Light upon a Dark Subject.
“All may of Thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean,
Which, with His tincture (for Thy sake),
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;—
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th’ action fine.”
GEORGE HERBERT.
“NOW, all this kindness, sympathy, and so forth, that you talk about, are
very well in their way; but you surely find you cannot do everything you
wish amongst the poor by these means? What do you say to them about
their dirty ways, their bad management, neglect of their children, and
all that sort of thing?” The answer to this question, put to me a short
time ago, would occupy more space than could be spared in the limits of a
small book. I will not, therefore, attempt more than a single
illustration in reply.
One subject that comes under my notice, very frequently, is the inquiry
for places of service for the daughters, sisters, and friends of the
higher class of women in our society. Many secrets of service have been
confided to me; and I ought, therefore, to be wise; but the subject is
difficult. It is painful to be constantly hearing from mistresses that
there are scarcely any good servants to be met with; and from servants,
“there is no good places going, scarce.” Something must be wrong. That
two classes so necessary to each other, and intended by the wise Disposer
of all events to bless and benefit each other, should entertain such
feelings of animosity and ill-will, is deeply to be deplored. If there
is any remedy for so great an evil, if any solution of so difficult a
problem is possible—here, almost more than on any other subject, is there
room for the whole energy of the philanthropist—here is one of the most
direct roads that can offer, to the elevation of those who greatly need
raising, and to the amelioration of our whole social system.
I think it must now be three or four years since several circumstances
brought this matter more prominently before us. I said that we would
give up one evening to the special discussion of it. I appointed the
next week, and invited the mothers to bring with them their own
daughters, and any young people they liked. The number that came, shewed
that the subject was popular with them.
It was not difficult to find an appropriate Scripture lesson for the
evening. The Old Testament abounds with interesting reference to
servants. It is remarkable that the first-recorded appearance of an
angel in this world was to a servant—Hagar. Abraham’s servant, Eliezer,
was to him as his right hand. The character which we particularly dwelt
upon was Rebecca’s nurse, Deborah,—beginning at the first mention of her.
“And they sent away Rebecca, their sister, and her nurse.” We traced her
probable life, as can easily be done from the history that is given us of
the families in which she lived; the long quiet years with Isaac and
Rebecca alone, when she doubtless had her trials, arising, perhaps, from
the want of perfect truthfulness in her mistress, or from the quiet,
contemplative disposition of her master, who did not always appreciate
her efforts to please. Then came two little boys to be nursed, who,
while they gratified her pride, gave her as much trouble as little boys
of the present day. How often the nurse and mother conversed together
about them, as they grew up to be young men!—Deborah sometimes, with a
heavy heart, not liking to tell the mother all that went on behind her
back. Her earlier discovery of the vast difference in the dispositions
of the brothers, had already awakened in her mind a fear that trouble was
in the distance. And when the trouble came—when the little household,
once so peaceful, was distracted by the contention of the brothers—when
the uncongenial daughters-in-law, who were a grief of mind to Isaac and
Rebecca, were introduced into the family—when her mistress discovered too
late, that whatever is purchased at the expense of truth, brings only
sorrow—and when at last she had to witness the distress of her mistress
in parting with her favourite son,—through all this, how often must the
kind assistance and sympathy of this faithful servant have been sought!
how many tears shed by the poor mother in secret were wiped away by the
hand of this unfailing friend!
After the last kind offices were performed for Rebecca, we find Deborah
in Jacob’s family, living her old life over again in the care of his
children, and winning love and respect even from Rebecca’s lawless
descendants. Is it any wonder, if, after all this, a chosen spot, “under
an oak,” was selected as the place of her burial, and that the numerous
family who attended her to the grave should have wept so much, that the
name of the place ever after was called “Allon-bachuth,” the “oak of
weeping?”
Now, how many times, through all these eventful years, difficult and
trying circumstances must have occurred: long illness, perhaps;
quarrelsome children to contend with; great changes in the household
management; and so forth? A modern servant would have said, many times
over, “Well, I can’t stand this; I must be off, and try for something
easier.” “If people will get into such messes, they must get out of
them.” “It is no business of mine: all I have to do is to take care of
myself;” and off she would have gone. After repeating this many times,
is it any wonder that, instead of finding a home in the house of a
master’s favourite son, and attended to her grave by a weeping family,
she finds herself an outcast in the world, and understands the true and
bitter meaning of what, in the heyday of her health and strength, she
used boastingly to sing—
“I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me?”
