do with regard to the money which they "allow" them, and which one
would imagine was rightly theirs, by virtue of risking their lives
every Friday to become the mother of twins; by virtue of, when lying
faint and weak beside them, giving out orders for the comfort and
well-being of the family down-stairs before they are able to get
about; by virtue of _never_ being able for one moment, day or night,
sick or well, to drop, or to shake, off the responsibility which a
_good_ wife and mother must always feel, whether present or absent
from her family.
Oh! treat such a woman generously. Make up your mind what in justice
she should receive in the money way, and don't above all things, wait
for her to _ask_ you for it, and never, never be mean enough to charge
a woman of this kind "to spend it carefully."
I daresay you have done it, and _you_, and _you_; I daresay you are
real good fellows too, and _mean_ to do what is right. And I know you
"love" your wives--_i.e._, as _men_ love--thus--wounding a sensitive
spirit, without the least notion you are doing it; thus--charging the
tear that follows to a coming toothache or stomach-ache! Great
blundering creatures! I sometimes don't know whether to box your ears
or hug you. Because the very next minute you will say, or do, some
such perfectly lovely thing, that, woman fashion, I exclaim,
"Well--well;" but I wont tell you what I do say, because you'll hop
right off the stool of repentance, and go to your normal occupation of
crowing and bragging.
But, seriously, I do wish you would consider a little this same money
question, and when the time comes for payment, don't, as I tell you,
open your pocket-book, heave a deep sigh, as you spread a bill on your
knee, and give it a despairing glance of love, as you dump it in your
wife's outstretched hand. No, sir! follow Sary Gamp's advice: "Put it
on the shelf, and look the other way, and don't trouble yourself to
tell her to '_make it go as far as she can_,'" because she will
naturally do that, and there's where you are a fool again. I should
think you'd know by this time, that it will go so far _you_ wont see
it again your natural lifetime. And why shouldn't it? Does she require
to know whether you pay fifteen cents apiece for your cigars; whether
you couldn't buy a cheaper kind, and how many a day you smoke? Come
now, be honest--would _you_ like that?
As I have always declined all requests to lecture, or to speak in
public, I may be allowed to make a few remarks on the treatment of
those who do.
Can anybody tell me why reporters, in making mention of lady speakers,
always consider it to be necessary to report, fully and _firstly_, the
dresses worn by them? When John Jones or Senator Rouser frees his mind
in public, we are left in painful ignorance of the color and fit of
his pants, coat, necktie and vest--and worse still, the shape of his
boots. This seems to me a great omission. How can we possibly judge of
his oratorical powers, of the strength or weakness of his logic, or
of his fitness in any way to mount the platform, when these important
points are left unsolved to our feeble feminine imaginations? For one,
I respectfully request reporters to ease my mind on these subjects--to
tell me decidedly whether a dress, or a frock-coat, or a bob-tailed
jacket was worn by these masculine orators; whether their pants had a
stripe down the side, and whether the dress lapels of their coats were
faced with silk, or disappointed the anxious and inquiring eye of the
public by presenting only a broadcloth surface. I have looked in vain
for any satisfaction on these points.
I propose that the present staff of male reporters should be
remodelled, and that some enterprising journal should send to Paris
for the man-milliner Worth, in order that this necessary branch of
reportorial business be more minutely and correctly attended to.
Speaking of reporters, I was present the other night at a
female-suffrage meeting, where many distinguished men made eloquent
speeches in favor thereof. At the reporters' table sat two young lady
reporters side by side with the brethren of the same craft. Truly,
remarked I to my companion, it is very well to plead for women's
rights, but more delicious to me is the sight of those two girls
_taking them_! But, rejoined my cautious male friend, you see, Fanny,
a woman couldn't go to report a rat-fight, or a prize-fight, or a
dog-fight. _But_, replied I, just let the women go "marching on" as
they have begun, and there will soon _be_ no rat-fights, dog-fights,
or prize-fights to report. It will appear from this, that I believe in
the woman _that is to be_. I do--although she has as yet had to
struggle with both hands tied, and then had her ears boxed for not
doing more execution. Cut the string, gentlemen, and see what you
shall see! "Pooh! you are afraid" to knock that chip off our shoulder.
