My experience as a seamstress thus far subjected me to mere trials of
temper, or mortifications of personal pride, but never to the calamities
which sometimes fall so heavily on others in a like position. Hence,
while spared the latter, I was too much disposed to magnify the former:
for, let our trials be few and light as they may, we are generally prone
to consider them the greatest that could befall. The griefs of others,
their losses, their calamities, as has often been well said, we can all
bear with surprising fortitude: it is only our own that we are disposed
to regard as unendurable. But in this time of discouragement there were
cases brought to my notice, the severity of which fairly humbled me in
the dust, filling my heart with thankfulness at the exemption extended
to us, and showing me that afflictions are really great or insignificant
only by comparison.
One sleety wintry night the low wail of a new-born infant was heard
issuing from a bundle of ragged clothing which some poor creature had
laid down on the doorstep of a house in a small by-street not many
squares from our own. The house was occupied in part by a man named
Varick, who had a wife and several children. This man had been an
industrious mechanic, but had for two years been pursuing the downward
path to ruin, a confirmed victim of the bottle. He had been forced by
the destitution thus brought upon himself to abandon a snug abode in a
decent street for the squalor of a rickety shell in a mean locality, and
was now prostrate on his bed, dying of rapid consumption. By what
mysterious providence a new-born babe should thus be sent to such a
man's door is beyond my comprehension. But the wife of Varick, softer of
heart than its mother, took in the shivering waif, adopted it in place
of one only a few weeks older, which she had buried two days previous,
and resisted all urgency of the few friends she had to send it to the
almshouse.
My mother had long known Mrs. Varick. She regarded her with great
interest, and had frequently visited the family, watching the progress
of her husband's decline, and sympathizing with her in her incessant
labor as a seamstress. Varick did nothing but drink,--she did nothing
but work. The trials, the sufferings, the absolute privations which she
underwent for two years, it would be difficult to describe. Her domestic
labors, with the care of a sick husband, watching him by night as well
as by day, left her little time or energy to devote to the needle. Yet
she toiled unceasingly for the shops. Scanty indeed were their prices,
scantier were her earnings, and scantier still the daily fare which the
poor needle-woman was able to set before her children. Many times they
cried themselves to sleep with hunger. I doubt not that the dying
husband shared in these privations, as well as suffered for want of many
comforts which his situation demanded. Strangely enough, in the midst of
this accumulated misery, the woman's heart went out with an
unconquerable sympathy for the foundling so unexpectedly left at her
door. So far from proving an additional incumbrance, it seemed to be a
positive comfort.
Hearing of the circumstance, my mother went immediately to see the
family, taking me with her. They were quartered in a single large room
of an old frame-house which was crowded with tenants of all
descriptions. We found Varick on his bed, evidently very near his end.
But, alas! the unhappy man, expressed the utmost horror of dying. He
made no request for spiritual aid or counsel,--no mention of religion,
no reference to eternity. The Saviour's name, or any allusion to the
salvation which came by him, never passed his lips. Every thought was of
the earth,--how to live, not how to die. I shuddered as I saw and heard
him. At intervals he reached out his hand impatiently for a vial of
medicine, then inquired when the doctor would come. His whole dependence
was on the arm of flesh. Neither wife nor visitor ventured to direct his
attention to the fact of his rapidly approaching end; for he was
stubborn and repulsive. The door seemed to be shut, no more to be
opened,--we could do nothing for him.
Yet while this horrible scene was passing before us, there were loud
noises in the next room, penetrating the thin board partition at the
head of Varick's bed. A drunken brawl was going on, with oaths and
imprecations that alarmed all but the sick man and his wife, with now
and then a sharp pounding on the partition, as if some one's head were
being violently beaten against it. Overhead another similar disturbance
occurred. Then there was a crowd of squalid faces peering in at the
windows at us; for decent visitors were rare in the depraved locality of
that forlorn tenant-house. Altogether, the scene sickened and almost
frightened me.
My mother gave Mrs. Varick a basket filled with simple comforts she had
brought with her; and we were about taking our leave, when the door
opened, and a religious-looking man, dressed in black, entered the room,
bowed to us, spoke familiarly to Mrs. Varick, and approached the bedside
of the dying man. Presently he sank upon his knees, and in language most
appropriate to the spiritual hardness and destitution of poor Varick,
invoked the Throne of Grace in his behalf. Though the outcries and
turmoil around and above were continued, yet I lost no word of this
deeply affecting prayer. It touched my heart and heightened the
solemnity of the occasion. My own supplications went up in silence to
the mercy-seat on behalf of the dying man. I knew that my mother's would
be equally fervent; and from the reverential responses of the sobbing
wife, it was clear to me that hers were not withheld.
She was standing very near to me when the minister rose to his feet.
Turning to her, he said in a low voice,--
"Madam, I perceive that you are to have a funeral here very shortly. I
am an undertaker, and shall be glad to take charge of furnishing the
coffin and whatever else may be needed."
He put a card into her hand, and left us. I cannot describe the
revulsion of feeling which this uncouth and abrupt transition from
spiritual to carnal things occasioned in my mind. The shock was so
violent as to dissipate at once the solemn impression which the man's
excellent prayer had made. The heart-stricken wife could make no reply,
except by tears. It was well that the dying man was unable to catch the
mercenary drift of the religious exercises he had heard.
