s attempt
to have servants in a town which is full of hired girls is one of the
things which make life worth living and talking about in Homeburg.

How do I know about it? Bless you, we all know about it. It's a public
tragedy. Can't help ourselves. We've had four of Mrs. Singer's
ex-servants in our house in six years, and they have all told their
troubles. Mrs. Singer trains girls for the entire town. She's twice as
good as a domestic science school, and she doesn't charge any tuition.
She is devoting her life to the training up of perfect hired girls, and
we revel in the results. It is ungrateful of us to blame her for taking
away our hired girls, because, as a matter of fact, she is our greatest
blessing. Right at this minute in Homeburg I know that two eager
families are sitting around waiting for the latest Singer class in
domestic science to graduate and come back to them for jobs. It ought to
come most any time. The course rarely lasts over three months.

You see, Mrs. Singer isn't one of us. She came to Homeburg from a large
city, and she brought her ideas with her. She's not the kind of a woman,
either, who is going to cut those ideas down to fit Homeburg. Her plan
is to change Homeburg over to fit her ideas. She's been working at it
for fifteen years now, and I must say she's won out in several cases.
Dress suits are now worn quite unblushingly, we have a country club
half a mile from the post-office--that's the advantage of a small town,
you can get away from the rush and bustle of the city into the sweet
cool country in about four jumps--and no one thinks of serving a party
dinner without salad any more. But she's fallen down on one thing. She
can't keep servants. That problem has been too much for her. Mrs.
Payley, her rival, has had the same hired girl for sixteen years or
more; but Mrs. Singer scorns a hired girl. She must have servants, two
of them, and while she has a remarkable constitution and has stood up
for years under the fight, I don't see how she can keep it up much
longer.

A hired girl in Homeburg is a very reasonable creature. We never have
any trouble with them, and they have very little with us. We usually
catch them green and wild, just off the steamer, and they come to us
equipped with a thorough working knowledge of the Swedish language, and
nothing else to speak of. Our wives take them in and teach them how to
boil water, make beds, handle a broom, use clothespins, and all the
simple