ONE WOMAN’S SOLUTION OF THE SERVANT PROBLEM
Being a professional woman, my requirements in the way of a housemaid were rather special. While at times I can superintend my small household, and direct my domestic affairs, there are long periods during which I must have absolute quiet, untroubled by door bell, telephone, or the remnants of roast beef.
There are two of us, in a modern six room apartment, in a city where the servant problem has forced a large and ever-increasing percentage of the population into small flats. We have late breakfasts, late dinners, a great deal of company, and an amount of washing, both house and personal, which is best described as “unholy.”
Five or six people often drop in informally, and unexpectedly, for the evening, which means, of course, a midnight “spread,” and an enormous pile of dishes to be washed in the morning. There are, however, some advantages connected with the situation. We have a laundress besides the maid; we have a twelve-o’clock breakfast on Sunday instead of a dinner, getting the cold lunch ourselves in the evening, thus giving the girl a long afternoon and evening; and we are away from home a great deal, often staying weeks at a time.
The eternal “good wages to right party” of the advertisements was our inducement also, but, apparently, there were no “right parties!”
The previous incumbent, having departed in a fit of temper at half an hour’s notice, and left me, so to speak, “in the air,” with dinner guests on the horizon a day ahead, I betook myself to an intelligence office, where, strangely enough, there seems to be no intelligence, and grasped the first chance of relief.
Nothing more unpromising could possibly be imagined. The new maid was sad, ugly of countenance, far from strong physically, and in every way hopeless and depressing. She listened, unemotionally, to my glowing description of the situation. Finally she said, “Ay tank Ay try it.”
She came, looked us over, worked a part of a week, and announced that she couldn’t stay. “Ay can’t feel like home here,” she said. “Ay am not satisfied.”
She had been in her last place for three years, and left because “my’s lady, she go to Europe.” I persuaded her to try it for a while longer, and gave her an extra afternoon or two off, realising that she must be homesick.
After keeping us on tenter-hooks for two weeks, she sent for her trunk. I discovered that she was a fine laundress, carefully washing and ironing the things which were too fine to go into the regular wash; a most excellent cook, her kitchen and pantry were at all times immaculate; she had no followers, and few friends; meals were ready on the stroke of the hour, and she had the gift of management.
Offset to this was a furious temper, an atmosphere of gloom and depression which permeated the house and made us feel funereal, impertinence of a quality difficult to endure, and the callous, unfeeling, almost inhuman characteristics which often belong in a high degree to the Swedes.
For weeks I debated with myself whether or not I could stand it to have her in the house. I have spent an hour on my own back porch, when I should have been at work, because I was afraid to pass through the room which she happened to be cleaning. Times without number, a crisp muffin, or a pot of perfect coffee, has made me postpone speaking the fateful words which would have separated us. She sighed and groaned and wept at her work, worried about it, and was a fiend incarnate if either of us was five minutes late for dinner. We often hurried through the evening meal so as to leave her free for her evening out, even though I had long since told her not to wash the dishes after dinner, but to pile them neatly in the sink and leave them until morning.
Before long, however, the strictly human side of the problem began to interest me. I had cherished lifelong theories in regard to the brotherhood of man and the uplifting power of personal influence. I had at times been tempted to try settlement work, and here I had a settlement subject in my own kitchen.
There was not a suggestion of fault with the girl’s work. She kept her part of the contract, and did it well; but across the wall between us, she glared at—and hated—me.
But, deliberately, I set to work in defence of my theory. I ignored the impertinence, and seemingly did not hear the crash of dishes and the banging of doors. When it came to an issue, I said calmly, though my soul quaked within me: “You are not here to tell me what you will do and what you won’t. You are here to carry out my orders, and when you cannot, it is time for you to go.”
If she asked me a question about her work which I could not answer offhand, I secretly consulted a standard cook-book, and later gave her the desired information airily. I taught her to cook many of the things which I could cook well, and imbued her with a sort of sneaking respect for my knowledge. Throughout, I treated her with the perfect courtesy which one lady accords to another, ignoring the impertinence. I took pains to say “please” and “thank you.” Many a time I bit my lips tightly against my own rising rage, and afterward in calmness recognised a superior opportunity for self-discipline.
