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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17019-8.txt b/17019-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ecff00 --- /dev/null +++ b/17019-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2486 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A String of Amber Beads, by Martha Everts +Holden + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A String of Amber Beads + + +Author: Martha Everts Holden + + + +Release Date: November 6, 2005 [eBook #17019] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STRING OF AMBER BEADS*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +A STRING OF AMBER BEADS + +by + +MARTHA EVERTS HOLDEN + +"AMBER" + + + + + + + +Siegel, Cooper Co., +New York. ---------- Chicago. +Copyright 1893 by +Charles H. Kerr & Company + + + + + +DEDICATED + +TO THE LATE + +ANDREW SHUMAN + + +MY LITERARY ADVISER + +AND + +TRUEST FRIEND + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + I. "I DIDN'T THINK." + II. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE." + III. A COWARDLY MATE. + IV. THEY CARRY NO BANNER. + V. SHUT IN. + VI. THE CIRCLING YEAR--A CLOCK. + VII. SOMETHING BETTER THAN SURFACE MANNERS. + VIII. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. + IX. THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME MOST WEARY. + X. NOTHING SO GRAND AS FORCE. + XI. A RAINY RHAPSODY. + XII. CAUSE FOR WONDER. + XIII. THE FIRST KATYDID. + XIV. A PLEA FOR MEN. + XV. WHAT I'M TIRED OF. + XVI. NOTHING LIKE A GOOD LAUGH. + XVII. HOLD! ENOUGH!! + XVIII. RIPE OPPORTUNITIES. + XIX. A SUNSET CLOUD. + XX. ONE SECRET OF SUCCESS. + XXI. A NEW BEATITUDE. + XXII. BLESSED BE BASHFULNESS. + XXIII. A BEWITCHED VIOLIN. + XXIV. A HAT PIN PROBLEM. + XXV. POLITENESS VS. SINCERITY. + XXVI. THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN. + XXVII. SERMONS FROM FLIES. + XXVIII. THE MAN WHO KNOWS IT ALL. + XXIX. BALD HEADS AND UNEQUAL CHANCES. + XXX. HUMAN STRAWS. + XXXI. A SALLOW FACED GIRL FOR YOUR PITY. + XXXII. AND YET HE CLINGS TO LIFE. + XXXIII. OH! TO RID THE WORLD OF SHAMS. + XXXIV. DRESS PARADE OF THE GREAT ALIKE. + XXXV. IF GOD MADE YOU A WILLOW DON'T TRY TO BE A PINE. + XXXVI. TWO TYPES. + XXXVII. A DREAM GARDEN. + XXXVIII. ANYTHING WORSE THAN A BLUE-JAY? HARDLY! + XXXIX. GOOD HEALTH A BLESSING. + XL. WHY, BLESS MY SOUL! IT REALLY SEEMS TO THINK. + XLI. TAKE TO DRINK, OF COURSE! + XLII. A WARNING TO GIRLS. + XLIII. A FROG MAY DO WHAT A MAN MAY NOT. + XLIV. THANKING GOD FOR A GOOD HUSBAND. + XLV. JUST A LITTLE TIRED! + XLVI. PAINTING THE OLD HOMESTEAD. + XLVII. THE OLD SITTING-ROOM STOVE. + XLVIII. A TALK ABOUT DIVORCE. + XLIX. GONE BACK TO FLIPPITY-FLOPPITY SKIRTS. + L. I SHALL MEET HIM SOME DAY. + LI. A MANNISH WOMAN. + LII. THE ONLY WAY TO CONQUER A HARD DESTINY. + LIII. THE "SMART" PERSON. + LIV. A PRETTY STREET INCIDENT. + LV. POLICY A DAMASCUS BLADE, NOT A CLUB. + LVI. THE CONSTANT YEARS BRING AGE TO ALL. + LVII. DID YOU EVER READ THE "LITTLE PILGRIM." + LVIII. EATING MILK TOAST WITH A SPOON! + LIX. BOYS, YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU. + LX. WHAT TO DO WITH GROWLERS. + LXI. GOD BLESS 'EM! + LXII. "UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE." + LXIII. TAKING INVENTORY. + LXIV. DON'T MARRY HIM TO SAVE HIM. + + + + +A STRING OF BEADS + + +I. + +"I DIDN'T THINK." + +"I didn't think!" A woman flings the whiteness of her reputation in +the dust, and, waking to the realization of her loss when the cruel +glare of the world's disapproval reveals it, she seeks to plead her +thoughtlessness as an entreaty of the world's pardon. But the +flint-hearted world is slow to grant it, if she be a woman. "You have +thrown your rose in the dust, go live there with it," the world cries, +and there is no appeal, although the dust become the grave of all that +is bright and lovely and sweet in a thoughtless woman's really innocent +life. A young girl flirts with a stranger on the street. The result +is something disagreeable, and straight-way comes the excuse: "Why, I +didn't think! I meant no harm; I just wanted to have a little fun." +Now, look me straight in the eye, young gossamer-head, while I tell you +what I _know_. The girl who will flirt with strange men in public +places, however harmless and innocent it may appear, places herself in +that man's estimation upon a level with the most abandoned of her sex +and courts the same regard. Strong language, perhaps you think, but I +tell you it is gospel truth, and I feel like going into orders and +preaching from a pulpit whenever I see a thoughtless, gay and giddy +girl tiptoeing her way upon the road that leads direct to destruction. +The boat that dances like a feather on the current a mile above +Niagara's plunge is just as much lost as when it enters the swirling, +swinging wrath of waters, unless some strong hand head it up stream and +out of danger. A flirtation to-day is a ripple merely, but to-morrow +it will be a breaker, and then a whirlpool, and after that comes +hopeless loss of character. Girls, I have seen you gather up your +roses from