Ginger-Snaps

Put this in the crown of your hats, gentlemen! A fool of either sex is the hardest animal to drive that ever required a bit. Better one who jumps a fence now and then, than your sulky, stupid donkey, whose rhinoceros back feels neither pat or goad.

POVERTY AND INDEPENDENCE

"I DON'T like those sewing-girls," remarked a friend to me. "Why don't they go into some respectable family as chamber-maids, or nurses, or cooks? If they are too proud to to do this, I have no pity for them." Now there is just where the speaker and myself differ. I pity them, because they are too proud to do this. Besides, I do not think it is altogether because the name or position of "servant" is so obnoxious to them. It is the confinement of their position. It is the duration of their hours of labor – extending into the evening, and often till late in the evening, week after week, to which they object; whereas the working-girl in most other departments of service is released at nightfall, and is her own mistress till another day of toil begins. Now, answer me: Were you, and you, similarly placed, would you not desire, even in the face of the drawbacks attending it, your evenings to yourself? I think so. It is true, from "these evenings to themselves," have dated the perdition of many of this class. Still, young eyes will never see with old spectacles. Young blood will never course so sluggishly that all work, and no respite, will be accepted without nature's strong protest. "One evening out in a week," that is the general holiday for a house servant: would not your youth have rebelled, madam, at this? even though your remainder evenings were passed in the bright parlor, with loving eyes resting upon you, instead of the underground kitchen, rebelliously watching the bell-wire? You must look at this subject with their eyes, instead of your own; through their privations, instead of through your privileges, if you would be just.

Said a merry matron, apologetically, to me, who had passed life's meridian, "I never had any youth, and I am taking it now." That is just it! The heart demands its youth, and, some time or other, it must and will have it. God grant that to these poor girls, it may come harmlessly, – innocently! But I, for one, can never wonder or condemn, though I often deplore, that, driven at bay, like hunted animals, and many of them with limited knowledge and intelligence, they should snatch at the passing sunbeam, lest another should never gild their lonesome path.

We need a wider charity for these girls; for all those on whom life bears so hardly. We who are well-fed, well-clothed, well-educated, how illy do we, with all these helps to virtue and goodness, perform our part. Let us remember this in our hasty judgment of them, in our disgust that they do not choose for themselves more wisely. Let us not in church, or elsewhere, ask to be forgiven our shortcomings, with all these helps, when, if one less enlightened stumbles and falls by the way, we "do not pity them," – nay, more, because they have done so, we refuse to help them again to their feet.

I have alluded, in a former article, to the cheap and comfortable boarding-houses, as a refuge to the working-girl from the horrors of their tenement-house home. I was descanting upon their advantages not long since to one who has herself been through many of the most distressing phases of the sewing-girl's life. She heard me silently, and to my surprise, without enthusiasm, when I spoke of the wholesome food, pure air, refreshing baths, free reading-room, and laundry. "What?" asked I – "do you not consider this a blessed asylum for these girls?"

With an emphasis which I cannot convey on paper, she said, as her eye kindled, "Give me rather my poor room, even in the tenement-house, where, if I had a grief, I could cry it out, with no eye but that of my Maker to witness it. I could never be happy to go to my bed at night in company with a dozen others, in ever so clean or spacious an apartment, where there was no privacy. I had rather work ever so hard, and earn all I had, than to feel that I was in any measure a recipient of charity, – that I was in an Institution, and labelled as an inmate when I passed in and out."

Now there are those who, reading this, will only express disgust. I confess, although it surprised me, that I have a strong sympathy with the self-respect which prompted this frank avowal; and, excellent as is the embryo Institution above alluded to, I yet hope that as its means increase each inmate may have an apartment to herself, be it ever so small, that the poor heart which "knoweth its own bitterness" may not be "intermeddled with" by any stranger.