How strange it all seems to me, the more I ponder it, that men can't,
or don't, or wont see that woman's enlightenment is man's millennium.
"My wife don't understand so and so, and it's no use talking to
her."--"My wife will have just so many dresses, and don't care for
anything else."--"My wife wont look after my children, but leaves them
to nurses, she is so fond of pleasure." So it would seem that these
Adams and the "wife thou gavest to be with me," even now find their
respective and flowery Edens full of thorns, even _without_ that
serpent, female suffrage, whose slimy trail is so deprecated.
Put _this_ in the crown of your hats, gentlemen! _A fool of either sex
is the hardest animal to drive that ever required a bit. Better one
who jumps a fence now and then, than your sulky, stupid donkey, whose
rhinoceros back feels neither pat or goad._
_POVERTY AND INDEPENDENCE._
"I don't like those sewing-girls," remarked a friend to me. "Why don't
they go into some respectable family as chamber-maids, or nurses, or
cooks? If they are too proud to to do this, I have no pity for them."
Now there is just where the speaker and myself differ. _I_ pity them,
_because_ they are too proud to do this. Besides, I do not think it is
altogether because the name or position of "servant" is so obnoxious
to them. It is the confinement of their position. It is the duration
of their hours of labor--extending into the evening, and often till
late in the evening, week after week, to which they object; whereas
the working-girl in most other departments of service is released at
nightfall, and is her own mistress till another day of toil begins.
Now, answer me: Were you, and you, similarly placed, would you not
desire, even in the face of the drawbacks attending it, your
_evenings_ to yourself? I think so. It is true, from "these evenings
to themselves," have dated the perdition of many of this class. Still,
_young_ eyes will never see with old spectacles. Young blood will
never course so sluggishly that all work, and no respite, will be
accepted without nature's strong protest. "_One_ evening out in a
week," that is the general holiday for a house servant: would not
_your_ youth have rebelled, madam, at this? even though your remainder
evenings were passed in the bright parlor, with loving eyes resting
upon you, instead of the underground kitchen, rebelliously watching
the bell-wire? You must look at this subject with their eyes, instead
of your own; through their privations, instead of through your
privileges, if you would be just.
Said a merry matron, apologetically, to me, who had passed life's
meridian, "I never had any youth, and I am taking it now." That is
just it! _The heart demands its youth, and, some time or other, it
must and will have it._ God grant that to these poor girls, it may
come harmlessly,--innocently! But I, for one, can never wonder or
condemn, though I often deplore, that, driven at bay, like hunted
animals, and many of them with limited knowledge and intelligence,
they should snatch at the passing sunbeam, lest another should never
gild their lonesome path.
We need a wider charity for these girls; for all those on whom life
bears so hardly. We who are well-fed, well-clothed, well-educated, how
illy do we, with all these helps to virtue and goodness, perform our
part. Let us remember this in our hasty judgment of them, in our
disgust that they do not choose for themselves more wisely. Let us not
in church, or elsewhere, ask to be forgiven _our_ shortcomings, with
all these helps, when, if one less enlightened stumbles and falls by
the way, we "do not pity them,"--nay, more, because they have done so,
we refuse to help them again to their feet.
I have alluded, in a former article, to the cheap and comfortable
boarding-houses, as a refuge to the working-girl from the horrors of
their tenement-house home. I was descanting upon their advantages not
long since to one who has herself been through many of the most
distressing phases of the sewing-girl's life. She heard me silently,
and to my surprise, without enthusiasm, when I spoke of the wholesome
food, pure air, refreshing baths, free reading-room, and laundry.
"What?" asked I--"do you not consider this a blessed asylum for these
girls?"
With an emphasis which I cannot convey on paper, she said, as her eye
kindled, "Give me rather my poor room, even in the tenement-house,
where, if I had a grief, I could cry it out, with no eye but that of
my Maker to witness it. I could never be happy to go to my bed at
night in company with a dozen others, in ever so clean or spacious an
apartment, where there was no privacy. I had rather work ever so hard,
and _earn_ all I had, than to feel that I was in any measure a
recipient of charity,--that I _was in an Institution_, and labelled as
an inmate when I passed in and out."
