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Fern Fanny
Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.

BETTY'S SOLILOQUY

Hard to live out? Well, that's just as you choose to take it. Some folks have no faculty at getting along in this world. My name is Easy, and my nature is ditto. When I go to a place I always say "yes" to everything they ask me. I never make an objection to doing anything; of course, my mistress likes that; as to really doing all I promise to do, leave me alone to manage that, with as innocent a face as the baby I take care of. Now, for instance, suppose she sends me up into the nursery to get the child asleep. It is tiresome work; there's a great deal of coaxing, and twisting, and wriggling, and rocking, and singing to be done, before that can be brought about; and it tires me, and I don't like it. But of course I reply, "Certainly, ma'am," when she bids me, and I take the child upstairs. Then I sit down with it; and just hold it in some uncomfortable position so that it will cry loud enough to fret its mamma. Then she bears it awhile, thinking baby will stop by and by; but baby somehow don't stop. Then she comes up and says to me, "Betty what do you think can ail baby!" And I kiss it and hold it up to my face, and say, "Poor little dear, I am afraid it has a bad stomach ache; it won't be easy – anyhow I try;" and then she says, "Well, I'll take it awhile, Betty, and see if I can't soothe it asleep;" and I say, "Oh no, ma'am, it is a pity you should tire yourself with the child;" and she seeing me so willing, just takes it – don't you see? That's the way to do. There's no use in fighting one's way through the world, when a little cunning answers just as well. Well, then my mistress likes baby to go out of doors a great deal. Now, as a general thing, I never engage to live with a lady who don't keep her own carriage, on that account. It's very nice to be sent out in a carriage with the baby, for an airing, with John, the coachman, particularly when John is agreeable, which is sometimes the case. It makes a body feel like somebody to say, "John, you may drive here, or, John, you may drive there." But of course one cannot always get a place to one's mind; and so when my mistress uses her feet instead of a carriage, she needn't think that I shall do it any more than I can possibly help. So when she tells me to take baby out, I say, "Yes'em," as I always do, respectfully, I hope – and out I go, and make for the first kitchen where I have a pleasant acquaintance, and baby can wait till we get through our gossip, which is not very soon. Of course, I never take a little tell-tale of an older child with me on such occasions. I tell mistress I'm so afraid of its getting run over, or something, while I'm minding baby. Then as to my "privileges," I hope I know enough to have one of my friends sick or dead if I want an evening out. There can't anything be said against that, you know, if one is only judicious enough not to have it happen too often. Sometimes I come across a mistress who is too keen for me. Now I never like to live with a lady who has gray eyes; in that case we have a mutual inclination to part, of course; but as a general thing, I find my way of managing "fust-rate," because I give no "impudence," you see, which is what most ladies are so touchy about. As to "conscience," humph! where are their "consciences," I'd like to know? It is a poor rule that won't work both ways. I should be worn to a skeleton if I kept a conscience.

Bridal Presents. – If brides could only hear the conversations that are held over the "bridal presents" by the givers! Their weary yawns while pondering how much must be expended, and how little may; and wishing heartily the whole system were exploded, in favor of their pockets. If brides could hear this, they would quietly and with dignity announce, "No presents received," even without any reservations as to relationship. It is of no use talking of the "good old days," we suppose; as well might one ask a confirmed epicure to adjure his Cayenne, and highly spiced diet for plain, wholesome, nutritious food; so, with a passing sigh for the days when sentiment, modesty, and economy had not yet gone out of fashion, we give it up.

MY DREADFUL BUMP OF ORDER

I have just been reading a "sweet" article, headed "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation," in which the writer looks through his "glory spectacles" upon the delights of plenty of elbow-room in the dear old house; good fare, and one's little personal hourly comforts generally. All very well. But what of the carpets to be shaken and steamed, or the new ones to be made? What of the painting and whitewashing, and cleaning out of cellars and closets? What of the new kitchen-range, and the new oilcloth for the floor? What of the plumbing and roof painting? What of the winter's coal to get in, which paterfamilias always "forgets" to order till the fall house-cleaning is done? What of upholsterers and painters and plumbers, who begin a job, and finish it whenever the gods will? What of crisp, sunny, lovely autumn mornings spent in the delightful atmosphere of an "Intelligence Office" six feet by eight, while answering the following questions: "Any children in the family? Have you an English basement? Have you a servant's parlor? Do you put out your washing? Does your cook wash the dishes? Do you use such and such a kitchen-range?" All of which questions, answered in the affirmative, giving you the inestimable boon of a poor cook, at sixteen, eighteen, or twenty dollars a month, with liberty to have her "cousins" visit her at will. After that comes your waitress, and if you want to preserve your senses you had better end there, without encumbering yourself with more "help."

