for company; who have tossed, and turned, and writhed, and counted
the lagging hours, and prayed even for the briefest respite in
forgetfulness; who have mercifully slept at last, and our dead have
come back to us, with their smiles and their love, strong enough to
cover any shortcomings of ours. We who have awoke in the morning, with
a sharp shuddering cry at the awful reality, and closed our eyes again
wearily upon the sweet morning light, and the song of birds, and the
scent of flowers, every one of which have given us pangs keener than
death; we who have risen, and with a dead, dull weight at the heart,
moved about mechanically like one walking in sleep, through the gray,
colorless treadmill routine of to-day, a wonder to ourselves;--ah!
with what infinite love and pity do we look upon the blithe waking of
the little child! As it leaps trustfully into our arms, with its
morning caress and its soft cheek to our face, how hard it is
sometimes to keep the eyes from overflowing with the pent-up pain of
the slow years. Oh, the sweet beguilement of that caress! The
trustful, lisping question, which shames us out of our tears, for that
which tears may never bring back. The unconscious bits of wisdom
stammeringly voiced, and left disjointed, and half expressed, in favor
of some childish quip or prank of the moment, which makes us doubt
whether we have most sage or most baby before us. The saucy little
challenge "to play!"
_We_ play? We swallow a great sob and get obediently down on the
carpet to "build block-houses;" and when the little one laughs, as the
tall structure reels, and topples, and finally falls over, and
merrily stands there, showing the little white teeth, clapping hands,
and peeping into our faces, and says reproachfully, "What are you
thinking about? Why don't _you_ laugh?"--we thank God she has so long
a time before she finds out that grieving "_why_." We thank God that
deep and keen as the child is at one moment, she is so ridiculously
butter-fly-ish the next.
And then, at its bidding, we set up the chairs and tables in the
baby-house, and locate the numerous families of dolls, in cradles and
beds, and in parlors; and answer the mimic questions about how "live
people" keep house; and play "doctor," and play "nurse," and "play
have them die," and see them twitched out of bed five minutes after
they have departed this life, to be dressed for a party. And in spite
of ourselves, we laugh at the absurd whimsicalities carried out with
such adult earnestness and gravity.
And yet there are people in the world who don't see a child's mission
in a household; who look upon it as a doll to be dressed, or an animal
to be fed, or a nuisance to be kept out of sight as much as possible.
Heaven bless us, when no other voice or touch or presence can be
borne, a child is often the unconscious Saviour who whispers to the
troubled elements of the soul, "Peace, be still!"
* * * * *
Has it ever happened to you that life's contrasts were so sharply
presented, that you were smitten with shamed pain at being housed,
and clad, and fed, and comfortable, as if you had been guilty of a
great wrong, or injustice, that should be immediately wiped out.
Soon after a deep fall of snow, when fleet horses were flying in all
directions to the tune of merry bells, and the sharp, crisp air was
like wine to the fur-robed riders, I saw a little creature, muffled to
the tip of her pretty nose by the careful hand of love, led down the
steps of a nice house, to a little gaily-painted sleigh, with
cushioned seat, and pretty bells, and soft, warm wrappings, to take
her first ride in the new present "Santa-Claus" had brought her. Three
grown persons were in waiting, to see that she was lifted gently in,
and tucked up, and her hands and feet comfortably bestowed, before
starting on this, her first sleigh-ride. Her bright eyes sparkled with
delight, her voice was merrier than the bells, and the bright rose of
her cheek told of warmth and happiness and plenty. Just three years
old: and as far as _she_ had ever known, _life was all just like
that_. Just at that minute came along another little creature, also
just three years old, and stood by the side of the gaily-painted
little sleigh, looking at its laughing little occupant. _Her_ face was
blue and pinched. A ragged handkerchief was tied over her tangled
brown hair. _Her_ thin cotton dress scarce covered the little purple
knees. _Her_ blue, small fingers held the inevitable beggar's basket,
and the shawl for which the cold wind was contending, left her little
breast and shoulders quite bare. And there she stood, and gazed at
her happier little sister. Merciful Heaven! the horrible contrast, the
terrible mystery of it! Only three years of her sad life gone! So
_much_ of this to endure! and so much still more dreadful that "three
years" could not _yet_ dream of. What had the one child more than the
other done, that each should stand--one with steady, one with
tottering feet--on either side of that dreadful gulf, eying one
another in that guileless, silent way, more terrible to witness than
pen of mine can ever tell?
