Their source is a mystery, unless they fall from the clothing of the
chambermaids, who frequently drop hairpins and brooches and buttons
between the sheets, and strew whisk brooms and scissors under the
blankets.
We have two general servants, who are supposed to do all the work of
the house, and who are as amiable and obliging and incapable as they
well can be. Oonah generally waits upon the table, and Molly cooks;
at least she cooks now and then when she is not engaged with Peter
in the vegetable garden or the stable. But whatever happens, Mrs.
Mullarkey, as a descendant of one of the Irish kings, is to be
looked upon only as an inspiring ideal, inciting one to high and
ever higher flights of happy incapacity. Benella ostensibly
oversees the care of our rooms, but she is comparatively helpless in
such a kingdom of misrule. Why demand clean linen when there is
none; why seek for a towel at midday when it is never ironed until
evening; how sweep when a broom is all inadequate to the task?
Salemina's usual remark, on entering a humble hostelry anywhere, is:
"If the hall is as dirty as this, what must the kitchen be! Order
me two hard-boiled eggs, please!"
"Use your 'science,' Benella," I say to that discouraged New England
maiden, who has never looked at her philosophy from its practical or
humorous side. "If the universe is pure mind and there is no
matter, then this dirt is not a real thing, after all.
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