sidence, say that it
is a beautiful thing full of monogrammed linen and embroidered towels
and curtains that have to be washed as often as a white shirt, and that
whenever they call they are pretty sure to find Mrs. Singer trying to
teach some new and slightly dizzy second girl how to take care of the
house without breaking off the edges.

You observe the fluency and ease with which I say "second girl." We all
do in Homeburg. We're used to talking about second girls since Mrs.
Singer has tried to keep one. As far as her experience has taught us, we
are firmly convinced that having a second girl is like having mumps on
the other side too. When Mrs. Singer isn't busy trying to teach her cook
how to run the oven and the plate heater and serve the soup all at the
same time, she is attempting to give a new second girl some inkling of
the general ideas of her duties. Trouble is most of them are ten-second
girls. They listen to the program in the Singer household and then they
sprint for safety to some family where they will work twice as hard, but
will give three times as much satisfaction. Then Mrs. Singer arms
herself with the dust rag and clear-starch bowl, and subs on the job
until she finds a new second girl--after which the cook gives up her job
with a loud report, and Mr. Singer stays down-town for dinner at the
Delmonico Hotel until the Singer house management is staved off the
rocks again.

We feel sorry for the Singers and invite them out a good deal while they
are hunting cooks. And they pay us back royally as soon as the household
staff is fully recruited once more. We eat strange but delicious dishes
made by a reluctant and mystified girl, plus Mrs. Singer's
persuasiveness and will power; and said girl, still reluctant, and
scared into the bargain, serves the dinner with a lace-edged apron and a
napkin on her hair, Mrs. Singer egging her in loud whispers like the
prompter in grand opera. Steering a green cook through a dinner party,
and keeping up a merry conversation at the same time, calls for about as
much social skill as anything I know of. I myself stand in awe of Mrs.
Singer.

As for the rest of us--we have no servant problem, having no servants.
And about the only hired girl problem we have is the following: "Shall
the girl eat with the family or in the kitchen?" Mrs. Singer wished that
on us. Ten years ago there was no question at all. The girl ate with the
family, and waited on the table when somethin