Part 18

I don't like to admit it, but there are two things a woman can't do. First, she _can't sharpen a lead pencil_. Give her one and see. Mark how jaggedly she hacks away every particle of wood from the lead, leaving a spike of the latter, which breaks as soon as you try to use it. You can almost forgive the male creature his compassionate contempt, as chucking her under the chin, he twitches it from her awkward little paw, and rounds, and tapers it off in the most ravishing manner, for durable use. * * * * * * *

Last week a philanthropist (need I say a _male_ philanthropist) knowing my weakness, presented me with a two-cent-sharp-pointed-lead-pencil. My dreams that night were peaceful. I awoke like a strong-minded woman to run a race. I sat down to my desk. I might have known it; "I never loved a tree or flower," etc. Some fiend had "borrowed" it. Oh the misery that may be contained in that word "borrowed." When you are in a hurry; when the "devil" is waiting in the basement, stamping his feet to get back to the printing-office; when you've nothing but a miserable little "chunky"-old-worn-out-stub of an inch long lead pencil to make your "stet"-s and "d"-s. Shade of Ben Franklin! _shall_ I, before I "shuffle off this mortal coil"--though I don't know what _that_ is,--ever own another two-cent sharp-pointed-lead-pencil?

I have said that there are two things a woman can't do. I have mentioned one. I wish to hear no argument on _that point_, because when I once make up my mind "all the king's men" can't change it. Well, then--Secondly: A woman can't do up a bundle. She takes a whole newspaper to wrap up a paper of pins, and a coil of rope to tie it, and then it comes unfastened. When I go shopping, which it is sometimes my hard lot to do, I look with the fascinated gaze of a bird in the neighborhood of a magnetic serpent, to watch clerks doing up bundles. How the paper falls into just the right creases! how deftly they turn it over, and tuck it under, and tie it up, and then throw it down on the counter, as if they had done the most common-place thing in the world, instead of a deed which might--and, faith, _does_--task the ingenuity of "angels!" It is perfectly astonishing! It repays me for all my botheration in matching this color and deciding on that, in hearing them call a piece of tape "a _chaste_ article," and for sitting on those revolving stools fastened down so near the counter, that it takes a peculiarly constructed shopper to stay on one of them.

Thirdly--I might allude to the fact that women cannot carry an umbrella; or rather to the very peculiar manner in which they perform that duty; but I won't. I scorn to turn traitor to a sex who, whatever may be their faults,--are always loyal to each other.--So I shall not say, as I might otherwise have said, that when they unfurl the parachute alluded to, they put it right down over their noses,--take the middle of the sidewalk, raking off men's hats and woman's bonnets, as they go, and walking right into the breakfast of some unfortunate wight, with that total disregard of the consequent _gasp_, which to be understood must be _felt_, as the offender cocks up one corner of the parachute, and looks defiantly at the victim who has had the effrontery to come into the world and hazard the whalebone and handle of _her_ "umberil!" No, I won't speak of anything of the kind; besides, has not a celebrated writer remarked, that when dear "woman is cross, it is only because she is _sick_?" Let us hope he is right. We all know that is not the cause of a MAN'S crossness. _Give him his favorite dish, and you may dine off him afterward--if you want to._

Amiable creatures are the majority of women--to each other; charitable--above all things _charitable_! Always ready to acknowledge each other's beauty, or grace, or talent. Never sneer down a sister woman, or pay her a patronizing compliment with the finale of the inevitable--"_but_." Never run the cool, impertinent eye of calculation over her dress, noting the cost of each article, and summing up the amount in a contemptuous toss, whether it amounts to fifty cents or five hundred dollars, more likely when it is the latter! Never say to a gentleman who praises a lady, what a pity she squints! Never say of an authoress, oh yes--she has talent, but _I_ prefer the domestic virtues; as if a combination of the two were necessarily impossible, or as if the speaker had the personal knowledge which qualified her to pronounce on that individual case.

Well-bred, too, are women to sister woman.--Never discuss the color of her hair, or the style of its arrangement, her smile, her gait, so that she can hear every word of it. Never take it for granted that she is making a dead-set at a man, to whom she is only replying--"Very well, I thank you, sir." Never sit in church and stare her out of countenance, while mentally taking her measure, or nudge some one to look at her, while recapitulating within ear-shot all the contemptible gossip which weak-minded, empty-headed women are so fond of retailing.

Now just let a dear woman visit you. Don't you _know_ that her eyes are peering into every corner and crevice of your house all the while she is "_dear_"-ing and "_sweet_"-ing you? Don't you know that her lynx eyes are on the carpet for possible spots, or mismatched roses? Don't she touch her fingers to the furniture for stray particles of dust? Don't she hold her tumblers up to the light, and examine microscopically the quality of your table-cloths and napkins, and improvise an errand into your kitchen to inspect your culinary arrangements, to the infinite disgust of Bridget? Don't she follow you like a spectre all over the house, till you are as nervous as a cat in a cupboard? Don't she sit down opposite you for dreary hours, with folded hands, and that horse-leech--"now-talk-to-me" air--which quenches all your vitality--and sets you gaping, as inevitably as a minister's "_seventeenthly_."

