Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.

Now this is very natural and very well, too, to a certain extent; but middle age sometimes forgets that something is due to affectionate young eyes, which take a proper pride in seeing "father" or "mother" neatly and becomingly dressed, according to their age and station in life. Roses and snow, of course, nobody looks for; but the trim evergreen shows well, even beside a snow-bank; and nature herself hangs glistening pendants of icicles from the glossy leaves of the ivy.

It is a harrowing reflection how much money is "sunk" every day in new clothes, in which the blissfully unconscious wearers look none the better, but rather the worse. Still, if everybody had good taste in this matter, there would be no foil to the well-dressed; and I am afraid the heartless dry-goods merchants care little whether blondes dress in orange color, or brunettes in sky-blue, so that their bills are paid.

But new clothes for the "baby." Ah! that is something worth while. I ask you, did love ever find fabric soft enough, or nice enough, or pretty enough, for "the baby"? Fathers and mothers may make as virtuously economical resolutions as they please; but why, if they mean to carry them out, do they linger at the shop-window where that dainty little satin bonnet stares them innocently in the face, with that pert little rosette, cocked upon one side, that "would look so cunning on baby." Why do they contemplate the rows of bright little red-prunella boots, or the embroidered little sacques and frocks? Why don't they cross right over and travel home out of the way of temptation? Surely, no pink could rival the rose of baby's cheek; no crimson the coral of its lips; no blue the sapphire of its eyes. For all that, out comes the purse and home goes the bonnet, or cloak, or frock. Just as if shopkeepers didn't know that babies will keep on being born, and born pretty; and that fathers and mothers are, and will be, their happy slaves all the world over to the end of time!

HOW I READ THE MORNING PAPERS

If there is a time when I sigh for the "Cave of Adullam," whatever that may be, it is when, my coffee swallowed, my fingers clutch my precious, morning papers, for a blessed, quiet read.

I just begin an editorial, which requires a little thinking, when up comes Biddy with "Ma'am, there's a hole in the biler." The "biler" settled, I go back to the place indicated by my forefinger, where the Editor was saying "that Congress – " when somebody upsets the coffee-pot in an attempt to burlesque last night's public performance. The coffee-pot set right end up, and the coffee pond drained off the table-cloth, I return again to my beloved editorial; – when Biddy again appears with "Ma'am, the man has come to mend the door-handle as is broke." That nuisance disposed of, I take my paper and retreat in self-defence to the top of the house, and commence to read again, "that Congress – " when I am interrupted with loud shouts of "Where's mother? Mother? where are you?" I disdain to answer. "Mother?" In despair, I cry, in tragic tones, "Well, what is it?" "A poor soldier is at the door with pictures at thirty cents apiece, and he has but one arm." "Well, I have but one life – but for mercy's sake take his pictures, and don't let in anything else, man, woman, or child, till I read my paper through." I begin again: "If Congress – " when Biddy, who is making the bed in the next room, begins howling "Swate Ireland is the land for me." I get up and very mildly request – in view of a possible visit to an Intelligence Office – that she will oblige me by deferring her concert till I get through my morning paper. Then I begin again: "If Congress – " when up comes paterfamilias to know if it is to be beef, or chicken, or veal, that he is to order at market for that day's dinner. "Possum, if you like," I mutter, with both fingers on my ears, as I commence again, "If Congress – " Paterfamilias laughs and retreats, exclaiming, "Shadrachs! vot a womansh!" and I finish "Congress," and begin on the book reviews. A knock on the door. "Six letters, ma'am." I open them. Three for an "autograph," with the privilege of finding my own envelope and stamp, and mailing it afterward. One with a request for me to furnish a speedy "composition" to save a school-boy at a dead-lock of ideas from impending suicide. One from a man who has made a new kind of polish for the legs of tables and chairs, and wants me to write an article about it in the Ledger, and send him an early copy of the same. One from a girl "who never in her life owned a dress bonnet," and would like, with my assistance, to experience that refreshing and novel sensation.

