Abby Morton Diaz

The Schoolmaster's Trunk, Containing Papers on Home-Life in Tweenit.

(J. R. Osgood, 1874)

I.

THE SLAVES OF THE ROLLING-PIN.

Pies again! Always pies! One, two, three, four, this is the fifth time, within, say, ten days or a fortnight, that, to my knowledge, pies have stood in the way of better things.

First, my hostess, Mrs. Fennel, could not leave to take a ride with me a few mornings ago, because "we are entirely out of—pies." Mrs. Fennel, poor woman, is far from well, and what with husband, grown-up boys, and two small children, not to mention myself as boarder, she has a large family to cook for, and only her daughter Martha to help do the work. That breezy morning-ride would have raised her spirits; it would have put new life into her: but—pies. (This is one time.) Then Miss Martha, who is fond of reading, declined the loan of my library-book the other day on account of having to help her mother make--pies. (Two times.) Last evening she could not run up on the hill to see the sun set, because they were trying to get the meat and apple ready over night for--pies. (Three times.) When poor Mrs. Fennel was taken off her work the other day by one of her frequent ill-turns, Mrs. Melendy came in with offers of assistance.

"Now I can stay just two hours by the clock," said Mrs. Melendy in her sprightly way; "and what shall I take hold of first? Shall I tidy up the room, read to you, bathe your head, make you some good gruel? Or, else, shall I take hold of the mending, or see to the dinner, or what?"

Mrs. Fennel raised her languid lids, and faintly murmured, "Out of pies."

"Dear me!" cried breezy Mrs. Melendy, "I know what that feeling is well enough; and ‘tis a dreadful feeling! Why, I should no more dare to set out a meal’s victuals without pie than I should dare to fly! For my husband, he must have his piece o’ pie to top off with, whatever’s on the table." And the sympathizing sister bared her willing arms, and wrestled womanfully with the rolling-pin, I know not how long.

The fifth time was this morning. While sitting in the room adjoining the kitchen, the doors being open between, I heard Martha ask her mother why they could not take a magazine. "I do long for something to read!" said she; "and all we have is just one newspaper a week."

"Oh! we couldn’t get much reading-time," said Mrs. Fennel. "If 'tisn’t one thing, ‘tis another, and sometimes both. There’s your father, now, coming with the raisins. These pies will take about all the forenoon." Miss Martha afterward spoke to her father about the magazine.

"We can’t afford to spend money on readin’," he answered, in his usual drawling monotone: "costs a sight to live. Now, if we didn’t raise our own pork, we should he hard pushed to git short’nin’ for our pies."

"Pie-crust does make a slave of a woman, though," said Mrs. Fennel. "There’s nothin’ harder than standin’ on your feet all the forenoon, rollin’ of it out."

"Denno 'bout doin’ without pie," drawled Mr. Fennel. "Pears if bread’n sarse’d be a mighty poor show for somethin’ to eat."

" 'Twould take off the heft of the cookin’," said Mrs. Fennel thoughtfully; "but" (with a sigh) "you couldn’t satisfy the men-folks."

I rushed to my chamber in despair. Pie, then, is one of the household gods in Tweenit. But what can I do about it? Something must be done. Suppose I write an "Appeal to Women," and read it at the sewing-circle, pretending it was taken from a newspaper published in ----- well, in Alaska, or Australia, or the Orkney Islands. We gentlemen are expected to help along the entertainment in some way.

Hark, now, to the music of the rolling-pin sounding from below! That music shall inspire my

"APPEAL.

"My dear friends, this is an age of inquiry. Can any one tell who first imprisoned our luscious fruits in a paste of grease and flour, baptized the thing with fire, and named it pie? And why is this pie a necessity? That is what confounds me. Mothers of families, hard pressed with work, consume time and strength in endless struggles with the rolling-pin. Fathers of families lengthen their bills to shorten their pies. And all this is to what end? The destruction of health. Every stroke on the board demands strength which is worse than thrown away. Every flake of pastry is so much food which were better left uneaten. And as for the time consumed in this kind of labor, who shall count the hours which are daily rolled away, and chiefly by overburdened women, who complain of ‘no time’ and ‘no constitution’?

"One Saturday forenoon I stood on the hill which commands a view of the village. It was ‘baking-day.’ Being a clairvoyant, I looked through the roofs of the houses, and saw in every kitchen a weary woman, ‘standin’ on her feet,’ rolling, rolling, rolling. Close around some stood their own little children, tugging at their skirts, pleading for that time and attention which rightfully belonged to them. One frail, delicate woman was actually obliged to lie down and rest twice before her task was ended. Another, the mother of an infant not many months old, accomplished hers with one foot on the cradle-rocker.

