If Frank or Charles or Edward should call while the young lady is engaged in making bread, she is perhaps quite disconcerted, and would not for the world have him know what she is doing;—she sends word to him, either that she is out, or that she is particularly engaged, and begs he will excuse her;—or if by any means she happens unexpectedly to be caught at her employment, she is greatly embarrassed, and makes the best apology she can for being engaged in such menial services.
As a matter of course, while such are the views and feelings entertained on this subject, and while such is the manner in which this duty is performed, it will ever be a mere accident if good bread is made; and a mere accident if such girls ever become good bread-makers when they are wives and mothers.
But if parents, and especially mothers, could view this matter in its true light, how differently would they educate their children. They would then feel that, grateful as it is to a mother’s heart to see her daughters highly refined and elegantly accomplished, and able to “make the instrument discourse most eloquent music,” and to transfer living nature, with all its truth and beauty and sublimity, to the canvass, still the art of bread-making, when considered in all its relations and intimate connections with human health, and prosperity, and virtue, and happiness, and with reference to the natural responsibilities and duties of woman, is actually one of the highest and noblest accomplishments that can adorn the female character. And then, too, would they consider it of exceedingly great importance, that their daughters should possess this accomplishment, even though they may never be in circumstances which will require the exercise of it.
Some eight or nine years since, I spent several months in the delightful village of Belvidere, on the banks of the Delaware, in Pennsylvania. While there, I enjoyed for a number of weeks the kind hospitality of S— S—, Esq., a lawyer, and a gentleman of great moral excellence. Mrs. S. was born and brought up, I believe, in Philadelphia. Her father was a man of wealth, and she was the only daughter, and—almost as a matter of course—was indulged in all that she desired. But there were so many of the elements of a good wife and mother in her natural composition, that as soon as she entered into those interesting and important relations, she began to devote herself to the duties of them with a sincerity and conscientiousness which could not fail of success. Surrounded as she was, with wealth, and every comfort and convenience of life, and all of its luxuries that she desired, still she was industrious in her habits, and vigilantly attentive to all the concerns of her household. She usually kept three female domestics, who, by her kind maternal deportment towards them, were warmly attached to her. She had no difficulty in procuring nor in keeping help, because she always treated them in such a manner that they loved to stay with her; and she took much pains to qualify them for the proper discharge of their duties. They evidently loved her, and were sincerely desirous of performing all their services in such a manner as would be pleasing to her. Yet with all these advantages to justify her leaving such a duty to her domestics, Mrs. S. invariably made the family bread with her own hands. Regularly as the baking day came, she went into her kitchen and took her stand beside the bread trough, and mixed and kneaded the dough, and put it in its proper place for rising, and, in due time, moulded it into the loaf and baked it.
Do you always make your bread, madam? I inquired one day, as she returned from the performance of that task. “Invariably,” she replied: “that is a duty I trust no other person to do for me.”
But cannot your domestics make good bread? I asked. “I have excellent domestics,” answered Mrs. S., “and they can, perhaps, make as good bread as I can; for they have been with me several years, and I have taken pains to learn them how to do my work; and they are exceedingly faithful and affectionate, and are always willing to do all they can to please me; but they cannot feel for my husband and my children as I do, and therefore they cannot feel that interest which I do, in always having such bread as my husband and my children will love and enjoy. Besides, if it were certain their care and vigilance and success in bread-making would be always equal to mine, yet it is wholly uncertain how long they will remain with me. Various circumstances may take place, which may cause them to leave me, and bring me into dependence upon those who know not how to make good bread; and therefore I choose to keep my own hand in. But, apart from all other considerations, there is a pleasure resulting from the performance of this duty, which richly rewards me for all the labor of it. When my bread is made and brought upon the table, and I see my husband and children eat it and enjoy it, and hear them speak of its excellence, it affords me much satisfaction, and I am glad to know that I have contributed so much to their health and happiness; for, while my bread is so good that they prefer it to anything else upon the table, there is little danger of their indulging, to any injurious extent, in those articles of food which are less favorable to their health.”
I need not say that this lady invariably had excellent bread upon her table. But instances of this kind are, I regret to say, extremely rare, even in christian communities; and therefore when such cases are known, they ought to be held up as most noble examples of female virtue, and receive such high commendations as their intrinsic merit deserves, and such as will be calculated to beget in the minds of others an exalted sense of the dignity and importance of such duties, and prompt every wife and mother to the intelligent and affectionate performance of them.
For it should ever be remembered that, though our children, while they depend on us for protection, are also properly the subjects of our government, yet as soon as they are capable of appreciating our authority and our influence, they are, like ourselves, moral agents, and ought, in all respects, to be governed and nurtured as such; and therefore it is not enough that we can give them such bread as we think best for them, and compel them to eat it; but the grand point at which the mother should always aim, in this matter, is, to place before her children such bread as is the very best for them, and at the same time, to make it the most agreeable to them, and thereby make their duty and their enjoyment perfectly coincide.
Let no one therefore say she cannot always have good bread, until she can truly affirm that she has fairly made the experiment; that she has, in view of all its relations and bearings, accurately estimated the importance of the quality of her bread in regard to the welfare of her household, and, with a proper sense of her responsibilities as a wife and mother, has at all times felt that interest and exercised that care and attention which so important a duty demands, and without which it must ever be a mere accident whether her bread is good or bad.
They that will have good bread, not only for a single time, but uniformly, must make the quality of their bread of sufficient importance, in their estimation and feelings, to secure the requisite attention to the means by which alone such an end can be made certain. They must not suffer themselves, through carelessness, to get entirely out of bread unexpectedly, and thus be obliged, without due preparation, to make up a batch of such materials as they may happen to have at hand, and bake it in haste, and hurry it to the table. But they must exercise providence and foresight: they must know, beforehand, when their supply of bread will probably be out, and when they will need to make another batch; and they must see beforehand that measures are taken to secure a proper supply of all the requisite materials—see that they are furnished with good meal or flour; and they must be sure to have the best of yeast or leaven, when they need it—and when the time comes for them to make their bread, if by any means the yeast should not be good, let them throw it away and make good, before they proceed to make their bread; for it is infinitely better that the family should even do without bread one day, and eat roasted potatoes, than that they should eat poor bread three or four days; and if, from any cause, the bread should be poor, it is incomparably better to throw it away, than to set it upon the table, to disgust the whole family with bread, and drive them to make most of their meal on something else.