That night he died. When we reached there the next morning, several of
the low crowd who herded in other apartments of this great
tenement-house were already offering to bargain with the widow for her
husband's clothes. The thing was so inexpressibly shocking that my
mother interposed and compelled them to desist and leave us alone. By
degrees we learned more of the actual condition of the family. It
appeared that Varick had in better days become a member of a beneficial
society which allowed forty dollars to a widow for the funeral expenses
of her husband. The harpies of the tenement-house had become acquainted
with this circumstance, and while one set was seeking to obtain
possession of the dead man's clothes, another was practising every art
to steal from the widow the little beneficiary fund with which he was
to be buried. Through all her difficulties the poor needle-woman had
managed to pay the society's dues, foreseeing what the end would be, and
she was now entitled to draw the forty dollars. My mother immediately
obtained from her an order for the money, drew it, kept it from the
rapacious set who watched for it, and made it an efficient means of
immediate comfort.
The ministerial undertaker was of course present at the funeral. He was
evidently as keen after business as he was powerful in prayer. When the
hour for moving from the house had arrived, he approached the widow and
whispered to her that he could not think of letting the coffin leave the
premises until some one had become surety for the payment of his bill!
My mother and myself both sat near the widow, and heard this
extraordinary and ill-timed demand. I was amazed and disgusted at the
indecency of the man in not urging it at the proper time, and pressing
it at so improper a one. But my mother told him to proceed, and that she
would pay the bill.
All these enormities were new things to me. I had seen nothing, I had
imagined nothing, so every way terrible as came within my notice under
the squalid roof of this poor needle-woman. But my mother had long been
in the habit of penetrating into the abodes of the sick and destitute;
and though shocked by the new combination of religion and trade which
she here witnessed, yet she regarded it only as a fresh development of
the selfishness and hypocrisy of human nature. This poor woman and her
family must live. How, thought I, is she to do so in this season of
declining prices of the only work she is able to perform? If she could
survive such a crisis so uncomplainingly, and be willing to take to her
bosom the helpless foundling left upon her doorstep, what cause was
there for me to complain? Sorrows gathered all round her pathway, while
only blessings clustered about mine. I learned a lesson of thankfulness
that has never been forgotten.
If there had been need of such exhibitions of positive distress as
teachers of contentment, others were not wanting within my little
circle. One of my cousins, a girl of my own age, ambitious to support
herself, had been successful in obtaining a situation as saleswoman in a
highly fashionable shop, where the most costly goods were sold in large
quantities, and to which, of course, the most dashing customers
resorted. I always thought her a truly beautiful girl. She was tall and
eminently graceful, her face expressing the virtue and intelligence of
her mind: for I cannot understand that true beauty can exist without
these corresponding mental harmonies, any more than a shadow without the
substance.
My taste in such matters may be defective, because it lacks the
cultivation which fashion gives. Such as I possess is altogether
natural. To my primitive apprehension, therefore, the attractions of a
finely formed neck or arm receive no addition from being encircled by
chains of gold or bracelets of pearls. When charmed with the appearance
of a beautiful woman in simple robes, who is there, if told that the
profuse expenditure that would have been required to cover her with
brilliants had been employed in charity,--that she had used it as a fund
to relieve the wants of the needy, to minister to the sick, to comfort
the widow, to support and educate the destitute orphan,--who is there
that would not feel the loftier emotions of his nature mingling with his
admiration?
At home my cousin had been seated at her needle, but in her new
employment she found herself compelled to stand. There was neither bench
nor chair nor stool behind the counter, on which she could for a moment
rest a body which had never been accustomed to so long-continued and
unnatural a strain upon its powers. It was the peremptory order of the
wealthy proprietor that no girl employed in the shop should on any
occasion sit down. There were soft stools for the repose of customers
who had money to spend, but not even a block for the weary saleswoman
who had money to earn. The rich lady, who had promenaded the street
until fatigued by the exertion of displaying her new bonnet over miles
of pavement, came in and rested herself while pricing goods she did not
intend to buy. There was a seat for all such. The unoccupied saleswoman
had been seeking relief from the strain upon her muscles by leaning back
against the shelves, but on the entrance of a customer she must be all
obsequiousness. While she might have rested, she was unfeelingly
forbidden to do so. Now the customer must be waited on, no matter how
completely she may be overcome by fatigue or prostrated by lassitude.
Either was sufficient to destroy her spirits; the combination of the
two, springing from a fixed cause, was sure to undermine her health.
My cousin suffered keenly from this almost unexampled cruelty. She came
home at night worn out by the strain upon her muscular system. Her spine
was the seat of a chronic uneasiness. All day she was upon her feet,
being allowed no other rest than such as she might get by leaning
against the shelving. At the week's end she was fairly overcome. Sunday
was hardly a day of recreation, because she was rarely free from pain
induced by this unintermitted standing. All this was suffered for the
sum of four dollars a week. It is true that she had earned less at her
needle, but then her health had been remarkable for its robustness. Her
increased earnings now were the price of that health.
Nor were others among the saleswomen less dangerously affected than
herself. Some, of feeble organization, quickly broke down, under this
unnatural discipline, and abandoned the shop, sometimes rendered
temporary invalids, sometimes permanently disabled, while but few
returned to fill their thankless places. Reading, while in the shop,
whether employed or not, was out of the question, as that also was
strictly prohibited. There was therefore no recreation either of body or
mind, even when it might have been harmlessly permitted. It was either
work or absolute idleness, but in no case rest or relaxation.
