Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — Calling a Halt. [ARTICLE]

Calling a Halt.

“I cannot imagine why I am so tired all the time. It seems to me that I do very little,” said a woman, dragging herself to a chair and sitting down wearily. “How many times a day do you go up and down stairs?” inquired a friend. The house was in a city, high and narrow, with four long stairways, three of which intervened between the kitchen and the mother’s “own room.” “Why, not very often; I don’t know. I have a good many errands about the house, here and there, and my impulse is usually to wait on myself. I suppose I spend a good deal of strength on the stairs, now that I think of it.” “And, pardon the suggestion, but you are always looking out for others so much and so generrusly that others ought to look out for you. Have you ever thought how often you are interrupted in the p-.ogress of a day? The ordering of supplies for the house is the tlist. thing, but some tritie is forgotten, pepper or salt, flavor or seasoning, and you are consulted about that. Then your big boy comes to you with his necktie or his cuffs, and your four-year-old has pinched his Anger and needs comforting; your daughters have no end of affairs in which you must be the counselor, and your husband leaves the weight of his perplexities and irritability that grows out of his overwork on your ever-ready strength. Dear, it is not wonderful that you are tired! The wonder is that you rest so soon, after a nap, or a little time by yourself, coming out to the family made oter again.” “But what can I do? All that you mention forms part of the every-day duty of a woman like myself, whose main work in the world is to keep her home happy and comfortable.” “Once in a while you might call a halt. You should pack a little bag arid run away for a three days’ visit, leaving the housekeeping to the young shoulders, which will llnd it only a slight burden. It is an imperative duty, occasionally, to take care of one’s capital, if one be a wife and a mother.” In the interest of the rest, for the sake of the days that are coming, a matron must he provident of her own health, not suffering herself to drift into nervous prostration or wearisome invalidism. There are graves, not a few, over which the inscription might be written: “Here lies Mary , the beloved wife of Theodore ; tired to death.” And in mest cases the blame is not Theodore's, but Mary’s own. She should have called a halt in time. —Harper’s Bazar.