their vases at night and fold them away in damp paper to +protect their loveliness for another day. I have seen you pluck the +jewels like sun sparkles from your fingers and your ears, and lay them +in velvet caskets which you locked with a silver key for safe beeping. +You do all this for flowers which a thousand suns shall duplicate in +beauty, and for jewels for which a handful of dollars can reimburse +your loss; but you are infinitely careless with the delicate rose of +maidenliness, which, once faded, no summer shining can ever woo back to +freshness, and with the unsullied jewel of personal reputation which +all the wealth of kings can never buy back again, once lost. See to it +that you preserve that modesty and womanliness without which the +prettiest girl in the world is no better than a bit of scentless lawn +in a milliner's window, as compared to the white rose in the garden, +around which the honey bees gather. See to it that you lock up the +unsullied splendor of the jewel of your reputation as carefully as you +do your diamonds, and carry the key within your heart of hearts. + + + + +II. + +"STAY WHERE YOU ARE." + +I received a letter the other day in which the writer said: "Amber, I +want to come to the city and earn my living. What chance have I?" And +I felt like posting back an immediate answer and saying: "Stay where +you are." I didn't do it, though, for I knew it would be useless. The +child is bound to come, and come she will. And she will drift into a +third-rate Chicago boarding-house, than which if there is anything +meaner--let us pray! And if she is pretty she will have to carry +herself like snow on high hills to avoid contamination. If she is +confiding and innocent the fate of that highly persecuted heroine of +old-fashioned romance, Clarissa Harlowe, is before her. If she is +homely the doors of opportunity are firmly closed against her. If she +is smart she will perhaps succeed in earning enough money to pay her +board bill and have sufficient left over to indulge in the maddening +extravagance of an occasional paper of pins or a ball of tape! What +if, after hard labor, and repeated failure, she does secure something +like success? No sooner will she do so, than up will step some dapper +youth who will beckon her over the border into the land where troubles +just begin. She won't know how to sew, or bake, or make good coffee, +for such arts are liable to be overlooked when a girl makes a career +for herself, and so love will gallop away over the hills like a +riderless steed, and happiness will flare like a light in a windy +night. Oh, no, my little country maid, stay where you are, if you have +a home and friends. Be content with fishing for trout in the brook +rather than cruising a stormy sea for whales. A great city is a cruel +place for young lives. It takes them as the cider press takes juicy +apples, sun-kissed and flavored with the breath of the hills, and +crushes them into pulp. There is a spoonful of juice for each apple, +but cider is cheap! + + + + +III. + +A COWARDLY MATE. + +I know a wife who is waiting, safe and sound in her father's home, for +her young husband to earn the money single handed to make a home worthy +of her acceptance. She makes me think of the first mate of a ship who +should stay on shore until the captain tested the ability of his vessel +to weather the storm. Back to your ship, you cowardly one! If the +boat goes down, go down with it, but do not count yourself worthy of +any fair weather you did not help to gain! A woman who will do all she +can to win a man's love merely for the profit his purse is going to be +to her, and will desert him when the cash runs low, is a bad woman and +carries a bad heart in her bosom. Why, you are never really wedded +until you have had dark days together. What earthly purpose would a +cable serve that never was tested by a weight? Of what use is the tie +that binds wedded hearts together if like a filament of floss it parts +when the strain is brought to bear upon it? It is not when you are +young, my dear, when the skies are blue and every wayside weed flaunts +a summer blossom, that the story of your life is recorded. It is when +"Darby and Joan" are faded and wasted and old, when poverty has nipped +the roses, when trouble and want and care have flown like uncanny birds +over their heads (but never yet nested in their hearts, thank God), +that the completed chronicle of their lives furnishes the record over +which heaven smiles or weeps. + + + + +IV. + +THEY CARRY NO BANNER. + +There never yet was a grand procession that was not accompanied, or, +rather, in great measure made up of, followers and onlookers. So in +this life parade of ours, with its ever varying pageant and brilliant +display, there are comparatively few who carry banners, who disport the +epaulette, and the gold lace. And sometimes, we who help swell the +ranks of those who watch and wait, grow discouraged, almost thinking +that life is a failure because it holds no gala-day for us, nothing but +sober tints and quiet duties. What chance for any one, and a woman +especially, to make a career for herself, tied down to a lot of +precious babies, or lassooed by ten thousand galloping cares! As well +expect a rose to blossom in midwinter hedges, or a lark to sing in a +snowstorm, as to look for bloom and song in such a life! But just bend +down your ear a minute, poor, tired, overworked and troubled sister, I +have a special word for you. It is simply impossible for circumstances +of any sort to overthrow the high spirit of one who believes in +something yet to come and out of sight. What are poverty and adverse +fate and mocking hopes and disappointed ambition to the soul which is +only journeying through an unfriendly world to a heritage that cannot +fail? As well might a flower complain of the rains that called it from +the sod, of the winds that rocked it, and the cloudless noons that +flamed above it, when June at last has lightly laid the coronal of +summer's perfect bloom upon its bending bough. We shall find our June +somewhere, never fear. Be content then a little longer with +uncongenial surroundings and a life that knows no outlook of hope. Be +all the sweeter and the stronger and the braver that the way is short. +To-morrow, in the Palace of Love, the dark and unfriendly inn that +sheltered us for a night upon the way, shall be forgotten. + + + + +V. + +SHUT IN. + +Were you ever shut in by a fog? Lost at mid-day in a soundless, +rayless world of nebulous vapor--so seemingly alone in the universe +that your voice found no echo, and your ears caught no footfall in all +the vast domain of silence about you? The other morning, when I left +the house, I paused in wonderment at the strange world into which I was +about to plunge. All landmarks were gone, nothing but silver and gray +left of nature's brilliant tints, not even so much shadow as an artist +might use to accentuate a bird's wing in crayon--no heaven above, no +earth beneath. The interior of a raised biscuit could not have been +more densely uniform than the atmosphere. It seemed as if the world +had slipped its moorings and drifted off its course into companionless +space, leaving me behind, as an ocean steamer sometimes leaves a +straggler on an uninhabited shore. I felt like sending forth a call +that should give my bearings and bring back a boat to the rescue. I +groped my way down the steps, and, following an intuition, sought the +station. Ahead of me I heard muffled steps, yet saw no form. But +suddenly a doorway opened in the east and out strode the sun. In the +air above and about me, behold, the wonder of diamond domes and slender +minarets traced in pearl! The wayside banks were fringed with crystal +spray of downbeaten weed and bush that sparkled like the billows of a +sunlit sea. The tall elms here and there towered like the masts of +returning ships, slow sailing from a wintry voyage back to summer lands +and splendor. There was no sound in all the air, but the whole +universe seemed singing as when the morning stars chorused the glory of +God. More and more widely opened that doorway in the east; step by +step advanced the great magician, and over all the world the splendor +grew, until it seemed too much for mortal eyes to bear, when lo! a +touch dispelled it all and commonplace day stood revealed. + + + + +VI. + +THE CIRCLING YEAR--A CLOCK. + +The circling year is a clock whereon nature writes the hours in +blossoms. First come the wind flowers and the violets, they denote the +early morning hours and are quickly passed. The forenoon is marked by +lilacs, apple blooms and roses. The day's meridian is reached with +lilies, red carnations, and the dusky splendor of pansies and passion +flowers. Then come the languid poppy and the prim little 4 o'clock, +the marigold, the sweet pea, and later the dahlia and the many-tinted +chrysanthemum to mark the day's decline. Lastly the goldenrod, the +aster and the gentian, tell us it is evening time, and night and frost +are close at hand. The rose hour has struck already for '93. The +garden beds are full of scattered petals and the dusty roadways glimmer +with ghostly blossoms too wan to be roses, and wafted by a breath into +nothingness. With such a calendar to mark the advance of decay and +death the seasons differ from the mortal race which substitutes aches +and pains for a horologe of flowers, and grows old by processes of +physical failure and mental blight. + + + + +VII. + +SOMETHING BETTER THAN SURFACE MANNERS. + +There are days when my heart is so full of love for young girls that as +I pass them on the street I feel myself smiling as one does to walk by +a garden of daffodils. And when I see how careful some of them are to +be circumspect and demure, I think to myself how fine a thing it is, to +be sure, to have good manners! How happy the parent whose young +daughter knows just how to hold her hands in company, just how and when +to smile, just how to enter a room or gracefully leave it. Easy, +indeed, must lie the head of that mother who is secure in the knowledge +that her daughter will never make a false step in the stately minuet of +etiquette, or strike a discordant