{"id":45705,"date":"2019-10-18T11:39:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T15:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=45705"},"modified":"2019-10-18T11:39:20","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T15:39:20","slug":"stepping-heavenward-all-the-pretty-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2019\/10\/stepping-heavenward-all-the-pretty-children.html","title":{"rendered":"Stepping Heavenward: All the Pretty Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Stepping Heavenward, chapter V<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Having broken things off with Charlie, Katy has dedicated herself to doing good. Surely loving God means doing good, after all. Katy is just not always sure what<\/em> good she can do.<\/p>\n

On her mother\u2019s suggestion, Katy has taken a Sunday school class.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are twelve dear little things in it, of all ages between eight and nine. Eleven are girls, and the one boy makes me more trouble than all of them put together. When I get them all about me, and their sweet innocent faces look up into mine, I am so happy that I can hardly help stopping every now and then to kiss them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kissing all the children probably wouldn\u2019t go over all that well today, but the emphasis on the children\u2019s sweetness and innocence is in keeping with a change that was taking place within the middle class at this time. Whereas children had previously been seen as depraved and in need of discipline and training, children were increasingly seen as innocent and pure. And while childhood had previously been a period to hurry children through\u2014lest they die along the way\u2014the middle class increasingly saw childhood as a special period to be celebrated.<\/p>\n

While Katy is teaching this Sunday School class, an incident occurs that will later be important. Katy has her first encounter with the man she will marry (sorry, spoilers!).<\/p>\n

APRIL 27.-This morning I had my little flock about me, and talked to them out of the very\u00a0bottom of my heart about Jesus. They left their seats and got close to me in a circle, leaning on my lap and drinking in every word. All of a sudden I was aware, as by a magnetic influence, that a great lumbering man in the next seat was looking at me out of two of the blackest eyes I ever saw, and evidently listening to what I was saying. I was disconcerted at first, then angry. What impertinence. What rudeness! I am sure he must have seen my displeasure in my face, for he got up what I suppose he meant for a blush, that is he turned several shades darker than he was before, giving one the idea that he is full of black rather than red blood. I should not have remembered it, however-by it-I mean his impertinence\u2013if he had not shortly after made a really excellent address to the children. Perhaps it was a little above their comprehension, but it showed a good deal of thought and earnestness. I meant to ask who he was, but forgot it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s so \u2026 random. But, okay. I guess.<\/p>\n

Oh! Guess what! Katy has a new friend. Clara Ray. They have parties and excursions\u2014\u201cClara Ray and all her set\u201d\u2014and Katy is invited along. This is good! Katy needs friends!<\/p>\n

Oh wait. Oh crap. Katy starts feeling guilty about filling her time with \u201cpicnics, drives, parties, etc.,\u201d and finds that her prayers have become \u201cdull and short.\u201d And then Clara tells Katy that \u201cthe girls think me reckless and imprudent in speech,\u201d so Katy dumps her and<\/em> her set.<\/p>\n

So much for making new friends.<\/p>\n

Katy grows morose.<\/p>\n

All my pleasures are innocent ones; there is surely no harm in going to concerts, driving out, singing, and making little visits! But these things distract me; they absorb me; they make religious duties irksome. I almost wish I could shut myself up in a cell, and so get out of the reach of temptation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then, later:<\/p>\n

I see that if I would be happy in God, I must give Him all. And there is a wicked reluctance to do that. I want Him-but I want to have my own way, too. I want to walk humbly and softly before Him, and I want to go where I shall be admired and applauded. To whom shall I yield? To God? Or to myself?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eep.<\/p>\n

So Katy goes to Dr. Cabot, and asks if it\u2019s okay for her to play and sing in company \u201cwhen all I do it for is to be admired.\u201d This has become a standard fare of this book, these conversations with Dr. Cabot. As he usually does, Dr. Cabot leads Katy along to a specific conclusion. He tells her that refusing to sing in company would not eliminate her \u201clove of display,\u201d but that it would punish her friends, by depriving them of the pleasure of her singing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo child, go on singing; God has given you this power of entertaining and, gratifying your friends.\u00a0But, pray without ceasing, that you may sing from pure benevolence and not from pure self-love.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But oh dear! Disaster strikes! There was a shakeup in the Sunday School department and Maria Perry has taken half of Katy\u2019s students! Whatever will Katy do!<\/p>\n

