tailoring; that studying it ever so long he should only make a bad
tailor, to spoil the making of a good lawyer or doctor. That's nothing
to the purpose. I insist that he shall learn _tailoring_; not only that,
but I insist that he shall _like_ it too. His lawyering and doctoring
can come in afterward wheresoever the gods will, in the chinks of his
time, but breeches and coats he shall know how to make, or every editor
in the land shall be down on him whenever they are hard up for an
editorial, if, without this important branch of knowledge, he presumes
to address a political meeting. For not understanding breeches, how the
mischief can he understand politics, or be prepared to speak about them?
He may tell me that he don't intend to "link his destiny with woman,"
but instead, to be a gay bachelor, and have a latch-key, and one towel a
week at some boarding-house, and whistle "Hail Columbia" at midnight, at
his own sweet will, with variations, without the fear of waking some
wretched baby. _That's_ nothing to do with it. I insist that even
_then_, he, being obliged to wear breeches, should know how many yards
of different width cloth it takes to make them. I insist that, without
this knowledge, he is not even prepared to be a bachelor. Nobody can
tell, in this world, when misfortune may overtake one. Cigars may become
so dear, and his exchequer so low in consequence, that he may be
obliged to alter his little plan, and link his destiny to some woman who
will earn them for him. And suppose the twins should afterward interfere
with her earnings, then think how glorious it would be to turn his
knowledge of tailoring to account on this conjugal rainy day, and not
only make his own breeches, but those of the twins, who would
undoubtedly be boys, because men like boys, and therefore ought to have
them.
Now, having freed my mind on this point, I proceed to say that the
brightest and most gifted women I have known have perfectly understood
cookery, and have written some of their best things over the
cooking-stove, while they kept _two_ "pots boiling." Furthermore, that
the more brains a woman has, the less she will "look down upon," or
"despise," a knowledge so important as that of cookery. But because she
knows how, and because she does it, it need not of necessity follow that
she "hankers after it." And _when_ she does it, she should have the
credit of doing it; and if her husband be a literary man, he should know
and acknowledge--which is the thing he don't always do--that though she
resolutely performs her duty without shirking, while he quietly
scribbles, a sigh occasionally goes up chimney with the smoke, at the
thoughts which fly up with it, that she may never catch again, either
for fame or money. I say, when gobbling down the food she prepares, or
oversees the preparing, in these days of incompetent servants, he
should sometimes recognize this.
Then I would call attention to the fact that married men should
everywhere, and in all classes, remember, that it is very discouraging
for any wife and housekeeper, when, for the same efficient labor which
she expends under her own roof, she could earn for herself at least a
competence, to be obliged to go as a _beggar_ to her husband for the
money which is justly her _due_. Perhaps, if husbands were more just and
generous with regard to this matter, women might take their pleasure in
"cookery," which every man seems to think is her only "through ticket"
to Paradise, and to their affections, _via_ their stomachs.
* * * * *
TAKE A VACATION.--It need not of necessity be an expensive one. Go away,
if only for a week, and shake off the drudgery of routine. Some people
are of the opinion that upon their return they will find work all the
more difficult. It is not so. The vacation judiciously spent, and
according to one's means, will give increased strength for the
performance of the duties awaiting us. Let those who cannot do this,
take now and then a car-ride into the country, for a day of fresh air. A
sight of the green grass and clover-blossoms will do them good.
Continuous, unremitting labor is not good either for man or beast.
_UP THE HUDSON._
I suppose nobody is to blame, but I feel indignant every time I take a
steamboat sail up the Hudson, that I was not born a New Yorker. I am not
particularly fond of sleeping on a shelf, or eating bread and butter in
that submarine _Tophet_, called the "Dining Cabin;" were it not for
these little drawbacks, I think I should engage board for a month on one
of our Hudson river steamboats (one that _doesn't_ patronize
"Calliopes").
As to a "residence on the banks of the Hudson," do you think I would so
sacrilegiously and audaciously familiarize myself with its glorious
beauty? I decline on the principle that the lover, who had pleasurably
wooed for years, refused to marry, "because he should have nowhere to
spend his evenings;" where, oh, where, _I_ ask, should I spend my
_summers_? Yes, a month's board on a Hudson river steamboat! _a floating
boarding-house!_ why not? I claim the idea as original. First
stipulation--meals and mattresses _on deck_, in fair weather.
What a curious study are travellers! How the human nature comes out!
There are your men and women, bound to get their money's worth, to the
last dime, and who imagine that bullying and bluster is the way, not
only to do this, but to deceive people into the belief that they are
accustomed to being waited upon at home. Of such are the men who wander
ceaselessly upstairs and downstairs and in my ladies' cabin, smoking and
yawning, poking their walking-sticks into every bundle and basket from
sheer ennui,--and ever and anon returning on deck, suspiciously wiping
their mouths. Of such are they who light a pipe or cigar in the
immediate proximity of ladies, who have just secured a comfortable seat
on deck, that they may revel in the much-longed-for fresh sea-breeze;
dogged, obstinate, "deil take the hindmost," selfish, ruffianly cubs,
who would stand up on their hind legs in a twinkling at the insinuation
that they were not "gentlemen."