I begin again my postponed list of "book reviews;" when in comes paterfamilias to know "if I haven't yet done with that paper." That's the last ounce on the camel's back! Mind you, he has just read his morning paper through, and it contains a different stripe of politics from mine, I can tell you that. Read it in peace, too – with his legs on the mantel, smoking his beloved pipe. Read it up and down; backwards and forwards; inside out, and upside down; and disembowelled every shade of meaning from live and dead subjects; and then coolly inquires of me – me, with my hair on end in the vain effort to retain any ideas through all these interruptions – "if I haven't yet done with that paper?" Oh, it's too much! I sit down opposite him. I explain how I never get a chance to finish anything except himself. I tell him my life is all fragments. I ask him, with moist eyes, if he knows how the price of board ranges at the different Lunatic Asylums. What is his unfeeling answer? "Hadn't I better take some other hour in the day to read the papers?"

Isn't that just like a man?

Has not bother and worry "all seasons for its own," as far as women are concerned? Would it make any difference what "hour in the day" I took to read the papers? Can women ever have any system about anything, while a Biddy or a male creature exists on the face of the earth to tangle up things? Have I not all my life been striving and struggling for that "order" which my copy-book told me in my youth "was Heaven's first law"? And is it my fault if "chaos," which I hate, is my "unwilling portion"? I just propounded to paterfamilias these vital questions. With eyes far off on distant, and untried, and possible fields of literature, he absently replies: "Well, as you say, Fanny, I shouldn't wonder if it does rain to-day." Great Heavens!

Smoking Babies. – It would not be amiss to call the attention of parents and school-teachers to the fact that every morning, lads from seven years old to twelve may be seen, satchel in hand, smoking on their way to school. Surely, between the parents and the teachers, some remedy should immediately be devised to prevent this enormous tax upon the vitality of youth. A great deal has very properly been written and spoken upon the mismanagement of young girls who have not yet reached their teens. Why not extend this philanthropic solicitude to their brothers? Is it because smoking fathers, being themselves slaves to this vile habit, have not the face to ask their sons to practise a self-denial, of which their own manhood is incapable?

BETTY'S SOLILOQUY

Hard to live out? Well, that's just as you choose to take it. Some folks have no faculty at getting along in this world. My name is Easy, and my nature is ditto. When I go to a place I always say "yes" to everything they ask me. I never make an objection to doing anything; of course, my mistress likes that; as to really doing all I promise to do, leave me alone to manage that, with as innocent a face as the baby I take care of. Now, for instance, suppose she sends me up into the nursery to get the child asleep. It is tiresome work; there's a great deal of coaxing, and twisting, and wriggling, and rocking, and singing to be done, before that can be brought about; and it tires me, and I don't like it. But of course I reply, "Certainly, ma'am," when she bids me, and I take the child upstairs. Then I sit down with it; and just hold it in some uncomfortable position so that it will cry loud enough to fret its mamma. Then she bears it awhile, thinking baby will stop by and by; but baby somehow don't stop. Then she comes up and says to me, "Betty what do you think can ail baby!" And I kiss it and hold it up to my face, and say, "Poor little dear, I am afraid it has a bad stomach ache; it won't be easy – anyhow I try;" and then she says, "Well, I'll take it awhile, Betty, and see if I can't soothe it asleep;" and I say, "Oh no, ma'am, it is a pity you should tire yourself with the child;" and she seeing me so willing, just takes it – don't you see? That's the way to do. There's no use in fighting one's way through the world, when a little cunning answers just as well. Well, then my mistress likes baby to go out of doors a great deal. Now, as a general thing, I never engage to live with a lady who don't keep her own carriage, on that account. It's very nice to be sent out in a carriage with the baby, for an airing, with John, the coachman, particularly when John is agreeable, which is sometimes the case. It makes a body feel like somebody to say, "John, you may drive here, or, John, you may drive there." But of course one cannot always get a place to one's mind; and so when my mistress uses her feet instead of a carriage, she needn't think that I shall do it any more than I can possibly help. So when she tells me to take baby out, I say, "Yes'em," as I always do, respectfully, I hope – and out I go, and make for the first kitchen where I have a pleasant acquaintance, and baby can wait till we get through our gossip, which is not very soon. Of course, I never take a little tell-tale of an older child with me on such occasions. I tell mistress I'm so afraid of its getting run over, or something, while I'm minding baby. Then as to my "privileges," I hope I know enough to have one of my friends sick or dead if I want an evening out. There can't anything be said against that, you know, if one is only judicious enough not to have it happen too often. Sometimes I come across a mistress who is too keen for me. Now I never like to live with a lady who has gray eyes; in that case we have a mutual inclination to part, of course; but as a general thing, I find my way of managing "fust-rate," because I give no "impudence," you see, which is what most ladies are so touchy about. As to "conscience," humph! where are their "consciences," I'd like to know? It is a poor rule that won't work both ways. I should be worn to a skeleton if I kept a conscience.

