The Trial of Sickness
There are many housekeepers who could get along with their toils if it were not for sickness and trouble. The fact is, one-half of the women of the land are more or less invalids. The mountain lass, who has never had an ache or pain, may consider household toil inconsiderable, and toward evening she may skip away miles to the fields and drive home the cattle, and she may until ten o’clock at night fill the house with laughing racket; but oh, to do the work of life with wornout constitution, when whooping cough has been raging for six weeks in the household, making the night as sleepless as the day—that is not so easy.
Perhaps this comes after the nerves have been shattered by some bereavement that has left desolation in every room of the house, and set the crib in the garret, because the occupant has been hushed into a slumber which needs no mother’s lullaby. Oh, she could provide for the whole group a great deal better than she can for a part of the group now the rest are gone! Though you may tell her God is taking care of those who are gone, it is mother-like to brood both flocks; and one wing she puts over the flock in the house, the other wing she puts over the flock in the grave.
There is nothing but the old-fashioned religion of Jesus Christ that will take a woman through the trials of home life. At first there may be a romance or a novelty that will do for a substitute. The marriage hour has just passed, and the perplexities of the household are more than atoned by the joy of being together, and by the fact that when it is late they do not have to discuss the question as to whether it is time to go! The mishaps of the household, instead of being a matter of anxiety and apprehension, are a matter of merriment—the loaf of bread turned into a geological specimen; the slushy custards; the jaundiced or measly biscuits. It is a very bright sunlight that falls on the cutlery and the mantel ornaments of a new home.