Never apply the word "tomboy" to a girl who is taking healthy and innocent exercise. Are there not mincing misses enough about us, who pervert girlhood by adult nonsense, till the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint? Better, a thousandfold, be "tomboys" than such things as these. "Tomboys" have lungs and chests and rosy cheeks, and grow up to be healthy mothers of healthy children. Doctors may not like them, but common-sense and husbands do; though, truth to say, these terms are not always synonymous.

THE HISTORY OF OUR LATE WAR

MANY able works have already appeared on this subject, and many more will doubtless follow. But my History of the War is yet to be written; not indeed by me, but for me. A history which shall record, not the deeds of our Commanders and Generals, noble and great as they were, because these will scarcely fail of historical record and prominence; but my history shall preserve for the descendants of those who fought for our flag, the noble deeds of our privates, who shared the danger but missed the glory. Scattered far and wide in our remote villages – hidden away amid our mountains – struggling for daily bread in our swarming cities, are these unrecognized heroes. Travelling through our land, one meets them everywhere; but only as accident, or chance, leads to conversation with them, does the plain man by your side become transfigured in your eyes, till you feel like uncovering your head in his presence, as when one stands upon holy ground. Not only because they were brave upon the battle-field, but for their sublime self-abnegation under circumstances when the best of us might be forgiven our selfishness; in the tortures of the ambulance and hospital – quivering through the laggard hours, that might or might not bring peace and rest and health. Oh! what a book might be written upon the noble unselfishness there displayed; not only towards those who fought for our flag, but against it. The coveted drop of water, handed by one dying man to another, whose sufferings seemed the greater. The simple request to the physician to pass his wounds by, till those of another, whose existence was unknown to him a moment before, should have been alleviated. Who shall embalm us these?

Last summer, when I was away in the country, I was accustomed to row every evening at sunset on a lovely lake near by. The boatman who went with me was a sunburnt, pleasant-faced young man, whose stroke at the oar it was poetry to see. He made no conversation unless addressed, save occasionally to little Bright-Eyes, who sometimes accompanied me. One evening, as the sun set gloriously and the moon rose, and the aurora borealis was sending up flashes of rose and silver, I said, "Oh, this is too beautiful to leave. I must cross the lake again." I made some remark about the brilliance of the North Star, when he remarked simply, "That star was a good friend to me in the war." "Were you in the war?" asked I; "and all these evenings you have rowed a loyal woman like me about this lake, and I knew nothing of it!" Then, at my request, came the story of Andersonville, and its horrors, told simply, and without a revengeful word; then the thrilling attempt at escape, through a country absolutely unknown, and swarming with danger, during which the North Star, of which I had just spoken, was his only guide. Then came a dark night, when the friendly star, alas! disappeared. But a watch, which he had saved his money to obtain, had a compass on the back of it. Still of what use was that without a light? Our boatman was a Yankee. He caught a glowworm and pinched it. It flashed light sufficient for him to see that he was heading for one of our camps, where, after many hours of travel, he at last found safety, sinking down insensible from fatigue and hunger, as soon as he reached it. So ravenously did he eat, when food was brought, that a raging fever followed; and when he was carried, a mere skeleton, to his home on the borders of the lovely lake where we were rowing, whose peaceful flow had mocked him in dreams in that seething, noisome prison pen, he did not even recognize it. For months his mother watched his sick-bed, till reason and partial health returned – till by degrees he became what he then was.

When he had finished, I said, "Give me your hand —both of 'em– and God bless you!" – and – then I mentioned his jailers! Not a word of bitterness passed his lips – only this: "I used to gasp in the foul air at Andersonville, and think of this quiet, smooth lake, and our little house with the trees near it, and long so to see them again, and row my little boat here. But," he added, quietly, "they thought they were as right as we, and they did fight well!"

I swallowed a big lump in my throat – as our boat neared the shore, and he handed me out – and said, penitently, "Well, if you can forgive them, I am sure I ought to; but it will be the hardest work I ever did." – "Well, it is strange," said he: "I have often noticed it, since my return, that you who stayed at home feel more bitter about it, than we who came so near dying there of foul air and starvation."

