Our Girls Part 7

"Angie, who is always good and loving, said she was very sorry for us. She always was a dear child. She didn't care what the the other girls said, for her part, she was real sorry for us, and what was more, she hoped that business would soon be first-rate again, so that we could all have plenty of money. That child has always been a real comfort to us. She wished we could have another war, it made money so plenty. I tell you she is a sharp one.

"Well, the whole thing ended just about as my wife said it would; it really didn't do any good, but, you see, I was in hopes the girls might help us to think of some way of cutting down. Of course I don't blame them, for, you know, they can't help it.

"Now, my dear friend, what can you say? I feel as if my hands were slipping, as if I were letting go of everything. What shall I do?

If you can think of anything, do tell me, for G.o.d's sake."

I replied: "My friend, I comprehend your difficulty; I believe I understand it in all its bearings, and I am confident I can help you out.

"Send for your daughters to come home, at once. When they arrive, call another family council. Say to them, 'My dear children, I sent for you for imperative reasons. I am worn out, in debt, wretchedly unhappy, disgraced.--I can't live in this way any longer. You alone can save me. I ask you to abandon, at once, the life you are leading, and help your mother and myself to bear these burdens. I ask you to go with me to-morrow morning to the store, let me discharge both of the clerks, and you become my clerks. My daughters, if you will do this, we shall all be independent and happy. Believe me when I tell you, that these tortures are killing me. While you are all asleep in your beds, your mother and I are grieving and often weeping over the impending ruin. My children, will you save us? Your large acquaintance, your education, your manners, your devotion to our interests, will turn the current in the right direction.'

"Possibly," I said, "they may hesitate; but I don't believe it. In any event, it is the right thing to do. If it should turn out that they draw back, then stand up like an honest, christian man, and declare, 'I will not live another day such a life of fraud; I will not ask the jobbers to trust me with another penny's worth; I will no longer obtain goods under false pretences. If worse comes to worst, you, my daughters, must do what thousands of young women have done before you,--go out into the world and earn your own bread.'

"My friend, I have given you the plan, act at once. Your girls will join you with a whole heart, and, within a year, they will be ten- fold more happy, and you can live an honest, manly life."

HOW IT TERMINATED.

Of course you all wish to know how it came out. The reason for my telling you this story, is, that I was made very happy yesterday, on dropping in at my friend's store, to see, that he had three new clerks, and, after a warn hand-shaking, I congratulated them, from the bottom of my heart, on having gone into business. At this moment the father called me to the rear of the store, where he wished to consult me about a new window; but all he had to say, was, that I must not drop a word of my acquaintance with the history of certain changes.

"All right, my good friend;" but the caution was quite unnecessary.

Of course the public must understand that it was of their own brave hearts, that they have gone into this thing.

The father dropped in last evening to tell me all about it. He wrung my hand, laughed, cried, and, in fact, almost went into some of f.a.n.n.y's hysterics.

"Oh!" said he, "it's all right. I can see the light. And you don't know how happy we all are. The girls spend their time in singing about the house, and asking my forgiveness. It seems to me that we never knew each other before. Oh! I can see the light now, I can see the light! Give me one year, and I can shout victory!

"But you ought to have been concealed where you could have overheard our council. It lasted till near morning, and the first half of it was stormy enough. f.a.n.n.y declared she would die first. Mattie said she would put on an old dress, and go round begging cold victuals.

Angie proposed that they should go into the attic, and give their rooms up to boarders, and have it understood that they had just taken a few friends for company. But, before we retired, we were all of one mind; we all saw that everything but the store was likely to prove a weak, temporary dodge.

"It is just as you told me,--that their life of indolence and selfish indulgence had brought every mean trait to the surface; but that when the depths were stirred I should find they were true women. Yes, thank G.o.d, they are true women, as brave girls as ever lived. I can't tell you how happy we all are. They kissed us on coming to the breakfast table this morning for the first time in their lives. We are entering a new life. They already begin to wonder how they could have lived such a life of idleness and good- for-nothingness.

I can't thank you enough. When the girls are quite settled in their new life, I will tell them all about it, and they will invite you down to spend an evening, and then they will thank you themselves."

"Save yourself that trouble," I replied. "The fact is, the idea is not original with me; half the men in town feel just as I do about this fas.h.i.+onable idleness among fas.h.i.+onable women. In thousands of families it involves a system of studied, mean pretence, fraud, and final ruin.

"Besides, we all see that, under its baneful influence, women sadly deteriorate.

"Without a regular occupation, no person, male or female, can preserve a sound mind in a sound body."

IDLENESS IS FAs.h.i.+ONABLE.

Nothing, perhaps, is more fas.h.i.+onable than idleness. We all agree, in theory, at least, that the meaning of life is found in that little word--use; that the happiness of life is found in--work; that to be idle is to be miserable.