There is nothing said about all this in the "sweet" article alluded to, called "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation." I didn't see anything in it either about the children's dilapidated wardrobe, to be then replenished, with dress-makers knee-deep in engagements, and "Furnishing Stores for Children's Outfits," containing only lace and ruffles, to wear to school. As to your own wardrobe, if you are possessed of a black silk, or alpaca, or Cashmere walking-suit, blessed are you among women – for then you at least are always presentable in public.

Well, after all this, there is a chance that the new cook, not admiring the new waitress, whom you happen to like, may conclude to quarrel her off, in order to fill the vacancy with a raw "cousin" just from shipboard: and directly, when you think the family machine is at last oiled, and in motion for the winter, and you are taking breath upon that idea, in comes the irate waitress, and you are "to choose, ma'am, if you please, between me and the cook, for indeed the house will not hold both of us," and so on, and so forth.

Here most lady housekeepers come to the end of their calamities. But suppose you help to earn the family bread and butter as a writer? Then may the gods send you patience, or a new set of nerves and muscles and brains! May the gods preserve you from reading yourself the crudities you give to the public for base lucre! May the gods sustain you under the torturing reflection, how much better literary work you know yourself to be capable of, had you only a fair chance at your freshest moments, and could you inaugurate that "system" in your household to which Intelligence Offices are an insurmountable obstacle; which you, New England born and bred, adore and understand, but yet can never bring about with any "increase of wages," or even personal supervision; not, at least, while the demand for household servants is always greater than the supply, and they can make their own terms, and exhaust your vitality much faster than they can their own vocabulary of abuse.

Knowing thoroughly this side of "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation," I perused the article with this heading, with the corners of my mouth slightly drawn down, and the end of my nose slightly turned up. And if any lady remarks, in reply, that she "admires housekeeping in all its details," I can only say, that I have observed that slack housekeepers generally do, as their topsy-turvy cupboards bear witness. And I also unhesitatingly affirm that no thorough housekeeper, in the present day of incompetent, careless servants, who desires time for anything else save the hourly needs of the body, can conscientiously make such assertion; although, as wife and mistress, she may not at the same time refuse to meet the consequent exhaustive demands upon her vitality; that is, so long as she can possibly bear the strain.

It is a trying thing to have the bump of order too fully developed. Now I have trotted across this room twenty times to pick up little bits of thread and shining pins, that offended my eye, upon this floor. I positively couldn't write till I had done it. Then that vase was placed a little awry when the room was dusted, and I had to get up and settle its latitude and longitude. The hearth, too, had some ashes upon it, and there was a shawl on the sofa that should have been in the closet. Then there was an ink-spot on my thumb that had to be removed, and my desk had a speck or two of dust on the corner. All these things bothered me; and then I fell thinking whether it were not, after all, better not to have quite so sharp an eye for these things; that perhaps editors were right who had their office windows so thickly crusted with dirt that they could not tell whether it were a rainy or a sunshiny day from indoor observation. That perhaps they were right in heaping breast-high upon their office desks papers, books, MSS., letters, pencils, pens, gloves, hats, and cigar-stumps, varied with engravings and dirty pocket-handkerchiefs. Perhaps they were right in never sweeping their floors, and leaving it to their visitors to dust their chairs with their clothes. Really it is quite a question with me this morning, whether the bump of order is not a nuisance, even to a woman. Now at any chance table where I may lunch, I have regularly to re-locate the cups, saucers, and dishes, before I begin, placing them where their geographical relation will be most harmonious. If the folds in the table-cloth run the wrong way, I assure you I am quite miserable; and a missing stopper to the vinegar cruet drives me to despair. Then I endeavor so to regulate my bureau drawers and closets that a visit to them in the darkest night, without a light, for any article, would be eminently successful. Till, "Now, who has been here," has come to be a miserable joke against me, by the happy creatures who cannot comprehend, that to misplace my gloves, or handkerchiefs, or ribbons, or veil, is to cause my too susceptible heart an exquisite anguish, beside wasting my precious time in fruitless hunts for the same.