For three or four months, while the beautiful theory wavered in the balance, we fought—not outwardly, but beneath the surface. Daily, I meditated a summary discharge, dissuaded only by an immaculate house and perfectly cooked breakfasts and dinners. I still cherished a lingering belief in personal influence, in spite of the wall which reared itself between us.
A small grey kitten, with wobbly legs and an infantile mew, made the first breach in the wall. She took care of it, loved it, petted it, and began to smile semi-occasionally. She, too, said “please” and “thank you.” My husband suggested that we order ten kittens, but I let the good work go on with one, for the time being. Gradually, I learned that the immovable exterior was the natural protection against an abnormal sensitiveness both to praise and blame. Besides the cat, she had two other “weak spots”—an unswerving devotion to a widowed sister with two children, whom she partially supported, and a love for flowers almost pathetic.
As I could, without seeming to make a point of it, I sent things to the sister and the children—partially worn curtains, bits of ribbons, little toys, and the like. I made her room as pretty and dainty as my own, though the furnishings were not so expensive, and gave her a potted plant in a brass jar. When flowers were sent to me, I gave her a few for the vase in her room. She began to say “we” instead of “you.” She spoke of “our” spoons, or “our” table linen. She asked, what shall “we” do about this or that? what shall “we” have for dinner? instead of “what do you want?” She began to laugh when she played with the kitten, and even to sing at her work.
When she did well, I praised her, as I had all along, but instead of saying, “Iss dat so?” when I remarked that the muffins were delicious or the dessert a great success, her face began to light up, and a smile take the place of the impersonal comment. The furious temper began to wane, or, at least, to be under better control. Guests occasionally inquired, “What have you done to that maid of yours?”
Five times we have left her, for one or two months at a time, on full salary, with unlimited credit at the grocery, and with from fifty to one hundred dollars in cash. During the intervals we heard nothing from her. We have returned each time to an immaculate house, a smiling maid, a perfectly cooked and nicely served meal, and an account correct to a penny, with vouchers to show for it, of the sum with which she had been intrusted.
I noticed each time a vast pride in the fact that she had been so trusted, and from this developed a gratifying loyalty to the establishment. I had told her once to ask her sister and children to spend the day with her while we were gone. It seems that the children were noisy, and the lady in the apartment below us came up to object.
An altercation ensued, ending with a threat from the lady downstairs to “tell Mrs. M. when she came home.” Annie told me herself, with flashing eyes and shaking hands. I said, calmly: “The children must have been noisy, or she would not have complained. You are used to them, and besides it would sound worse downstairs than up here. But it doesn’t amount to anything, for I had told you you could have the children here, and if I hadn’t been able to trust you I wouldn’t have left you.” Thus the troubled waters were calmed.
The crucial test of her qualities came when I entered upon a long period of exhaustive effort. The first day, we both had a hard time, as her highly specialised Baptist conscience would not permit her to say I was “not at home,” when I was merely writing a book. After she thoroughly understood that I was not to be disturbed unless the house took fire, further quiet being insured by disconnecting the doorbell and muffling the telephone, things went swimmingly.
“Annie,” I said, “I want you to run this house until I get through with my book. Here is a hundred dollars to start with. Don’t let anybody disturb me.” She took it with a smile, and a cheerful “all right.”
From that moment to the end, I had even less care than I should have had in a well-equipped hotel. Not a sound penetrated my solitude. If I went out for a drink of water, she did not speak to me. We had delicious dinners and dainty breakfasts which might have waited for us, but we never waited a moment for them. She paid herself regularly every Monday morning, kept all receipts, sent out my husband’s laundry, kept a strict list of it, mended our clothes, managed our household as economically as I myself could have done it, and, best of all, insured me from any sort of interruption with a sort of fierce loyalty which is beyond any money value.
Once I overheard a colloquy at my front door, which was briefly and decisively terminated thus: “Ay already tell you dat you not see her! She says to me, ‘Annie, you keep dose peoples off from me,’ and Ay keep dem off!” I never have known what dear friend was thus turned away from my inhospitable door.
