Home topics : a book of practical papers on house and home matters, with suggestions as to the care and education of children, home decoration and amusements, window gardening, practical floriculture, the treatment of the sick, vacations, etc., etc

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Part I. The Household, Cheery People

THERE is but one thing like them — that is sunshine. It is the fashion to state the comparison the other end foremost — i. e., to flatter the cheery people by comparing them to the sun. I think it is the best way of praising the sunshine, to say that it is almost as bright and inspiring as the presence of cheery people.

That the cheery people are brighter and better even than sunshine is very easily proved ; for who has not seen a cheery person make a room and a day bright in spite of the sun's not shining at all — in spite of clouds and rain and cold all doing their very best to make it dismal ? Therefore, I say, the fair way is to compare the sun to cheery people, and not cheery people to the sun. However, whichever way we state the comparison, it is a true and good one ; and neither the cheery people nor the sun need take offense. In fact, I believe they will always be such good friends, and work so steadily together for the same ends, that there is no danger of cither's grudging the other the credit of what has been done. The more you think of it, the more you see how wonderfully alike the two are in their operation on the world. The sun on the fields makes things grow — fruits and flowers and grains ; the cheery person in the house makes everybody do his best — makes the one who can sing feel like singing, and the one who has an ugly, hard job of work to do, feel like shouldering it bravely and having it over with. And the music and mirth and work in the house, are they not like the flowers and fruits and grains in the field ?

The sun makes everybody glad. Even the animals run and leap and seem more joyous when it shines out; and no human being can be so cross-grained, or so ill, that he does not brighten up a little when a great, broad, warm sunbeam streams over him and plays on his face. It is just so with a cheery person. His simple presence makes even animals happier. Dogs know the difference between him and a surly man. When he pats them on the head and speaks to them, they jump and gambol about him just as they do in the sunshine. And when he comes into the room where people are ill, or out of sorts, or dull and moping, they brighten up, spite of themselves, just as they do when a sudden sunbeam pours in — only more so; for we often see people so ill they do not care whether the sun shines or not, or so cross that they do not even see whether the sun shines or not. But I have never yet seen anybody so cross or so ill that the voice and face of the cheery person would not make them brighten up a little.

If there were only a sure and certain recipe for making a cheery person, how glad we would all be to try it ! How thankful we would all be to do good like sunshine ! To cheer everybody up, and help everybody along! — to have everybody's face brighten the minute we came in sight ! Why, it seems to me that there cannot be in this life any pleasure half so great as this would be. If we looked at life only from a selfish point of view, it would be worth while to be a cheery person, merely because it would be such a satisfaction to have everybody so glad to live with us, to sec us, even to meet us on the street.

CHEERY PEOPLE. 3

People who have done things which have made them famous, such as winning great battles or filling high offices, often have what are called ''ovations." Hundreds of people get together and make a procession, perhaps, or go into a great hall and make speeches, all to show that they recognize what the great man has done. After he is dead, they build a stone monument to him, perhaps, and celebrate his birthday for a few years. Men work very hard, sometimes, for a whole life-time to earn a few things of this sort. But how much greater a thing it would be for a man to have every man, woman, and child in his own town know and love his face because it was full of kindly good cheer ! Such a man has a perpetual " ovation," year in and year out, whenever he walks on the street, whenever he enters a friend's house.

" I jist likes to let her in at the door," said an Irish servant one day, of a woman I know, whose face was always cheery and bright; " the face of her does one good, shure !"

I said if there were only a recipe — a sure and certain recipe — for making a cheery person, we would all be glad to try it. There is no such recipe, and perhaps if there were, it is not quite certain that we would all try it. It would take time and trouble. Cheeriness cannot be taught, like writing, *' in twenty lessons" ; nor analyzed and classified and set forth in a manual, such as " The Art of Polite Conversation," or ^' Etiquette Made Easy for Ladies and Gentlemen." It lies so deep that no surface rules of behavior, no description ever so minute of what it is or is not, does or does not do, can ever enable a person to "take it up" and " master" it, like a trade or a study. I believe that it is, in the outset, a good gift from God at one's birth, very much dependent on one's body, and a thing to be more profoundly grateful for than all that genius ever inspired, or talent ever accomplished. This is natural, spontaneous, inevitable cheeriness. This, if we were not born with it, we cannot have. But next best to this is deliberate, intended, and persistent cheeriness, which we can create, can cultivate, and can so foster and cherish, that after a few years the world will never suspect that it was not a hereditary gift handed down to us from generations. To do this we have only to watch the cheeriest people we know, and follow their example. We shall see, first, that the cheery person never minds — or if he minds, never says a word about — small worries, vexations, perplexities. Second, that he is brimful of sympathy in other people's gladness ; he is heartily, genuinely glad of every bit of good luck or joy which comes to other people. Thirdly, he has a keen sense of humor, and never lets any droll thing escape him; he thinks it worth while to laugh, and to make everybody about him laugh, at every amusing thing; no matter how small, he has his laugh, and a good hearty laugh, too, and tries to make everybody share it. Patience, sympathy, and humor — these are the three most manifest traits in the cheery person. But there is something else, which is more an emotion than a trait, more a state of feeling than a quahty of mind. This is lovingness. This is the secret, so far as there is a secret; this is the real point of difference between the mirth of the witty and sarcastic person, which does us no good, and the mirth of the cheery person, which ** doeth good like a medicine."