Bridal Presents. – If brides could only hear the conversations that are held over the "bridal presents" by the givers! Their weary yawns while pondering how much must be expended, and how little may; and wishing heartily the whole system were exploded, in favor of their pockets. If brides could hear this, they would quietly and with dignity announce, "No presents received," even without any reservations as to relationship. It is of no use talking of the "good old days," we suppose; as well might one ask a confirmed epicure to adjure his Cayenne, and highly spiced diet for plain, wholesome, nutritious food; so, with a passing sigh for the days when sentiment, modesty, and economy had not yet gone out of fashion, we give it up.

MY DREADFUL BUMP OF ORDER

I have just been reading a "sweet" article, headed "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation," in which the writer looks through his "glory spectacles" upon the delights of plenty of elbow-room in the dear old house; good fare, and one's little personal hourly comforts generally. All very well. But what of the carpets to be shaken and steamed, or the new ones to be made? What of the painting and whitewashing, and cleaning out of cellars and closets? What of the new kitchen-range, and the new oilcloth for the floor? What of the plumbing and roof painting? What of the winter's coal to get in, which paterfamilias always "forgets" to order till the fall house-cleaning is done? What of upholsterers and painters and plumbers, who begin a job, and finish it whenever the gods will? What of crisp, sunny, lovely autumn mornings spent in the delightful atmosphere of an "Intelligence Office" six feet by eight, while answering the following questions: "Any children in the family? Have you an English basement? Have you a servant's parlor? Do you put out your washing? Does your cook wash the dishes? Do you use such and such a kitchen-range?" All of which questions, answered in the affirmative, giving you the inestimable boon of a poor cook, at sixteen, eighteen, or twenty dollars a month, with liberty to have her "cousins" visit her at will. After that comes your waitress, and if you want to preserve your senses you had better end there, without encumbering yourself with more "help."

There is nothing said about all this in the "sweet" article alluded to, called "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation." I didn't see anything in it either about the children's dilapidated wardrobe, to be then replenished, with dress-makers knee-deep in engagements, and "Furnishing Stores for Children's Outfits," containing only lace and ruffles, to wear to school. As to your own wardrobe, if you are possessed of a black silk, or alpaca, or Cashmere walking-suit, blessed are you among women – for then you at least are always presentable in public.

Well, after all this, there is a chance that the new cook, not admiring the new waitress, whom you happen to like, may conclude to quarrel her off, in order to fill the vacancy with a raw "cousin" just from shipboard: and directly, when you think the family machine is at last oiled, and in motion for the winter, and you are taking breath upon that idea, in comes the irate waitress, and you are "to choose, ma'am, if you please, between me and the cook, for indeed the house will not hold both of us," and so on, and so forth.

Here most lady housekeepers come to the end of their calamities. But suppose you help to earn the family bread and butter as a writer? Then may the gods send you patience, or a new set of nerves and muscles and brains! May the gods preserve you from reading yourself the crudities you give to the public for base lucre! May the gods sustain you under the torturing reflection, how much better literary work you know yourself to be capable of, had you only a fair chance at your freshest moments, and could you inaugurate that "system" in your household to which Intelligence Offices are an insurmountable obstacle; which you, New England born and bred, adore and understand, but yet can never bring about with any "increase of wages," or even personal supervision; not, at least, while the demand for household servants is always greater than the supply, and they can make their own terms, and exhaust your vitality much faster than they can their own vocabulary of abuse.