note in the festival of life; that +she will never laugh too loud, nor turn her head in the street, even +when the gay and glittering "king of the cannibal isles" rides by, nor +do anything odd or queer or unconventional. To the mother who believes +that good manners can be taught in books and conned in dancing schools, +there is something to satisfy the heart's finest craving in a strictly +conventional daughter, who thinks and acts and speaks by rule, and +whose life is like the life of an apricot, canned, or a music box wound +up with a key. But to my thinking, my dear, good manners are not put +on and off like varying fashions, nor done up like sweetmeats, pound +for pound, and kept in the storeroom for state occasions. They strike +root from the heart out, and the prettiest manners in the world are +only the blossoming of a good heart. Surface manners are like cut +flowers stuck in a shallow glass with just enough water to keep them +fresh an hour or so, but the courtesy that has its growth in the heart +is like the rosebush in the garden that no inclement season can kill, +and no dark day force to forego the unfolding of a bud. + + + + +VIII. + +MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. + +I am more and more convinced the longer I live that the very best +advice that was ever given from friend to friend is contained in those +four words: "Mind your own business." The following of it would save +many a heartache. Its observance would insure against every sort of +wrangling. When we mind our own business we are sure of success in +what we undertake, and may count upon a glorious immunity from failure. +When the husbandman harvests a crop by hanging over the fence and +watching his neighbor hoe weeds, it will be time for you and for me to +achieve renown in any undertaking in which we do not exclusively mind +our own business. If I had a family of young folks to give advice to, +my early, late and constant admonition would be always and everywhere +to "mind their own business." Thus should they woo harmony and peace, +and live to enjoy something like the completeness of life. + + + + +IX. + +THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME MOST WEARY. + +In the ups and downs and hithers and thithers of an eventful life shall +I tell you the people who have made me the most weary? It is not the +bad people, nor the foolish people; we can get along with all such +because of a streak of common humanity in us all, but I cannot survive +without extreme lassitude the decorous people; those who slip through +life without sound or sparkle, those who behave themselves upon every +occasion, and would pass through a dynamite explosion without rumpling +a hair; those who never have done anything out of the way and never +will, simply for the same reason that a fish cannot perspire--no blood +in 'em! Cut them and they would run cold sap, like a maple tree in +April. Such people are always frightened to death for fear of what the +world is going to say about them. They are under everlasting bonds to +keep the peace. I wonder that they ever un-bend to kiss their +children. If one of them lived in my house I should stick pins in him. +Morality and goodness that lie no deeper than "behavior" are like the +veneering they put on cheap tables--very tawdry and soon peeled off. + + + + +X. + +NOTHING SO GRAND AS FORCE. + +Reading about the superb management of the big fire the other day, a +certain girl of my acquaintance remarked: "Is there anything so grand +in a man as force? In my estimation those firemen and the chief who so +splendidly controlled them are as far superior to the dancing youth, we +meet at parties and hops, as meat is better than foam." Put that into +your pipe, you callow striplings, who aim to be lady-killers! It is +not your tennis suits, nor your small feet, nor your ability to dance +and lead the german that makes a woman's heart kindle at your approach. +It is your response to an emergency, your muscle in a tilt against +odds, your endurance and force, that will win the way to feminine +regard. As for me there is something pathetic in the sight of a big, +handsome fellow in dancing pumps and a Prince Albert coat. I would +rather see him swinging a blacksmith's hammer, or driving a plow +through stony furrows if need be. The "original man" was not created +to shine in the military schottische or win his laurels in the berlin. + + + + +XI. + +A RAINY RHAPSODY. + +Gently, idly, lazily, as petals from an over-blown rose, while I write, +the welcome rain is falling. The sky is neutral tinted, save in the +east, where a faint blush lingers. All along the country roadways a +thousand fainting clovers uplift their purple crests, and in the dusky +spaces of the dense June woods a host of grateful leaves wait and +beckon. A voice comes from the garden bed; it is the complaint of the +pansy. "Here I lie," it says, "with all my jewels low in the dust. +Where is the purple of my amethysts, the yellow of my topaz, the +inimitable sheen of my milk-white pearls? Alas and alack for pansies +when the rain beats them