Wichita eagle., 1888-01-13

Telling in the Field-Work Blackened
Stunps 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 NAV be but O 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 him, but is not his slave
She keeps the money and does the ruling,
and unless her man drinks is as fully mistress
of her home. her children, of her goings and
comings, rs any American wife alive She is
not tidy. \ long heritage of poverty, hard
work, and harder living on bare floors. with
multitudes of children, with no kindly teach
ings no gentry class OF parish visitors and pa
irons to encourage hdiness, 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.
PERPETUAL ToILER.
Yet she is never idle She tolls in the field
She goes down 20 the seashore and cuts sea
weed, for which privilege she must pay her
landlord so much added on to the rent She
carries this home in basket almost as big is
a barrel. She digs potatoes, binds up the
wheat or oats, or hay, and piles turf to dry
Ii their small farm is UP in the mountains
she often descends to the valley and brings
up basketfuls-back loads-of earth to scat
ter over the thin, unfertile soil on the rocks,
so that they may plant cabbages or potatoes
upon them. She does this silently, cheer
fully, with her husband at her side 4 dress
once in six or seven years is all she will have
when she goes into town with her pig to the
fair, her load of turf, or her firllin of butter
Her work blackened s.umps of fingers are
never idle, for she knits, knits, knits all the
while on stockings and socks to sell ct the
shops, and so add by a six penny bit or a three
penny bit to the slender boarding of money
kept warm in her bosom TO: ths rent.
If there Is no turf on her little farm her
fuel must be bought from some bog owner
near or from the town. Often she will sell
the weeks churning from the COW for six
pence ninepence. Cleanly in her own
person, putting to shame the shopwonen and
shOpgIrlS In her nearest town. ii is amazing
that Sue still lives Ill an untidy home She is
superStitious, deeply religious. and lives.
she and her husband, but for one thing, and
that is to save enough money to send one Of
their strong young SONS or daughters off 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 off IN America who occa-
sionally helps them on by sending home
little money.
PICTURESQUE BUT LONESOME
Often in our lonesome walks through this
beautiful picturesque, but lonesome country,
we see old women following over fields where
the cattle feed. with big sacks on their backs,
picking up ctods OF manure, which they will
take home and dry for fuel. We travel miles
over this country, through small haInlets and
villages and around snail farms, where fam
lies live in the conditions OF this average
peasant woman. In The Yves; of Ireland and
southwest tho income of a farmer and his
wife, on their little patchiu' OF land. viii,
from all sources, cot exceed so. or $3.50 IF or
money. The rent and the poor rates deducted
from this leaves but little indeed upon which
to clothe and feed eight or ten or more human
beings That they keep light hearted under
such struggles, and smile at you If you smile
at them-that they struggle OF and even save
CROUCH to send the ''bve" or the girl of 20
America is a miracle OF patient thrift and
perseverance shall never understand
If their landlord u landladv comes their
way il is painful TO watch their behavior
They do not begin at Him or lier about the
drain. OF the sewer, or the well. Or the chin
ney-for they have none Of these-F1o and /
have walked through a settlement CT village
of thstched cottages with not single Chin
ney on the whole thirty horses-but trey
draw up on one side and almost 60 down on
their knees, with bobbing and bowing. and
pulling their foreiocks, God blessing her
ladyship FOR rotlsings, ana kissing her hand ri
they get . chance, humble, reversatisi aud
polite. Did traditions make then do this;
cid traditions and Few zpeTiences'-CAths-
rine Cole in New ORLEANS PicayGua