It is this element of mind, however, that lends itself to the cure of this condition by other means than legitimate medical advice and so we have had "healers" and "miracle workers" who have sprung up from time to time in the history of the world, who have cleverly taken advantage of this element in human nature, and reaped a rich reward.
"KEEP STILL AND BE WELL."--To instruct the young wife how she may guard against acquiring this habit, we would suggest that she "keep still and be well."
When the world appreciates better the psychology of thought, its tremendous significance will have a concrete meaning. We are too apt to regard the thought we give utterance to as a meaningless thing, so far as its influence is concerned. The woman who harps upon her ailments, who appears at the breakfast table with a depressed and melancholy visage, who regales us with an account of how poorly she slept, the nightmares she experienced, the pain she suffers, and who puts into her inflection the poison of self-pity is an emissary of Satan. I have seen a whole family"s happiness for the day destroyed by the meaningless ranting of a hysterical woman. Life is hard enough for all, for each of us to at least wish each other well.
The individual who cultivates the habit of carrying sunshine and good cheer to the breakfast table belongs to the sort of folk who help and inspire the whole world to a greater achievement. If one is sent away each morning from home with a cheery word and a radiant good-by he is inspired with the virtue of success and his efficiency is ensured.
Cultivate the art of contentment and remember that relationship does not imply liberty; you have no right to send out into the world a member of your family depressed and miserable because of your irritability and evil habits.
"Keep still and be well." If you cannot say a good word about a fellow-being, say none at all. Don"t become a scandal-monger. We can forgive those who talk evil about us--they talk to hear themselves talk.
The gossip germ is born of ignorance and vacuity and breeds best in idle minds. No one is influenced by the vaporings of a gossip, her words die in empty air. She injures herself only. The loquacious pest who brings to us the tales which the scandal-monger manufactures is the one who robs us of our peace and is unforgivable. To dignify the malicious intentions and idle nothings of an evil mind by carrying them further is an expression of degeneracy that is urgently in need of active disinfection. To vilify another is foolish; to repeat it, is the function of a rogue. Your friends bring you the glad tidings of the good things that are said about you: your enemies are those who, in the holy name of friendship, bring to you the poison of evil gossip. "Keep still and be well."
THE HOME
CHAPTER XXVII
"If we are eager to do something to lighten the load of another, eager to sacrifice self; to cheer, and counsel, and inspire; to leave unsaid some unkind word, to forget our own troubles in the larger trouble of a friend, we are home-builders."
"A married woman can"t decently spend her life in playing bridge, and in running ribbons through her underclothing She hasn"t any right just to camp on her husband"s trail.
"No woman on earth has a right to maintenance unless she gives value received."
DOMESTIC QUALITIES
A Good Housekeeper and Home-maker--What Const.i.tutes a good Housekeeper--Preparation and Selection of Meals--Washing Dishes--Pots and Pans--Dusting and Cleaning--Work Cheerfully and Be Thorough--Don"t Be a Dust Chaser--Don"t Get the Anti-sunshine Habit--Air Your Rooms--The Ideal Home--The Medical Essentials of a Good Meal--What Makes the Home--Working for Something--The Average Housewife"s Existence Is Slavery--What Shall We Work For--Making Ends Meet--Rest and Recreation--Try a Nap--Get Enough Sleep at Night--Go Out of Doors--Take a Vacation Now and Then--Life Insurance--Owning a Home--The Cheerful Wife and Mother--The Indifferent Wife and Mother--Husband and Wife.
A GOOD HOUSEKEEPER AND HOME-MAKER.--If the young wife carries out the suggestions made on the preceding pages and thereby contributes her part to establishing the material success of the co-partnership, will she profit in any other way?
She will have become a good housekeeper and home-maker.
Housekeeping is an acquired art, home-making is a moral quality, an instinct. Housekeeping conducted as an art is superfluous. Home-making is a triumph under any circ.u.mstances. There are many good housekeepers; there are few competent home-makers. Housekeeping may easily be overdone; home-making can never be overdone. A beautiful house is not necessarily a beautiful home. Housekeeping should be conducted with a view to home-making and never for any other reason. Sometimes we see housekeeping brought to its highest perfection by the same woman who never did understand the simplest rudiments of home-making. The woman who becomes the victim of the housekeeping mania never realizes it; it is an insidious art.
There can be no doubt that a well-kept house is a thing of beauty. So also is a marble statue, but it is cold and bloodless.
The young wife must strive to combine the two faculties. She should be an efficient housekeeper in a happy, comfortable home.
