FOUR-FEET-UPON-A-FENDER.
It is the sisterly heart rather than the author's fancy that gives me
as a companion in this, the last of these "Familiar Talks," the
typical American house-mother.
Whatever the alleged subject discussed in former chapters--and each
has borne more or less directly upon the leading theme, old yet never
trite,--THE SECRET OF A HAPPY HOME,--I have had in heart and
imagination this thin, nervous, intense creature whom I seat beside
me. Her own hands have made her neat; the same hands and far more care
than ever goes to the care of herself make and keep her home neat and
comfortable.
The dying Queen of England gasped that after her death there would be
found stamped upon her heart the name of the Calais lost to her
kingdom in her reign. Our housewife carries her household forever
bound upon her heart of hearts. The word is the hall mark upon every
endeavor and achievement. It would be a poor recompense for a life of
patient toil to convince her that she has wrought needlessly; that the
same energy devoted to other objects would have made a nobler woman of
her and the world better and happier. Nor am I sure that in a majority
of instances this would be true. On the contrary, I hold religiously
to the belief that God had wise reasons for setting each one of us in
the socket in which she finds herself. "Be more careful," says an old
writer, "to please Him perfectly than to serve Him much." If there are
tasks which you, my sister, cannot demit without inconveniencing those
whose welfare is your especial care, take this as a sure proof that
the Father, in laying this work nearest to your hand--and not to that
of another--has called you to it as distinctly as He called Paul to
preach and Peter to glorify his Lord by the death he was to die.
In the talk we hold with our four feet upon the fender, the fire-glow
making other light unnecessary, I do not propose to enter upon the
favorite theme with some, of what you might have done had
circumstances been propitious to the assumption of what are rated as
more dignified duties. We will take your life as it is, and see what
the practice of the inward grace I shall designate can make of it.
You are inclined to be down-hearted upon anniversaries. You need not
tell me what I know so well of myself. Another year has gone, another
year has dawned, and you are in the same old rut of ordering and
cooking meals and clearing up after they have been eaten, sweeping,
dusting, making and mending clothes, washing, dressing and training
children, and the thousand and one nameless tasks that fritter away
strength, leaving nothing to show for the waste.
"God help us on the common days,
The level stretches white with dust!"
prays Margaret Sangster. You would cry out in the pain of
retrospection and anticipation, that all the days of the years of your
life are common days--"only that and nothing more."
If this be so, you need the Help none ever seek in vain more than
those to whom varied and exciting scenes are alloted.
The angel of death who had said upon entering the plague-stricken city
that he meant to kill ten thousand people, was accused on the way out
of having slain forty thousand.
"I kept my word," he answered. "I killed but ten thousand. Fear killed
the rest!"
If work slays thousands of American women, American worry slays her
tens of thousands. Work may bend the back and stiffen the joints. It
ploughs no furrows in brow and cheek; it does not hollow the eyes and
drag all the facial muscles downward. These are misdeeds of
worry--your familiar demon, and the curse of our sex everywhere. A
good man--who, by the way, had a pale, harassed-looking wife--once
told me that on each birthday and New Year's he retired to his study
and spent some time behind the locked door in making good resolutions
for the coming year.
"I may not keep them all," he said, ingenuously, "but the exercise of
forming them is edifying."
With the thought of his wan and worried wife in mind, I shocked him by
declining for my part to undertake such a big contract as resolutions
for a year, a month or a week. If I live to a good old age, I shall
owe the blessing in a great measure to the discovery, years ago, that
I am hired not by the job, but by the day. If you, dear friend, will
receive this truth into a good and honest heart, and believing, abide
in and live by it, you will find it the very elixir of life to your
spirit.
Come down from the pillar of observation. You might enact Simeon
Stylites there for twenty years to come and be none the wiser or
happier for the outlook. Refuse obstinately to take the big contract.
Let each morning and evening be a new and complete day. In childlike
simplicity live as if you were to have no to-morrow so far as worrying
as to its possible outcome goes. Make the best of to-day's _in_come.
