There are many housekeepers who could get along with their toils if it
were not for sickness and trouble. The fact is, one-half of the women
of the land are more or less invalids. The mountain lass, who has
never had an ache or pain, may consider household toil inconsiderable,
and toward evening she may skip away miles to the fields and drive
home the cattle, and she may until ten o'clock at night fill the house
with laughing racket; but oh, to do the work of life with wornout
constitution, when whooping cough has been raging for six weeks in the
household, making the night as sleepless as the day--that is not so
easy.
Perhaps this comes after the nerves have been shattered by some
bereavement that has left desolation in every room of the house, and
set the crib in the garret, because the occupant has been hushed into
a slumber which needs no mother's lullaby. Oh, she could provide for
the whole group a great deal better than she can for a part of the
group now the rest are gone! Though you may tell her God is taking
care of those who are gone, it is mother-like to brood both flocks;
and one wing she puts over the flock in the house, the other wing she
puts over the flock in the grave.
There is nothing but the old-fashioned religion of Jesus Christ that
will take a woman through the trials of home life. At first there may
be a romance or a novelty that will do for a substitute. The marriage
hour has just passed, and the perplexities of the household are more
than atoned by the joy of being together, and by the fact that when it
is late they do not have to discuss the question as to whether it is
time to go! The mishaps of the household, instead of being a matter of
anxiety and apprehension, are a matter of merriment--the loaf of bread
turned into a geological specimen; the slushy custards; the jaundiced
or measly biscuits. It is a very bright sunlight that falls on the
cutlery and the mantel ornaments of a new home.