She Looks Like One Of The English
Poor Women Of Our Childhood - Lean, Clean, Toothless, And Speaks,
Like Some Of Them, In A Piping, Discontented Voice, Which Seems
To Convey A Personal Reproach.
All her waking hours are spent in
a large sun-bonnet.
She is never idle for one minute, is severe
and hard, and despises everything but work. I think she suffers
from her husband's shiftlessness. She always speaks of me as
"This" or "that woman." The family consists of a grown-up son, a
shiftless, melancholy-looking youth, who possibly pines for a
wider life; a girl of sixteen, a sour, repellent-looking
creature, with as much manners as a pig; and three hard, un-
child-like younger children. By the whole family all courtesy
and gentleness of act or speech seem regarded as "works of the
flesh," if not of "the devil." They knock over all one's things
without apologizing or picking them up, and when I thank them for
anything they look grimly amazed. I feel that they think it
sinful that I do not work as hard as they do. I wish I could
show them "a more excellent way." This hard greed, and the
exclusive pursuit of gain, with the indifference to all which
does not aid in its acquisition, are eating up family love and
life throughout the West. I write this reluctantly, and after a
total experience of nearly two years in the United States. They
seem to have no "Sunday clothes," and few of any kind.
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