Then I may be very tired when I return at twelve o'clock at night from some visit or place of amusement; but no amount of reasoning could avail to get me to bed till my bonnet, cloak, and dress were put away in their appropriate places. I am sorry to confess that unless I did this, visions of Betty and a broom in possible connection with them, the next morning, would quite interfere with my slumbers. You may laugh at all this; but 'tis I who would laugh at you in the morning, when you are spending the best hours of the day in flying distractedly round for some missing article which you cannot do without, and which, of course, nobody has seen. If "Order is Heaven's first law," as my school copy-book used to assert, my initiatory carefulness here below may not be, after all, without its value. Still, I do not forget that there was once a Martha who was rebuked for "being careful and troubled about many things."

But stay a bit: can you tell me why, when one's room is what they call "put to rights," the table which has a drawer in it should always be so left by Bridget that the drawer side faces the wall? Or why, when a basin of water is in use, to cleanse spots from paint, it should always be placed near the door, that the first comer may enjoy an impromptu foot-bath? Why, in moving a vase, or any other fragile article, it is always so located, that breakage is inevitable? Why should dust-pans be left in dark entries, or stairways, to the sudden precipitation of some unsuspecting victim? Why, when a broom is off duty, should it be "stood up" where the handle is sure to make thumping acquaintance with one's nose? Why should soiled towels be abstracted, before replacing them with fresh ones, and you left to make the harrowing discovery with dripping finger-ends? Oh! tell me why need your bonnet be put in the coal-scuttle, and your muddy gaiter-boots in the bandbox? Why should your "honey-soap" be used to wash the hearth? Why, when you beseech that blankets, and sheets, and coverlets, should be tucked harmoniously in at the bottom of the bed, should your toes make unwilling acquaintance, every night, with the cold foot-board? Why, when you request that a door should be kept shut, is it always left wide open? and why, when you are in a gasping condition, should it be carefully closed, spite of repeated remonstrance?

Gentle Shepherd, tell me, are pigs and Bridgets the only creatures whom heaven and earth can't stop from going east, if you desire them to go west? And the Shepherd answers —Man.

Mothers of Many Children. – "Ponder every subject with careful attention, if you wish to acquire knowledge." What is then to be the mental status of that mother who has a perpetual baby in her arms, and only time to "ponder" that baby, so weary is her body with its "ponder" – osity? Where is the Solomon to answer this question? Baby knowledge she may indeed have; but the baby will grow up by and by, and how is she to acquire "knowledge" under such circumstances, and be a fit intellectual companion for it then? That's what some people want to know, when little brothers and sisters tread so fast on each other's heels, that the mother has scarcely breathing time between.

"EVERY FAMILY SHOULD HAVE IT."

One actually gasps for breath in crowded, closetless New York to read this frequent newspaper announcement, "Every family should have it." Modern times having abolished the "garret of our forefathers with its all-embracing omnium-gatherum eaves," the prospect of dire confusion is terrible if "every family" does not turn a deaf ear to these disinterested caterers for their benefit. Alas! for that old blessed garret, the standing curiosity shop for the youngsters of a rainy or a holiday afternoon; that mausoleum of "notions" cast aside by our venerated ancestors, who undoubtedly had their little follies like their descendants. Old boxes, old tins, old baskets, old hats, old bonnets, old school-books, old bottles, did not then, as now, marshal themselves on the sidewalks, in company with coal cinders, to the disgust of every pedestrian, waiting the snail-like operations of the dirt-man, who is off duty six days out of the seven, and spills half he carries away at that, besides knocking the bottom out of every barrel when, having essayed to disembowel it, he jerks it off one wheel of his cart to the sidewalk. One needs to go to Boston or to Philadelphia occasionally to air one's nostrils and temper after it. After this, to talk of more things, each day, that "every family must have," is enough to drive one to a druggist's for speedy oblivion. What a blessing to these public and disinterested philanthropists, of "every family," are gullible housekeepers and matrons who, though cheated and bamboozled seventy times seven, are still on hand for the latest sham – "improvement." Credulous souls! How do their husbands count over to them on warning marital fingers the dismal amount thus uselessly expended! Not that they themselves do not, and have not, erred in the same way; but who is going to have the superhuman courage to tell these sinless beings so? But after all, far be it from me to say that there are not many things that "every family must have;" and one of these is a baby. Not that they too are not occasionally dumped unceremoniously and heartlessly on the sidewalk; but that don't alter the fact, that a house without a baby is no house at all. Another thing that "every family must have," is a Doctor; also a Minister. Who ever heard of a woman without these two confidential friends – what would become of her if she couldn't make a good cup of tea for the latter, and tell the other her real and imaginary aches? And if she knows anything, can't she always choose her own sanitary prescriptions, all the same as if there were no diploma in her Doctor's pocket?