Not one minute of to-morrow belongs to you. It is all God's. Thank him
that His hands hold it, and not your feeble, uncertain fingers.
Longfellow wrote nothing more elevating and helpful than his sonnet to
"To-morrow, the Mysterious Guest," who whispers to the boding human
soul:
"'Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest.'
And I make answer, 'I am satisfied.
I know not, ask not, what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide.'"
The new version of the New Testament, among other richly suggestive
readings, tells us that Martha was "_distracted_ with much serving,"
and that we are not to be "anxious for the morrow; for the morrow will
be anxious for itself." That is, it will bring its own proper load of
labor and of care, from which you have no right to borrow for to-day's
uses; which you cannot diminish by the same process.
George MacDonald puts this great principle aptly:
"You have a disagreeable duty to do at twelve o'clock. Do not blacken
nine, and ten and eleven with the color of twelve. Do the work of
each and reap your reward in peace."
One woman makes it her boast that she never sets bread for the morning
that she does not lie awake half the night wondering how it will "turn
out." She is so besotted in her ignorance as to think that the useless
folly proves her to be a person of exquisite sensibility, whereas it
testifies to lack of self-control, common sense and economical
instincts.
It was old John Newton who likened the appointed tasks and trials of
men to so many logs of wood, each lettered with the name of the day of
the week, and no single one of them too heavy to be borne by a mortal
of ordinary strength. If we will persist; he went on to say, in adding
Tuesday's stick to Monday's, and Wednesday's and Thursday's and
Friday's to that marked for Tuesday, "it is small wonder that we sink
beneath the burden."
Our Heavenly Father would have us carry one stick at a time, and for
this task has regulated our systems--mental, moral and spiritual. We,
like the presumptuous bunglers that we are, bind the sticks into
faggots, and then whine because our strength gives out.
The lesson of unlearning what we have practiced so long is not easy,
but it may be acquired. In your character as day laborer, sift
carefully each morning what belongs to to-day from that which may come
to-morrow. Be rigid with yourself in this adjustment. If you find the
weight beginning to tell upon bodily or mental muscles, ask your
reason, as well as your conscience, whether or not the strain may not
be from to-morrow's log.
For example: You have a servant who suits you, and whom you had hoped
you suited. She is quiet to-day, with a pre-occupied look in her eye
that may mean CHANGE.
As a housekeeper you will sustain me in the assertion that the portent
suffices to send the thermometer of your spirits down to "twenty
above," if not "ten below." Instead of brooding over the train of
discomforts that would attend upon the threatened exodus, bethink
yourself that since Norah cannot go without a week's warning you have
nothing to-day to do with possibilities of a morrow that is seven
times removed, _and put the thing out of your mind_.
In the italicized passage lies the secret of a tranquil soul. Learn by
degrees to acquire power over your own imagination. By-and-by you will
be surprised to find that you have formed a habit of reining it when
it would presage disaster. It is not getting ready for house-cleaning
to-day that terrifies you so much as the fancy that with the morrow
will begin the actual scrubbing and window-washing. You do not mind
ripping up an old gown while John reads to you under the evening lamp,
but you are positively cross in the reflection that you must sew all
of to-morrow with the seamstress who is to put the gown together
again.
I may have told elsewhere the anecdote of the pious negro who was
asked what he would do if the Lord were to order him to jump through a
stone wall.
"I'd gird up my lines (loins) an' go at it!" said Sam, stoutly. "Goin'
_at_ it is my business; puttin' me _troo_ is de Lord's!"
The story is good enough to be repeated and called to mind many times
during the day, which is absolutely all of life with which we have to
do.
Try the principle--and the practice--recommended in this simple
heart-to-heart talk, dear sister. The habit of living by the day,
rooted in faith in Him who guarantees grace for that time, and pledges
no more, is better than the philosopher's stone. The peace it brings
is deep-seated and abides, for it is founded upon a sure mercy and a
certain promise.
FAREWELL!