"Then gently scan your fellow man Still gentler sister woman. 'Tis He who made the heart alone, He knows each spring, its varying tone, Then at the balance let's be mute, Jesus Christ has made humanity divine, religion service, and life a joy of doing good. In Woodland Paths.-By Benj. F. Leggett. THIN the dappled woodland shade And beeches gnarled and hoary set with The linden with the murmur of the wild-bees in its crown, What cool sweet shadows linger, what rapture ever thrills The wooded slope that leans upon the shoulder of the hills! Upon the lower fringes where the willow makes its moan The sombre firs and larches breathe a solemn undertone: And through the woodland branches green-the sprays and tangled vines, The chorus of the poplar leaves, the minor of the pines Runs on the sweet old melody through all the chancel vast The whisper of the ages through the æons of the past. On lowland slopes the balsams pitch their wigwam tents of gloom, And yellow birches lift their stems and stand in light abloom:The gray hawk screams above the nest, his note the wood-thrush sings, The squirrel chatters in the boughs, the There's music in the whispering leaves, the soft and ceaseless whir Of wing and spray, of moth and bee, and countless life astir. And in the ferny grot where lie the lichened boulders old The laughing water leaps to light from caverns deep and cold, And round it throng the graces sweet of woodland shadows cool And Adder's-Tongue and Lady-Fern are mirrored in the pool. A liquid song of cool delight from naiad-haunted rills O'erhung by fronded maidenhair the woodland spaces fills: And through the twilight of the glen the limpid waters fall Down-dropping through the greening glooms their low, sweet, crystal call; How cool the woven shadows lie around our woodland rest! And sweet our dreams that thronging come when pillowed on earth's breast: Then every note of rare delight from leafy branches rung Is but a song of welcome from some happy dryad's tongue : Above the runnel's laughter low o'er pebbles gay with moss We see the airy phantoms dim as dreamy shadows cross, And down the wildwood hollows pass a merry, trooping clan While rings the mellow music of the Troubles of a Nurse-Girl. I AM a fairly well educated daughter of an English farmer. I came to this country with wealthy relatives, but a sudden change in their circumstances. threw me upon my own efforts for a livelihood. I had little knowledge of the business ways of the country, and took the first respectable work I could get. This was a nurse-girl in the family of a lady of great wealth, who lives in a beautiful residence on the banks of the Hudson, and keeps a great number of servants. Mrs. Blank pays the highest wages, and secures the best help to be had. She never keeps a servant long. They will not, or rather can not, stay with her. The house is beautiful, the grounds delightful, all the surroundings as good as heart could wish, but the girls are simply prisoners in care of a stern jailor. I was with her fourteen months, and it is the first time in her life that she has been so long in connection with one servant, for her mother could never keep a girl either. The baby I took care of is now eighteen months old, and teething. For five months I have not been in church once. I have never had a day off. The child is heavy, and has been in my arms day and night. Six weeks ago another baby was born. For this one there was supposed to be a special nurse, but in the six weeks we have had four nurses and have been the greater part of the time without any, so that I have had both of the children to attend; and it has been no unusual thing for me to leave the table seven times while I was taking, or rather trying to take, one meal. Last spring I had to have a new dress, and a friend in New York offered to make it for me if I could come down to be fitted. I asked Mrs. Blank to arrange for letting me have one afternoon. Any of the other girls in the house would have been glad to take care of the baby for me if Mrs. Blank would allow her the time, but she would not hear of any such arrangement; she said each must each do her own work. (She never would let us accommodate each other in any way.) She would attend the baby herself, only she could not lift it. Finally she said that if the baby went to sleep, I might take the one o'clock train, but I must be back at five, and she and her mother would manage while I was gone. The baby did go to sleep, but while I was dressing it awoke. Mrs. Blank attempted to quiet it, but was so much of a stranger to her own child that it was afraid of her. She called me and said I must get it to sleep again. She had excited it so by that time that it was after three o'clock when I finally got it quieted, and I could not take a train for New York until four. I reached the city to find that my friend had given me up, and had gone out. I waited for her, for I knew it would be impossible for me to get another afternoon off. She did not come in until after six. My dress was fitted as rapidly as possible, but do my best, I could not get a train back until 