Look at it on the score of the host’s convenience. Even with an abundant income, an ample supply of well-trained servants, every housekeeper knows that one is liable to have on the table what may be sufficient for “the family,”—the last of the bread, and only enough meat. The new bread may be almost ready for the oven, but not for the table. The butcher may have been delayed, or forgotten your order, and you have no more supplies on hand. Who does not know the anxiety and annoyance of “improvising” a dinner for unexpected guests, when the larder is not well filled? (By the way, dear young housekeeper, keep watch that you are not often caught with short “rations.”) Then, you often have engagements that demand your attention immediately after you have finished your dinner, and failing to meet such engagements may cause you much trouble, and subject you to very great annoyance. And for whom must you allow all these arrangements, connected with your own or your family’s interests, to be deranged? For almost a stranger,—a mere passing acquaintance, in nowise congenial, who finds your house more pleasant and convenient, and certainly more economical, than a public hotel. There are mischievous, roguish boys in most families, who have a very emphatic nomenclature of their own by which they would designate such liberties; but as we very gravely rebuke all “slang” phrases in our own family, we dare not venture to use their terms, however appropriate, and can simply say, that it is the coolest and most unpardonable kind of unwarrantable familiarity.
There is another trouble connected with convenient and economical visiting, which our friend has not noticed. We trust she has never experienced it. We have, many times; and in former years, with young children to care for, it was the hardest to bear of all the vexations caused by these unwelcome guests. We refer to the disturbance and dissatisfaction which such unexpected increase of labor causes among our servants. If these visits are not like those of the angels, “few and far between,” (and such hotels, once found, are not often left quiet,) your “help” will be very likely to appear before you, carpet-bag in hand, saying, “Please, mem, I must leave you; I did not hire out to a boarding-house.” Ah, what blessed independence! They can give notice to leave, but you cannot. You cannot quit your post, but must stay by, and silently endure. So custom ordains. But if custom enacts unjust laws, lays upon weary shoulders heavy burdens most grievous to be borne, is not a revolt justifiable? We think it is, and, in mercy to patient workers, the sooner it begins and the more unflinchingly it is sustained the better.
When those who have no claim upon your time or your affections take such liberties, besieging you in your home, we think it not at all reprehensible or discourteous to say, frankly, with unmistakable plainness, that it is inconvenient or quite impossible for you to accommodate or entertain them. Be as kind and gentle as you can, but be firm. They have no claim upon you; let it be well understood that you recognize none, and mean to act accordingly. If you accept the intrusion, without protest, you will but rivet your bonds; and while you find them growing stronger and more galling every year, you will also find that your power to resist and break the chains becomes weaker. Your submission to such imposition and oppression will be well noised abroad, and you will find yourself at the mercy of many a chance customer.
To such as come to you in love and for love’s sake, let your doors swing wide open. Intercourse between friends and relatives is another and very different thing. It is giving and receiving, and the pleasure makes the labor light. But to all who use your house for their own selfish convenience, lock the door and drop the key in your pocket.
XXXVI.
WILL THEY BOARD, OR KEEP HOUSE?
WE think it is considered allowable to criticise and gossip about household matters generally, so that we don’t intrench on anybody in particular. But to avoid meddling was a doctrine so thoroughly inculcated in our youth, that in our talk with young housekeepers we have found ourselves shrinking from touching upon many little mistakes that need rectifying, or topics that will bear discussion, forgetting that we are really not prying into private family matters. Yet, thanks to many letters of inquiry from unknown friends, which give us license and courage to take up prevailing modes or ideas and suggest what we think a better way, we shall go on, and perhaps be considered a meddler after all!
When young people marry, the first question asked is, “Will they board, or keep house?” And the reasons for or against keeping house show a very great variety of opinions. We hear this question so often, and see, with pain, how poorly prepared, through the reprehensible indulgence of their mothers, many of the young ladies of the present day are for the performance or superintendence of home cares and duties, that, having waited for some explicit inquiries on the subject, we now propose to embody, in an imaginary letter, some of the anxieties and distress which this same indulgence stores up for the tenderly reared daughters. We will suppose that one of these young ladies writes us as follows:—
“I know that you generally advise young people to go to housekeeping, instead of boarding. That may be the best way for most, and of late I am inclined to think it is; but I am peculiarly situated. I wonder if you can understand how very hard it must be, how almost impossible, for a young lady who has lived twenty years without any cares, who has always seen an abundance of everything,—never knowing or thinking that economy was or could be necessary,—to undertake the care of a house, under circumstances which will make it desirable that the work, if not done by her own hands, should be wholly under her constant supervision. What sort of a housekeeper would you expect her to make? I have just learned that my parents are not able, now, to start me in life as elegantly as I have always been brought up to expect. In a few weeks I shall be united to one, not rich, but I think well worthy of any sacrifice or hardship. He earnestly desires me to consent to begin housekeeping as soon as we are married. I don’t want to, because I am sure boarding will be wiser and safer than my unskillful housekeeping. But my friend says, if I will consent, he will be patient with my short-comings and mistakes, and will work enough harder to make up for all I waste while learning. Poor fellow! he little dreams what an ignoramus he is about to risk his comfort and perhaps happiness with. Why, I know absolutely nothing of what I am just beginning to feel is of the greatest importance, if we would secure a happy union. To be sure, I can sing and dance well, so partial friends say. I paint with skill and accuracy sufficient at least to amuse myself and while away such time as would otherwise drag heavily during a rainy day, and am quite skillful with my needle when I use it for fancy work; but when it comes to useful, necessary work, I am as helpless and useless as a child. Ah, if my dear parents had lavished half the money to teach me household mysteries that was expended to make me thoroughly accomplished, in the fashionable sense of that term, how happy I should now be and how bright the future would appear! I have good health, and, if I only knew how to do anything, would shrink from no hardship; but I honestly know nothing useful. And this foolish lover of mine talks about being patient with my mistakes until I learn to keep house! Alas, it will take years to teach me so that I can see my way through this fog and tangle of ignorance. I shall be an old woman, bent and gray, before I understand the first principles of household economy. Will he bear with me through all the vexatious blunders I shall make while learning, and be patient if, after years of trial, he finds I am but an awkward and unskillful worker still?”
Yes, if this young man is worthy of your love, he will value the efforts you make, and sympathize with you when you find the results unsatisfactory. If he would have your praiseworthy struggles to make the home attractive successful, he must not look back to the “leeks and onions of Egypt,” but accept the journey through the wilderness with cheerfulness, and be lovingly grateful if the “manna” falls at first but seldom. Many a young, inexperienced wife has had all her efforts paralyzed, because her husband was so often murmuring about his mother’s bread and pies and gingerbread. That is cruel and unmanly.
Now, in the first place, let us say to every young couple, Go to housekeeping by all means. However awkward or unskillful you may be, or however small and simple must be your habitation, do not let the first years of married life be passed in a boarding-house. It is no place to learn each other’s character, to become accustomed to the peculiarities that belong to every one; it is no place to accept as home.