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Why, there's my Betsy Ann; she ken go a visitin' more 'n half the time, and her husband never said boo agin her house-work; an' I've known lots o' women what could embroider, an' play the piana, an' make heaps o' calls, an' attind balls an' sich till enymost mornin', an' they'd no more think o' wastin' their time in writin' a book than cuttin' their heads off!
While Mother proudly carried on the money-earning he tried to do the house-work. With unskilled hands he swept leaving snags of dirt in the corners; he washed breaking a dish now and then; he even got down on protesting sore knees and sloshed around in an attempt at scrubbing the knotty, splintery floor.
Wall, I felt sorry for her: and I s'posed, that, married or single, she would have to wear stockin's; so I told her, that, besides her wages, she might have all the lamb's-wool yarn she wanted to spin while I was gone, after doin' the house-work. She wus tickled enough as I told her. "Why," says she, "I can spin enough to last me for years and years." "Wall," says I, "so much the better.
For the same reason, long before she could read aloud to her mother intelligibly, she had learnt all that Harriet could teach her, not only of the house-work, but of the cooking, from cleaning a fish and trussing a fowl to making barley-broth and puff-pastry.
In the summer we can live on garden truck, an' in the fall there is wild reddishes an' water-cresses an' spatterdock, an' nuts an' pertatoes come in mighty handy fur winter wuck. Why, I was born wuckin' when I was a gal I cooked, washed and done house-work for a family of ten, an' then had time to spin ten hanks o' yarn a day."
Like many other important discoveries, my aptness for house-work was found out by accident. Our next neighbor happened to be thrown, without a word of warning, into one of those dreadful whirlpools in regard to help, to which even the best regulated households are liable.
She polished off all her house-work, wondering anxiously if any of her classmates would oversleep herself, yet at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still there was always that troublesome small-pox ! She breathed a prayer that God would keep all the little girls and send them the Banner. As she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post-card for her mother.
Even her look had not changed, and he told her how he had seen his picture in her at the moment of their meeting in the street. They all went in to verify his impression from the painting. "Yes, that is the way you looked." "It seems to me that is the way I felt," she asserted. Frank went about the house-work, and left her to their guest.
"But what is the work?" Sheila still held her hand against her forehead. Hudson laughed his short, cracked cackle. "Jest old-fashioned house-work, dish-washing and such. 'Help' can't be had in Millings, and Girlie and Babe kick like steers when Momma leads 'em to the dish-pan. Not that you'd have to do it all, you know, just lend a hand to Momma. Maybe you're too fine for that?" "Oh, no.
Downs, you must give up your education entirely. She is a kind woman and really fond of you, I think; but with her you can have no advantages of any sort, and no chance to fit yourself for any higher sort of work than house-work.
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