"We read of despotic countries where galley-slaves were chained to the oar. They, however, after serving their time, went free. Alas for poor woman chained to the rolling-pin! Her sentence is for life.

"We read, too, in ancient story of powerful genii, whose control over their slaves was absolute; but this terrible genius of the household exacts from its slaves an equally prompt obedience. Is there one among them who dares assert her freedom?

No: their doom is inevitable. Woman is foreordained to roll her life away. Is there no escape? No escape. The rolling-board is planted squarely in the path of every little daughter; and sooner or later, if her life be spared, she will walk up to it. May we not call it an altar upon which human sacrifices are performed daily?

"I observed, on the morning just mentioned, that, in the intervals of pastry-making, the genius of the long-handled spoon took control, demanding its customary tribute of eggs, sugar, fat, spices, &c., demanding, also, the usual outlay of time and strength which goes to the compounding of cakes; and thus, with rolling, beating, and stirring, the forenoon wore away, leaving in each house its accumulation of unwholesome food.

"You do know, madam, that plain living is better for your children? You would like more time to devote to them, or for books, or for recreation? Then, pray, why not change all this? Is palate forever to rank above brain? Change your creed. Say, ‘I believe in health, in books, in outdoors.’ Why don’t you rise, slaves? Now is your time. Now, when slaves everywhere are demanding their freedom, demand yours.

"Company? Thanks for teaching me that word. The kind hospitality of this social little village of Tweenit enables me to be ‘company’ myself very frequently. And I am aware that much time is spent in the preparation of viands to set before me, which, for variety and richness, could not be excelled. Shall I add, that whenever, at the bountifully-spread tea-tables, I have attempted to start a rational conversation, the attempt usually has been a failure? Books, public men, public measures, new ideas, new inventions, new discoveries, what is doing for the elevation of women,— on none of these subjects had my entertainers a word to offer. Their talk was, almost without exception, trivial, not to say gossipy.

"Therefore, as a member of that institution, which, as everybody says, ‘makes a sight of work,’ namely, ‘company,’ I protest. I petition for less variety in food, and more culture. And your petitioner further prays, that some of the spices and good things be left out in cooking, and put into the conversation.

"But the ‘men-folks’? Ah, to be sure! Perhaps, after all, it is they who need an appeal."

II.

A WORD TO THE "MEN-FOLKS."

"What! do without cake entirely?" cries Mr. Livewell in alarm. By no means, sir! Poor human nature craves something sweet. The trouble lies in making palate king. In many families this is done at terrible cost on the part of the woman. I say terrible, because human sacrifice, in whatever shape, is terrible. And when a woman uses herself up in cooking, and, as a consequence, dies, or half-dies, what is that but human sacrifice?

It was a remark made by Mrs. Melendy which first called my attention to this subject. I had been saying something complimentary of her very interesting little family.

"Ah, yes I Mr. McKimber," she answered, "if I only knew how to bring them up as they ought to be brought up!"

I suggested that children need, more than any thing, a mother’s time and attention.

"But that’s just what they can’t have," said she; "for, to tell the truth, the three meals take about all day, so I have to turn off the children."

Mrs. Melendy is the woman whose husband "always wants his piece o’ pie to top off with."

I had frequently heard that remark in regard to the "three meals,"-- heard it unconcernedly, as relating to a subject in which I had no interest. But when it was repeated that day by Mrs. Melendy, and in that connection, I was suddenly awakened. to its full meaning; and the idea occurred to me that woman might not have been created mainly for the purpose of getting three meals a day. If she were, thought I, what a waste! for, certainly, a mere meal-getter might have been fashioned out of cheaper material.

I am a curious person for following up any subject to which my attention has been particularly directed; and, in following up this subject, I have observed closely what goes on daily under the name of housework; and I find it to be a never-ending succession of steps. Why, such an everlasting treadmill would wear out a strong man! Not only a tread-mill, but a hand-mill, and a head-mill: for hands must keep time with the feet; and, as to the head, I have often heard Mrs. Fennel tell Martha she must keep her mind on her work. And, truly, the calculating and contriving demanded by each day’s operations require some mind.