Ah, the children! How could I forget the little children? _I clasp the hand of universal woman on that_; Heaven knows I don't want to misrepresent them. And after all, do I ever allow anybody to abuse them but me? Never!

* * * * *

There are many kinds of women. Of course I adore them all; but there is one who excites my unfeigned astonishment. I allude to the rabbit woman. She has four chins and twelve babies. She has two dresses--a loose calico wrapper for home wear, and a black silk for "meetin'." She eats tremendously, and never goes out; she calls her husband "Pa." She is quite content to roll leisurely from her rocking-chair in the nursery to the dining-room table, and thence back again, year in and year out. She knows nothing that is passing in the outside world, nor cares. She never touches a book or a newspaper, not even when she is rocking her baby to sleep, and might. She never troubles herself about Pa, so long as he don't get in her way, or sit on the twelve babies. She has a particular fondness for the child who cries the most, and won't go to sleep without a stick of candy in each fist. She has a voice like an auctioneer, and prefers cabbage to any vegetable extant.

"Pa" is devoted to her, _i. e._, he calls her My dear, and as soon as he enters the house, before hanging up his hat, kisses all the twelve children immediately, whether dirty or clean, and inquires tenderly after her health: keeps her stupid on a full diet, and flirts desperately, at a safe distance, behind her back.

Secondly, there is the _prim_ woman, with her mouth always in a prepared state to whistle; who crosses over if she sees a man coming, and tosses up the end of her shawl when she sits down, lest she should crease it; who keeps her parasol in several layers of tissue-paper when not on duty: puts her two shoes on the window-sill "to air" every night, and suggests more indelicacy by constantly running away from it, then she could ever find by the most zealous search.

Thirdly, there is your butterfly woman, who, provided her wings are gay and gauzy, is not particular where she alights. Who cannot exist out of the sunbeams, and dreads a rainy day like an old gown. Who values her male acquaintance according to their capabilities for trotting her to balls, operas and parties, and giving her rings and bouquets. Who spoils all the good looks she has, trying to make herself "look better," and turns into a very ordinary caterpillar after marriage.

Fourthly, there is your library woman, steeped in folios; steeped in languages, both living and dead; steeped in ologies, steeped in politics; who walks round a baby as if it were a rattle-snake, and if she was born with a heart, never has found it out.

Fifthly, there is your female viper--your cat--your hyena. All claws, nails and tongue. Wiry, bloodless, snappy, narrow, vindictive; lapping up your life-blood with her slanders, and clawing out your warm, palpitating heart. Out on her!

Sixthly, there is your woman--pretty or plain, it matters not; lady-like by nature; intelligent, but not pedantic; modest, yet not prudish; strong-hearted, but not "strong-minded" (as that term is at present perverted); no "scholar," and yet well read; no butterfly, and yet bright and gay. Merry without noise, silent without stupidity, religious without fanaticism, capable of an opinion, and yet able to hold her tongue. If married, not of necessity sinking into a mere machine; if unmarried, occupying herself with other things than husband-hunting. Liking books, yet not despising needles and brooms; genial, unaffected, good-natured; with an active brain, and a live heart under lock and key. God bless her! wherever she is, for she redeems all the rest.

* * * * *

Do you suppose that the woman ever lived who would _prefer_ single to married life had she ever met with a man whom she could really love? I have seen cold, intellectual women, _apparently_ self-poised and self-sustained, gliding like the moon on their solitary path alone, diffusing light, perhaps, but no warmth; to the superficial observer looking as carelessly down upon joy as upon sorrow; but no power on earth could persuade me, that beneath that smooth ice there smouldered no volcano; no reasoning persuade me that those fingers would not rather have been twisting a baby's soft curls, than turning the leaves of musty folios; no negative shake of the head, or forced laugh, prevent my eyes from following with sorrowful looks the woman who was trying to make herself believe such a lie. Let her pile her books shelf upon shelf, and scribble till her pen, ink, paper, thoughts, eyes and candle give out;--and then let her turn round and face her woman's heart if she dare! I defy her to stop long enough to listen one half hour to its pleadings. I defy her to sit down in the still moonlight and look on, while old memories in mournful procession defile before her soul's mirror, without a smothered cry of anguish. I defy her to listen to the brook's ripple, the whispered leaf-music, or to look at the soft clouds, the quiet stars, the blossoming flowers, the little pairing birds as they build their nests--and above all, upon a mother with her babe's arms about her neck--without turning soul-sick away. She is _not_ a woman if she can do otherwise. She is not a woman if she can be satisfied with clasping her own arms over a waist which belongs to nobody but herself. I declare her to be a machine--a stick--and carved in straight instead of undulating lines; she's an icicle--an ossification--a petrifaction--an abortion--a monster--let her keep her stony eyes and cold fingers off me; she has no place in this living, breathing, panting, loving world. Out upon her for a walking mummy--leave her to her hieroglyphics, which are beyond my understanding.

