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The Revolt of “Mother”
by
Sarah Penn went across the room as though it were a tragic stage. She flung open a door and disclosed a tiny bedroom, only large enough for a bed and bureau, with a path between.”There, father,” said she — “there’s all the room I’ve had to sleep in for forty year. All my children were born there — the two that died, an’ the two that’s livin’. I was sick with a fever there.”
She stepped to another door and opened it. It led into the small, ill-lighted pantry.”Here,” said she, “is all the buttery I’ve got — every place I’ve got for my dishes to set away my victuals in, an’ to keep my milk-pans in. Father, I’ve been takin’ care of the milk of six cows in this place, an’ now you’re goin’ to build a new barn, an’ keep more cows, an’ give me more to do in it.”
She threw open another door. A narrow crooked flight of stairs wound upward from it.”There, father!” said she; “I want you to look at the stairs that go up to them two unfinished chambers that are all the places our son an’ daughter have had to sleep in all their lives. There ain’t a prettier girl in town nor a more ladylike one than Nanny, an’ that’s the place she has to sleep in. It ain’t so good as your horse’s stall; it ain’t so warm an’ tight.”
Sarah Penn went back and stood before her husband.”Now, father,” said she, “I want to know if you think you’re doin’ right an’ accordin’ to what you profess. Here, when we was married, forty year ago, you promised me faithful that we should have a new house built in that lot over in the field before the year was out. You said you had money enough, an’ you wouldn’t ask me to live in no such place as this. It is forty year now, an’ you’ve been makin’ more money, an’ I’ve been savin’ of it for you ever since, an’ you ‘ain’t built no house yet. You’ve built sheds, an’ cow-houses an’ one new barn, an’ now you’re goin’ to build another. Father, I want to know if you think it’s right. You’re lodgin’ your dumb beasts better than you are your own flesh an’ blood. I want to know if you think it’s right.”
“I ‘ain’t got nothin’ to say.”
“You can’t say nothin’ without ownin’ it ain’t right, father. An’ there’s another thing — I ain’t complained; I’ve got along forty year, an’ I s’pose I should forty more, if it wa’n’t for that — if we don’t have another house, Nanny she can’t live with us after she’s married. She’ll have to go somewheres else to live away from us, an’ it don’t seem as if I could have it so, noways, father. She wa’n’t ever strong. She’s got considerable color, but there wa’n’t never any backbone to her. I’ve always took the heft of everything off her, an’ she ain’t fit to keep house an’ do everything herself. She’ll be all worn out inside of a year. Think of her doin’ all the washin’ an’ ironin’ an’ bakin’ with them soft white hands an’ arms, an’ sweepin’!I can’t have it so, noways, father.”