Lucy Nelson; Or, The Boy Girl (part 2)
The next important development in the story happens when her parents invited their neighbors over to dinner. Lucy was torn – she didn’t want to be seen in trousers but she didn’t want to be alone either. She schemed to design a huge apron that would cover her trousers and disguise her punishment to the guests. It worked for a bit, as Mrs. Halford comments on her apron and its effects: “While she wears it, there is no opportunity for the smallest speck to get on her dress. I conclude the young lady is particularly neat in all her habits, and remarkably careful of her clothes.” Now that Lucy was being made a model example of girlhood and cleanliness, she was terribly embarrassed. This made her mother snicker – or smile – and the boys “tittered.” The joke was on Lucy, her mother and brothers aligned in knowing what was obscured from Mrs. Halford. Eventually, however, Lucy’s secret was lost and Mrs. Halford noticed her pants, at first believing her to be a boy until Lucy, overwhelmed, frustrated, and scared burst into tears claiming “I am not a boy.” This is the turning point of the story – the most significant confession, an identity claim that would put all other ambiguities and anxieties to rest. Her brothers stopped laughing. Her mother relented. After wearing boy’s clothes for only a week rather than a month, her mother freed her from the punishment. The author Miss Leslie tells us, “This kindness made Lucy very happy, and she would gratefully promise her mother that she would sincerely and earnestly try to conquer her rude, boisterous, romping habits, and become as much like the other girls as possible.”
This brutal account signals several things about popular understandings of gender. First of all, we learn that girls were just as likely to enjoy the mannerisms, activities, and attitudes more commonly associated with boys. Even in the end, Lucy promised her mother and the reader that she would “try” to change her ways, leaving in contention the possibility that this would be a challenge for her, that it did not come naturally to her, and that even after such a strong, painful experience of social isolation and humiliation, there is a possibility she might yet fail to conform to the ways of a girl. Gender was highly mutable. Most simply, a child – or anyone – might reject that role which is imposed upon them. The imposition of male attire seemed to undo Lucy, though we’re not exactly clear why. When faced with a particular version of “being a boy,” Lucy balked. Maybe not because she didn’t identify as a boy, but because she didn’t identify with the version of boyhood being imposed upon her by her mother – trousers and a jacket – and by her brothers – more rough treatment. Lucy exercised the freedom to reject this imposition, even though to her mother or brothers it may have more closely approximated the lived experience of boyhood that she so earnestly claimed. It was not chosen by her – or on her terms. And it was framed as “punishment” and accompanied by public shaming.