Pshaw--there are no such women; they are only making the best of what they can't help; they are eating their own hearts and make no sign dying. They ought all to be wives and mothers. Cats, poodle-dogs, parrots--plants, canaries and vestry meetings--are nothing to it. No woman ever has the faintest glimpse into heaven till she has nursed her own baby; in fact, I half doubt if she has earned a right to go there till she has legitimately had one.

Now were I an old maid--had no man endowed me with the names of wife and mother, I would not go round the world whining about it, either in prose or verse, any more than I would affect a stoicism, transparent to every beholder; I would just adopt the first fat baby I could find, though I had to work my fingers to the bone to keep its little mouth filled. I _would_ have some motive to live--something to work for--something, in flesh and blood, which I could call my own:--some little live, warm thing to put my cheek against when my heart ached. Unprotected!--"A little child" with its pure presence, should be my protection. I _wouldn't_ dry up and blow off like a useless leaf, with the warm, fragrant sunshine and blue sky about me, and my heart beating against my breast like a trip-hammer. My little room _shouldn't_ be cheerless and voiceless. I _wouldn't_ die till some little voice had called me "mother," though my blood did not flow in its rosy veins. I _would_ have something to make sunshine in my heart and home; my nature shouldn't be like a tree growing close to a stone wall, only one half of which had a chance to develop, only one half of which caught the air and light and sunshine--no, I would tear myself up by the roots, and turn round and replant myself. _Some_ bird should come, make its home with me, and sing for me; else what use were my sheltering leaves? Better the lightning should strike me, or the woodman's axe cut me down.

* * * * *

Men who have any physical defect, are apt to imagine that it will forever be a barrier between them and woman's love. There never was a greater mistake than this, as has been proved again and again in love's history. Not a hundred years since, nor a hundred miles distant, we heard of a young girl who had become strongly attached to a young man who was blind in one eye; _and for that very reason_! He was sensitive about his infirmity to that degree, that he shrank from general society, particularly that of ladies, whose presence seemed to make him morbidly miserable; so much had he exaggerated what he was quite unaware would call forth sympathy, instead of ridicule, from any _true_ woman. The young girl, of whom we speak, knowing what we have related about him, though personally a stranger to the young man, had insensibly, through her pity, begun to love, and was then earnestly seeking some way in which, without compromising her modesty, she could encourage his notice of her. One thing you may always be sure of. No woman is in love with a man whom she freely praises, and of whom she oftenest speaks; but if there is one whom she _never_ names, if she start and blush when others name him, if she can find no voice to answer the most common-place question he addresses her, if she avoid him, and will have none of him, if she pettishly find fault with him when he is commended to her notice by others, look sharp, for that is _the_ man.

_CONCERNING THE MISTAKES ABOUT OUR CHILDREN._

I believe every one is of the opinion that children should be taught civility; but there is one way that they are tortured, in the zealous parental endeavor to teach them politeness, which seems to us deserving of the severest reprehension. Some person comes to the house, it may be a valued and worthy friend, who is unfortunately repulsive in appearance and manners. Mamma tells Johnny to "go kiss" the lady, or gentleman, as the case may be. Now Johnny, like other human beings, has his personal preferences, and in a case like this especially, prefers spontaneity. He may obey, it is true, but it is a question when a simple recognition would have answered, whether an act involving hypocrisy were not better omitted. I speak from experience, remembering well the horror with which I looked forward, in my childhood, to the periodical visits of a snuffy old person. I think my uncompromising hatred of tobacco in every form, dates back to those forced snuffy kisses, followed in many cases by actual nausea, and in all by a vigorous facial ablution on my part, after the repulsive ceremony. To this day, a colored silk handkerchief, of the antique pattern most affected by snuff-takers, affects me as does the sight of a red shawl, a belligerent rooster, or bull.

That horrible colored silk handkerchief! preferred to a white one, for a reason which makes one's flesh creep, and one's blood run cold, fumbled ever and anon from the stifling depths of a huge pocket, and flourished with its resurrectionized effluvia, under your disgusted and averted nose. Excuse my speaking with feeling, dear reader, for even in these later days have I sacrificed many a comfortable seat in a public conveyance that those infatuated lovers of the weed in every shape might have a wide berth for their noisome atmosphere. Now, to force a little child, fresh and sweet, with a breath like a bunch of spring violets, to contact with such impolite persons, for the sake of "_politeness_" seems to me an act of tyranny worthy of Nero.

