CHAPTER VII
FEMALES OF THE SPECIES
The family at Sutton House comprised Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, both under thirty-five, their only child a boy eight years old, and his tutor, a young college man.
The place was very beautiful. The house, Southern colonial, was large and dignified without being showy. The park and gardens surrounding it contained eleven acres—at least the chauffeur, who brought me from the station, so informed me. Certainly they were ample and perfectly kept. The trees were noticeably handsome, all of them indigenous. Though an unusually elaborate establishment for America, it was not an imitation. Perhaps its most striking feature was that it did not suggest England or any other foreign country. It looked to be just what it was—the country home of a well-bred American family of large fortune.
The American atmosphere was so distinct that—watching the house as we approached along the wide drive, I had a subconscious expectation of seeing an old negro, immaculately dressed, make his appearance. He didn’t come. Nor when we passed near the stables and garage was there any sound of laughing or singing. At the side entrance I was met by the housekeeper, an Englishwoman.
There were fifteen servants besides the men in the stables, in the garage, and the gardeners. Every one of them foreigners.
“Why will Americans persist in surrounding themselves with indifferent foreign ‘help’ when they might have the best servants and most loyal Americans, for the asking?” was the question that I asked myself that night after my arrival at the Sutton House, and I am still asking it.
I have known many foreign servants. Even the best of them was not so good as a competent negro would have been in the same place. I am a Southerner born and bred among negroes. Besides, I am descended from a long line of slave-owning ancestors. I do not believe that Abraham Lincoln himself was a more loyal American than the present-day descendants of the people he fought to free.
Yet in spite of their excellent qualities, their loyalty, we turn them down. Just let an American family get a little money, and the first thing they do in the way of display is to secure as many “help” as their pocketbook will permit.
Being foreigners, all the servants at Sutton House were, of course, “help.” Even the French maid spoke of herself as “Madame’s porsonal help,” and even the fact that she received sixty dollars a month in wages, her laundry, a room to herself, and all the clothes that her mistress did not care to wear the second time did not prevent her from disloyalty. A negro girl would have given better service than this woman and never have permitted her mistress to be criticised in her presence.
Under my direction there were five chambermaids, a scrubwoman, and a man for cleaning. The man was a Swede and the maids all Irish. My wages were forty dollars a month with laundry and a room to myself. Because I chanced to take the fancy of the housekeeper I took all my meals with her instead of with the other servants. Had it been otherwise I would have heard more back-stairs gossip than I did.