“When your own sex are concerned, you women are the closest beings,” said Mr. P., laughing. “Do just as you please, however,” he continued, as he observed a brown gather on the brow of his wife; “for my part I should be glad if washing-days were blotted entirely from the calendar.”
At this moment the washerwoman passed the window with her stiffened skirts and almost frozen hands and arms. Some emotions of pity stirring in his breast at the sight, he again asked, “Do you think it will be exactly right, my dear, to make old Phoebe do the same amount of labour for half the wages?”
“Of course it will,” replied Mrs. Percy, decidedly; “we are bound to do the best we can for ourselves. If she objects, she can say so. There are plenty of poor I can get who will be glad to come, and by this arrangement I shall save thirteen dollars a year.”
“So much,” returned Mr. P., carelessly; “how these things do run up!” Here the matter ended as far as they were concerned. Not so with “old Phoebe,” as she was called. In reality, however, Phoebe was not yet forty; it was care and hardship which had seamed her once blooming face, and brought on prematurely the appearance of age. On going to Mrs. Percy in the evening after she had finished her wash, for the meagre sum she had earned, that lady had spoken somewhat harshly about her being so slow, and mentioned the new arrangement she intended to carry into effect, leaving it optional with the poor woman to accept or decline. After a moment's hesitation, Phoebe, whose necessities allowed her no choice, agreed to her proposal, and the lady, who had been fumbling in her purse, remarked:—
“I have no change, nothing less than this three-dollar bill. Suppose I pay you by the month hereafter; it will save me a great deal of trouble, and I will try to give you your dollar a month regularly.”
Phoebe's pale cheek waxed still more ghastly as Mrs. Percy spoke, but it was not within that lady's province to notice the colour of a washerwoman's face. She did, however, observe her lingering, weary steps as she proceeded through the yard, and conscience whispered some reproaches, which were so unpleasant and unwelcome, that she endeavoured to dispel them by turning to the luxurious supper which was spread before her. And here I would pause to observe, that whatever method may be adopted to reconcile the conscience to withholding money so justly due, so hardly earned, she disobeyed the positive injunction of that God who has not left the time of payment optional with ourselves, but who has said—“The wages of him that is hired, shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.”—Lev. 19 chap. 13th verse.
The husband of Phoebe was a day labourer; when not intoxicated he was kind; but this was of rare occurrence, for most of his earnings went for ardent spirits, and the labour of the poor wife and mother was the main support of herself and four children—the eldest nine years, the youngest only eighteen months old. As she neared the wretched hovel she had left early in the morning, she saw the faces of her four little ones pressed close against the window.
“Mother's coming, mother's coming!” they shouted, as they watched her approaching through the gloom, and as she unlocked the door, which she had been obliged to fasten to keep them from straying away, they all sprang to her arms at once.
“God bless you, my babes!” she exclaimed, gathering them to her heart, “you have not been a minute absent from my mind this day. And what have you suffered,” she added, clasping the youngest, a sickly, attenuated-looking object, to her breast. “Oh! it is hard, my little Mary, to leave you to the tender mercies of children hardly able to take care of themselves.” And as the baby nestled its head closer to her side, and lifted its pale, imploring face, the anguished mother's fortitude gave way, and she burst into an agony of tears and sobbings. By-the-by, do some mothers, as they sit by the softly-lined cradles of their own beloved babes, ever think upon the sufferings of those hapless little ones, many times left with a scanty supply of food, and no fire, on a cold winter day, while the parent is earning the pittance which is to preserve them from starvation? And lest some may suppose that we are drawing largely upon our imagination, we will mention, in this place, that we knew of a child left under such circumstances, and half-perishing with cold, who was nearly burned to death by some hops (for there was no fuel to be found), which it scraped together in its ragged apron, and set on fire with a coal found in the ashes.
Phoebe did not indulge long in grief, however she forgot her weary limbs, and bustling about, soon made up a fire, and boiled some potatoes, which constituted their supper—after which she nursed the children, two at a time, for a while, and then put them tenderly to bed. Her husband had not come home, and as he was nearly always intoxicated, and sometimes ill-treated her sadly, she felt his absence a relief. Sitting over a handful of coals, she attempted to dry her wet feet; every bone in her body ached, for she was not naturally strong, and leaning her head on her hand, she allowed the big tears to course slowly down her cheeks, without making any attempt to wipe them away, while she murmured: