Margaret Wise Brown Page 4

  As though to further bind the evening in memory for her, Dr. McBride proceeded to give a lecture on the Uncle Remus stories. He remarked in particular on the choice of the rabbit as the story cycle’s central character. Although commonly viewed in the West as a lowly creature, the rabbit, McBride said, is revered in many traditional cultures around the world; the stories about Brer Rabbit, a typical trickster hero, came to the New World from Africa. Older still than the Uncle Remus tales are those of the ancient Eastern traditions, according to which the rabbit god, in recognition of his virtue and self-sacrifice, was rewarded by having his image permanently stamped on the face of the moon.

  Overall, Margaret’s freshman year went well. She earned average grades, was victorious on the hockey field, made friends of teachers and students, and enjoyed the new measure of personal freedom that college life afforded her. She spent most of a restless summer with her family in Great Neck and Maine, eager to be back on campus. Before returning to Hollins in the fall, she made a pilgrimage to historic Liberty Hall, the Brown family home in Frankfort, Kentucky, where, in her finest spidery cursive hand, she copied out pages of notes tracing her ancestry back to the reign of Elizabeth I by way of colonial Virginia.40

  Radio first came to the Hollins campus that October, and on the evening of October 21, 1929, the entire Hollins community gathered in the student recreation room to “listen in” as President Hoover, Henry Ford, and Thomas Alva Edison spoke in the first radio program ever beamed worldwide, a tribute to Edison on the fiftieth anniversary of his invention of the incandescent light.41 As part of the ceremony, listeners were asked to flash off and on their own electric lights in homage to the inventor. The “Jubilee of Light” was far and away the most elaborate media event (and public relations coup for the manufacturers of light bulbs) the world had yet seen. In less than a week, however, memories of the evening were eclipsed by news from New York. The following Thursday, the New York stock market dissolved in panic; the Great Depression had begun.

  Visiting Hollins that fall, Reinhold Neibuhr lectured on Christian love, exhorting students to remember that although they lived in an “age of disillusionment,” a time of faith tarnished by the bitter experience of the World War, it remained each person’s responsibility to look inward, make an “intelligent self-analysis,” and confront the world’s problems without abandoning the idealism that was the special boon of youth.42

  In the months to come, the Depression’s main effect on Hollins life was a quickening of the attrition rate already a standard feature at all-women’s colleges, where students often gave up their studies for marriage. In economically good times, about one in three Hollins freshmen might have been expected to drop out. But in 1932, Margaret’s graduation year, three quarters of the sophomore class were already gone.

  A visiting alumna, addressing students on “The Modern Girl,” predicted (inaccurately, as statistics for the period would eventually indicate) that Hollins women would not be content merely to marry and have children, but would also insist on pursuing lifelong professional careers. “The college girl of to-day [sic] doesn’t want leisure,” declared Eudora Ramsay Richardson, class of 1910, “she wants to enjoy life to the fullest, and in these days of modern conveniences and early school age for children, a woman has to work outside her home if she is to be occupied fully.” Richardson also observed that a woman might need to work to supplement the household income and should be prepared to support herself and her children in the event of divorce or her husband’s death. With a nod to popular concern over the dreaded “mother fixation,” she suggested that children might actually be better served by mothers with other interests to occupy them.43

  Other alumnae, including Dorothy Dix, reportedly the highest paid woman journalist in the United States, spoke at Hollins about career opportunities in advertising, social work, psychology, and newspaper journalism, but of the members of Margaret’s class who entered the work force upon graduation—and a majority did so—nearly all gave up their careers on marrying, on average within four years. (Classmates later reported to the Alumnae Quarterly their wedding dates, pregnancies, anniversaries, and the like; in marked contrast to the norm, Margaret kept Hollins regularly informed about her publications.)44