Under this monstrous system of torture my cousin at length broke down so
completely that she, too, was compelled to leave the establishment. Her
resolute spirit led her to endure it too long. When she did give up, it
was in the hope that entire rest would bring relief. But it never came.
Her physical organization, strong as it was by nature, had been so
deranged that recuperation was impossible. Medicine could do nothing for
her. A curvature of the spine had been established,--she soon became
unable to sit up,--and at this writing she lies comparatively helpless
in her bed, still beautiful in her helplessness. Her health was
permanently ruined by the barbarism of a man so destitute of sympathy
for a working-girl as to deny her the cheap privilege of sitting down
when she could do him no good by standing up. Yet the great
establishment is still continued, with all its gorgeous display of
plate-glass windows, its polished counters, its wealth of costly goods,
and its long array of tortured saleswomen.
These instances of complicated affliction among needle-women by no means
embrace all that came under my notice. They were so numerous that it was
impossible for me to avoid seeing and feeling that no such grief had
been permitted to come over me. I trust that my heart was sufficiently
grateful for this immunity,--for I became satisfied, that, if we were to
thank God for all His blessings, we should have little time to complain
of misfortunes. I know that I endeavored to be so. I labored to take a
cheering view of what we then considered a very gloomy prospect. And
this disposition to contrast our condition with that of others, while it
taught me wisdom, brought with it a world of consolation. I saw that
there was a bright side to everything,--that the sky was oftener blue
than black; and my floral experiences in the garden taught me that it
was the sunshine, and not the cloud, that makes the flower. It became
my study to look only on the bright side of things, convinced, that, if
the present were a little overcast, there was a future for us that would
be all delightful. I was full of hope; and the eye of hope can discover
a star in the thickest darkness, a rainbow even in the blackest cloud.
Hence I went cheerfully to learn the art of operating a sewing-machine,
in which I soon became so expert as to prove a profitable pupil. There
were from a dozen to twenty learners beside myself, some few of whom
were educated and agreeable girls, the daughters of families moving in
genteel circles, who had come there with a sensible ambition to acquire
a thorough knowledge of the art. With these I formed a very pleasant
acquaintance, so that my apprenticeship of a few weeks, instead of being
a dull and lifeless probation, calculated to depress my spirits, was
really an agreeable episode in my quiet career, cheering by its new
associations, and invigorating by reason of the unmistakable evidences
occurring almost daily that a sewing-girl was probably the last machine
whose labor was to become obsolete.
The fame of these schools for female operatives went all over the
country, and attracted crowds of visitors. Some of these were fine
ladies of superficial minds, who came from mere curiosity, so as to be
able to say that they had seen a sewing-machine. I was often struck with
the shallow, unmeaning questions which these butterflies of fashion
propounded to us. Some of them made the supercilious, but disreputable
boast, that they had never taken a stitch in the whole course of their
lives. But the great throng of inquirers consisted of women who had
families dependent on their needles, and of young girls like myself,
obliged also to depend upon the labor of their fingers. All such were
deeply interested in the new art, and their inquiries were practical and
to the point. They expressed the same astonishment, on seeing the
rapidity with which the machine performed its work, that I had felt when
first beholding it.
With so great a throng continually around us, asking questions, stopping
the machines to examine the sewing, and begging for scraps with a row of
stitches made in them, which they might take away to inspect at leisure,
as well as to exhibit to others, there were days when the pupils were
able to produce only a very small amount of work. But we soon discovered
that this deficiency made but little difference to our teacher. The
school was in reality a mere show-shop, a place of exhibition
established by the machine-makers, in which to display and advertise
their wares more thoroughly to the public. We pupils were the
unconscious mouthpieces of the manufacturers. We paid the teacher for
the privilege of learning to work the machines, and the manufacturers
paid her a commission for all that she disposed of. Between the two sets
of contributors to her purse she must have done a profitable business.
She was at no expense except for rent, as the manufacturers loaned her
the machines, while we did all the work. She had more orders for the
latter than we could get through with, as the demand from the tailors
was so urgent as to show very plainly that the great proportion of all
the future sewing was to be done by the machine instead of by hand.
When I first went into this schoolroom I noticed a number of unemployed
machines arranged in one part of it. After a week's apprenticeship, I
observed some of them leaving the room every day, while new ones came in
to occupy the vacant places. The first had been sold, the last were also
to be disposed of, and this active sale continued as long as I remained.
The fact was very apparent, that this public exhibition of the capacity
of the new machine was operating on the community as the most efficient
mode of advertising that could have been adopted. The machines went
everywhere, over city and country, even at the monstrous prices demanded
for them. Many fashionable ladies became purchasers, thinking, no doubt,
that clothing could be made up by merely cutting it out and placing it
before the machine.
Thus the most ingeniously potent agencies were invoked to bring the new
invention rapidly and extensively into use. Its real merit happened to
be such that it fulfilled all the promises with which it had been
presented to the public. Hence it became a fixture in every great
establishment where sewing-women were usually employed. As the latter
acquired a knowledge of the machine, each of these establishments became
a school in which new hands were converted into skilful operatives,
until the primary schools, like that where I had been instructed, were
abandoned from lack of pupils.
But I picked up a great many useful ideas at the school, besides
acquiring, as already remarked, a new and assured confidence in the
future prospects of the sewing-woman. It seemed clear to my mind, that,
under the new order of things, the needle was still to be plied by her;
whatever work it was to do would be superintended and directed by her.
