The Farmer's Tea-Table-In walks a fairy vision of wondrous witchery, and with a curtsey and a smile of winning and mysterious magic, takes her seat just opposite you. It is the 72 ADVICE TO THE DAUGHTERS OF FARMERS. not noted at all. Still, he was a very intelligent man, and in most respects very systematic and accurate. No doubt, mul itudes of such cases might be found. It is very apparent that the memory of no individual should be trusted with the business details of successive years, in this manner. Human life is uncertain. Human memory is often found to be frail. And owing to this careless method of keeping accounts, and forgetfulness with one or both of the parties, how many unkind feelings have arisen in neighborhoods, and how many lawsuits have been the consequence! Thus, by the parties, hundreds of dollars have been unnecessarily paid for court and law fees; and, what is worse, they have spent the remainder of their lives at variance, and at last descended into the grave unreconciled! It may indeed be true that a farmer, at the close of a day of fatiguing labor, is little disposed to sit down and charge one neighbor to a bushel of corn; another to a sucking pig; and another to the use of his oxen, or something else, as the case may be. He is not familiar with such matters. His fingers are doubtless stiff; his inkstand may not be readily found; and, possibly when found, it will be without ink; or the pen, if he finds one, may be so bad, that it will be difficult to make a decent letter or figure. And perhaps, when attempting to do it, the children or the dog will run against the table, causing him to blot and disfigure his book. Or, finally, a neighbor may call upon him, at the very moment he is about commencing operations, and thus engross his attention for the whole evening. This may look like a trifle to a person familiar with such matters, with every fixture and material at hand. A regular accountant might do all this in five minutes, and at the same time be talking about something else. But with a farmer it is not so; to him it requires an effort greater than holding the plough half a day. Now, how very easily might this always be done. by a daughter, if he has one of suitable age, or by his wife! And, how much satisfaction might she experience in keeping neatly such accounts! and, on its becoming known, she would acquire a reputation, no one can tell, of what value to her; not strange, if it were to recommend her to be the wife of one of the best young men in the town. We have known ladies to keep account-books by single entry of considerable magnitude, in a style that would not discredit the cashier of a bank; and, we would have every young lady instructed in this art-it should be a branch of common school education. The daughters of farmers and mechanics might thus render a service to their fathers equal to the cost of their clothing. And, we personally know, at least, one finished merchant, Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding nobility of mind. farmer's daughter, a living creature of eighteen; fair as the lily, rosy as the rose itself, and sweet as a posy of violets. Female Education ~~What though the superstructure be ever so beautiful and elegant, ever so symmetrical and tasty; yet, if the foundation be deficient, where is the worth ADVICE TO THE DAUGHTERS OF FARMERS. 73 who, on his absence from home, directs the clerks to carry his letters to the house before being opened. There his wife opens, examines, and answers them; then returning them to the office, giving such directions to the clerks as necessary. Who would not be proud of a wife or a daughter that could perform such useful services? Who would not esteem a competency to do such things a very nice accomplishment for a young lady, especially the daughter of a mechanic or farmer? It is no uncommon thing that women pay less attention, in the country, to their personal appearance, than is to be recom mended. They can always be clean and tidy when engaged in domestic duties. And if their hair is properly adjusted in the morning, it will remain so through the day. For a neglect thus to arrange it there is no excuse, and to its careful observance they are much indebted for comeliness. The working apparel may be without rent and duly put on, if cheap and much worn. This is even more appropriate and reputable for coarse labor than clothes that are new and expensive. Far be it from us that we encourage extravagance in female dress. This, in cities especially, is one of the greatest evils of the present day. A gentleman that has a wife and four or five daughters to be clothed and ornamented as many city ladies are, will become a bankrupt, unless he has a large net income. Those doing this without a heavy capital, are literally made slaves to sustain the conventional indulgences of fashionable life. The amount thus annually expended is incredible to those who have not witnessed it. The entire income of a decent farm would not clothe the farmer's wife as some ladies in the city are dressed, whose husbands may possess less unincumbered property than would purchase such a farm. Extravagance like this is an abomination. The authors of it should be