Fully appreciating my blessings, the night I finished my work I went into the kitchen with a crisp, new, five-dollar bill. “Annie,” I said, “here is a little extra money for you. You’ve been so nice about the house while I’ve been busy.”
She opened her eyes wide, and stared. “You don’t have to do dat,” she said.
“I know I don’t,” I laughed, “but I like to do it.”
“You don’t have to do dat,” she repeated. “Ay like to do de housekeeping.”
“I know,” I said again, “and I like to do this. You’ve done lots of things for me you didn’t have to do. Why shouldn’t I do something for you?”
At that she took it, offering me a rough wet hand, which I took gravely. “Tank you,” she said, and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You’ve earned it,” I assured her, “and you deserve it, and I’m very glad I can give it to you.”
From that hour she has been welded to me in a bond which I fondly hope is indestructible. She laughs and sings at her work, pets her beloved kitten, and diffuses through my six rooms the atmosphere of good cheer. She “looks after me,” anticipates my wishes, and dedicates to me a continual loyal service which has no equivalent in dollars and cents. She asked me, hesitatingly, if she might not get some one to fill her place for three months while she went back to Sweden. I didn’t like the idea, but I recognised her well-defined right.
“Ay not go,” she said, “if you not want me to. Ay tell my sister dat I want to stay wid Mrs. M. until she send me away.”
I knew she would have to go some time before she settled down to perpetual residence in an alien land, so I bade her God-speed. She secured the substitute and instructed her, arranged the matter of wages, and vouched for her honesty, but not for her work.
Before she left the city, I found that the substitute was hopelessly incompetent and stupid. When Annie came to say “good-bye” to me, I told her about the new girl. She broke down and wept. “Ay sorry Ay try to go,” she sobbed. “Ay tell my sister dere iss nobody what can take care of Mrs. M. lak Ay do!”
I was quite willing to agree with her, but I managed to dry her tears. Discovering that she expected to spend two nights in a day coach, and remembering one dreadful night when I could get no berth, I gave her the money for a sleeping-car ticket both ways, as a farewell gift. The tears broke forth afresh. “You been so good to me and to my sister,” she sobbed. “Ay can’t never forget dat!”
“Cheer up,” I answered, wiping the mist from my own eyes. “Go on, and have the best time you ever had in your life, and don’t worry about me—I’ll get along somehow. And if you need money while you are away, write to me, and I’ll send you whatever you need. We’ll fix it up afterward.”
Once again she looked at me, with the strangest look I have ever seen on the human face.
“Tank you,” she said slowly. “Dere iss not many ladies would say dat.”
“Perhaps not,” I replied, “but, remember, Annie, I can trust you.”
“Yes,” she cried, her face illumined as by some great inward light, “you can trust me!”
I do not think she loves us yet, but I believe in time she will.
The day the new girl came, I happened to overhear a much valued reference to myself: “Honestly,” she said, “Ay been here more dan one year, and Ay never hear a wrong word between her and him, nor between her and me. It’s shust wonderful. Ay isn’t been see anyting like it since Ay been in diss country.”
“Is it so wonderful?” I asked myself, as I stole away, my own heart aglow with the consciousness of a moral victory, “and is the lack of self-control and human kindness at the bottom of the American servant problem? Are we women such children that we cannot deal wisely with our intellectual inferiors?” And more than all I had given her, as I realised then for the first time, was the power of self-discipline and self-control which she, all unknowingly, had developed in me.
I have not ceased the “treatment,” even though the patient is nearly well. It costs me nothing to praise her when she deserves it, to take an occasional friend into her immaculate kitchen, and to show the shining white pantry shelves (without papers), while she blushes and smiles with pleasure. It costs me nothing to see that she overhears me while I tell a friend over the telephone how capable she has been during the stress of my work, or how clean the house is when we come home after a long absence. It costs me nothing to send her out for a walk, or a visit to a nearby friend, on the afternoons when her work is finished and I am to be at home—nothing to call her attention to a beautiful sunset or a perfect day, or to tell her some amusing story that her simple mind can appreciate. It costs me nothing to tell her how well she looks in her cap and apron (only I call the cap a “hair-bow”), nor that one of the guests said she made the best cake she had ever eaten in her life.
