Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-04-04
THE HOUSEHOLD.
A Farmers wife.

1ue Tehuer VIII nuu IN tue article tOHOWlng
a severe arraignment of q mean man whom a
writer in the Hartford Conn Times locates
in this state. The minute description of ar
ticles of dress, curtains, brio a-brac, figures
on the carpet, etc, betrays at once the sex of
the writer. She appears to have been at some
time an inmate in the family which is made
the subject of story well. told but rather too
artful to be taken as without exaggeration
To say that the case is typical of hundreds in
Vermont is gross libel on our state. The
writer may have found man in Vermont as
she might in Connecticut or any other state,
combining narrow views of life and intense
meanncss with great religious zeal Such men
are not peculiar to Vermont or to the West
nor are they found exclusively among farmers
or in any special class of occupations. The
writer's subtle points against those who seem
to believe that married woman should be
nothing moro than her husbands obedient
slave should apply least of all to that occupa-
ton which has powerful organization that
was among the first in the nation practically
to recognize the perfect equality of women.
We know a refined, intelligent woman, liy-
ing among the green hills of Vermont, whose
life is typical of hundreds in that vicinity and
scores scattered throughout the far West
She rises at five o'clock in the morning, chops
wood, draws water, makes fires, prepares the
meals for five stalwart hired men, besides do
ing the family washing, ironing, scrubbing,
churnlng, preserving, picking, mending and
knitting. She beheads the chickens, feeds
the hens and calves, and is occasionally called
upon to accelerate the departure of pigs to
that bourne from which no pig ever returns.
Her work is never done. She fries dough
nuts at ten O'Clock at night, and begins life on
pie the next morning. Her only designations
are prayer -meetings, funerals and buckle
berrying, varied by winter kettle. drums where
the guests sew carpet-rags, refreshed with CT.
der, forfeits and kisses her literature is lin
tied to Pilgrim Progress" Josiah Aliens
Wife" and the lions Herald her music TO a
fountain filled with blood, dismal sounds from
the tomb, and invitations to anxious seats
her pictures to plump prodigal son, O per
petual Samuel, a furious Cain, an amiable
George Washington, Napoleon on his death
bed at ST. Helena, weeping willow and wild
ow in graveyard of hair, and few glisten-
ing tin-types of freshly engaged couples, who
with hands clasped, hair freshly oiled and i'm
ltatlon watch-chains spread out to show, stare
rigidly into future the counterpart of her
own. Her brio d brac consists of wax-work,
daguerreotypes. plaster dogs with green noses,
yellow baskets and crushed straw berry tails
and shell box containing reward-of-merit
cards, the pathetic remembrances of her van
ished childish years-the only visible recogni-
ton of her goodness that the poor woman ev-
or had. Her dress is calico all the year round
for week days, and black alpaca for Sundays.
Her windows are covered with green paper
shades, and the parlor floor with the envy and
awe of the neighborbood, a tapestry carpet
overlooking with red and pink atrocities in
yellow horns of plenty
She is woman after Rev. Morgan Dixs
own heart. She stays at home. The glorious
pictures of majestic mountains, the flashing
cascades, the leafy woods, the splendor of
blue skies, the soft white clouds and sweet
smelling daisy-felds are not for her, except in
the tantalizing glimpses which only increase
the thirst of her thirsting soul She has no
time to receive the sense of power and peace
that comes from those stately mountains; no
time to revel in the exquisite beauty of those
waterfalls; no time to lie on the grass and
watch the softly-sailing clouds or trace the
truthful symbols and discover the wondrous
revelations that nature gives to those who love
and understand her.
Yet this woman's husband has made little
fortune OF $50, 900 from lumber which is
considered something colossal in those regions
where wants are few and pleasures circum-
scribed. She has been brought up to believe
that he was created superior being So has
he. He is coarse, red haired, freckled. pious.
penurious and asthmatic. He has had a
''change of heart" and one change of inject
in clothes, in which he looks more hideous
than in his overalls His chief satisfaction is
to chew tobacco, talk in class-meeting and get
bargain. He never owes penny and never
gives one. He can pray, and he thinks he can
sing. II takes him 30 minutes every night
and 10 minutes every morning TO tell the Lord
of several mistakes in the universe and 10 ash
few mild fRvors. One is 10 "Wreak etarnal
vengeance on the wicked" by plunging them
into everlasting fire, and another is a request
for power to wrastle with the stranger go
farming within his gates" and, notwithstand
ing her promptly paid board bills. 10 bring
her to sense of her own vile nature and bad
heart, created bad in the first place and only
to be purified and saved by the acceptance of
this mans peculiar theological beliefs. After
singing, exhorting and wheeling, he takes to
snoring with an equal spirit and energy which
makes him audible all through the night and
causes the sinner within his gates to look for
a new boarding-place the next morning. 1t
does not occur 10 him to use his money TO
make his wife and their lives any happier, or
that he can afford TO bring couple of strong
servants into the house TO perform the menisl
work for himself and his hired mon. He
means well. This superior being does not
know any better. The circumstances of his
narrow life and the inheritance of a narrow
nature are accountable for his blind Ignorance.
One day his wife returned from the village
with 80 cents, which she had received for eggs
produced by her own hens, and timidly asked
II she might keep the money. He generous
ly gave her 10 cents, and pocketed the rest,
grumbling, "Wimmin folks is alters spendin'."
He did not realize the meanness of his act
but when we saw it a line of Tennyson's
seemed suddenly to spring into the air and
enwreathe him in living words that said 'baIf
his little soul is dirt" But he does not know
that, and never within this life. He cannot
read the pitiful story stamped upon his wifeis
careworn face, with its hRbitual expression of
unconscious self-abnegation and meek resig-
nation. They never have any pleasant walks
or talks, never read any books or have apv
friendly companionship together. He never
gives her ice-cream, anniversary presents. un-
expected praise, flowers or kisses. When she
dies she may have flower in her coffin, but
II wln look strangely out of place, since none
han