs. Forest explained that there were an unusual number of bathers to-day, because of the hot weather and because of the coming ball, this being the first part of the toilet of the dancers. Some took flying leaps and dives from different stages of a platform at the deep end of the bath, according to their temerity; and some of the boldest were women. Sometimes young men and maidens—Linnie and young Page were among these—leaped or dived together, holding each other’s hands, disappearing under the water, then reappearing and swimming a race to the little island. This was some ten or twelve feet in diameter, and covered with plants in luxuriantly-flourishing condition. Great African lilies opened their creamy spathes to the sun, and extended their enormous leaves over the edge of the island. In the centre of the island was a tall fern, and smaller ones at its base. This island was entirely left to the mercy of the bathers; but as there were always some, and even many, every day, it was kept in perfect condition.

“Oh,” said Louise to her mother, “how grand this is! I would rather live here than in any place in the world!”

After a hasty survey of the laundry, cuisine, café, and other adjuncts, our visitors went back to the palace through the nursery, for Mrs. Burnham would have “one more peep at those happy babies.” But many of them were now in their garden, playing on the lawn, watching the beautiful birds in a large aviary, or talking to the parrots. There was a balcony, protected by a balustrade, extending across the garden end of the nursery, and the little ones who could walk were continually passing through the glass doors on to this, where they could see the birds and flowers, and the sports of the children.

On returning to the doctor’s apartments, Mrs. Kendrick found a messenger with a note from her husband, saying that Dr. Delano and his wife had arrived from Boston, intent on visiting the evening ceremonies at the Social Palace, and that they would probably expect something to eat. Mrs. Kendrick asked for her carriage.

“You will return with them?” said Mrs. Forest. “You may as well bring them and your husband here at once. They can just as well dine here, if they have not dined.”

“Of course,” said Charlotte. “I will order dinner for them in our rooms while you are gone. Louise wants to go home and dress, I know, for she means to dance at the workman’s ball.”

“My child, is that so?” asked Mrs. Kendrick, gravely. “Why, you have no escort!”

“Oh, Felix will take care of her. He dances, and I do not,” replied Mrs. Müller.

The three suites of apartments of the doctor, Paul, and Felix, extended through the wing from front to back, where they opened on the court of the quadrangle. In this court was the magnificent winter conservatory of the Social Palace. All these three suites of apartments were very elegantly furnished, especially those of the count, who could find nothing too rich or magnificent for the home of his precious Clara. On this second floor, around the three sides of this court, were the apartments renting the highest, being more spacious in their character. Every tenant had the right to finish or decorate his interior as he chose. He could fresco, or paper, or wainscot it at his pleasure. The count and Felix had had theirs frescoed by a skillful foreign artist; but most of the occupants were quite satisfied with the elegant “hard-finished,” tinted walls of their homes.

In about an hour the visitors returned, bringing Dr. Delano and his wife and the two “solid” bankers. Louise was in a state of great excitement. There were to be many Oakdalers at the ball, but none, so far as she knew, of her own particular set, except the count, and he would probably only dance once, and then retire to his “idol.” But Louise was seized with a democratic mania. She was anxious to see how young men who actually worked all day would deport themselves in white kid gloves, and she told Ella she expected rare amusement. Ella decided that it would be exceedingly “nice,” and only regretted that she was in her traveling dress.

As the party drove over the bridge, Ella was amazed at the sight of the magnificent structure before her, and asked what it was.

“Why that is it,” replied Louise.

“It?” fairly screamed Ella. “Do you mean to tell me that is your workingman’s home? You can’t make me believe it.”

“You should have been with us to-day,” said Mrs. Kendrick. “The outside is nothing to the spacious elegance and comfort inside; and it is so deliciously cool there!”

“I should think it would be stifling like a big hot-house, under those glass roofs of the courts,” said Dr. Delano, addressing Mrs. Kendrick.

“Oh no; in the first place, those roofs are very high, and have openings, and then great volumes of air are constantly coming in from the underground ventilating galleries; besides, I am told that all immense buildings, like St. Peter’s at Rome, keep their own temperature very evenly all the year round.”

“That a workingman’s home!” repeated Ella, as if dreaming. “Why, the finest mansions in Boston would be lost inside of it!” And she sank back in the carriage as if exhausted. Such a palace for mere laboring people seemed to shock her sense of the fitness of things, like the sight of hippopotami on a grand banqueting-table.

