"Have you no respect for the past? For what was thought and
believed by your foremothers?"
"Why, no," she said. "Why should we? They are all gone.
They knew less than we do. If we are not beyond them, we are
unworthy of them--and unworthy of the children who must go
beyond us."
This set me thinking in good earnest. I had always imagined
--simply from hearing it said, I suppose--that women were by
nature conservative. Yet these women, quite unassisted by any
masculine spirit of enterprise, had ignored their past and built
daringly for the future.
Ellador watched me think. She seemed to know pretty much
what was going on in my mind.
"It's because we began in a new way, I suppose. All our folks
were swept away at once, and then, after that time of despair,
came those wonder children--the first. And then the whole
breathless hope of us was for THEIR children--if they should have
them. And they did! Then there was the period of pride and
triumph till we grew too numerous; and after that, when it all
came down to one child apiece, we began to really work--to
make better ones.
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