Knowing thoroughly this side of "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation," I perused the article with this heading, with the corners of my mouth slightly drawn down, and the end of my nose slightly turned up. And if any lady remarks, in reply, that she "admires housekeeping in all its details," I can only say, that I have observed that slack housekeepers generally do, as their topsy-turvy cupboards bear witness. And I also unhesitatingly affirm that no thorough housekeeper, in the present day of incompetent, careless servants, who desires time for anything else save the hourly needs of the body, can conscientiously make such assertion; although, as wife and mistress, she may not at the same time refuse to meet the consequent exhaustive demands upon her vitality; that is, so long as she can possibly bear the strain.

It is a trying thing to have the bump of order too fully developed. Now I have trotted across this room twenty times to pick up little bits of thread and shining pins, that offended my eye, upon this floor. I positively couldn't write till I had done it. Then that vase was placed a little awry when the room was dusted, and I had to get up and settle its latitude and longitude. The hearth, too, had some ashes upon it, and there was a shawl on the sofa that should have been in the closet. Then there was an ink-spot on my thumb that had to be removed, and my desk had a speck or two of dust on the corner. All these things bothered me; and then I fell thinking whether it were not, after all, better not to have quite so sharp an eye for these things; that perhaps editors were right who had their office windows so thickly crusted with dirt that they could not tell whether it were a rainy or a sunshiny day from indoor observation. That perhaps they were right in heaping breast-high upon their office desks papers, books, MSS., letters, pencils, pens, gloves, hats, and cigar-stumps, varied with engravings and dirty pocket-handkerchiefs. Perhaps they were right in never sweeping their floors, and leaving it to their visitors to dust their chairs with their clothes. Really it is quite a question with me this morning, whether the bump of order is not a nuisance, even to a woman. Now at any chance table where I may lunch, I have regularly to re-locate the cups, saucers, and dishes, before I begin, placing them where their geographical relation will be most harmonious. If the folds in the table-cloth run the wrong way, I assure you I am quite miserable; and a missing stopper to the vinegar cruet drives me to despair. Then I endeavor so to regulate my bureau drawers and closets that a visit to them in the darkest night, without a light, for any article, would be eminently successful. Till, "Now, who has been here," has come to be a miserable joke against me, by the happy creatures who cannot comprehend, that to misplace my gloves, or handkerchiefs, or ribbons, or veil, is to cause my too susceptible heart an exquisite anguish, beside wasting my precious time in fruitless hunts for the same.

Then I may be very tired when I return at twelve o'clock at night from some visit or place of amusement; but no amount of reasoning could avail to get me to bed till my bonnet, cloak, and dress were put away in their appropriate places. I am sorry to confess that unless I did this, visions of Betty and a broom in possible connection with them, the next morning, would quite interfere with my slumbers. You may laugh at all this; but 'tis I who would laugh at you in the morning, when you are spending the best hours of the day in flying distractedly round for some missing article which you cannot do without, and which, of course, nobody has seen. If "Order is Heaven's first law," as my school copy-book used to assert, my initiatory carefulness here below may not be, after all, without its value. Still, I do not forget that there was once a Martha who was rebuked for "being careful and troubled about many things."

But stay a bit: can you tell me why, when one's room is what they call "put to rights," the table which has a drawer in it should always be so left by Bridget that the drawer side faces the wall? Or why, when a basin of water is in use, to cleanse spots from paint, it should always be placed near the door, that the first comer may enjoy an impromptu foot-bath? Why, in moving a vase, or any other fragile article, it is always so located, that breakage is inevitable? Why should dust-pans be left in dark entries, or stairways, to the sudden precipitation of some unsuspecting victim? Why, when a broom is off duty, should it be "stood up" where the handle is sure to make thumping acquaintance with one's nose? Why should soiled towels be abstracted, before replacing them with fresh ones, and you left to make the harrowing discovery with dripping finger-ends? Oh! tell me why need your bonnet be put in the coal-scuttle, and your muddy gaiter-boots in the bandbox? Why should your "honey-soap" be used to wash the hearth? Why, when you beseech that blankets, and sheets, and coverlets, should be tucked harmoniously in at the bottom of the bed, should your toes make unwilling acquaintance, every night, with the cold foot-board? Why, when you request that a door should be kept shut, is it always left wide open? and why, when you are in a gasping condition, should it be carefully closed, spite of repeated remonstrance?

