THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 237 



floor, and close at hand. There is no unnecessary waste 

 of strength then in filling- her place as housekeeper, cook, 

 dairy maid, laundress, wife and mother ; for many a farm 

 er s wife is expected to fill all these offices, and to be al 

 ways cheerful and happy, waiting for the coming of her 

 liege lord, as if she had nothing else to do but to be a 

 wife. 



The lot of a farmer s wife, as it generally runs, is rather 

 a hard one, and is made hard very often from the want of 

 attention to little things. If a man needs twenty cords 

 of wood for the year, it costs no more to get it in the 

 winter, in a time of leisure, and to have it chopped, split, 

 and packed under cover, than to get it, a load at a time, 

 and have the torment of a slow fire all* the while. This 

 not only makes more labor, but it frets and worries, which 

 is a good deal worse than work. Dry wood is one of the 

 secrets of a comfortable wife. That is what makes Mrs. 

 Bunker so hale and handsome, past sixty. She says she 

 wouldn t know how to keep house without dry wood. I 

 guess she wouldn t, for she has never had any thing else. 



Deacon Smith is a good man and means well, but he 

 does not know how to use a wife. His well has hard 

 water, that wont wash, and all the water on washing day 

 has to be brought from the brook, more than forty rods 

 from the house. To be sure he keeps a servant, but it 

 makes a world of work for servant and housekeeper. He 

 might have a cistern that wouldn t cost twenty dollars, 

 and it would save more than that value of labor every 

 year. He has roofing enough to keep it supplied with 

 water all the while. And then the Deacon carries on a 

 large farm and keeps a half dozen hired men, and boards 

 and lodges them all in his own house. Now what a bur 

 den this brings upon a woman, when they might be much 

 better accommodated in small farm-houses of their own. 

 It is quite as easy to hire a part of the labor needed on 

 the farm from those married, as from those who have no 