  English composition, as taught by the unsmilingly rigorous Dr. F. Lamar Janney, proved a harrowing experience for one with Margaret’s impatience with the proprieties of punctuation and spelling. She had little use for the comma, it seems, and perhaps owing partly to her French studies, her fanciful spellings of many English words more closely resembled Chaucer’s than Webster’s. On returning an “experimental” theme of hers, composed without the use of a single verb, Dr. Janney, an even-tempered romantic who had written his doctoral dissertation on “The Child in Wordsworth,” threw up his hands (and with them a few stub ends of colored chalk) in exasperation. Frustrated, but also somehow impressed by his baffling, headstrong student, Professor Janney was overheard to declare Margaret a “genius without a talent.”45

  She did, as always, excel at sports, and having helped persuade the Hollins administration, at a time of dwindling enrollment, to build a riding ring and stable, Margaret found new scope for her prowess. She enjoyed the physicality and showmanship of riding competitions. Once when it seemed that spectators were not paying sufficient attention as she put her horse through its paces, she salvaged the situation by simply removing her cap. As Margaret’s full mane of straw-blond hair flared dramatically behind her, all eyes automatically turned to her.

  Stage acting, at which her mother had distinguished herself at Hollins, was more difficult for Margaret, as it required her to project her low, tremulous voice, so unlike Maude Brown’s, in public. Margaret was embarrassed by the very sound of her own voice. Nonetheless, she seems to have faced her reluctance as another fence to be cleared. In her freshman year, the campus paper declared her death scene as the fatherly Lorenzo, King of Fiori, in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s romantic tragedy “The Lamp and the Bell” to be one of the evening’s highlights.46 As a junior she attained the pinnacle of Hollins dramatics, playing the part of the Madonna in the annual Christmas pantomime, an elective honor conferred by fellow students in recognition of the winner’s beauty and composure, not her piety.47 The role suited Margaret perfectly, placing her at center stage without having to speak a word.

  Junior and senior years she roomed with a student from West Point, Georgia, named Martha Huguley, who had become fast friends with her during a walk to the cemetery, when they first discovered that they enjoyed trading tall tales.48 Martha soon had Margaret helping her improvise stories about her imaginary family, the Gets (This Get, That Get, Other Get, and their various relations). The two friends also read to each other from Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Stein, writers for whom the typical Hollins student cared little, and they shared a theory that they and a fortunate few others had remained children in spirit and would always keep within themselves (as Lewis Carroll said of his Alice) the “simple and loving heart of . . . childhood” through all their “riper years.”

  Much of the time Margaret took a protective attitude toward Martha, cautioning her, as a parent or older sister might, against smoking and drinking, all the while continuing to do both herself. At other times, Tom Sawyer-like, she led the way in mischief, as when she decided that they should have a dog, despite a school rule prohibiting pets. Margaret purchased a pup in town and hastily arranged to board it with one of the staff; technically, the dog was not living in the dormitory. It was this ability of Margaret’s to “rise above” without ever quite breaking the rules that Martha most admired. If there was a lesson to be learned from it all, Martha thought it must be that to have one’s way in life was not necessarily a matter of asserting one’s will, but rather of using one’s imagination properly.

  During her junior year, Martha recorded her appointments in a small, quaintly illustrated French calendar to which Margaret felt free to add her own notations. The pages for the week in J
une just after the end of the spring term read like a comedy routine, with Martha, who planned to stay on for a few leisurely days after her roommate left for the North, naturally reduced to the straight-man’s role.

  MONDAY. [Martha:] See Mary all day—the walk, the ride, the dance. [Margaret:] Send Tim a present. TUESDAY. Hollins at 11:30. Read [Virginia Woolfs] Orlando. WEDNESDAY. The Holy Grail. The Horse-back ride. Swim. Write to Tim. THURSDAY. See Roanoke. Flowers. Swim. Send Tim a picture. FRIDAY. Poetry. Good-bye. Underline a book you like and send it to Tim.49

  The unassailable good cheer of Margaret’s unsolicited messages—little offerings from “Tim” for her indulgent, doting friend—masked Margaret’s secret doubts about her future at the school. She had not told Martha that she had just failed chemistry, a course she needed to graduate; she was all but certain that she would not be returning to Hollins for her senior year.