Gentle Shepherd, tell me, are pigs and Bridgets the only creatures whom heaven and earth can't stop from going east, if you desire them to go west? And the Shepherd answers —Man.

Mothers of Many Children. – "Ponder every subject with careful attention, if you wish to acquire knowledge." What is then to be the mental status of that mother who has a perpetual baby in her arms, and only time to "ponder" that baby, so weary is her body with its "ponder" – osity? Where is the Solomon to answer this question? Baby knowledge she may indeed have; but the baby will grow up by and by, and how is she to acquire "knowledge" under such circumstances, and be a fit intellectual companion for it then? That's what some people want to know, when little brothers and sisters tread so fast on each other's heels, that the mother has scarcely breathing time between.

"EVERY FAMILY SHOULD HAVE IT."

One actually gasps for breath in crowded, closetless New York to read this frequent newspaper announcement, "Every family should have it." Modern times having abolished the "garret of our forefathers with its all-embracing omnium-gatherum eaves," the prospect of dire confusion is terrible if "every family" does not turn a deaf ear to these disinterested caterers for their benefit. Alas! for that old blessed garret, the standing curiosity shop for the youngsters of a rainy or a holiday afternoon; that mausoleum of "notions" cast aside by our venerated ancestors, who undoubtedly had their little follies like their descendants. Old boxes, old tins, old baskets, old hats, old bonnets, old school-books, old bottles, did not then, as now, marshal themselves on the sidewalks, in company with coal cinders, to the disgust of every pedestrian, waiting the snail-like operations of the dirt-man, who is off duty six days out of the seven, and spills half he carries away at that, besides knocking the bottom out of every barrel when, having essayed to disembowel it, he jerks it off one wheel of his cart to the sidewalk. One needs to go to Boston or to Philadelphia occasionally to air one's nostrils and temper after it. After this, to talk of more things, each day, that "every family must have," is enough to drive one to a druggist's for speedy oblivion. What a blessing to these public and disinterested philanthropists, of "every family," are gullible housekeepers and matrons who, though cheated and bamboozled seventy times seven, are still on hand for the latest sham – "improvement." Credulous souls! How do their husbands count over to them on warning marital fingers the dismal amount thus uselessly expended! Not that they themselves do not, and have not, erred in the same way; but who is going to have the superhuman courage to tell these sinless beings so? But after all, far be it from me to say that there are not many things that "every family must have;" and one of these is a baby. Not that they too are not occasionally dumped unceremoniously and heartlessly on the sidewalk; but that don't alter the fact, that a house without a baby is no house at all. Another thing that "every family must have," is a Doctor; also a Minister. Who ever heard of a woman without these two confidential friends – what would become of her if she couldn't make a good cup of tea for the latter, and tell the other her real and imaginary aches? And if she knows anything, can't she always choose her own sanitary prescriptions, all the same as if there were no diploma in her Doctor's pocket?

I will not stop to inquire whether this advertisement-heading is a disinterested one, or whether they who deal in such things are conversant with the respective sizes of our houses, or families, or both; or whether new complications of pots and pans, and tea-kettles, and gridirons, and egg-beaters, and clothes-wringers, and the like, will only wring to utter extinction the already muddled heads of our unscientific "help" and the depleted purses of housekeepers, consequent upon their unthrift. We only wish to remind these disinterested shopkeepers, who would fain take in verdant housekeepers, that houses nowadays are mainly constructed without garrets, without cellars, without closets, without any lumber place whatsoever, where the wrecks of these articles "that no family can do without," can be ultimately stranded. Their wares are, to be honest, often tempting enough to look at; beautiful in their shining freshness, and deliciously suggestive of good roasts and stews and broils —awfully suggestive of the latter! – but "terrible as an army with banners," when contemplating "Intelligence offices"; though why "intelligence" when anything but that is to be had there, I have heretofore failed to see.