It costs me little to give her a pretty hatpin, or some other girlish trifle at Easter, to bring her some souvenir of our travels, to give her a fresh ribbon for her belt from my bolt, or some little toy “for de children.”
It means only a thought to say when she goes out, “Good-bye! Have a good time!” or to say when I go out, “Good-bye! Be good!” It means little to me to tell her how much my husband or our guests have enjoyed the dinner, or to have him go into the kitchen sometimes, while she is surrounded by a mountain of dishes, with a cheery word and a fifty-cent piece.
It isn’t much out of my way to do a bit of shopping for her when I am shopping for myself, and no trouble at all to plan for her new gowns, or to tell her that her new hat is very pretty and becoming.
When her temper gets the better of her these days, I can laugh her out of it. “To think,” I said once, “of a fine, capable girl like you flying into a rage because some one has borrowed your clothesline without asking for it!”
The clouds vanished with a smile. “Dat iss funny of me,” she said.
When her work goes wrong, as of course it sometimes does, though rarely, and she is worrying for fear I shall be displeased, I say: “Never mind, Annie; things don’t always go right for any of us. Don’t worry about it, but be careful next time.”
It has cost me time and effort and money, and an infinite amount of patience and tact, not to mention steady warfare with myself, but in return, what have I? A housemaid, as nearly perfect, perhaps, as they can ever be on this faulty earth, permanently in my service, as I hope and believe.
If any one offers her higher wages, I shall meet the “bid,” for she is worth as much to me as she can be to any one else. Besides giving me superior service, she has done me a vast amount of good in furnishing me the needed material for the development of my character.
On her own ground, she respects my superior knowledge. Once or twice I have heard her say of some friend, “Her’s lady, she know nodding at all about de housekeeping—no, nodding at all!”
The airy contempt of the tone is quite impossible to describe.
A neighbour whom she assisted in a time of domestic stress, during my absence, told me amusedly of her reception in her own kitchen. “You don’t have to come all de time to de kitchen to tell me,” remarked Annie.
“Doesn’t Mrs. M. do that?” queried my neighbour, lightly.
“Ay should say not,” returned the capable one, indignantly. “She nefer come in de kitchen, and she know, too!”
While that was not literally true, because I do go into my kitchen if I want to, and cook there if I like, I make a point of not intruding. She knows what she is to do, and I leave her to do it, in peace and comfort.
Briefly summarised, the solution from my point of view is this. Know her work yourself, down to the last detail; pay the wages which other people would be glad to pay for the same service; keep your temper, and, in the face of everything, be kind! Remember that housework is hard work—that it never stays done—that a meal which it takes half a day to prepare is disposed of in half an hour. Remember, too, that it requires much intelligence and good judgment to be a good cook, and that the daily tasks lack inspiration. The hardest part of housework must be done at a time when many other people are free for rest and enjoyment, and it carries with it a social bar sinister when it is done for money. The woman who does it for her board and clothes, in her own kitchen, does not necessarily lose caste, but doing it for a higher wage, in another’s kitchen, makes one almost an outcast. Strange and unreasonable, but true.
It was at my own suggestion that she began to leave the dishes piled up in the sink until morning. When the room is otherwise immaculate, a tray of neatly piled plates, even if unwashed, does not disturb my æsthetic sense.
Ordinarily, she is free for the evening at half-past seven or a quarter of eight—always by eight. Her evenings are hers, not mine,—unless I pay her extra, as I always do. A dollar or so counts for nothing in the expense of an entertainment, and she both earns and deserves the extra wage.
If I am to entertain twenty or thirty people—the house will hold no more, and I cannot ask more than ten to dinner—I consult with her, decide upon the menu, tell her that she can have all the help she needs, and go my ways in peace. I can order the flowers, decorate the table, put on my best gown, and receive my guests, unwearied, with an easy mind.