Yes, there are all sorts on board a steamboat; there is your
country-woman in her best toggery; fancy bonnet, brass ear-rings, and
the inevitable "locket;" who, when the gong sounds, takes out a huge
basket to dine off molasses-cake, drop-cake, doughnuts, and cheese; who
coolly nudges some man in the ribs "to lend her the loan" of his
jack-knife, wherewith she dexterously cuts up and harpoons into a mouth
more useful than ornamental, little square blocks of "soggy"
gingerbread, with a trusting confidence in the previous habits of that
strange jack-knife, that is delicious to witness! Then there are
quicksilver little children, frightening mothers into fits, by peering
into dangerous places, and leaning over the deck into the water;
shaking their little flossy lap-dog-curls, and singing as they go,
asking you with innocent straightforwardness, as they decline your
offered cracker, "why you didn't buy candy instead." Then there are
great, puffy, red-faced Britons, with strong white teeth, most
astonishing girth of limb, and power of sleep in uncomfortable places;
broad in the shoulders and sluggish in the brain; "not thinking much of
America," but somehow or other keeping on coming here! Then there is
your stereotyped steerage-passenger, rubbing one eye with the corner of
her apron, who has "niver a penny to get to her daughter," and she
_might_ add niver a daughter, and come nearer the truth.
Then there is the romantic young-lady traveller, got up coquettishly,
and yet faultlessly, for the occasion in that ravishing little hat and
feather, becoming only to young beauty, or at least to fresh youth,
whose wealth of hair threatens instant escape from the silken net at the
back of her head, and of whose fringed eyes all bachelors should beware.
Let her have her little triumphs, ye that have had _your_ day, and let
no censorious old maid, or strait-laced matron, look daggers at her
innocent pleasure in being beautiful. Then there is a gentleman and
lady, cultivated and refined, if faces may be trusted, with a sweet boy,
whom you would never know to be blind, his face is so sunny, were it not
that they guide his steps so carefully; and why shouldn't his face be
sunny, when his infirmity calls forth such riches of love and
tenderness? How gently his mother smooths his hair, and places his
little cap upon it, and _how one loves his father_ for holding him so
long there upon his knee, and whispering to him all about the beautiful
places we are passing, instead of leaving him to his mother, and going
selfishly off to smoke uncounted cigars. Nor is our steamboat without
its wag, who has his own way of passing the time. Having possessed
himself of a large plate of ice-cream as bait for a group of youngsters,
who are standing expectant in a row before him, with imperturbable
gravity he maliciously feeds them with such _huge_ spoonfuls that little
feet dance up and down, and little hands are clapped to chubby cheeks,
to ease the ache, which they are not quite sure is pain or pleasure, but
which, anyhow, they have no idea of foregoing.
And now night comes on, and travellers one by one--or two by two, which
is far better--disappear in those purgatorial state-rooms, and peep like
prisoners through the grated windows, and try to sleep to the monotonous
plash-plash of the waves, while male nocturnal pedestrians walk _very_
slowly past the hurricane-deck state-room windows (innocent of curtain
or blind), while denunciatory epithets are being muttered at them by
their fair occupants.
Morning comes at last, and--Albany. I would respectfully inquire of its
"oldest inhabitant," if it _always_ rains torrents at Albany, at four
o'clock in the morning, on the arrival of the boats? Also, if _all_
their roads are as "hard to travel" as that through which steamboat
passengers are furiously bumped and thumped, by drivers who seem to be
on contract to Macadamize the bones of their passengers as well as the
roads. It takes one of mine host of the ----'s _very_ good breakfasts to
christianize one after it.
* * * * *
VICTIMIZED BABIES.--Nothing is more distressing to contemplate than a
young baby in the hands of an ignorant mother. The way she will roast it
in warm weather with layers of clothes, and strip it in cold weather, if
fashion bids, and wash it when it is sleepy and tired, and put out its
eyes with sun or gas, and feed it wrongly, or neglect to feed it at the
proper time, and in every way thwart Nature and outrage common-sense, is
so harrowing a sight to the stranger who dare not intermeddle, that a
speedy retreat is the only course left, till he is perhaps summoned to
the poor little thing's funeral, not mine.
_"WHY DON'T I LECTURE?"_
The true reason is, that I've nothing to say, and no ambition to say it.
But as nobody ever gives the true reason for anything, why should I?
