The problem of "help" was no less perplexing in Montfield than in the majority of New-England villages. Mrs. Sanford often declared that she had rather do the work for the household than "to wait upon the hired girl;" but her husband insisted upon her having a servant, and Bathalina Clemens had accordingly been engaged. The girl was little better than half-witted, but she was honest and faithful. Moreover, Mrs. Sanford could not abide the Irish. So strong was her dislike for the children of Erin, that had she known the wish of Thomas Carlyle, that the Emerald Isle were sunk, she would have indorsed it most heartily. As it was, she vented her feelings in various expletives and wishes, which, if less elegant than Carlyle's Teutonic diction, were certainly more clear and no less forcible.
"The Irish," Mrs. Sanford was wont to affirm, "are part pig, or pigs are part Irish, I don't know which. They tell about pigs living in the house with the Paddies in Ireland, and I make no doubt that many a pig has been brought up as a child of the family and nobody ever the wiser."
So as Mrs. Sanford would have no Irish girl, she had been obliged to endure Bathalina, who was every thing her soul abhorred, except that she was neat. It was her one virtue; and, as people usually do who have but one virtue, she carried it to excess.
"If she was to get into heaven," her mistress declared, waxing eloquent, "I know she'd begin to scour up things, and be down on her knees to wash the golden streets."
Numberless were the freaks which resulted from her morbid mania for cleanliness. She would wash a counterpane if Pettitoes, the most dainty of cats, happened but to set one of his snowy paws upon it. She washed her sunshade, her hats, her bonnets, boots, any thing and every thing. She was accustomed to prowl about the house, seizing upon any stray article left in sight, and into the tub it went. Flossy's lace shawl was rescued on its way to the suds, Patty's muslin fichu and Will's shooting-jacket were fished out of the washtub together; and for weeks after the advent of Miss Clemens the whole house was pervaded with a damp and discouraging odor, as if in it reigned a perpetual washing-day.
"This must be stopped," Dr. Sanford declared when one night on returning home he found the pear-trees decorated with an old skeleton hoop-skirt, his own high boots, carefully scoured inside, and a miscellaneous assortment of smaller wares. Into the kitchen he walked, and found Bathalina at the washtub chanting as usual a dismal stave.