Somebody once asked a great painter, whose pictures were remarkable for their exquisite and beautiful coloring: **Pray Mr. , how do you mix your colors?"

"With brains, madam — with brains," growled the painter. His ill-nature spoke a truth. All men had or might have the colors he used ; but no man produced the colors he produced.

So I would say of cheeriness. Patience, sympathy, and humor are the colors ; but patience may be mere doggedness and reticence, sympathy may be wordy and shallow and selfish, and humor may be only a sharp perception of the ridiculous. Only when they are mixed with love — love, three times love — do we have the true good cheer of genuine cheery people.

MEN AND WOMEN. 5

''HE THAT SWEARETH TO HIS OWN HURT AND CHANGETH NOTr

WE were talking about it, very solemnly, the other night, the minister and I, and this is the little sermon he preached :

The trouble lies back of all theories, all talk of reform and liberty and law and what not. The advocacy of easy divorce, or whatever form this horror of the day assumes, is only possible when one's apprehension of life is false from the beginning. They talk about one's life being blasted by an uncongenial union ; of failing thus to accomplish the purposes of one's life ; of an empty existence : — as if a life teeming with duty could be, by any means, called vacant, — as if a career could be blasted by infelicity, or an existence fail of its true purposes because of the burden laid upon it ! Who shall limit the purposes of his existence ! Who shall flee, a coward, from the cross laid upon him, and declare that he does well ! Surely not he who believes that giving is gaining ; that only he finds his life who loses it.

The modern world is coming back to the first principles in the means of attack, the art of defense, in the building of ships, bolts, earth- works, fish-shaped hulls, — and in many other things; — the newest is the oldest. So, in religion, the "reformers " are preaching the ancient worship of that goddess of self and sense ; and the unselfish Christ, as of old, puts these false prophets to shame.

MEN AND WOMEN.

AMONG all the burdens that woman is called upon to bear, there is none that can be made so galling to her as the burden of dependence. Man is usually, in the life of the family, the bread-winner. However much he may be helped by woman in the economies of home life, he is usually the one who earns and carries the money on which the family subsists. Whatever money the woman wants comes to her from his hands, as a rule. Now, this money can be given into her hands in such a way that she can not only preserve her self-respect, but rejoice in her dependence ; or it can be given to her in such a way that she will feel like a dog when she asks for it and when she receives it — in such a way that she will curse her dependence, and mourn over all the shame and humiliation it brings to her. We are sorry to believe that there are multitudes of wives and daughters and sisters, who wear fine clothing and who fare sumptuously every day, who would prefer earning the money they spend to receiving it from the ungracious and inconsiderate hands upon which they depend.

If we had entitled this article ** A Study of Husbands," it would have led us more directly, perhaps, to our main purpose; but the truth is that what we have to say has to do with dependent women in all the relations of life. It is natural for woman, as it is for man, to desire to spend money in her own way — to be free to choose, and free to economize, and free to spend whatever may be spent upon herself or her wardrobe. It is a delightful privilege to be free, and to have one's will with whatever expenditures may be made for one's own conveniences or necessities. A man who will interfere with this freedom, and who will deny this privilege to those who depend upon him, is either thoughtless or brutal. We know — and women all know — men who are' very generous toward their dependents, but who insist on reserving to themselves the pleasure of purchasing whatever the women of their households may want, and then handing it over to them in the form of presents. The women are loaded with nice dresses and jewelry, and these are bestowed in the same way in which a Turk lavishes his favors upon the slaves of his harem. Now, it is undoubtedly very gratifying to these men to exercise their taste upon the necessities and fineries of their dependent women, and to feast themselves upon the surprises and the thanks of those receiving their favors ; but it is a superlatively selfish performance. If

MEN AND WOMEN. 7

these women could only have had in their hands the money which these gifts cost, they would have spent it better, and they would have gratified their own tastes. A man may be generous enough to give to a woman the dresses and ornaments she wears, who is very far from being generous enough to give her money, that she may freely purchase what she wants, and have the great delight of choosing.

