1905.] THE RESERVE POWER IN HOUSEKEEPING. II5 



work is very anxious wortc. That woman at dinner time must 

 have her warm meal ready to serve. She must be ready to 

 receive the complaints of the children, if they have any, when 

 they come home from school ; she must be the sweet spirit of 

 the household. She must preside at the dinner table and be 

 just as serene as though the cake hadn't burned, as though 

 everj'thing had gone well about the dinner. She must be the 

 one to be sweet and amiable, no matter how things have gone, 

 and to be the one who is the lever of the whole household. 

 Really, she has had cares enough since early morning to break 

 down one individual unless she learns to look at life in a philo- 

 sophical way, as she very often does. Now, if she has added 

 tension to her body as the work increased, become more and 

 more anxious, when dinner-time comes and that strain comes 

 upon her from the necessity of being the one who is always 

 bright and cheerful, if she is able to go beyond the dinner hour 

 to her resting hour, if she has one, she gets along very well, 

 but sometimes there is a last straw which breaks the camel's 

 back. She may want to go behind the kitchen door and cry ; 

 she can't do it, though. She may want to give up and say : " I 

 can't keep this household running; it is too hard work. Here 

 I have spent the whole day trying to keep things in shape and 

 have the cooking good, and I haven't heard anything but grum- 

 bling since dinner began." The daughter says, " I don't want 

 to settle down to this kind of a life." It isn't to be wondered 

 at, but I suppose if when she found she was getting tired she 

 would simply drop everything and say, " I have done the best 

 I can, I will do the very best I can, and it will come out all 

 right, I don't need to worry " ; if she would have an easy 

 chair brought down to the kitchen, one of those good old- 

 fashioned easy chairs, and drop into it perhaps at eleven o'clock 

 in the forenoon, drop into it and simply relax, close the eyes, 

 relax the jaws — it is a good thing for even a woman to relax 

 the jaws sometimes — give up, take the tension out of the 

 body, shake it out. She finds her hands clinched, she finds the 

 lines getting very deep in her face, she finds her teeth shut tight 

 together, and she is working harder and getting more anxious, 

 and sometimes I have heard of her getting so anxious that she 

 got cross. But if she will drop everything and say, " I am 

 going to rest for an hour or so," it is surprising how cares will 

 fly away, how refreshed she will feel, and she will go about her 



