154 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



matter for jest, come to the Far West, or 

 even no further than the East, and learn for 

 the first time the true meaning of ' house- 

 keeping cares.' Let the theorist who, like 

 the Pharisee, stands afar off, and moralizes 

 on the beneficent effects of * housework,' 

 come and try it just for one little year. Or 

 perhaps a bushel of American ' Home ' 

 magazines and journals, conscientiously ex- 

 plored, would suffice to still for ever any ill- 

 advised hankering after * housework.' The 

 amount of actual manual labour the average 

 American housewife and mother for even the 

 possession of good means does not ensure a life 

 of ease gets through in one day would stagger 

 the Englishwoman of the same social posi- 

 tion. No wonder the demoralizing existence 

 endured at hotels and boarding-houses is so 

 constantly found preferable to the worries of 

 home-making. But here let me call a halt. 

 This subject is too burning, too endless, a 

 one to find place in these pages. Suffice it 

 to say that, in that matter of mere manual 

 labour, there are few even healthy women, 

 unless backed by an ancestry of * horny- 

 handed sons of toil,' who can bear with 