earthward!" The marigold, like a +yellow-haired boy with his straw hat well back from his flying mane, +whistles softly to himself for joy, and buries his hands in the pockets +of his green breeches. The peonies burn low their tinted globes of +light, and the sweet peas swing like idle girls upon the tendrils of +their drooping vines. The dog lifts his nose and sniffs the moist air +approvingly, while poor Old Tom, the cat, blinks benignly upon the +scene. In the poultry yard the hens pose in the same indescribable +amaze that has bewildered their species since the dawn of time. I +think the first chicken that was ever hatched in Eden must have +experienced some great nervous shock that has descended along the +infinite line of its progeny. The monotonous rooster chants ever and +anon from the top of the fence his unalterable convictions. The ducks +waddle waggishly through the rain and the pigeons coo softly the +mellowest melodies that ever sounded from a feathered throat. + + + + +XII. + +CAUSE FOR WONDER. + +I do not wonder so much that so few people blossom into sunny old age, +as I wonder that one-half of humanity ever shows a leaf or unfolds a +bud. Look at the idiots who have children. Look at the little ones +thrown into the street like troublesome kittens. Look at the +injudicious methods of diet and training. I declare, my dear, if I +were to go into the room where Theodore Thomas was rehearsing his +orchestra, and see the flutists using their flutes for hammers, and the +violinists using their violins for tennis rackets, and the divine old +cello in the hands of a lusty blacksmith who was utilizing it for an +anvil, the sight would be nothing to what it is to see the muddle we +make of the children's sweet lives. God meant us for musical +instruments, and gave to each soul its capacity for some original +harmony. Can a flute keep its tone for three score years it you use it +for a clothes stick on wash day, or a violin retain intact the angel +voice within it if you let rats breed and nest in it, fling it against +the side of the house and dance on it with hob-nailed boots? If an +instrument subjected to such usage pipes out a silver note once in a +dozen years, uncover your head when you hear it, for it is the original +angel within the mechanism, which nothing can kill! + + + + +XIII. + +THE FIRST KATYDID. + +The first katydid of the season has whipped out his bow and drawn the +preparatory note across the strings of his violin. He is alone at +present and he plays to an empty house, but it will not be long before +the orchestra fills up and the music is in full blast. The cricket is +getting ready to throw aside the green baize that has held his piccolo +so long, and before the middle of the month there will not be a tuft of +grass nor a shelter of low-lying leaves that is not alive with the +shrill, complaining sweetness of his theme. The goldenrod has lighted +the candles in the candelabra that skirt the borders of the wood, and +the aster has already hung out her purple gown and her yellow laces +upon the bushes that follow the windings of the steep ravine. Only six +weeks to frost! Only six weeks to the time for the unbottling of the +year's vintage and the exchange of tea for sparkling wine. Hasten +forward, then, oh, days of radiant life and sparkling weather! We are +tired of torrid waves and flies; of snakes, hornets and cyclones. + + + + +XIV. + +A PLEA FOR MEN. + +A more or less extended experience as a bread-winner has taught me a +noble charity for men. I used to think that all the head of a family +was good for was to accumulate riches and pay bills, but I am beginning +to think that there is many a martyr spirit hidden away beneath the +business man's suit of tweed. Wife and daughters stand ever before +him, like hoppers waiting for grist to grind. "Give! Give!" is their +constant cry, like the rattle of the upper and nether stones. This +panegyric does not apply to the man who frequents clubs and spends his +money on between-meal drinks and lottery tickets. It applies rather to +the unselfish, hardworking father of a family, who works early and late +to keep his daughters like lilies that have no need to toil, and to +help maintain the ostentation of vain display upon which depends the +social success of a worldly and frivolous wife. It would be far more +to those daughters' credit if they did something in the line of honest +and honorable toil to support themselves, rather than live on the +heart's blood of an unselfish and overworked father; and as for the +wife who exacts the income of a duchess to keep up the silly parade of +Vanity Fair, there may come a day for her, when, shorn of the generous +and loving support of a good husband, and forced to earn her own +livelihood, as the penniless widows of bankrupt men are sometimes +forced to do, she will appreciate, too late, the blessing that Heaven +has taken from her. + + + + +XV. + +WHAT I'M TIRED OF. + +I am tired of many things. I am tired of the miserable little god, +"worry," shrined in every home. I am tired of doing perpetual homage +to the same