A rich man, just stepping into the grave, burdened with more money than he has known all his life what to do with, is extolled to the skies for his legacies and bequests here and there – at home and abroad. Now, why all this laudation? Is not the poor servant girl, who can scarce keep herself comfortably clothed, and yet every Sunday puts her pittance religiously into the contribution box, more deserving of praise? And yet who ever takes this other than as a matter of course, save Him who seeth even the widow's mite?

TWO KINDS OF WOMEN

MRS. Jones – do you know her? She looks well to the ways of her household. She knows how every ounce of butter, and every spoonful of tea and coffee are disposed of. She is posted as to the sugar, and milk and potatoes, and calculates to a moment how long-lived must be a joint of meat, or what is the weight of a loaf of bread. She understands what should be the perpetuity of kindling wood, and knows when it is diverted from its original purpose as an auxiliary, by a dilatory cook, and used as a principal, to hurry up a late breakfast. You can't cheat Mrs. Jones. Every pot, pan, basin, knife, fork, spoon, in her establishment, serves its legitimate purpose, and no other; and never loses its edge or polish, or disappears "unbeknownst" into the ash-barrel. She scorns to buy preserves or pickles, how well soever made, and though she may encounter no pecuniary loss in doing so; she thinks it an excellent use of her time, although they are "well off," to prepare them with her own deft hands. She is at home when her husband leaves, and she is at home when her husband comes back. She does much of the sewing and fitting of family garments, and all the mending; and she often calls upon the minister to baptize a new baby. She is cheerful and content in her snuggery of a house, and every saucepan in it is surrounded with a halo. "Woman's Rights" simply sets her giggling, when mentioned. Her own family tub sets firm on its bottom – isn't that enough? Year after year passes. The freshness has left her face, and the features have sharpened, as she whirls round and round in this little maelstrom, with no desire to catch breath for one single moment. Occasionally she goes outside of her own door, but feels better inside, and hurries home as if she had committed a crime, in letting up her martinet superintendence for one moment.

As to books and newspapers, she never looks at either. "She says she has no time." I don't know whether she ever thinks that her children will some day grow up, and may ask questions which it were a pity their mother should be too ignorant to answer. I don't know whether she ever thinks her husband may weary at evening, of the history of the family potato. Since it is cooked invariably to his liking, it may be that is all he requires. But after he has eaten his dinner, and is satisfied – such is man – that I wouldn't like to dismiss Mrs. Jones to the nursery and put a bright woman in her place, unless "ma" lived round the corner.

Now Mrs. Smith lives opposite Mrs. Jones. The devil might fly away with her saucepans, and she wouldn't care. Why does she hire servants, if she herself is to superintend saucepans? Is Mr. Smith always home to dinner, that she need be? Has a woman no rights? Is it for her to be absorbed by the miserable family potato, when many women have no potato at all? Her answer is on the public platform. Smith indeed turns pale to think of it; but who or what is Smith? He's only a man, – a tyrannical, overbearing man, possibly of the worst type, who believes in "whipping females." Her "mission" is to reform such men – peaceably, if she can; belligerently, if she must; but it has got to "come off" somehow. Meantime the nurse rubs her children's noses up instead of down; fills their eyes with soap-suds, and then boxes their ears for "whining about it;" eats their lunch and tosses them hers. She tells the youngest child of the "black man who swallows little children whole" when she wants it to be still in bed, so that she may converse with her "cousin" in the area; and then wonders "what can ail the little dear," when its progressive mother returns from her public speech-making, to find it in a stiff fit. As to Mr. Smith, he hates women's rights – he wants something to eat.