  From her parents’ home she wrote the registrar indicating her intention to withdraw and contemplated her own unworthiness, the lack of discipline and inner resolve that was (had Dr. Janney not implied as much?) the dark side of her sparkling impetuosity.50 The correspondence with school officials took a positive turn, however, when the dean offered Margaret a chance to regain her lost academic ground. With heartfelt gratitude, she accepted the offer as the reprieve it was. Thanking Dean Cocke for his consideration of her “lack of one hour,” as she called it, Margaret promptly mailed in her registration fee. Her high spirits restored, she added: “Please remind me to Mrs. Cocke and to ‘Cracker Crumb’—that is Albert [one of the dean’s grown sons]. Very sincerely yours, Tim.”51

  That fall she signed up for a heavy course load, applied herself more diligently to her studies than in the past, and in Marguerite Hearsey’s Chaucer class produced an essay thought good enough for the campus literary magazine, Cargoes—her first publication. In Chaucer (“my old teacher,” she later called him) Margaret had discovered a benign yet knowing foil for her own self-critical inclinations. “We . . . breathe a sigh of relief,” she wrote of Chaucer’s robust depictions of human folly, “to find ourselves exposed in a light that makes us appear much less sinister than did the shadow of our own imagination. Our burden of bad conscience becomes merely a humorous deformity that we share with our fellow-men.”52

  The experience, both heady and formal, of seeing her work in print for the first time did not decide Margaret, there and then, on a literary career, but Marguerite Hearsey believed that Margaret might one day be a writer and told her so. The teacher’s words came as a much-needed piece of encouragement. In 1937, five years after her graduation, when Harper and Brothers published her first book, When the Wind Blew, Margaret inscribed a copy to Hearsey: “Remembering the stumbling of words that led up to whatever clarity is here. And always thanking you for the first encouragement.”53

  Hearsey, in turn, recalled having learned an important lesson or two from her memorable student. Margaret as a rule did not say much during class discussions, but once in the Chaucer seminar Hearsey was reading vigorously aloud from the Middle English when she suddenly came to one of the bawdier passages and hesitated in embarrassment; just then a quavering voice—Margaret’s—piped up from across the room, “Is it going to have a red light and a green light?”54

  Over spring recess, Margaret travelled to Little Rock, Arkansas, to be married—or so she had told Martha—to a young Southern lawyer she had met on the rounds of parties at neighboring men’s colleges. The story sounded a bit incredible to Martha. But when Margaret arrived in Little Rock, actually for the purpose of meeting young George Armistead’s family (formal engagement plans were indeed in the works), she went so far as to telegram holiday greetings to her roommate in the name of the happy couple-to-be:

  NATURE SMILES AND ALL IS GLAD WHY SHOULD MORTAL MAN BE SAD RAISE YOUR EYES AND LOOK ABOVE EASTER JOYS BRING NAUGHT BUT LOVE —Mr. & Mrs. George Armistead.55

  Just what happened next is not clear, except that the engagement was broken off and that it was Margaret who ended it. Martha was taken aback again when her roommate returned to campus alone and unmarried. Astonishingly, close though they were in some ways (especially where Martha’s personal affairs were concerned), they never talked about this dramatic incident, even briefly. Margaret’s only explanation took the form of a terse note scrawled on a slip of legal paper and left under Martha’s bedroom door. “Life,” the message read, “is damn queer.”56

  In May, when the campus newspaper canvassed seniors about their future plans, Margaret, with no imminent marriage prospects or other news to report and with her twenty-second birthday fast upon her, answered, “Lord knows.”57 It was as wryly philosophical a good face as she could put on a dubious situation. The following month, Margaret was once again living in her parents’ home.

  Chapter Two

  New York Here and Now

  There are so many New Yorks that you can always find the special one that fits your special pattern.