WHAT CONSt.i.tUTES AN EFFICIENT HOUSEKEEPER?--An efficient housekeeper is one who has acquired the knowledge necessary to perform all the duties of housekeeping, and who executes these duties efficiently, with the least possible expenditure of time and labor.
It is an absolute fact that most young wives begin housekeeping with the crudest ideas as to what housekeeping means. It has been pointed out many times, that many mothers bring their daughters up without instructing them in the elementary principles of keeping house. It is nevertheless necessary to repeat this statement over and over again, and to point out the enormity of the injustice done. Even if a daughter is fortunate enough to marry a man who is capable of supplying all the help necessary, a wife should know enough to intelligently discern if the work is properly done. If she does not understand the rudiments of housekeeping, and has no help, her inefficiency may be directly responsible for breaking up the home.
PREPARATION AND SELECTION OF MEALS.--Thoroughness and simplicity are the two essentials to a satisfactory meal. If the articles are thoroughly cooked and the selection simple, there is no chance for trouble. A breakfast of fruit, a thoroughly cooked cereal with cream, a boiled egg and toasted bread and b.u.t.ter, is simple and is adequate. Freshly prepared hot biscuits sound good, but, unless you know your oven and have had a lot of experience, they are apt to result disastrously. Even if you are an expert, don"t make them. They are very bad for digestion.
For dinner, lots of thoroughly cooked vegetables, a small piece of steak or two lamb chops, bread (at least one day old), and good b.u.t.ter, a baked apple, stewed prunes, or rice, boiled for three hours, is enough for any one. Have your meals on time. Be sure the table cloth and napkins are clean, and your dishes hot. Establish the habit of being cheerful at meals, of eating slowly, and of coming to the table with a clean, fresh dress.
WASHING DISHES.--While your husband is reading the evening paper, wash your dishes. Washing dishes is an art. Few young wives acquire it. The secret is, a big basin, lots of hot water, lots of soap, and a desire to wash them clean. If you wash them clean, don"t smear them over by drying them with a greasy dishcloth. Wash your dishrag and drying towel every day, and hang them up to dry in the sun.
POTS AND PANS.--How they are neglected! If you have any pride as a housekeeper, be clean. Hot water, soap, a cleansing powder and a little effort, and your pots and pans will be a credit to you. Have a system.
Take time. Keep your kitchen tidy. Don"t let work acc.u.mulate from meal to meal or from day to day. It is astonishing how lazy and dirty some women are. We have seen young women on the street, dressed tidily and smartly, and we have gone into the homes of these women and have been disgusted and nauseated with their general appearance. There is absolutely no excuse for this, and a young wife who gets into the habit of being indifferent is a disgrace to her s.e.x. She cannot hope for success or happiness.
DUSTING AND CLEANING.--Every home should be thoroughly cleaned once a week. A certain day should be selected for the purpose. A certain system should be followed. After it has been done a number of times, you will devise ways and means of doing it quicker, easier and better. New methods will suggest themselves from time to time, so, by planning and systematizing, you will get rid of the drudgery part, and there will be a constant incentive present to beat your past record. You must get rid of the feeling that it is uninteresting drudgery and slavery. A woman who looks upon her work in that light is not deserving of any better fate, and she will not get much further. If you are one of these perverse individuals who resent advice; if you object to being told the truth; if you do not want to profit by experience; if you are satisfied as you are, don"t waste your precious time reading books. No author can tell you how to get something for nothing; no teacher can instruct others in anything. He can only awaken thought and arouse impulses. The law of life is harmony. An individual who wastes G.o.d"s precious time in grumbling and fretting is the most pitiful object in the universe. Try to appreciate that you are part of the divine problem, regarding the conduct of which certain implacable laws have been formulated. To obey these laws means continued life, health, strength, power and success; to disobey them means weakness, sickness, incapacity, unhappiness, discontent and premature death.
Some people learn quickly how to conserve strength, how to systematize, how to be cheerful and hopeful and to radiate thankfulness. From a selfish standpoint this is the only method that pays. Some people will not see the point. They will put it aside by some such sophistry as: "Oh! it does not apply to me." It does, nevertheless, and probably at a later date, when the chance of achievement has withered, they will see the point through the mist of regret.
Work cheerfully, therefore, and be thorough. Don"t overdo it. Fussiness is objectionable, useless and unhealthy, because it is a constant drain on nerve energy. Some women are dust-chasers. They are eternally poking into corners with a feather duster. They chase dust from one room to another and back again, and the sight of a few grains on the piano makes them sick. Dust with a moist cloth and when your dusting is over leave it and forget it. Don"t buy a feather duster.