This is one side — not a very repulsive one — of man's selfishness in his dealings with women ; but there is another side that is disgusting to contemplate. There are great multitudes of faithful wives, obedient daughters, and ''left over" sisters, to whom there is never given a willing penny. The brute who occupies the head of the family never gives a dollar to the women dependent upon him without making them feel the yoke of their dependence, and tempting them to curse their lot, with all its terrible humiliations. Heaven pity the poor women who may be dependent upon him — women who never ask him for money when they can avoid it, and never get it until they have been made to feel as meanly humble as if they had robbed a hen-roost!

There is but one manly way in treating this relation of dependent women. If a man recognizes a woman as a dependent, — and he must do so, so far, at least, as his wife and daughters are concerned, — he acknowledges certain duties which he owes to them. His duty is to support them, and, so far as he can do it, to make them happy. He certainly cannot make them happy if, in all his treatment of them, he reminds them of their dependence upon him. We know of no better form into which he can put the recognition of his duty than that of an allowance, freely and promptly paid whenever it may be called for. If a man acknowledges to himself that he owes the duty of support to the women variously related to him in his household, let him generously determine how much money he has to spend upon each, and tell her just how much she is at liberty to call upon him for, per annum. Then it stands in the relation of a debt to the woman, which she is at liberty to call for and to spend according to her own judgment.

We have watched the working of this plan, and it works well. We have watched the working of other plans, and they do not work well. We have watched, for instance, the working of the plan of the generous husband and father, who says : " Come to me for what you want, whenever you want it. I don't wish to limit you. Some years you will want more, and some less." This seems very generous ; but, in truth, these women prefer to know about what the man thinks they ought to spend, or about what he regards as the amount he can afford to have them spend. Having gained this knowledge by a voluntarily proffered allowance, they immediately adapt their expenditures to their means, and are perfectly content. It is a comfort to a dependent woman to look upon a definite sum as her own — as one that has been set aside for her exclusive use and behoof

A great multitude of the discomforts that attach to a dependent woman's lot arise from the obtuseness and thoughtlessness of the men upon whom they depend. There are some men so coarsely made that they cannot appreciate a woman's sensitiveness in asking for money. They honestly intend to do their duty — even to deal generously — by the women dependent upon them, but they cannot understand why a woman should object to come to them for what they choose to give her. If they will ask their wives to tell them frankly how they can improve their position, these wives will answer that they can do it by putting into their hands, or placing within their call, all the money per annum which they think they can afford to allow them, and not compel them to appeal to their husbands as suppliants for money whenever they may need a dollar or the quarter of one.

The absolutely brutal husband and father will hardly read this article, but wo recall instances of cruelty and insult toward dependent women that would make any true man indignant in every fiber. A true woman may legitimately rejoice in her dependence upon a true man, because he will never make her feel it in any way ; but a brute of a husband can make a true woman feel her humiliation as a dependent a hundred times a day, until her dependence is mourned over as an unmitigated curse.

HOLIDAYS FOR MIDDLE-AGE. 9

HOLIDAYS FOR MIDDLE-AGE.

WHEN the fires are beginning to burn on library and parlor hearths in the evenings, and the curtains to be drawn close, and the most devout lover of Nature gives up the stroll in shady lanes, or the row on the moonlit river, and comes in-doors for the winter, it is worth while to consider what is to be done in-doors. The work is ready for everybody who chooses to do it ; but the relaxation, the rest, the stimulant, which is to fit us for the work — what is that to be? For fashionable classes, this matter of amusement is ruled in almost as inflexible grooves as drudgery for the poor : for men or young people, too, it adjusts itself naturally. The father of a family has his clubs, his share in the political or church meeting, or, at least, his quiet newspaper, cigar, and slippers, at home — precisely the drowsy reaction he needs after the friction of the busy day. The boys and girls have their concerts, their lectures, the thousand devices of '' sociables," " accidentals," etc., by which they contrive to flock together, to chirp like young birds in May, and, perhaps, to mate like them. But the wives and mothers, the great aggregate of women no longer young — what is to be their tonic ? They certainly need a tonic. The American mother of a family is the real maid of all work in it, and the more faithful and intelligent she is, the more she usually tries to deserve the name. She may work with her hands or not (in the large majority of cases, she does work with her hands), but it is she who, in any case, oversees and gives life to a dozen different interests. Her husband's business, the boys' education, the girls' standing in society, the babv's teething-, the sewing; and housework for them all, are all processes which she urges on and which rasp and fret daily and hourly on her brain — a very dull, unskilled brain, too often, but almost always quite willing to wear itself out for those she loves. Whether it would be nobler or more politic in her to shirk this work, — husband, babies, and house, — and develop her latent talents as physician, artist, or saleswoman, is not the question with us just now. A few women have lO HOME TOPICS.

