Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-09-26
Written for the Free Press and Tint
The Vermont Farmers In their Homes.
New SERIEs-No. l

NEW SERIEs-No. l.
The Farmers Hires-The SIN Of Orerrork
Indoor and Outdoor Work-A Woman
adrioe 10 Nomcn-AdUaatGge Of Cooper
afioH IN Household Work.
The talking world seems to be pretty well
awake to the evils of oyerwork among our
agricultural women. Almost every news
paper has it. occasional hint or word Of eau
ton for this worn and weary class.
What 90 the farmers themselves say about
this deplorable state Of things. whichis SUI
ficiently obvious to any one with the ordi-
nary number Of senses?
q do not suppose it ever occurs to US
women that work being in the path Of
duty can be SIM some dreaming idler
(?) of them has said and the hardest work
er believes there "a is no other way
In the mind of the husband and father
there seems to be an alternative. How
many times | have heard such a one say
with look of anxiety: Il know my wife Is
working too hard; she is killing herself !;
we've got to make up our minds to sell the
farm and 20 where We can have an easier
life"
This is the one prospect Of relief the fu-
ture holds out to him.
But it i hard thing to give up the
broad acres on which ones father AMI
grandfather perhaps, hayeliyedand worked
before him, where every tree, and rock, and
stone is a link between now and the pleas
ant past when he was boy. No forests are
so beautiful as the woods he played in then
no brook 50 sparkling and bright as the one
from which he brought home his first
catch Of minnows no water so clear
and cold as the spring by the rock in the
meadow where the mowers jug used to
stand in haying-time; no sunset 50 fine as
that he has watched when the days work
was done, from his own verandah. And
then the trees planted by dear, dead hands,
the trunks Scared with curious carvings
some Of these names are in the busy places
Of the world now, and some Of them are on
tombstOnes. There is a vein Of sentiment
in the stolteSt heart, and it Is reached in
this rough looking farmer when he thinks
about giving up the land which has been
identified with his life 50 long, aud seeing
his sacred things pass into the unhallowei
hands of strangers
But there is the wife growing thinner and
paler and crosser, or quieter, perhaps, with
that ominous look of resignation which
presages the end. Something will have to
be done before long. There is not much to
be hoped from i" hired help" Most girls
who work out at all, prefer the city or town
where large diaries are not known and the
evenings out are more inviting, so they 20
there, without making a paradise Of the do
nestle world in those places, as | hear
And when one succeeds in getting I" lady
to ASSIST in the kitchen, the testimony OIL
thrifty hOuse-keepers is universal that she
makes almost as much work as she saves
besides a great deal of care and bother
Once in while we hear of household
which is fortunate enough to have good
help" but any farmer who has ridden fol
days, perhaps in a hurrying time, in cast
of illness, to find somebody anybody, tC
keep the whee Is Of the domestic machinery
in motion, and any farmers wife who ha'
put up with such an assistant as he coulC
procure. and lived through it, will be sur,
to look incredulous when you talk Of eff
Gent help to do all kinds Of Homework il
the country, even for high wages and the
most respectful consideration.
The attention Of the world in these lattel
days has been called quite unceremonious
ly, as some have thought, to the work o
women everywhere, and there has beer
great talk Of spheres, and duties, and pro
prieties, and possibilities. 1t seems to b.
the general opinion that there must be
liue drawn somewhere, definite and positive
over and above the one which nature ha
drawn, between the work Of women anC
men. And | cannot help thinking tina
these agricultural people have drawn it
little too carelessly, and quite too regard
less of facts and circumstances, putting il
down as they have, simply and uncompro-
misingy, between indoor and outdoor
work
Think of it moment the planting
and sowing, the reaping and moving, rem
dered comparatively easy by the use of horse
power the care Of stock, the gardening
the fruit-growing, some of it heavy, but
more of it light and all open-air work. the
men have for their part; with perfect leisure
when they are in the house while the but
ter and the bread-making, the washing.
the scrubbing and securing, the care of
young children, the perplexing needle work
all the bad air and not moments leisure.
comes to the women-In addition, be it re-
membered, u the duties of maternity which
are not allowed for, not provided for. and
which come as it were incidentally and are
to be got along with in any way that nav
be-
am not thinking Of an isolated case =;
am not thinking Of half a dozen cases or
single neighb0rhood. ] am thinking of
all the hundred farmer families that know.
am thinking of the testimony of physi-
clans and the living witnesses of weak
slckly young women and broken-down
young men, and of the sad warnings of worn
out invalids. For the sake of the coming
generation 1t seems to me that the wives of
our respectable, well-to-do farmers should
not be allowed to take upon themselves
double, treble duty. They should know
that ii they work harder han their hard
working husbands, and become mothers he
sides, thar being worn out themselves before
their time Is only part Of the penalty that
will have to be paid for their presumptuous
sin against nature.
% then my advice to these women Is the
same that conservative editors and ortbodox
clergymen have been sounding in the eors
oil The feminine world 50 long. Keen in
your sphere. Let mems work alone and he
content with strictly feminine oecuna,;ons
Never fear for moment that if Won ,iro
up, for instance, cleansing the family
soiled clothes Of Monday, that your bus.
band will be oyerburdened. Yop kro,r
what LIE did when the cheese became 50 Ia-co
ana heavy that you actually could not lif,
them how he calamity took the matter
into his own hands, andfndlng it perpet.
ual bother to leave his work in the field two
or three times day in order to turn or ppt