It was in reality only a new turn given to an old employment. Moreover,
it struck me that more of it would be called for than ever, because I
had noticed that the speed of the machine in making stitches had already
led to putting treble and quadruple the usual number into some garments.
Having achieved the useful, it was quickly applied to the ornamental.
Clothing was not to be made up, in the future, as plainly as it had been
in the past. Hence the prospect of more work being required involved the
probability of a greater demand for female labor. But whether it was to
be more remunerative,--whether the sewing-girl who might turn out ten
times as much in a day as she formerly did would receive an increase of
wages in any degree proportioned to the increase of work performed, was
a problem which the future alone could solve. I did not believe that any
such measure of justice would be accorded to her. It would be to the
men, but not to the women. Yet I was willing to take the future on
trust, for it now looked infinitely brighter than ever.
Among the pupils of this school was a young lady of twenty, whose
affable and sociable disposition won strongly on my admiration, while
her robust good sense commanded my utmost respect. The machines we
operated were close to each other, so that I had the good fortune to
have constant opportunities of conversing with her. Her name was Effie
Logan, and she was one of three daughters of a merchant who had acquired
an ample competency. In company with his wife, he came once or twice a
week to visit the school and see his daughter at work. With great
consideration for me, Miss Effie introduced me to her parents, at the
same time adding some highly complimentary explanations as to who I was,
and how attentive I had been in teaching her to use the machine. This
adoption of me as her friend established a sort of good feeling in the
parents toward me, so that at each visit to the school they greeted me
in a way so cordial as greatly to attach me to them. It was an
unexpected kindness from an entirely new quarter, and increased my
affection for Miss Effie.
Her parents, it appeared, were having all their children taught an art
or profession of some kind. One of the daughters, having a talent for
drawing, was learning the art of engraving on wood. The youngest, being
passionately fond of flowers, and possessed of great artistic genius,
was a regular apprentice in an artificial-flower manufactory. Miss
Effie, the eldest, had had her musical talent so cultivated under a
competent master, that she was now qualified to act as organist in a
church, or to teach a class of pupils at the piano; but not satisfied
with this, she had insisted on being instructed in the use of the
sewing-machine. Both she and her parents seemed so wholly free from the
false pride which wealth so frequently engenders in the American mind,
that she came, without the least hesitation, to a public school, and sat
down as a learner beside the very humblest of us. When her parents came
to inspect her work, I am certain they were gratified with all they saw
of what she was doing.
I confess that the whole conduct of this family was as great a surprise
to me as it was a comfort and encouragement. Mrs. Logan always made the
kindest inquiries about my parents, but in the politest way
imaginable,--no impertinent questions, but such as showed that she felt
some interest in me. I think that Effie must have spoken very favorably
of me to her parents when at home, but I could not understand why, as I
was not near so affable and pleasant in my manners as she was. But an
intimacy had grown up between us; she had won my whole confidence; and
as confidence usually begets confidence, so she probably took to me from
the force of that harmony of thought and feeling which comes
spontaneously from communion of congenial souls.
One day the teacher of the school had been called out on other business,
leaving me to attend to visitors and customers. The throng that morning
was so great that it was full two o'clock before I found time to sit
down, hungry enough, to the slight dinner I had brought with me in a
little basket. I had taken only the first mouthful, when Miss Effie came
in from dining at home. She drew her chair close up to me, her sweet
face blooming with the roses of perfect health, and her bright eyes
sparkling with animation and intelligence. Much as I admired and loved
her, I thought she had never before looked so perfectly beautiful.
"Lizzie," she said, taking in her hand a spool of cotton to adjust on
her machine, "how I like this work! Pa intends to buy me a machine as
soon as I have completed my apprenticeship here. He don't believe there
is any real gentility in the idleness of a girl who, because she happens
to be rich, or to have great expectations, chooses to do nothing but
fritter away her time on company and parties and dress and trifles
unworthy of a sensible woman. He has brought us all up to think as he
does. He tells us that every woman should be so educated, that, if at
any time compelled by reverse of fortune to support herself, she would
be able to do so. Why, he made us all learn the old story of the
Basket-Maker before we were ten years old. It was only last week that he
said there was no knowing what might happen to us girls,--you know,
Lizzie, there are three of us,--that some day we might possibly be
married."
I am sure that the faintest of all innocent blushes rose up from the
half-conscious heart of the truly lovely speaker as she uttered the
word, giving to her cheeks a tinge of crimson that added new beauty to
the soft expression which her countenance habitually wore.
"_Possibly_, did you say, Miss Effie?" I interposed. "You might have
said _probably_,--but would have been nearer the truth, if you had said
_certainly_."
"Oh, Lizzie, how you talk!" she rejoined; and there was an unmistakable
deepening of her blushes. But in a moment she resumed:--
"Pa remembers how his mother was left a widow with five young children,
but with neither trade nor money, and how both she and he had to
struggle for a mere subsistence, she at keeping boarders, and he as
apprentice to a mean man, who gave him only the smallest weekly
pittance. He says that we shall never go out into the world as destitute
of resources as his mother was, and so we all have what may really be
called trades. My brother is in the counting-house, keeping the books,
and is provided for. But you don't know how we have all been laughed at
by our acquaintances, and sneered at by impudent people, who, though not
at all acquainted with us, undertake to prescribe what we should and
what we should not do. They call us work-women! With them, work of any
kind is regarded as degrading, especially if done by a woman, and more
especially if she is to be paid for it."
