Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-09-24
Home Topics.
HELPING A HUSBAND.

Isn't there universal groan going up
because it is SO hard to get living2 PEG.
pie who are already rich-especialy if they
got their wealth by speculation or by public
ofice---pst on airs of wisdom, and assure the
poor that nobody need remain poor. Only
let them live economically; wages are good;
by saving a little every year any one can
soon get rich. But the man with growing
family can't always see this. He wants
books and papers, aud music and pictures in
his home, aud he thinks his family has as
much need of their refining influence as any
other family. He loves to see his own wife
dressed in good clothes on Sundays aud holi-
days, and he knows that she is best pleased
with him when he is we'll dressed, and both
Of them wish to give their children the best
opportunities for good health and good
education. His own wages are hardly sufi-
cient to cover all these expenses. How can
his wife help him2
In former times she did all the family work,
not only the cooking, washing and ironing,
and sewing, but also the spinning aud weav-
ing of cloth, soap making, fruit preserving
and candle dipping. Some say that we must
60 back to that kind of life. Others tell us
that such retrogression would not pay, even
in dollars and cents, but they say that now
women are relieved from so many Of the old
labors by the work of factories, they ought
to engage in the mechanical, mercantile and
professional kinds Of business, so that they
may not only support themselves while
single, but help to gil the family purse after
marriage. 1t does seem best that every
young woman should be prepared to earn
her own living, as a part Of her education;
and that she should support herself by her
own labor if it falls to her lot, either through
necessity, as in the case of most working
girls, or through natural adaptation and in
clination, as 10 the case of Clara Louise
Kellogg, Gail Hamilton, or many an obscure
dOer Of good works.
But it surely is not best, as general rule,
that wives should be expected to earn money
by any regular business, especially if they
are mothers. There may be circumstances
of sickness or debt, or poverty, which make
it seem necessary for mother to do this,
but the home care Of her husband and chill
dreD is business enough for the mother Of
two or more children, and if the actual
labors of housekeeping are added to this
home-making business, and if both are done
well, there is certainly not strength enough
to spare for any other regular occupation.
A man who wants to have a good-natured
wife, ready every day to give him that smil-
ing welcome (which is the old recipe for
keeping him from making drunken brute
of himself) had better see that his wife has
some leisure and some rest. These remarks
apply not only to the woman who leaves her
children in the care Of strangers, while she
goes about the country delivering lectures,
rides by day or night to visit sick patients,
but quite as much TO the farmers wife who
has the care Of butter making business
imposed upon her by her husband, or who,
sick or well, has to work with might and
main through all the hottest season, to
take care Of the various kinds Of
fruit which her husband has grown, in
the cool expectation that the women-iolks
will do the main part of the fruit picking
and preserving or marketing. If wife has
time and strength to devote to IL, the butter
making or fruit drying business is q good
one, bat wish the conservative" bretheren
to see that wife and mother, who has to
neglect her real home work, her loving care
and genial companiOnship as mother and wife,
to help along in what he calls his business,
is just as much out Of her proper sphere as
the mother who teaches school or delivers
lectures. He had better consider, too, how
far this applies to the business Of taking
bOarders.
Why need we try to get rich2 Why not
begin to be rich indeed Instead Of bend