Felix was waiting to receive them at the grand entrance; and giving the carriage into the hands of one of the uniformed young men, he conducted his guests up the grand stairway, decorated with huge vases of flowers, along the corridor into his own apartments. Louise begged Charlotte to take them at once into the back parlor opening on the great conservatory. The long folding windows were open, and through these they passed on to the balcony surrounding the conservatory on three sides; for it extended quite through the end of the quadrangle toward the south-east, where it ended by a double wall of glass. Dr. Delano seemed struck dumb by the magnificent spectacle before them. The air was laden with rich perfumes, and the colors of the foliage and flower, were dazzling in their beauty.

“This,” said Charlotte proudly, “is our tropical conservatory. There are several others in the nursery grounds. The whole is under the head direction of Madam Susie, but there are many skillful florists under her.”

The great palm stood in the centre, and reared its huge trunk and wide-spreading fronds toward the glass dome, which the rays of the setting sun still emblazoned. The wide passage around this centre was laid in handsome colored tiles, like all the floors of the balconies, so that water could not injure them. The visitors looked down from the balcony on to this walk, where people were continually passing. “See!” said Dr. Delano, calling the attention of Ella. “Do you see those two young ladies in white under the palm-tree?”

“No—where? There are so many.”

“Why, there on your right, in ball-dress, with their cavaliers. Those are the Forest girls—twins, you know. How very pretty they look!”

“I must say this is magnificent!” exclaimed Kendrick, who was studying the conservatory, being much interested in the subject, from his own experience. Plants seemed there to forget what latitudes they were born to. Huge century plants from Mexico crowned vases set on high pedestals, and spread out their long polished leaves, as if enamored of their foster climate. Around these pedestals climbed the many-tinted velvet foliage of the lovely Cissus discolor. There were poinsettias from Australia opening out their giant crimson bracts, the papyrus from Egypt, clerodendrons, and a wonderful variety of caladiums, whose broad leaves reflected the most brilliant colors. There were climbing plants in great number; large orange-trees, filled with flowers and fruit that had been growing under Susie’s care at her old conservatories; banana-trees, on which hung heavy clusters of ripening fruit; pineapples, in the sunniest spots; and every plant, every leaf, in that vast court seemed to have found its own conditions for perfect growth.

“My dear Charlotte,” said Felix, with the tenderness in his gray eyes that is seldom wanting in young husbands, “is not the dinner waiting?”

“Yes; but I cannot drag these people from the balcony by main force. See! they are clear out of sight, on the further balcony.”

At this juncture some officials entered the conservatory, and at a given signal Felix gathered in his guests, and every window opening on the balconies was closed, while the promenaders below were warned to leave immediately, or take a drenching. From behind the French windows Charlotte’s guests watched the artificial rain-shower which burst up from the hose, capped with rose-sprinklers, even to the very roof, and descended gently for some minutes on balconies, windows, walls, and on all the masses of foliage below. In a few minutes several women, armed with mops of white cotton waste and a bucket, passed round on the balconies and removed the water. Mr. and Mrs. Müller then succeeded in getting their guests to the table, which was spread with a profusion of delicacies and luxuries, and adorned with flowers. They were delighted with everything, and the same, or fuller, explanations had to be given as those at the doctor’s table some hours before. By special request, Too Soon had been sent from the restaurant to attend Felix’s table. The only assistance Charlotte had in her simple household duties, as she explained, was a young girl whom she had taken from an orphan asylum in Boston, and who was attending the Social Palace school. To-day, of course, she had a holiday.

The sight of the gorgeous Oriental, and his quaint polite ways, amused Ella and Louise greatly. Albert went into ecstacies over a sole au grattin. “When I want a sauce like that,” he said, “I have to go to the Parker House, though I have a cook at sixty dollars a month, and furnish him three assistants. I may add, that not even at the Parker House have I ever tasted mushrooms so delicious as these.”

“You ought to live here, Albert,” said his sister; “because you are such a gourmet. Mushrooms are a perfect drug here, and we sell them by the ton. You see they grow under the flower benches in the dark. This is one of our great industries. Children pick them and pack them, and they are also very skilful in the handling of our cut flowers. They earn a great deal of money, though they all attend the schools. This is the one-thing obligatory. Every child must be kept at school.”

“What do you think, Müller,” asked Burnham, “about the occupants paying for this establishment?”

