Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1869-07-23
From Hearth and Home.
Letter from q Western Girl.

accomplished, speaks French and Ger
man as well and fuently as English, is
an unusually fine musician, has visited
foreign lands, and is the staunchest little
patriot you can imagine. Yet this girl
can cook, and wash, and bake. She can
do it, l say, and do it we'll; but that
doesn't presuppose that she acts general
ly as her fathers cook, washerwoman,
and baker. Then when she sits down to
write to that father, she sends him good,
up-and-down, straightforward letter, as
you shall see
My Dear Father MIR. Pruden has
been here about the new house. i am
glad it is to be smaller than the present
one Servants a'e so hard to get here,
and living is such labor if you have a
great house on your shoulders, that you
cannotenjoy it. Big houses, extensive and
stylish living, do not suit the Western
country. Servants are unreliable and
untaught; the whole burden falls on the
housekeeper. How many pale, lifeless
women you see in the West, and in the
East, too, for that matter Young, fresh
looking women marry, and in five years
you would scarcely recognize them while
their husbands look as fresh as on the
day of the wedding. One cause of this
is complicated housekeeping. When a
man undertakes business, he finds
trained men ready to assist him ; he
knows what there is to do, and secures
help accordingly. A young woman here
goes to housekeeping very often without
any help at all, or perhaps with one awk-
ward girl. There are three meals to get
every day-that means cooking and
then come the dishes to be washed after
each meal. 1t would take about forty
five pieces for breakfast and supper, and
seventy for dinner for family of five
one hundred and sixty-fve pieces to be
carried from the dlning-room to the kitch-
en- every day, washed and carried back.
there is one room to bethoroughly swept
and cleaned daily, besides brushing up
the others, making beds, bringing in
wood, and carrying water. Twicea week
there is bread-making, twice a week
yeast-making, one day washing, one day
ironing, all your pantries and safes to be
washed out once week, dairy-work to
attend to, besides innumerable jobs in
the way of preserving. jelly-making,
picking pork, curing hams, putting down
pigs feet, looking over and wiping off
your apples twice in the winter, making
hog's-head cheese, mince meat, thor
ough house-cleaning twice year, then
the sewing, dresses, aprons, shirts, draw
ers, gowns, etc, by dozens. Then sup
posing the housekeeper has baby an
average six months old baby weighs
about eighteen pounds. Say she has
this child in her arms forty times day
Ga cross infant is taken up much more
frequently, and often she works with the
right arm, while carrying the bundle of
baby about with her left. Who is it
says there is anything in gymnastics
equal to the endurance of the mother s
arm?
Even when the days labor is accom-
plished and she goes to bed, she still
holds her baby, and does not sleep sound
ly, for fear of rolling on it or its getting
uncovered she must attend to its wants
several times in the night, and must lie
in constrained position for fear of dis
turbing it. have heard women say
they would give any thing for one
night of undisturbed sleep, with no care
on their mind. Then in the morning up
and at it again. Don't you see why wo.
men get pale, and why they are some
times little cross, and why their hus
bands wonder that their wives don't look
4 pretty and dress well, and entertain them
as they did before they were married
The wives don't reason on the matter
they think it is all the mans fault and
then they turn cross, and SO things &c
at skies and sevens. And this is the
place where woman's rights should be
taken hold of. / don't think voting
would help that very much woman's
labor should be made a study. In the
first place, men must realize that it is a
very great labor to raise a family of sew
eral children, and next to impossible tc
raise family of eight or ten without in
jury either to the mother or to the fam
lily. They must also understand that 9
goood deal of money is required if theil
house is to be carried on in stylish way
They must not hand their wives thou
sand dollars and expedt from it a ten
\ thousand dollar style of living, and
grumble because they don't get it. And
then the cooks, the chambermaids. the
nurses should be educated, and should
be as well paid for their services, rela.
lively, as men are for theirs, and there