me.

You will not wish to be absolved from the duty of learning to perform domestic services; a duty that involves so much happiness.

It is a good old saying, that "whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well." Harriet does not seem to think so. Some derangement in Mrs. Ames' domestic establishment, made it necessary for her daughter Harriet, a girl of sixteen, to sweep a room, or the room must remain unswept. Harriet took the broom, which, for any good she did with it, she might as well have held by one end as the other-the dirt flew every way but out of the room, and after toiling till you must have pitied her, she burst into tears, and threw down the broom, saying, "I always did hate sweeping-it is the hardest work that ever was invented."

"You would not find it so, Harriet," said an observer, "if you knew how to do it."

"I do not wish to know how-and I never mean to learn."

Her friend took the broom quietly, and swept the room perfectly, without effort or bustle.

Harriet was astonished. Her friend was a person who had no occasion to sweep her own rooms. Harriet expressed her surprise. "I learned," said her friend, "when I was young, to sweep well, and what is once well learned, you know is never forgotten. And I assure you, the ability to sweep with neatness and dispatch, has many a time stood me in good stead. I seldom get a new chambermaid, but I have to give

her some instruction in sweeping. It is one of the domestic arts that belongs to our vocation."

Harriet's opinions were rectified. Sweeping no longer appeared to her the vulgar, horrid business she had deemed it. Like a good and rational girl, she set about learning it. Beginning late, and having some natural awkwardness to overcome, it cost her much trouble, but she persevered and achieved the art, and now she never takes a broom in her hand without a peculiar pleasure, a feeling of self-conquest, and a consciousness of power; and the ornament in her room, which she regards with the most complacency, is a pretty pencil sketch of a lady sweeping with a shaker broom, designed as a trophy by her friend.

The wife of a mechanic, a most laborious woman, in a certain village, was seized with a fever. She had but one child, a girl nineteen years old. Her parents are amiable, but rather weak minded people. Their ambition has been to make their daughter a lady, and, unfortunately, they considered exemption from labor as one of the qualifications, and the patient, loving, hardworking mother, drudged from morning till night, while Adeline was at school studying French, learning Latin, and painting on velvet, &c. &c. If the skies but threatened rain, her father fetched her from school in his little waggon. If the night were but crispy cold, her mother warmed her bed, so that what with study, sitting, and coddling of all sorts,

Adeline grew up a pale, delicate, spiritless creature.

As I said, Adeline's mother fell sick, and, for the rest of my story, I quote from a bustling, kind-hearted maiden, who had just returned from a visit to her, and whose expressions were more forcible than elegant.

In reply to the enquiry, "How did you find Mrs. Brown?" She said, "Why just comfortable sick, but in such a muss !-Mrs. Cutler," the clergyman's wife, "was mixing a batch of bread."

"Mrs. Cutler! where was Adeline?"

"Adeline! why she is of no more use than that flounce on your gown. She is like a piece of cracked china, just fit to be set up for show. I do not mean to say but what Adeline is a pretty girl, but what kind of use in the world is a girl that cannot make a loaf of bread; nor, as to that matter, do any thing else that is necessary? She was crying. I felt sorry for her; for, after all, it is not her fault that she is such a poor piece of furniture !”

Adeline's was an uncommon, but not a singular case. The girls of our farmers' and mechanics' wives, are generally well educated in domestic affairs; but, occasionally, from imbecility in the mother, but far oftener from mistaken views, there are lamentable exceptions.

Knowledge is power. A woman's practical

* Pretty, in our country phrase, means pleasing.

knowledge of domestic affairs, may be a capital which will yield a certain income. For instance, "Do you understand clear-starching?" said a lady to a girl she was engaging as a housemaid-"No, ma'am." "I am sorry for that," replied the employer, "for, if you did, I would gladly give you seven, instead of six dollars a month."

A very good person was extremely anxious to get an advantageous place which was vacant in a certain family. She applied for, but did not obtain it; and because, though she had many important requisites, she was a poor ironer.

It is not, my dear friends, those only who have their living to get, that should know how to iron, and clear-starch. Some foreign traveller reports, that " American ladies must be prepared occasionally to do their own ironing, and clearstarching."

66

CHAPTER X.

BAD COOKING, ETC.

HAS it ever occurred to you, my young friends, that a part of the imperfection in the health of our people is attributable to improper food, or ill-prepared food?

Providence has given to our land, beyond any other, the means of health. In all the Northern and Western States we have a temperate climate.

Abundance we have every where, so that sufficient food may be spread on every table in the land.

We have a good government and laws, so that all, being sure of their rights, can enjoy on those great subjects that tranquillity of mind that ministers to health.

We enjoy a general and sufficient equality, so that there is not pride and oppression on the one hand, and abjectness and excuse for envy on the other bad passions that poison the very fountains of health.