“Why, we shall do it without a doubt, in less than ten years. The profits from the stores and the cuisine alone more than pay for running the establishment. On many of the articles of food there is absolutely no profit. This is to encourage the poor and the unskilled laborers, who do not earn so much, of course, as the skilled laborers; but then their wives, being relieved from nursing and cooking, can help them put money in their rents. There are about two hundred women employed from two to eight hours a day in the nurseries and schools, in the stores, café, laundry, and in taking care of the flower business, and keeping the palace in order. Then there are many more in the silk factory and in the dairy.”

Burnham asked what the articles of food were that were furnished at cost. Felix and Charlotte enumerated: crushed wheat, certain fruits, hominy, milk, beef soup, Graham bread, mashed potatoes, plain roasts, and some others.

“Why,” said Kendrick, “that is a sufficient diet for any one. The economical can easily live on that, and make the support of the institution out of those who indulge in luxuries.”

“That is true,” replied Charlotte, “and we think it quite just. There is such a spirit of good-fellowship and honest enthusiasm here, that all goes on admirably. Our wheat and beef, we raise on the farm, and if any choose to live on simple fare, which is always excellent of its kind, they can do so on much less than one-half what it used to cost them.”

While they were talking, the great conservatory was suddenly lighted up, and Louise and Ella precipitately sought the balcony. The walk below was quite dry, and filled with promenaders, while the crystal water-drops, that still hung on the great palm fronds, glistened like diamonds in the brilliant light.

While the gentlemen lingered over their wine, a grand swell of music echoed through the palace, announcing that the time for the inaugural ceremonies in the great central court had arrived. Felix and Charlotte then led their guests down one flight of stairs and into this court, and seated them on the platform reserved for the musicians and speakers, and for a few specially-honored guests.

The scene presented from the platform of this vast glass-roofed court was one of dazzling splendor. It was lighted by scores of gas-jets, projecting all around from the base of the three tiers of balconies or galleries, on which the apartments opened, now crowded with spectators. The centre was also filled with seats, not one of which was empty. Over the centre of the platform were gracefully draped flags of many countries, conspicuous among which were the tri-color of France and the “star-spangled banner.” These flags were draped around an immense shield of delicate green mosses, in which were set a mosaic of half-opened rosebuds, tube-roses, white-violets, and scarlet-verbenas, forming the motto, “Attractions are proportional to destinies.” Opposite the platform, on the further side of the court, filling the space between the two upper balconies, was another flag-draped shield of the same kind, bearing the motto, “The Series distribute the Harmonies.” Long chains of rare flowers, looped with gay ribbons, completely festooned every balcony, the slender iron supports of which were covered with winding garlands of natural flowers. The whole air was deliciously perfumed. Great vases of flowering plants decorated each end of the platform; and scattered among the audience were women in ball-dress, their shoulders draped with brilliant opera-cloaks. On either side of the court, half-way between the display of flags, were the words, in a mosaic of flowers, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” the first word being on the lowest gallery, and Fraternity on the highest. Murmurs of admiration were heard everywhere among the immense audience. Suddenly the court rang with shouts of applause, and the band struck up “See! the Conquering Hero Comes.” The count had entered the court. Ascending the platform, he advanced to the front and waited until the applause had somewhat subsided. He looked quite pale when he commenced:

“Friends, fellow-workers, and citizens:”—after a pause, which became even painful, he laid his hand on his breast, saying—“Can you bear with my weakness when I confess that my heart is too full for utterance? To say that this is the proudest hour of my life, seems to me but a lame and impotent phrase. No words that I am able to combine, are adequate to express the emotion that fills me to-night. But as I am expected to speak, I will not disappoint you, and will do the best I can; and as there are many strangers present, I must endeavor specially to make myself intelligible to them. To you, my fellow-workers, I need only say that the first Social Palace of America is finished, and I think it does honor to the hands that have built it.” [Here the count was interrupted by cheers and protests against his modesty in giving all the credit to the workmen.]