"Ah, Miss Effie, you have touched the weak spot of our national
character," I responded.
"Yes," she resumed, "it is the misfortune of American women to entertain
the idea that working for a living is dishonorable, and never to be
done, unless one be driven to it by actual want. Why, even when
positively suffering for want of food and fuel, I have known some to
conceal or disguise the fact of their working for others by all sorts of
artifice. To suffer in secret was genteel enough, but to work openly was
disgraceful! A girl of my acquaintance was accidentally discovered to be
selling her work at a public depository, and forthwith went to
apologizing for doing so, as if she had been guilty of a crime, instead
of having nobly striven to earn a living. The ridiculous pride of
another seduced her into a falsehood: she declared that the work she had
been selling for her own support was for the benefit of a church. This
senseless pride exists in all classes. From the sham gentility it
spreads to the daughters of workingmen. They are educated to consider
work as a disgrace, and hence the idle lives so many of them lead. It is
the strangest thing imaginable, that parents who rose from poverty to
independence by the hardest kind of bodily labor should thus bring up
their children. No such teaching was ever given to me. I can sit here at
my machine, and look the finest lady of my acquaintance in the face. She
may some day wish that she had been my fellow-apprentice."
"Where do our girls learn this notion of its being disgraceful for a
woman to support herself?" I inquired.
"Learn it? It is taught them everywhere," she responded. "I sometimes
think it is born with them. They drink it in with their mother's milk.
They grow up with it as a daily lesson,--the lesson of avoiding work,
and of considering it delicate and genteel and refined to say that they
never cooked a meal, or swept the parlor, or took a stitch with the
needle, actually priding themselves upon the amount of ignorance of
useful things that they can exhibit. They make the grand mistake of
assuming that sensible men will admire them for this display of folly.
So they drag on until there occurs a prospect of marriage, when they
suddenly wake up to a consciousness of their utter unfitness to become
the head of a family. Why, I know at this moment a young lady of this
description, who expects in a few months to become a wife, and whose
cultivated ignorance of household duties is now the ridicule of her
mother's cook and chambermaid. The prospect of marriage alarmed her for
her total ignorance of domestic duties. She had never made her own bed,
or dusted the furniture; and as to getting up a dinner, she knew even
less than a squaw. She is now vainly seeking to acquire, within a few
months, those branches of domestic knowledge which she has been a whole
life neglecting and despising. She hated work: it was not genteel. Yet
she is eagerly plunging into marriage with the first man who has offered
himself, foolish enough, no doubt, to suppose that in her new position
she will have even less to look after. Formerly, she did nothing: now,
she expects to do even less.
"But what," continued Miss Effie, "is this poor creature to do, if death
or poverty or vice should overtake her husband, and she should be thrown
on her own slender resources? She is driven, to seek employment of some
kind,--to attend in a shop, (for somehow that is considered rather more
genteel than, most other occupations,) or to sew, or to fold books, or
do something else. But she knows nothing of these several arts; and
employers want skilled labor, not novices. She once boasted that she had
never been obliged to work, and now she realizes how much such absurd
boasting is worth. What then? Why, greater privation and suffering,
because of her total unfitness for any station in which she might
otherwise, obtain a living,--the extremity of this destitution being
sometimes such that she is driven to the last shame to which female
virtue can be made to submit."
"You say, Miss Effie, that these foolish lessons are taught by the
mothers; but do the fathers inculcate no wiser ones? Have _they_ nothing
to say as to the proper training of their daughters?" I inquired, deeply
interested in all she said. She knew a great deal more than I did. And
why should she not know more? Was she not full two years older?
"The fathers do, in many cases, teach better lessons than these; but
their good effects are too commonly neutralized by the persistent vanity
and pride of the mothers. Even the fathers are too neglectful of the
future welfare of their daughters. The sons are suitably cared for,
because of the generally accepted understanding that every man must
support himself. They are therefore trained to a profession, or to some
useful branch of business. But the daughters are expected to be
supported by their future husbands, hence are taught to wait and do
nothing until the husbands come along. If these conveniences should
offer within a reasonable time, and do well and prosper, the result is
agreeable enough. But no sort of provision is made for the husband's not
showing himself, or, if he does, for his subsequent loss by death, or
for his turning out either unfortunate or a vagabond. Even the
daughter's natural gifts, often very brilliant ones, are left
uncultivated. If she has a talent for music, she receives only a
superficial knowledge of the piano, instead of such an education as
would qualify her to teach. No one expects her to work, it is true; but
why not fit her for it, nevertheless? Another develops a talent for
nursing, the rare and priceless qualification of being efficient in the
sick-room. Why not cultivate this talent, and enlarge its value by the
study of medicine? The parents are rich enough to give to these talents
the fullest development. They do so with those of their sons; why refuse
in the case of their daughters? Our sex renders us comparatively
helpless, excluding us from many avenues to profitable employment where
we should be at all times welcome, if the unaccountable pride of parents
did not shut us out by refusing to have us so taught that we could enter
them. The prejudice against female labor begins with parents; and the
unreflecting vanity and rashness of youth give it a fatal hold on us. My
parents have never entertained it. They have taught us that there is
more to be proud of in being dependent solely on our own exertions than
in living idle lives on either their means or those of any husband who
may happen to have enough of his own."
"It is very odd, Miss Effie," I replied, "for you to entertain these
opinions, they are so different from those of rich people; and it is
very encouraging to me to hear you express them. But I should have
expected nothing less noble from you, you are so good and generous."