expelled from the pale of Christian society. In a moral view, it is a species of robbery, and in the end will show itself to be so. Honest people will have to suffer for it. Nevertheless, as already remarked, comeliness of female attire is not to be denounced; for it is a trait of character nearly approximating the moral virtues. It would be difficult to imagine the existence of a pure mind in a tabernacle so repulsive as that destitute of personal neatness. The one seems wholly incompatible with the other. A woman cannot, therefore, be inattentive to this subject without suffering in the estimation of all who know her. Nature, in most cases, has given to woman symmetrical proportions; graceful limbs; a fair countenance; a sweet voice; a fascinating eye; and, if she render herself disgusting by a want of personal neatness and good taste, as well as by a destitution of the moral and social attributes exWe do not usually expend labor for that which we can have without labor. of the edifice? Who would choose it for a resting place? Who would repose in it with trust and security? How endearing the sympathies of love! How sweet the solace of friendship! How beautiful are the smiles of innocence ! How lovely the tears of affection! These, combined, are all 74 ADVICE TO THE DAUGHTERS OF FARMERS. pected from her sex, she is recreant to the Author of her It has been urged that neither extreme in female dress is allowable. We assert it again, to make it the more impressive. It cannot be too much urged. The subject is so important as to demand being placed in every possible attitude. There is no necessity or excuse for it; for there is a fortunate medium that commends itself to the taste of prudent and sensible persons, particularly in the country; on the one hand satisfying all reasonable expectation, and on the other, not creating an expenditure inconvenient to most persons of comparatively small means. The farmer's daughter, with a suitable calico dress, costing in the range of one dollar and fifty cents, and having suitable under-clothes, all well made and adjusted to the person; the hair being in due order, the face and the hands displaying their native pearly contour, and the teeth clean and white, looks well enough to welcome a princess to her snug little parlor. If she has but one such dress in first-rate condition, and is obliged to spend much of her time in domestic labors, clad in an inferior one, simply on an emergency to substitute the former for the latter, occupies a few minutes only. There are some ladies of large wealth and of the first standing in society, that experience no mortification or discomfiture in receiving transient company, or even in going to church in such a dress, if the weather render that prudent. It would be well if there were more such a thousand where there is one; ladies who would not imagine they shall be esteemed in proportion to the cost of the garments they wear. Ladies must place an extremely low estimate on their own personal merits and charms-a sparkling brace of eyes; a fair and ruddy complexion; a set of teeth clean, regular, and white like ivory; a graceful manner; and, above all, a wellcultivated mind, when they deem it necessary to attract attention by rich jewelry, a fifty dollar frock, and a hundred dollar shawl. The man of sense will scorn the latter in comparison with the former; and, when much effort is made to display the one, he will be very suspicious there is great deficiency in the other. The farmer's daughter, in a reasonable degree, may always recommend herself to commendation by the former; and, having less of means for an expensive dress and other artificial decorations, she should never neglect to be duly observant of what nature may have bestowed on her in rich profusion, or what is within the reach of her own agency. To our apprehension, there is a simplicity and a beauty in such personal attractions that cannot fail to inspire the pure in mind with the highest A prodigal starts in the world with a fortune, but dies worth nothing. characteristics of Woman. They are the true poetry of humanity; rich pearls clustering around the altar of domestic felicity. some of which are abrupt, while others rise with a gentle declivity, and sometimes tower above the water, and form islands. being, like it, full of plains, rocks, caverns, and mountains; ADVICE TO THE DAUGHTERS OF FARMERS. 75 admiration. Compared with the splendors of the rich man's drawing room, and even the glitterings of royalty, these are the charms that will never become insipid. Nay, with the progress of time they will be more and more prized, till the end of life. Women in the country, both mothers and daughters, are sometimes unwisely inattentive to their personal appearance, because it is so seldom they see company. This is a reason for being even more particular. For, if they see company at their houses but once ga month, and are then in a state of dishabille, or a condition to appear to disadvantage, it will be a long period before the impressions can be effaced. A slander long uncontradicted will be cherished as truth. So in the particular under consideration. Besides, the position assumed is predicated on a