304 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
In summer time we are always pleased to liave our 
house front the east, so that we can have cooler 
kitchens in the morning, and sit by the windows 
and doorways, or in our front yards in the after¬ 
noon. I know a beautiful house, with a generous 
piazza around three sides, but in summer after¬ 
noons, when the shade of the piazza is most de¬ 
sired, the sun blazes square upon the west side, and 
down the full length of both north and south sides. 
In this case the difficulty can be remedied by a 
screen of thick vines in front, at each end of the 
west side, so as to shade the north and south sides. 
Shade trees also will modify the situation. 
Another most important consideration is your 
water privilege. Pure air alone will not save us 
-P- 
Fig. 1.— diagram of chairs and seat. 
from disease. We must have pure water and plenty 
of it. If plenty of soft water can bo had by dig¬ 
ging for it, you are fortunate. If you have cool 
spring water close at hand, you are in luck. You 
can depend upon cisterns of rain water if you live 
where rains are sufficiently frequent, and if neither 
you nor your near neighbors keep pigeons. These 
birds, (often called doves), sometimes soil the roof 
and eave-troughs to such an extent as to seriously 
damage the water gathered from the roof. It is a 
pity to have to depend alone upon cisterns, as these 
sometimes unexpectedly and most inconveniently 
fail from lack of rain, or from leaks, or from some 
pollution. But in a region where there is plenty of 
water in wells, it may be all hard, and therefore 
very uncomfortable for bathing and for laundry 
purposes. In such a case a cistern, though not the 
sole dependence, is a necessary appendage to the 
establishment. 
One cannot afford to lay the foundations of a 
home regardless of the surrounding scenery. 
Beauty of view from the windows and doors is 
greatly to be desired. Without money and without 
price you can then have something better than the 
costliest paintings. 
Doing tile “ Nothing.” 
“ I should be glad to read it,” said aunt L., “ but 
I can’t get time.”—“I should think you might have 
considerable leisure,” I replied, “you have a hired 
girl to do the work.”—“Yes,” she answerd, with a 
laugh, “ the hired girl does the work, and I do the 
nothing, but my nothing keeps me as busy as her 
work keeps her, and is quite as hard.” 
This saying was beyond my comprehension, for 
I had then had no experience by which I could in¬ 
terpret it. Notv I understand. My aunt had no 
small children, none too young to be “in business” 
somewhere. But there were three or four hired 
Fig. 2 .— FRAMEWORK OF SOFA MADE FROM OLD CHAIRS. 
men, and there was company coming and going, 
and sewing, and knitting, and darniug, and the 
hunting for rags and strings when needed, the put¬ 
ting away of scattered articles, the oversight and 
direction of the whole in-door establishment. 
I remember when I was first left to superintend 
the family work for a few days during my mother’s 
absence, while I was yet in my teens. I did all that 
my mother had expected me to do, in the way of 
housework, and had considerable leisure for my 
own sewing and reading. I said to my father on 
the last evening before my mother came home, “I 
can’t see what keeps mother so busy. She keeps 
step, step, stepping around the kitchen most all 
day, and here I have done all the work, and read a 
book through besides.” Father laughed, for he 
knew what I did not think of then, (it was in my 
'early school-ma’am days, when I knew very little 
about housework,) that I had had none of the big- 
jobs of housekeeping to do, nothing but getting- 
meals and keeping the house in order. When 
mother came home, her old habits were continued. 
She was trying out fat that I should have allowed 
to spoil, had she stayed longer away ; jars of pre¬ 
serves were made or scalded over, feather beds 
were turned out to air, straw ticks emptied and 
washed and refilled, old chests of useful rubbish 
assorted, odd corners swept and dusted, and no end 
of tasks, both little and big, in addition to the reg¬ 
ular daily and weekly work, which included those 
inevitable jobs of washing, ironing, baking, and 
scrubbing, which had not devolved upon me during 
her absence, and but little previously, as elder sis¬ 
ters took the brunt of the housework. 
But I know now what it is to do the “nothing” for 
a family—know it so well that it seems to me that 
the task is too much for the farmer’s wife of aver¬ 
age health, who has three or four young children. 
Day before yesterday our stove was moved out of 
our sitting-room, and another one moved in, with 
some necessary change of pipe. It was a busy time 
of year, (June,) and I had put off the dirty and 
disagreeable task as long as possible. The work 
took longer and was more difficult than I had ex¬ 
pected, and my sympathies were 
taxed a good deal for the “ master 
of the house ” who was hindered 
and wearied by it all—the more 
so, perhaps, because he entered 
upon it bravely, and endured it 
cheerfully. Afterwards he spoke 
of “ wrestling with a stove-pipe ” 
as very nerve-trying business— 
pipes are so hard to fit together or 
to pull apart, and slipping just 
when and where you least expect¬ 
ed or desired them to. I said that 
I always felt great sympathy for 
men who had such work to do, but 
I thought how much it was in some respects like my 
own daily work. 
