I let him go on, for I saw that he was in a nasty, tantalizing humour, and that nothing would please him better than to get my blood up; but I wasn’t going to let him. Accordingly, I rang the bell for tea, and asked him, as I was nursing the child, and he seemed to want something to do, just to make it.
I declare I never knew such poor, helpless, ignorant things as the men are!—for, positively and truly, Edward was obliged to ask me to tell him how many spoonfuls he was to put in. And he calls himself a lord of the creation, too! Pretty lord of the creation, indeed, not even to know how to make so much as a simple cup of tea! So I had my laugh at him, and asked him, in my sly, quiet way, how he would ever be able to manage without us. Then I told him, of course, that he was to put in one spoonful for each of us, and one for the pot.
“One for the pot!” he exclaimed; “what do you mean by that? How can the pot want a spoonful? I shan’t do anything of the kind.”
I really thought I should have died of laughter at seeing any one so stupid, and said—“Lord! how foolish you are, Edward! Why, of course it’s only an extra spoonful, to make it better for ourselves; only it’s always customary, when you’re making tea, to say that it is for the pot.”
“Ah!” he returned—“I see! It’s the old story over again: doing something for ourselves, and making it out as if for another. And I’m very much afraid that, in these days of excessive philanthropy, more than one-half of what is termed charity is, after all, nothing more than ‘one for the pot.’”
I knew, if I answered him, he would go on all night, so I held my tongue; and I declare if he didn’t go putting almost every virtue down as “one for the pot,” and had the impudence to say that the shilling I put into the plate after the charity sermon, the Sunday before last, was not done for the sake of the orphans, but out of fear of not doing as other people did, and consequently was really and truly “one for the pot;” and that the beer which I drank, and which I said I took solely on dear little Kitty’s account, might also be put down as “one for the pot.”
After a world of bother, I at length obtained a servant. To be sure she was as stupid as she could well be; but when I came to think of it, what on earth could that matter to me? For, as I said to myself, we don’t want geniuses to wash up our dishes, or women of mind, indeed, to boil our potatoes. So I didn’t care about the poor thing’s deficiency of intellect, especially as it was muscles, and not brains, that I wanted, and she had a very good character from her last place; though really and truly the poor thing seemed to be half-witted, and I had to take great care about what I said to her, or she would be sure to go and take it literally. However, I had had so many knaves in the house before, that really I thought a fool would be agreeable, if it was only for the change. But whilst she was with me, the blunders she kept continually making were such that, whenever she came into my presence, I couldn’t help saying to myself, I never knew a woman approaching so near an idiot, in all my life.
However, my lady had got sense enough left to object to cleaning the knives and the boots and shoes, and to stipulate, when I engaged her, that I should get somebody else to do them; so I told her, if I found she suited me, I should not make that an objection, as, indeed, I should not have done with the other one, had she asked for it with the proper respect that was due to me as her mistress. So there I was again as deep in the mire as ever, and obliged to go trotting about among the tradesmen, asking them if they could recommend me any honest, well-disposed person, that had got his mornings disengaged, and would like to turn an honest penny or two by polishing our knives and boots.
Moreover, as I found that my little girl was getting far too heavy for me, in my weak state, to carry, I, at the same time, told the tradespeople that I should feel obliged if they would send me round any respectable little girl that they might hear of, who was competent to take care of a child.
Next day, the oilman sent a girl round to me. She was a little round fat body, with what I thought at the time was dark brown hair, (though I since found out that it was a bright red, only greased for the occasion into a chestnut;) and she looked so clean and neat, that I was delighted with her. As the oilman said that he knew her father—who was a highly respectable journeyman-painter—and that the girl was a well-behaved child, I made no bones about taking her, but told her she might come, and I should give her two shillings a-week, and food, which would be a great help to her parents, who, I dare say, were anxious that a girl of her age should begin to turn her hand to something for a living.