Merle's Crusade

[from a review in the School Notes (byline, Maureen Krause) column, The Parsons Daily Sun, Parson Kansas, Thu 19 Apr 1928].

Miss Julia Farrar, high school English teacher, gave a very delightful book report to the girls on the book, "Merle's Crusade," a typical girls' book.

"It is just a girls' book in which the boys would have no interest at all. Now, when there is every type of reading material imaginable I'm afraid that the girl is missing one of the delights of my girlhood -- the purely girl book," Miss Farrar said.

"Another book by the same author is, "Not Like Other Girls." The story of "Merle's Crusade" had to deal with a modern English girl who believed that one should be useful as well as ornamental whether she was a girl or not. She had the right to choose her vocation, pick out her line of work and still retain her femininity and her place in society. Merle was 22 at the beginning of the story -- she was an orphan who had been taken to rear by her Aunt Agatha, who when young had been a governess, but who at the age of 45 had married Uncle Ezra Keith. Merle didn't care much for Uncle Ezra who was small, pale and had light brown eyes. One day she came to the realization that they were not in the good circumstances that they once had been and she asked herself the question, "What right have I to live as a parasite?"

So she decided to answer an advertisement for a nurse to take care of two small children. About the only requirements seemed to be that she be a good plain sewer and a responsible person. The only thing that Merle could never do was spell.

Of course Aunt Agatha was horrified at the idea. She threatened to tell Uncle Ezra who, after hearing the case and deciding that Merle was really in earnest, told her to do as she pleased.

So Merle answered the advertisement in London. The mistress of the house was Mrs. Violet Morton whose husband was a member of parliament. Mrs. Morton was surprised at such a gentlewoman applying but after consulting her husband she was employed.

The two children, Joyce, delicate, three, and Reggie, a sturdy 18-month's-old youngster, fell in love with her at once.

Time went on and Merle saved Reggie's life and did many noble things for the pair that bound her more closely to them.

A very little romance entered into the story but there was a little something about a squire whom Merle finally married.

Stories like this are really worth while reading, aren't they?

Normally, I don't gravitate towards religion-inflected writing and Rosa Nouchette Carey's work is deeply religious -- in fact, Merle's Crusade, like several of her other titles, was originally a publication of The Religious Tract Society. I've been trying to figure out why Carey's faith-talk, which is frequent, doesn't bother me -- in fact, is appealing rather than off-putting -- and I think I found the answer in a 1998 article by Catharine Vaughan-Pow. In "You Have Brought Me to Life Again", Vaughan-Pow argues that the "popular version of Christianity" dispensed to young women in late-19th-century fiction prioritized its "emotional aspects" -- "feelings and actions rather than beliefs are paramount...Interestingly, it is rare to find an explicit statement of Christian belief directed at women which bases itself on theological arguments, while those that appeal to emotion are much more common." (50) In other words, it's the vibe of Christianity rather than its doctrine that Carey and authors like her presented to their young female readers -- and the vibe of Christianity is, in my opinion, just so so good. Selflessness and sacrifice, courage in adversity and affliction, empathy and patience with others, protection of the vulnerable, gratitude for life's gifts, honest self-reflection and focus on becoming a better person. These are all core moral traits and developing them is a foundational part of the project of being human. Whether that path ends in heaven or in fully realized personhood or both, it's a journey worth taking seriously, even in popular literature and it's a pleasure to watch Carey's characters -- young and old alike -- quietly doing the often difficult work of, she would call it spiritual, growth.