To-day I have been unusually tired, perhaps, by 
the amount of “nothing” I have performed— 
work which has no name, and does not seem to 
count. I have done no cooking or cleaning, or 
other regular work, but at ten o’clock I was so tired 
that I thought I would like to rest all day. Why 
do children lose their hats and misplace their shoes ? 
Why do two-year-old babies make themselves so 
busy in putting thiugs out of place, spilling their 
bread and milk, and meddling with your papers ? 
Why cannot children who are elated with the pros¬ 
pect of a pleasant excursion, bear their joy with 
dignified composure? You may 
try to be calm and patient, and suc¬ 
ceed as well as usual, in getting- 
two children ready for a boat-ride 
across the lake and a trip of a 
mile or two on foot, to the “ uew 
store,” but the business will prove 
tiresome to the average woman. 
They are very happy, but happi¬ 
ness quickens the activity of a 
boy’s limbs and tongue to quite 
an unnecessary degree, and he can 
hardly hold still to have his hair 
parted or his coffin- buttoned. A 
little girl waits for you to sew a 
rutile in her new frock, and baby clings to you, 
calling, “ I want to go ’way off too. I want to go 
too. Wash my face. Take me. Take me ”—and 
every other request by which he hopes to get num¬ 
bered with the party going “ way off.” Another 
child got up late, and has not had enough breakfast, 
and wants you to tie her shoes, as she tells you ev¬ 
ery two minutes. You have a list of purchases to 
make out for your little errand boy to take with 
him, and letters to sign and seal and address for 
him to mail,—and baby has the portmonnaie which 
is one of his big brother’s greatest treasures, and 
one that lie likes an opportunity to use. You take 
the portmonnaie away from baby, and put it so se¬ 
curely beyond reach that, after a quarter of an 
hour’s vigorous search by yourself and children, it 
cannot be found, and your own pocket-book must 
go instead. The baby has been examining your let¬ 
ters, and did he take anything out or exchange the 
contents of the unsealed envelopes ? All this time 
you have not decided what the hired girl shall get 
for dinner, and you know that as soon as she lias 
the morning work done up, she will ask what she 
shall do now, as it is Thursday, with no regular 
filling in between breakfast and dinner work. You 
must take time to consider whether she had better 
rip up that mattress and wash the hair to-day. The 
children want a basin to bail out the boat, and the 
sun shines so hot you hunt up a big parasol for 
your little girl with the turned up hat-brim, and 
promise her two cents when she gets home if she 
brings the old parasol back safe. You follow them 
to the lake to make a change in the boy’s clothing, 
it is coming off so much warmer than you expect¬ 
ed. Then you go back and send the hired girl down 
with a Hour sack in whick the various packages 
are to be put, and slung over the boy’s shoulder on 
his homeward way. At last you are ready to tie 
four-year-old’s shoes, but it is now so warm that she 
can go barefoot. “ Take me, take me,” pleads the 
big baby, who waked earlier than usual this morn¬ 
ing, and got up before he was sufficiently awake. 
As soon as you take him he wants a cup of milk, 
and when you have “ byed” him almost to sleep, 
Fig. 3.—SOFA MADE FROM OLD CHAIRS—COMPLETED. 
in rushes Four-year-old with such a lively story 
about the hens she has been feeding, that your 
work for baby is all undone. And so it goes. Such 
was my experience to-day, with the added anxiety 
of knowing that it was “now or never” with 
“ Home Topics ” for this month. While I got very 
tired with doing my “ nothing,” the hired girl was 
doing the work which can be done with little exer¬ 
cise of mind and nerve—dish-washing, sweeping, 
bed-making. Still, I did not envy her, nor do I 
ever envy the childless women, but I want it more 
generally understood and appreciated that mothers 
tvho take care of their own children have work enough 
to employ their time and nervous force, if they have no 
other ivork depending upon them. Observe the word 
“ depending," for they may be able and glad to do 
more. Only the ill-informed or cruelly-disposed 
will sneer at the feeble health or “ nervousness” of 
women, so long as they are so unmercifully 
“ weighted ” in the performance of duties peculiar 
to their sex, (as, for instance, the nurture of young- 
children), by cares and labors which do not rightly 
belong to one sex more than another. No subject 
is more important than the domestic problem—how 
to promote happy homes for human beings, homes 
which are comfortable for all the members. Many 
suppose that money is the great thing needful, but 
wealth alone will not solve the problem—will not 
ensure a housekeeper suitable help in her duties, or 
give a mother the necessary command of time and 
resources for such primary education of her chil¬ 
dren as the age seems to demand. Greater sim¬ 
plicity in dress and house appointments, and man¬ 
ner of living, would considerably mitigate the lot 
of most women. But the hardest-pushed among 
us cannot serve our race and our Maker better than 
to make the best of our situation, and endure 
present trials patiently, while we speak honestly 
what seems Truth to us, and wait for light and 
leading from above. 
A Gosik Rocipc, with Viiriations. 
In Marion Harland’s book we line! the following: 
