"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

by Phebe Earle Gibbons

On another occasion I spoke to him of the wars which England had lately waged in Asia and South Africa, and Jackson spoke of the deficit in the finances when the Liberals came in. He said that he believed their country has had to smart very severely for unnecessary wars and bloodshed, and added, “Because it was a smart little country, what business had we to go and say to other nations, ‘You shall do as we please’?”

I did not stay many days with the Jacksons. Mrs. J. considered the burden of a dairy and of young children to be enough without taking lodgers. I was recommended to the house of Mr. Benton, the principal farmer in the village, and a friend called with me and introduced me to Mrs. B., who after an interval for deliberation consented to take me as a boarder at their family table.

Benton farmed about seven hundred acres, but not all in one tract. He owned a small part, and rented from various persons. One large farm he had taken at a heavy rent, and he was worried in these hard times. He used to follow the plough when a boy, but he cannot now, having so much to do in walking around and superintending work.

Mr. and Mrs. Benton adhered to the Established Church. He began to attend Sunday-school early, perhaps at two years, and had attended ever since, he being fifty, and a teacher. He was church-warden, and the most considerable parishioner in attendance; but was not on equal visiting terms with the clergyman.

He was more reserved than his wife; he said that the English did not incline to make new friends. He seemed to hold to the same opinions that he cherished in early life; to be of warm and constant attachments, and not free from prejudice. He said that Ireland should be sunk for twenty-four hours and repeopled with English and Scotch; that the reason the poor-rates are so heavy in Ireland is that the people are so lazy. He declined to tell to which political party he held, saying that the ballot is secret. He remarked of ourselves that he wished “the Americans would let our things go in there free, same as we let their things.”

The Bentons had seven children, five of them daughters. The eldest son was twenty-one, and was actively employed attending to farm operations. The girls had taken music lessons, and could play upon the piano. The eldest two were away learning dressmaking, and Mrs. Benton thought that she might be able to get a place as lady’s-maid for one or more of her girls.

Mrs. Benton had a large house, kept in good order. She was tall, fair, good-looking, active, and sprightly. She said that she “would rather have a penny of her own hearning than tuppence that anybody should give her.” She did her housework with the help of the young daughters left at home. She said that, as a general rule, the tenant farmers had brought up their children too high, had hired servants, and now that these hard times had come, they had failed.

But Mrs. Benton’s housework is not like that of the wife of a large farmer in Pennsylvania. She does not board any of the farm hands; the only thing of the kind that they do now is to give them their beer in “’aytime.” She hires a woman to help wash. In summer they wash about once in eight weeks, and in winter more rarely, having plenty of clothes. The washing is done in two days, Saturday and Monday. Mrs. B. and her daughters do the ironing, though sometimes she puts out a frilled petticoat. They iron only the starched things; the others are mangled.

Nor does Mrs. Benton have the labor of milking, for it is done by one of the hired men. In the care of poultry she has the assistance of the shepherd’s wife, who raises chickens at their own house. Mrs. B. furnishes feed, and pays her eight cents for every fowl that she raises, and four for every twenty eggs that she brings her. She pays her own daughter a trifle for the eggs which she brings in at the home-place.