If you have a colt that in years to come you intend using as a carriage-horse, you will not let him stand idle in the stable eating and fattening until he is old enough for your purpose. He would then be, in horse-parlance, so "soft" that the lightest loads would weary and injure him. Instead of that, while still young, he is frequently exercised, and broken in, judiciously, first to the harness, then to draw a light vehicle, and so on, until he himself does not know when the training ceases and the actual work begins.
The college-boy, looking forward to "joining the crew," trains for months beforehand, walking, running, rowing, until the flaccid muscles become as firm and hard as steel.
In America, where fortunes are made, lost, and made and lost again in a day, we can never say confidently that our children will inherit so much money that it will always be unnecessary for them to work. And, even could we be sure that our daughters will marry wealthy men, we should, for their own happiness and comfort, teach them that there is work for everyone in this world, and certain duties which every man and woman should perform in order to preserve his or her self-respect.
By the time your child can walk, he may begin to make himself useful.
One little boy, three years old, finds his chief delight in "helping mamma." He has his own "baby duster" with which he a.s.siduously rubs the rungs of the parlor chairs until his little face beams with the proud certainty that he is of some use to humanity, and that "dear mamma" could not possibly have dusted that room without her little helper. He brings her boots and gloves when she is preparing for a walk, and begs to be allowed to put her slippers on her feet when she returns home. Often when she is writing and he has grown weary of play, the tender treble asks,--
"Dear Mamma, you are vewy busy. Can"t I help you?"
Of course it is an interruption, and he cannot be of the least a.s.sistance; but is not that request better than the fretful whine of the child who is sated with play and still demands more?
"She missed the little _hindering_ thing."
says one line of a heart-breaking old poem descriptive of a bereaved mother"s loneliness.
Eugene Field strikes the same chord, until she who has laid a child under the sod thrills with remorseful pain:
"No bairn let hold until her gown, Nor played upon the floore,-- G.o.dde"s was the joy; a lyttle boy _Ben in the way no more_!"
Ah, impatient mother! as you put aside the affectionate officiousness of the would-be a.s.sistant, with frown or hasty word, bethink yourself for one moment of the possible time when, in the dreary calm of a well-ordered house, you will hearken vainly for shrilly-sweet prattle and pattering feet!
There are ways in which even the toddlers can make work lighter for the mothers. When your small daughter has finished with her toys, she should be obliged to put them away in a box kept for that purpose. The mother and nurse will thus be spared the bending of the back and stooping of the knees to accomplish this light task, and the child will enjoy the occupation, and feel very important and "grown-up" in putting her doll to bed, and dolly"s furniture, clothes, etc., in their proper place.
When making the beds, allow the little girl to hand you the pillows; and, even should you stumble over her and them, sometimes, you will do well to maintain the pious pretence that she lightens your work by a.s.sisting in tucking in the covers, and in gathering up soiled articles of clothing and putting them in the clothes-bag or hamper.
She will soon learn to dust chair-rungs and legs, and to wipe off the base-board,--and do it more conscientiously than hireling Abigail. She may pick bits of thread, string and paper from the carpet, and clean door-handles and window-sills. One mother, when making pies, places her four-year old daughter in a chair at the far end of the kitchen table, and gives her a morsel of dough and a tiny pan. The little one watches the mother and attempts to handle her portion of pastry as mamma does. After it is kneaded, it is tenderly deposited, oftentimes a grayish lump, in spite of carefully washed hands (for little hands will somehow get dirty, try sedulously though you and their owner may to prevent it), in the small tin, and it is placed in the oven with the other pies. It serves admirably at a doll"s tea-party, and the meddlesome fingers have been kept busy, the restless mind contented, while the housewife"s work is accomplished.
