Mrs. Merriwether’s Plan

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1, 6 January 1906, Page 55

Mrs. Merriwether’s Plan

How She Solved the “Servant Girl Problem”

By

CAROLYN WELLS

■W *■ AS HY, bless your heart, Emily ■A / Ann. yvalk right in! My! ■/■/ but I’m glad to see you! V V Take off your bonnet! Uo! You’ve only run over io tell me the news? Tor the land’s Sake! ®hat news? What has happened? You (ird my favourite niece, Emily Ann, rind I’d be mortal sorry to hear bad news atout you or :t»y of your folks, NoW, look here child, if it’s money troubles, out with it! I ain’t so awful rich but 1 guess I can help my own niece out, if she’s in a tight place. What? It Isn't money troubles? It’s that you’re going to Europe? Well, Well, I’m glad it ain’t me that’s goin’. Now, don’t let me keep you. I know you must have several chores to do before you go. Here, I’ll just give you a last and partin’ eup o’ tea, and then I’ll give you my blessin’. I do hope you’ll get back safe 1 Is your tea tight? Anniky generally makes it about Tight. _

Have I got a good girl? Well, I should say 1 had! She’s just nothing Abort of a kitchen angel, and I’ve clipped her wings so she can’t fly away. J'll tell you what I mean. You see, I’ve had the most awful luck with hired girls the last few years. As we all know, girls ain’t what they used to be. They’ve forsook the strenuous life, ’cept in the little matter o’ wages. Bui that ain’t the worst; I can afford to (pay my help whatever they’re worth, and Fm glad to do it. This is what’s been my trouble > ’ Time and again I’ve taken in a new girl, fresh and green as a head of early lettuce, and I’ve laboured with that girl, and taught her everything from Hish-wasbin’ up. It was interestin’ work, and I don’t Say I didn’t enjoy it. Some of ’em had talents one way, and some another. You remember Norah now? She was a born cook, and I taught her to make lemon-meringue pies and waffles, till I declare it seemed as if mother had come back to earth. Then, Mary Klemmer, she was just a natural housekeeper. Such a head! She tended to everything, after I showed her how. Well, ’s I say, I taught ’em and ifanght ’em, one after another, and What did the ungrateful things do but Up and leave me and go to another place, just’s I’d got ’em so I could take Eome solid comfort with ’em. My! but they made me mad! Norah, she went to Mrs. Kingsbury’s, cause it was nearer the church, and it just makes me sick to think of Rhodoru Kingsbury livin’ on them mouth-meltin' victuals of Norah’s! Then, Mary that was such a good housekeeper she went to the Baptist minister’s, and I guess they’ve lived 5n elover ever since. His wife is mortal shiftless, and Mary just runs the Whole house.

Of course those are only two, but if you weren't just leavin’ for Europe I could tell you of a dozen that have served me the same trick. And, if you’ll belidve me, Emily Ann, it isn’t all the girls’ doin's either. Eadies—church members,' too, in good and reg’lar standfl?—entice those girls away by underhanded and clandestine means! They think I don’t know it; but I just do.

How do they do it? Why, by the most disgustin’ connivin’, and with the servant-girls too, of all things! Why, Rhodora Kingsbury, she actually demeaned herself to go to Mrs. Cobb’s girl and toll her that if my girl wanted to leave me, she’d take her! Before I’d descend to dickering with servantgirls! How did 1 find it out! Oh,

Norah she told Mary Klennner, and Mary she told me. ‘Well, ’s I was sayin’, I’ve fixed all the Greenvale women once and for al). They’ won’t try again to rob me of a good servant that I’ve trained by hand to all my own ways. You see it was this way: Mary had just left me, and I didn’t know which way’ to look for a new one, when ’long came a girl lookin’ for a place. She was a Slav or a Hungarian or a Russian Bole, or some of those ridiculous foreigners, and she looked as if she knew about as much as a half-rvitted taranloola. But she looked strong, and she Seemed willing to w r ork, and havin’ done my own housework for a week o» more, I was clean tuckered out, and I took her on the spot. She said her name was Anniky—leastwise that's the nearest I can get to it.

