Servants and service

It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the younger the servant employed, the greater and more precious is the first charge usually placed in her hands. I mean, of course, the baby, with occasionally two or three other small children in addition.

To nurse the one and keep the other out of mischief is generally deemed the fitting occupation for the little maid, herself a mere child when she first goes out to service. The young hands that are too unsteady to be trusted with such fragile articles as glass and crockery, lest these should suffer damage, too unskilled in household matters to be esteemed of much value in the cleaning and scrubbing department, are deemed quite competent to hold the baby and act as caretaker to the whole juvenile brood.

Often the busy, notable mother of a family will say, when speaking of a child-servant, ‘I cannot let her help in the house-work. She would only make more labour than she would save; would dirty more than she would clean; break more things by clumsiness and carelessness than her wages would pay for. I can get through much more quickly by myself, and nothing will need doing over again. But she can nurse the baby and look after the children, which will set my hands free to do the house-work.’

So the house-mother bustles from place to place and does the work herself. In the meanwhile, the inexperienced hands which must on no account be trusted with the crockery, the chairs, and the tables, have the sole charge of what should be to every mother the most precious of helpless treasures—her infant.

In the comparatively poor districts of large towns, chiefly inhabited by working people and small shopkeepers, it is no uncommon thing for a little maid, barely in her teens, to go out nursing by the day—and generally a very long day. She comes home to sleep, the small place where a business is carried on being often filled to overflowing by the shopkeeper’s actual belongings. It is probably fortunate for the small servant that she does go home to sleep, or her day’s work might come to an end even later still, or last all night, should the baby sleep with her.

Numbers of little maidens make their start as domestic servants in this way, and rise by gradual steps to what is considered a position of greater trust and responsibility. I have been in a tiny shop when a dot of a girl, pinafored and with a cotton hood or woollen kerchief on her head, has entered. Dropping a little bob of a courtesy, she has announced that she is seeking her first place by the question, ‘Please, ma’am, do you want a girl to help to nurse the baby?’

It is often the case that these little maids, the eldest of large families, have served a seven years’ apprenticeship at home nursing before they are twice that number of years old. They are frequently far more handy with babies than much older people, and the very small folks always like a girl-nurse, who is not too old to romp and play, and who enjoys the games as heartily as do her little charges. These mites love to see a merry face, to hear a good ringing laugh, and to listen to the nonsense rhymes and nursery jingles which come pattering from the still childish lips of their young guardian.

I do not know a greater affliction in a nursery than a nurse, no matter how good and conscientious she may be, who goes through her duties in a grave, stolid, unsympathetic way; washing and dressing the children, tidying and stitching in a mechanical, plodding fashion, and doing her duty faithfully, according to her light, but forgetting, in her dealings with children, that she was once as young as they are.

The nurse who worrits over a soiled pinafore or rumpled hair, who is for ever straightening up, and putting the toys and litter which children delight in and ought to have around them on high shelves and in out-of-the-way places, may have a tidy nursery, but she will certainly have a brood of unhappy youngsters around her.

There are nurses who are old in years, but young in heart, bright, cheerful, and abounding in love for children, and who come second only to the good mother in the affection of the small people. And there are others who are by no means old counting by years, but who left their youthful spirits behind them, if they ever had any, when they began to run alone.

I once heard a lady speaking of two girls, of only eighteen and twenty, who had the care of her three children. ‘They are both good girls,’ she said; ‘truthful, conscientious, well-behaved. I have no fear that the children will ever learn anything wrong from them. But they are so stolid and dull that they seem to take all the brightness out of the lives of the little ones. One sits like a lump at her stitching; the other, like a second lump of human material, keeps the children out of mischief, and takes care that the nursery is in a painful state of order, and that smeared faces and soiled pinafores are things unknown.

‘Let a child leave a toy for a moment, it is seized and put carefully away. These nurses never can be made to understand that, what would appear untidy and disorderly in a drawing-room, is the proper and necessary state of things in an apartment dedicated to the use of little ones. If children are to be happy they must be occupied, and to find them employment a variety in books, toys, and pictures must be within their reach.

‘A childish mind does not fix itself upon any one thing for a length of time. But though Jack may have become weary of the pursuit of architecture, and may demolish with one stroke the castle he has spent half an hour in building, he does not want the materials packed away, in case he should determine on erecting a church somewhat later in the day. He likes to have his bricks within reach, even while he is looking at pictures, and to be able to turn from his book to his wheelbarrow without asking nurse’s leave. Then the children want some one to laugh with them, to sing, to lead their games and teach them new ones; and when they go out they do not want to be led solemnly along as if they were attending a funeral.

‘I am sorry to part with two thoroughly good girls,’ added the speaker, ‘but I cannot bear to see the children growing up such little sobersides, so unnaturally grave and old before their time.’

‘What shall you do then?’ asked the friend to whom the lady was speaking.

