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"'Those hands why, how could I mistake, that used to be her nurse? "'But why does she wash them? "'Well, miss, being always a dainty child and the house-work, you see "I took a long breath. 'Do you mean to tell me that all this tidying and dusting I broke off. 'Is it she who has been taking this care of me? "Mrs. Carkeek met my look steadily. "'Who else, miss? "'Poor little soul!
In other words, perhaps middle-class ideas of decent house-work are at last coming in, to fill the place left empty by the obsolete peasant ideas. May we, then, conclude that the women are now in a fair way to do well; that nothing has been lost which those middle-class ideas cannot make good? In my view the circumstances warrant no such conclusion. Consider what it is that has to be made good.
His old mother cared for the house as well as she was able, and Eva did the rest nights and mornings. At first Jim had tried to help about the house-work, but Eva had interfered. "It ain't a man's work," said she. "Your mother can leave the hard part of it till I get home."
Fortunately the weather has been milder lately, but soaking wet. Our three ladies walk about the trenches at night, and I come home at 1 a.m. from the station. The men of our party meanwhile do some house-work. They sit over the fire a good deal, clear away the tea-things, and when we come home at night we find they have put hot-water bottles in our beds and trimmed some lamps.
She does not escape being obliged to do house-work at intervals, but she does it in a weak, blundering, confused way, that makes it twice as hard and disagreeable as it need be.
Formerly, in such an emergency, they would have engaged some cottager's wife to come and do the house-work; but now it seemed tacitly understood that they could not afford it. Even when Nancy grew worse, and required attendance in the night, Maggie still persisted in her daily occupations.
Over and over again did she consider the question whether, in this latter case, these women should both be general house-work servants, or one of them a cook and the other a chamber-maid and laundress. There was much to be considered on each side.
"And that I don't intend to lift my finger," Elizabeth interrupted. "Then you're a fool. And it is Dick Livingstone!" "It is, Nina." Nina's ambitious soul was harrowed. "That stodgy old house," she said, "and two old people! A general house-work girl, and you cooking on her Thursdays out! I wish you joy of it."
The bridge over Waialua had been washed away, and we could not go to church. The oppressive day passed and was succeeded by a similar one. The older girls cast dark looks upon us as they reluctantly went through the round of school- and house-work. At night the explosion occurred. All the girls were at the usual study-hour in the basement dining-room.
Some house-work had to be done, of course, but no one did anything that could be left undone. The children would not play; they stood about, silent, pale, like wizened-up grown people, over-mature in knowledge of trouble. The nerves of every one were on edge, the self-control of every one balanced upon a fine point.
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