Well, the little painted sleigh slid away with its merry freight, and
"three years old" stood still and looked after it. She could not
comprehend, had she been told, the sad thoughts that sent down the
shower of pennies from the window above on her little beggar's basket.
But she looked up and said, timidly, "Thank you," with a shy, little
happy smile, as she scrambled them up out of the snow at her feet.
Poor, little baby!--for she was nothing more. And there are hundreds
just like her in New York. There's the pity of it. Your _men_ beggars
don't fret me, unless crippled. If a _woman_ can earn an honest living
in the face of so many society and custom-dragons, surely a _man_
ought, or starve. But these babies--oh! it is dreadful. And the more
pitiful you are to them, the harder their lot is; since the more
_substantial_ pity they excite, the more profitable they become to the
callous wretches who live by it.
And after all, these two little "three years old" may yet change
places. God knows. Often I meet, in my walks, a lady elegantly
apparelled--sometimes in her own carriage, sometimes walking--who
once stood shivering at area doors, like that little owner of the
beggar's basket--_now_ an honored and happy wife and mother. They
don't _all_ go down--down--as inexorable time grinds on. Still the
exceptions are so rare, unless they are snatched away by the
sheltering arms of death, or love, before pollution becomes indelible,
that they are easily counted.
Back comes the gay little sleigh and the rosy "three years old!" Now
she is taken carefully into the house, and some warm milk prepared for
her, and slippers are warmed for her feet, and her face covered with
kisses; and playthings, which are legion, spread before her; and the
whole house is on its knees, listening to her prattle, and rejoicing
in her presence, that fills the house like the perfume of a sweet
flower, like the warm rays of the sun, like the song of a bird. And
the other? Read this from the daily paper: "Yesterday, a little
beggar-girl, three years old, was run over by the street-car,
at ---- street, while attempting to cross, and instantly killed." Better
so. One short pang, and all the suffering over.
* * * * *
Walking behind a father and his prattling child--a fairy little
girl--the other day, I heard a bit of human nature. "I mean to have a
tea-party," lisped the little thing; "a tea-party, papa." "Do you?"
said the father; "Well, whom shall you invite?" "I shan't ask anybody
who don't have tea at _their_ houses," replied the little woman.
"There's worldly wisdom," thought we, "in pantalettes. _So young and
so calculating!_" We smiled--who could help it?--at the little mite;
but we sighed, also. We would rather have heard those infantile lips
say: "I shall ask everybody who _don't_ have tea at their
houses,"--not as a mocking-bird or parrot would say it, as a lesson
taught, but because it was the out-gushing of a warm little unspoiled
heart. That child but echoed, probably, what she had listened to
unobserved, from mamma's lips, on the eve of some party or dinner. The
child who sits playing with its doll, be it remembered, oh mothers, is
not always deaf, dumb, and blind to what is passing around, though it
may seem so. The seed dropped carelessly then, may take root, and
develop into a tree, under whose withering influence your every
earthly hope shall perish.
