LXIII
THE LEARNED PROFESSION OF HOME-MAKING
No complaint is more general—possibly no belief is more prevalent among women—than that a woman of intelligence wastes her energies and her abilities in being merely a housekeeper. Following the domestic arts is a despised calling, held in such contempt by the majority of women that they never take the trouble to achieve success in it; and yet there is no other occupation under the sun that requires so many and such varied talents as does the learned profession of home-making. Did you ever think what a woman must be in order to create and carry on a happy and prosperous home?
She must be a financier. There can be no peace and pleasure in a home where the wolf is always howling under the window and the bill collector hammering on the door. There are, of course, a few men in every community who are such gifted money-makers that they can annex more coin than any woman can spend, but for the great mass of ordinary, industrious, hard-working humanity the wife settles the financial status of the family. It is her ability to handle money, her knowledge of where to spend and where to economize, her knack of making a dollar buy a hundred and five cents’ worth and get a blue trading stamp thrown in to boot, that is at the foundation of every prosperous home. We don’t hear anything about it, because the woman doesn’t know herself how awfully clever she is, but the majority of women in this country are doing marvels of financiering in the way they make both ends meet in their housekeeping allowance, and keep up appearances, that entitle them to qualify in the Rockefeller class.
She must be a general.
She must know how to command. She must know how to set all the multitudinous wheels of household machinery in motion and be able to keep them moving without friction. She must be able to enforce obedience, inspire enthusiasm, plan campaigns, forestall her enemy, be fertile in expedient and subtle in strategy. Any woman who maintains a comfortable and well-ordered home, the kind of a house that we like to visit, and who raises a nice family and marries her daughters off well could give the commander-in-chief of the army points on generalship.
She must be a diplomat. The husband question, the children question and the servant question are not to be handled without gloves. There is no hour of the day that she is not called upon to deal with some problem that requires the finesse of a Talleyrand. She must be able, if the white-winged dove of peace is to brood over the home nest, to deal with her husband’s prejudices and circumvent them so delicately that he will never know that he is being induced to do the thing that he swore he would never, never do. She must assert her authority over the growing boy with such cunning that he does not perceive that her fine Italian hand is on the check rein holding him tight and steady. She must be able, without the girls dreaming that she does it, to insinuate a doubt, drop a word of ridicule, imply an impossibility that will keep her daughters out of entangling alliances and steer them toward the reciprocally profitable permanent treaties they should make.
Above all, she must be able to see most when she is apparently stone blind; hear everything when she seems to be as deaf as the adder of the Scriptures; to be most on guard when she looks to be sleeping at her post, and to be most chaperoning her daughters when the onlooker and the girls themselves would swear that she was most giving them their liberty.
She must know how to tread very softly if she keeps off the corns of her servants, for whether a woman is agreeable or disagreeable in the home her children are bound to stay there with her, but it is the blessed privilege of Mary Ann and Bridget and eke of Hulda and Dinah that they can pack their trunks and go. Only the very quintessence of diplomacy renders a mistress persona grata to the kitchen, and the woman who preserves friendly relations with that must understand the Alpha and Omega of how to make a jolly cover the discipline of a martinet. Any woman who, when she is fifty years old, has a husband who thinks her a Solomon in petticoats, grown children who quote mother’s opinion, and a cook who has been with her five years is fitted to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James’s, and nothing but the stupidity of a nation that believes that breeches and brains are synonymous terms keeps her out of the job.
She must be an artist.
It is the woman’s province to create the beauty of the home. This is true whether it is the palace of the millionaire or the three-room flat of the day laborer. Every room that she arranges is a picture, just as much as if she painted a Dutch interior on canvas.
She must be a poet.
A home is not merely a place of shelter and food—it is a thing no less of the spirit and soul—and a woman must put into it the passion of her heart and the joy of creating just as truly as a poet must put them into his song. To make a home that is beautiful, that breathes the spirit of home, that is a haven of peace and rest to those who live in it and that is a glimpse of Paradise to the stranger who is bidden within its gates is a profession the most exacting in which any woman can engage and the one that calls for the greatest number of talents. Also it is the most profitable, for within it are made the men and women who go forth to bless the world. And the wonder of wonders is that so many just plain ordinary women are doing it, and the greatest marvel of all is that they do not realize what a glorious thing they are doing!