"Why, Lizzie, what do you mean?" she exclaimed. "It is not goodness, but
merely common sense. What brought me here to be a pupil in this school?
Not the desire to do good to others, but to improve myself,--a little
selfishness, after all."
"But," I inquired, "will this unnatural prejudice against the
respectability of female labor ever die out? You know that I am to be a
sewing-girl, not from choice, like you, but from necessity. You learn
the use of a machine only as a prop to lean upon in a very remote
contingency; I, to make it the staff for all my future life. You will
continue to be a lady,--indeed, Miss Effie, you never can be anything
else,--but I shall be only a sewing-girl. The prejudice will never
attach to you, but it will always cling to me. How cruel it seems that
the world should consider as ladies all who can afford to be idle, and
all working-women as belonging to a lower class, because God compels
them to labor for the life He has given them!"
"Dear Lizzie," she exclaimed, in tones so modulated to extreme softness
as to show that her feelings had been deeply touched both by the matter
and the manner of my inquiry, "you must banish all such thoughts from
your mind. For His own wise purposes, God has placed you in a position
in which you have a mission of some kind to fulfil. That position is an
honorable one, because it requires you to labor, and it is none the less
honorable because others are not required to do so. They also have their
several missions, which we cannot understand. If it be regarded as mean
for women to work, it is in the pride of man that so false a standard of
respectability has been set up, not in the word or wisdom of God. To
which shall we pay the most respect? The former, we know, brings
constant bitterness; the latter, we know equally well, is unchangeably
good. As it is our duty to submit to it here, so, through the Saviour,
is it our only trust hereafter. It is not labor that degrades us, but
temper, behavior, character. If all these be vicious, can mere money or
exemption from labor make them respectable? You know it cannot.
"You," she continued, in a tone so impressive, that, even amid the
clatter of twenty machines around me, not a word was lost,--"you may be
sure that this prejudice against women working for their own support
will never die out. It is one of those excrescences of the human mind
that cannot be extirpated. It is a distortion of the reasoning faculty
itself, unworthy of a sensible person, and is generally exhibited only
by those who, while boasting of exemption for themselves, have really
little or nothing else to boast of. It is the infirmity of small minds,
not a peculiarity of great ones. Prejudices are like household vermin,
and the human mind is like the traps we set for them. They get in with
the greatest facility, but find it impossible to get out. Beware of
entertaining them yourself, Lizzie. Shun everything like repining at
what you call your position as a sewing-girl. Take care of your
conscience, for it will be your crown. Labor for contented thoughts and
aspirations, for they will bring you rest. Your heart can be made happy
in itself, if you so choose, and your best happiness will always be
found within your own bosom."
"Do not misunderstand me, Miss Effie," I replied; "I was not repining,
but merely asking an explanation. My mother has sought to teach me not
only contentment, but thankfulness for for my condition."
"Indeed," she responded, "both you and I have abundant cause for
thankfulness to God for the multitude of mercies He is extending to us.
You know how this poor girl behind us, Lucy Anderson, is situated,"
raising her hand and pointing over her shoulder toward a thin, pale girl
of seventeen, who was working a machine.
"I do not know her history," I answered.
"Well," said Miss Effie, "that girl's mother was a washerwoman." She did
the heavy washing for a very rich man's family. They put her into an
open shed, on a cold, damp pavement. This work she had been doing for
them for several years, in the same bleak place, and in all weathers.
While warm and comfortable herself, the pampered mistress of the family
gave no thought to the dangerous exposure to which she subjected this
slave of the washtub. Thus working all day, in thin shoes, on damp
bricks, and while a penetrating easterly rain was falling, the poor
woman was next morning laid up with the worst form of rheumatism.
Medicine and nursing were of no avail. She became bedridden,--the
disease attacked all the joints of her frame, ossification succeeded,
and in the end she was unable to move either her body or limbs. Every
joint was stiff and rigid. The vital organs alone were spared. For
twelve years she has been in that condition,--she is so now,--my mother
saw her only yesterday. Can you imagine anything more terrible? Poor,
dependent on her daily earnings, with young children around her, and a
widow, only think of her agonies of mind and body! Yet, among the vital
powers still left to this afflicted woman, was the power to approach the
Throne of Grace in prayer so acceptable that the answer was that peace
which passeth all understanding. The body had been disabled; but the
mind had been quickened to a new and saving activity, she had drawn
nearer to God."
What could I do but listen in mute attention to this heart-awakening
recital? I looked round at Lucy Anderson in lively sympathy with what I
had heard. How little did her appearance give token of the deep domestic
grief that must have settled upon her young heart! How deceptive is the
human countenance! Though pale and fragile, yet her face sparkled with
cheerfulness.
Miss Effie went on with her story; she was mistress of the art of
conversation; and conversation is sometimes a serious matter; for there
are persons with whom an hour's talk would weaken one more than a day's
fasting, but not so with Miss Effie. She resumed by saying,
"Would you believe that the rich family in whose service this poor
washerwoman destroyed her health have never called, nor even sent, to
know how she was getting on? When she first failed to take her usual
two-days' stand at the washtub, they inquired the reason of her absence,
but there all concern ended. They sought out a new drudge; the gap was
filled to their liking, and the world moved on as gayly as aforetime.
They gave up no personal ease or comfort that they might see or minister
to the suffering woman ; they denied themselves no luxury for her sake.