Don"t get the anti-sunshine fad. Let the sun in. Don"t pull your shades down to save the parlor carpet. Your husband would probably sooner buy another than pay for a funeral.
Air your rooms always, night as well as day. You cannot overdo it. Buy mosquito screens, keep the flies out, but let the air in.
THE IDEAL HOME.--It is difficult to describe an ideal home, but we know one the moment we are in it. Its atmosphere instinctively breathes the personality of the home-maker. Its individuality distinctly differentiates it from the ordinary impersonal home. Its housekeeping dress is inviting; its furnishings harmonious; and it exhales repose, and comfort, and peace. When we meet its mistress we are welcomed in a low, gentle, cordial tone of voice, and in a manner which radiates honesty and unaffected simplicity. We discover the source of the unusual atmosphere. It is herself, the wife, the mother, the home-maker. She is the mystery of the ideal home. Each day her divine art grows more perfect because her heart is consecrated to the work. She may not be surrounded with material splendor. The miracle is in the soul she possesses. Love is the magic wand she yields. She loves her home, her children, her husband. She is the queen mother in the paradise she creates.
We have seen that a good housekeeper may not be a home-maker. Every home-maker, on the other hand, is a good housekeeper. The ideal home could not exist unless presided over by a home-maker. A home-maker necessarily implies being a good mother; but a good housekeeper, who is not a good mother, will never be a home-maker.
A good housekeeper will keep house for the art"s sake and will resent any domestic event which upsets her housekeeping sense of decorum, even though the event may have splendid home-making possibilities. The mother with the home-making instincts will invite, and aid, and will conceive events, which, though they upset her housekeeping routine, will contribute to the happiness and edification of the home circle. The housekeeper"s sense of duty ends when a good dinner is served; the home-maker"s real duty and incidentally her pleasure begins, when dinner is on the table.
THE MEDICAL ESSENTIALS OF A GOOD MEAL ARE: Pure food, judiciously selected for two reasons. First, that there may be an adequate daily variety--in order to stimulate the individual taste and appet.i.te; second, that the food supplies may be adapted, in nourishing equivalents, to the work and age of the diner. The food must be thoroughly cooked, eaten slowly, and masticated with care and deliberation. Every meal should be served and eaten when cooked and ready. Food should never be allowed to stand when cooked to the proper degree. Overdone food is not desirable. The dishes should be heated to the proper degree; the table linen, napkins, etc., clean and fresh; and the family should all eat at the same time.
A meal should never be hurried. Interesting conversation is, therefore, a necessary and a commendable feature while dining. There is less desire or tendency to hasten through a meal when one is interested or is being entertained. The intervals between courses will be welcomed rather than resented under these circ.u.mstances, and the appet.i.te will be keener and the enjoyment greater.
The wife and mother, who is the home-maker and consequently responsible for the _esprit de corps_ of the family, will direct, suggest, and guide the conversation into profitable and interesting channels. By thus supplying the atmosphere necessary to the efficient eating of a meal, the digestion and the a.s.similation of the food will adequately take care of itself. Overeating is never a part of any meal and should be religiously avoided.
WHAT MAKES THE HOME.--We know it isn"t the house we live in that makes the home. Many have lived in humble dwellings and have carried all through life the memory of home as a sacred legacy. Wealth does not make a home, nor culture, nor any of the intellectual attainments for which we may strive unceasingly. We may have all these and yet not know the joy of "home." "Home" conveys to every heart the same tender memories.
To have known the blessings of a "home" is to be fortified for life"s battles. No one can deny its importance in humanizing mankind. A boy who has never known what it was to have a home, whose subst.i.tute for the home a.s.sociations was an "inst.i.tutional mother," may have all the necessary potential qualities for success, but he will be forever deprived of the inspiration that memory of home kindles in every human soul.
The secret of the sources of home is its atmosphere. The atmosphere of home is the sum total of the kinship and sympathy radiated by its members. It is a tangible something which is capable of being felt, which is capable of inspiration and which is capable of being carried away into the years beyond, exerting a helpful influence over the milestones of worry, and trouble, and defeat; and it is always a fragrant, soothing, energizing influence. Every human heart needs the memory of a home and the presence of a friend at all times and in all places.
