The San Francisco call., 1896-02-09
Some Of the Troubles Expert
enced With House Ser
wants.
IMPERTINENCE OF THE MAIDS.
A Kindly Remembrance of the Old
NANNY" Nurses and Domes.
tics Down South.

the ackground-they seldom do much
else but form, in their rigid black and
white, a background for the beautiful flow
ers in gay, bright eolors that, stupidity
enough, are called women. 1t seems as if
they deserved better name. Something
that told of their ability to suffer and keep
quiet; something that told of their ability
to laugh with their lips when the eyes
were burning with tears; something that
told Of their ability in whatever position
they may be placed and OF their superiority
to men. Oh, yes, l like men. And gen.
orally stand up for them, but do that
because feel that they are the weaker
vessel. There are times when a woman
likes to talk to a woman-yearns for
woman's gossip. Likes TO hear about the
last baby, especially if it is new one,
which, bless it's hearth / could squeeze to
death for love of it, or the new frock, or
just how Jack is being sweet, or the be-
havior of the perfect ladies who dominate
the kitchen, and dominating the kitchen
rule the digestions and, consequently. the
entire house. A man with a crooked
digestion does MT love his wife or his chill
dren, and the woman who has to preside
over badly cooked dinner loses faith in
everything,
Oh, those kitchen ladies! That clever
writer Herbert Ward spoke of them as
''clphers in society" And then he went
to prove that just such cipher, because
she listened at the doorway and construed
things to suit herself, could send young,
beautiful and well-bred woman to the peni-
tentlary for life on circumStantial evil
dence. She thought she saw the young
lady stick the paper-knfei into her cousins
neck; she knew they hated each other,
and she was certain, IN her own mind,
that this young lady had quarreled and
quarreled bitterly with her cousin. And
after this lady had lost her youth, her hope
and her belief, dying burglar told how
he had killed a man and used for this pur-
pose the sharp paper-knife, which the lady,
who had quarreled with her cousin, had
| played with and then dropped on the floor.
We were lot of women together drink
ing chocolate and eating the usual stuff
offered at a ladies luncheon. | do believe
ladies' lnncheons are arranged IN the in
terest Of ladies' physicians. But we have
enough of the doctors. | drank cocoa and
ate bread and butter, and listened. Diff
cult? Oh, no, not always. Nine. st.
German Told of the old servants she had
those inherited from her mother, who
were devoted to her and who sympathized
with her in every pain and ache. Pretty
Nine. Fin de Steele looked at her with
envy. Her servants came from an intel
ligence office, and no matter how good
their references were, the results were
as nothing. There l am wrong; they
amounted to a great deal. The little
woman, with sigh and an unhappy look
on her face, said: My housemaid, to whom
pay enormous wages, came to me to-day
and told me that very expensive cup
had parted in her hands. She insisted that
| she hadn't broken it, but it just 1epp'd
| apart She said it could be taken out of
her wQCps-hpr for hs
would not pay for 1t. My cook came to
me with wonderful references. She had
suited Mrs. Blank and Mrs. Dash and Mrs.
ad-of-SocieJy so we'll that l wondered
| they parted with her. but soon discovered
| the reason. She had a weakness, not for
cooking badly, but for drinking extern
sively. l requested her to leave in polite
way but as j am child OF the century /
declined to give her reference. 1t is
queer to me how women will put their
names to references given to servants dis
charged for stealing, drinking or absolute
inability.
.sAnd the consequence was-well, what do
you think2 A letter of six pages came to
me, presumably an anonymous letter, but
one IN which l was told that if I didn't
give Maria Ann, that being the melodious
| name of the cook, reference, she
would tell every one of my friends what
she had heard said about them at the din
ASI tdDle, anu Iudt SilS WOuIQ my
husband that when he was away had
male visitor. The man was the doctor,
and my mother was present during the
| time, the Tery short time, in which he
managed to rid me of frightfuI rheumatic
| pains. What did / do? l took thatle tier
| to the police station, and a gentleman who
measured over six feet informed the per-
| feet lady who had formerly presided over
my kitchen that unless she stopped this at
once she would land in Sing Sing. You
| see she made threat that unless I gave
| Maria Ann reference such and such a
thing would be done. That made it black
mail"
My eyes were growing larger and larger
when little Mrs. Couleur de Rose said: sDo
any of you remember when it was rumored
that Jack and l were going to part? NV
dear, that was the result OF kindness. The
| newspapers had my picture and Jack g
picture in them and said that in a very
short time there would be frightful scan
| dal in the divorce courts. Horrible ? 1t
| was more than horrible. cried until nv
| nose was red, and when I do that I am in
grlef. But Jack braced me up with low
! Ing kiss and very sincere hug and forced
me out with him every afternoon for a
month either to drive or to walk The
truth was had brought a maid over with
me the last time was in Paris. When !
| engaged her she asked me: will madame
|
off clothes to sell, or will she pay me $50 q
month and keep her clothes for her poor
relations?'
81 laughed. as an American woman
might, and told her that would give her
$40 and that she would get the clothes,
too. That is where was a fool. Then
never dreamed of locking my desk up, and
after events proved that she read every
letter got. One day she was very i'm
pertinent; she had been rather impoIite
for some time, but this special day she
said, If madame wishes to meet Monsieur
! Charlie I will arrange for it. Well, ]
ordered her out of the room, refused TO
see her again, told the butler to pay her
her wages, and put her out of the
house. As Madame Fin de Siecla says,
the consequences was--this. She knew
| by sight and by name the vari-
Gus reporters who used to come to
ask about our dinners and dances, and
she sought every one of them out, and told
them that my husband and l had quar-
relied, that was in love with fair-haired
man named Charlie. and limited that they
could easily fit it TO a well-known club
man. As you girls all know, my brother
Charlie was desperately in love at that
time with Miss Millionaire. He did not
dora RI urita to her Is her neople Objected