* * * * *
Sometimes one thinks what a pity children should ever grow up. The
other day, passing through an entry of one of our public buildings, I
saw two little boys, of the ages of six and eight, with their arms
about each other's neck, exchanging kiss after kiss. It was such a
pretty sight, in that noisy den of business, that one could but stop
to look. The younger of the children, noticing this, looked up with
such a heaven of love in his face, and said, in explanation, "_he is
my brother_!" Pity they should ever grow up, thought we, as we passed
along. Pity that the world, with its clashing interests of business,
love, and politics, should ever come between them. Pity that they
should ever coldly exchange finger-tips, or, more wretched still, not
even exchange glances. Pity that one should sorrow, and grieve, and
hunger, and thirst, and yearn for sympathy, while the other should
sleep, and eat, and drink, unmindful of his fate. Pity that one with
meek-folded hands should pass into the land of silence, and no tear of
repentance and affection fall upon his marble face from the eyes of
his "brother." Such things have been. That is why we thought, pity
they should ever grow up!--"_Heaven lies so near us in our infancy._"
_WOMEN AND THEIR DISCONTENTS._
A gentleman asked me the other day, "Why are the women of the present
day so discontented with their lot?" Now there was no denying the
fact, staring, as it does, from every page of "women's books," peeping
out under the flimsy veil of a jest in their conversation, or boldly
challenging your attention in some rasping sarcasm, according to the
taste or humor of the writer or speaker. "Men _can't_ be such devils
as these women seem to suppose," said a gentleman anxious for the
credit of his sex; "and women ought to be able to fulfill the duties
of wives and mothers without such constant complaint. Now my
grandmother"--Here I laid a finger on his lip. Do you know, said I,
that you have this very minute, to use a slang phrase--unladylike,
perhaps, but expressive--do you know that you have this very minute
"put your foot in it?" Do you know that if there is anything in the
world that makes a woman discontented and discouraged, it is to have
some piece of ossified female perfection, in the shape of a relative,
held up to her imitation by her husband--some woman, with chalk and
water in her veins, instead of blood, who is "good" merely because she
is _petrified_? Now, how would a man like his wife constantly to
remind him of the very superior manner in which her grandfather
conducted his business matters? how superior to his was his way of
book-keeping, and of managing his various clerks and subordinates? how
like clockwork he always arranged everything?--and suppose she says
this, too, at moments when her husband had done his very best to be
true to his duties. I wonder how long before he would exclaim, Oh!
bother your grandfather; he did business _his_ way, and I shall do my
business mine.
Now you see how I have lost patience, as well as what I was going to
say, by the vision of your grandmother, sir. What I was going to
remark when you interrupted me, was this: that, in my opinion, the
root of all this discontent is the prevailing physical inability of
women to face the inevitable cares and duties of married life. Added
to this, the want of magnanimity and _un_wisdom that men show, in
lifting the eyebrow of indifference, or ill-disguised vexation, when
the very fragility they fell in love with, staggers and falls under
the burdens of life. Now were these husbands about to possess a horse,
they would consider first whether they wanted a farm-horse or a fancy
horse--a working animal or an ornamental one. Having chosen the
latter, they would be very careful to choose a carriage of _light
weight_ for it to draw, and not finding one sufficiently light, would
be very apt to have one manufactured on purpose, rather than run the
risk of overtasking the animal's powers. They would treat him
carefully, feed him well, see that he rested sufficiently when weary;
pat him, coax him, instead of lashing and goading him, when, for some
unknown reason, his steps seemed to falter. Now is a man's wife of
less consequence than his horse? Is it less necessary he should stop
to consider, before he marries her, _why_ he wants her? and having
settled that question, make his choice accordingly, after having also
considered what means are at his disposal to carry out his intentions
as to their mutual comfort? In old times, many men married only to get
their butter churned, their cheese made, their clothes mended, and
their meals prepared, their wives raising pigs and children in the
intervals. By this humanitarian process, all that was left of a wife
at thirty, was a horn-comb, inserted in six hairs, on the top of her
head, and a figure resembling the letter _C_. The men of the present
day seemed to have learned no better how to _husband_ their wives.
Their eye is caught by a pretty pink-and-white creature, who steps
about gracefully and gleefully in her father's comfortable,
well-appointed house. They never consider _has she good health_? _Will
she make a healthy Mother?_ nor the good sense to turn resolutely
away, and say, it would be cruelty in me to take her feeble prettiness
from that warmly lined nest, to a home in the performance of whose
duties she would inevitably break down. Nor do they say, when they
have made the irretrievable mistake of marrying her, and find this
weary, discouraged little woman crying over it, "Poor child, I ought
to have foreseen all this, but as I didn't, I must love and comfort
you all the more." Not a bit of it. The more they have been to blame,
the more they blame _her_, and point with exacting finger to that
horrid, stereotyped piece of perfection, "_my_ grandmother." Then they
prate to her about patience--"Job's patience." Now if there _is_ a
proverb that needs re-vamping, it is "_The patience of Job_." In the
first place, Job _wasn't_ patient. Like all the rest of his sex, from
that day to the present, he could be heroic only for a little while at
a time. He _began_ bravely; but ended, as most of them do under
annoyance, by cursing and swearing. Patient as Job! Did Job ever try,
when he was hungry, to eat shad with a frisky baby in his lap? Did Job
ever, after nursing one all night, and upon taking his seat at the
breakfast-table the morning after, pour out coffee for six people, and
second cups after that, before he had a chance to take a mouthful
himself? Pshaw! I've no patience with "Job's patience." It is of no
use to multiply instances; but there's not a faithful house-mother in
the land who does not out-distance him in the sight of men and angels,
every hour in the twenty-four.