Now here are two female extremists. I don't see the necessity of either; but after saying this, I frankly declare that, had I to choose, Mrs. Jones has my preference. Her children have a home at least. They have good wholesome food, and clothes suitable to the weather. If they are sick, they have watchful care. And no mother, unless she first secure all this to their helplessness, has any right, in my opinion, on the public platform. This much Mrs. Jones hath done. Possibly Jones, her husband, takes it, like sunshine, as a matter of course, and needing no special thanks. Men are more stupid, and ignorant, than ugly, on this and kindred points. They don't dream, unless in very exceptionable cases, how a wife longs sometimes to have a husband testify his pleasure at her invariable good cheer in some other way than by gobbling it up, till he is as torpid as an anaconda, until next feeding time. He never feels the need of such recognition; and so, if his attention is called to it by a half-smothered, weary sigh from some little wife who can't do without it, why, he thinks it "babyish." Such a man ought to marry a man– that's my verdict. Where's the sense of plucking a flower to put your foot on it? Better take a stone post for better, or worse, and have done with it. You can't dam – n up a woman's feelings as you would a village stream. You can't choose her for her tender, womanly ways, and then expect when you get her home that she will "heads up" with an unwinking stare at you for further orders the rest of her life. If that's the wife you wanted, why not take one of those figures outside the store-doors in Broadway, with a dress pinned on, which, when twirled round, stand stock still till they get another twirl? They are headless, to be sure, but they are so docile!

SUNDAY MORNING

HOW many pleasant breakfast-tables it looks down upon! No need to hurry away to office, or store, or counting-room. Fathers come leisurely down in dressing-gown and slippers, and sip their coffee without danger of choking. They have time to look round and see how tall the children are growing, and that nothing in this world is so beautiful as a rosy baby fresh from slumber. Mother, too, has the old girlish smile, that comes not often on a week-day, or if it does, father has not time to notice it, and that, perhaps, after all, is the reason it comes so seldom. It is pleasant, after eggs and coffee, to sit comfortably down, the centre of a ring of happy faces, and hear the church-bells chime. Time enough yet to go, for this is the first bell.

Church-bells are not, to my ear, an "impertinence." One is a free agent. I am free to go, which I like to do; you are free to stay, if you prefer; though I may think you make a mistake. I don't say that I should go every Sunday to hear a man who was always binding doctrines together like bundles of dry sticks, and thrusting them at his yawning hearers. I want to hear a sermon that any poor soul who straggles into church, from any by-lane or alley, can understand, and carry home with him to his cellar or garret; not a sermon that comes on chariot wheels, but afoot, and with a warm, life-like grasp for every honest, aye, and dishonest, hand in the assembly, defaulter or Magdalen; for who bade you slam heaven's gate in their faces?

I want a human sermon. I don't care what Melchisedek, or Zerubbabel, or Kerenhappuk did, ages ago; I want to know what I am to do, and I want somebody besides a theological bookworm to tell me; somebody who is sometimes tempted and tried, and is not too dignified to own it; somebody like me, who is always sinning and repenting; somebody who is glad and sorry, and cries and laughs, and eats and drinks, and wants to fight when they are trodden on, and don't! That's the minister for me. I don't want a spiritual abstraction, with stony eyes and petrified fingers, and no blood to battle with. What credit is it to him to be proper? How can he understand me? Were there only such ministers in the pulpit, I wouldn't go to church either, because my impatient feet would only beat a tattoo on the pew floor till service was over: but, thank God! there are! and while they preach I shall go to hear them, and come home better and happier for having done it.

So I pray you don't abolish my Sunday, whatever you may do with yours. Don't take away my blessed Sunday breakfast, when we all have time to love one another. Don't take away the Sabbath bells, which I so love to hear. Don't take away my human minister, whose God is no tyrant, and is better pleased to see us go smiling home from church, than bowing our heads like a bulrush, and groaning back to our dinners, till all you anti-Sabbatarians are mad to abolish Sunday, – and no wonder.

