The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1876-05-11

AAANAA Va VAAO "nOAO NAo"NY WON4N 1to6tty
ninety per cent. of pure gold if human
beings were put into the scales to be
tested. She has lived in New York for
forty-one years without a blot on her
character, and though she works hard
for only fair pay she says she wouldn' t
exchange places with any queen in the
world.
'sQueens must wear corsets and clean
their finger nails and keep their teeth
white, says Mary, ''and it must be an
awful burden. I've only my pail and
brush to see to, and when night comes
I can sit with my feet on the stand and
wonder and think, and nobody comes
near me with grand bows, fine speech
es and smelling of SIS perfume
AS Mary sat in the stairs the other
noon, contentedly eating a plain cold
dinner, she was asked why she never
made some man happy with her love.
"Never had time, . she promptly re-
piled Us she bit into a slice of brown
bread. "When I'm washing windows
| have no time to love. When I'm
|scrubbing out, it's to wet too think of
love. When l m at home my back
aches 90 hard that all l think Of is
plasters.'
It is asserted that no female ever
passed the age of twenty without hav.
ing loved. but Mary is an exception,
she remarked.
II don't say that l couldn't have
loved for it is woman's nature to love
and be loved, but the right man didn't t
come along. There were chaps with
broken noses, black eyes and chaps
who could swear worse than a harbor
pirate on a cold night. There were
others that could make speech, sing
a song, drink \ quart, and lick three
men, but they weren't my fancy.
when they winked at me my hear
didn't thump any more than these
stairs thump now.'
Mary O'Lone does not claim to be a
broken down hciress, and does not ask
the public to shed tear over her p0-
sition in life. She was born in the
business. The first thing she remem-
bers was playing in the suds and eat.
ing bar soap. She wasrubbing a wash.
board before she was ten years old,
and when she was fifteen she could
give wet sheet more artistic flop
than any other girl between New York
and the Black Hills. Other girls used
,"stand by and see her wiring out a
towel and twist the moisture out of a
tablecloth; and they went home with
tears in their eyes and envy in their
hearts. Whenever Mary's commercial
standing as a washerwoman was quot
ed it was always given as ''small cap
ital, but good until you get down to
the last cent From ten to forty,
she made wet clothes bounce up and
down the wash board, and then she
turned over the tubs for the last time,
having found that window washing
was a more lucrative business. She
did not make the change without sad
ness. When one has been the daily
associate of a washtub for thirty con.
secutive years change to mop and
brush cannot fail to call up sad recol.
lections And Mary sighed:
Turn over my tubs for rest,
The washb0ard hang up in the shed;
May bluing and soap ere be blest,
And may suds still be suds when I'm dead.
And all those long, long years passed
away without her ever knowing what
love was.
II had no chance" she explained.
'When girl is at the washtub, soap
and suds and blueing and dirt drive
thoughts of love away. When she's
hanging up clothes it's too wet or toe
cold, or too hot to love. When she's
all through it's too late in the day and
her elbows are too lame to think of &
bridal tour.''
One would imagine 1t to be q sad
thing to want to be loved and yet have
no lover. Mary says it is not. She
says: :.
II know l could make some one hap
py as his wife. but I can't be crying
around because he doesn't come for
ward. l must. eat square meals, sleel
soundly, and sdy my prayers just thu
same as if l had been married forty
years or forty times"
As she put the remnants of her din
ner back into her pail, she was asked
if she didn't have an ideal husband.
"Four of 'eln," she promptly replied
s'I picture to myself a fat man with :
bald head, WHO has lots of money
Then picture a tall man, with rel
hair, who sings through his nose. Th,
third is a duke; but that's all non
sense. The fourth is a young man
who would sit on my knee, bring il
the wood, slice the potatoes, rock tn
baby, and take my advice, It's all :
dream, however, aud it doesn't inter
fere with my washing windows til
they shine like Silk.''
4 When asked for some statistics, sh'
cheerfully furnished them. She esti
mates that if all the soap she ever use,
was piled in a heap twenty feet Wild
at the base it would make a monumen
high enough to answer for Sergean
Bates, DR.. Mary Walker, Eli Perkin
and Daniel Pratt together. If all tn
blueing she has used could be dumpe'
into the Atlantic the 'sdark blue sea
would have new charm for poets