* * * * *

Some mothers seem unwilling to recognize a child's individuality. "She is such a strange child--so different from other children," a mother remarked in my hearing, with a sigh of discontent; as if all children should be made after one model; as if one of the greatest charms of life were not individuality; as if one of the dearest, and weariest, and least improving, and most stagnating things in the world, were not a family or neighborhood which was only a mutual echo and re-echo.

"Different from other children!" Well--_let her be different_; you can't help it if you would--you ought not if you could. It is not your mission, or that of any parent, to crush out this or that faculty, or bias, which is God-implanted for wise purposes. You are only to modify and direct such by judicious counsel. A child who thinks for itself, prefers waiting upon itself, and is naturally self-sustained, is of course much more trouble than a heavy-headed child, who "stays put" wherever and however you choose to "dump" him down; but it is useless to ask which, with equally good training, will be the most efficient worker in the great life-field. Suppose he _does_ question your opinions occasionally, don't be in a hurry to call it "impertinence;" don't be too lazy or too dignified to argue the matter with him; thank God rather, that his faculties are wide awake and active. Nor does it necessarily follow that such a child must be contumacious or disobedient. Such a nature, however, should be tenderly dealt with, Firm yet _gentle_ words--never injustice or harsh usage. You may tell such a child to "hold its tongue" when it corners you in an argument, often, without any intentional disrespect, but you cannot prevent its thinking. It should not follow that a young person must, as a matter of course, though they mostly do, adopt the parental religious creed. Some parents I have known unwise enough to insist upon this. A forced faith for the wear and tear of life's trials, is but a broken reed to lean upon. On these subjects talk yourself; let your child talk, and then let him, like yourself, be free to think and choose, when this is done.

Out of twenty violets in a garden, you shall not find any two alike, but this does not displease you. One is a royal purple, another a light lilac; one flecked with little bright golden spots, another shaded off with different tints of the same violet color, with a delicacy no artist could improve. You plant them, and let them all grow and develop according to their nature, now and then plucking off a dead leaf, now loosening the earth about the roots, or watering or giving it shade or sunshine, as the case may be, but you don't try to erase the delicate tints upon its leaves and substitute others which you fancy are better. No human fingers could recreate what you would mar--you know that; so you bend over it lovingly, and let it nod to the breeze, and bend pliantly to the shower, or lift its sweet face, when the sun shines out, and through all its various changes you do not sigh for monotony. So, when I see a family of children, I like the mother's blue eyes reproduced, and the father's black eyes. I like the waving, sunny locks, and the light brown, and the raven; I like the peach-blossom skin, and the gipsy olive, round the same hearthstone, all rocked in the same cradle. Each is beautiful of its kind; the variety pleases me. Just so I like diversity in regard to temperament and mental faculties. Each have their merits; Heaven forbid they should be rolled and swathed up like mental mummies, bolt upright, rigid, and fearfully repeated; no collision of mind to strike out new ideas, no progress, no improvement. Surely this is not the age for that.

A public toast recently given runs thus; "Our parents: the only tenders who never misplaced a switch."

Now you may laugh at that--so did I--but where could you find a greater fib? Many a time and oft have parents laid the switch on their children's backs, when they should have applied it to their own; many a time has the lash which should have descended upon the back of the favorite, fallen upon his much abused brother's. There is nothing in creation which parents so often misplace as the switch; and it need not of necessity be a birchen rod or a ferule; there are switches which cut deeper than either, of which many a ruined man and woman can tell you.

I knew two children--one blundering, but honest, sincere, self-reliant, speaking the plain truth on all occasions without qualification, making his requests in few words, and smothering his disappointment as best he might when refused. The other, wily, diplomatic, Chesterfieldian, ever with a soft word on the tip of his tongue, to pave the way for the much desired boon, which was never refused, so winning, so courteous, so apparently respectful was the seeker. Follow these two children. See the latter in the play-ground, boasting to his young associates what he has got from the "old gentleman" or the "old lady," boasting what he will yet get--boasting that he knows how to do it; rehearsing to them the disgusting pantomime of the caress, the respectful, deferential attitude which he uses on such occasions. Follow the other to his little room at the top of the house; see him sitting in gloomy silence, too proud to weep, too proud to complain, brooding over the injustice done him--not hating the fraternal owner of the "coat of many colors," no thanks to those who gave them both birth, but looking into the far dim future with that wistful longing which comes of unloved, precocious childhood; sitting there--with his own hand turning the poisoned arrow round and round in the festering wound, incapable of extracting it, and yet knowing no balm to assuage its intolerable anguish.