done this. In the cities, too, money can remove much of the responsibiHty from the mistress of a household ; but the great aggregate of wives and mothers in this country are domestic women who ask nothing better of fate than that whatever strength they have of body and mind shall be drained for their husbands and children. Now this spirit of martyrdom is a very good thing — when it is necessary. For our part, we can see no necessity for it here. We are told that the women's wards in the insane asylums in New England are filled with middle-aged wives, mothers driven there by overwork and anxiety ; through the rest of the country the popular type of the woman of forty is neither fat nor fair, but a sallow, anxious-eyed creature, with teeth and hair furnished by the shops, and a liver and nerves which long ago took her work, temper, and we had almost said reUgion, out of her control. This rapid decay of our women may be owing partly to cHmatic influence, but it is much more due to the wear and tear of their motherhood, and anxiety to push their children forward, added to the incessant petty rasping of inefficient domestic service.

A man's work may be heavier, but is single — it wears on him on one side only ; he has his hours sacred to business, to give to his brief, his sermon, his shop ; there is no drain on the rest of his faculties or time. His wife has no hour sacred to this or to that; he brings his trouble to her, and it is her duty to comprehend and aid him, while her brain is devising how to keep her boy Tom away from the companions who brought him home drunk last night ; how to give Jenny another year of music lessons ; how to contrive a cloak for the baby out of her old merino ; the burning meat in the kitchen all the while ** setting her nerves in a quiver." She has not a power of mind, a skill of body, which her daily life does not draw upon. Her husband comes and goes to his office ; the outdoor air, the stir, the change of ideas, the passing word for this man or that, unconsciously refresh and lift him from the cankering care of the work. She has the parlor, the dining-room, the kitchen, to shut her into it, day after day, year after year. Women, without a single actual grief in the world, grow

THE HOSPITALITY WE SHOULD LIKE TO SEE. II

morbid and ill-tempered, simply from living in-doors, and resort to prayer to conquer their crossness, when they only need a walk of a couple of miles, or some wholesome amusement. It is a natural craving for this necessity — amusement — which drives them to the tea-parties and sewing-circles which men ridicule as absurd and tedious.

There is no reason why our women, who are notably rational and shrewd in the conduct of the working part of life, should cut themselves off thus irrationally from the necessary relaxation, or make it either costly or tedious. Let every mother of a family resolve not to put off her holidays until old age, but to take them all along the way, and to bring a good share of them into this winter. Let her give no ball, no musical evenings, no hot, perspiring tea-parties, but manage to have her table always prettily served and comfortably provided, and her welcome ready for any friend who may come to it ; let her set apart an evening, if possible, when her rooms shall be open to any pleasant friend who will visit her ; the refreshment to be of the simplest kind ; and, above all, if the table chance not to be well served, or the friends are not agreeable, let her take the mishap as a jest, and meet all difficulties with an easy good-humor. It is not necessary to take every bull of trouble by the horns ; if we welcome and nod to them as to cheerful acquaintances, they will usually trot by on the other side of the road.

Let her take our prescription for the winter, and our word for it the spring will find fresher roses in her cheeks and fewer wrinkles in her husband's forehead.

