River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1875-10-08
BOARDING.
From Harper's Bazar.l

| Obliged to cater daily for the three meals
of an ordinary family, without much in.
terruption, the prospect Of boarding is
most inviting. Such a one imagineS that
she Is about to enter a kind Of fairy land,
where dinners, breakfasts, and teas APP
pear as if by magic, invoked by the
gnome of the bell; land
where dish washing and busting, where
marketing and cooking, and all the name.
less ills to which housekecpers are heirs,
will have become obsolete--at least so
far as she is concerned where the
butcher, the baker, the grocer boy and
| the milk-man will no longer demand at
tention, and become strangers to her, and
where she will not need to earn her
bread and butter by the sweat Of her
brow. And indeed there is something to
be said in favor of boarding; it offers an
asylum free from the stern contempla-
ton Of steaks and roasts, from the ex-
acting claims of pastry and buildings.
from the heavy responsibility Of house
hold economy--of making sure that to-.
days joint shall furnish for tomorrow
mornings hash, and tina. not coldly :;
that yesterdays boiled potatoes shall re-
appear brown and crispat to.day's break.
fast; that the crust Of bread shall be
transformed into griddle-cakes, and the
surplus milk into blanc mango; that the
maids shall not squander her substance,
nor piller from the larder for the benefit
Of their cousins widow; that the pre-.
serves shall be secured from fermenta-
tion as well as the family temper, and all
things be seasonable and in order. Only
those who attempt it know how weari-
some this drudgery becomes after long
service, and how like a haven of rest and
reireshment the boarding house looms
up against tle mental horizon. The
good houSekeeper is necessarily so intent
upon her routine, IN order TO maintain
the comfort of her household, so absorbed
with the eXigencies of the day and the
hour, so iervent in baking and brewing,
in spring cleaning and in setting her
house in or Ter, that she is in danger of
neglecting much which it would be both
| pleasure and profit TO attend TO, such as
the cultivation of mind and society. The
accomplishments of her youth are apt to
grow rusty for want of practice, the
piano is dumb because her lingering be-
comes stiff and awkward, her French and
Ger nan fade from her remembrance and
become dead languages, her pencil forgets
its cunning. Sentiment and friendship
require time, and She has none to give
them but what has been already be-
spoken, it is hand to hand fight if she
would keep up with the literature Of the
day, if she would not sit like mum.
chance while others discourse of the
latest poem or the last discovery in
science, and even this is sometimes done
at the expense Of those dependent upon
her for attention and comfort, and also
at the expense of her reputation. "My
parlor must either go undusted or my
mind unfinished" the young house
keeper declares, and she generally at
tempts TO compromise, and neither fur.
nshes her mind nor keeps her house in
| Pimlico. She is ambitious to make the
best bread, to preside at the best table,
to put up the best tomato catsup and
/ the best inarmalade, to entertain company
in the most perfect manner, to secure the
most desirable home for her children and
I bring them up in the way they should
]
bilious to read Browning and Herbert
Spencer and Huxley, 10 have an opinion
on the last book, the last picture and the
last opera; and nothing is more difficult
than TO ride two hobby .hOrses, for one or
the other is certain either to throw or
run away with the rider.
But what infinite leisure does the
clearinghouse life seem to supply
What long forenoons for the practice of
sonatas and symphonies, for shopping
and calling, with no need to hurry home
to make the buildings for dinner, or to
see that Bridget is not entertaining in
the drawing-room; gracious afternoons,
wherein no haste is, that may be spent at
matinees or over novel: what seasons
Cor study and severe thought; what days
conversation and the interchanges Of
ideas--days in which we seem provided
Gor rs easily as the children Of lSreal in
the wilderness; days in which we literal
| ly take no thoughts as to wherewithal we
shall be fed Mays into which no hcgra
and no spring cleaning enter hours in
which no contentious with unrnly Noras
intrude, 18th which no contentious with
which no untimely warnings Of theirs in
terierc. Not that we would, by any
means, recommend wholesale boarding
ont, and their inmates take TO the some
what irresponsible and vagobond life of a
/ boarding. house. One who has spent q
great portion Of her life in boarding will
make poor hostess. so the legend runs.
! Doubtless it is The last place in the world
IN which children should be reared, the
last place in which to become initiated
/ into the graces and amenities that CON
stitutc the charm of family life. The
young girl who has boarded much is
easily distinguished from the one who has
grown in the shadow Of the roof.trces.
The first is usully devoted TO dress and
triiles, having no or few regular duties TO
1 perform, nourishes an oycrwccning re.
gard for personal attention and gossip,
becomes btdse from living thus out.of.
doris, so 10 speak She generally dis
courses in loud tones TO attract notice,
and spices her remarks with slang. She
makes acquaintance too readily nirts
promiscuously, and CYCLES without
! justi cation. Still, for those
women whose nests are empty, whose
who must needs sit down on solitary
meal, who are at the mercy of waysde