Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-06

widow who kept the hotel. The laundress
left. and the stout cousin took her place q
while. and this is what she told me was a
specimen davis work. Beside caring for
Is bedrooms, and helping serve dinner, she
washed Sc sheets, bedspreads, 81 towels
and over so table napkins beside the
family wash, the only convenience be-
ing clothes wriRger, and ironed most Of
these things. This woman was grand
mother herself, over 30 years OF age, and her
cousin, who carried on the responsible busi-
ness of the hotel and did most of the cook
ing, was another spirited, cheerful dame of
rs. though nobody would dream it. and had
brought up eight children. Such were the
women among whom was reared for eight
years of girlhood. In country phase they
"knew how to turn off work." and in
straitened circumstances they "went out to
help" and no more honorable phrase could
be devised or desired. They were the help
and salvation of many an overwrought
housekeeper, true sisters of mercy, though
wanting veil or habit, and there is room and
bountiful pay for their like in every age.
Such mixed employment is the healthiest
for women, far better than sewing day
in and day out, and you don't find women
who take it up broken down and
aged before their time. On the contrary, all
past the common age of women, in frmer
health and livelier spirits than any Others
A woman who lets it be known that she is
ready to go out by the day in families, to do
the nice or the exceptional parts of house
keeping, and earns her salt at it, can be
sure of liberal patronage. Let her go at it
in business way, and buy few con-
veniences, mattress, needles, raisin seeder,
q sleeve board and sleeve irons for pressing
the narrow, high shouldered dress sleeves OF
the day, a futing iron, furniture polish,
cleaning fluid, perhaps pair of yard wide
steel rollers for calendering window shades
and widths of cretonne or cloth at home.
Such linen rollers are sold in cities on in
stallments, and manufacturers will find it
to their interest to extend the system to
smaller towns. A woman can provide her
self with hot rollers and mangle, worth $50
in all, by paying 81 week when she would
never have the $50 in one sum in the world.
WHAT SHE IS WILLING TO DO.
Then she must let people know what she is
printer with card press in the neighbor-
hood who will be delighted to print hun
dred business cards for a dollar or less, say
ing that Mrs. Blank goes out in families by
the day or hour to do fine cooking and bak-
ing cake, preserving, putting up shades and
curtains, refushing clothes, and doing fine
laundry and toilet work. Orders taken at
home, also for dyeing once a fortnight or a
month as may be. Leave these cards where
they will do the most good, at the railway
station, the postoffice, news stand and con-
fectionery. Enclose some by mail to the
families likely to have work. And then my
dear woman, let me give you the key to
success, ~or file the ward which oftenest
keeps it from turning-be ready for the
first chance that offers at a moments notice
Write this down in your mind, and bend
every effort toward making it good. To hear
the frantic wall that goes up from the pris-
oners of poverty one would say women de-
sired nothing so much as the chance to earn.
Yet never in a lifetime can 1 remember |
going to woman for help, whether in type |
writing, dressmaking, sewing or housekeep- |
ing that she was ready to undertakeSwork at |
once. No matter what the emergency, or |
loN liberal the pay, or how much her need. |
She was never ready at the call to put on |
1er apron and set to work. She wanted to |
zee her cousin across the river, or to wash |
,ut few collars, or finish dress, or pay a |
all or do something which put off the order |
. day and a half or till the week after next,
which might we'll be the week after never.
LITERARY WOMEN
ire the only ones who seem to have the
lightest notion of the value of time, and
Who are able to sit down in the middle of
Ifairs to do the work wanted in an hour.
have known one, housekeeper too, wind
Up her affairs and leave at "a hours notice
or the farther side of the continent, or leave
chicago to live in New York in the same
pace, or whisk away, finding three lines at
he office, to catch the nexttrain for camp
Meeting in the heart Of southern pine
crest. A newspaper woman can write with
he blotting pad, propped by the sleeping
'aby on her knee, or sitting up in her sick
'ed, or fiat on her back, when too disabled
o sit up, but the average woman, in debt
nd half starving, must take her own saliva
ion. Perhaps this slackness of fibre keeps
er always poor and in want. But do you,
Tho wish to find your way made secure and
asier, be ready for call. Have,your clothes
eady. your working dress and apron at
and. and make your mind to drop personal
interests, or keep them so in hand as to be
BILE to say, when an employer asks "How
Don can you Gomez" to surprise her with
he answer, "At once, if you want me-"
Women commonly want as much room to
wing round as ship does. Do you learn
, turn on pivot and stop at touch. In
hort, be ready for good fortune when it ap-
ears. SHIRLEY DARE.