Yet the money they spent in giving a single party would have kept this
family for a twelvemonth. The cost of their ostentatious greenhouse
would have paid for a nurse, and educated the two orphan boys until able
to go to trades. They had seen these twin boys tied to the washtub in
their own bleak shed, that the mother might pursue her labor without
interruption; yet as they gave no thought to the widow, so the orphans
never intruded on their recreations. Now, Lizzie, such people are
unprofitable servants in the sight of God. And if the ostrich were to
strip off their feathers, the silkworm their dresses, the kid their
gloves, and the marten demand his furs, what would be their state in the
sight of man? Bare unto nakedness! This unlawful love for lawful things
is one of the besetting snares of the great enemy of souls."
If I had ever been addicted to repining, or had had no lessons to teach
me how wrong the habit was, here was a new one to induce contentment.
But I had been preserved from all such temptations. The strong good
sense displayed by Miss Logan in our frequent conversations not only
informed my understanding on a variety of subjects, but gave my thoughts
a new turn, and powerfully encouraged me to perseverance. She infused
into me new life and cheerfulness. Such women are the jewels of society.
Their strong minds, regulated by a judicious education at the hands of
sensible parents, become brilliant as well as trustworthy guides to all
who may be fortunate enough to come within the circle which they
illuminate. It is such women that have been, and must continue to be,
the mothers of great men. Mind must be transmissible by inheritance, and
chiefly from the mother; else the histories of statesmen, heroes, and
distinguished men in the various walks of life, would not so uniformly
record the virtues of the women from whose maternal teachings their
eminence was to be traced.
The company of sewing-girls collected together in this school-room was
of course a very miscellaneous one. The faces were changing almost
daily, some by expiration of their apprenticeship, and some by being
sent away as troublesome, incompetent, or vicious. All who left us had
their places immediately filled from a list of candidates which the
teacher had in a book, so that, while one throng of learners was
departing, another was entering. If one could have gone into the
domestic history of all the girls who came and went even during my short
stay, he would have found some experiences to surpass anything that has
ever occurred to me. I do not know how it happened, but most of these
girls were quite desirous of making my acquaintance, and of their own
motion became extremely sociable. I was sociable in return, from an
instinct of my nature. I never lost anything by thus meeting them
halfway in the endeavor to be polite and affable, but on the contrary
learned much, gained much, and secured invaluable friends. Nor did I
ever repel the amicable approaches even of the most humble, as I very
early discovered that none were so ignorant as not to be able to
communicate some little item of knowledge to which I had been a
stranger.
There was a lady among these pupils who was in many respects very
different from all the others. I think her age must have been at least
thirty-five. I did not ask if it were so; and as she never mentioned it
herself, that circumstance was hint enough for me to remain silent. I
never could understand why so many women are so amusingly anxious to
conceal their age, sometimes becoming quite affronted when even a
conjecture is hazarded on the subject. This lady was unmarried; perhaps
that may have been one reason for her unwillingness to speak of her age.
But was not I unmarried, and what repugnance have I ever felt to avowing
mine?
However, Miss Hawley was extremely sociable with me, though certainly
old enough to be my mother, and made me the depositary of many incidents
in her life. She was the eldest of three sisters, all orphans, all
unmarried, all dependent on themselves for a living, and all, at one
time, so absurdly proud, that, in the struggle to keep up appearances,
and conceal from their acquaintances the fact that they were doing this
or that thing for a maintenance, they subjected themselves to privations
which embarrassed much of their efforts, while they failed to secure the
concealment they sought. Though women of undoubted sense and excellent
education, yet they acted as foolishly as the ostrich, which, when
hunted to cover, thrusts his head into a bush, and is weak enough to
think that his whole body is concealed, when it stands out not only a
target, but a fixed one, for the hunter's rifle. So these women took it
for granted, that, if they ran to the cover of a chamber from which all
visitors should be excluded, their acquaintances would be ignorant of
how they occupied their time, or by what means they lived.
Yet they could not fail to be aware that everybody who knew anything of
them knew their history also,--that it was notorious that their father,
a merchant, had died not worth a cent, and that they had been compelled
to abandon the fine house in which he had kept up a style so expensive
as greatly to increase the hardship of their subsequent destitution.
Like a thousand others, he had lived up to the limit of his income. No
doubt, all of them might have been well married, but for the lavish
habits as to fashion and expenditure in which they indulged themselves.
These might be afforded by their father so long as his annual gains
continued large. But the many worthy young men who visited and admired
them refused to entertain the idea of marriage with girls whose mere
personal outfit cost a sum equal to the year's salary of a first-class
clerk, or the annual profits of one who had just commenced business for
himself. They held that the girl whose habits were so expensive should
bring with her a fortune large enough to support them, or remain as she
was, taking the sure consequences on her own shoulders, and not throwing
them on theirs. They were in fact afraid of girls who manifestly had no
prudence, no economy, and who appeared to be wholly unconscious that the
only admiration worth securing is that of the good and wise.
But the vices of the old mode of living clung to them in their new and
humbler abode, keeping them slaves to a new set of appearances. They had
never done any work of consequence, hardly their own sewing. What was
even worse, they had been brought up to consider work, for a lady,
disgraceful. Women might work, but not ladies; or when the latter
undertook it, they ceased to be such, and certainly so, if working for a
living. No pride could have been more tyrannous or absurd than this.
