Its own motheh hath sweetly gone above, Oh how much it needs a motheh’s love. My own heart runs o’er with tenderness, But its deah father tries to do his best, But house-work, men can’t perfectly understand, Oh! how he needs a helping hand. Ah! when twins are sick and hired girls have flown, It is sad for a deah man to be alone. [Illustration] A DAY OF TROUBLE. Sugerin’ time come pretty late this year, and I told Josiah, that I didn’t believe I should have a better time through the whole year, to visit his folks, and mother Smith, than I should now before we begun to make sugar, for I knew no sooner had I got that out of the way, than it would be time to clean house, and make soap. And then when the dairy work come on, I knew I never should get off. So I went. But never shall I forget the day I got back. I had been gone a week, and the childern bein’ both off to school, Josiah got along alone. I have always said, and I say still, that I had jest as lives have a roarin’ lion do my house-work, as a man. Every thing that could be bottom side up in the house, was. I had a fortnight’s washin’ to do, the house to clean up, churnin’ to do, and bakin’; for Josiah had eat up everything slick and clean, the buttery shelves looked like the dessert of Sarah. Then I had a batch of maple sugar to do off, for the trees begun to run after I went away and Josiah had syruped off--and some preserves to make, for his folks had gin me some pound sweets, and they was a spilein’. So it seemed as if everything come that day, besides my common house-work--and well doth the poet say--“That a woman never gets her work done up,” for she don’t. Now when a man ploughs a field, or runs up a line of figgers, or writes a serming, or kills a beef critter, there it is done--no more to be done over. But sposen’ a woman washes up her dishes clean as a fiddle, no sooner does she wash ’em up once, than she has to, right over and over agin, three times three hundred and 65 times every year. And the same with the rest of her work, blackin’ stoves, and fillin’ lamps, and washin’ and moppin’ floors, and the same with cookin’. Why jest the idee of paradin’ out the table and tea-kettle 3 times 3 hundred and 65 times every year is enough to make a woman sweat. And then to think of all the cookin’ utensils and ingredients--why if it wuzzn’t for principle, no woman could stand the idee, let alone the labor, for it haint so much the mussle she has to lay out, as the strain on her mind.