Our Nervous Friends | Page 6

law; he was humored into weakness.
He never became robust physically, and early showed defects quite
unknown in either branch of the family. He failed in college, for which
failure his mother found adequate excuse. He entered the bank, but
within a few months his peculations would have been discovered had
he not confessed to his mother, who made the discrepancy good from
her private funds. During the next few years she found it necessary on
repeated occasions to draw cheeks on her personal account to save him
from trouble--but never a word of censure for him, always excuses. He
was drinking, those days, and gambling. In the near-by state capitol the
cards went his way one night. Hilarious with success and drink, he
started for his room. There was a mix-up with his companions. He was

left in the snow, unconscious--his winnings gone. The wealth of his
father and the devotion of his mother could not save him, and he went
with pneumonia a few days later. It was said that this caused her
breakdown--let us see.
As a girl, Elizabeth had lived in a home of plenty, in a home of local
aristocracy. She was perfectly trained in all household activities and,
for that period, had an excellent education, having spent one year in a
far-away "Female Seminary." Her mind was good, her pride in
appearance almost excessive. She said she "loved Sam Clayton," and
probably did, though with none of the devotion she gave her son, nor
with sufficient trust to share her patrimony which amounted to a small
fortune with him when it came. In fact, she ran her own business, nor
relied upon the safety of the "Farmers' and Merchants' Bank" in making
her deposits. She was a housewife of repute, devoted to every detail of
housewifery and economics. There was always plenty to eat and of the
best; perfect order and cleanliness of the immaculate type were her
pride. Excellent advice she frequently gave her husband about finances
and management, but otherwise she added no interest to his life, and
there was peace between husband and wife--because Sam was a
peaceable man. As a mother, she taught the two older children domestic
usefulness, with every care; they were always clad in good, clean
clothes, clad better than the neighbors' children, and education was
made to take first rank in their minds. Her sense of duty to them was
strong; she frequently said: "I live and save and slave for my children."
Fred, as we have seen, was her weakness. For him she broke every rule
and law of her life.
At forty-five she was thin, her face already deeply seamed with worry
lines, a veritable slave to her home, but an autocrat to servants, agents
and merchants. They said her will was strong; at least, excepting Fred,
she had never been known to give in to any one. We have not spoken of
Mary. Poor woman! She, too, was a slave--she was the hired girl. Meek
almost to automatism, a machine which never varied from one year's
end to another, faithful as the proverbial dog, she noiselessly slipped
through her unceasing round of duties for twenty-three years--then
catastrophe. "That fool hired man has hoodwinked Mary." No wedding

gift, no note of well-wishing, but a rabid bundling out of her effects.
Howbeit, Central Ohio could not produce another Mary, and from then
on a new interest was added to the Claytons' table-talk as one servant
followed another into the Mother's bad graces. She was already worn to
a feather-edge before Mary's ingratitude. But the shock of Fred's death
completed the demoralization of wrongly lived years. For weeks she
railed at a society which did not protect its citizens, at a church which
failed to make men good, while she now recognized a God against
whom she could express resentment.
This woman endowed with an excellent physical and mental
organization had allowed her ability and capacity to become perverted.
Orderliness, at first a well planned daily routine, gradually degenerated
into an obsession for cleanliness. Each piece of furniture went through
its weekly polishing, rugs were swept and dusted, sponged and
sunned--even Mary could not do the table-linen to her taste--and
Tuesday afternoon through the years went to immaculate ironing. The
obsession for cleanliness bred a fear of uncleanliness, and for years
each dish was examined by reflected light, to be condemned by one
least streak. The milk and butter especially must receive care equaled
only by surgical asepsis. Then there were the doors. The front door was
for company, and then only for the elect--and Fred; the side door was
for the family, and woe to the neighbor's child or the green delivery boy
who tracked mud through this portal. No amount of foot-wiping could
render the hired