542 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



For a time, almost like a pure spirit from the 

 realms of bliss, she glides about from room to 

 room, still watchful for the comfort of others, and 

 forgetful of self. 



But, I will not attempt to fill up the picture, 

 and trace the sure decay of strength and beauty 

 and life by slow consumption. At length "there 

 is rest in Heaven.'''' 



Have I exaggerated the trials of a New England 

 wife? I wish it were true that no one of us could 

 call to mind an original, from which my picture 

 might have been drawn! I wish it were true 

 that no one of us were conscious of past thought- 

 lessness, or unreasonable exactions, by which an 

 undue portion of life's burdens have been cast up- 

 on the sex least able to bear them. 

 ####### 



Washing-day is a day in the calendar to be re- 

 membered: — a day when woman reigns supreme — 

 rains in more senses than one — a day which fur- 

 nishes an excuse for cold coffee, and a picked up 

 dinner — a day when every woman claims as part 

 of her prerogative, to wear her hair in papers and 

 scold, and even "Kick the wee stools o'er the 

 mickle," if she feels in the humor — a day when 

 the goodman of the house is brought fully to ap- 

 preciate his own littleness, to feel that he is but as 

 a grasshopper in the sight of any woman, armed 

 with a mop or waterpail. 



And this noted and justly celebrated day com- 

 prises one-seventh of a man's life, and he who has 

 reached his grand climacteric has lived through nine 

 whole years of washing days, a consideration as ter- 

 rific to the young householder, as it is consolatory 

 to those in old age, who believe that the trials of 

 this world are to be deducted from the discipline 

 of the next. 



From the importance of this subject, involving, 

 as it does, one-seventh of all our earthly happi- 

 ness, one would suppose that philosophers and 

 statesmen, laying aside their other schemes for 

 the amelioration of man's condition, would have 

 devoted themselves exclusively to the abolition or 

 mitigation of washing days. 



"But the world has gone on," as Dickens has 

 remarked, "and revolved round the sun, and turned 

 on its own axis, and had lunar influences, and va- 

 rious games of that sort," and washing days have 

 come and gone, and the human race has rather in- 

 creased than lessened in numbers, and men have 

 nettled down upon the idea, that the trials of that 

 dreadful day, like the existence of sin on earth, 

 are to be reckoned among the inscrutable dispen- 

 sations of Providence, to be patiently endured, 

 with such courage as we can put on for the occa- 

 sion. 



To be sure, like old father Adam, in the garden, 

 men are prone to charge this evil, like all others, 

 upon the woman, and I propose, by way of illus- 

 trating my subject, to bring the question directly 

 before the appointed tribunal, whether the worst 

 trials of washing day, like most others of domes- 

 tic life, are not fairly chargeable upon the want of 

 proper attention and foresight on the part of the 

 men. 



And I charge upon our prisoner, in the first 

 place, that he and the large class whom he fitly 

 represents, have not made suitable arrangements 

 for the convenient supply of the two essentials of 

 housekeeping — wood and water. 



Your wood-house, sir, is not near enough to your 



kitchen. Your wife is obliged to go out of doors 

 in summer and winter, to reach it — perhaps to go 

 down a flight of steps, and bring her wood up. — 

 Often she finds no dry fuel of suitable kind cut and 

 split for use, and you would be ashamed to have it 

 known, how many times she has taken the axe in- 

 to her own hands to make up for your negligence. 



And then the ivater — we have all seen it again 

 and again, and you cannot deny it. Instead of 

 having a cistern of soft water, with a pump in your 

 wash-room, or an aqueduct leading into your 

 house, you have, year after year, depended on a 

 well of hard water, Jive rods off, with a well post 

 that leans hard to the east, and a sweep loaded 

 with old cart boxes, at one end, and a crooked pole 

 and leaky bucket at the other, and the girl whom 

 you took young and blooming from her home, and 

 vowed to love and cherish, goes there, day after 

 day, and year after year, and draws water for her 

 household ! 



And, again, what sort of a washboiler does she 

 use? Is it nicely set in brickwork, in a conven- 

 ient place for use, or does she hang a big kettle on 

 the crane, half the length of the house from her 

 wash bench, or is she, for want of a better, com- 

 pelled to use a half-sized tin boiler on the cook 

 stove in dog days ? 



And where is her clothes line ? Have you pro- 

 vided, in some sunny spot, sheltered from the winds, 

 one of the rotary frames lately introduced, on 

 which the whole wash may be hung by a woman 

 in a few moments without moving her basket, or 

 have you some convenient out-building, where 

 the line may be kept always stretched, without 

 being slackened by the weather? 



No such thing, sir. In the first place, the line 

 is not half long enough, for you never have re- 

 turned the piece you borrowed to tie up your bro- 

 ken wagon shaft, and you never paid any atten- 

 tion to the oft-repeated, quiet suggestion, that 

 things were not exactly convenient for drying the 

 clothes, and so the females of your household, af- 

 ter working in a hot room over hot water, half 

 the day, must find a place to dry their clothes as 

 best they can. And we all know how it is done, 

 for we see it every Monday of our lives. 



The line is first tied to the old well post. It is 

 then carried to a post in the garden fence, next, a 

 long stretch is made to the old sweet apple tree, and 

 a turn taken round one of its principal limbs — 

 then round the latch of the wood-house door, and 

 lastly back to the well post forming an irregular 

 parallelogram, with the longest sides supported by 

 the long-handled pitchfork and the rake borrowed 

 from the barn for the occasion ! 



And now, what says the accused to our charg- 

 es ? It will avail nothing to set up poverty in his 

 defence, for as has been truly said, "no man is 

 so poor as to be obliged to have his pigs-trough at 

 the front door," and we may add, no man is too 

 poor to split his own firewood, and bring the wa- 

 ter to wash with. 



And so he may as well plead guilty, and save our 

 jury the trouble of a verdict, and henceforth, we 

 will charge a fair proportion of the trials of wash- 

 ing-day upon the neglect to provide the best pos- 

 sible conveniences for performing what is at best 

 a disagreeable office in housekeeping. 



I have ventured upon this mode of illustrating 

 what I deem, after all, a subject of serious inter- 

 est, the busy and careworn life of Neio England 



