Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1899-07-06
WAYS OF SOUTHERN WOMEN.
They Have q Tendency to Irritate
Northern Women Who Do Not
Enderstand Them.

One of the things which most impress
the northern visitor to the south is the
bravery and fortitade of the women
there under the trying circumstances
which have become lately the part of
so many of them. In the larger cities
they have turned their attention to
various efforts at earning a living, while
in the smaller places practically only
'one way is open to them. This is that
first refuge of most women who find
themselves compelled to work, and are
yet without profession or the training
for any regular career-the boarding
house. The difficulties of housekeep-
ing in most of the southern states are
greater than women accustomed to the
varied and abundant markets of the
other parts of the country can realize.
There are not many kinds of food to
be had, and what there is rarely suits
northern tastes.
The average southern woman who
starts to keep house for others than her
family rarely does it in the businesslike
fashion of women in the north, and this
is in way peculiar, as some of the most
successful boarding houses in New York
have always been conducted by south
ern women. But their point of view
seems different at home, and things are
likely to slip along in the best way they
can. Il am beginning to get little bit
tired of paying my beard in these
southern places" said a girl who had
been in the south for some time. only
to be treated afterward as if / were an
invited guest of the family" That is
truthful enough description of the way
things go in the south, and this fact is
a great compliment to the innate re-
finement and politeness of the southern
people. Although one may be paying
board to the woman who conducts the
house, her inclination is to treat every
body i'll her home as il he or she were
guest. This naturally has its infiU-
ence on the boarder. who feels little
bit like expressing his opinions or feel
ings.
Possibly this treatment prevents the
boarders from complaining sometimes
when they want to. But what is that in
comparison with the great advantage
that comes to manners from the cour-
tesy and unselfshness in such a way of
settling the differences between land
lady and boarder? Many of these
southern women are quite incapable of
keeping house in the way necessary to
look best after houseful of people,
but they are all polite. really consider
ate and genuinely refined. \ woman in
a high degree typical of her class had
been wealthy during her husbands life
time, was pretty and liked the admira-
ton that men in the south always show
to women. She was poor widow. Her
daughter. reared to wealth. taught
school, and she was supposed. in her
old-fashioned, rOomy home, to have the
best house in town. She was charming
in her languid, polished way to all the
guests, never had much On the table
and made everybody feel as if the gath
ering We're a house party. The only
reason we had not better things to eat
was the manner in which the providing
was done. The. negro mammies in this
town used to go from house to house
with the new spring vegetables. If the
good ones had not been sold by the time
she reached our house, the boarders
Jared well that night. But if the de-
mand had been large and mammy's sup
ply small, they had to depend in more
than the usual measure on the charm
of the hostess smile and manner. The
market might be full of green peas and
other spring vegetables, while they ate
hominy and canned corn. That was
merely because the hostess had never
been in the habit of going to market.
She had waited for years for the old
negro vegetable peddlers to come to her,
and did not alter the habit merely be-
cause she happened to have 20 persons
in her house who were paying-rather
literally, too-for being there.-Chica-
go Inter Ocean.