By the time your girl is ten years old, she should be equal to making her own bed, some older person turning the mattresses for her that the young back may not be strained by lifting, and to dust and keep her own little room in order. Of course you will have to watch carefully, and teach her little by little, line upon line. A model housekeeper used to say that one should "cultivate an eye for dirt." Bear this in mind, and cultivate your daughter"s eye for dust, dirt and cobwebs.
You will find, unless she is a phenomenal exception to the majority of young people, that she will not see when the soap-cup needs washing, or that there are finger-smears on the doors, and "fluff" in the corners. But with the blessed mother-gift of patience, point out to her, again and again, the seemingly small details, the "hall-marks"
of housewifery, which, heeded, make the thrifty, neat housekeeper, and, when neglected, the slattern. As she grows older, let her straighten the parlors every morning, make the cake on Sat.u.r.days, and show her that you regard her as your right-hand woman in all matters pertaining to domestic affairs. Give her early to understand that it is to her interest to keep her father"s house looking neat, that it is her home, and reflects credit, or the reverse, upon herself, and that it is her duty, and should be her pleasure, to help you, her mother, when you are overwearied and need rest. She will enjoy play as a child, society and recreation as a girl, all the more because she has some stated tasks. She may learn to manage the family mending by aiding you in sorting and repairing the clothes when they come up from the wash. When she is capable of entirely relieving you of this burden, pay her a stated amount each week for doing it. She will glory in the delightful feeling of independence imparted by the knowledge of her ability to earn her own pocket-money, and take the first lesson in that much-neglected branch of education,--knowledge of the value of dollars and cents, and how to take care of them.
Few children are born with a sensitive conscience regarding their work, so the mother will, at first, find it necessary to keep an eye on all the tasks performed by the willing, if often careless, girl. Do not judge her too harshly. Try to recall how you felt when you were a lazy, because a rapidly growing, girl; bear in mind that it is natural for kittens and all young creatures to be careless and giddy, and try to be gentle and forbearing while correcting and training her. If she is good for anything, your care will be rewarded in years to come by seeing her trying to do all her work in life "as mamma does."
While it is especially expedient that the girls receive this domestic training, the boys of the family should not be exempt from their share of the responsibility. You need not dread that this kind of work will make your boy unmanly or effeminate. It will rather teach him to be more considerate of women, more appreciative of the amount that his mother and sisters have to do, and less careless in imposing needless labor upon them.
Some mothers go so far as to instruct their sons in the delicate tasks of darning stockings, and repairing rents in their own clothes. There is a vast difference in the skill manifested by different boys. Some seem to have a natural apt.i.tude for dainty work while others have fingers that are "all thumbs." One man, now a father, cherishes a tiny cushion of worsted cross-st.i.tch made by himself when a child but five years of age. He is deft with his fingers, and, as the saying is, "can turn his hand to anything." May it not be that the manipulation then acquired still serves him?
Another man tells laughingly how, when a boy at college, he would tie up the hole, in his socks with a piece of string, and then hammer the hard lump flat with a stone. He could as easily make a gown as darn a stocking. Tales such as this fill motherly souls with intense pity for the poor fellow so powerless to take care of his clothing, and so far from any woman-helper. If possible, teach your boy enough of the rudiments of plain sewing to help him in an emergency, so that he can put on a b.u.t.ton, or st.i.tch up a rip, when absent from you.
As many men as women have a natural bias for cookery, and there are husbands not a few who insist on making all the salad eaten on their tables.
One branch of work in which boys are sinfully deficient is "putting things to rights." The floor of your son"s room may be littered with books, papers, cravats, soiled collars and cuffs, but he never thinks it his duty to pick them up and to keep his possessions in order.
About one man in a thousand is an exception to this rule, and thrice blessed is she who weds him. It goes without saying in the household that by some occult principle of natural adaptation, there is always a "time" for a man to scatter abroad and for a woman to gather together.