black-faced little wretch. I am tired of putting down +pride and curbing a righteous indignation. I am tired of keeping my +hands off human weeds. I am tired of crucifying my tastes, and +cultivating the nickel that springs perennial to meet my needs. I am +tired of poverty and all needful discipline. I am tired of seeing +babies born to people who don't know how to bring them up. I am tired +of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the +platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am +tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier +and marching with the advance guard. I am tired of girls who giggle +and of boys who swear. I am tired of married women who think it +charming to be a little giddy, and of married men who ogle young girls +and other men's wives. I am tired of a world where love is like the +blossom of the century plant, unfolding only once in a hundred years. +I am tired of men who are worthless and decayed to the core, like +blighted peaches. I am tired of seeing such men in power. I am tired +of being obliged to smile where I long to smite. I am tired of +vulgarity which glides forever through the world like the snake through +Eden. I am tired of women who bear the hearts of tigers, and of men +who roar like lions, yet show the valor of mice. I am tired of living +shoulder to shoulder with my pet antipathies. I am tired of the +everlasting inveighing against capital, when any idiot knows that +capital is the king-bolt that holds the world together. I am tired of +wearing shabby clothes, and meeting folks who judge of a parcel by the +quality of wrapping paper it is incased in. I am tired of being +well-behaved and decorous when I want to fling stones and make faces. +I am tired of smelling the game dinner of my neighbor and sitting down +at home to beans and bacon. I am tired of many more things, the +enumeration of which would take from now until the day after forever. + + + + +XVI. + +NOTHING LIKE A GOOD LAUGH. + +Do you know, my dear, that there is absolutely nothing that will help +you to bear the ills of life so well as a good laugh. Laugh all you +can, and the small imps in blue who love to preempt their quarters in a +human heart will scatter away like owls before the music of flutes. +There are few of the minor difficulties and annoyances that will not +dissipate at the charge of the nonsense brigade. If the clothes line +breaks, if the cat tips over the milk and the dog elopes with the +roast, if the children fall into the mud simultaneously with the advent +of clean aprons, if the new girl quits in the middle of housecleaning, +and though you search the earth with candles you find none to take her +place, if the neighbor in whom you have trusted goes back on you and +decides to keep chickens, if the chariot wheels of the uninvited guest +draw near when you are out of provender, and the gaping of your empty +purse is like the unfilled mouth of a young robin take courage if you +have enough sunshine in your heart, to keep a laugh on your lips. +Before good nature, half the cares of daily living will fly away like +midges before the wind; try it. + + + + +XVII. + +HOLD! ENOUGH!! + +The other evening it chanced that a combination of disastrous +circumstances wrought havoc with my temper. I lost my train; my head +hummed like a bumblebee with weary pain, and the elastic that held my +hat to its moorings broke, so that that capering compromise between +inanimate matter and demoniac possession blew half a block up street on +its own account, and was brought back to me by a youthful son of +Belial, who took my very last quarter as reward for the lively chase. + +"There's no use!" said I to myself as I jogged along through the +gloaming; "blessed be the woman who knows enough to cry 'hold!' against +such odds!" + +And just then I spied a wizened little mite of a woman trotting by, +carrying a gripsack bigger than herself. She grasped it, and held it +against her wan little stomach, as a Roman warrior might carry his +shield into battle--plucky to the last. + +"Now," said I, "look here, Amber, have you a fifty pound sachel to tug +through the darkness? No! Then you might be worse off." + +And I went on a little farther and I met the brave firemen going home +drenched and worn from the big fire. "You coward!" said I to myself, +"what if you were a fireman! Something to growl about then, I guess." + +And I went a bit farther and I saw a little white coffin in a window. +"How about that?" said I. "If the darlings were gone to their long +home you might talk about trouble!" + +And a few moments later I ran across an old man without any legs, +peddling papers. And then I said: "Do you call your life a grind, +madam, with two legs to walk upon, and a sufficient income to admit of +an occasional fling? What if you had wooden legs, and peddled papers?" + +Now, I have told you this for a purpose. However dark your lot may be +there are worse all around you. You may be inclined to think that the +bloom and the brightness have gone out of your life, leaving nothing +behind them but what remains of