The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1888-03-16

Lilo Of . Woman Of the Working Glass
Toiling In the Field-work BIaciened
stumps OF Fingers That Are Never
Idle.
The Irish woman OF the peasant and work
ing classes Is in every truth mistress Of her
home. That home may be but a half clean
scratching on mother earth walled in with
stone and rooted with straw or seaweed, but
there she is queen. she is the equal Of her
husband, slaves with hih6, but Is not his slave.
She keeps the money and does the ruling,
and unless Der man drinks is as fully mistress
Of her home, her children, Of her goings and
comings, as any American wife alive. She is
not tidy. A long heritage Of poverty, hard
work, and harder living on bare floors, with
multitades Of children, with no kindly teach-
ings, no gentry class Of parish visitors and pa
irons to encourage tidipess, she does not
know how to make the best Of her second or
third hand clothes, Of her dirt floor, her black
porridge pot, Of her own sturdy person.
A ToTIER.
Yet she is never idle. She tolls la the field.
She goes dossn to the aeashore and cats sea-
weed, for which privilege she must pay her
landlord so much added ON to the rent. She
carries this home in q basket almost as big as
= barrel. She digs potatoes, binds up the
wheat, or oats, or hay, and piles turf 70 dry.
II their small farmi is up In the mountains
she often descends to tine Sauey and brings
up basketfuls-back loads-of earth to scat
ter over the thin, unfertile soil on the rocks,
10 that they may plant cabbages or potatoes
upon them She does this silently, cheer
fully, WITH Nor husband at her side. A dress
once ia six or seven yearsis all she win have
when she goes into town with her pig 10 the
fair, her load of turf, or her firkin Of butter.
Her work blackened stumps of fingers are
never idle, for she knits, knits, knitS all the
while on stockings and socks to sell at the
shops, and so by o six penny bit or a three
penny bit to the slender boarding Of money
kept warm in Ter bosom for the rent
II there is no turf on her little farm her
fuel must be bought from some bog owner
near or from the town. Often she win sell
the weeks churning from The COW for six
pence or ninepence. Clearly in her own
person, putting 60 shame the shopwomen and
shopgirls in her nearest town, 1t is amazing
that she still lives ia a untidy home. She is
superstitious, deeply religious, and lives,
she and her husband, but for one thing, and
chat is to save enough money TO send one OF
their strong young sons or daughters of to
America. 1t has been said, and IS probably
true, that in all Ireland there is not a poor
family such as these / have written Of who
has not some one OF in America who occa-
sionally helps them on by sending home a
little money.
PICTURESQUE BUT LONESOME.
Often in our lonesome walks through this
beautiful, picturesque, but lonesome country,
we see old women following over fields whore
the cattle feed, with big sacks on their backs,
picking up clods Of manure, which they win
take home and dry for fuel We travel miles
over this country, throughsman hamlets and
villages and around small farms, where FAM
Lies live in the conditions Of this average
peasant woman. In the west of Ireland and
southwest the income Of a farmer and his
wife, on their little patchin' of land, viii,
from all sources, NOT exceed ESQ, or $250of our
money. The rent and the poor rates deducted
from this leaves but little indeed upon which
to cloths and feed eight or ten or more human
beings. That they keep light hearted under
such struggles, and smile at you IL you smile
at them-that they struggle on and even save
enough TO send the 'byes Or the girl or t.
America Is a miracle of patiant thrift and
perseverance, / shall never understand.
II their landlord or landlady comes theiI
way it Is painful to watch their behavior,
They do not begin at him or her about tho
drain, or the sewer, or the well, or the CHM
nsy--for they have none Of these--Flo and ]
have walked through q settlement or village
Of thatched cottages with not a single chin
ney on the whole thirty houses-but they
draw up on one side and almost 60 doDn on
their knees, with bobbing and bowling, and
pulling their forelocks, "God blessing heI
iadyship for nothings, aud kissing hen hEnd il
tGSS get a chance, humble, reverential and
polite. Did traditions make them do this
old traditions and new experiences-Catha
rine Cole in New Orleans Picayune.