When I am not expecting guests, I can leave the house immediately after breakfast, without a word about dinner, and return to the right sort of a meal at seven o’clock, bringing a guest or two with me, if I telephone first.
I can work for six weeks or two months in a seclusion as perfect as I could have in the Sahara Desert, and my household, meanwhile, will move as if on greased skids. I can go away for two months and hear nothing from her, and yet know that everything is all right at home. I think no more about it, so far as responsibility is concerned, when I am travelling, than as if I had no home at all. When we leave the apartment alone in the evening, we turn on the most of the lights, being assured by the police that burglars will never molest a brilliantly illuminated house.
The morose countenance of my ugly maid has subtly changed. It radiates, in its own way, beauty and good cheer. Her harsh voice is gentle, her manner is kind, her tastes are becoming refined, her ways are those of a lady.
My friends and neighbours continually allude to the transformation as “a miracle.” The janitor remarked, in a burst of confidence, that he “never saw anybody change so.” He “reckoned,” too, that “it must be the folks she lives with!” Annie herself, conscious of a change, recently said complacently: “Ay guess Ay wass one awful crank when Ay first come here.”
And so it happens that the highest satisfaction is connected with the beautiful theory, triumphantly proven now, against heavy odds. Whatever else I may have done, I have taught one woman the workman’s pride in her work, shown her where true happiness lies, and set her feet firmly on the path of right and joyous living.
TO A VIOLIN
(Antonius Stradivarius, 1685.)
What flights of years have gone to fashion thee,
My violin! What centuries have wrought
Thy sounding fibres! What dead fingers taught
Thy music to awake in ecstasy
Beyond our human dreams? Thy melody
Is resurrection. Every buried thought
Of singing bird, or stream, or south wind, fraught
With tender message, or of sobbing sea,
Lives once again. The tempest’s solemn roll
Is in thy passion sleeping, till the king
Whose touch is mastery shall sound thy soul.
The organ tones of ocean shalt thou bring,
The crashing chords of thunder, and the whole
Vast harmony of God. Ah, Spirit, sing!
THE OLD MAID
One of the best things the last century has done for woman is to make single-blessedness appear very tolerable indeed, even if it be not actually desirable.
The woman who didn’t marry used to be looked down upon as a sort of a “leftover” without a thought, apparently, that she may have refused many a chance to change her attitude toward the world. But now, the “bachelor maid” is welcomed everywhere, and is not considered eccentric on account of her oneness.
With the long records of the divorce courts before their eyes, it is not very unusual for the younger generation of women nowadays deliberately to choose spinsterhood as their independent lot in life.
A girl said the other day: “It’s no use to say that a woman can’t marry if she wants to. Look around you, and see the women who have married, and then ask yourself if there is anybody who can’t!”
This is a great truth very concisely stated. It is safe to say that no woman ever reached twenty-five years of age, and very few have passed twenty, without having an opportunity to become somebody’s mate.
A very small maiden with very bright eyes once came to her mother with the question: “Mamma, do you think I shall ever have a chance to get married?”
And the mother answered: “Surely you will, my child; the woods are full of offers of marriage—no woman can avoid them.”
And ere many years had passed the maiden had learned that the wisdom of her mother’s prophecy was fully vindicated.
Every one knows that a woman needs neither beauty, talent, nor money to win the deepest and sincerest love that man is capable of giving.
Single life is, with rare exceptions, a matter of choice and not of necessity; and while it is true that a happy married life is the happiest position for either man or woman, there are many things which are infinitely worse than being an old maid, and chiefest among these is marrying the wrong man!
The modern woman looks her future squarely in the face and decides according to her best light whether her happiness depends upon spinsterhood or matrimony. This decision is of course influenced very largely by the quality of her chances in either direction, but if the one whom she fully believes to be the right man comes along, he is likely to be able to overcome strong objections to the married state. If love comes to her from the right source, she takes it gladly; otherwise she bravely goes her way alone, often showing the world that some of the most mother-hearted women are not really mothers. Think of the magnificent solitude of such women as Florence Nightingale and our own splendid Frances Willard! Who shall say that these, and thousands of others of earth’s grandest souls, were not better for their single-heartedness in the service of humanity?
