The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1884-01-03
A GERMAN PEASANTS WIFE.
A Woman Who Carries Mans Physi-
cal Burdens---TOilinS and 1IOiIing
From Year to Year.

cal BurdenS---TOiiinS and NOiIing
From Year to Year.
iAnos Kaeg in San Francisco Chronicle.l
The peasants wife has no easy time
of it. She has not only to attend to
what few household duties her humble
cottage demands and raise a family of
| children, the number of whom gener-
ally corresponds exactly to the number
of years she has been married, but she
has to lend her aid in the field and do
as much, if not more, of the farm work
as her lord and master. Angular, stoop-
shouldered from the heavy burdens she
carries and hard-featured from exposure
to all kinds of weather and cares she digs,
hoes, plows and reaps. Her bare, clay
covered feet, her dirty, ill-fitting gar
ments and her general air OF slattern1y
neglect show how completely all her
womanly qualities have been eradicated
by her hard life. Laying the closely
wrapped up infant down upon a sack or
truss of straw, and charging the
younger children, too young to be of
any use in the fields, to keep out of
mischief. she pulls weeds, bent half
double, until one would think her back
would break, wields the heavy mattock
as lightly as the best man about, or
swings the heavy scythe as gracefully
as such an awkward instrument can be
swung, stopping now and then to still
the CRYING infant, exactly rs crying in
fants are stilled all the world over.
And when it comes night she shoul-
ders the heavy basket, in which are
packed all the tools and other things
not to be left in the field, picks up
her baby, and, with the other children
hanging to her skirts. goes swinging off
to the village, followed by her empty
handed, pipe-smoking, lout of husband.
1t is not to be wondered at that she
soon becomes old, haggard and broken
down. The wonder is that she lasts as
long as she does. Yet she never grum-
bles or complains. Her mother and
mothers mother for scores of genera
tions have done exactly the same thing.
She knew Just exactly what she had to
expect when she married. And, know
ing of nothing better, she tolls and
moils from year to year, contented and
as happy as she can be if she has enough
to eat and place to sleep.
Her daughters, great, strapping,
robust Amazons, with arms like black
smiths and bones large enough for the
Cardiff Giant, are able to do and do do
q mans work. Their great bare feet
push a spade into the reluctant
earth as if they were shod with the
heaviest of boots, and their muscular
arms and broad backs are able to man.
age burdens at which many man would
look askance For them, not broken
down by frequent child bearing, one
mas not so much sympathy. They are
physically able to perform without in
convenience the tasks allotted to them.
Coarse in features and manners as they
are, with hands like giantesses, they
still show many feminine traits not yet
smothered out by hard work, and
delight in adorning their persons with
bright colors and tawdry jewelry
whenever occasion will permit of it.
Their brothers, big, raw-boned, nm
couth ,hulking fellows, stoop-shouldereu
and shufling gated, work alongside of
them, doing no harder work than they,
but, probably, accomplishing less of it
on account of the frequent stoppages
in order to light the always present pipe
and such similar masculine offices. They
never hesitate to let the women carry
all the burdens; in fact, they force them
to do it, and they seem never so happy
as when loafing and smoking while
their mother and sisters drag along
bent double under a couple of hundred
pounds of potatoes or some similar bur
den. They and their father most al
ways wear boots, while the women go
barefooted. Such an arrangement is
economical. 1t saves the cost Of several
pairs of boots per year.
The younger children, dirty and lily
clothed, barefooted of course, do what
they can. One of them-a boy viii do
if there isn't a girl of proper age.-l
walks alongside of the pillow team and
wields the whip, admonishing the slow
moving team with tongue and lash.
The rest pull weeds, pick up stones
which the pillow may uncover and make !
themselves generally useful. Thus
everybody works, works hard and works
long, and the result of all this hard |
and long work is much less than it
should and would be among less con-
people.