Well, then, it is owing to several other becauses. In the first place,
never being able to learn the multiplication table, how can I study Time
tables? How could I find out, without getting the headache, how long it
would take me to travel from Pumpkinville to Turnipville? How could I
tell whether it would rain or shine that day? and not knowing this, how
could I tell what to wear? As to what a woman lectures about, that is a
minor consideration; but as to _what she wears_, ask the reporters if
that does not constitute the staple of their newspaper accounts of her
public appearance. Then I am afraid of "committees." Committees are
composed of men. If I arrived late, and the expectant audience were just
on the point of exploding, I couldn't ask the committee how my "back
hair" looked. You see at once the difficulty of the thing, also its
importance, because they would be the fellows that would have to look at
my back hair from a _plat_-form view, you see. Well, then, again, I
couldn't lecture because I can't breathe without fresh air; and that is
a luxury that is always denied to lecturers. They'll applaud him, and
they'll ask him "what he'll drink," and they'll take him to execution in
a carriage, and take his corpse back in a carriage, but they won't let
him breathe, at least till they've done with him, and I shouldn't long
survive such politeness. Then the stereotyped pitcher of water would
close my lips instead of helping to open them. I hate a pitcher of
water. I got a boxed ear for saying that once; but I've got two ears,
that's a comfort, so I'll say it again. Then, I couldn't lecture because
I should feel cold shivers down my back, when that awful chairman rose
and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the
speaker for this evening, FANNY FERN." I hate that. I should want to hop
up and speak when I got ready--say--while the lovers in the audience
were whispering to each other, and the old ladies settling where to put
their "umberils," and the old gentlemen hunting their pockets for their
"spettacles" which they had left at home, and the old maids trying to
find a seat where "a horrid man" wasn't too near. I'd like to pounce on
them, like a cat, just then, and give my first scratch and draw blood;
and then they'd let me go on my own way; because, you see, I am one of
those persons who can't do anything "to order." I often see in the
papers advertisements of "shirts made--to order," but I never yet saw an
advertisement of a corresponding female garment made that way. Did you?
Well, that's a hint that females shouldn't be hampered by stupid rules
and precedents. But this is a digression.
Again, I couldn't lecture because I can't bear saleratus, and I suppose
all my engagements wouldn't be in cities. Then, nextly, I couldn't
lecture, because, after the lecture was over, I should be "dead beat;"
and that is just the time everybody would hurry into the committee-room
to tell me that I was; and to use a dozen dictionaries, to advise "me
not to talk," but to go right straight home and go to bed as soon--as
_they_ had got through talking with me!
Lastly, the reason I can't lecture is because I am the wife of a
lecturer. _He_ likes it; but two of that trade in one family is more
than human nature can stagger under. It is enough for me to see him come
home white about the gills, with a muddy valise, and a mousey horror of
a travelling blanket, that I always air the first thing, and with an
insane desire to indulge in a Rip Van Winkle nap, and dodge his kind.
Now I hope, in conclusion, it is sufficiently clear to you that I have
no call on the platform. My "sphere is home." I trust Dr. Holland will
make a note of this. "_My sphere is home_," especially when I'm asked to
do anything outside of it that I don't want to do!
_IN THE CARS._
"Palace cars" are a great invention for mothers with uneasy babies, for
invalids, and for lovers. But as I am in neither of the above positions,
allow me to express a preference for a seat in the common car. If I _am_
to eat in public out of my luncheon basket, I prefer a large audience,
with their backs to me, to a small one employed in looking down my
throat. Then if I wish to go to sleep, again the audience have their
backs to me. Or if I wish to read, they are not holding a coroner's
inquest on my politics, or my literary taste in books. Then, again,
although _I_ want to pass unnoticed, yet with the lovely consistency of
human nature generally, I like to observe life around me, and have
enough of it to observe, too.
One result of my observations in this line has been the necessity of
supporting a travelling missionary, to take from the necks of little
children, in a hot car, the woollen mufflers that are turning their
faces brick red, and the woollen mittens that are driving them wild,
while their fond parents are absorbed in looking at illustrated papers,
to get a snatched _free_ reading before the carrier returns for the
same. It is very funny how they will let these children wriggle and
twist and turn, like little worms, and never think that anything can be
the matter, save a lack of peanuts or painted lozenges, which they
procure with a fiendish haste, and bestow with a profusion astounding to
gods and _some_ women. Presently the little victims call for "a drink of
water," as well they may, with their feverish throats and mouths; but
that only makes matters worse; so, by way of assuagement, a wedge of
mince-pie is added, or a huge doughnut, supplemented by parched corn.
"Ye gods!" I mentally exclaim; and yet we keep on sending "missionaries
to the _heathen_." I am not there at the journey's end to see how those
children's ears are boxed for growing devilish on such fare, but I know
it is done all the same by these ignorant parents. It is refreshing
occasionally to hear a father or mother say to a child, "If you are
hungry, you can eat this nice piece of bread and butter, or this bit of
chicken, but you must not eat nuts, candy, pastry, and cake, when you
are travelling." It is refreshing to hear one say, "Eat _slowly_, dear."
