Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-07
THE oLDTIMB DOMESTIC.
How Modern Servants Differ From the
Sturdy "one of the Family Type.


How Modern Servants Differ From the
Sturdy "One of the Family" Type.
From the Atlantic Monthly
The old-fashioned patriarchial system
which permitted the help to become an
integral part of the family presented many
Objectionable features. yet the natural and
logical result of such relations between
employer and employed was to secure
better and more intelligent class Of service.
1t would not be a difficult business to
collect sheaf of testimonies from house.
keepers who are able to remember the
changes of the last fifty years. certifying
that the thrifty, capable and reliable hired
girl" with whose virtues and usefulness
so many New England households have in
former days been happily familiar, no
longer exists except In infrequent and
sporadic instances.
The younger class of girls who under the
old regime went out to service now employ
themselves in the shops, factories and SINH
lar establishments where their time after
working hours is their own. They know
the sweets of independence and the proud
IL imaginary, satisfaction of being Just as
good as anybody"
The domestic ranks in the New England
towns of today are largely recruited from a
wandering tribe of more mature women,
who vary the serial of matrimony by di-
yergencies into the field of working out
Some of them belong to the variety known
as grass widows some of them have either
just got bill or are just about to get a
bill from their husbands some have hus-
! bands who appear spasmodically and then
pass once more in observation. During the
intervals of these Interrupted romances the
heroines of them bestow somewhat inter-
mittent and perfunctory attention on house
holds whose need Is so urgent that the men,
bers thereof are willing to suffer and be
strong.
There was a certain, neat spare, gauntly
decorous, middle-aged woman who, during
my girlhood, always spent part of each
| day helping OUT in our crowded house,
hold, whose memory retains for an
abiding fascination. She exemplified a type
which had in those days many representa-
tives: g. type of woman strong both in mind
and body, with an untutored intelligence
born of necessity and experience. These
women We're apt to be sharp cornered, full
of individuality incsive of speech and act,
q surface ungraciousness which did not long
conceal a repressed sweetness of nature,
often the outgrowth of deep and conscienu-
Gus religious feeling.
1t was always gala day to me when
'Aunt Sophia" came to abide with US. 1t
meant that there would be things doing,
fresh interests added to life, interests more
or less pquanty favored with the new
Corners individuality. Aunt Sophia's sharp
experiences in many households, the very
unexpectedness of her standpoints all
helped TO flavor the commonplacenesS' OF
daily living; and though | have spoken of
her and her class as creatures of untutored
intelligence in comparison with many of
the fippant and shallow beings who 1nhabit
our kitchens today, these old-fashioned do
mestics were admirably educated. Sophia
read her Bible as eagerly as her prototype
of today reads Bertha NJ. Clays novels.