The challenge is all the more pressing and vital to her characters because of the world in which they live -- a world pre-vaccines, pre-antibiotics, pre-nearly all the medical and public health interventions that have lengthened the human lifespan and made youth, in developed countries, at least, a period of prolonged freedom from any serious health crisis. Carey's stories have a sort of mortal heaviness to them. I can never decide whether they're light stories weighted with sorrow or sad stories buoyed by gratitude and hope, but all her characters, main and incidental, have been scarified by pain and loss. Loss of parents, loss of siblings, loss of partners, and, most heartbreakingly, child loss. From the young mother who

dared not sleep, lest the old dream should torment her of the dead baby's hand, that she could never warm with all her efforts. "I can feel it quite icy cold in mine, and sometimes there is a cold face on my bosom, but nothing ever warms them, and when I wake up I am shivering too." (83)

to the working woman whose "hard-featured face softened in a wonderful manner" when she sees a toddler who "reminds me of our poor little Davie, our poor little brother who died." (169) the presence and threat of death in childhood and early adulthood pervades the story. It, more than anything else, gives the characters and the reader an acute sense of the impermanence of present joys and the necessity of making the most of them now -- of seizing the day not in the YOLO sense, but in the sense of storing up memories and using every experience as an opportunity to build resilience for trials to, inevitably, come. Carey returns again to the theme we saw in Uncle Max where it is a measure of character and personal strength whether these trials make you more open, grateful and loving -- as is Roger Hawtry whose personal losses make him appreciate Merle's kindness and sincerity -- or leave you "imbittered by disappointment" (133) as is Merle's antagonist, Mrs. Markahm, who had an unhappy marriage, "lost two dear little girls in India" (90) and "masks her unhappiness" with a cold "metallic harshness." (105)

For all that Carey's settings and plots are very traditional -- concerned with women's roles in the domestic sphere -- there are so many aspects of Merle that feel surprisingly modern. Merle herself, has a learning disability: she initially chooses early childcare as a career because her complete inability to spell makes her unfit for governessing or teaching, the typical occupations for women of her education and class. This "great difficulty and stumbling block of my young life" over which she'd "lamented with hot tears and a grievous sense of humiliation" (12) we would obviously understand as dyslexia, and both Merle's experience of accommodating her challenges and the people around hers' understanding acceptance of them really showcase positive developments in cultural attitudes towards disability.

Merle's crusade, itself, is to elevate the stature and dignity of childcare -- and, while there's definitely a classist element to it -- the idea that children 0-3 should be taught how to think and speak and "be" by someone of their own "caste" -- respect and appropriate compensation for the childcare profession is still crusade-worthy today, more than a century on. In Merle's willingness to buck "the mighty sham of conventionality" (19) and her desire to have the financial independence the aunt who raised her had modeled, you also feel the door to the 20th century cracking open.

While gender roles, in Merle, are, overall, traditional, there are caveats. Roger declaring he loved Merle first "because you were so brave and unconventional" (235), offers one glimpse of change. A woman's neglect of self-care out of an "excess of womanly devotion" (65) and deference to her husband's interests is portrayed quite negatively and her husband's growth arc comes in realizing that he needs to prioritize his family over personal ambition. And Roger, again, a well-to-do bachelor landowner and farmer had nursed his invalid sister for years and misses her and his mother with a "feminine tenderness". For his part, when he's injured in a riding accident, he's cared for by his young artist cousin, "light-hearted, handsome" who is a "famous nurse". (214)

The method of child-rearing championed by Merle is also...pretty gentle. There are time-outs but no corporal punishment, children are taught to make good behavioral choices through reasoning and stories, the children sleep in cradles on either side of Merle's bed, and toddler meltdowns are treated with indulgence and gentle redirection.

A contemporary review describes Merle's Crusade and Carey's other titles, as books that "leave one better for having read them." (The Weekly Wisconsin, Sat Jun 30, 1894) and it feels like there's some real truth in that. There are problematic aspects, too, for sure, and you can understand why the generation waiting in the wings (I'm looking at you, New Woman!) was ready to kick off all that earnestness and have some fun. But there's also reason that a Kansas teacher 30 years later, would be sharing it with her class of high school girls and a reason one of them, from the Class of '28, would conclude, in the local paper -- along with honestly the most delightful (I need to share it somewhere) descriptions of Senior Tacky Day -- "Stories like this are really worth while reading, aren't they?" They really are.

Flags: Child death.