It is refreshing to see one take off a child's hat or cap, and lay the
little owner comfortably down for the little nap, instead of letting the
child bob its tired, heated head vainly in every direction for rest. Now
papa understands well enough in his own case what to do, in the way of
alleviation; but children are bundled up like so many packages, on
starting--labelled, ticketed--and, like these packages, not to be untied
through any diversities of temperature till the bumping journey's end.
It is monstrous! I am glad they kick all night after it--if so be their
parents sleep with them!
But isn't it great, when, in addition to all these inflictions, a
book-vender comes round and tries to make you buy one of your own books?
That is the last ounce on the camel's back! How all its shortcomings and
crudenesses come up before you! How all its "Errata!" How short you cut
that wretched boy in his parrot panegyric! How you perspire with disgust
till he takes it out of your sight and hearing, and how you pray "just
Heaven" to forgive you for your sins of commission, all for bread and
butter.
Now--as the story writers say when they drag in a moral by the head and
shoulders, at the end of their narratives--"my object is accomplished,
if the perusal of this, etc., shall have induced but _one_ reader to
reform, and lead a different life!"
So _I_ say, if only one wretched little young one gets his dangling legs
put up on the seat; or his hot woollen tippet unwound from his strangled
neck, or is refused candy and lozenges, or is fed wholesomely at proper
intervals, instead of keeping up a continuous chewing all through the
day; or don't get spanked afterward for the inevitable results; or if I
have dissuaded but one individual from buying a book with "Fern" on its
covers, my object will have been accomplished!
_PETTING._
In the course of my reading, I came upon this sentence the other day:
"I have thought a great deal lately upon a kind of petting
women demand, that does not seem to me wholesome or well.
Even the strongest women require perpetual indorsement, or
they lose heart. Can they not be strong in a purpose, though
it bring neither kiss nor commendation?"
It seems to me that this writer cannot have passed out of sight of her
or his own chimney, not to have seen the great army of women, wives of
drunken and dissipated husbands, who, not only lacking "kiss and
commendation," but receiving in place of them kicks and blows, and
profane abuse, keep steadily on, performing their hard, inexorable
duties with no human recognition of their heroism. Also, there are
wives, clad in purple and fine linen, quite as much to be pitied, whose
husbands are a disgrace to manhood, though they themselves may fail in
no wifely or motherly duty. Blind indeed must that person be who fails
to see all this every hour in the twenty-four.
So much for the truth of the remark. Now as to "petting." That woman is
no woman--lacks woman's, I had almost said, _chiefest_ charm--who does
not love to be "petted." The very women who stifle their hearts' cries,
because it is vain to listen for an answer where they had a sacred right
to look for it, and go on performing their duty all the same--if it be
their duty--are the women who most long for "petting," and _who best
deserve it too_; and I, for one, have yet to learn that it is anything
to be ashamed of. If so, men have a great sin on their souls; for they
cannot get along at all--the majority of them--without this very sort of
bolstering up.
Read any of the thousand and one precious books on "Advice to Women,"
and you will see how we are all to be up to time on the front door-step,
ready to "smile" at our husbands the minute the poor dears come home,
lest they lose heart and doubt our love for them; better for the twins
to cry, than the husband and father. Just so with advice to young girls.
They must always be on hand to mend rips in their brothers' gloves and
tempers, and coddle them generally; but I have yet to see the book which
enjoins upon brothers to be chivalric and courteous and gentlemanly to
their sisters, as they take pleasure and pride in being to other young
men's sisters.
"There is a time for everything," the good Book says, and so there is a
time and place to be "petted." None of us want it in public. In fact,
the men and women guilty of it render themselves liable to the suspicion
of _only_ being affectionate in public. But deliver me from the granite
woman who _prefers_ to live without it, who prides herself on not
wanting it. I wouldn't trust her with my baby were there a knife handy.
Thank God there are few such. The noblest and greatest and best women I
have ever known, have been big-hearted and loving, and have known how to
pet and _be_ "petted," without losing either strength or dignity of
character.
* * * * *
FACING A THIN CONGREGATION.--It is comparatively easy for a clergyman to
preach to a full audience; but the test which shows whether one's heart
is in his work, is to get up and face a thin congregation, and yet
deliver his message with an earnestness which shows that he has a
realizing sense of the value of even _one_ soul. Only that clergyman who
keeps this at all times in view, can so utterly leave himself out of
consideration, that he will be just as eloquent and just as earnest when
speaking to a thin audience, as if he were addressing a large multitude,
from whose eager, upturned faces he might well draw inspiration.
_MY GRIEVANCE._