SOLILOQUY OF A HOUSEMAID.
Oh, dear, dear! Wonder if my mistress ever thinks I am made of flesh and blood? Five times, within half an hour, I have trotted up stairs, to hand her things, that were only four feet from her rocking-chair. Then, there’s her son, Mr. George—it does seem to me, that a great able-bodied man like him, need n’t call a poor tired woman up four pair of stairs to ask “what’s the time of day?” Heigho!—its “Sally do this,” and “Sally do that,” till I wish I never had been baptized at all; and I might as well go farther back, while I am about it, and wish I had never been born.
Now, instead of ordering me round so like a dray horse, if they would only look up smiling-like, now and then; or ask me how my “rheumatiz” did; or say “Good morning, Sally;” or show some sort of interest in a fellow-cretur, I could pluck up a hit of heart to work for them. A kind word would ease the wheels of my treadmill amazingly, and would n’t cost them anything, either.
Look at my clothes, all at sixes and sevens. I can’t get a minute to sew on a string or button, except at night; and then I’m so sleepy it is as much as ever I can find the way to bed; and what a bed it is, to be sure! Why, even the pigs are now and then allowed clean straw to sleep on; and as to bed-clothes, the less said about them the better; my old cloak serves for a blanket, and the sheets are as thin as a charity school soup, Well, well; one would n’t think it, to see all the fine glittering things down in the drawing-room. Master’s stud of horses, and Miss Clara’s diamond ear-rings, and mistresses rich dresses. I try to think it is all right, but it is no use.
To-morrow is Sunday—“day of rest,” I believe they call it. H-u-m-p-h!—more cooking to be done—more company—more confusion than on any other day in the week. If I own a soul I have not heard how to take care of it for many a long day. Wonder if my master and mistress calculate to pay me for that, if I lose it? It is a question in my mind. Land of Goshen! I aint sure I’ve got a mind—there’s the bell again!