East Saginaw courier., 1865-09-20
Sketch of too Careful Housewife.
by MRS. II. D. STOWE.

anu ODilglng; out still she was one O1
S the desperately painstaking, consclen-
{ tious sort of women, whose very blood,
5 as they grow older is devoured with
, anxiety, and she came of q race OF
t women in whom housekeeping was
, more than an art or science,--it was
: speaking, religion. Sophie's mother,
aunts, and grandmothers for nameless
{ generations back, were known and
celebrated housekeepers. They might
have been genuine descendants of that
Hollandic town of Brock, celebrated
by Washington Irving, where the
cows tails are kept tied up with un-
sullied blue ribbons, and the ends of
the firewood are painted white. He
related how celebrated preacher, vis-
iting this town, found it impossible to
draw these housewives from their
earthly views and enjoyment, until he
took to preaching on the neataess of
the celestial city, the unsullied crystal
OF It's walls, and the polish of its pave
ment, when the faces Of its house
wives were set Eionward at once.
Now this solemn and earnest view
of housekeeping is onerous enough
when poor girl enters on tho care
OF a moderately furnished house,
where the articles are not too expen-
sive to be renewed as time and use
wear them; but it is infinitely worse
when a cataract of splendid furniture
is heaped upon her care-when splen-
did crystals cut into her conscience,
and mirrors reflect her duties, and
moth and rust stand ever ready to de-
vour and sully in every room and pas
sage way.
Sophie was solemnly warned and
instructed by all the mothers and
aunts,-she was warned of moths,
warned Of cockroaohes, warned of
, dust; all the articles of furniture had
their covers, made o. cold Holland
linen, in which they looked like bodies
laid out, even the curtain tassels had
each its little shroud and bundles of
receipts and Of rites and ceremonies
necessary for the preservation and pu-
ritication and care of all these articles
were stuffed into the poor girls head,
before guiltless Of cares as the feath-
ers that Aoated above it.
Poor Bill found very soon that his |
house and furniture were to be kept
at such an ideal point of perfection
that he needed another house to live
in,-for, poor fellow, he found the diff
ference betN cen house and home
Jv"i VI Two alter that |
my wife AID / started our mcHaye on |
very different principles, and Bill would
often drop in upon us, wistfully linger-
ing in the cozy arm chair between
my writing table and my wife's sofa,
and saying with sigh how confound-
edly pleasant things looked there.--so
pleasant to have bright, open fire,
and geraneum, and roses, and birds,
and all that sort of things, anl to |
dare to stretch out ones legs and to
move without one thinking what one
was going to hit "Sophia is a good |
girl" he would say, "and wants to
have everything right, but you see
they won't let her. They've loaded |
her with so many that have to be kept |
in lavender, that the poor girl is actu- |
ally getting thin and losing her health
and then you see there's aunt Zeruah,
she mounts guard at our house, and
keeps up such strict policy regulations
that fellow can't do a thing. The
parlors are splendid but SO lonesome
and dismal not ray of sunshine, in
fact, not ray of light, except when
visitor is calling, and then they open
crack. They're afraid Of flies, and
yet, dear knows, they keep every look
ing glass and picture frame muilled to
its throat from March to December.
I'd like for curiosity TO see what a fly
would do in our parlors u
"Well," said /, "can't you have
somo little family sitting room, where
you can make yourself cozy ?"
"Not q bit Of it. Sophia and aunt
Zeruah have fixed their thrones up in
our bedroom, and there they sit all
day long, except at calling hours and
then Sophia dresses herself and comes
down. Aunt Zeruah insists upon it
that the way is TO put the whole house
in order, and shut all the blinds, and
set in your bedroom, and then, she
says nothing gets out of place; and
she tells poor Sophia the most hocus-
pocus stories about her gradmothers
and aunts, who always kept everything
in their houses so that that they could
60 and lay their hands on it in the
darkest night. I'll bet they could in
our house. From end to end it is
kept looking as if we had shut it up
and gone to Europe, mot book, not
paper, not glove, or any trace of
human being in our sight.
"The piano shut tight, the book
case shut and locked, the engravings
locked up, all the drawers and closets
locked. Why, if want to take a fell
low into tho library, in the first place
it smells like vault, and i have to
unbarricade windows, and unlock and
rummage for half an hour before
can get anything; aud i know aunt
Xeruah is standing tiptoe at the door
ready TO whip everything back and
lock up again. A fellow can't be So
cial, or take any comfort in showing
his books and pictures that way
Then there's our great, light dining
room, with sunny south windows. -
Aunt Zeruah got us out of that early
in April, because she said the flies
would spect the frescoes, and get into
the china closet, and we have been
eating in little dingy den, with a
window looking out on back alley.
ever since; and Aunt Zeruah says
that now the dining-room is always~in
perfect order, and that is such a care
Off Sophie's mind that ought TO be
willing TO eat down cellar to the end
of the chapter. Now, you see, Chris,
my position is delicate one, because
Sophie's folks all agree, that If there