\u201c[Y]ou have taken my very best children-the very sweetest and the very prettiest. I shall speak to Mr. Williams about it directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just as pleasant to me to have pretty children to teach as it is to you. Mr. Williams said he had no doubt you would be glad to divide your class with me, as it is so large.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Um guys. The children were there when they were talking. That\u2019s the reason Katy doesn\u2019t go directly to Mr. Williams\u2014the children are all there and she must begin teaching.\u00a0Awkward.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously, what is this emphasis on which children are prettiest?<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s just so disturbing and gross. I\u2019m reminded of this sculpture in Denver<\/a>, completed in the 1880s, where the artist visited\u00a05,000 girls across the city\u00a0<\/em>in search of the most beautiful and angelic face, finally choosing six-year-old Ella Catharine Matty. Of course, who are we to speak! We still have beauty pageants for toddlers today. But really, what is Katy communicating to the students she\u2019s left with? Does she treat them differently because they\u2019re not\u00a0as pretty?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry! All is quickly solved! The next day, Mr. Williams comes by to tell Katy that she will have all of the children back again the next week.<\/p>\n

All the mothers had been to see him, or had written him notes about it, and requested that\u00a0I continue to teach them. Mr. Williams said he hoped I would go on teaching for twenty years, and that as fast as his little girls grew old enough to come to Sunday-school he should want me to take charge of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well that\u2019s. Convenient?<\/p>\n

Katy feels bad for \u201cthe display I made of myself to Maria Perry\u201d and wishes she could \u201cbridle my unlucky tongue.\u201d But she is, apparently, good with children.<\/p>\n

I wonder that Katy does not consider becoming a teacher, at least until she marries, like Laura does in the Little House books. But then, this book was published in 1869 and this bit is ostensibly set in the 1830s, and Laura became a teacher in the 1870s or 1880s; women didn\u2019t dominate the teaching profession in the 1830s the way they came to later. Still, when her family found itself in reduced circumstances, Katy switched from \u201cMr. Stone\u2019s school\u201d to \u201cMiss Higgins\u2019 school,\u201d so clearly women in the area\u00a0could<\/em> teach, and Katy is familiar with the concept. Perhaps women of Katy\u2019s class<\/em> did not teach?<\/p>\n

Here we skip some months again, clear up to January, 1835. Katy is now twenty. There has been no mention of beaus, or of any attempt on her mother\u2019s part to set her up with one.<\/p>\n

I have begun to visit some of mother\u2019s poor folks with her, and am astonished to see how they love her, how plainly they let her talk to them. As a general rule, I do not think poor people are very interesting, and they are always ungrateful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well that\u2019s \u2026 lovely.<\/p>\n

Prentiss describes several of these visits\u2014or rather, Katy does in her journal\u2014and Katy finds herself much impressed by her mother\u2019s patience. At one point, after visiting Susan Green, who does nothing but talk, Katy wonders aloud to her mother what good the visit did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy the poor creature likes to show off her bright carpet and nice bed, her chairs, her vases and her knick-knacks, and she likes to talk about her beloved money, and her bank stock. I may not have done her any good; but I have given her a pleasure, and so have you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, I hardly spoke a word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but your mere presence gratified her. And if she ever gets into trouble, she will feel kindly towards us for the sake of our sympathy with her pleasures, and will let us sympathize with her sorrows.\u201d<\/p>\n

I confess this did not seem a privilege to be coveted. She is not nice at all, and takes snuff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I\u2019ve mentioned before, I\u2019m fairly certain that Katy\u2019s comments like this are designed primarily to keep the reader interested\u2014it makes this book different from the dry volumes of sermons to which readers looking for religious fare might otherwise be directed.<\/p>\n

We went next to see Bridget Shannon. Mother had lost sight of her for some years, and had just heard that she was sick and in great want. We found her in bed; there was no furniture in the room, and three little half-naked children sat with their bare feet in some ashes where there had been a little fire. Three such disconsolate faces I never saw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This visiting of the poor is another common thread between this book and Alcott\u2019s\u00a0Little Women.\u00a0<\/em>This scene makes me think of the very beginning of Little Women,\u00a0<\/em>when Marmee goes out early one Christmas morning and comes home to ask her girls to make a sacrifice:<\/p>\n

\u201cNot far away from here lies a poor woman with a little newborn baby. Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they have no fire. There is nothing to eat over there, and the oldest boy came to tell me they were suffering hunger and cold. My girls, will you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The girls agree, with only a little bit of reluctance, and pack up their breakfast. Together, they walk in a procession to the home of the Hummel family. Again, from\u00a0Little Women:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm.<\/p>\n

