Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1884 — Comfort of the Woman to Small Things. [ARTICLE]

Comfort of the Woman to Small Things.

Thousamls of women drag their weary way through the!r appointed household toil and feel that life is not what they meant to make it. They say with monotonous i.itonation that is most depressing. “I get up early in the morning and bake and scrub and wash and iron, and get three meals a day, and mend old clothes and take care of the children —and what does it all amount to?” It amounts to a great deal. There is hope, and joy, and comfort in theM'orld for the woman of small things. It is true that a woman of discontented spirit can go through her daily, work of sewing, cooking, and washing, in a monotonous, uninterested manner which reduces household work to the plane of an everlasting and slavish drugery. But it is unnecessary. It is safe to contend that there is a genuine pleasure to l>e derived from any work that has been well done. There are some wo-

men who seem naturally to dislike ’housework, but are nevertheless obliged to do it or let their families suffer from an untidy house; now, if they do this work conscientiously and with loving thought of what it is for, there’ is no drugery about it. A woman may hate to do cooking, but how can she help deriving a deep satisfaction and even pleasure from the row of shapely, light, and perfected loaves which she has-baked, and which she considers will-be digestible and ip every way healthy for her family ? She may hate to wash and iron, but there is something delightful to her in, the piles of clean and neatly ironed clothing, wheh she stops to think how this work of her hands will minister to the health and comfort of her dear onjss. She may hate to make beds, sweep and dH-st rooms, and scrub • floors; but a tidy house can not be anything but a joy to her heart when she realizes how much the purity of the moral character is influenced by the neatness and order of the house one dw ells in. Thus all the so-called drugery of the household is far from being ignoble when looked at aright. And as for taking care of the children, which is so important a part in every mother’s daily life, what nobler w ork is there than that? It is no drugery to wash the little faces and mend the little frocks, and train the little feet to walk in noble paths. Housework, when viewed aright, is the noblest kind of work. The most famous and exalted women of the world have not felt that they stooped in doing it. Of course, women doing their own work, especially if they are mothers, get vqry tired performing the multitude of tasks they have to do, and ought to have as much help as they can afford; but there is a class who are amply able to do a whole or a part of their own work, but who look upon it as a drugery, and feel that if they have to do it life is for them a failure. Despise not the days of little things. Doubtless many of you have heard this simile, and it is beautifully appropriate to the woman who feels that her obs ura work is of no importance in the world; the world is one vast and noble edifice in which every living being has ■a part, the strongest and most neces- . sary parts are hidden Out of sight in the walls and foundations; the office of each is different, but essential; remove a single brick from the wall and the whole structure is impaired and laid liable to danger; we are each a brick in the wall whether we be placed so as to be seen or unseen ; if we do not faithfullyperform our whole duty in pur home and in society, so far as our means extend, in so far do we endanger the whole social fabric. It is not work, put thoughtless, aimless, indifferent work that kill the spirit and reduce one to slavish drugery. God pity the woman who can see no meaning in her work. There is some measure of thought and Ireauty in every thing. Let us open our eyes to see it, and raise life, however humble, above the spiritless routine of monotonous drugery.— Minneapolis Tri bane,