Yes ma'am, Button History!
In this story by Elizabeth Robins, written when she was in her teens, a thoughtful yet unflinching view of life emerges from the button on a schoolgirl's shoe
The first thing that I remember is being on a blue card in a shoemaker’s shop. I was only one of four dozen, so I was not noticed much. I think I had been about two weeks in the shop, when my companions told me that I would not always live on a pretty blue card, but some day I would be sold. I thought I should like a change, and did not object to leaving the card that the others thought so pretty. My chance soon came! A little girl came into the store one day for shoebuttons, and I was destined to be among the dozen she purchased. The little girl slipped us into her pocket, where, although it was very dark, I enjoyed myself very much, for there were cookies, lead pencils, slate pencils, scraps of paper, and a knife, and rubber. I made an acquaintance with these several things and found they all had a story, and was quite vexed to be taken out just as the lead pencil was in the middle of a note that my mistress wrote in school time, and which was very interesting.
The little girl, whose name was Nellie, gave us to her mother who proceeded to sew us on some shoes. This greatly enraged my companions, but I did not mind it, and so kept my temper. All night we laid [sic] under the bed, and next morning were fished out rather roughly with a broom stick by Nellie, who had thrown us far under the bed on the previous evening. Almost before I knew it we were at the breakfast table, then on the road, and finally in the school room. My little mistress shocked me greatly by writing notes and sometimes whispering during school hours. Things went on this way for nearly a month when all of a sudden one morning I dropped off my mistress’ shoe in the grammar class. I lay on the floor until the class was dismissed, when some one kicked me over into a corner. I felt rather hurt, but like my mistress I was too good-natured to mind little inconveniences, for I could still see, and the next class was history. They talked about Washington, his courage, and bravery, his sword and horse, and I think it was very stupid of them to forget his buttons, for what would “the father of his country” have done without his buttons? At last a naughty child picked me up & snapped me down on the floor again. The teacher asked if that was history, and the bad child answered “Yes ma’am, button history.”
The girls giggled, and the teacher smiled, and they went on about Washington never once mentioning his buttons. After that class came spelling, where I saw Nellie take her place with the others and she missed not a word. As the class was dismissed Nell saw me & put me in her pocket, where the pencil renewed his narrative for my benefit. But alas! A fatal hole appeared in the corner of the pocket through which all my energy could not keep me from falling. I lay in the road until a little prattling baby came along, picked me up & stored me away in her mite of a pocket. Long afterwards Baby’s mama found me, and put me away tenderly, for baby had gone where buttons do not fall off.
What we love about this story
This story is an example of juvenilia (works produced by an author or artist in their youth) in its truest sense, written by ‘Bessie’ Robins in 1875, when she was 13 years old and a student at the Putnam Female Seminary in Zanesville, Ohio. In fact, she submitted the story for her composition class, and its archival copy bears the corrections of her teacher. Its only publication is in the American Voice in 1990, introduced and edited by Joanne E. Gates.
This early piece gives a glimpse of the incisive perspective of Robins’s mature work beneath the cheeky question of why a general’s sword is more important than his buttons, and why history does not bother with what it has deemed to be insignificant objects and, by extension, people. This playful reversal of historiographical norms hints at the feminist questioning that enlivens Robins’s later career, as do the moments of care between mothers and daughters.
Though written in a seemingly naive voice, the story is not just idle play. We love the way the button’s childish comments illuminate quiet truths, as when she talks with the other objects in Nellie’s pocket and finds that ‘they all had a story.’ Robins here also shows how an object can have narrative agency: the button’s presence in the class on history gets everyone talking about how history is made and recorded, and by whom, and for whose benefit. Through the button’s innocent and plucky voice, Robins shines a light on systemic injustices of life then and, in many of the same ways, now.
The final, subtle reference to a child’s death at the story’s close makes a sudden and startling link between giving attention to small things and understanding the great stories of life. Which stories should make it into ‘history’? Which lives and voices matter? Robins repeatedly turned to such questions throughout her extraordinary career.
About the Author
Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952) was an American playwright, actress, novelist, and suffragist who lived a long and fascinating life. At age 18, she took the rare opportunity of living in and writing about a goldmining camp in Colorado. She then pursued an acting career and achieved fame on London's stages (including in premieres of Ibsen's plays) and as a playwright. By the 1900s, she was a well-regarded actress and writer, often writing under the pseudonym ‘C.E. Raimond,’ and still she continued to take on new adventures: setting off for the Klondike gold rush, becoming a prominent suffrage activist (an experience that resulted in her 1907 play Votes for Women!), and campaigning against human trafficking. She counted among her friends Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, and Henry James, and there has been a sustained revival of interest in her life and work.
To read alongside…
Stories narrated from the perspective of inanimate objects abound. Often, they are as much a commentary on human behaviour as on the object telling the story. You might enjoy our newsletter on Hans Christian Andersen’s searing tale ‘The Fir Tree,’ which gives a tree’s perspective on Christmas. More unexpected voices comes from ‘A square’ in Flatland by Edwin A Abbott, featured in another previous newsletter.
If you are hungry for more unpublished or archival materials you could see our past newsletter on Elizabeth Robins or dig through the extensive archive at The Elizabeth Robins Web.
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