XIX 
PENELOPE AND NAUSICAA 
THE mountain woman has her duties and her 
privileges. She loves, honors, and obeys, in- 
nocent of any knowledge of the suffrage movement. 
She can work out of doors, wearing a long skirt. She 
does much of the work elsewhere relegated to man, 
but is always deferential to her husband, whom she 
respectfully refers to as "him," as though that were 
his baptismal name. 
In the mountain cabin "housework" has no ter- 
rors, an hour a day is enough for everything. " Bric- 
^-brac" has not been discovered, and there are no 
"things" to accumulate. Yet the people are not 
without ideas of decoration, in some places stray 
newspapers being eagerly seized upon, not for the 
valuable information they contain, — the people 
manage to get on very happily without that, — but 
for the purpose of papering the walls. Particularly 
upon the side occupied by the chimney these pub- 
lications are put to a use believed by many to be 
ornamental. In some parts of this land of leisure, to 
have one's walls papered by "illustrated editions" 
is as much a mark of distinction as in another part 
of the world It Is to have them hung with master- 
pieces of painting. Besides, they keep the room 
warm, so the people say. At times this might be 