Now, I had the idea, before I was awakened by Mrs. Melendy’s remark, that woman’s work was not of much account, —just a simple matter of "puttering" about the house. The tempting food which Mrs. Fennel serves up daily stood for a very small part of the labor which it actually represents. And, but for that remark, I might have gone on eating the delicacies spread before me with no more sense of their cost than if they grew on trees, and were shaken down at meal-times. Since my eyes have been opened, however, those delicacies taste too strong of the toil to be relishable; for I see that the rows of pies on the buttery shelves, the mounds of cake, the stacks of doughnuts, do not come there by any magical "sleight o’ hand," but are wrought out of the very life of poor Mrs. Fennel, --literally, of her very life. This is not an overstatement, since it is plain to be seen that each day’s labor makes demands which her strength is unable to meet. I have observed the languid way in which she drags herself about the house, now and then dropping upon a chair; have noted, at times, -- at "hurried" times,— the worn, weary, "all gone" expression of her face; and have heard her take, oh! very often, those "long breaths," which are sure signs of a wearing-out.

Yes, the poor woman is killing herself with overwork. And when she rests, at last, beneath the turf, people will speak of the mysterious Providence which removed a wife and mother in the midst of her usefulness.

It is about time, one would think, to put a stop to this woman-killing. A harsh phrase? It is not more harsh than the truth; for, if lightening labor will prolong life, insisting upon unnecessary labor is not far removed from that crime. And this unnecessary labor is insisted upon in one way or another.

For instance, I have Mrs. Fennel’s own word for it, that pies are "the heft of’ the cooking;" have heard her speak of rolling out pastry until she was "ready to drop," of beating cake until her arms "hadn’t one mite of strength left in them." Yet, to any suggestion that these and other superfluities be omitted, the answer has invariably been, that "the men-folks wouldn’t be satisfied without them."

Mr. Fennel is a very good man; and the boys--young men of eighteen and twenty -- are very good boys. If the direct question were asked Mr. Fennel, which he most values, his wife’s life, or the nice things she prepares for the table, he would answer with horror, if he answered at all, the former. In reality, however, he answers the latter. It is the same with the boys. The men-folks can’t eat cold bread; therefore bisuits are rolled out, cut out, and baked, both morning and night; the men-folks make dependence on their cake; the men-folks must have their "piece o’ pie to top off with;" the men-folks like to have a pot of doughnuts to go to.

Now, all these things may gratify the palate; but the point is, are they worth the price that is paid for them? I confess that it fairly makes me shudder, sometimes, to see those strong men sit down at table, and, with appetites sharpened by out-of-door exercise, sweep off so unthinkingly and unthankingly the results of Mrs. Fennel’s long and weary roil. Do they not taste something in those delicacies? detect a flavoring that was never set down in any grocer’s bill? They probably do not. Long habit has so accustomed them to the flavor of this essence of life, this compound extract of backache, headache, exhaustion, prostration, palpitation, that they do not notice its presence. It would be well for them to do so, however; for it is a terribly expensive article.

Oh, no! they don’t taste any thing but what may be bought at the grocer’s, or raised on the farm. If they did, if the cost of all these dainties were once made clear to our kind-hearted men-folks, they would not only be satisfied without them, but would beg Mrs. Fennel to stop cooking them; for neither Mr. Fennel nor the boys are wanting in affection for her. Whenever, by overwork, she becomes alarmingly ill, they are ready to harness the horse, and go seven miles for the doctor at any time of day or night. Mr. Fennel never spends his money so freely as in medicine for his wife; and the boys seldom come home from the pastures without bringing her mullein, or some kind of herb, to dry. "So thoughtful of them!" the dear woman remarks with moistened eyes, and cheeks faintly flushed. If they could only be so thoughtful as to consider that rest is better for her than herbs!

All women are not as feeble as Mrs. Fennel? This is true; yet she represents a large class, and one which is rapidly increasing. Mothers of families calling themselves well and strong are hard to find. They too commonly either break down and die, or break down and live. Go into almost any town, any country village even, where pure air and other conditions of health abound, and mark in the sharpened, worn, pinched faces of its elderly women, the effects of overwork and unwholesome food.

Work is necessary. I believe in it; believe in eating too, and in eating what "tastes good," as the phrase is. But to a person of healthy appetite plain food "tastes good," and "topping off" is quite unnecessary. The words "topping off" express the exact truth: implying, that, when the stomach is already full, something is put on the top. (By the way, it is doing this, unless the something be very simple, which spoils the appetite for the next meal.) No: far be it from me to scorn the pleasures of the palate. I would by no means consider it wicked to eat, semi-occasionally, a bit of cake; and there may be times in the year when even pie would be in order. But I protest against making these things the essentials; against its being taken for granted, that in whatever press for time,—in sickness and in health, in strength and in weakness, in sorrow and in joy,-- the table must be spread with this prescribed, though needless, variety of food.

And, as it is the men-folks who are to "be satisfied," I appeal to them to "be satisfied" with that which requires less of woman’s labor and of woman's a life.