Think of the case of our farmers' wives. Now, just consider it a
little. Next to being a minister's wife, I think I should dread being
the wife of a farmer. Sometimes, indeed, the terms are synonymous.
Raising children and chickens, _ad infinitum_; making butter, cheese,
bread, and the national and omnipresent pie; cutting, making and
mending the clothes for a whole household, not to speak of doing
their washing and ironing; taking care of the pigs and the vegetable
garden; making winter-apple sauce by the barrel, and pickling myriads
of cucumbers; drying fruits and herbs; putting all the twins through
the measles, whooping-cough, mumps, scarlet-fever and chicken-pox;
besides keeping a perpetual river of hot grease on the kitchen table,
in which is to float potatoes, carrots, onions and turnips for the
ravenous maws of the "farm-hands."
No wonder that the poor things look harassed, jaded and toil-worn,
long before they arrive at middle age. No wonder that a life so hard
and angular, should obliterate all the graces of femininity--when no
margin is left, year after year, for those little refinements which a
woman under any pressure of circumstances, naturally and rightly
desires, and lacking which, she is inevitably unhappy and coarsened.
Now your farmer is a round, stalwart, comfortable animal. There is no
baby wailing at _his_ pantaloons while he ploughs or makes fences.
_He_ lies down under the nearest tree and rests, or sleeps, when he
can no longer work with profit. He comes in to his dinner with the
appetite of a hyena, and the digestion of a rhinoceros, and goes forth
again to the hayfield till called home to supper. _There_ is his wife,
and too often with the same frowsy head with which she rose in the
morning, darting hither and thither for whatever is wanted, or helping
the hungry, children or the farm-hands. After the supper is finished
come the dish-washing, and milking, and the thought for to-morrow's
breakfast; and then perhaps all night she sleeps with one eye open for
a baby or a sick child, and rises again to pursue the same unrelieved,
treadmill, wearing round, the next day.
Now the uppermost idea in the minds of too many farmers is, _how to
get the greatest possible amount of work out of their wives_. A poorer
policy than this can scarcely be. They treat their cattle better. If
they are about to be presented with a fine calf or colt, they take
pains that the prospective mother is well cared for, both before and
after the event. The farmer who would not do this would be considered
extremely short-sighted. Their cattle are not allowed to be
overworked, or underfed, or abused in any way. Now, pray, is not a
farmer's wife as valuable an animal as a cow, or a horse, even looking
at the practical side of it? Is it not as important to have a sound,
healthy mother of children, as to have a healthy mare or cow? You may
say that no woman should marry a farmer, who does not _expect to
work_. I say, in reply, that woman was never intended to split or
carry wood, or to carry heavy pails or buckets of water. And yet how
many farmers can we count who ever think of the women of the house, in
regard to the distance or proximity of the wood or the water to the
kitchen? while too many grudge to these overworked women that
labor-saving apparatus in every department of their work, which would
prolong their lives years, to a family of growing children. Then, to
grudge such an industrious wife decent raiment, wherewith to make
herself and her children neat and comfortable, is a shame. To oblige
_such_ a woman to plead like a beggar for the dollar she has earned a
thousand times over _in any family but his own_, should make him
blush. Look at our farmers' wives all over the land, and see if, with
rare exceptions, their toil-worn, harassed faces do not indorse my
statement. Every mother should have time to _talk_ with her
children--to acquaint herself with their souls as well as their
bodies--to do something besides wash their faces and clothes. And how
are these hurried, weary women to find it? Of what avail is it to
those children who _come up_, but who are not _brought up_, that
another meadow, or another barn, is added to the family inheritance,
when the grass waves over the mother's tombstone before their
childhood and youth is past? or when they can remember her only as a
fretted, querulous, care-burdened, over-tasked creature, who was
always jostling them out of the way to catch up some burden which she
dare not drop, though she drop by the way herself.