most curious logic: to wit, that personal appearance in ladies is a matter of no consideration unless seen by visitors or strangers. The bottom of the sea, as might have been conjectured beforehand, bears a great resemblance to the surface of the dry land, Does the wife, then, think it a matter of indifference whether she commend herself or not in this respect, as she did before marriage, to the favorable opinion of her husband? Has she made the discovery that he has lost his taste for female beauty and comeliness, or that he never had any? Or, will she constructively fall back on a most dishonorable horn of the dilemma, and say that she has caught him-has made him secure and, that he cannot now help himself, though she appear like a fishmonger or a bedlamite? If such be her alternative, no wonder that there are nowa-days so many unhappy matches; that coldness and apathy so often spring up between man and wife, like poisonous reptiles, ruinous to domestic bliss, as when they first appeared in ancient Eden. Let the wedded pair, whether in the country or the city, take the same pains to please each other that they did when wooing each other, and it need not be apprehended that strife and contention will take the place of early love! An application to the daughters similar to that here made to the mother is equally pertinent. Do they imagine that their father and mother have no taste and feel no pride or mortification in relation to themselves? Or, can they fancy that their brothers, if so fortunate as to have brothers, are not keenly sensitive to this subject in all its delicate relations? To whom are you under so much obligation as to these members of your own household; to these kindred of your own flesh and blood? Have you no desire to gratify them; and, in gratifying them, as it were, to pay them for what they are daily doing for you? If the father can rationally be proud of anything on earth, it is beautiful, lovely, sensible, and affectionate daughters. If he ever have idols, they are his idols! If there is anything that A miser starts in the world a pauper, but at last dies leaving a fortune. As the land is capable of receiving and retaining much more heat or cold than the water can imbibe, the vicinity 76 of the sea is a circumstance which considerably affects the ADVICE TO THE DAUGHTERS OF FARMERS. seems to compensate him for all his daily toils, it is the enjoy ment of their sprightly conversation in a long winter evening. And, if there is anything in this gay, bewildering world, ordinarily prized by good young men, above every other object, it is beautiful, sensible, and affectionate sisters. Rarely will they seek society away from their father's house, if there they can enjoy the society of such a sister. When did such brothers ever neglect to provide for such a sister, or to revenge an insult to her, if at the hazard of their own life? In the country there are no amusements as in the city; no theatres no concerts-no public exhibitions-and rarely literary and scientific lectures. Families, therefore, in the country have to provide their own means of making home interesting and agreeable. Instead of being dependent on others for this, they must rely on themselves. If they would enjoy social pleasure, it must be of their own creation. The members of the household must generally be society for each other. Their amusements must be the emanations of their own invention; and, if they experience intellectual zest, it must be derived from books or from the scintillations of their own united genius. This may not always be an easy task; but it is more within the reach of most families than is generally imagined. On the female members this is mainly dependent; and, even more, on daughters arriving at womanhood, than on the mother. It is in their power to render any situation comparatively a place of delight. The shadow of their comely forms on the surrounding walls will never fail to please the eye of the beholder. Sadness and melancholy can never dwell in an enclosure echoing with the accents of their sweet voice, whether in music or conversation; and, they can thus do much to make the weary forget their toils, and the sorrowful to cast away their mental The mansion of the common farmer, in the evening concourse, may indeed be cheerless to its own inmates, and paralyzing and repulsive to all others. Oftentimes it is so to a lamentable degree. Let us picture in imagination what is a reality in thousands of places. The western sun had already ceased to throw its last rays on the surrounding landscape. Twilight, too, was rapidly fading from human vision. The laborers are returning, one by one, from arduous toils. Each enters the common receptacle in silence. No kind salutations greet them. No ablutions are made by them; nor are there any changes of apparel -that of each being from perspiration cold and clammy to the wearer, and exhaling to all present the multitudinous odors of everything in which it had been in proximity. Scarcely is there anguish. An absolute freedom in religious discussions has never yet existed. temperature of the air. The sea, therefore, moderates the heat in warm climates, and the cold in higher latitudes. |