the carnation when the frost finds +it--a withered stalk. But if you will take the trouble to watch, you +will find that there is always something harder to bear than your own +trouble, and, put to the test, you wouldn't change crosses with your +neighbor. + + + + +XVIII. + +RIPE OPPORTUNITIES. + +What if a man went over the lake to St. Joe to visit the peach orchards +at the maturity of their delicious harvest! The consent of the owner +of the fairest plantation of the many has been gained, let us imagine, +for the plucking of the perfect fruit. And yet, in despite of +opportunity and privilege, what would you think of one who came home +with empty baskets and an unappeased relish for ripe peaches? Would +you not think such a one a dullard, or, at least, stupidly blind to his +opportunities? And if you chanced to hear him crying over his empty +basket later on, would you not revile him for a lazy fellow? We all of +us, from day to day, miss chances of far greater value than the ripest +peach that ever mellowed in the sun. The opportunity to say a kind and +encouraging word swings low upon the bough of to-day. Why not gather +it in? The chance to help, to succor, to protect, the chance to lend a +helping hand, to share a burden, to soothe a sorrow, to plant a loving +thought, or twine a memory that shall blossom like a rose upon the +terrace of to-morrow, all are our own as we pass through the world on +our way to heaven. We may not come this way again. See to it, then, +that we carry full baskets on the homeward faring. + + + + +XIX. + +A SUNSET CLOUD. + +Not long ago there slowly ascended into the evening sky a pillar of +cloud so vast that all measurements sank into insignificance beside it. +Its color was of softest gray just touched with the flush that deepens +the inmost chamber of a shell, or blushes in the unfolded petals of a +wind flower. With majestic yet almost imperceptible motion this cloud +mounted the blue background of the sky. The spectre of a faded moon +hung motionless above it an instant only, and then was swiftly drawn +within its soft eclipse. Changing from moment to moment, the great +mass took on all semblances of vivid fancy, until the evening sky +seemed the arena of dreamland's cohorts. With indescribable grace and +with the delicate lightness of a fairy footfall the mighty visitant +advanced and took possession of the heavenly field. Suddenly the full +glory of the setting sun smote it from outer rim to base. In less time +than it takes to tell the story the cloud was dissipated in a spray of +feathery light. It drifted like a wreath before the wind and lost +itself in the illimitable spaces of the air, as dust in the splendor of +a summer day. It broke upon the hills in a shower of flame and +dissolved above the still waters of the lake in tremulous flakes of +light. The sight was worth going far to see, and yet I am willing to +wager my to-morrow's dinner that not one-fiftieth of the folks for whom +I write, saw it, or would have left their supper to watch the glorious +spectacle. + + + + +XX. + +ONE SECRET OF SUCCESS. + +There is just one thing nowadays that never fails to bring success, and +that is assurance. If you are going to make yourself known, it is no +longer the thing to quietly hand out your card and a modest credential; +you must advance with a trumpet and blow a brazen blast to shake the +stars. The time has gone by when self-advancement can be gained by +modest and unassuming methods. To stand with lifted hat and solicit a +hearing savors of an all too humble spirit. The easily abashed may +starve in a garret, or go die on the highways. There is no chance for +them in the jostle of life. The gilded circus chariot, with a full +brass band and a plump goddess distributing posters, is what takes the +popular heart by storm. Your silent entry into town, depending upon +the merits of your wares to work up a trade, is chimerical and +obsolete. We no longer sit in the shadow and play flutes; we parade in +a sawdust ring and play on trombones, or take our place on a raised +platform and beat the bass drum, and in that way we draw a crowd and +gather in the coppers, and that is what we live for, isn't it? + + + + +XXI. + +A NEW BEATITUDE. + +There should be a new beatitude, and it should read, "Blessed is the +man who hath the courage of his convictions." It should apply to poor, +long-suffering women as well. We have plenty of the sort of courage +that will lead a man to step in front of a runaway horse, or dash into +a burning house, or throw himself off a dock to rescue a perishing +wretch, but there is a dearth of the kind of bravery that will enable +either man or woman to face a laugh in defense of a principle, or +succor a losing cause despite a sneer. How the best of us will retreat +trailing our banner in the dust, when the hot shot of ridicule +confronts us from the enemy's camp, or when some merry sentinel +challenges us with the opprobrious epithet, "crank." Why, I believe +there is hardly a man or woman to-day who would have the courage to +march up to a half-grown boy and knock the