The New Orleans Bulletin

A "SCRUB" WEDDING.

OR HOW A GOOD HUSBAND WAS WON.

There were eighteen or twenty of us, mostly girls. The subject of the conversation was servants—a vast one, indeed, but which we propose to touch upon very lightly. "Ah, girls!" said the matron, "you have very little idea of the trouble we have with our servants, particularly now-a-days, when money is scarce, and you are not always ready to say: Here's your money; you must seek another place."

This was said in a sad voice, but the good old dame brightened up when she added: "It reminds me of times gone by, when money was plenty and provisions were cheap.

"I had a German cook, a fine, buxom young lass, florid as a summer sunset, and robust as an amazon. It struck me one day that the sidewalk in front of the house needed scrubbing, and being short of help, at the time, I ordered the cook to do the work. She refused peremptorily to comply, claiming that it was beneath her dignity. The kitchen, she said, was the place, and I replied by handing her her month's wages, remarking cooly that I could quickly find somebody that would. Sophie had soon changed her mind, and an hour afterwards the sidewalk was as clean as any neat housekeeper could wish. But that is not all; the next day I was told that I was wanted at the hall door by a hard-working neighbor, a shop keeper and apparently well to do. (This was before the war.)

"In a few words my neighbor had explained in broad Teutonic accents that he had seen my servant the day before scrubbing the sidewalk, and he added exultingly, 'She worked with care and such vigor that I resolved from that moment that she should become my wife.' In short, girls, in a few days we had a sensation wedding in the neighborhood, and I had lost one of the best servants in the world."
When the good lady concluded, there was a cry of admiration on the part of the entire attendance, and what with the praise of the worth of honest labor and the like, the company broke up.

This little meeting occurred some time ago, and we have daily watched the effects of the Saturday lesson. We have frequently seen several of the pretty attendants playing at croquet in the front garden, but not one has ventured on a sidewalk for scrubbing purposes. No doubt they think it quite enough for them to do duty in sweeping the sidewalk with their ample trails without having to "stoop to conquer."