The Feminine Factotum

[The Daily Chronicle, writing on women farmers, quotes the tribute of HUTTON, the historian, to a Derbyshire lady who died at Matlock in 1854: “She undertakes any kind of manual labour, as holding the plough, driving the team, thatching the barn, using the flail; but her chief avocation is breaking horses at a guinea per week. She is fond of Pope and Shakespeare, is a self-taught and capable instrumentalist, and supports the bass viol in Matlock Church.”]

Though in the good old-fashioned days The feminine factotum rarely Was honoured with a crown of bays When she had won it fairly; She did emerge at times, like one For manual work a perfect glutton, Blue-stocking half, half Amazon, As chronicled by HUTTON.

But now you’ll find her counterpart In almost every English village— A mistress of the arduous art Of scientific tillage, Who cheerfully resigns the quest Of all that makes a woman charming, And shows an even greater zest For gardening and farming.

She used to petrify her dons; She was a most efficient bowler; But now she’s baking barley scones To help the FOOD CONTROLLER; Good Mrs. Beeton she devours, And not the dialogues of PLATO, And sets above the Cult of Flowers The cult of the Potato.

The studious maid whose classic brow Was high with conscious pride of learning Now grooms the pony, milks the cow, And takes a hand at churning; And one I know, whose music had Done credit to her educators, Has sold her well-beloved “Strad” To purchase incubators!

The object of this humble lay Is not to minimize the glory Of women of an earlier day Whose deeds are shrined in story; ’Tis only to extol the grit Of clever girls—and none work harder— Who daily do their toilsome “bit” To stock the nation’s larder.