Maid Kitty spoke truly when she said she had never seen two women do all the housework. For at home often three women would clean up one chamber. One made the bed, while another swept the floor, and a third dusted and put the chairs straight. Labor was divided and subdivided; and I remember one woman whose sole employment seemed to be throwing open the blinds in the morning and rubbing the posts of my grandmother's high bedstead. This rubbing business was carried quite to excess. Every inch of mahogany was waxed and rubbed to the highest state of polish, as were also the floors, the brass fenders, irons, and candlesticks.
"THREE WOMEN WOULD CLEAN UP ONE CHAMBER"—Page 43.
When I reflect upon the degree of comfort arrived at in our homes, I think we should have felt grateful to our ancestors; for, as Quincy has written: "In whatever mode of existence man finds himself, be it savage or civilized, he perceives that he is indebted for the greater part of his possessions to events over which he had no control; to individuals whose names, perhaps, never reached his ear; to sacrifices which he never shared. How few of all these blessings do we owe to our own power or prudence! How few on which we cannot discern the impress of a long past generation!" So we were indebted for our agreeable surroundings to the heroism and sacrifices of past generations, which not to venerate and eulogize betrays the want of a truly noble soul. For what courage, what patience, what perseverance, what long suffering, what Christian forbearance, must it have cost our great-grandmothers to civilize, Christianize, and elevate the naked, savage Africans to the condition of good cooks and respectable maids! They—our great-grandmothers—did not enjoy the blessed privilege even of turning their servants off when inefficient or disagreeable, but had to keep them through life. The only thing was to bear and forbear, and
Be to their virtues very kind,
Be to their faults a little blind.
If in heaven there be one seat higher than another, it must be reserved for those true Southern matrons, who performed conscientiously their part assigned them by God—civilizing and instructing this race.
I have searched missionary records of all ages, but find no results in Africa or elsewhere at all comparing with the grand work accomplished for the African race in our Southern homes.
Closing the last chapter of "Explorations in the Dark Continent," the thought came to me that it would be well if our African friends in America would set apart another anniversary to celebrate "the landing of their fathers on the shores of America," when they were bought and domiciled in American homes. This must have been God's own plan for helping them, although a severe ordeal for our ancestors.
In God's own time and way the shackles have been removed from this people, who are now sufficiently civilized to take an independent position in the great family of man.