The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1898-11-25

S \ Gossip for the Ladies !. S

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| The World and I. "a }s s:s s.
Whether my heart be glad or no, g. I
The lanes grow dark With dying leaves ave-,
Icicles hang beneath the caves, =.
Tho asters wither to the snow; ~ =
Thus doth the summer end and go,
Whether my life be glad or no.
Whether my life be sad or no,
NJ, The winters come. the winters go,
The sunshine plays with baby leaves,
Swallows build about the caves. -
The lovely wild flowers bend and blow;
Thus doth the winter end and so,
whether my life be sad or no.
Yet Mother Nature gives to me
a fond and patient sympathy;
In my own heart l ind the charm
Through sumner sanshine ' W sa ws SNOW,
NAV @"''' ''e' 0'o Nelly i' NJ L. Hutchinson HI;
The Thrifty. Busy Wife Makes Pros,
porous Husband.
Housekeeping is science. 1t has the
Investment of far more money than any
half dozen of the pursuits of men con
corning which books are published, pub
lie discussions are held and great parties
are formed.
The treasury of the United States
handles vast sums, and the recital of its
figures staggers the comprehension OF
any but trained 6nanciers. Yet it's ut
most in receipts and expenditures would
prove only petty and an inconsiderable
output of those little-considered sisters OF
mine, the housekeepers of America, and
am forced to confess, to my own confr.
sion, that all the extravaganza and Grim.
inal waste in all the national depart
ments from that memorable Fourth of
July when our sires put their names to
the Declaration of Independence down to
this present day would not begin to equal
in amount the waste and extravaganza
for which those same sisters of mine
should be held responsible within the cur
rent twelvemonth, says Elizabeth W.
Stevens in the New York Tribune
For almost every man who is Il work
err there is wOman-some woman, wife,
mother, sister or only neutrality-suspicious.
hand is held open for him OH Saturday
night, or at the end of the month or the
quarter, or whenever the fruits of his
toll are gathered, and to whose care he
gives up all but the little he needs to
jingle in his pouch and keep the ghosts
away.
This woman is the housekeeper, and
upon her discretion, ability and thrift de-
pend not only that mans creature COM
forts, but to a great extent his success in
life.
Having thus dignifed the name of
principal disbursing agent for the wages
OF man. it is now in order to classify the
various grades of this profession from tie
wife of the laborer, living in two-room
cottage or a three--room tenement, up i'll
Vulnerable flights of dark, rickety dirty
stairs, to the smart, alert woman of az
fairs who manages the establishment of
a millionaire, whether she be the titular
mistress of the house or a paid employc.
Among those who, for want of better
word, may be called the low classes, it is
generally understood that thrifty. busy
wife makes of her husband thrifty and,
within bounds, i successful man, unless
indeed he be one of those good-for-
naugEts whom nothing can redeem.
A step higher in the social scale, al
though by no means so long a step as she
likes to think it, is the woman whose
means are such that she is enabled to en-
ploy a maid of all work-a 'hired girl, "
is the adopted term. In this class are to
be found the two extremes-the best
housekeepers and the worst.
When a woman attains to the dignity
of en- ploying a hired girl, it makes or it
mars her If she keeps her hand on the
helm. if she continues to do part of the
work herself, and to personally supervise
that which she does not do, the results
are likely to be most satisfactory. If, on
the other hand, the great bulk of the
work is dumped upon the hapless
"savey," while the mistress confines her
exertions to seedlings and fault finding.
then has the white-robed ansel of peace
pft that hn1SO fhr 4l,oe e.
out husband and neglected children can
follow, the angel, the shorter will be their
sufferings. s.,
am frequently called upon in my bust
ness capacity to furnish housekeepers to
grand establishments, and l am as often
struck with the absence of that practical
knowledge, training and aptitude for con-
trolling servants which my applicants ex-
hibit.
1t is not essential that housekeeper
should herself know how to cook in or
der to spread good table, nor need she be
able to clear starch nor to clean silver in
order to direct competent servants in these
matters. The first and greatest requisites
III a housekeeper are system and meth
od. Equipped with these and a tolerably
cquable temper, she is prepared to face an
army of servants and to bring order out
of chaos
By system and method l do not mean
the wretched cut and dried precision with
which some housekeepers q regret to say
they, with the some show of truth, call
themselves ''Old-fashioned'D make their
homes wretched and forbilding alike to
their manservant, their maidservant and
to the stranger that is within their gates.
l can recall some houses in which it
has been my hard lot to find myself IA
sojourner wherein should one 50 much Us
walk through 4 drawing room the hostess
could detect the fact as readily and as
unerringly as the red Indian could ie
tect the trail of a settler passing
through the forest. A book on the side
table, which for countless years had lain
with it's title up and its length northeast
by southwest, may he now headed north
northeast by south-southeast.
The parior maid should never have been
guilty of such carelessness. For all those
countless years of her colorless and
wretched existence each morning she has
carefully lifted and busted that same book
and replaced it in mathematically the
same position. Evidently strangers, van
dals. perhaps, have been about. And
there's that sofa cushion nearly two inches
out of place. Mary! Mary! Do come
and put this room into some sort of order
again."
Such honsekeepers as that should be rel
egated to the same bourne as the self-mar-
tyred f1agellants and the Wearers of hOrse-
hair shirts: Perhaps they may derive some
morbid enjoyment from their miseries. but
they render unhappy all with whom they
come in contact.
Usefulness of Woman's Clubs.
''That many of the women's clubs in
America are doing valuable work in
many directions admits of no doubt"
writes Edward Box in the Ladies' Home
journal. "And so long as woman's club
keeps within it's sphere-that of the So
cial, mental and education improvement
Of the sex and the children-and does not
extend and take. up political questions
and go into maelstrom of purely munich
pal matters, the conduct of which is not
given women to rightly understand, and
in which they can do no good, but, on the
contrary, effect much harm, it serves Il
purpose high and mighty. There is no
question at all of the benefit which a
woman derives from getting out of the
atmosphere Of the routine of domestic ma
chinery, once week or once fortnight,
according as she is able to spare the nee
essary time, and coming into the different