Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist
Page 8
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I spent a delightful day not long ago, visiting in a home where there are several children and the little mother not over strong. She is doing nothing to add to the family income; has no special work of her own to earn some pin money, but the way she has that little family organized would be a lesson in efficiency to many a business man. The training she is giving the children and the work she is doing in preparing them to meet the problems of life and become self-supporting, self-respecting citizens could not be paid for in money.
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The children all help and the work for the day goes forward with no confusion. There is nothing left undone because one person thought another was to do it. There are no whines such as “I did that yesterday; let sister (or brother) do it this time.” Each child has a particular part of the work to do. Each knows what their work is and that he is responsible for that work being done as it should be.
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One of the girls does the upstairs work; another has the care of the parlor, dining room and library. The two smaller girls must keep their playthings in order and not leave their belongings scattered around the house. The mother does the cooking and washing the dishes. The places of each are changed from time to time that there may be no unfairness and that each may learn to do the different kinds of work. One boy keeps water in the house, milks the cow and keeps the motor car clean. Another boy brings in the wood and runs errands. Each receives, for the work done, a few cents a week and this is their spending money to do with as they please. When it is spent there is no teasing for a few cents to spend for this or that. They know the amount of their income and plan and spend accordingly. In this way they are learning the value of money; to work for what they want instead of begging for it and to live within their income. If their work is not well done, a fine of a few cents is a better punishment than a scolding or a whipping, leaving both parties with their self respect uninjured, while the child can see the punishment fits the crime.
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“I don’t know what to do with Edith,” said a mother to me. “I’ve no idea where she learned it, but she is a regular little liar. I can’t depend on a thing she says.”
Edith was a very bright, attractive child about three years old. Just then she started to go into another room. “Oh! Don’t go in there!” her mother exclaimed. “It’s dark in there and there is a big dog behind the door.” The child opened the door a crack, peeped around it, smiled a knowing smile and went on in. Evidently she knew her mother and that she “could not depend on a thing she said,” that she was “a regular little—.” Sounds ugly, doesn’t it? Perhaps I would better not quote it at all, but where do you suppose Edith learned to be untruthful?
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When I went to San Francisco last summer, I left The Man Of The Place and his hired man to “batch it.” There were no women relatives near, no near neighbors with whom they could board and of course it was out of the question to hire a girl to stay with two lone men.
I was sorry for them, but our only child lives in San Francisco and I had not seen her for four years. Besides, there was the fair, so I left them and went.
Now the man of the place says, “If any man thinks housekeeping is easy work and not all a woman ought to do, just let him roll up his sleeves and tackle the job.”
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More than any other business, that of farming depends upon the home and it is almost impossible for any farmer to succeed without the help of the house. In the country the home is still depended upon to furnish bed and board and the comforts of life.
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It is a good idea sometimes to think of the importance and dignity of our every-day duties. It keeps them from being so tiresome; besides, others are apt to take us at our own valuation.
Life Is an Adventure
Voyages of Discovery Can Be Made in Your Rocking-chair
March 5, 1916
As I was passing through the Missouri building, at the exposition last summer, I overheard a scrap of conversation between two women. Said the first woman, “How do you like San Francisco?” The other replied, “I don’t like San Francisco at all! Everywhere I go there is a Chinaman on one side, a Jap on the other and a nigger behind.”
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These women were missing a great deal, for the foreign life of San Francisco is very interesting and the strange vari-colored peoples on the streets give a touch of color and picturesqueness that adds much to the charm of the city. A morning’s walk from the top of Russian Hill, where I lived when there, would take me thru “Little Italy” where one hears Italian spoken on all sides; where the people are black-eyed and handsome with a foreign beauty and where, I am sure, the children are the most beautiful in the world.
From here I passed directly into “Chinatown” where the quaint babies look exactly like Chinese dolls and the older people look exactly as if they had stepped out of a Chinese picture. The women, in their comfortable loose garments made of black or soft colored silks, with their shiny, smoothly combed black hair full of bright ornaments, were, some of them, very pretty. Only the older men seemed to be wearing the Chinese dress. The younger men were dressed like any American business man. It is a curious fact that the second generation of Chinese born in San Francisco are much larger than their parents and look a great deal more like our own people, while the third generation can scarcely be distinguished from Americans. And oh, the shops of Chinatown! I do not understand how any woman could resist their fascination. Such quaint and beautiful jewelry, such wonderful pieces of carved ivory, such fine pottery, and silks and embroideries as one finds there!
Wandering on from Chinatown, I would soon be at Market Street, which is the main business street of San Francisco, and everywhere, as the women in the Missouri building had said, there was “a Chinaman on one side, a Jap on the other and a nigger behind.”
It gives a stay-at-home Middle Westerner something of a shock to meet a group of turbaned Hindoos on the street, or a Samoan, a Filipino or even a Mexican. People in happier times spent hundreds of dollars and months of time in traveling to see these foreign people and their manner of living. It is all to be seen, on a smaller scale, in this city of our own country.