Now there are those who, reading this, will only express disgust. I
confess, although it surprised me, that I have a strong sympathy with
the self-respect which prompted this frank avowal; and, excellent as
is the embryo Institution above alluded to, I yet hope that as its
means increase each inmate may have an apartment to herself, be it
ever so small, that the poor heart which "knoweth its own bitterness"
may not be "intermeddled with" by any stranger.
* * * * *
Never apply the word "tomboy" to a girl who is taking healthy and
innocent exercise. Are there not mincing misses enough about us, who
pervert girlhood by adult nonsense, till the whole head is sick, and
the whole heart is faint? Better, a thousandfold, be "tomboys" than
such _things_ as these. "Tomboys" have lungs and chests and rosy
cheeks, and grow up to be healthy mothers of healthy children.
_Doctors_ may not like them, but common-sense and husbands do; though,
truth to say, these terms are not always synonymous.
_THE HISTORY OF OUR LATE WAR._
Many able works have already appeared on this subject, and many more
will doubtless follow. But _my_ History of the War is yet to be
written; not indeed _by_ me, but _for_ me. A history which shall
record, not the deeds of our Commanders and Generals, noble and great
as they were, because these will scarcely fail of historical record
and prominence; but _my_ history shall preserve for the descendants of
those who fought for our flag, the noble deeds of our _privates_, who
shared the danger but missed the glory. Scattered far and wide in our
remote villages--hidden away amid our mountains--struggling for daily
bread in our swarming cities, are these unrecognized heroes.
Travelling through our land, one meets them everywhere; but only as
accident, or chance, leads to conversation with them, does the plain
man by your side become transfigured in your eyes, till you feel like
uncovering your head in his presence, as when one stands upon holy
ground. Not only because they were brave upon the battle-field, but
for their sublime self-abnegation under circumstances when the best of
us might be forgiven our selfishness; in the tortures of the ambulance
and hospital--quivering through the laggard hours, that might or
might not bring peace and rest and health. Oh! what a book might be
written upon the noble unselfishness _there_ displayed; not only
towards those who fought _for_ our flag, but _against_ it. The coveted
drop of water, handed by one dying man to another, whose sufferings
seemed the greater. The simple request to the physician to pass _his_
wounds by, till those of another, whose existence was unknown to him a
moment before, should have been alleviated. Who shall embalm us these?
Last summer, when I was away in the country, I was accustomed to row
every evening at sunset on a lovely lake near by. The boatman who went
with me was a sunburnt, pleasant-faced young man, whose stroke at the
oar it was poetry to see. He made no conversation unless addressed,
save occasionally to little Bright-Eyes, who sometimes accompanied me.
One evening, as the sun set gloriously and the moon rose, and the
aurora borealis was sending up flashes of rose and silver, I said,
"Oh, this is too beautiful to leave. I _must_ cross the lake again." I
made some remark about the brilliance of the North Star, when he
remarked simply, "That star was a good friend to me in the war." "Were
you in the war?" asked I; "and all these evenings you have rowed a
loyal woman like me about this lake, and I knew nothing of it!" Then,
at my request, came the story of Andersonville, and its horrors, told
simply, and without a revengeful word; then the thrilling attempt at
escape, through a country absolutely unknown, and swarming with
danger, during which the North Star, of which I had just spoken, was
his only guide. Then came a dark night, when the friendly star, alas!
disappeared. But a watch, which he had saved his money to obtain, had
a compass on the back of it. Still of what use was that without a
light? Our boatman was a Yankee. He caught a glowworm and pinched it.
It flashed light sufficient for him to see that he was heading for one
of our camps, where, after many hours of travel, he at last found
safety, sinking down insensible from fatigue and hunger, as soon as he
reached it. So ravenously did he eat, when food was brought, that a
raging fever followed; and when he was carried, a mere skeleton, to
his home on the borders of the lovely lake where we were rowing, whose
peaceful flow had mocked him in dreams in that seething, noisome
prison pen, he did not even recognize it. For months his mother
watched his sick-bed, till reason and partial health returned--till by
degrees he became what he then was.
When he had finished, I said, "Give me your hand--_both of 'em_--and
God bless you!"--and--then I _mentioned_ his jailers! Not a word of
bitterness passed his lips--only this: "I used to gasp in the foul air
at Andersonville, and think of this quiet, smooth lake, and our little
house with the trees near it, and long so to see them again, and row
my little boat here. But," he added, quietly, "_they_ thought they
were as right as we, and they _did_ fight well!"