  LUCY SPRAGUE MITCHELL,

  Two Lives

  The coming of the Great Depression had no appreciable effect on the Brown household in Great Neck. Robert Brown remained secure in his job and in his Republican politics. He kept his prized motorboat at the Port Washington Yacht Club and took it for long solitary spins on Long Island Sound. Maude Brown continued to drive her own automobile and to employ a cook. While at college, Roberta and Margaret had not been asked to make do with smaller allowances, forego activities not included in their tuitions, or sacrifice in any other way. When Margaret returned home from Hollins in June of 1932, it was not with pressing financial worries on her mind. Relations between her parents were chilly, but this had been the case for some considerable time.

  Her overriding concern, simply put, was to decide what next to do with herself. Roberta, as purposeful and academically successful as always, was bound for graduate studies in physics at Yale. With no comparable prospects of her own, Margaret over the next several months did her best to settle in at home and attended the weddings of friends while contemplating, albeit in the abstract, a married future of her own.

  In the late spring of 1933, Margaret returned to Hollins for her first class reunion and continued on to West Point, Georgia, to attend Martha Huguley’s wedding as one of eight bridesmaids. The celebration, with all the elaborate preliminary teas and parties, lasted a week, allowing time for Margaret to get acquainted with the bride’s entire family, which for the purposes of the wedding included not only a full complement of cousins, uncles, and aunts, but also the local police and fire departments and everyone’s household servants.

  Margaret seemed to enjoy herself, dispensing mirth in her customary fashion—one evening leading a group in a game she called Stomach, in which players in a circle took turns resting their heads on the next person’s belly while telling some ridiculous story to make everyone laugh. She caused Martha’s father a little fright when she announced her intention to wander out alone after dark along the banks of the treacherous Chattahoochee River, but at the ceremony Margaret merged effortlessly into the formal wedding tableau, appearing, as recorded in “Miss Martha’s Wedding Book,” in “violet crêpe with a yoke of beige gorgette finished with fur at the neck,” and a corsage of roses. Margaret presented the newly-weds with an antique French silver and crystal liqueur set. More tellingly, when the couple returned from their honeymoon, they were surprised to find a second gift of sorts: “Tim” herself—part doting, worried mother, part abandoned child—waiting on their doorstep to greet them.1

  A year later Margaret received a letter from her married friend and reported to her Hollins mentor, Marguerite Hearsey, that Martha did indeed seem very happy, “And I am glad for her.” And yet, she added, considering the shock of separation that comes with the end of one’s college years, a separation measured not just in the loss of daily contact with old friends but in the sheer divergence of the new lives chosen, “it is strange that we will never again meet on a common ground of interest. . . . We were
once so very close,” she wrote Miss Hearsey, “and now we hardly speak the same language.”2

  For Margaret, 1933 and much of the following year passed in this way, her calendar perforated with the weddings of classmates. In late 1933, to occupy herself, she took a sales job at Altman’s in Manhattan.

  Commuting to New York, she spent weekdays behind Alt-man’s silver counter, an experience she outwardly tolerated, but recoiled from mentally. In “The Meeting,” a short story based on her sales job experiences and apparently written at this time, she evoked something of the inner turmoil of her predicament: “The [sales]girl . . . was staring far away. . . . It was a curious expression to find on a salesgirl’s face. . . . There was no . . . ‘May I help you Madame,’ about this girl.” Approaching a certain customer, the girl “was not interested so much in a sale as in an uninvolved desire to be of assistance to a person who interested her.”3

  Nonetheless, Margaret was able to amuse herself on occasion. A historian by training, her brother-in-law-to-be, Basil Rauch, had found temporary employment as an Altman’s floorwalker. A novice at stealth, he did his best to blend discreetly into the throngs of shoppers, only to have Margaret call out loudly across the selling floor, “Hello, Basil!”4

  Her own romantic life was at a standstill, and perhaps as much for the sake of a new circle of friends as for other reasons, she became a charter member (in the spring of 1934) of the Buckram Beagles, a group (primarily) of Long Island socialites with an interest in pursuing the sporting life in the form of long strenuous runs through the woods to hounds, with a rabbit as their quarry.