to give them wholesome bread and meat, and then stop and take a little breath. Nobody will thank you for turning yourself into a machine. When you drop in your tracks, they will just shovel the earth over you, and get Jerusha Ann Somebody to step into your shoes. They wont cry a bit. You never stopped to say a word to them except "get out of my way." To be sure, you were working hard for them all the while, but that wont be remembered. So you just take a little comfort yourself as you go along, and look after "№ 1." Laugh more and darn less; they will like you twice as well. If there is more work than you can consistently do, don't do it. Sometimes there is a little blossom of a daughter in a family who makes everything bright with her finger-tips; if there is none in yours, do you be that blossom. Don't, even for John, let your children remember home as a charnel-house, and you as its female sexton.
WHY WEAR MOURNING?
I WISH that a few sensible, intelligent, wealthy people would cease draping and festooning themselves like engine-houses, when a death occurs in the family. I use word "wealthy" advisedly; because it is only that class who can really effect a reformation, for the reason that they will not be supposed unable "to pay a proper respect," as the phrase runs, to the deceased. Proper respect! Do yards of crape and bombazine never express the opposite emotion? Is real heart-breaking grief to be gauged by the width of a hem, or the length or thickness of a veil? Have not many a widow and orphan woke up, the morning after a funeral, to find the little left by the deceased, expended in funereal carriages, for people who would not lift a helping finger if it would keep them out of the almshouse? We all know that, or if we don't, we may wake up to the fact, some future day, when the sunshine of prosperity is clouded over. That point disposed of, it must also be remembered that a black dress now is hardly "mourning;" since that color is so fashionable for street and home, and even festive wear, that it is hard to distinguish the lady who affects "all black," because "it is so stylish," from a bereaved person. Another objection to "mourning" is, that it is the most expensive dress that can be worn, because most easily spoiled by rain, or dampness, or dust; and as "proper respect for the deceased" requires such voluminous folds of it, and so often renewed to be presentable, or else many changes of mourning to keep the "best suit" up to the proper grief requirement, that the tax on a limited purse may be easily calculated.
Said a lady to me one day, "This heavy crape-vail, over my face and down to my knees, keeps out the air, and gives me a constant sick-headache." – "Why, then, wear it?" asked I. – "Because it wouldn't be decent to omit it," she replied. This remark, of course, requires no comment.
Then, again, the little children – death must be made as horrible as possible to them too, at the biding of custom! They must be swathed in sackcloth although only two or three years of sunshine have put the golden gleam in their hair. Is it not enough that papa or mamma, or sister or brother, may never answer again when their bird-like voices call them! Is it Christian or even humane, so to surround them with gloom that "death" shall be a never-ceasing nightmare? I never see a little creature so habited, that I do not long to hang a garland of roses about its neck, and point to the blue heavens as an emblem of that serene rest which has come to the sleeper.
But you may ask, "Would you give no sign, no token that the footprints of the Destroyer are over your threshold?" Yes, the same that is used by military men when their chief has departed – a crape upon the arm. This simple token – no more; since, as I say, multiplied bombazine and crape do not always express either grief or respect; since they often represent the contrary, and mostly an expense which can ill be borne by the survivors even when grief is sincere; and since this already recognized military badge of bereavement answers all the purpose – why not?
The white ribbon tied upon the door-handle, with rosebuds attached, when the baby's lids are forever closed – oh! that is beautiful. There are, and must be, breaking hearts inside that door; but I know by experience that the moment will surely come, after nature shall have had its saving flow of tears, when, in the sense of perfect peace, and safety for the little song-bird, now far above the clouds of earth, they will forget themselves and remember only that.
Then away with all these heathenish insignia; they certainly stand no more for grief or respect than a flashing diamond on the neck or finger, denotes wealth or social position, or even respectability. Above all, away with this bugaboo nightmare of little children, who will have enough, God knows, to contend with, as they grow older, without prematurely draping with the blackness of darkness, the entrance to a portal through which they are certainly destined to pass, and which the light of faith in their maturer years may gild, as the shining gate to the Celestial City.
"DELIGHTFUL MEN."
ISN'T he a delightful man? This question was addressed to me by a lady in company concerning a gentleman who had rendered himself during the evening, peculiarly agreeable. Before I answer that question, I said, I would like to see him at home. I would like to know if, when he jars his wife's feelings, he says, "Beg pardon" as willingly and promptly as when he stepped upon yonder lady's dress. I would like to know if, when he comes home at night, he has some pleasant little things to say, such as he has scattered about so lavishly since he entered this room this evening; and whether if the badly cooked dish, which he gallantly declared to the hostess at the table, "could not have been improved," would have found a similar verdict on his own table, and to his own wife. That is the test. I am sorry to say that some of the most agreeable society-men, who could, by no possibility, be guilty of a rudeness abroad, could never be suspected in their own homes of ever doing anything else. The man who will invariably meet other ladies with "How very well you are looking!" will often never, from one day to another, take notice of his own wife's appearance, or, if so, only to find fault. How bright that home would be to his wife with one half the courtesy and toleration he invariably shows to strangers. "Allow me to differ" – he blandly remarks to an opponent with whom he argues in company. "Pshaw! what do you know about it?" he says at his own fireside and to his wife. Children are "angels" when they belong to his neighbors; his own are sent out of the room whenever he enters it, or receive so little recognition that they are glad to leave. "Permit me," says the gallant male vis-a-vis in the omnibus or car, as he takes your fare; while his wife often hands up her own fare, even with her husband by her side. No wonder she is not "looking well" when she sees politeness is for every place but for home-consumption.
"Oh, how men miss it in disregarding these little matters," said a sad-eyed wife to me one day. And she said truly; for these little kindnesses are like a breath of fresh air from an open window in a stifled room; we lift our drooping heads and breathe again! "Little!" did I say! Can that be little which makes or mars the happiness of a human being? A man says a rough, rude word, or neglects the golden opportunity to say a kind one, and goes his selfish way and thinks it of no account. Then he marvels when he comes back, – in sublime forgetfulness of the past, – that the familiar eye does not brighten at his coming, or the familiar tongue voice a welcome. Then, on inquiry, if he is told of the rough word, he says: "O-o-h! that's it – is it? Now it isn't possible that you gave that a second thought? Why, I forgot all about it!" as if this last were really a palliation and a merit.
It would be ludicrous, this masculine obtuseness, were it not for the tragic consequences – were it not for the loving hearts that are chilled – the homes that are darkened – the lives that are blighted – and the dew and promise of the morning that are so needlessly turned into sombre night.
"Little things!" There are no little things. "Little things," so called, are the hinges of the universe. They are happiness, or misery; they are poverty, or riches; they are prosperity or adversity; they are life, or death. Not a human being of us all, can afford to despise "the day of small things."
Yes, husbands, be cheerful at home. I daresay, sir, your Bible may belong to an expurgated edition; but this sentiment is in mine. I have unfortunately loaned it to a neighbor, so that I cannot at this minute point to the exact chapter, but that's