“But now, ma’am,” said one of the women, “I don’t think it’s fair to
speak of places as if they could be always stopped in. I have had my
daughter ill at home for months. She was expected to be on her legs from
seven o’clock in the morning till twelve at night, and only two hours out
every other Sunday: she had to sleep in a room beside the kitchen, so
that she never changed the air hardly; and she got so ill, that I am
sometimes afeard she’ll never get well again.”
“And, ma’am,” said another, “some missuses is so mean, they wouldn’t like
anybody like you to know; so that you might go to a house many times, and
never find it out: but they stints the poor servants in their food and
their rest, and seems to be always a-thinking how much they can get out
of ’em, and how little they can give ’em. I’m sure I know people about
here that ain’t fit to take care of a dog.”
Several others spoke to the same effect.
At last I said, “I should, indeed, be sorry for you to suppose that I
think it is entirely the fault of servants that we are doing so badly in
this way at the present time. So far from it, I think mistresses are
quite as much to blame as servants. But it would not be a wise thing for
us to spend the little time we have together here in talking about what
we cannot help.
“Mistresses tell me, that it is the bad servants that put them out; and
you tell me it is the bad mistresses that put you out. The sooner both
parties begin to make some alteration the better. But as I am the only
mistress here to-night, it is only waste of time talking about
mistresses. And I want to ask you, first, if you do not think _you_ have
something in _your_ power? Is there nothing _you_ can do to make things
better than they are now?”
No one answered; so I continued, “I will tell you about a servant I once
knew very well. Her name was not Jane, but I will call her by that name
now. From fourteen to sixteen, she was employed, under an upper-nurse,
in taking care of some little children; but, as she wished to be a cook,
her mother found a place for her as kitchen-maid, where she was under a
servant celebrated for her good cooking and bad temper. The only time
Jane had for going out was Sunday afternoon, when she always went home to
see her mother. For the first four weeks she brought home nothing but
complaints of her place: it was so hard; the tyrannical cook was
intolerable to live with; the kitchen was so hot, &c. With many tears
and lamentations she besought her mother to take her away from the place.
The mother, after making careful inquiry, found that the cook was really
a difficult and trying woman to live with; but that she was a good
teacher; and that the toil of which Jane complained would, in the end, be
the means of her getting a more thorough insight into her work. She
ascertained, too, that though Jane was fully occupied all day, she was
never kept up at night; therefore, she was not likely to suffer in
health: and as to the hot kitchen, that was the more trying to Jane, from
her having previously been accustomed to be out of doors half the day
with the children; but as cooking is usually accomplished in a hot
kitchen, the sooner she learned to bear that the better.
“The Sunday after all these inquiries had been made, Jane came home, and,
as usual, began her complaints; the mother stopped her, by saying—
“‘I have been inquiring this week all about your place, and I find there
are in it some things very uncomfortable and trying; but it is just the
place where you can learn to be a good cook, and, whatever you may think
of it, Jane, I mean you to stop there two years.’
“‘O mother!’ said Jane, ‘how can you be so cruel!’ and she burst into
tears.
“‘Jane,’ said her mother, ‘when the boys went out to work, you know how
Jim used to complain about how he was teased in the carpenter’s shop, and
how bad Harry’s hands used to get with the bricks; they used to come home
awful tired in the evening; but I said to them, as you know, “Well, boys,
it is no good to give in; we can’t have nothing in this world without
trying for it. All this suffering and hard work will make men of you,
and make you worth something. I don’t want my boys to be gingerbread
people, that can’t do nothing, and can’t bear nothing; you must just face
about, and meet your troubles, and it’ll be the making of ye by and by.”
And so, Jane, now I say the very same to you. I had to pay something for
the boys’ learning their trades, and to keep ’em, too; but you are both
paid and kept while you are learning yours; and so you must make up your
mind to leave off grumbling, put your own shoulder to the wheel, and I
say to you, as I did to them, it will be the making of ye by and by.’
“Jane knew her mother always meant what she said, and after she had made
up her mind it was no use arguing with her; and she went back to her
place, feeling that, whatever she might have to endure, all she could do
was to make the best of it.
“At the end of the two years she left; but she was a good cook,—not hurt
by her hard work, although I know well—for I have heard her speak of it
many times—her work was very hard for the body, and trying to the mind.