We must contribute our share to form the right kind of home-making "atmosphere." The two qualities which are essential to this task are sympathy and peace. Each contributor must be more than a negative unit in the home. It is not enough to simply desire peace--a deaf mute could fill that part. We must desire to please and we must be an active agency working for harmony and peace. If there is in our heart enough sincere affection for brother and sister, father and mother, the desire to please will be the bond of sympathy that will weather every temperamental storm. If we are eager to do something to lighten the load of another, eager to sacrifice self, to cheer and counsel and inspire, to leave unsaid some unkind word, to forget our own troubles in the larger trouble of a friend, we are home-builders. We must control our moods in the home, we must submerge the instinct of selfishness, of impatience, of pride, and of obstinacy. We must not be opinionated, we can many times conform to the opinion of others in trivial matters and preserve peace; we thereby minister to the happiness of others, because to give happiness is the surest way to be happy. Temper is the sting that poisons many homes. Its possessor is an impossible a.s.sociate and will defeat the work of the angels in the effort to make homes.
WORKING FOR SOMETHING.--At various times we have emphasized the necessity of having definite plans, of "knowing exactly what you want,"
of "beginning wedded life with ideals"; in other words, we believe that to combine the maximum efficiency with the greatest degree of happiness it is necessary for all of us to "work for something."
It is not necessary to prove that the average human life is uninteresting; most of us know that. As a matter of fact the average existence is a monotonous, hopeless dreary stretch of time, dotted at more or less frequent intervals with physical pain and suffering, and with mental sorrow and anguish.
While this is undeniably a true epitome of the average life to-day, it is not to be accepted as the only possible average existence. Every agency that is working for the betterment of the conditions which surround life is helping to elevate the status of the average individual. As individuals, the question whether our life will conform to the average, or be individualized, rests with ourselves.
The ordinary average housewife"s existence is slavery in its loneliest and most wretched form. Its utter hopelessness is its most depressing feature. If we could hope for some glint of sunshine, some day in the future when conditions would change, some circ.u.mstance which would give us the opportunity which we have never had, some test of our womanhood,--anything to relieve the crushing, hopeless inertia of the daily routine,--we imagine we could go on again, hoping that things would permanently change eventually. Don"t "hope things will change."
Change them! Don"t get in a mental rut; don"t be an "average" housewife.
If you really can"t do anything else, if things are so abjectly hopeless that there is no other way out, if your path is leading to nowhere, start a rebellion. When the smoke has cleared away you may see a new path to follow, and it may lead to somewhere. It is not necessary to do this often, because the fault is usually our own, and not that of environment or conditions, or our husbands. All we need to do is to think things over, and begin something, and all the other conditions will take care of themselves. The moment we step outside the humdrum path of existence, the moment we are curious enough to do this, there is hope for us. A little mental fresh air will dissipate a good many brain fogs. The instant we begin "working for something" definite, we cease to follow in the procession of the average helpless and hopeless citizen. So to the young housewife we would strongly suggest that she "think things over" and decide what she is going to work for.
Now, what will it be? Of course it will be different with each housewife. With many it will be "a home of our own." It may only be a piano for the children, or it may wisely be more insurance. Possibly you live in the country, and you long for the social and other advantages of the city. You may be a city wife and may long for a farm in the glorious country. It may be a trip to Europe; or a college education for the boy; or a musical career for the daughter. It does not matter what it is, the "it" is the thing itself, and, having found it, the world for you has changed. The lonesomeness, and the hopelessness, and the wretchedness of life have disappeared. There is always in the future the "it"; no matter how dark and gloomy the road may be, it is illuminated at the far end with the realized "it." It is the bearing of the burden of life that makes a wife, and when we have "something to work for" we begin to live.
Love is the explanation. We don"t want the home for ourselves. We want it for those we love, we want those we love in the atmosphere, which I, as mother, will make in "our home." It is the elemental mother that speaks,--the motherhood spirit that pours out eternally in self-sacrifice and keeps no debit account. It is the cry of the primal mother that echoes through all the ages and which has kept the race sane and safe and hopeful. Having something to work for supplies the element necessary to cheerfulness. In the darkest moments, when everything seems to go wrong, the thought that we can look forward to a time when a great change is coming, when we will move to the new home, when we go to the farm or the city as the case may be, or when John will finish his college course and start out as a lawyer,--when the strain of skimping and making ends meet is over we feel that the struggle will let up and we can rest in peace for a little while. It is sharing these burdens that counts, and brings out the best elements of human nature. The struggle of making ends meet draws the young couple closer together, and adds that touch of divinity that is essential to confidence and love. It strengthens character, curbs the tendency to unnecessary expenditure of money and time, and teaches frugality and patience. The incentive to win out is ever present, and it is the anchor that means final satisfaction and success.