The situation of a waiting-maid is, in some families, one of hard bondage. It seems as if her employers had forgotten that she is made of flesh and blood, and is therefore capable of having an aching head and weary limbs. She must run at the call of the various bells throughout the house, and no matter how tired she becomes, there is no rest for the sole of her foot. If the unfortunate being is a homeless, motherless little girl, or a friendless foreigner, so much the worse. By a little consideration on the part of the lady, or ladies, of a family, such hard requisitions might be avoided without any real sacrifice of comfort. Our happiness is promoted by the cultivation of such habits that we shall not need the constant attendance of another to save us from exertion.
If your domestics cannot read, offer to teach them, and devote several half hours to their instruction during the week, and an additional hour on Sunday. It is a religious duty, a part of every Christian's _mission_. Encourage in them a taste for reading, by keeping useful and entertaining books in the kitchen. A love of rational pleasure will thus be promoted, and the effect be every way beneficial.
Let the least possible amount of labor be required from those who serve you, on Sunday. This ought to be a needless injunction in this country; but many a professor of religion, living on the soil trodden by the puritan pilgrims, provides a better dinner for the Sabbath than for any other day. Religion forbids such a practice; but, aside from this consideration, family comfort is essentially promoted by quietness and freedom from care on the Lord's day. Domestics, whatever be their religious predilections, uniformly regard it a great privilege to be exempt from cooking on that day. It is easy, by a little good management, to provide a dinner, nice enough for any table in the land, without even kindling a fire. In the summer this is done in many families; and in the winter, when a fire is of course always burning, a cup of tea, or a dish of vegetables, can be added to the cold articles already provided, without keeping any one from church for the purpose.
In concluding these suggestions, the writer cannot refrain from adding a few words of sympathy and encouragement for those who, having passed their youth in affluent ease, or in the delights of study, are obliged, by the vicissitudes of life, to spend their time and strength in laborious household occupations. There are many such instances in this country, particularly in the great Western Valley. Adversity succeeds prosperity like a sudden inundation, and sweeps away the possessions and the hopes of multitudes. The poor and uneducated are often rapidly elevated to wealthy independence, while the refined and highly educated are compelled to taste the bitterness of poverty; and minds capable of any attainment, and that would grace any station, are doomed to expend their energies in devising methods for the hands to earn a scanty livelihood.