Mind Amongst the Spindles Part 15

"Them you see stuffed into the garden wall, there.--Mary fixed them all in a row on the table. I think as father does, that nothing is worth saving that can't be used; so I put them in the wall to keep the hens out of the garden. The silly girl cried when she see them; should you have thought it?"

"What were they, Mary?" asked Clarina.

"Very pretty specimens of white, rose, and smoky quartz, black and white mica, gneiss, hornblende, and a few others, that I collected on that very high hill, west of here."

"How unfortunate to lose them!" said Miss Norwood, in a soothing tone.

"Could not we recover them, dear Mary?"

"There is no room for them," said Deborah. "We want to spread currants and blueberries on the tables to be dried. Besides, I think as father does, that there is enough to do, without spending the time in such flummery. As father says, 'time is our estate,' and I think we ought to improve every moment of it, except Sundays, in work."

"I must differ from you, Miss Eastman," said Miss Norwood. "I cannot think it the duty of any one to labor entirely for the 'meat that perisheth.' Too much, vastly too much time is spent thus by almost all."

"The mercy! you would have folks prepare for a wet day, wouldn't you?"

"I would have every one make provision for a comfortable subsistence; and this is enough. The mind should be cared for, Deborah. It should not be left to starve, or feed on husks."

"I don't know about this mind, of which you and our Mary make such a fuss. My concern is for my body. Of this I know enough."

"Yes; you know that it is dust, and that to dust it must return in a little time, while the mind is to live on for ever, with G.o.d and His holy angels. Think of this a moment, Deborah; and say, should not the mind be fed and clothed upon, when its destiny is so glorious? Or should we spend our whole lives in adding another acre to our farms, another dress to our wardrobe, and another dollar to our glittering heap?"

"Oh, la! all this sounds nicely; but I _do_ think that every man who has children should provide for them."

"Certainly--intellectual food and clothing. It is for this I am contending. He should provide a comfortable bodily subsistence, and educate them as far as he is able and their destinies require."

"And he should leave them a few hundreds, or thousands, to give them a kind of a start in the world."

"He does this in giving them a liberal education, and he leaves them in banks that will always discount. But farther than education of intellect and propensity is concerned, I am for the self-made man. I think it better for sons to carve their own way to eminence with little pecuniary aid by way of a settlement; and for daughters to be 'won and wedded' for their own intrinsic excellence, not for the dowry in store for them from a rich father."

"There is no arguing with you, everybody says; so I'll go and see how my cakes bake."

Mr. Eastmam came in to tea, contrary to his usual custom.

"Clarina, has your father sold that great calf of his?" he inquired, as he seated himself snugly beside his "better half."

"Indeed, I do not know, sir," answered Clarina, biting her lip to avoid laughing.

"I heard Mr. Montgomery ask him the same question, this morning; and Pa said 'yes,' I believe," said Miss Norwood, smiling.

"How much did he get for it?"

Miss Norwood did not know.

"Like Mary, I see," said Mr. Eastman. "Now I'll warrant you that Debby can tell the price of every creature I've sold this year."

"Yes, father; I remember as plain as day, how much you got from that simple Joe Slater, for the white-faced calf--how much you got for the black-faced sheep, Rowley and Jumble, and for Star and Bright. Oh, how I want to see Bright! And then there is the black colt--you got forty dollars for him, didn't you, father?"

"Yes, Debby; you are a keen one," said Mr. Eastman triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you so, Julia?"

"I do not burden my memory with superfluities," answered Miss Norwood.

"I can scarcely find room for necessaries."

"And do you rank the best way of making pies, cakes, and puddings, with necessaries or superfluities?"

"Among necessaries in household economy, certainly," answered Miss Norwood. "But Mrs. Child's 'Frugal Housewife' renders them superfluities as a part of memory's storage."

"Oh, the book costs something, you know; and if this can be saved by a little exercise of the memory, it is well, you know."

"The most capacious and retentive memory would fail to treasure up and retain all that one wishes to know of cooking and other matters," said Clarina.

"Well, then, one may copy from her book," said Mr. Eastman.

"Indeed, Mr. Eastman, to spend one's time in copying her recipes, when the work can be purchased for twenty-five cents, would be 'straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel,'" remarked the precise and somewhat pedantic Miss Ellinor Gould Smith. "And then the peculiar disadvantages of referring to ma.n.u.script! I had my surfeit of this before the publication of her valuable work."

"Ah! it is every thing but valuable," answered Mr. Eastman. "Just think of her pounds of sugar, her two pounds of b.u.t.ter, her dozen eggs, and ounces of nutmegs. Depend upon it, they are not very valuable in the holes they would make in our cash-bags." He said this with precisely the air of one who imagines he has uttered a poser.

"But you forget her economical and wholesome prescriptions for disease, her directions for repairing and preserving clothing and provisions, that would be lost without them," answered Miss Smith.

"But one should always be prying into these things, and learn them for themselves," said Mr. Eastman.

"On the same principle, extended in its scale, every man might make his own house, furniture, and clothing," said Miss Norwood. "With the expenditure of much labor and research, she has supplied us with directions; and I think it would be vastly foolish for every wife and daughter to expend just as much, when they can be supplied with the fruits of hers, for the product of half a day's labor."

"Does your mother use it much?" asked Mrs. Eastman.

"Yes; she acknowledges herself much indebted to it."

"I shouldn't think she'd need it; she is so notable. Has she made many cheeses this summer?"

"About the usual number, I believe."

"Well, I've made more than I ever did a year afore--thirty in my largest hoop, all new milk, and twenty in my next largest, part skimmed milk.

Our cheese press is terribly out of order, now. It must be fixed, Mr.

Eastman. And I have made more b.u.t.ter, or else our folks haven't ate as much as common. I've made it salter, and there's a great saving in this."

"There's a good many ways to save in the world, if one will take pains to find them out," said Mr. Eastman.

"Doubtless; but I think the best method of saving in provisions is to eat little," said Clarina, as she saw Mr. Eastman _putting down_ his third biscuit.

"Why, as to that, I think we ought to eat as much as the appet.i.te calls for," answered Mr. Eastman.

"Yes; if the appet.i.te is not depraved by indulgence."

"Yes; it is an awful thing to pinch in eating," said Deborah.

"I never knew one to sin in doing it," said Miss Norwood. "But many individuals and whole families make themselves excessively uncomfortable, and often incur disease, by eating too much. There is, besides, a waste of food, and of labor in preparing it. In such families, there is a continual round of eating, cooking, and sleeping, with the female portion; and no time for rest, recreation, or literary pursuits."

"I have told our folks a great many times, that I did not believe that you lived by eating, over to your house," said Mr. Eastman. "I have been over that way before our folks got breakfast half ready; and your men would be out to work, and you women folks sewing, reading, or watering plants, or weeding your flower garden. I don't see how you manage."

"We do not find it necessary to manage at all, our breakfasts are so simple. We have only to make cocoa, and arrange the breakfast."