A Horse Is Always Sure To Be Lame For Want
Of A Shoe Nail, Or A Saddle To Be Useless From A Broken Buckle,
And The Wagon And Harness Are A Marvel Of Temporary Shifts,
Patchings, And Insecure Linkings With Strands Of Rope.
Nothing
is ever ready or whole when it is wanted.
Yet Chalmers is a
frugal, sober, hard-working man, and he, his eldest son, and a
"hired man" "Rise early," "going forth to their work and labor
till the evening"; and if they do not "late take rest," they
truly "eat the bread of carefulness." It is hardly surprising
that nine years of persevering shiftlessness should have resulted
in nothing but the ability to procure the bare necessaries of
life.
Of Mrs. C. I can say less. 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. The
sewing machine, like most other things, is out of order. One
comb serves the whole family. Mrs. C. is cleanly in her person
and dress, and the food, though poor, is clean. Work, work,
work, is their day and their life. They are thoroughly ungenial,
and have that air of suspicion in speaking of every one which is
not unusual in the land of their ancestors. Thomas Chalmers
is the man's ecclesiastical hero, in spite of his own severe
Puritanism. Their live stock consists of two wretched horses, a
fairly good bronco mare, a mule, four badly-bred cows, four gaunt
and famished-looking oxen, some swine of singularly active
habits, and plenty of poultry.
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