West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1882-11-29
Drudgery.

nous drudgery, and l often answer
the question, Is life worth living ?"
in an emphatic negative. From
Monday morning till Monday
morning again wash and iron,
and scrub, and wash dishes, and
mend, and sweep and dust, and
wash and non, and scrub, and
wash dishes, and mend and dust
again. Now and then | steal lit
tie time to read the paper. / al
aodys read your column. Not even
Sundays do l have time to rest, for
the children must be gotten off to
Sunday School at 8 o'clock, and /
am generally at church at halt past
10, SO dull and tired that | invari-
aoly fall asleep during the long
prayer or the sermon. It's no use
to talk about hired help: it's not to
beshad in this part of the country
at any price | can afford. If there
is any way of being reconciled to
this kind of life | should like to
find it out. Perhaps | was born to
be drudge and cannot escape my
destiny. | should like to hear this
subject talked about in the Home
Interest columns. DRUDGE.
lis it so small thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, TO have
done?"
There was once wise man who
wrote thus: For what hath man of
all his labor, and of the vexat;on Of
his heart, wherein he hath labored
under the sun? For all his days
are sorrows and all his travail grief;
yea, his heart taketh not rest in the
night. This is also vanity. There
is nothing better for man than
that he should eat and drink, and
| that he should make his soul enjoy
good in has labor. This also | saw,
that it was from the hand Of God"
Probably this good woman hasn't
trouble enough. One great trou-
BILE frees US from a thousand small
ones. If she were left with the en-
tire support Of the family depend
ent on her exerLions, if she should
lose her health, if those she labors
for were removed from her by death,
she might look back even upon
these days and think, Glow happy
they were, if | had only known
itn'
There is 10 position or station in
life that is without its draw backs.
Queen Victoria, intensely weary of
court ceremonials, withdraws from
the public eye, retires to Balmoral
or Osborne to get away from the
dire drudgery of Queens life.
President Arthur, worn down with
the drudgery of the White House,
puts the sea between him and a
clamorous swarm of office-seekers
and goes about in a steamship. Of
fcials of every grade groan under
the irksome monotony OF their du-
ties and take vacations whenever
they can. Employees who can't get
away from their posts, make that
defect up by doing as little as pos
sible, and have an easy time as
they 60. Such is life. What we
havn't we want: what we have We
find unsatisfactory and full of dis
counts. Now what is the course of
wisdom? Is it not to dwell on the
sweet and ignore the bitter; to be
thankful for the good and resigned
to the evil? At gathering of Ia
dies last week in one Of the finest
restaurants in this country, the
talk was of domestic annoyances
with servants, annoyances that
were represented as well nigh in
tolerable, that spoiled all their sat
isfaction in their fine houses, cost
| lv apparel and elegant equipages,
or what amounts to the same thing,
effactually neutralized their enjoy
ment of these things and robbed
them Of content and peace. These
things are inevitable in one form or
another. We can't "have our cake
and eat it too"
A keen observer of human ma
ture, and one who had himself
tried various forms Of life, both
from observation and experience,
said that he was satisfied that day
ldborers are the very happiest
class of people. Why? Because
] L