A writer in a leading journal recently said: “The fact that a woman remains single is a tribute to her perception. She gains an added dignity from being hard to suit.”
This, from the pen of a man, is somewhat of a revelation, in the light of various masculine criticisms concerning superfluous women. No woman is superfluous. God made her, and put her into this world to help her fellow-beings. There is a little niche somewhere which she, and she alone, can fill. She finds her own completeness in rounding out the lives of others.
It has been said that the average man may be piloted through life by one woman, but it must be admitted that several of him need somewhere near a dozen of the fair sex to wait upon him at the same time. His wife and mother are kept “hustling,” while his “sisters and his aunts” are likely to be “on the keen jump” from the time his lordship enters the house until he leaves it!
But to return to the “superfluous woman,”—although we cannot literally return to her because she does not exist. Of the “old maid” of to-day, it is safe to say that she has her allotted plane of usefulness. She isn’t the type our newspaper brethren delight to caricature. She doesn’t dwell altogether upon the subject of “woman’s sphere,” which, by the way, comes very near being the plane of the earth’s sphere, and she need not, for her position is now well recognised.
She doesn’t wear corkscrew curls and hideous reform garments. She is a dainty, feminine, broad-minded woman, and a charming companion. Men are her friends, and often her lovers, in her old age as well as in her youth.
Every old maid has her love story, a little romance that makes her heart young again as she dreams it over in the firelight, and it calls a happy smile to the faded face.
Or, perhaps, it is the old, sad story of a faithless lover, or a happiness spoiled by gossips—or it may be the scarcely less sad story of love and death.
Ibsen makes two of his characters, a young man and woman who love each other, part voluntarily on the top of a high mountain in order that they may be enabled to keep their high ideals and uplifting love for each other.
So the old maid keeps her ideals, not through fulfilment, but through memory, and she is far happier than many a woman who finds her ideal surprisingly and disagreeably real.
The bachelor girl and the bachelor man are much on the increase. Marriage is not in itself a failure, but the people who enter unwisely into this solemn covenant too often are not only failures, but bitter disappointments to those who love them best.
Life for men and women means the highest usefulness and happiness, for the terms are synonymous, neither being able to exist without the other.
The model spinster of to-day is philanthropic. She is connected, not with innumerable charities, but with a few well-chosen ones. She gives freely of her time and money in many ways, where her left hand scarcely knoweth what her right doeth, and the record of her good works is not found in the chronicles of the world.
She is literary, musical, or artistic. She is a devoted and loyal club member, and is well informed on the leading topics of the day, while the resources of her well-balanced mind are always at the service of her friends.
And when all is said and done, the highest and truest life is within the reach of us all. Doing well whatever is given us to do will keep us all busy, and married or single, no woman has a right to be idle. The old maid may be womanly and mother-hearted as well as the wife and mother.
THE SPINSTER’S RUBAIYAT
I
Wake! For the hour of hope will soon take flight
And on your form and features leave a blight;
Since Time, who heals full many an open wound,
More oft than not is impolite.
II
Before my relatives began to chide,
Methought the voice of conscience said inside:
“Why should you want a husband, when you have
A cat who seldom will at home abide?”
III
And, when the evening breeze comes in the door,
The lamp smokes like a chimney, only more;
And yet the deacon of the church
Is telling every one my parrot swore.
IV
Behold, my aunt into my years inquires,
Then swiftly with my parents she conspires,
And in the family record changes dates—
In that same book that says all men are liars.
V
Come, fill the cup and let the kettle sing!
What though upon my finger gleams no ring,
Save that cheap turquoise that I bought myself?
The coming years a gladsome change may bring.
VI
Here, minion, fill the steaming cup that clears
The skin I will not have exposed to jeers,
And rub this wrinkle vigorously until
The maddening crow’s-foot wholly disappears.
VII
And let me don some artificial bloom,
And turn the lamps down low, and make a gloom
That spreads from library to hall and stair;
Thus do I look my best—but ah, for whom?