“You do me personally too much honor. It is not much to advance capital for the building of an institution like this, following the example of one of the noblest lovers of humanity, who did his work without precedent, and against opposition and discouragement of every kind. [Cheers for Godin.] This palace is built on the model of the first one ever founded—that at Guise, in France. That has been in successful operation now for several years, and I wish every capitalist within the sound of my voice to note well the fact, that it is a perfect financial success, paying six per cent. annually on the capital invested, which is as much as any commercially-honest capitalist in France expects to make.” Here the count gave a detailed description of the organization and working of the Social Palace system, and then he continued:

“You have gone over the palace and the grounds to-day; you have seen the flourishing industries, you understand the provisions made for the children, the sick, the aged and infirm, and you can judge whether this institution furnishes the proper conditions for moral and intellectual growth [prolonged cheers]; but you may not yet be able to comprehend what the children of these industrious men and women will become, when they have grown up under the influence of the means for education and artistic culture which this grand institution supplies. They will despise drudgery by instinct, for it leaves the form bent and awkward, and the mind cramped and divested of beauty; and just as certainly will they honor labor as the great natural function of the human race, distinguishing it from the brutes. The reason why labor has not been honored heretofore, is because it has always been confounded with slavery or drudgery. With the abolition of slavery, we are just beginning to learn that man is not to be adapted to labor, but that labor, through machinery and scientific organization, is to be adapted to man.

“The primal object of society should be to make perfect men and women—perfect citizens. This cannot be accomplished without scientific training for the mind, and the free and harmonious development of the muscles through labor, with gymnastic exercises and games for the development of those muscles not brought into play by the ordinary industrial occupations. When a man continues many hours a day using only one set of muscles, as the blacksmith his arm, he must do it at the expense of grace, and strength, and beauty, which we should be taught to seek as a duty to ourselves and to our fellow-beings, since we have no moral right to transmit disease and ugliness to posterity. [Cheers.] No one should dream of finishing his education until he dies. Besides the exercise of the muscles by industry, every human being should have time during the twenty-four hours, for amusing games, for bathing, for dressing elegantly and becomingly, for social converse, for music or the drama, for regular study and drill in classes, and finally for sleep. All this may not be accomplished for the wronged and cheated adult generation of the present; all this and more will be the proud heritage of the children growing up under the blessings of a nobly organized social and industrial life. [Great applause.] Children growing up under such conditions, will be strong and beautiful, tender and wise. They will be strong through constant exercise, a varied and plentiful diet, and the natural stimulation of happiness. They will be beautiful, because to develop their bodies harmoniously will be the object of scientific study; and their faces will be beautiful because they will be moulded, not by anger, and cunning, and selfishness, but by generosity, candor, and love. They will be tender, because they will be taught to be proud of exemplifying the devotion of love, the grandest of all our passions, for it is the only one that exalts us to the dignity of the creative mood. Finally, they will be wise, for they will have acquired the sentiment of the brotherhood of man.

Such enthusiastic and long-continued applause followed the count’s address, that he came forward again, and said:

“This time, my friends, I will forgive you for taking more notice of me than I deserve, since it reminds me of a duty I owe to you. I wish to say to the thousands here present, and especially to the capitalists who may hereafter engage in the building of Social Palaces, that their task will be an easier one than they suppose; because men and women will work for their establishment with the same single-hearted devotion with which they have worked for this. I have been often pained to see the sacrifices that these noble workers have made. I doubt if one-half of them have taken the allotted hour at noon for their lunch; and I have seen carpenters, cabinetmakers, and decorators, seize a spade and dig in the trenches, rather than be a moment idle, when their own special work was interrupted by any accident; and be it said to the honor of labor, that the men who have done the most skilled labor on this palace, have never failed in equal respect toward those who have done the most mechanical and unskilled portions. A spirit of fraternal good-fellowship and unity of purpose has, so far as I know, characterized these men throughout every hour of the work from its commencement. This spirit is based on the sentiment of equality, the recognition of human rights everywhere, and is most significant, for it is full of promise for the future success of our great effort. And here I will mention one thing, not out of malice, but simply as a lesson. I am accused of advocating the ‘leveling’ principle. ‘Frauenstein, you are a leveler,’ said a friend to me to-day. Well, there is some truth in that: I would bring all the races and individuals on the globe up to the highest level; but I should be very sorry to do anything toward bringing my artisan friends down to the physical, intellectual, or moral level of certain aristocrats whom I know. [Laughter and applause.] It is undeniably the fact, that to-day the soundest views on education, on politics, on finance, on social organization, are supported, not by those who hold themselves above their kind—the drones of the community, who feed on the mechanic’s labor—but by those who have an honest right to everything they own, and much more. The more I associate with laborers, even those who have had little advantage from schools, the more I am struck with the saving virtue that is in them. I confess I am almost disgusted with the very word aristocracy, for it has been vilely degraded, until it is applied only to those who would be ashamed to do an honest day’s work of any kind. And what is this aristocracy? What are these parvenues of two hundred years, who would cry down the nobler aristocracy of labor, which is as old as civilization itself?”