We could multiply examples, but your own experience will fill up the picture, and, if you are wise, teach you that each day has its own duties, which can be mastered; but if you add to them the work of yesterday you make the burden grievous to be borne. Your old “copy-books” told you, when you were young, that Procrastination is the thief of time. In riper age remember it. “Never put off till to-morrow that which you should do to-day.”
LXXI.
THE SUREST REMEDY.
TO the troubles and annoyances which befall housekeepers there is no end, if they are obliged to rely on servants for comfort and peace of mind. In social gatherings the conversation often turns on the trials they experience from this part of their household. It is not at all strange that it should be so, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” and verily in this particular the heart has ample reasons for being abundantly filled, and there is no end to just cause of complaint.
One girl is a good worker, but impudent; another is always willing, but very untidy. This one is neat, but so slow that her work is never finished. That one is unequaled in order and efficiency, but her temper is so uncertain you cannot make a suggestion without risking a storm that quite destroys all the pleasure her excellent work might otherwise afford you. One is extravagant and wasteful; another economical in using materials for your family, but dishonest in appropriating your property for her own benefit.
So, in a company of a dozen ladies, one takes up the discourse as the other ends, and, without exaggeration, proves her own trials even more vexatious than her neighbors’. It is possible that the mistress, by searching, may find some slight symptoms of these very defects in her own character. The least said on that side of the question the better, perhaps. But, as we once heard a lady say, “We don’t hire servants for that sort of actions.”
But, whatever may be the defects of the mistress, we know there are very strong foundations on which to build the complaints about servants; for it cannot be denied that these “troublesome comforts” have it in their power to diminish the sum of domestic happiness, to a degree which requires much grace and patience to endure with equanimity; and that the power they have usurped is on the increase will not, we imagine, be gainsaid. Once the employés in the family fully understood the position they were engaged to fill in their employer’s house; and knew that certain service was paid for, which must be strictly and honestly rendered, or they would lose their place, and having lost it, unrecommended, would find it difficult to secure another. Once—and the time is not so far distant but that most of us can still remember it—one girl was expected to do the work that we are now compelled to employ three to do. And this one girl did the work, and did it well,—far better than we can hope to have it done now. She was not injured by it; no complaints were made, we mean in ordinary cases,—in every station some may be found who abuse power and cruelly oppress those whom circumstances have placed in an inferior position; but these are only solitary cases; as a general thing there was no ground for complaint. The service was kindly and cheerfully rendered. But now, with three or four girls, the work drags, is imperfectly done, and “the work is too hard” is the constant cry. Why is this? What reason can be assigned for a change so complete and annoying?
In part because the foreigners who land on our shores, and upon whom, unfortunately, we are obliged to depend for all labor which we cannot do ourselves, come to us with strange ideas of what is meant by all being “free and equal”; or, if you take one right from the emigrant vessel, it requires but a few weeks for those of their nation, who, having been here longer, think themselves better informed, to impart their knowledge, and teach erroneous ideas of these rights. Under such bad influence it takes but a short time for the modest stranger, whom you received into your house and endeavored to teach a correct mode of labor, to be transformed both in dress and manners into a bold, self-willed girl. Her countrywomen gather about her and warn her not to be “put upon,”—a favorite phrase among those whose chief aim is to get the highest price for the least labor. “Stand up for your rights”; and they proceed to expound a code of “rights” which, if they were allowed to carry into practice, would soon leave us entirely at their mercy.
They are told to insist upon just so many times at church, and certain days “out.” Then the funerals—and there never was such mortality as is always happening among our servants’ relations, particularly the cousins—and the weddings, and the baptism of infants for which our girls are to stand “sponsors,” all come upon us in quick succession. Then, every step of the work each girl is expected to do must be carefully defined, and you are not to be allowed to call upon them, on any condition, for one thing over and above the specified labor.
How has this class of persons succeeded in taking and maintaining such a stand? In part it has grown up, gradually, from seeing in their employers the independence that is a distinctive peculiarity in our national character. But that which, when rightly regulated, is a noble thing, when used by uninformed and undisciplined minds, for selfish ends, is not likely to bring forth the most desirable results.
But is not the trouble and disturbance through our servants, which particularly characterizes the present day, in part the fault of the ignorance of the mistress? Our ladies give much less attention to domestic affairs than in former times; and our young ladies are growing up, for the most part, poor housekeepers. The material for the very best of servants may be easily ruined by a poor mistress. Much time and money is expended on the education of our girls; but that part of education which would help to keep them strong and healthful is almost entirely ignored,—we mean regular work, at stated times, about the house; not only to establish good health, but to secure a thorough knowledge of domestic operations.