News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1901-10-23
iNTEMPERANCE IN WORKING

4 Too Strenuous Life In the Home.
Every Woman IA Mother to Herself.
Apropos of the query of a perplexed
husband, "What can | do to keep my
wife from overworking herself? a
Good Housekeeping writer says:
Intemperance is the greatest evil Of
the age-intemperance in working and
resting in eating and drinking. Many
a so called temperance woman is in
temperate IN this respect. The morn
ing test is the proper one to apply. The
drunkard and glutton, the indolent and
overworked, invariably feel most
worthless in the morning, the time
when temperate people are at their
best. She is living right who wakens
in the morning as the child does, with
no ache in the muscles or in the heart
or head
The husband of a too rdworking
woman meets with little sympathy.
His moderation is a reproach to him.
"Big, husky felloww the neighbors ex-
claim. why does he let his frail little
wife work herself to death?" In many
cases the question is not, "Why does
he let herr? but, How can he hinder
| her" 1t is useless to ask this spend
| thrift of strength to save herself. She
Will not do so until she is a physical
bankrupt She is often the most un-
selfish of women, and all her labor Is
| for others. 1t does not occur to her
that she has no more right to waste the
life that belong to her family than she
has to waste the money that belongs to
| them.
Such a woman should be appealed to
through her good sense and affection.
! Ask her if she is doing the right thing
by you when she comes to the table too
tired to eat or drops asleep in the even
ing when you are reading aloud. Tell
her you would not allow any one to
drive your horse too hard and that she
is worth more than a million horses.
Tell her that the element of compan-
condolences is something she will take
to heaven with her when she dies,
|
house may be given over to weeds and
cobwebs. Ask her if her children will
be as proud of her when she is a worm
out, anxious, ailing old woman as they
would be if she were the sort of mother
that you had right to expect her to be
when you married her. 1t is impos-
sible to save a woman from overwOrk
unless she can be made to feel asham-
ed of it.
One woman who has not lazy bone
or an overworked muscle in her body
was forced the past spring to do nearly
all her own housekeeping. She discov-
cred by actual experiment that two
hours energetic muscular labor per
day was all that she could bear without
suffering herself and indirectly giving
suffering to her family. Had she been
a strong woman this would have SEEM
ed child's play; had she been an in
valid it would have been an impossible
feat. But belonging as she did to that
great middle class, of which each of us
knows at least hundred representa-
tives, she wisely fitted her burden to
the back that was to bear it. A siren
uous life is the finest thing in the world
when accurately adapted to the individ.
ual capacity for strenuousness.
1t might seem that this woman's
housekeeping dragged insufferably, but
although it took longer than usual, the
chief actor in its accomplishment grew
to enjoy it so much that she parted
from it almost with reluctance.
1t was Becky Sharp, was it not, who
maintained that she had to be moth
er to herself? | wish that in the best
sense every woman could be induced to
be mother to herself.