She was immediately afterwards engaged by a family, who lived near her
old mistress; and had twelve pounds a-year. After being there six years,
through some changes in the household, she left; but she enjoyed the
reputation of being the best cook in the neighbourhood, and was
immediately offered a situation in a large establishment, at wages of
sixteen pounds a-year. Here she remained ten years, and then married,
having saved upwards of two hundred pounds: for, besides good wages, she
had occasionally received presents from various members of the families
in which she had lived, who valued her exceedingly, and speak of her to
this day with respect and affection. She was married from her mistress’s
house, where a wedding breakfast was provided. When she went off with
her husband, the whole family assembled to bid her farewell, and express
their good wishes; and one of the great boys did not forget to throw an
old shoe after them, for luck. The last time I saw her, she was in a
most comfortably furnished cottage, nursing her baby; and, amongst other
things, she said to me—
“‘The best thing that ever happened to me in my life was my mother saying
to me, ‘Whatever you may think of it, Jane, I mean you to stay there two
years.’”
One of my party was a gipsy-girl, about thirteen years of age. She
seemed to listen to this story with great interest; and after I had
ended, she exclaimed, without addressing herself to any one in
particular—
“I will learn to do something _well_; I am determined I will.”
“That is capital,” I said: “it is just that resolution which is wanted;
everything else is sure to follow.
“The best servant I ever had was entirely self-taught: she was the eldest
of ten children, and spent her life, till she was fifteen, in ‘holding
the baby;’ then she went to a house in our neighbourhood, as under-nurse,
and to help the other servants when required. She was so obliging, that
she became a favourite with every one. The nurse taught her to read and
sew; the young ladies taught her to write; the cook found her so handy
that, after she had been in the nursery three years, she begged her
mistress to allow her to have her in the kitchen. She came to me two
years after that, able and willing to put her hand to any kind of work
required; she remained with me six years, and then married a respectable
carpenter. She is now in America; and in the last letter which I
received from her, she told me that her husband was earning four pounds
a-week by his trade, and she could earn one pound a-week by her dairy.”
“But, ma’am,” said one of the women, “don’t you see, it wasn’t _all_ good
management that made these people you tell us about so prosperous; it was
partly good luck,—they got good places.”
“Yes, I see that; but it was their good name that got them the good
places, and their good behaviour that enabled them to keep them.”
“Ah! I see,” said another; “’course they wouldn’t have stopped there, if
they hadn’t been worth something.”
“It is this ‘_being worth something_’ that has a great deal to do with
it, I assure you. Supposing I were to send for a carpenter, and give him
some wood, and tell him to make me a box; and that in the evening, when I
looked at his work, I found that he had made such mistakes in cutting it
out and putting it together, that it was all spoilt; that there was no
possibility of making a box out of it; and all that he had done for me
was to make the material good for nothing. I should say to him, ‘I
cannot pay you for your work. You have deceived me in professing to be
able to do what it seems you cannot do; you have injured me by destroying
my property; and I cannot recommend you to any one else.’ Now, who would
call me unjust for this? But what would be thought of a master if, when
he had sent away one spoilt dish after another from his table, he were to
send for the cook, and say to her—‘I engaged to give you a home in my
house, and to pay you certain wages, on condition that you cooked my food
nicely, and took care of the property committed to your charge. I have
fulfilled my part of the engagement; you have not fulfilled yours. If
you really cannot cook properly, then you did me an injustice in taking
my money, and accepting the shelter of my house. Perhaps it only arises
from carelessness;—I will give you another trial, but I must be just to
myself at the same time I shall not pay you any wages for this day’s
work,—you have not earned any; and your being paid for the future will
depend upon whether you do what you engaged to do, or not.’ Now, who
could say this was unjust? and yet, I dare say, the self-styled cook
would go back to the kitchen and say, ‘She had never heard of such a
thing in her life.’
“I do not remember ever employing a carpenter who could not do what I
required of him; not so well always, perhaps, as it might have been done,
but still he did it. But how many cooks, housemaids, and nurses have I
seen entirely fail in their engagements. It arose, not from inferior
capacity, but from the great mistake which the girls had made, in
supposing that they could perform the very important duties assigned to
them in life, without preparation. A boy who intends to be a carpenter,
begins, as early as he can, to observe how the work is done; he spends
years in patiently learning one branch of his trade after another, before
he asks for wages; consequently, he generally gives satisfaction to his
employers, and often remains with one master for many years.”
“But, ma’am,” said one, “how _are_ we to prepare our girls for service?
Our houses and our ways is so different from gentlefolk’s. I really
don’t know what we can do.”
“I do not wonder at your saying this; I have often felt for you in this
difficulty. I think your houses are not, perhaps, quite so much like
gentlefolk’s as they might be. A person with good taste would prefer a
clean cottage, any day, to a dirty palace. A bright, clean grate is just
as much an ornament to your room as to a lady’s drawing-room; and when
you set your eldest girls to clean, if you were more particular about
_how_ they did it, many a good lesson might be given. But your principal
hope is, I think, in this kind of apprenticeship of which I have spoken.
