I do not forget that there are bad servants, as that there are unfeeling, inhuman mistresses who make them. I know that some are wasteful and improvident; and I know, from experience, that there are cases where the sympathy and kindness I speak of are repaid with ingratitude; but these are exceptional cases; and think how much hard usage from the world such an one must have received, ere all her sweet and womanly feelings could be thus blunted. I must think that a humane mistress generally makes a good servant. I know that some of the servants of the present day dress ridiculously above their station,—so does often the mistress; and why is a poor, unenlightened girl more reproachable, for spending the wages of a month on a flimsy, gaudy bonnet, or dress, than is her employer, for trailing a seventy-five or one hundred dollar robe through ferryboats and omnibuses, while her grocer and milliner dun in vain for their bills?
Let the reform in this and other respects begin in the parlor. Our mothers and grandmothers were not always changing servants. They did not disdain to lend a helping hand, when a press of work, or company, made the burden of servitude too heavy. A headache in the kitchen, to them, meant the same as a headache in the parlor, and, God be thanked, a heart-ache too. The soul of a servant was of as much account as that of her mistress; her creed was respected, and no elaborate dinner came between her and the church-door. How can you expect such unfaltering, unswerving devotion to your interests, when you so wholly ignore theirs?—when you spur and goad them on like beasts of burden, and with as little thought for their human wants and needs? No wonder if you have poor service—eye-service. I would like to see you do better in their place. Lift up the cloud, and let the sun shine through into their underground homes, if it is not a mockery to use the word home. We exact too much—we give too little,—too little sympathy—too little kindness—too little encouragement. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" would settle it all. You don't do it—I don't do it, though I try to. Human laws may require only of the mistress that she pay her servant's wages punctually; God's law requires much more—let conscience be its interpreter;—then, and not till then, we shall have good servants.
I suppose the most jealous fault-finders on this subject will concede that mistresses themselves are not quite perfect; of course, they have often real causes of irritation and vexation apart from the kitchen, which, we are afraid, do not dispose them to look leniently upon any additional trouble there. A "flare up" with Betty or Bridget, is apt to be the last drop in the bucket, the last feather in the balance. But, unfortunately, it is not taken into account that Betty and Bridget, being human, may have their little world of hopes and joys, fears and sorrows, quite disconnected with your gridiron, and dustpan, and ash-barrel. They also have heads and backs to ache, and hearts too, though this may not always be taken into the account, by employers, who, satisfied with punctually paying the stipulated wages when due, and getting as much as possible out of them as an equivalent, consider their duty ended. Some day your dinner is over or under cooked; that day Bridget received a letter from the "old country" with a "black seal." She did not come to you with her trouble; why should she? when she might have been a mere machine for any sympathetic word or look that has ever passed from your woman's heart or eyes to hers. All you know is that your dinner is overcooked, and a sharp rebuke follows, and from the fulness of a tried spirit an "impertinent" answer comes, and you show Bridget the door, preaching a sermon on the neglectfulness and insolence of servants. Had you been the mistress you should have been, Bridget would naturally have come to you with her trouble, and you would willingly have excused at such a time any little oversight in her duty to you, even though on that day you "had company to dinner." Take another case. On some day in the week, when the heaviest family labor falls due, your girl whose province it is to accomplish it, rises with an aching head, or limbs, as you sometimes do yourself, and as you do not, she rises from bed all the same as if she were well. As you have no use for your lips in the kitchen, save to give an order, and no eyes, save to look after defects of economy or carefulness, you do not see her languid eyes, or ask the cause of any apparent dilatoriness; you simply "hurry up" things generally, and go up stairs. Now, suppose you had kindly asked the girl if she felt quite well, and finding she did not, offered to lift from her aching shoulders that day's burden; suppose that? why, ten to one, it would have done her more good than could any doctor who ever took a degree, and the poor thing, under its inspiration, might actually have staggered through the day's work, had you been so cruel as to allow her.
I wish mistresses would sometimes ask themselves how long, under the depressing conditions and circumstances of servitude above alluded to, they could render faithful conscientious labor? Feeling that doing well, there was no word of praise; and that doing ill, there was no excuse or palliation; that falling sick or disabled, from over work or natural causes, there was no sympathy, but only nervous anxiety for a speedy substitute.
Again. Many mistresses utterly object to "a beau" in the kitchen. Now could anything be more unnatural and absurd than this? though, of course, there should be limitations as to late hours. Marriage, with many of these domestics, is the heaven of rest and independence to which they look forward; and even if they are to work quite as hard "for a living," as a poor man's wife, as they have for you, they may possibly have, as wives—heaven help them—a little love to sweeten it; and surely no wife or mother should shut her heart utterly to this view of the case. As to the girl's "bettering herself," let her take the chances, if she chooses, as you have. Possibly, some lady who reads this may say, oh, all this talk about servants is nonsense. I've often petted girls till I have spoiled them, and it is of no use. Very true, madam, "petting" is of no use; but it is of use to treat them at all times kindly, and humanely, and above all things justly, as we—women—in their places, should wish to be treated ourselves. It is of use to make a little sunshine in those gloomy kitchens, by a kind good night, or good morning, or some such recognition of their presence, other than a desire to be waited upon. It is of use, when they are sick or down-hearted, to turn to, not from them. All this can be done, and not "spoil" them. And how much better, even as far as yourself is concerned, to feel that their service is that of love and good-will, instead of mere "eye-service." A lady once asked a servant for her references. There was more justice and less "impertinence," than appears at the first blush, in her reply, "and where are yours, ma'am?"
A CHAPTER ON TOBACCO.