* * * * *
Sunday, "the Day of Rest," so called, to many mothers of families, is
the most toilsome day of the whole week. Children, too young to go to
church, must of course be cared for at home; domestics on that day, of
all others, expect their liberty. The father of the family, also, in
many cases, thinks it hard if, after a week's labor, he too cannot
roam _without_ his family; never remembering that his wife, for the
same reason, needs rest equally with himself, instead of shouldering
on that day a double burden. Weary with family cares, she remembers
the good word of cheer to which she has in days gone by listened from
some clergyman, not too library-read to remember that he was _human_.
The good, sympathetic word that sent her home strengthened for another
week's duties. The good word, which men think they can do without; but
which women, with the petty be-littling every day annoyances of their
monotonous life, long for, as does a tired child to lay its head on
its mother's breast. A mother may feel thus and yet have no desire to
evade the responsible duties of her office. Indeed, had she not often
her oratory in her own heart, she would sink discouraged oftener than
she does, lacking the human sympathy which is often withheld by those
upon whom she has the nearest claim for it. To such a woman it is not
a mere form to "go to church;" it is not to her a fashion exchange;
she _really_ desires the spiritual help she seeks. _You_ may find
nothing in the words that come to her like the cool hand on the
fevered brow. The psalm which is discord to your ear, may soothe her,
like a mother's murmured lullaby. The prayer, which to you is an
offence, brings her face to face with One who is touched by our
infirmities. If an "undevout astronomer is mad," it seems to me that
an undevout woman is still more so. Our insane asylums are full of
women, who, leaning on some human heart for love and sympathy, and
meeting only misappreciation, have gone there, past the Cross, where
alone they could have laid down burdens too heavy to bear unshared. A
great book is unwritten on this theme. When men become less gross and
unspiritual than they now are, they will see the great wrong of which
they are guilty, in their impatience of women's keenest sufferings
because they "are only mental."
* * * * *
Ladies, many of you attempt too much. I am convinced that there are
times in everybody's experience when there is so much to be done, that
the only way to do it is to sit down and do nothing. This sounds
paradoxical, but it is not. For instance: the overtasked mother of a
family, in moderate circumstances, who must be brains, hands, stomach
and feet for a dozen little children, and their father, who counts
full another dozen. Do the best she may, plan the wisest she may, her
work accumulates fearfully on her hands. One day's labor laps over on
the next, till she cannot sleep at night for fear she shall oversleep
in the morning. And though she works hard all day, and gives herself
no relaxation, she cannot see any result at the close, save that she
"hath done what she could." Of course you say, let her be satisfied
with that, and not worry about it. That is only another proof how easy
it is for some people to bear the troubles of _other_ people. Suppose
her nervous system has been strained to the utmost, so that every
step is a weariness, and every fresh and unexpected demand sets her
"all of a tremble," as women express it, what is the use of reasoning
then about not working? The more she can't work, the more she will try
to, till she drops in her tracks, unless, catching sight of her
prospective coffin, she stops in time. Now there are self-sacrificing
mothers who need somebody to say to them, "Stop! you have just to make
your choice now, between death and life. You have expended all the
strength you have on hand--and must lay in a new stock before any more
work can be done by you. So don't go near your kitchen; if your cook
goes to sleep in the sink on washing-day, let her; if your chambermaid
spends the most of her time on ironing-day with the grocer-boy in the
area, don't _you_ know anything about it. Get right into bed, and lie
there, just as a man would do if he didn't feel one quarter as bad as
you do; and ring every bell in the house, every five minutes, for
everything you want, or think you want; and my word for it, the world
will keep on going round just the same, as if you were spinning a
spasmodic tee-totum, as hens do, long after their heads have been cut
off. Yes--just lie there till you get rested; and they all find out,
by picking up the burdens you have dropped, what a load you have been
uncomplainingly shouldering. Yes--just lie there; and tell them to
bring you something nice to eat and drink--yes, _drink_; and forbid,
under dreadful penalties, anybody asking you what the family are to
have for dinner. Let them eat what they like, so that they don't
trouble you, and season it to their tastes; and here's hoping it will
do them good."