Our Catholic brethren have set us, at least one good example; their churches are not silent as the tomb on week-days. Their worshippers do not do up all their religion on Sunday. It may be only for a few moments they step in through that open church-door, on a week-day, to kneel and lay down burdens too heavy else to be borne. I like the custom. I should rather say, I like the reminder, and the opportunity thus afforded them; and I heartily wish that all our Protestant churches could be thus opened. If rich Christians object to the promiscuous use of their velvet cushions and gilded prayer-books, at least let the aisles and altar be free for those who need God on the week-days; for the poor, the tried, the tempted; for those who shrink, in their shabby habiliments, from the Sunday exhibition of fine toilettes and superfine Christianity. Were I a minister, and obliged to preach to paniers and diamonds and satins, on Sunday, I think I should have to ease my heart in some such way as this, to make my pastoral life endurable, else my office would seem to me the most hollow of all mockeries. "The rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the Maker of them all," should be inscribed outside my church door, had I one. I could not preach to those paniers and their owners. My tongue would be paralyzed at those kneeling distortions of womanhood, bearing such a resemblance to organ-grinders' monkeys. I am not sure that I should not grow hysterical over it, and laugh and cry in the same breath, instead of preaching. I can never tell what vent my disgust would take; but I am sure it must have some escape-valve. You may say that such worshippers (Heaven save the mark!) need preaching to. I tell you that women, so given over to "the devil and all his works," are past praying for; "having eyes, they see not; having ears, they hear not." They are ossified, impervious; they are Dead-Sea apples, full of ashes. There! now I feel better.

Having alluded to our Roman Catholic friends, allow me to ask leave of them to have the cross surmount all our Protestant churches, unless they have taken out a patent for the same. It is lovely to me, this symbol, as I pass along our streets. It rests my heart to look at it, amid the turmoil, and din, and hurry, and anxious faces, and sorrowful faces, and, worse than all, empty faces, that I meet. I say to myself, there is truth there; there is hope and comfort there, and this tangle of life is not the end. When I am a Protestant minister, the dear cross shall be on my church, and nobody shall stay away from it because they are ragged or poor, or because the cushions are too nice. Oh, I like Catholicism for that. They are nearer heaven than Protestants on this point.

I am very glad for the Protestant noonday prayer-meetings, wheresoever held. One may have a great spiritual need on other days than Sunday. One may happen in here – if such things ever happen, which I doubt – and there learn that need, and the way to satisfy it. The devil is cunningly and wisely busy every day and every night in the week. Why should good Christians think to circumvent this skilful diplomatist in one? – on Sunday only? The devil makes easy all the paths leading to perdition. Christians make hard and difficult the road to heaven, with their fine churches, and fine worshippers, and empty preaching once a week. And all around us pitiful hands are outstretched, and hungry hearts are waiting for the loving Christian word of help, temporal and spiritual; and men and women go down into the maelstrom of despair, folly, and sin; and we open our churches and let well-dressed Christians in to pray for them on Sunday. Sunday! the word has no meaning. Call it Monday or Tuesday, or Fourth of July, or anything you will, but not "Sunday." That once meant something.

Let me give you a postscript to a sermon I once heard. "Middle age is inevitable routine, but keep your souls above it," I heard a clergyman remark the other night. He "knew that it was difficult," he said, "not to merge one's self at that crisis in the shop, in the store, in the office; difficult not to become a mere drudge and a machine; but still, avoiding it was the only hope for this life." Oh, how my heart echoed these words – not for men, but for my own sex, of whose routine life the clergyman said nothing. I wanted to get up and say to him, "My dear sir, your address is eloquent, and true, scholarly, and sound, so far as it goes. It is the only hope for this life that these men of business should not become mere tools." But I wanted to ask him if men, with their freedom of action – men who, out in the world, inevitably come into collision with stirring, not stagnant life – find this difficult, what of their wives? With twenty nerves where men have one to be jarred and agonized, with the pin and needle fret, of every minute, which they may never hope to escape or get away from; tied hand and foot, day and night, week after week, with the ten thousand cords, invisible often to the dull eye of husband and father, who accepts at evening the neat and pleasant result, without a thought of how it was accomplished – without a thought of the weariness of that inexorable grind of detail necessary to it – without a thought that a change of scene is either necessary or desirable for the wife and mother who is surely under its benumbing influence, merging her "soul" till she is a mere machine.