How Mother Managed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1914

How Mother Managed

“You see how it is, my dear,” he said, taking her soft hand, which had never done very hard work, and patting it reassuringly; “I’m poor—only two hundred a year, dear, and we shall have a struggle to get along at first—”

“I don’t mind that in the least,” she interrupted, stoutly.

And he continued, “We shall have to come down to strict economy; but if you can only manage as my mother does, we shall pull through nicely.”

“And how does your mother manage, dear?” she asked, smiling at the notion of the mother-in-law cropping out already.

“I don’t know,” replied the lover, “but she always manages to have everything neat and cheerful, and something delicious to eat—and she does it all herself, you know, so that we always get along beautifully, and make both ends meet; and father and I still have plenty of spending money. You see when a woman is always hiring her laundry work done, and her gowns and bonnets made, and her scrubbing and stove blacking done, and all that sort of thing—why, it just walks into a man’s income and takes his breath away.”

The young woman looked for a moment as if her breath were taken away; but she wisely concealed her dismay, and being one of the stout-hearted of the earth, she determined to learn a few things of John’s mother, and so went the very next day to her house for a long visit. Upon the termination of this visit, one morning John received to his amazement a little package containing his engagement ring, accompanied by the following letter:—

“I have learned how your mother ‘manages,’ and I am going to explain it to you since you confessed you didn’t know. I find that she is a wife, a mother, a housekeeper, a business manager, a hired girl, a laundress, a seamstress, a mender and patcher, a dairymaid, a cook, a nurse, a kitchen gardener, and a general slave for a family of five. She works from five in the morning until ten at night, and almost wept when I kissed her hand—it was so hard and wrinkled and corded and unkissed! When I saw her polishing the stoves, carrying big buckets of water and great armfuls of wood, often splitting the wood, I asked her why John didn’t do such things for her. ‘John,’ she repeated, ‘John!’—and she sat down with a perfectly dazed look, as if I had asked her why the angels didn’t come down and scrub for her. ‘Why—John,’ she said in a trembling, bewildered way, ‘he works in the office from nine until four, you know,

and when he comes home he is very tired; or else—or else—he goes down town.”

“Now, I have become strongly imbued with the conviction that I do not care to be so good a ‘manager’ as your mother. If the wife must do all sorts of drudgery, so must the husband; if she must cook, he must carry the water; if she must make butter, he must milk the cows. You have allowed your mother to do everything, and all that you have to say of her is that she is an excellent ‘manager.’ I do not care for such a reputation unless my husband earns the name also; and, judging from your lack of consideration for your mother, I am quite sure you are not the man I thought you were, or one whom I should care to marry. As the son is, the husband is, is a safe and happy rule to follow.”

So the letter closed, and John pondered; and he is pondering yet.—Selected.