The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-09-05
Household Cares.

If the vote of women could be taken
on the question of housekeeping. it
would be matter of great surprise to
men to learn the result. The business
as it is conducted at present would be
voted out of existence, or, failing in
that. the voice of the majority would
be for boarding. The work of the
household has increased greatly within
quarter of a century, and the servant
of the period is not an improvement
upon the typical one of the past. The
luxuries which one by one have come
to women, the multitudinOus things
that arc required to make homes at
tractive, and the modern houses which
have their mountainous stairs to weary
weak backs, are all things which have
combined 10 make housekeeping a
drudgcry. Time and strength are con-
sumed while the routine work is being
performed, and the intelligent minds
of American women rebel constantly.
What can be done? Break up homes.
and live in those modern caravansaries
hotels? Not SO. The remedy lies in
simplifying home life; in leaving out
of houses the endless traps that are
hard to keep clean, and harder still to
make, and by putting in homes moth
ing too good for hard usage.
Women need to know so much that
they do not know, and cannot while
they worry and fret over lambrequins
and pillow-shams, tides and Hamburg
borders on clothing, that it is discOur-
aging to try to fight the matter at all.
They are trying to do their best, work.
ing early and late, saving here and
spending there, judiciously as they
hope, yet never realizing any blessing
for themselves or others. What is q
nice parlor or fine dinner to a visitor
if the hostess is dull, WORKOUT per-
son? The guest who is hidden to en-
joy such hospitality is cheated out of
better company at home, and deserves
an apology rather than offer thanks for
such attentions us are extended. House.
wives do not cmancipatc themselves
from the thralldom put upon them by a
variety of conditions. In the first
place, their homes are not adapted to
housekeeping. Men and not women
plan houses, and the sole idea in
view in building them is to get
the largest number on the small
est possible space. Then women
having Inconvenience of this kind to
start with make every effort to over
come them by furnishings. Fashion
has to be consulted in this latter mat
ter, and upholstered articles that get
sOiled and fade out are bought when
the family purse cannot afford it. Nice
china or glass is purchased when ignvr-
ant or careless help will make quick
work of it; and the company rooms are
furnished as richly as possible, when in
fact the social circle in which the fam
lily move is so limited that a sitting
room would answer every purpose. If
cheap carpets, and stone-ware, and
plain clothing should be fashionable
for all people, how soon the burdens
would drop away from the shoulders of
the majority of the housckeepers. How
soon would the fault-finding and COM
planning cease, and the dull women be-
come Intelligent, interested members
of the family circle. Suppose the pill
lOw-cases have no shams; it would be
all the better for the homc-life of homes.
Shams should be unknown in them any
way, and real pillow-cascs would give
more satisfaction. Then sound conf
mon sense should save women from
wasting time on ruffles and fallals that
add nothing but wrinkles to all br0ws.
Households, as they are now, seem to
be run for the benefit of lookers-on
rather than the comfort of inmates, and
the result is generally dissatisfied
army of housekeepers. It is not amax-
ing that they are dissatisfied, for that
argues appreciation of uncongenial
work. and those who are alive to the
fact that their tasks hurt them in q
spiritual sense have one hope of saving
themselves. Simplify life-si1nplify life;
this is the way through which women
may hope to rise to an estate wherein
they will find themselves serene and
patient, honest and true. It were
worth all of life to live if the best half
of humanity could be lifted out of
drudgery of a domestic kird and placed
where the home would be what the Di-
vine Power designed it should be, .
temple where
Bin and evils cease,
And only reet and peace
Continually are found.
IN. 7. Weekly.
Malar1al Fever.
the liver and kidneys, general debility, nerv-
business and neuralgfc ailments Yield readily
to this great disease eonqueroy, Hop Bitters.
It fepaln the favagee Of disease by converting
the food into rich blood, and Il gives new Me
and vigor 70 the aged and innrm alwaya eee
In HNAvN