I sorrow for these present housekeepers of the south. They all know by heart and often retell to their children the tales of their mothers and grandmothers,--how, early in the morning, the affectionate and faithful nurses stole the children out of the room, without waking papa and mamma; how the cook and the waiters, not superintended, had the best of breakfasts ready at the right time; how at this meal there was happy reunion of the family beginning a new day, the children bathed and in their clean clothes, each one pretty as a picture and sweet as a pink; and how all the affairs of the household under the magic touch of angel servants were fitly despatched without trouble or worry to mamma, until the day ended by the nurses' bathing the little tots again, putting them to bed, and mammy's getting them to sleep by telling "The Tar Baby" or some other adventure of Brer Rabbit over and over as often as sleepily called for, or by singing sweet lullabies. With this vision of a real fairyland in which their ancestors lived not so very long ago, how can any one of these mothers of the new south contentedly make herself the only nurse, cook, and house servant of her family? For many a year yet, to do every day the drudgery of all three will be the extreme of discomfort and sore trial to her. We must give her loving words and sympathy without ceasing, and trust her to the slow but sure healing of inevitable necessity. This lamentable condition of our southern woman is due, as plainly appears, to the miseducation given their ancestors by slavery. Slavery went forty years ago; but it left the negro, and the dependence of these women upon her as their only servant. It is indispensable that they cut loose completely from this dependence. Their resolve should be firm and unwavering that they will learn to minister to themselves and their dear ones, and teach the blessed art to their children; as their northern sisters have always done. I would have them here receptively contemplate, as a part of the new lesson which they must learn, this true and enchanting picture of a New England home: "There are no servants in the house, but the lady in the snowy cap, with the spectacles, who sits sewing every afternoon among her daughters, as if nothing had ever been done, or were to be done,--she and her girls, in some long-forgotten forepart of the day _did up the work_, and for the rest of the time, probably, at all hours when you would see them, it is _done up_. The old kitchen floor never seems stained or spotted; the tables, the chairs, and the various cooking utensils never seem deranged or disordered; though three and sometimes four meals a day are got there, though the family washing and ironing is there performed, and though pounds of butter and cheese are in some silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence."[140]