How the big eyes stared and the blue lips smiled as the girls went in.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0Hannah, who had carried wood, made a fire, and stopped up the broken panes with old hats and her own cloak. Mrs. March gave the mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own. The girls meantime spread the table, set the children round the fire, and fed them like so many hungry birds, laughing, talking, and trying to understand the funny broken English.<\/p>\n

\u201cDas ist gut!\u201d \u201cDie Engel-kinder!\u201d cried the poor things as they ate and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze. The girls had never been called angel children before, and thought it very agreeable\u2026 That was a very happy breakfast, though they didn\u2019t get any of it. And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it,\u201d said Meg, as they set out their presents while their mother was upstairs collecting clothes for the poor Hummels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Katy finds she likes it too.<\/p>\n

Mother sent me to the nearest baker\u2019s for bread; I ran nearly all the way, and I hardly know which I enjoyed most, mother\u2019s eagerness in distributing, or the children\u2019s in clutching at and devouring it. I am going to cut up one or two old dresses to make the poor things something to cover them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Katy has some lessons to learn.<\/p>\n

One of them has lovely hair that would curl beautifully if it were only brushed out. I told her to come to see me to-morrow, she is so very pretty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seriously, what is it with this focus on pretty<\/em> children?!<\/p>\n

Well. It goes very badly. Very badly indeed.<\/p>\n

JAN. 20.-The little Shannon girl came, and I washed her face and hands, brushed out her hair and made it curl in lovely golden ringlets all round her sweet face, and carried her in great triumph to mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the dear little thing, mother!\u201d I cried; \u201cdoesn\u2019t she look like a line of poetry?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou foolish, romantic child!\u201d quoth mother. \u201cShe looks, to me, like a very ordinary line of prose. A slice of bread and butter and a piece of gingerbread mean more to her than these elaborate ringlets possibly can. They get in her eyes, and make her neck cold; see, they are dripping with water, and the child is all in a shiver.\u201d<\/p>\n

So saying, mother folded a towel round its neck, to catch the falling drops, and went for bread and butter, of which the child consumed a quantity\u00a0that, was absolutely appalling. To crown all, the ungrateful little thing would not so much as look at me from that moment, but clung to mother, turning its back upon me in supreme contempt.<\/p>\n

Moral.-Mothers occasionally know more than their daughters do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oy. Yeah, that went well.<\/p>\n

Why did Katy get the girl\u2019s hair wet in the first place? I can see brushing it out, and sure, with curly hair it can help to add some moisture, but wet to the point of dripping?<\/em>\u00a0That\u2019s wholly unnecessary. It\u2019s January. Jeez, Katy. At least give her some food to eat while you do her hair,\u00a0you already know\u00a0<\/em>she doesn\u2019t have much food at home. This shouldn\u2019t be that hard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Is Katy\u2019s mother\u2019s comment meant to imply something about the child\u2019s social class? And what\u2019s with the constant referral to children as \u201cit\u201d? This isn\u2019t the first time. When did that change, in literature? I\u2019m fairly certain it\u2019s pretty taboo to refer to a child as \u201cit\u201d today.<\/p>\n

Anyway! Katy seems to recognize that she messed up. Is this episode meant to be an indictment of Katy\u2019s focus on how pretty individual children are? Or something more limited?<\/p>\n

Guess what! I took us through more quickly and we finished a whole chapter! Going forward, I\u2019m hoping to cover one chapter each week, to keep us from getting bogged down.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seriously, what is this emphasis on which children are prettiest?\u00a0It’s just so disturbing and gross. I’m reminded of this sculpture in Denver, completed in the 1880s, where the artist visited\u00a05,000 girls across the city\u00a0in search of the most beautiful and angelic face, finally choosing six-year-old Ella Catharine Matty.<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":45708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[923],"class_list":["post-45705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-stepping-heavenward"],"yoast_head":"\nStepping Heavenward: All the Pretty Children<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Seriously, what is this emphasis on which children are prettiest?\u00a0It's just so disturbing and gross. I'm reminded of this sculpture in Denver, completed in the 1880s, where the artist visited\u00a05,000 girls across the city\u00a0in search of the most beautiful and angelic face, finally choosing six-year-old Ella Catharine Matty. 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