THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



393 



dirt, and drudgery of farm work and farm 

 life, and, in the lapse of time, she uncon- 

 sciously parts with some of those attrac- 

 tive qualities in her nature that should 

 everywhere be found in company with 

 woman. 



Rut we are getting too much upon the 

 ground of the essayist. It is our province, 

 rather, to describe the life of the farmer's 

 wife and companion, than to speculate or 

 philosophize upon the character and re- 

 sults of such a life. 



Well, then, most farmers wives are up 

 last at night and the earliest up in the 

 morning. And although no decent man, 

 fit to call himself an American farmer, 

 would permit his wife to rise first and 

 make the fire on a winter's morning, yet 

 she is thrifty and ambitious enough to be 

 in the kitchen very soon after he is, bust- 

 • ling about the sink, the pots and kettles 

 and the table, fixing things generally for 

 breakfast preparations, and arranging for 

 the progress of the day's work. You 

 never catch her idle. She moves twice 

 as quick as her husband, and gets through 

 about twice as much business in the same 

 time. 



Breakfast over, the day's operations be- 

 gin. And it is not possible to tell what 

 they will be from one day to another, ei- 

 ther. Sometimes it is one thing, and then 

 it is clear another. The milk is to scald, 

 the butter-is to churn, the dishes are to be 

 washed ; in the season, young chickens 

 are to be looked after ; the children must 

 have their faces washed and be sent to 

 school; the luncheon must be thought of 

 for the workmen in the field ; dinner must 

 be got into the pot ; the table is to be set 

 again ; then it must be cleared off ; then the 

 sewing must be done ; or company rides 

 up to the door ; and the little chicks come 

 in again for a share of attention ; and the 

 children hurry home as hungry as they 

 can be from school ; and the table must 

 be set for tea ; and the cows must be 

 milked as soon as they are got home ; and 

 the work of the day must be freely talked 

 over with husband, together with the plans 

 for the next day, and the little ones are to 

 be got off to bed ; and then night comes 

 down for^good upon all the household. 



This is the very quintessence of routine 

 itself I know that women in the city can 

 well make complaint on the same score, 

 but this isolated life in the country is rou- 



tine in the highest concentrated form. 

 There is nothing in the world to break it. 

 Unless the inward resources are ample, 

 ithe life falls away in spite of yourself 

 into old, formal, dry, unmeaning practices, 

 and not a gush of new feeling or fresh ex- 

 perience enters in. 



Then in winter it seems harder still, for 

 then the days are — oh ! so long, short as 

 they are at the commencement of the 

 winter solstice ! There would then appear 

 to be nothing to break the tiresome mo- 

 notony. It is like the extensive fields of 

 snow themselves, stretchingaway and aw r ay 

 far as the eye can reach, and obliterating 

 every trace of line, mark, boundary, or 

 neighborhood. Well might wives of farm- 

 ers keep long sticks hanging in their chim- 

 ney corners these weary days, with pale 

 sunshine, as they slowly pass. It would 

 be a congenial occupation. 



The wintry mornings dawn Jate, with 

 frosty, nipping airs, and too often leaden 

 clouds lying in long, low bars along the 

 horizon. The windows are covered with 

 all sorts of devices in frost-work, ar.d 

 streaming breaths blow out from every 

 open mouth. 



If a fresh snow has fallen during the 

 night, the whole world s^ems entirely 

 hushed, and so buried up, that hardly does 

 the slow snapping of the kindlings on the 

 logs break the solemn silence of the time. 

 Then whether the fingers ache with the 

 cold or not, breakfast is to be prepared for 

 the household, and very often with only a 

 single pair of hands. The girls may help 

 a little if they happen to be up ; but it is 

 not always they are up. They tmve thor- 

 oughly warmed their huge feather beds, 

 and they do hate awfully to get out of 

 them in the morning on the freezing, cold 

 floor. And now and then the boys take a 

 hand at chopping the mince-meat, per- 

 haps, or help peal the smoking potatoes, 

 with great checked aprons tied high up 

 under their chins. 



It is nine o'clock, and ten o'clock, and 

 even noon, before work gets fairly in mo* 

 tion ; and then, when steams ascend and 

 float all around the blackened ceiling of 

 the kitchen, and the savors of stewed 

 pumpkins rise from the ill-covered mouth 

 of the great kettle, perhaps there are sua- 

 sages to fill, or pork to pack away, or 

 cheeses to make, or butter to churn, or 

 some other such labor to be attended to, 