I swallowed a big lump in my throat--as our boat neared the shore, and
he handed me out--and said, penitently, "Well, if _you_ can forgive
them, I am sure I ought to; but it will be the hardest work I ever
did."--"Well, it is strange," said he: "I have often noticed it, since
my return, that you who stayed at home feel more bitter about it, than
we who came so near dying there of foul air and starvation."
* * * * *
A rich man, just stepping into the grave, burdened with more money
than he has known all his life what to do with, is extolled to the
skies for his legacies and bequests here and there--at home and
abroad. Now, why all this laudation? Is not the poor servant girl, who
can scarce keep herself comfortably clothed, and yet every Sunday puts
her pittance religiously into the contribution box, more deserving of
praise? And yet who ever takes this other than as a matter of course,
save Him who seeth even the widow's mite?
_TWO KINDS OF WOMEN._
Mrs. Jones--do you know her? She looks well to the ways of her
household. She knows how every ounce of butter, and every spoonful of
tea and coffee are disposed of. She is posted as to the sugar, and
milk and potatoes, and calculates to a moment how long-lived must be a
joint of meat, or what is the weight of a loaf of bread. She
understands what should be the perpetuity of kindling wood, and knows
when it is diverted from its original purpose as an _auxiliary_, by a
dilatory cook, and used as a principal, to hurry up a late breakfast.
You can't cheat Mrs. Jones. Every pot, pan, basin, knife, fork, spoon,
in her establishment, serves its legitimate purpose, and no other; and
never loses its edge or polish, or disappears "unbeknownst" into the
ash-barrel. She scorns to buy preserves or pickles, how well soever
made, and though she may encounter no pecuniary loss in doing so; she
thinks it an excellent use of her time, although they are "well off,"
to prepare them with her own deft hands. She is at home when her
husband leaves, and she is at home when her husband comes back. She
does much of the sewing and fitting of family garments, and all the
mending; and she often calls upon the minister to baptize a new baby.
She is cheerful and content in her snuggery of a house, and every
saucepan in it is surrounded with a halo. "Woman's Rights" simply sets
her giggling, when mentioned. Her own family tub sets firm on its
bottom--isn't that enough? Year after year passes. The freshness has
left her face, and the features have sharpened, as she whirls round
and round in this little maelstrom, with no desire to catch breath for
one single moment. Occasionally she goes outside of her own door, but
feels better inside, and hurries home as if she had committed a crime,
in letting up her martinet superintendence for one moment.
As to books and newspapers, she never looks at either. "She says she
has no time." I don't know whether she ever thinks that her children
will some day grow up, and may ask questions which it were a pity
their mother should be too ignorant to answer. I don't know whether
she ever thinks her husband may weary at evening, of the history of
the family potato. Since it is cooked invariably to his liking, it may
be that is all he requires. But after he has eaten his dinner, and is
satisfied--such is man--that I wouldn't like to dismiss Mrs. Jones to
the nursery and put a bright woman in her place, unless "ma" lived
round the corner.
Now Mrs. Smith lives opposite Mrs. Jones. The devil might fly away
with _her_ saucepans, and she wouldn't care. Why does she hire
servants, if she herself is to superintend saucepans? Is Mr. Smith
always home to dinner, that _she_ need be? Has a woman no rights? Is
it for her to be absorbed by the miserable family potato, when many
women have no potato at all? Her answer is on the public platform.
Smith indeed turns pale to think of it; but who or what is Smith? He's
only a man,--a tyrannical, overbearing man, possibly of the worst
type, who believes in "whipping females." Her "mission" is to reform
such men--peaceably, if she can; belligerently, if she must; but it
has got to "come off" somehow. Meantime the nurse rubs her children's
noses _up_ instead of down; fills their eyes with soap-suds, and then
boxes their ears for "whining about it;" eats _their_ lunch and tosses
them _hers_. She tells the youngest child of the "black man who
swallows little children whole" when she wants it to be still in bed,
so that she may converse with her "cousin" in the area; and then
wonders "what _can_ ail the little dear," when its progressive mother
returns from her public speech-making, to find it in a stiff fit. As
to Mr. Smith, he hates women's rights--he wants something to eat.
