CHAPTER XIV.
TRIBULATIONS OF A WIDOWER.
But we must descend from the sublime to the stern realities of this workaday world. Of all the people on this earth, a lone, lorn widower with three babies on his hands, is the most forlorn and miserable. Take care of them himself he cannot, and if he hires the ordinary woman to do so, she immediately sets her cap for him, and leaves no stone unturned to secure him for a husband, especially if he is possessed of some of this world's goods which she covets with all her mind and soul.
Words are inadequate to describe the annoyances I endured for two weary years from this class of women, who seemed to be the only ones who would come to a lonely country home to assume such responsibilities and endless labors. The world seemed full of these anxious but not aimless women, who claimed to adore little children; but who really cared for nothing except to capture a "widower with means."
One nurse carelessly slipped on the stairs, and the twins went flying from her arms through the air down the long passageway, apparently to their death; only a miracle saved them. I picked up the little wingless cherubs, scarcely bigger than my fist, and their blue eyes smiled at me, as if they had really enjoyed their aerial flight.
They seemed to have a charmed and charming existence; they were the admiration of all the people far and wide who flocked to our house to see and fondle the really "heavenly twins." My business kept me from home nearly all the time; but my father, mother, brother, and sister-in-law kindly watched my caretakers with argus eyes, and the so-called triplets throve wonderfully day by day.
Whenever in my absence, my good childless brother and his wife found one of my hired women unworthy, he would tell her to pack her trunk, then he would drive her to the depot, banish her from the town over which he long reigned as chairman of the selectmen and State representative, telegraph me to hunt up another one, and thus the road to the station was nearly worn out, and the railroad receipts were greatly augmented.
One of these women, while I was far away, greatly scandalized the whole town by leaving the "light infantry" to their fate one Sunday, and indulging in the pious delights of shooting wood-chucks. My indignant brother and his father-in-law deacon disarmed the jezabel, made her sleep in the barn that night, sent her off flying the next morning, and personally, tenderly as mothers, watched over the children until I arrived with another nurse.
One woman whipped little May secretly with a stick; but the victim's wonderful lungs aroused my mother who, reinforced by the entire family, overpowered the virago, and sent her off on the next train. It is evident from these thrilling recitals that I was not a good mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when I was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight.
I vowed in my wrath that I would never again speak to a woman outside my own immediate family. I tried in vain to hire men nurses, and I sympathized with Paolo Orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck of Isabella di Medici, and strangled her; I almost envied Curzon of Simopetra who had never seen a woman. But I soon found that this misanthropy was unjust, that I misjudged the pure depths of life's river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface.
Women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can be. There is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between the extremes marked by Miriam beating her timbrels, and Cleopatra applying the asp; Cornelia, caring for nothing but her Roman jewels; Guyon, rapt in God; Lucrezia Borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and Florence Nightingale sweetening the memory of the Crimean war with philanthropic deeds.
What group of men can be brought together more distinct in individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny, than such women as Eve in the garden of Eden, Mary at the foot of the cross, Rebecca by the well, Semiramis on her throne, Ruth among the corn, Jezabel in her chariot, Lais at a banquet, Joan of Arc in battle, Tomyris striding over the field with the head of Cyrus in a bag of blood, Perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre, Martha cumbered with many cares, Pocahontas under the shadow of the woods, Saint Theresa in the Convent, Madame Roland on the scaffold, Mother Agnes at Port Royal, exiled DeStael wielding her pen as a sceptre, and Mrs. Fry lavishing her existence on outcasts?