The Mississippi Creole. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1841-1851, 1849-06-09
LETTER TO COUNTRY GIRLS.

LETTER TO COUNTRY GIRLS.
Mrs. Swisshelm, in a late number of the Sat
urday Vster, has the following letter to coun-
try girls. She talks" right out" to thom:
You know | said that could quilt almost
as fast as two Of you. The reason is, take
care Of my hands. One half of you are too
proud to do this. You would not be caught
putting glove on to sweep or hoe, or weed
in the garden, because you think it would look
as if you wanted to be fine ladies. If you see
any one taking care of her hands or careful
to wear sun-bonnet to preserve her com
plexion, you cay she is 81 proud and stuck up"
But it is you who are proud-too proud to think
you require any care to look nice. You have
an idea you look well enough at any rate
So youjust make yourselves as rough and coarse
as ever you can, by way OF being independent.
Your hands grow as sti # and hard as if you
held pow and swung scythe, and when you
| take a needle you can scarcely feel II in your
fingers. This is wrong There are many
things which women ought to do, which
require their hands to be soft and pliable, and
they should be careful to keep them so, in or
der to make them useful. Every woman who
lives in the country should KNIT herself pair
of WOO len gloves, with long fingers closed at
the tops-no mits, to let the fingers get hard
There should be piece of ribbed work at the
wrist to make them stay on.
When you use your hoe, rake, or broom put
on your gloves-when you take hold of a skill
let, pot or kettle handle, take cloth to keep
your hands from being scared and hardened -
When you wash clothes or dishes, do not have
the water SO hot as to feel unpleasant. Many
girls scald their hands until they can put them
into water almost boiling. Such hands are
unfit to needle or a pin. They are net
so good to hold baby or dress wound
Take care OF your hands, and do not forget
| your faces. have seen SO many country girls
who at sixteen, had compilations like alabas-
ter, and at twenty six, their faces would look
| like rennet bag that had hung six weeks in
| the chimney corner. One reason of this is,
they don't wear bonnet to protect them from
| the sun. Another reason is, the habit they
have of baking their faces before wood fire .
Ihaye seen women stand before great roasting
fire and COOK, until | thought their brains
were asiwell stewod as the chickens; and they
would get so used to it they would make no
attempt to shield their heads from The heat
Nay, they would sit down in the evening and
bake their faces by the hour; and this is one
of the reasons why American women grow
old, withered and wrnkled fifteen years before
their time.
But another, and the greatest reason is your
diet. People in this county live too well
and eat too much hot bread and meat. Coun-
try people usually eat richer food than those
who live in the cities, and that is reason
why, with all their fresh air, tieir average age
is little greater than that Of city folks. Thou
sands of beautiful blooming country girls make
old, sallow-faced women Of themselves before
they are thirty, by drinking coffee, smoking
tobacco, and eating hot bread. They short
en- their lives by these practices about as much
as the city ladies' with their fashionable iol-
lies. | do not known what you think about
it, girls, but | think it is about as much a
sin for a woman to get old, brown, and with
cred faces, by eating too much, as 1t is Tor men
to get red noses by drinking too much. Very
few people think ita disgrace to have bill
lious fever; but would just as lief the doc
tor would tell me that | was drunk as
that was bilious. The one would come from
drinking too much, the other from eating too
much; and where is the difference? All this
8 very serious matter, for it affects health
and life; and the reason why | talk about your
complexion in speaking OF 1t is, every body
loves to look well whether they will acknowl-
edge it or not. Now people cannot look well
unless they arc well, and no one can be W ell
very long who d. es not try to take care OF her
self. The woman who roasts her head at the
fire, disorders her blood, brings on headaches,
iniures her health. and makes her face look
like a piece of leather, whea she swallows
hot coffee, hot bread, greasy victuals and strong
pickles, she destroys her stomach, rOts her
teeth, shortens her life, and makes herself too
ugly for any use, except soaring the crows of
the corn. j. u