Half of the perturbations that chase the housemother “clean out of her wits” are as purely imaginary as those that beset the heroine of our wee scrap of a story. That other American Martha who cried out on Monday morning: “Washing to-day! Ironing on Tuesday! Baking on Wednesday! Bless my life, half the week gone and nothing done!” is hardly a caricature of the national housewife. Worry is a whirlwind that throws the weightier matters of the law of life out of plumb, and raises such a dust of minor duties and possible hindrances that the blinded victim can see nothing aright.
One of the fixed principles of the universe is that two objects can not occupy the same place at the same time. Another, which we are more slow to admit, is that no two duties are cast for one and the same instant. The throngs of homely tasks that obscure our toiler’s vision in the anticipation of “another day’s work,” drifting and dancing in the light of the new day—a flood of elusive moths—have really sequence and order. Let her take hold of her astral or inner self, by the shoulders, and hold her steady until she can weigh and classify the importunate atoms. The pretty fairy-tale of the tasks set for Graciosa by her wicked stepmother supplies another and a pat illustration. The poor girl had to sort a roomful of feathers of all colors and sizes. After laboring vainly for hours, she called tearfully for her fairy lover, who, with one stroke of his wand, laid each kind in a separate heap from the rest.
RANGE-SCREEN LOWERED TO SHUT IN HEAT
Your wand—and my wand—dear Martha, is the cool, long breath of sober reflection that gives us time to say: “All these things can not be done at once. Some of the less important can be laid over into the convenient season which must fall into the lot of even an American housekeeper. I must keep each in its place. I will”—a strong “will,” a long “will,” and many “wills” altogether—“I will think of but one thing at a time, and do it as if there were nothing else in the world for me to do.”
The discipline of thought and nerves that must attend upon such a moral and mental effort will train lawless impulses and teach concentration of thought as well as the much-vaunted higher mathematics could. Work need not, of necessity, be worry. Industry does not imply haste.
“Count five and twenty, Tattycoram!” entreated Mr. Meagles, when the foundling’s temper was likely to get away from her.
In the same tone of affectionate warning, I pass on my homely test of facts and values—“Butter-balls to make!” First, make sure of what you really have to do, and to do today. Secondly, having screened and sifted the mass, assort the ore before you begin to smelt it—and yourself!
In place of counting five and twenty, accept my formula—“Draw ten deep breaths” before you make up your mind that you have not time for one.
The world is full of fresh air and it owes us all we can take in leisurely and thankfully.