Freckles said, when he came in,
He never would enter a tawny skin,
was another of her rhymes. Freckles come in with summer, but never appear on a dark skin, so that the freckled should rejoice in these signs of fairness.
Your father, the elderberry,
Was not such a gooseberry
As to send in his bilberry
Before it was dewberry.
Some children are liable to an unpleasant complaint at night; for this, there is a certain remedy. A mouse is baked in the oven to a ‘scrump,’ then pounded to powder, and this powder administered. Many ladies still have faith in this curious medicine; it reminds one of the powdered mummy, once the great cure of human ills. Country-places have not always got romantic names—Wapse’s Farm, for instance, and Hog’s Pudding Farm. Wapse is the provincial for wasp.
Country girls are not all so shrewd as Louisa; we heard of two—this was some time since—who, being in service in London, paid ten shillings each to Madame Rachel for a bath to be made beautiful for ever. Half a sovereign out of their few coins! On the other hand, town servants are well dressed and have plenty of finery, but seldom have any reserve of good clothing, such as Louisa possessed. All who know the country, regret the change that has been gradually coming over the servants and the class from which they are supplied. ‘Gawd help the pore missis as gets hold of you!’ exclaimed a cottage-woman to her daughter, whose goings-on had not been as they should be: ‘God help the poor mistress who has to put up with you!’ A remark that would be most emphatically echoed by many a farmer’s wife and country resident. ‘Doan’t you stop, if her hollers at ’ee,’ said another cottage-mother to her girl, just departing for service—that is, don’t stop if you don’t like it; don’t stop if your mistress finds the least fault. ‘Come along home, if you don’t like it.’ Home to what? In this instance, it was a most wretched hovel, literally built in a ditch; no convenience, no sanitation; and the father a drunkard, who scarcely brought enough money indoors to supply bread.
You would imagine that a mother in such a position would impress upon her children the necessity of endeavouring to do something. For the sake of that spirit of independence in which they seem to take so much pride, one would suppose they would desire to see their children able to support themselves. But it is just the reverse; the poorer folk are, the less they seem to care to try to do something. ‘You come home if you don’t like it;’ and stay about the hovel in slatternly idleness, tails bedraggled and torn, thin boots out at the toes and down at the heels, half-starved on potatoes and weak tea—stay till you fall into disgrace, and lose the only thing you possess in the world—your birthright—your character. Strange advice it was for a mother to give.