Walking on the Zone one day at the fair, Daughter and I noticed ahead of us five sailormen. They were walking along discussing which one of the attractions they should visit. They were evidently on shore for a frolic. Tired of “rocking in the cradle of the deep,” they were going to enjoy something different on shore. Should they see the wonderful educated horse? “No! Who cared anything about an old horse?” Should they see Creation, the marvelous electrical display? “No! Not that! We’re here for a good time, aren’t we?” Perhaps by now you suspect that Daughter and I had become so interested we determined to know which of the attractions they decided was worth while. We followed with the crowd at their heels. The sailors passed the places of amusement one after another until they came to a mimic river, with a wharf and row boats, oars and all. Immediately they made a rush for the wharf and the last we saw of them they were tumbling hilariously into one of the boats, for a good old row on the pleasant, familiar water.
Do you know, they reminded me someway, of the women in the Missouri building who did not like San Francisco.
A friend of mine used to sympathize with a woman for being “tied down” to a farm with no opportunity to travel or study; and with none of the advantages of town or city life. To her surprise she found that her sympathy was not needed. “My body may be tied here,” her friend said, “but my mind is free. Books and papers are cheap and what I cannot buy I can borrow. I have traveled all over the world.”
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The daughter of this woman was raised with a varied assortment of these same books and papers, pictures and magazines. When later she traveled over the United States, becoming familiar with the larger cities as well as the country, from Canada to the Gulf and from San Francisco
to New York City, she said there was a great disappointment to her in traveling. She seemed to have seen it all before and thus had no “thrills” from viewing strange things. “I have read about foreign countries just as much” she said “and I don’t suppose I’ll find anything in the world that will be entirely new to me.” Which shows that a very good travel education can be had from books and papers and also proves once more the old saying that, “As the twig is bent the tree inclines.”
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Over at a neighbor’s, the other day, I learned something new, as by the way quite often happens. She has little soft home-made mattresses as thick as a good comfort to lay over the top of the large mattresses on her beds. Over these small mattresses she slips a cover as one does a case on a pillow. They are easily removed for washing and protect the mattress from soil, making it a simple matter to keep the beds clean and sweet.
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This neighbor also makes her sheets last twice as long, by a little trick she has. When the sheets begin to wear thin in the middle she tears them down the center and sews the outsides together. Then she hems the outer edges down the sides. This throws the thin part to the outside and the center, where the wear comes, is as good as new. Of course the sheet has a seam down the middle, but it is not so very many years ago that all our sheets were that way, before we had sheeting and pillow tubing.
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It is no use trying! I seem unable today to get away from the idea of travel, perhaps because I read the “National Geographic Magazine” last night. A sentence in one of the articles keeps recurring to me and I am going to quote it to you for you may not have noticed it. “It is not a figure of speech to say that every American has it in his heart that he is in a small sense a discover; that he is joining in the revelation to the world of something that it was not before aware of and of which it may some day make use.”
We have the right, you know, to take a thought and appropriate it to our own uses, and so I have been turning this one over and over in my mind with all sorts of strange ramifications. The greater number of us cannot be discoverers of the kind referred to in the article quoted, for like the woman before mentioned, our bodies are tied more or less securely to our home habitat, but I am sure we are all discoverers at heart. Life is often called a journey, “the journey of life.” Usually when referred to in these terms it is also understood that it is “a weary pilgrimage.” Why not call it a voyage of discovery and take it in the spirit of happy adventure?
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Adventurers and travelers worthy the name always make nothing of the difficulties they meet; nor are they so intent on the goal that they do not make discoveries on the way. Has anyone ever said to you, as a warning, “No man knoweth what a day may bring forth?” I have heard it often and it is always quoted with a melancholy droop at the corners of the mouth. But why! Suppose we do not know what will happen tomorrow. May it not just as well be a happy surprise as something unpleasant? To me it is a joy that “no man knoweth what a day may bring forth”1 and that life is a journey from one discovery to another. It makes of every day a real adventure; and if things are not to my liking today, why, “There’s a whole day tomorrer that ain’t teched yet,” as the old darkey said, “No man knoweth” what the day will be like. It is absolutely undiscovered country. I’ll just travel along and find out for myself. Did you ever take a little trip anywhere with your conscience easy about things at home, your mind free from worry, and with all care cast aside and eyes wide open, give yourself to the joy of every passing incident; looking for interesting things which happen every moment? If you have, you will understand. If not, you should try it and you will be surprised how much of adventure can enter into ordinary things.
Join “Don’t Worry” Club
Conservation of a Woman’s Strength Is True Preparedness
March 20, 1916
“Eliminate—To thrust out.” Did you never hear of the science of elimination? Didn’t know there was such a science! Well, just try to eliminate, or to thrust out, from your everyday life the unnecessary, hindering things and if you do not decide that it takes a great deal of knowledge to do so successfully then I will admit that it was my mistake.
