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Updated: June 22, 2025
The house-mother sugared the cakes in the back-kitchen, while the Councillor, with a large holland apron, rubbed down the floor, and gave a final dust to the furniture. As to Uncle Columbus he sat on a sort of island of chairs in one corner, studying a book, and looking on misanthropically at the preparations.
It is the sisterly heart rather than the author's fancy that gives me as a companion in this, the last of these "Familiar Talks," the typical American house-mother. Her own hands have made her neat; the same hands and far more care than ever goes to the care of herself make and keep her home neat and comfortable.
The house-mother came sweeping and dusting and wiping and scrubbing, to make everything grand and clean for the Christ-child's birthday. Her broom went into all the corners, poke, poke, and of course the spiders had to run. Dear, dear, how the spiders had to run! Not one could stay in the house while the Christmas cleanness lasted. So, you see, they couldn't see the Christmas Tree.
No wonder that they often turn out unfit for practical realities, and uncured of inveterate defects. The noble Immanuel Wichern felt this objection so forcibly, that his famous 'Rauhe Haus' institution is like a village of families, each homestead with its house-father and house-mother, and its twelve boys or girls, as the case may be.
Baas Cogez, in the fulness of his heart, smiled on her through moistened eyes, and spoke of the way in which he would befriend her favorite companion; the house-mother sat with calm, contented face at the spinning-wheel; the cuckoo in the clock chirped mirthful hours. Amidst it all Patrasche was bidden with a thousand words of welcome to tarry there a cherished guest.
Hermann must have found some yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this some Mädchen who cared not for calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife and house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought that. She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had!
Hecker was in the prime of middle life, speaks of her as "a lovely and dignified character, full of 'humanities. She was fair, tall, erect, a very superior example of the German house-mother. Hers was the controlling spirit in the house, and her wise and generous influence was felt far beyond it.
This was a different house-mother from the one who ruled years before. In one of her fever nights, tossing in semi-delirium, she had a vision. She had been following the Chapman-Alexander Mission in Glasgow with keen interest, and in the long watches her excited brain continued to dwell on the meetings.
Was this the same Isabel whom Clara last remembered with her baby in her lap, beautiful and almost as inanimate as a statue? There was scarcely more change from the long-frocked infant to the bustling important sprite, than from that fair piece of still life to the active house-mother.
We see, then, that in the present state of things it is impossible for woman that is, the family woman, the house-mother to enjoy the delights of culture. External activities, especially the two insatiable, all-devouring ones which know neither end nor beginning, housework and sewing-work, these demand her time, her energies, in short, demand herself, the whole of her.
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