They must bear inconveniences to stay in one
another's houses; but these, to the well-disposed, are only a source of
amusement and adventure.
The great drawback upon the lives of these settlers, at present, is the
unfitness of the women for their new lot. It has generally been the
choice of the men, and the women follow, as women will, doing their best
for affection's sake, but too often in heart-sickness and weariness.
Beside it frequently not being a choice or conviction of their own minds
that it is best to be here, their part is the hardest, and they are
least fitted for it. The men can find assistance in field labor, and
recreation with the gun and fishing-rod. Their bodily strength is
greater, and enables them to bear and enjoy both these forms of life.
The women can rarely find any aid in domestic labor. All its various and
careful tasks must often be performed, sick or well, by the mother and
daughters, to whom a city education has imparted neither the strength
nor skill now demanded.
The wives of the poorer settlers, having more hard work to do than
before, very frequently become slatterns; but the ladies, accustomed to
a refined neatness, feel that they cannot degrade themselves by its
absence, and struggle under every disadvantage to keep up the necessary
routine of small arrangements.
With all these disadvantages for work, their resources for pleasure are
fewer. When they can leave the housework, they have not learnt to ride,
to drive, to row, alone.
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