"He did?"
"Yes, he did. I was on the eve of ordering him to leave the house."
"I"ll save you that trouble," I said, a little warmly.
"Don"t say any thing to him, if you please, Mr. Sunderland,"
returned my wife. "There couldn"t be a better man about the house than he is, for all ordinary purposes. If we should lose him, we shall never get another half so good. I wish I"d hired a man to shake the carpets at once; they would have been much better done, and I should have had John"s cheerful a.s.sistance about the house, which would have been a great deal."
That evening I overheard, accidentally, a conversation between John and the new girls, which threw some light upon the whole matter.
"John," said one of them, "what made Mrs. Sunderland"s cook and chamber maid go aff and lave her right in the middle of house-clainin"?"
"Because Mrs. Sunderland, instead of hiring a woman, as every lady does, tried to put it all off upon them."
"Indade! and was that it?"
"Yes, it was. They never thought of leaving until they found they were to be imposed upon; and, to save fifty cents or a dollar, she made me shake the carpets. I never did such a thing in my life before. I think I managed to leave about as much dirt in as I shook out. But I"ll leave the house before I do it again."
"So would I, John. It was downright mane imposition, so it was. Set a waiter to shaking carpets!"
"I don"t think much has been saved," remarked the waiter, "for Nancy has had a dollar a day ever since she has been here."
"Indade!"
"Yes; and besides that, Mrs. Sunderland has had to work like a dog herself. All this might have been saved, if she had hired a couple of women at sixty-two and a half cents a day for two or three days, and paid for having the carpets shaken; that"s the way other people do. The house would have been set to rights in three or four days, and every thing going on like clockwork."
"I heard no more. I wanted to hear no more; it was all as clear as day to me. When I related to Mrs. Sunderland what John had said, she was, at first, quite indignant. But the reasonableness of the thing soon became so apparent that she could not but acknowledge that she had acted very unwisely.
"This is another specimen of your saving at the spigot," I said, playfully.
"There, Mr. Sunderland! not a word more, if you please, of that,"
she returned, her cheek more flushed than usual. "It is my duty, as your wife, to dispense with prudence in your household; and if, in seeking to do so, I have run a little into extremes, I think it ill becomes you to ridicule or censure me. Dear knows! I have not sought my own ease or comfort in the matter."
"My dear, good wife," I quickly said, in a soothing voice, "I have neither meant to ridicule nor censure you--nothing was farther from my thoughts."
"You shall certainly have no cause to complain of me on this score again," she said, still a little warmly. "When next we clean house, I will take care that it shall be done by extra help altogether."
"Do, so by all means, Mrs. Sunderland. Let there be, if possible, two paint-cleaners and scrubbers in every room, that the work may all be done in a day instead of a week. Take my word for it, the cost will be less; or, if double, I will cheerfully pay it for the sake of seeing "order from chaos rise" more quickly than is wont under the ordinary system of doing things."
My wife did not just like this speech, I could see, but she bit her lips and kept silent.
In a week we were without a cook again; and months pa.s.sed before we were in any thing like domestic comfort. At last my wife was fortunate enough to get Ann and Hannah back again, and then the old pleasant order of things was restored. I rather think that we shall have a different state of things at next house-cleaning time. I certainly hope so.
CHAPTER XVII.
BROILING A LOBSTER.
MR. SMITH"S appet.i.te sometimes takes an epicurean turn, and then we indulge in a lobster, calf"s-head soup, terrapins, or something of that sort.
Once upon a time, he sent home a lobster. I did not feel very well that day, and concluded to leave the cooking of the animal to a new girl that I had taken a week or two before, on a strong recommendation. She claimed to be a finished cook, and her testimonials were distinct on that head.
"Kitty," said I, "Mr. Smith has sent home a lobster, I believe?"
I had summoned the girl to my room.
"Yes, ma"am," she replied. "Is it for dinner?"
"Of course it is; and you must see that it is well cooked."
Kitty lingered a few moments, as if not entirely satisfied about something, and then retired to the kitchen.
"I wonder if she knows how to boil a lobster?" said I to myself.
But then, the remembrance that she had come to me as a finished cook, crossed my mind, and I answered, mentally, my own question, by saying:
"Of course she does."
Not long afterwards, I went to the dining-room, which was over the kitchen. I had been there only a little while, when I heard an unusual noise below, followed by an exclamation from Kitty--
"Oh! murderation! I can"t cook the straddling thing. I wonder what Mr. Smith brought it home alive for!"
I was, of course, all attention now, and going to the top of the stairs, stood listening to what was going on below.
"There now. Lie still!" I heard Kitty say. This was followed by a rattling of tongs, or some other iron implements, and a rapid shuffling of feet.
Curious to know what was going on, I stepped lightly down the stairs, and through the open door had a full view of both Kitty and the lobster.
Live coals had been raked out upon the hearth. Over these was placed a gridiron, and on this not very comfortable bed Kitty was endeavoring to force Mr. Lobster to lie still and be cooked. But this he was by no means inclined to do; and no sooner did she place him on the heated bars, than he made his way off in the quickest possible time. Then she caught hold of him with the tongs, restored him to his proper position on the gridiron, and with poker and tongs strove to hold him there.
As the lobster, a second and a third time, struggled free of Kitty"s tongs and poker, I could no longer restrain myself, but burst forth into a loud fit of laughter. By the time this subsided, his lobstership was in the middle of the kitchen floor. Picking him up, I threw him into a pot of boiling water, and then retreated from the kitchen, so convulsed with laughter that I could not utter a word.
Kitty did not soon hear the last of her attempt to broil a lobster.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STRAWBERRY-WOMAN.
THE observance of economy in matters of family expenditure, is the duty of every housekeeper. But, there is an economy that involves wrong to others, which, as being unjust and really dishonest, should be carefully avoided. In a previous chapter, I introduced the story of a poor fish-woman, as affording a lesson for the humane. Let me here give another, which forcibly ill.u.s.trates the subject of oppressive and unjust economy. It is the story of a "Strawberry-Woman," and appeared in one of the magazines some years ago.
"Strawb"_rees!_ Strawb"_rees!_ cried a poorly clad, tired-looking woman, about eleven o clock one sultry June morning. She was pa.s.sing a handsome house in Walnut street, into the windows of which she looked earnestly, in the hope of seeing the face of a customer. She did not look in vain, for the shrill sound of her voice brought forward a lady, dressed in a silk morning-wrapper, who beckoned her to stop. The woman lifted the heavy, tray from her bead, and placing it upon the door-step, sat wearily down.