‘Oh, I have engaged a cheery, middle-aged widow to do the sewing and superintend generally. She is to have a little girl of fourteen under her as her messenger and the children’s playfellow. I fell in love with the little maid when out district-visiting, through seeing the delightful way in which she managed to keep her own small brothers and sisters amused and happy, with next to nothing in the way of materials. I am quite reckoning on litter and laughter in my nursery, in place of unvarying tidiness and dulness.’

Do not imagine that this lady would have tolerated any lack of real cleanliness in the persons or surroundings of her children. She estimated at their full value the neatness and particularity of her maids; but she felt that, while the young bodies were admirably cared for, the nursery atmosphere was cheerless and depressing. It was deficient in human sunshine and sympathy.

Instead of being merry and childlike, her youngsters were becoming staid, prim little men and women; their very games were made a serious business; the care of their toys was a matter of grave responsibility. The children could hardly have had more upright and careful attendants; but the mother saw that spotless pinafores, constant supervision, and a tidy nursery were not in themselves sufficient for happiness.

I have given this little sketch from life because I want to impress upon my girl readers who think of offering themselves to fill the situation of nurse, that something more is required to make a good one than a mere knowledge of nursery work.

If I were engaging a nurse for young children, I should not only inquire about the experience she had gained in caring for their bodies, her cleanliness, truthfulness, honesty, and general trustworthiness. I might be satisfied on these points, and the applicant might also be one of the best seamstresses that ever took needle in hand, and yet I should want something of more importance than all these.

I should need to be convinced that she was not taking a place as nurse merely as a means of breadwinning, but because she honestly loved the helpless little ones, and was sufficiently young-hearted to feel for and with them in matters that are trifles to grown-up people, but great things to children.

I should want to study her face a little, to find that it was bright and happy-looking, and that her voice had a cheery ring in it. To be convinced that, when the laughing, crowing baby looked up in its glee, it would see a responsive smile on its nurse’s countenance, and that her presence would be likely to make the nursery not merely a cleanly but a happy place for the children.

So I say to my readers, never take a place as nurse unless you can carry with you a heart large enough to hold all your little charges, and warm enough to pay back with interest the love they are so ready to give to those who sympathise with and are kind to them. You will need patience to bear with them, and firmness to check what is wrong; you will need constant watchfulness and prayerful self-examination in order that, by God’s grace, you may be enabled to subdue in yourselves whatever might set a bad example or produce a bad impression on the children intrusted to your care.

Next to the mother, probably no human being has so great an influence over the little ones for good or evil as the nurse. Take care that yours shall be for good. There is no lesson more quickly learned by a child than that of trying to hide a fault by telling an untruth. Perhaps curiosity has led to meddling, meddling to an accident and a breakage. To cover this and escape punishment, the child deliberately plans concealment, and tells its first lie.

The same teacher—fear of consequences—often finds an apt pupil in the nurse as well as in her young charges, and she tells, or it may be only acts, a falsehood in their presence. Who can estimate the mischief done, or the fruit produced from the seed of that evil example? Young eyes are quick to see,—young minds to receive impressions. Not so quick to lose the effect, or get rid of the consequences, of a single lesson in deceit.

Dear young nurses, let me plead with you for the sake of the immortal souls of these precious little ones; be true in word and deed. Strive to lead them gently and lovingly; set them a good example. Ask strength from God to overcome the temptations to anger and falsehood. Be careful, too, that no profane or impure expression ever passes from your lips, to defile the ears and corrupt the minds of the children committed to your care. Let not those young eyes witness any action that you would be afraid or ashamed for a grown-up person to see.

Nay, let your thoughts soar still higher, and remember the Eye that never slumbers nor sleeps, the Ear which hears equally the prayer and the wrong or idle words of which we often think so lightly.

Should any accident happen to an infant either through inadvertence or want of care on your part, be brave and true. Go at once to the mother, and, even at the risk of losing your situation, or of a severe reprimand, tell about the fall or the blow which the child has received, and ask that means may be used to prevent any permanent harm resulting from it. I have known two cases of life-long deformity and lameness, both of which might have been prevented had the nurses told of comparatively trifling accidents when they occurred, but which were rendered serious for want of immediate attention.

The little creatures had wailed and cried,—their only mode of telling that they were in pain. The tears were put down to teething, crossness—anything but the real cause. Had the truth been told and a doctor sent for, the experienced professional touch and eye would have discovered the injuries, the joints would have been replaced, and two fine girls saved from lasting disfigurement.

Better, far better endure displeasure or even the loss of a place, than carry the life-long memory that, through your want of courage and candour, a young creature’s existence has been blighted, or its activity and usefulness impaired. Ay, and what is of still more importance, better be the humblest drudge at the roughest of household work, than undertake the charge of children without a deep sense of the solemn responsibilities belonging to the nurse’s office.

If you cannot carry into the nursery loving hearts, patience, self-control, cheerfulness, courage, truth, pure speech, propriety of manners, and tender sympathy, work elsewhere in the household. Remember that it is not only the bodies of the little ones for which you have to care, but that you will have to answer for the influence you may exert on their minds and souls. Are they not the lambs whom Jesus loved and blessed? Do they not belong to that flock for which the Good Shepherd laid down His life on Calvary?