Neither wages nor comfort, so long as the health is not endangered,
should be the chief consideration in choosing a girl’s first place. She
should go from you with the impression on her mind that the future of her
life depends very much upon herself; that what makes people valued, is
their being valuable; that wealth is not to be obtained by wishing for
it, but by a long, determined course of patient continuance in
well-doing, and a resolution not to be daunted by difficulties.
“A girl prepared for her work in this way, would feel a self-reliance
that would tend very much to keep her from letting herself down to
anything low. She would also be in a condition to make, what is called,
‘her own terms’ with her mistress. By this, I do not mean to ask for
high wages,—there is no fault to be found with the amount of wages given
at the present day; but to ask for those privileges, without which a
servant cannot long continue to keep herself respectable. I will tell
you what I think a girl, who could faithfully perform her part of the
contract, would be justified in asking.
“1st. That she might have as much of the Sunday to herself as the
general arrangements of the household would permit. The commandment
which tells us all to ‘remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,’ has
especially said that servants are to rest on that day. No one is likely
long to go on right who has no time to read the Bible—that great chart
intended to guide us through life,—without time to attend the public
means of grace, and without leisure to prepare for that world where the
serving and the served must stand side by side, to give up their account
to the great Master and Judge of all.
“2d. She has a right to ask for the punctual payment of her wages on the
quarter-day.
“3d. She has a right to ask that some little portion of the day may be
considered her own time. The precise time must depend upon the habits of
the family. Generally, after eight o’clock in the evening would be
convenient; but when the dinner-hour is late, and much company is kept,
some other hour must be fixed. Sometimes—with nurses, for instance—it
has been found better to let them take all the needlework time, on one or
two days of the month, for their own work. _Some time there must be_, or
a servant cannot do credit to her place, by keeping herself neat and
respectable. But the time should never be _stolen_: a mistress pays for
time, and it is her right. There must be a distinct understanding
between the mistress and servant; and I do not hesitate to say, from my
own experience, that such an arrangement would be found mutually
advantageous.”
After the meeting was over, several little groups might be seen in
various parts of the room, engaged in earnest conversation. I heard one
of them say it was “a sight clearer to her than ever it had been before.”
About two years after this conversation, a woman called at my house, one
morning, bringing her two daughters with her, apparently about seventeen
or eighteen years of age. I remembered she had formerly attended our
meeting, but she had since removed from the immediate neighbourhood.
After the first inquiries had passed, she said—
“I don’t know whether you remember, ma’am, about two years ago you talked
to us at the Mothers’ Meeting, one evening, all about servants and
missuses, and such like. I was there, and these two girls. We had been
puzzling ourselves a deal, for some time before, to know what was best to
do; and we understood what you said, and liked it; and it seemed to make
us see things better than we had ever done before. I had heard of some
places for them; but we were afraid they would be overworked, and all
that. As we were going home, the girls said they would try for it: they
didn’t want to be ‘gingerbread people,’ either. So they took heart, and
went to work, and they have been hard at it ever since. They ar’n’t very
stout, you see, ma’am; for they’ve had plenty of work, and none too much
to live upon. But she’s a cook (pointing to the eldest), and I’ll be
bound no master’ll ever send for her to say she’s spoiled his dinner; and
she’s been in the nursery (pointing to the youngest), and learned to do
needlework well, as I can shew you (producing a piece of work). There,
ma’am, ar’n’t that something like it should be? She won’t have to
bargain for what she can’t do, that’s certain.”
There stood these two girls, looking rather pale and worn, but by no
means unhappy. They were very plainly, though neatly, dressed; for no
finery could have been afforded out of the small wages which they had
received. There was dignity about them, arising from a feeling of
conscious worth, and a sense that they were not simply asking for
employment as a favour: they were prepared honourably and truthfully to
give back in labour, the value of what they received in board and wages.
The contract would be advantageous to both parties, proving that our wise
and kind Father has allowed and designed all these distinctions for good;
that, by mutual dependence, we may be led to cherish those feelings of
respect and regard for each other which are the strongest cement of
society.
“For the body (of society) is not one member, but many.
“And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again
the head to the feet, I have no need of thee.”
“That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should
have the same care one for another.”
“And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.”
I need hardly say that places were easily found for such girls. The
gipsy-girl, too, has kept to her determination of doing something well,
and has been in one place for the last fifteen months.