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The deaf old woman who came in to do his cooking and housework worried him little, and apparently did not gossip about his actions or his habits; whilst the three rooms he had furnished were more than sufficient for his needs.
The excuse most frequently heard in San Francisco for the restaurant habit, and for living in cooped-up apartments, is that the wife wants to get away from the burden of the kitchen and drudgery of housework.
He wiped the dishes if she washed them; if a carpet was to be swept he handled the broom if he were there to do it, and he never went to the field without filling the reservoir and water pail as well as the coal scuttle and cob basket. He assumed the management of cooking and housework so subtly that the unsophisticated girl saw only his helpfulness; in fact, he had only helpfulness in mind.
The colored woman who did the housework was absent for the day and the rooms were deserted. He saturated a sponge with chloroform, constructed a cone out of a towel, placed the sponge in the cone, put the cone over the sleeping man's face and ran out of the room and waited thirty minutes for the chloroform to complete the work.
Against her better judgment the woman of the house enters a race with no ending and becomes intensely dissatisfied, while her husband becomes desperate over the bills. This disunion in her spirit does what all such disunions do, it predisposes her to a breakdown. It makes the housework harder; it makes the relations with her husband more difficult.
"Girls do not like to go out to service in families where 'general housework' is expected. It seems," he added grimly, "that to get good help we should engage two or three girls, and then have a lady, like Mrs. Watkins, to superintend." "I guess we'll have to give up and go to boarding, then," sighed Janice. "Only I am sure I should just detest a boarding house, Daddy."
Doing all the housework, preparation of meals included, tending both lights, rubbing brass work, sweeping and scouring, sleeping when he could and keeping awake when he must, nobody to talk to, nobody to help the forty-eight hours of solitude had already convinced Mr. Atkins that the sooner a helper was provided the better.
"Why shouldn't you come over and have tea with us then?" she asked abruptly. "We're all alone, too. My brother's gone to the County Fair an' ain't comin' back 'til to-morrow." Lucy's eyes lighted with pleasure. "You're very kind," she cried, a tremor of happiness in her tone. "I'd love to come." They walked along, balancing their burden of berries and chatting of garden, weather, and housework.
Too, it was pleasant to have cooking and housework off her mind for a week, and to go about with Austin looking at the pretty things she could not buy, and enjoying the beautiful parks and drives of the city. The expedition was far from a failure to her, though of course her shopping-excursion was spoiled.
I made all my plans last night and came down to ask you if you could take James. He has been with us so long; I can't let him go to strangers. Then I shall turn out all those high-priced servants and get a woman to do general housework. Alice says her aunt always gets green ones from an agency and breaks them in. They are quite cheap.
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