Now, I had the idea, before I was awakened by Mrs. Melendy’s remark, that woman’s work was not of much account,--just a simple matter of “puttering” about the house. The tempting food which Mrs. Fennel serves up daily stood for a very small part of the labor which it actually represents. And, but for that remark, I might have gone on eating the delicacies spread before me with no more sense of their cost than if they grew on trees, and were shaken down at meal-times. Since my eyes have been opened, however, those delicacies taste too strong of the toil to be relishable; for I see that the rows of pies on the buttery shelves, the mounds of cake, the stacks of doughnuts, do not come there by any magical “sleight o’ hand,” but are wrought out of the very life of poor Mrs. Fennel,--literally, of her very life. This is not an overstatement, since it is plain to be seen that each day’s labor makes demands which her strength is unable to meet. I have observed the languid way in which she drags herself about the house, now and then dropping upon a chair; have noted, at times,--at “hurried” times,--the worn, weary, “all gone” expression of her face; and have heard her take, oh! very often, those “long breaths,” which are sure signs of a wearing-out. Yes, the poor woman is killing herself with overwork. And when she rests, at last, beneath the turf, people will speak of the mysterious Providence which removed a wife and mother in the midst of her usefulness. It is about time, one would think, to put a stop to this woman-killing. A harsh phrase? It is not more harsh than the truth; for, if lightening labor will prolong life, insisting upon unnecessary labor is not far removed from that crime. And this unnecessary labor is insisted upon in one way or another. For instance, I have Mrs. Fennel’s own word for it, that pies are “the heft of the cooking;” have heard her speak of rolling out pastry until she was “ready to drop,” of beating cake until her arms “hadn’t one mite of strength left in them.” Yet, to any suggestion that these and other superfluities be omitted, the answer has invariably been, that “the men-folks wouldn’t be satisfied without them.” Mr. Fennel is a very good man; and the boys--young men of eighteen and twenty--are very good boys. If the direct question were asked Mr. Fennel, which he most values, his wife’s life, or the nice things she prepares for the table, he would answer with horror, if he answered at all, the former. In reality, however, he answers the latter. It is the same with the boys. The men-folks can’t eat cold bread; therefore biscuits are rolled out, cut out, and baked, both morning and night; the men-folks make dependence on their cake; the men-folks must have their “piece o’ pie to top off with;” the men-folks like to have a pot of doughnuts to go to. [Illustration]