For a whole year after their father's death, it ruled them with despotic
supremacy. They prided themselves on doing nothing, and subsisted on the
sale of trinkets, jewelry, and books, which they had acquired in palmier
days. The circle of acquaintances for whose good opinion they submitted
to these humiliating sacrifices knew all the while that the life they
were living was a sham; but they themselves seemed wholly unconscious of
it, as well as of the light in which it was regarded by those about
them.
Why should such a woman come to a school like this, where a willingness
to work was a condition of admission, and that work to be done in
public? What could bring about so strange a reversal of thought and
habit? One of her sisters had recently died, after a protracted illness,
during which her heart had been mercifully smitten with a conviction of
the hollowness and sinfulness of her previous life. Its idle, trifling,
aimless tendency had been set before her in all its emptiness. She saw
that she had been living without God, bound up in the love of temporal
things, and so effectually ensnared by worldly pride that her whole fear
had been of man, instead of her Creator. Thus in mercy called to
judgment, that grace, of whose saving efficacy we have the divine
assurance, brought repentance of sin, and led her to the Saviour, and,
abasing herself at his cross, the heavy burden was lifted from her
heart. Her condemnation of the frivolous lives that she and her sisters
had been leading was so earnest and impressive, that, aided by the
continual prayers of a truly contrite heart for pardon for herself and
awakened consciences for them, they also were brought to Christ. This
mighty transformation accomplished, her mission seemed to be fulfilled,
and she passed into the unseen world in peaceful assurance of
forgiveness and acceptance. Thus, though our lots are cast in places
seemingly diverse and barren, each has his own specific duty to perform,
some appointed mission to fulfil, though exactly what it is may not be
apparent to us. As fellow-workers in the world, if we make it our chief
study to do the Master's will, that which is thus required of us will in
His own time so unfold itself to our spiritual understanding that we
cannot be deceived respecting it.
I am satisfied that between the functions of life, as developed in the
material and moral world, there is an analogy as instructive as it is
beautiful. It overcomes external circumstances by the power of an
invisible law. Philosophers have discovered that the human body
maintains a uniform temperature, whether it shiver in the snow-hut of
the Esquimaux, or drip with perspiration in the cane-fields of the
tropics. But let life depart, and it falls to that of the surrounding
objects. Decay immediately begins. So, when religious vitality is
maintained in the heart, the corrupting influences of the world remain
inoperative. This vitality having been infused into the heart of Miss
Hawley, the fervor of her spirit rose to a higher temperature than that
of all surrounding objects. She could no longer assimilate with them.
If her strong personal pride, her obsequious deference to appearances
and the opinion of the world, were henceforth overcome or kept in
subjection, it was only as she took up the cross in obedience to the
convictions of duty. She told me it was the hardest trial of her life to
come to this public school; it was the greatest cross to her natural
affections she had ever experienced. But the bitterness of the cup had
now measurably passed away from her. Strength came with animating
promptitude as the answer to prayer. Her spiritual life became more
healthy and vigorous as her approaches to the mercy-seat were humble and
frequent. Cheerfulness became an ever-present attendant. She had put all
pride behind her, and because of her abasement had risen above the
world. Henceforth she was to support herself by her own acknowledged
labor. She had been so changed by the grace of God in her heart, that
she regarded with astonishment the secret insincerities she had
formerly been guilty of in seeking to conceal the extent of the
necessity to which she had been reduced. I have never seen nor heard of
her since I left the school; but the remembrance of her subdued and
patient spirit cannot soon be effaced.
How true it is, as some one has beautifully said, that infinite toil
would not enable us to sweep away a mist, but that by ascending a little
we may often look over it altogether,--and that so it is with our moral
improvement! We wrestle fiercely with vicious habits that would have no
hold on us, if we ascended to a higher moral atmosphere. Another has
declared that at five years of age the father begins to rub the mother
out of his child; that at ten the schoolmaster rubs out the father; that
at twenty a trade or a profession rubs out the schoolmaster; that at
twenty-five the world rubs out all its predecessors, and gives a new
education, till we are old enough and wise enough to take religion and
common sense for our pastors, when we employ the rest of our lives in
unlearning what we have previously learned.
The contrast between the two ladies with whom I was thus fortunate
enough to become intimately acquainted was so remarkable that it could
not fail to make an impression on me. It was evident that education, the
training which each had received at the parental fireside, had led them
into widely divergent paths of thought and conduct. Both were possessed
of sterling good sense; both had lived in affluence; both, so far as
mere school-learning was concerned, had been thoroughly educated. Had
Miss Logan received the same training as Miss Hawley, it may be fairly
assumed that she would have fallen a victim to the same pride and folly;
and had the latter been trained at home as carefully and as sensibly as
the former, who can doubt, that, with the same substratum of good sense,
she would have proved as great a comfort to herself and as shining an
example to others? I am sure it was a lesson to me, convincing me anew,
that, where faith and works do not go together, both are wanting, and
that, if they once part company, each of them must die.
When, at the termination of my brief apprenticeship, the time came for
me to leave the school and to part from Miss Effie,--she to go to her
elegant home, I to the little old brick house in the fields, and with
prospects so entirely different from hers,--I am sure it was the hardest
trial I had yet been called upon to bear. I should never see her again.
I had no longings for the life she led; for as yet I had harbored no
other thought than that of perfect contentment with my own. But her
society was so delightful, the tone of her mind so lofty, her
condescension so grateful, her whole manners so captivating, that I
looked upon her as my guide, philosopher, and friend, and I cried
bitterly when I left her.