8.40. When I got to Yonkers, it was raining in torrents, and so dark that I was afraid to go home alone; so I took a hack, which cost me a dollar. When I reached the house, Mr. and Mrs. Blank met me as though I had been a criminal; and wanted to know what on earth I had been doing. I answered that I had been hurrying as fast as I could, and went on to my own room. The next day, Mrs. Blank demanded an explanation. I told her plainly that I thought her own common sense ought to be enough. She knew the running times of the trains, and what hour I left the house; and I certainly would not for my own pleasure take a late train and have to pay a dollar to come up from the depot if I could have caught an earlier one, when I knew the carriage would be at the depot and I could ride up. I was saucy, I know, but the way they both condemned me without waiting to hear any explanation, or trying to reason it out for themselves, was more than I could stand. It was just so in everything; none of the girls was allowed any time whatever to herself. They were supposed to be at liberty to go out in the grounds as they pleased, but Mrs. Blank managed to keep every one at work every minute, so that none of them felt like hurrying to finish her work, or like appearing to have any leisure, because they knew it was only a signal for additional labor to be found or made. Some of the family were always at our elbows at every turn. Whatever we did or did not do was spied upon, reported, and made the worst of. Of course it was all right for her to keep watch of her own work, but she seemed to think we were all criminals, and in league against her. We felt like slaves. We could not draw one free breath or be self-respecting human beings. She did not intend to be unkind. On the contrary she thought she was very good to us, because she gave us expensive presents at Christmas, and if any of us were ill she continued our wages. When I had an abscess in my ear and went to the hospital she sent me fruit, and paid part of my doctor's bill. But she simply did not realize that that we were willing to serve her honestly and faithfully if she would treat us like something besides machines that were bound to go wrong. One cook whom she had while I was there was a young Irish girl who had previously lived seven years in one place-the first one she had when she came to this country. At the end of the seven years she had quite a nice little sum of money saved and went home to Ireland to visit her parents. She stayed there eleven months, during which her grandfather died. Mary took care of him while sick, and paid all his funeral expenses. Then her father died, and she paid his funeral expenses and provided a home for her mother. A little land which her father owned came to her, but was only an expense to her. She could not sell it, for there was no one to buy, and she could let it only for a few shillings a year. She had a good deal of trouble and expense in settling up things, and the result was that when she reached New York her money was all gone. She took service with Mrs. Blank and stayed three months because she needed money, and felt reluctant to leave and perhaps be without work and have nothing on which to support herself. Mrs. Blank gave her no money while she was there, because it is against her principles to pay her servants at the end of every month. She says they do not. need money, as they have everything provided for them (she forgets that they need clothes), and she thinks by holding back their wages to make them stay with her. The week before Mary left, several of the other servants did the same, so that Mary, in addition to her own duties, had to be chamber-maid waitress, and laundress. The day she left, when she came down stairs, dressed to go to the train, Mrs. Blank called her and told her that the kitchen floor was dirty; she must go down and scrub it before she could leave the house. Mary was Mary was a very mild, timid girl, but that was too much JUNE BLOOD. that when she came, kitchen floor, refrigerator, and closets were in anything but an orderly condition; that she had left them all clean, with the one exception of the kitchen floor, which she owned was not what it should be, but called Mrs. Blank's attention to the amount of extra work she had been obliged to do for the last four days. Mrs. Blank said it made no difference; she must scrub that floor before she could go. Mary said "I won't", and left. But the poor girl cried when she got out of Mrs. Blank's sight, as if her heart would break. 221 She said to me, "I have worked here as I never worked before in my life. I have carried Mrs. Blank's meals up to her room, although it was not my place to do so; and when she was just as able to come down to them as I was to take them up. I have never had a day to myself since I have been here, because when I once asked for permission to go out, Mrs. Blank looked at me in such a way, and said such things to me, that I never had the courage to ask again. I have had three months of slavery, and I am going to be as free once more as a girl in domestic service can be." |