Here, however, we must make a distinction. This law is supposed to apply only to men. Men must have an occupation. If a man is without one, we at once begin to suspect he must have some evil designs upon society. The law adds to the punishment, if the culprit has "no visible means of support." That alone is a strong fact against him.

Not only the law, but public sentiment demands that every man shall do something.

"He is an idler," disgraces a man almost beyond any other statement.

Now let us turn to the other side of the house. In America we have a million young women without the slightest pretence of occupation.

They spend a portion of their time in visiting. Miss Blanche goes to New York, in the winter, to spend three months with her very dear friend, Miss Nellie, who, in turn, comes to spend three months with Miss Blanche in the summer. This sort of exchange has become an immense system. Blanche and Nellie, with this arrangement, work off six months of the year, and, adding one or two other little affairs of a similar kind, they fill up the residue of the time with the dressmaker, piano practice, the theatre, working sickly-looking pink dogs in worsted, lying late in the morning, dressing three times a day, and reading a few novels. A million young women of the better (?) cla.s.ses, in America, are training themselves for the future by these methods.

A single year of such life would half ruin a young man. His mind would become unsteady, his will weak and vacillating, his body soft and delicate. Add a "glove-fitting corset" to his wardrobe, and in a few years he would be utterly unfit for husband, father or citizen.

Can any one give us a physiological or metaphysical reason why girls should not suffer the same deterioration? Would you like direct proof that they do? Listen to the conversation of young women,-- educated young ladies!--Beaux, bows, engagements, lovely, Charley, bonnets, Gus, parties, splendid fellow, ribbons, trails, engaged, etc., etc., till midnight.

Watch them as they walk past this window. Does that look like the earnest pursuit of any object in life? If so, they certainly won't catch it. Look at their bare arms,--candle-dips, No. 8.

No "right" of women is so precious, so vital to their welfare, present and future, as the right to work.

Even if a girl had no other object in life than to get a husband, no investment would pay like an occupation. It would give her independence and dignity. Margaret Fuller says:--

"That the hand may be given with dignity, she must be able to stand alone."

Nothing disgusts young men like the undisguised eagerness with which their advances are met. Is a young man a "catch?" send him to Saratoga and watch a few days. The girls do not get down on their knees at his feet, and implore him to take pity on them and marry them, but they do everything else that can be conceived of.

In order that women may marry generally, and without sacrificing themselves, that their hearts may determine their choice; to the end that marriage may be true marriage, and not a contract for board, women must not be compelled to choose between marriage and starvation.

Of course you will say that men despise working-women, that they pa.s.s them by on the other side, and seek ladies; by which you mean such girls as have no regular occupation. For a consideration of this point, the reader is referred to the article, "A Short Sermon about Matrimony."

WORK IS FOR THE POOR.

We all know that happiness comes of occupation; and the work must not be irregular and occasional, and such as we have to look up for exercise, but it must be regular; and, to produce the best results, it must not be optional, but imperative.

What an ingenious device of the spirit of caste to represent that work is a badge of the low cla.s.s. How he cheats the possessors of wealth out of all happiness by this mean lie.

A man, or, if you please, a woman, comes into possession of wealth.

With this there come the picture gallery, the beautiful grounds, the perfect house,--everything to gratify her taste, every external good; but caste whispers in her ear, that rich people must not work,--work is a badge of poverty.

Caught with this trick, she soon has no palate for the delicious fruits, no eye for beauty, no relish for the thousand sweet and beautiful things which cl.u.s.ter about her; and, ere long, she would fain change places with the jolly Irishwoman who sweats over her wash-tub.

WORK FOR RICH GIRLS.

You understand all this, and you want to work; but the difficulty is to find something to do. Housekeeping, with its thousand and one duties, offers a useful and pleasant field; but I will suppose that you have already been too much in the house, and greatly need to go out into the air and suns.h.i.+ne.

Now, dear girls, let me suggest something for you, something you will like, and in which you will be, after a little, very happy. Go to bed to-night early, say at half-past eight o'clock, and rise to- morrow morning at six o'clock. I will suppose that you reside in a large town, or a city. Go at once to the suburbs, and you will find the abodes of poverty. March boldly up to one of them, and say:---

"Good morning; how de do, folkses? Thought I'd just come out and see how the the morning air tasted!"

If you are in right down earnest, it won't take you five minutes to establish yourself in the confidence of Bridget O'Flaherty. And if your voice and manner are of just the right sort, there will follow such a wondrous disclosure of family secrets! You will be told all about Michael's stone-bruise, and Patrick's sore toe; probably the boys will be hauled out of bed to show you. But I must leave the secrets to your imagination, or, what is better, to an actual trial.