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The spring rush is almost upon us. The little chickens, the garden, the spring sewing and house-cleaning will be on our hands soon, and the worst of it is they will all come together, unless we have been very wise in our planning.
It almost makes one feel like the farmer’s wife who called up the stairs to awaken the hired girl on a Monday morning. “Liza Jane,” she called, “come hurry and get up and get the breakfast. This is wash day and here it is almost 6 o’clock and the washing not done yet. Tomorrow is ironing day and the ironing not touched, next day is churning day and it not begun, and here the week is half gone and nothing done yet.”
You’d hardly believe it, but it’s true. And it’s funny, of course, but one can just feel the worry and strain under which she was suffering. All without reason, too, as the greater part of our worry usually is.
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It seems to me that the first thing that should be “thrust out” from our household arrangements is that same worry and feeling of hurry. I do not mean to eliminate haste, for sometimes, usually in fact, that is necessary, but there is a wide difference between haste and hurry. We may make haste with our hands and feet and still keep our minds unhurried. If our minds are cool and collected, our “heads” will be able to “save our heels” a great deal.
An engineer friend once remarked of the housekeeping of a capable woman, “There is no lost motion there.” She never worried over her work. She appeared to have no feeling of hurry. Her mind, calm and quiet, directed the work of her hands and there was no bungling, no fruitless running here and there. Every motion and every step counted so that there was “no lost motion.”
Household help is so very hard to get especially on the farm, that, with the housekeeper, it has become a question of what to leave undone or cut out altogether from her scheme of things as well as how to do in an easier manner what must be done.
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The Man of the Place loved good things to eat. Does yet, for that matter, as, indeed, I think the men of all other places do. Trying to make him think I was a wonder of a wife I gratified this appetite, until at last, when planning the dinner for a feast day, I discovered to my horror that there was nothing extra I could cook to mark the day as being distinct and better than any other day. Pies, the best I could make, were common every-day affairs. Cakes, ditto. Puddings, preserves and jellies were ordinary things. Fried, roasted, broiled and boiled poultry of all kinds was no treat, we had so much of it as well as other kinds of meat raised on the farm. By canning and pickling and preserving all kinds of vegetables and fruits we had each and every kind the year around. In fact, we were surfeited with good things to eat all the time.
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As I studied the subject it was impressed upon me, that in order to thoroly enjoy anything, one must feel the absence of it at times and I acted upon that theory. We have fresh fruit the year around; our apples bridging the gap from blackberries and plums in the summer to the first strawberries in the spring, and these fresh fruits are usually our desserts. Fresh fruits are better, more healthful, more economical, and so much less work to serve than pies, puddings and preserves. These things we have on our feast days, for Sunday treats and for company. They are relished so much more because they are something different.
I stopped canning vegetables altogether. There is enough variety in winter vegetables, if rightly used, and we enjoy the green garden truck all the more for having been without it for a few months. The family is just as well if not better satisfied under this treatment and a great deal of hard work is left out.
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Some time ago the semi-annual house-cleaning was dropped from my program, very much to everyone’s advantage. If a room needed cleaning out of season,
I used to think “Oh well, it will soon be house-cleaning time” and let it wait until then. I found that I was becoming like the man who did “wish Saturday would hurry and come so that he could take a bath.” Then I decided I would have no more house-cleaning in the accepted meaning of that word.
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The first step in the new order of things was to dispense with carpets and use rugs instead. When a rug needs shaking and airing it gets it then, or as soon as possible, instead of waiting until house-cleaning time. If the windows need washing they are washed the first day I feel energetic enough. The house is gone over in this way a little at a time when it is needed and as suits my convenience and about all that is left of the bugaboo of housecleaning is the putting up of the heater in the fall and taking it out in the spring.
Never do I have the house in a turmoil and myself exhausted as it used to be when I house-cleaned twice a year.
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To be sure there are limits to the lessening of work. I could hardly go so far as a friend who said, “Why sweep? If I let it go today and tomorrow and the next day there will be just so much gained, for the floor will be just as clean when I do sweep, as it would be if I swept every day from now until then.” Still after all there is something to be said for that viewpoint. The applied science of the elimination of work can best be studied by each housekeeper for herself, but believe me, it is well worth studying.
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During the first years of his married life, a man of my acquaintance, used to complain bitterly to his wife, because she did not make enough slop in the kitchen to keep a hog. “At home,” he said, “they always kept a couple of hogs and they did not cost a cent for there was always enough waste and slop from the kitchen to feed them.” How ridiculous we all are at times! This man actually thought that something was wrong instead of being thankful that there was no waste from his kitchen. The young wife was grieved, but said she did not “like to cook well enough to cook things and throw them to the hogs, for the sake of cooking more.” The food on her table was always good even if some of it was made over dishes, and after a time her husband realized that he had a treasure in the kitchen and that it was much cheaper to feed the hogs their proper food than to give them what had been prepared for human consumption.