The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-02-11

Copyright, 1904, by Christine Terhune Herrick.)
The woman who attempts to hold
her own has her work cut out for her.
A man may, if he is in luck, have GER
tain unity about his occupations. A
woman who tries to keep up with the
times is Pooh Bah in petticoats. She
never any one thing long. She fills a
then goes to the other side in a fresh
capacity. Unlike the original Pooh
Bah, she does not draw a salary for
each pursuit. Instead of this, she
usually has the privilege of finding vir-
tue its own and only reward.
The woman who does not keep up with
the times, drifts easily into monotony.
This is a blunder.
| Never should you let yourself get into
rut, my friend the housekeeper. 1t
does not pay. Perhaps it may seem to
| tighten labour to have the wheels run
in a groove, but in the long run-and
| often in the short run, tOo-it will be
| found to be a mistake. If it is your
sense of duty that puts you and keeps
| you there, go to work to try to remodel
your perception of what constitutes
| duty If you have New England COLI
| science of the virulent type, take chic
| reform and have it extracted. Some
| times the roots go too deep for this,
and then the only thing that will help
is constant treatment.
The woman who means to hold her
own should consider seriously what her
| own is. First and foremost, she will
probably tell you, are those who belong
| to her household. They must be cared
! for, fed and clothed. Granted. But
men-likewise women and children-dO
not live by bread alone, and the life is
more than raiment. We all of us know
! homes where the bodies of the inmates
! are fed and the souls and spirits go
! starved.
! Once upon a time | knew home
where everyone was happy. 1t was a
badly kept house-from one point of
view. The mother was no housekeeper
| and she knew it. There were holes in
| frayed spots in the carpets. The ser
as higgledy piggledy. Yet l have never
known a more united family. There
may have been cracks in the china,
| but there was none in the domestic
| unity. The children were loving and
| obedient, the father and mother were
companionable and charming.
| OF course, it was not because the
! house was in rags and splinters. 1t
might have been patched and the fam
! lily peace still unbroken. But anyone
| who had to choose between living in
such home and in a domain presided
| over by the kind of gorgon known as a
"nasty particular" housepeeper would
| not have hesitated for moment. He
would have preferred goodness to
cleanliness and taken it at the first
| Offer
Either of these illustrations is an ex-
| IRENE and this is what the woman who
holds her own strives to avoid. The
middle course that has been described
as golden is the end of her efforts.
In order to win this she should lay to
| heart the truth that something must be
| crowded out. One woman, with one
head, one back, one set of nerves, hands
| and feet, cannot accomplish everything
If she does, there is very little left Of
| the woman but a lot of assorted frag-
ments and the memory of strenuous
life. There are far better things than
these to put into the family collection.
When modern surgery reaches the
point where it is possible to insert new
! backs, and replace defective nerves, a
woman may accomplish all she wishes
| she could dc and all mere man thinks
she might do. Until then she must be
contented to be as the Creator made
her.
There is a choice in what may be
crowded out. 1 have spoken of the
advantage of diversity of occupation.
A woman must not be all housekeeper
lest she neglect the weightier matters
of the law. She must not be all wife,
for fear her children should suffer, nor
should she be all mother, under penalty
of causing her husband to feel like an
imposed upon boarder in his own home.
Still less should she, in her desire to
keep step with the march of events
outside, devote herself SO unreservedly
to WOmen's Clubs, Mothers Meetings
and Cooking Glasses that her children
bring themselves up by hand and her
husband finds his only satisfactory
gastronomic greeting at the club or the
restaurant. In the ghoulish phrase of
sprightly young man, she does not
wish either to keep in front with the
hearse or come trailing along at the
back with the buggies.
1t is no small thing to be wife and
mother, and the fools who yearly rush
into relation where angels might well
fear to tread open a terrifying pros
pect for the future of the race. Still,
the greater part of the women who
make mistakes do it through ignorance
and false sense of proportion. When
Nkr ,rk - 10 r