I will not stop to inquire whether this advertisement-heading is a disinterested one, or whether they who deal in such things are conversant with the respective sizes of our houses, or families, or both; or whether new complications of pots and pans, and tea-kettles, and gridirons, and egg-beaters, and clothes-wringers, and the like, will only wring to utter extinction the already muddled heads of our unscientific "help" and the depleted purses of housekeepers, consequent upon their unthrift. We only wish to remind these disinterested shopkeepers, who would fain take in verdant housekeepers, that houses nowadays are mainly constructed without garrets, without cellars, without closets, without any lumber place whatsoever, where the wrecks of these articles "that no family can do without," can be ultimately stranded. Their wares are, to be honest, often tempting enough to look at; beautiful in their shining freshness, and deliciously suggestive of good roasts and stews and broils —awfully suggestive of the latter! – but "terrible as an army with banners," when contemplating "Intelligence offices"; though why "intelligence" when anything but that is to be had there, I have heretofore failed to see.

Another question I would ask these disinterested persons who have so many "articles no family can do without: " Did they ever hear of the First of May? Have they a realizing sense of what it is to "move"? Will they tell us, when moving carts are already bursting with "the things no family can do without," and the sidewalk refuses to receive the remainder, and the new tenant won't have them at any price, and you are wild with despair that it is impossible for you to be divorced from them – will they tell us, at that halcyon moment, if they really contemplated, in the affluence of their desires to furnish our houses, that they might be the means of sending us to a lunatic asylum?

Beggars are useful at such times, if they only wouldn't sort out the horrid heap of broken and disabled things that "the family can" now do very well "without," directly in the path of the moving carts, and before your afflicted eyes, that are quite ready to close on all things here below, so intense is your disgust of them.

The words "do without" convey to me a very different meaning now than of yore. A new dumping-ground must be invented in New York before I patronize any more inventions. I'm for condensing instead of expanding things, till our city masters find time to attend to that. Nobody need ring my door-bell with "patent" anything, while it is so patent that there is no vacant space in Manhattan for anything new under the sun. My nature is not conservative; but one can't be pushed into the East river, when it is so full of the "things that no family can do without," that there is not room enough left there even to sink.

GETTING TO RIGHTS

There! I breathe again! The household is at last wound up – carpets down, house-cleaning accomplished; all the "pretties" located in the most effective places; my flowers and ivies luxuriant; my desk newly fitted up; everything thriving save myself; but that's no consequence, I suppose. My play-day is over, and now I must buckle down to realities. Still one's home is lovely after the jar of the creaking machinery used in getting it in order has ceased. Your own chair, just fitted to your weary back; your own convenient dressing-room and glass, with all your little duds close to your hand; gas, instead of kerosene; bell-wires ready to your hand, instead of having to descend stairs and do your own errands; food cooked your own way, and just when you want it; and over and above all, to be able to say what shall, and what shall not, be inside your front door. May the gods make us thankful so far! But if I could get a breath of dear Newport now, before I buckle down to work; if I could have just one drive more in my horse and phaeton round the "ocean road," and smell the good salt breeze, and see the crisp white foam of the dashing waves, I think it would quite set me up for the winter campaign. As to my horse, I know he wants me as much as I do him. I don't think he has made much, in exchanging my free and go-easy "chirrup" for the lash of the whip. I wish I were a man, and then I could drive here in the city; but I ain't, you see, and so I shall have to get the snarl out of my tired nerves some other way.

Let us change the subject. Is it not funny how a man will go on inspecting your efforts to get a house to rights? Is it not funny how he never can tell how "a thing is going to look," till every accessory is perfected? Now he says, "What made you choose that dull carpet, nobody can tell." You reply, "Because it is capable of such brilliant contrasts in color." He shakes his head, having no imagination to help him out, and thinks it "a blunder." You smile serenely, knowing your ground, and bide your time, while he croaks. By and by, some day, when he has gone out, the little bits of color are added by you, here and there: a bright vase, or a cushion, or a stand of flowers, or the color of a mat judiciously chosen; and my gentleman walks in, and says, "Why, who would have thought it? it is really lovely!" That, of course, is only setting himself down for a goose; but when is ever a man anything else, when he attempts to criticise a woman's housekeeping in any of its departments? You despise his encomiums now, and with nose in air, walk round among your flowers and pretties, as if to say, "In future, sir, confine yourself to Grad-grind matters that you understand, and leave the decorative part of your existence to one who – Hem!"