Mother or sister attends to "the boy"s things." Why has the boy any more than the girl the right to leave his hat on the parlor table, his gloves on the mantel, his coat on the newel-post, and his over-shoes in the middle of the floor? They are left there, and there they remain until some long-suffering woman puts them away. From hut to palace, and through uncounted generations, by oral and written enactment, as well as by tacit consent, whatever other innovations are made, the custom holds that man can upset without fault, and his nearest of feminine kin is blamable if she do not "pick up after him."
Teach your son that it is his business to keep his own room in order, and that there is no more reason why his sister should follow him up, replacing what he has disarranged, than that he should perform the same office for her. Inculcate in him habits of neatness. In acquiring an "eye" for the disorder he has caused, and deftness in rectifying it, he is taking lessons in tender consideration and growing in intelligent sympathy for mother, sister and the wife who-is-to-be.
CHAPTER XX.
CHILDREN AS BURDEN-BEARERS.
Those of us who are mothers would do well to read carefully and ponder deeply St. Paul"s a.s.sertion that when he was a child he spoke as a child, and felt as a child, and thought as a child; and that when he was a man, and not until then, he put away childish things.
Can the same be said of the child of to-day?
In this "bit of talk," I want to enter my protest against thrusting upon children the care-taking thought that should not be theirs for years to come. When the responsibility that is inseparable from every life bears heavily upon us, we sigh for the carefree days of childhood, but we do not hesitate to inflict upon our babies the complaints and moans which teach them, all too soon, that life is a hard school for us. A child must either grieve with us or become so inured to our plaints that he pays no attention to them. In the latter case he may be hard-hearted but he is certainly happier than if he were exquisitely sensitive.
"What a pretty suit of clothes you have!" said I to a four-year-old boy.
The momentary expression of pride gave way to one of anxiety.
"Yes; but mamma says when these wear out she does not know how papa will ever buy me any more clothes. I am a great expense! Oh!" with a long-drawn sigh of wretchedness, "isn"t it _awful_ to be poor?"
The poverty-stricken father was at this time managing to dress himself, wife and baby on an income of four thousand dollars per annum. In her desire to make her child take proper care of his clothes, the mother had struck terror to the little fellow"s heart.
Such childish terror is genuine, and yet hard to express. The self-control of childhood is far greater than the average father or mother appreciates. Some children seem to have an actual dread of communicating their fears and fancies to other people.
A friend tells me that when she was but six years old she heard her father say impatiently, as his wife handed him a bill:
"I can"t pay this! At the rate at which bills come in nowadays, I soon will not have a cent left in the world. It is enough to bankrupt a man!"
At bedtime that night the little daughter asked her mother, with the indifferent air children so soon learn to a.s.sume:
"Mamma, what becomes of people when all their money is gone, and they can"t pay their bills?"
"Sometimes, dear," answered the unsuspicious mother, "their houses and belongings are sold to pay their bills."
"And when people have no house, and no money, and nothing left, where do they go? Do they starve to death?"
"They generally go to the poorhouse, my daughter."
"Oh, mamma!" quavered the little voice, "don"t you think that is dreadful?"
"Very dreadful, darling! Now go to sleep."
To sleep! How could she, with the grim doors of the home for the county paupers yawning blackly to receive her? All through the night was the horror upon her, and to this day she remembers the sickening thrill that swept over her while playing with a little friend, when the thought occurred:
"If this girl"s mother knew that we were going to the poorhouse, she would not let her play with me."
Little by little the impression wore off, aided in the dissipation by the sight of numerous rolls of bills which papa occasionally drew from his pocket. But not once in all that time did the child relax the strict guard set upon her lips, and sob out her fear to her mother.
She does not now know why she did not do it, except that she could not.
An otherwise judicious father talks over all his business difficulties with his seven-year-old son. The grown man does not know what a strain the anxiety and uncertainty of his father"s ventures are to the embryo financier. Not long ago the father announced to him:
"Well, Harold, that man I was telling you of has failed--lost his money--and one thousand dollars of mine have gone with it."