Chapter III: "Her moral training, both at the schools she attended and at home, was negative in nature, prohibitive in intent..."

My mother must be one of the least selfish persons I know. I am humbled to recall how hard she worked to keep our family solvent on my father's not-quite-large-enough paycheck. She grew berries and vegetables in the back yard so she could can the vegetables and put up jars upon jars of jam and jelly. With the next door neighbor, a comfortable Latvian grandmother, she put up quarts of garlicky dill pickles, apple sauce, apple butter, pears and plums. She scoured all the thrift stores in the Milwaukee area to find clothes for us that were as fashionable as possible. She bought antique tables, desks, dressers, and chairs for pennies at estate and rummage sales and refinished them so they would be beautiful and functional. She (and I) spent hours pouring insulation into the walls of our house by hand to reduce heating costs and save on the labor costs of hiring a professional. For all this she reserved very few luxuries for herself: She always had cigarettes. She always had a reserve of peanut M&Ms that we were never to touch. And she drank little else but Tab, a diet cola most people have long forgotten.

I am not sure my mother sees her hard work as sacrifice. If I were to thank her for all she did, she's make some joke and laugh it off. If I insisted, she'd become uncomfortable. If pressed, I think the most she could say would be something along the lines of "What else was I going to do? Anyone would have done that." It is not true that anyone would have done it. My father, for example, was only pushed into it by my mother's firm lead. And many who might have worked so hard and enjoyed so few treats might still have complained or made a martyr of him- or herself or made those for whom he or she worked to feel guilty for benefiting from that work.

Nevertheless, when I look back at my upbringing and when I think of my moral training (such as it was), I see very little that was positive in nature. What positive rules or values was I taught? My mother was absolutely amazing at personal finance. (Before she married, she drove a Mustang. She had two, one after the other. She paid for both in full in cash. On factory wages. Badass.) But I can't recall a single conversation either of my parents had with me or my siblings about how to create a budget or how to follow one. Maybe they thought we'd just pick it up naturally, without having to be taught, much like the way I learned how to read.

Being good was a matter of not doing: don't hit your brother or sister; don't talk back; don't get bad grades; don't touch things that aren't yours; don't say naughty words. Etc. I have no recollection of positive moral training. Be this kind of person. These kinds of attitudes are good ones. Pay attention to these sorts of things. Instead of "Do this, for these reasons," I remember learning "Don't do this"--and not many reasons.

What are we to make of Edith, then, except that she is beautiful and without much personality? At the end of the chapter, after it has been determined that Edith and Stoner will marry, Edith runs after him and, her face pale with emotion, calls Stoner by his given name for the first time: "I'll try to be a good wife to you, William. I'll try." Were you touched when you read that? Did you feel for Edith a little? She's not a wicked person. Not a bad or malicious person. She can articulate a desire and intention to be a good wife. Remember this.