blooms, everybody takes a
holiday and turns out and enjoys the flowers and the sunshine, and I
says to Henrietta, 'That's no new thing to me, honey, I've been doin'
that all my life.' I like housekeepin' as well as anybody, but when
spring comes and the flowers begin bloomin', a house can't hold me.
There's one time o' the year about the middle o' May, when it's all I
can do to keep myself inside the house long enough to do the cookin'
and wash the dishes. I ricollect the first spring after I was married
there was one day when Abram said that he had bread and butter and
pinks for breakfast, and bread and butter and roses for dinner, and
bread and butter and honeysuckles for supper. You know the Bible says,
'Let your moderation be known unto all men,' and I always tried to be
moderate about housekeepin'. Sam Amos used to say that women kept
house for two reasons: one was to please themselves and the other was
to displease the men. Says he, 'The Bible says we come from the dirt
and we're goin' back to the dirt, so why can't we live in the dirt and
say nothin' about it?' Says he, 'Give me three meals a day and a
comfortable place to sleep in, and let me be able to lay my hands on
my clothes when I want 'em, and that's housekeepin' enough for me.' I
reckon most men's pretty much like Sam; and seein' how little a man
cares about havin' a house kept, it looks like it's foolish for women
to spend so much o' their time sweepin' and keepin' things in order.
Mother used to think I took housekeepin' too easy. I ricollect once
she was spendin' the day with me and I let a dish fall, a mighty
pretty china bowl with pink roses on it, and she begun sayin' what a
pity it was, and how keerless I must 'a' been to let it slip out o'
my hands, and I jest laughed and picked up the pieces and says I,
'Dishes and promises are made to break. There's a time app'inted for
every dish to break, jest as there is for every person to die, and
this bowl's time had come.' And Mother, she laughed, and says she,
'Well, Jane, you'll never die of the housekeepin' disease.' And I
wouldn't be surprised, child, if my gyardenin' and my easy goin' ways
wasn't the reason why I'm here to-day watchin' my flowers grow instead
o' bein' out yonder in the old buryin' ground with Hannah Crawford and
the rest o' the Goshen women. Hannah took her housekeepin' like Amos
Matthews took his religion, and that was what broke her down and
carried her off before her time."

Clo