Now here are two female extremists. I don't see the necessity of
either; but after saying this, I frankly declare that, had I to
choose, Mrs. Jones has my preference. _Her_ children have a home at
least. They have good wholesome food, and clothes suitable to the
weather. If they are sick, they have watchful care. And no mother,
unless she first secure all this to their helplessness, has any right,
in my opinion, on the public platform. This much Mrs. Jones hath
done. Possibly Jones, her husband, takes it, like sunshine, as a
matter of course, and needing no special thanks. Men are more stupid,
and ignorant, than ugly, on this and kindred points. _They_ don't
dream, unless in very exceptionable cases, how a wife longs sometimes
to have a husband testify his pleasure at her invariable good cheer in
some other way than by gobbling it up, till he is as torpid as an
anaconda, until next feeding time. _He_ never feels the need of such
recognition; and so, if his attention is called to it by a
half-smothered, weary sigh from some little wife who can't do without
it, why, he thinks it "babyish." _Such a man ought to marry a
man_--that's my verdict. Where's the sense of plucking a flower to put
your foot on it? Better take a stone post for better, or worse, and
have done with it. You can't dam--n up a woman's feelings as you would
a village stream. You can't choose her for her tender, womanly ways,
and then expect when you get her home that she will "heads up" with an
unwinking stare at you for further orders the rest of her life. If
that's the wife you wanted, why not take one of those figures outside
the store-doors in Broadway, with a dress pinned on, which, when
twirled round, stand stock still till they get another twirl? _They_
are _headless_, to be sure, but they are _so_ docile!
_SUNDAY MORNING._
How many pleasant breakfast-tables it looks down upon! No need to
hurry away to office, or store, or counting-room. Fathers come
leisurely down in dressing-gown and slippers, and sip their coffee
without danger of choking. They have time to look round and see how
tall the children are growing, and that nothing in this world is so
beautiful as a rosy baby fresh from slumber. Mother, too, has the old
girlish smile, that comes not often on a week-day, or if it does,
father has not time to notice it, and that, perhaps, after all, is the
reason it comes so seldom. It is pleasant, after eggs and coffee, to
sit comfortably down, the centre of a ring of happy faces, and hear
the church-bells chime. Time enough yet to go, for this is the first
bell.
Church-bells are not, to my ear, an "impertinence." One is a free
agent. I am free to go, which I like to do; you are free to stay, if
you prefer; though I may think you make a mistake. I don't say that I
should go every Sunday to hear a man who was always binding doctrines
together like bundles of dry sticks, and thrusting them at his yawning
hearers. I want to hear a sermon that any poor soul who straggles
into church, from any by-lane or alley, can understand, and carry home
with him to his cellar or garret; not a sermon that comes on chariot
wheels, but afoot, and with a warm, life-like grasp for every honest,
aye, and _dis_honest, hand in the assembly, defaulter or Magdalen; for
who bade you slam heaven's gate in their faces?
I want a _human_ sermon. I don't care what Melchisedek, or Zerubbabel,
or Kerenhappuk did, ages ago; I want to know what _I_ am to do, and I
want somebody besides a theological bookworm to tell me; somebody who
is sometimes tempted and tried, and is not too dignified to own it;
somebody like me, who is always sinning and repenting; somebody who is
glad and sorry, and cries and laughs, and eats and drinks, and _wants_
to fight when they are trodden on, and _don't_! That's the minister
for me. I don't want a spiritual abstraction, with stony eyes and
petrified fingers, and no blood to battle with. What credit is it to
_him_ to be proper? How can he understand _me_? Were there only such
ministers in the pulpit, I wouldn't go to church either, because my
impatient feet would only beat a tattoo on the pew floor till service
was over: but, thank God! there are! and while they preach I shall go
to hear them, and come home better and happier for having done it.
So I pray you don't abolish _my_ Sunday, whatever you may do with
yours. Don't take away my blessed Sunday breakfast, when we all have
time to love one another. Don't take away the Sabbath bells, which I
so love to hear. Don't take away my human minister, whose God is no
tyrant, and is better pleased to see us go smiling home from church,
than bowing our heads like a bulrush, and groaning back to our
dinners, till all you anti-Sabbatarians are mad to abolish
Sunday,--and no wonder.