I ache from head to foot with my herculean efforts to bring things in this house to a bright New England focus. But I am not sorry, because I can now put to rout some articles lately written, by a very bright woman too, on "the inexactness of hired women's work, as compared to the fidelity and exactness of hired men's work." I am happy to state, that after my new parlor carpets were nailed down, by men too, I discovered several little blocks of wood and other nuisances underneath, which should have been first removed; thus perilling the future wear of my pretty new carpet. I am happy to state too, that the papering done by men was not to my mind, or according to my order, and had to be done over again. I rejoice to say that my window-shades are not yet forthcoming, according to a man's promise; and that it was only by personal supervision that my cellar was thoroughly cleansed by a man, as he agreed it should be. In short, I don't want to hear any more on the "exactness of man's work," since he can fib, and slight things, with an adroitness worthy of a woman, and I am sure I couldn't put the case any stronger.

Now I am going to fold my hands and be comfortable. I can't have my horse this winter, and so I sha'n't sigh any more for him; but if I live till the spring, that horse, or some other, has got to help me get rid of this world's cares and perplexities every blessed sunny afternoon. Let us trust that he is fattening up on oats paid and provided for in the stable of some philanthropist unknown to me. I have had so much of the details lately, that I shall be quite satisfied with results without inquiring further.

I wish I were a voter: I would vote for the officials who would take a little interest in the household ash-barrel. It may be too much to ask that the McGormicks, and McCormicks, and O'Flahertys, who are paid for emptying these utensils – when it don't rain, and when they don't forget it – should not empty the contents on the pavement, and then half shovel them up, to save themselves the exertion of lifting the barrels, which they always throw down upon their sides, to roll wheresoever the gods or idle boys will. It may be too much to ask that they should amend their ways in these particulars; but were every lady housekeeper a voter, as, thank Providence, they are sure to be some day or other, these gentlemen would either have to toe the mark, or be run over by the new wheel of progress.

Meantime, it is of little use for Bridget to sweep the sidewalk, or keep the gutter free, as she often pathetically remarks to me, when she goes forth to perform this matutinal duty. Now, as the tools used in my profession keep sharper and freer from rust, in the air of Manhattan, than elsewhere, I cannot be expected to vacate for the dry-dirt-man. The only alternative that I know of is, that he shall vacate for me, and make room for more executive officials. That's logic, if it is feminine. In short, I want those men to take a little journey somewhere – I'm not particular where, so that they don't come back.

It grows clearer to me, every day, as I observe these one-horse arrangements, why women are not allowed to vote: there would be little margin then for all this cheating, this pocketing of salaries without an equivalent. The sidewalks, gutters, streets would be as clean as a parlor floor. No old boxes, or kegs, or boots and shoes, past their prime, would challenge our eyes, or our noses. The drinking-places would be disgorged of husbands, fathers, lovers, and brothers; also the billiard and gambling saloons. In short, the broom of reform would raise such a dust in the eyes of the how-not-to-do-its, that, when their vision was restored, they would ask, like the old woman whose skirts were curtailed while taking her nap, if "this be I?"

Meantime I wait – not patiently – for this millennium. It galls me – this dirt and thriftlessness – more in the Autumn than at any other time. In the Spring it is sufficiently odious; but then one is on the wing for the country, and that hope buoys a housekeeper under it. In the Winter the friendly, pure white snow comes, with its heavenly mantle of charity, to cover it sometimes. But who or what shall comfort the housekeeper in the lingering, golden days of the Indian Summer, when fresh from the pure air of the country, and the brilliant foliage of the valleys, and the lovely shadows on the hillsides, she is doomed to see, to smell, to breathe whatever of pollution and unthrift our city fathers choose, without the power to cast the vote that shall give us a clean city?

Meantime, as I say, I wait —not patiently – for that desired millennium; and shall continue, with a touching faith in it, to keep flowering plants in my windows, and in other ways to signify, to the passer-by, that dirt and unsightliness, and bad odors, are not and never have been, the normal condition of woman.

Our Morning Meal. – Breakfast should be the most enlivening meal of the whole day, for then we are to be nerved for another day's duties and cares, and perhaps for great sorrows also. Let there be no exciting argument, from which personalities may crop out, around the breakfast table. Let there be, if possible, only pleasant topics, and affectionate salutations, that all may go forth their separate ways with sweet, peaceful memories of each other; for some foot may never again cross the family threshold, some eye never witness another day's dawning. This thought, if the busy world were not so clamorous as to stifle it, would often arrest the impatient, fretful words that pain so many tender hearts.