THE HOSPITALITY WE SHOULD LIKE TO SEE,

" T^O you ever thoroughly enjoy receiving company?" said

LJ a lady to us not long ago. '' For my part, I am so

occupied with the fear that my guests will not be sufficiently

entertained that I have no time to enjoy them." Most American housekeepers will confess to something of this feeling. Even in our best-appointed households, there is not that absence of care in the deportment of the lady of the house which is seen in French or English drawing-rooms. Her thoughts cannot help wandering to the kitchen, even in the midst of the most animated conversation. She knows full well that after all those endeavors which have made her somewhat too weary to be quite at her best in looks or manner, there may be a failure in serving the repast. It is curious to see what a different woman she is after supper, if all has gone well. For the time she is safe, and exuberant with a sense of relief

When our guests are staying with us for a day or a week, matters are somewhat better, because so much is not attempted ; but still there is often an unnaturalness and constraint which makes itself felt, even through the most scrupulous politeness. Much of this is no doubt owing to our unsatisfactory and precarious domestic service. Arthur Hugh Clough said : " The only way to live comfortably in America is to live rudely and simply ; " and while we should not hke to agree to his statement seriously, there are moments of despair, it must be acknowledged, in which we feel the force of it. But there is a deeper reason than this for our discomfort, and happily it is one which it lies in our power to remedy. Somehow or other, the idea has become chronic with us that we must entertain our visitors according to their style of living rather than our own. If a friend comes who has no larger a menage than we, it is all very well ; we make no special effort, and are thoroughly and simply hospitable. But let a distinguished foreigner or an '' American prince " visit us, and everything is changed. We have an indistinct idea of what he is accustomed to at home, and nothing short of that will content us. We put ourselves to torture to devise how to entertain him worthily, forgetting that what is unusual is always obviously so, and that he will detect the thin veneering of style, and either pity or sneer at us, according to his nature.

There is with us Americans an inborn dislike to be surpassed ; it is at once our strength and our weakness ; giving us

THE HOSPITALITY WE SHOULD LIKE TO SEE. 1 3

a stimulus to endeavor in great things, and causing a belittling anxiety in small ones. Far better in family affairs is French simplicity, that gives its best, whether poor or otherwise, without shame or ostentation ; that makes no guest uncomfortable by a suggestion of unusual expense or fatigue. If we could only understand it, we should feel that what our guests desire, if they are right-minded persons, is a glimpse of our real life : they come to us to know us better — not to have a repetition of their home experiences. True hospitality makes as little difference as possible for the stranger or the friend ; it infolds each at once in its warm atmosphere ; and if he be a guest worth entertaining, he will prefer a thousand times such a home-welcome to the display which has no heart in it. Especially with the foreigners who come to our shores is this true. They are away from their homes and families ; they tire of receptions and state dinners ; and the kindest thing we can do for them is occasionally to vary the programme by a quiet, friendly chat at the family fireside. And for all whom we entertain, that which we have decided to be right and proper for us in private should be the measure of our public doings. Consistency in this particular would relieve many a guest as well as many an entertainer. '* I pray you, O excellent wife," says Emerson, *' not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bed-chamber made ready at too great a cost. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dollar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your looks, in your accent and behavior, read your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, which he cannot buy at any price, in any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles, and dine sparely and sleep hard, in order to behold. Certainly let the board be spread, and let the bed be dressed for the traveler ; but let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in these things ^

DAILY CHARITIES.

THERE is a queer, one-sided notion of charity which a very large number of people, especially religious, conscientious women of small means, are apt to adopt, and to carry out rigidly in their daily domestic lives. It is, that duty requires them to save money in every legitimate way, and then give a certain amount to the church or to the poor. A certain little woman that we know inexorably sets aside a tenth of her small income for charity, — a most admirable resolve, as everybody will acknowledge. But, in order to increase this tithe, she lays burdens on herself, her husband, and her servants, hard to bear. Diet in her system is reduced to its plainest and least tempting conditions ; economy is brought to bear on the quality of the meat, its seasoning — the very coal, and the time required for its preparation. The boys sit down day after day the year round to the bare, uninviting table with its coarse cloth and meager dishes of oatmeal porridge, and stewed apples, or chops and potatoes, which they know have been counted before they were boiled. Their mother wonders why their appetites flag, and why her dinner-table is never the pleasant, jolly place of meeting which the boys declare their Aunt Rousby's to be. She "■ will not think so ill of her sons," she declares, '' as to believe that their tempers would be improved, or their love for their mother quickened, by occasional gratification of their stomachs," or, as she puts it, '' their carnal appetites." But the fact remains that the Rousby boys are rosy and happy, and as long as they live will remember mother's custards or chicken-pie as a way in which she showed her love for them, while their cousins know and care nothing about their mother's hours of prayer and wakefulness on their behalf This charitable woman, too, wears the coarsest and ugliest costumes for the sake of economy and self-mortification, and yet is miserable because her husband has long ago ceased to pay her lover-like compliments, and so often notices Jane Rousby's rosy cheeks and pretty breakfastcaps. In a word, she makes her home bare, niggardly, uninviting to her husband and sons, and drives them elsewhere for