Well, Emily Ann, the way that girl took hold was a caution. She seemed glad to work; she was neat as a pin; and took to cookin’ like a duck to water. But she couldn’t talk more’n a couple o’ dozen words of English. I had to teach her the names of every blessed thing in pantry and kitchen, let alone the parlour. “Now,” says I to myself, “here’s your chance to fix things so Anniky won’t be runnin’ off soon’s she learns a. few first-rate accomplishments.” 1 thought it all out mighty careful the first day she came, for I saw she had the makin's of a Teal treasure in her. I went into the settin’-room. and compiled a list of things in the kitchen and in the house. I made two lifts, side by side. And they was this way: Opposite tea-kettle I wrote coal-scuttle, and opposite tea I wrote coal. I paired ’em all off like that—sugar and salt, butter and lard, bread and cake, stove-polish and salad-oil, broom and shove], mackerel and macaroni. What for? Well, I’m goin’ tto tell you, if you’ll only give me time. I studied that list pretty hard, and I carried it round in my pocket, ease I’d forget ’em. But I didn’t ever let Anniky sec me look at it. •

Well what I did with it was just this: I had to teach her the names of things, and I taught her all wrong. I told her the name of the tea-kettle was coal-scuttle, and the salt was sugar. Of course I taught her that sugar was called salt, and that the name of the coal-scuttle was tea-kettle. Each pair worked both ways, you see. To be sure, I always had to call the things by these crazy names when I spoke to her; but the game was worth the candle, and with my list handy by it wasn’t so very hard. I changed around names of things all over the house. Bed. and bureau changed places, mirror and window, and I always said fry for Toast, and boil for broil, and contrariwise.

So we went on that way, and Anniky got to be real proficient and a regular comfort to me.

Then it happened as I knew it would. That sly Mrs. Peters, she told my old Norah to hint to my Anniky that she was willin’ to pay a. dollar a week more’n I did, whatever I was payin’. Norah told Anniky right out, and Anniky told me she was goin’ to leave and go to Mrs. Peters’s. Then I knew I had the game in my own hands. But I just says: “Very well, Anniky, go along. I presume I can get as good a girl as you any day. And mind now, do just as Mrs. Peters tells you.” ■Well, she went, and such a to-do! Susan Green, she was dressmakin’ at Peters’s when Anniky first wont there, and she told me about it. Mrs. Peters told Anniky to fill the tea-kettle with water and put it on the range. And of course, 'bein’ used to my meanin's of the words, and my havin’ told her to

obey Mrs. Peters’s orders, that girl put a lot of milk in the coal-scuttle and set it on the iee-box. 1 had warned Anniky that Mrs. Peters was very peculiar and would ask her to do strange things, but the must do them exactly according to orders. So, when Mrs. Peters told her to roast the joint of beef, she fried it. And -when sho was told to put the salad-oil on the table, she brought in the stove-polish. You see, I had mixed up just such things on purpose. I knew what was cornin’. When Mrs. Peters told her to make cake, she made bread, and when she told her to put plenty of butter iu a pudding-sauce, Anniky put, in a lot of lard. Soo it went on, and of eourso Mrs. Peters didn’t keep her nigre‘n a day or two—sho couldn’t. Then Anniky tried one or two ether places, but it was just the same, and Anniky 'bein’ kind of stupid anyway, ’eept just about her actual work, she thought the ladies were crazy, and of course they thought she was. Well, in less’n a week Anniky was •back here, beggin’ to come and livd with me, at any price. I took her back, and she’s just about perfection now. And land! it ain’t no trouble to me to call things by other names. It comes natural, when I speak to her, and I never think of using the wrong words to anyone else. I tel) you, Emily Ann, you’ve got to fight fire with fire; and in this day and generation, if you ean get a good servant-girl, use any lingo you can make up, if it’ll Keep her by you. And I do think when yon eome homo from Europe you’d 'better bring some servants that ean’t talk American, and then try my plan.