.
Self-interest, if nothing else, would stimulate our Katies and
Bridgets, our Dinahs and our Gretchens, to keep a place, if it were
not so wickedly easy to "make a change." Our kitchens are overrun and
ravaged by Arabs that become, every year, more despotic.

"Who would be free, herself must strike the blow." General liberty
from this bondage can only be achieved by determined and united
effort. The establishment in every community of a simple organization
under the name of The Housekeepers' Protective Union, that should have
but one article in its constitution, and that one be the pledge I have
indicated, would cover the whole ground, and effect within a year,
permanent reform. Shall not this appeal be the Alexander to cut the
Gordian knot which has, thus far, defied the dexterity and strength of
all who have wrestled with the problem?

Who will send me news of the formation of the first Chapter of the
H.P.U.?

CHAPTER X.

"ONLY HER NERVES."

There is a slang expression current among the irreverent youth of the
present day, when referring to a man wise in his own conceit, to the
effect that "what that fellow does not know is torn out." So I,
quoting my juniors, begin my talk with the sentence--for the raciness
of which I apologize--"What American women do not know about
nervousness is torn out!"

Only this week in a city horse-car I watched the faces of my
fellow-passengers,--women, most of them--with a pain at my heart. Oh,
the tired, strained, impatient faces, and the eager, alert, and
anxious expression that belong to the people of this new and free
country! Some of these wretched mortals had babies with them,--babies
whose fretful wails seemed but to voice the mother's expression of
countenance. In an uneasy way the little mites would be shifted from
one shoulder to another, or trotted in nervousness that reminded me
irresistibly of the nursery rhyme which might be the motto of the
American mother:

", out of breath,
They trot the baby, most to death,
Sick or well, or cold or hot,
It's trottery, trottery, trottery, trot."

Of all these women there was not one who sat still for three
consecutive minutes. Heads were twisted to look at the name of the
corner lamp-posts, glove fingers were smoothed, the folds of
dress-skirts shaken out, hats straightened,--until I would fain have
cried out in irreverent paraphrase, at sight of the unrest which I
blush to confess made me conscious of m