cigarette out of his mouth, +or tackle the omnipresent, from everlasting to everlasting expectorator +and buffet him into decency, or drive the "nose-bag" and the +"head-check" fiend at the point of an umbrella from all future +molestation of the noble horse he persecutes! We all believe in the +extermination of public nuisances, but we have not the courage of our +convictions to enable us to fight the fight of the just to overthrow +the rampancy of the evil doer. + + + + +XXII. + +BLESSED BE BASHFULNESS. + +Like the presence of a fresh clover in a meadow of sun-scorched +grasses, or the sound of a singing lark in a council of crows, is the +sight of a bashful child. In this age of juvenile precocity and +pinafore wisdom I would rather run across a downright timid boy or girl +than drink Arctic soda in dog days. Never be distressed, then, when +"johnnie" hangs his head and blushes like a girl, or when his little +sister stands on one foot and fairly writhes with embarrassment in the +presence of strangers. Count it rather the very crown of joy that you +are the parent of a fresh and innocent child, rather than the +superfluous attendant of a _blasé_ infant, who discounts a circus +herald in "cheek" and outdistances a drummer in politic address and +unabashed effrontery. If I had my way I would put half the little +mannikins and pattern dolls of our latter day nurseries into a big +corn-popper and see if I couldn't evolve something sweeter and more +wholesome out of the hard, round, compact little kernels of their +present individuality. I would utterly do away with children's parties +and "butterfly balls" and kirmess dissipations. There should be a new +deal of bread and milk all around. Every boy in the land should go to +bed at sundown, and every girl should wear a sunbonnet. There should +be no carrying of canes, or eating of candy, or wearing of jewelry, or +talking of beaux, and I would dig up from the grave of the long ago the +quaint old custom of courtesying to strangers, of keeping silent until +spoken to, and of universal respect for the aged. This world would +brighten up like a rose garden after a shower with the presence of so +many modest little girls and bashful boys of the good old-fashioned +sort. + + + + +XXIII. + +A BEWITCHED VIOLIN. + +I went to the Auditorium the other night to hear somebody play on the +violin. But that was not a violin which the slender, dark eyed +performer used, and the music that so charmed me was not drawn from +strings and flashed forth by any ordinary bow. The heavenly notes to +which I listened were like those that young leaves give forth when May +winds find them, or that ripples make, drawn softly over pebbly +beaches. And when they died away and floated like a whisper through +the hushed house, it was no longer music; it was a great +golden-jacketed bee settling sleepily into the heart of a rose; it was +the chime of a vesper-bell broken in mellow cadences between vine-clad +hills; it was a something that had no form nor shape, nor semblance to +any earthly thing, yet floated midway between the earth and sky, light +as the frailest flower of snow the north wind ever cradled, +substanceless as smoke or wind-followed mist. + + + + +XXIV. + +A HAT PIN PROBLEM. + +I overheard the following conversation the other day in a popular +refectory: + +"Do your children mind you?" + +"I guess not; they never pay any more attention to me than if I was a +dummy. It takes their father to bring them to terms every time!" + +"I am so glad to hear it. I like to know that somebody else besides me +has a hard time with their children. I declare the only way I can get +baby to mind already is to jab him with a hat-pin!" + +I waited to hear no more. With sad precipitation I gathered up my +check and fled. Had I waited another minute I should have said to that +mother: "Madam, I will give you a problem to solve. If, at the age of +three, a child needs the impetus of one hat-pin to make him obey, how +many meat-axes will it require to keep him in order at the age of ten? +And if you are such a poor miserable failure as a mother and a woman +now, just at the commencement of an immortal destiny, what have the +eternities in store for you?" + +Why, oh, why are children sent to people who have no more idea about +bringing them up than a trout has about training hop-vines? It is a +question that has given and does give me much uneasiness. + + + + +XXV. + +POLITENESS VS. SINCERITY. + +You imagine it is not polite to be plain spoken! My dear, there are +times when to be merely "polite" is to be a toady! There are times +when politeness is a pillow of hen feathers, wherewith to smother honor +and strangle truth. If all you care for is to be popular, to go +through life like a molasses-drop in a child's mouth, why, then, choose +your way and live up to it, but don't expect to rank higher than +molasses, and cheap molasses at that. For my part I would rather be +outspoken in the cause of right, even if plain speech did offend, than +be a coward and a woolly mouth. Somebody once lived upon earth, the +example of whose thirty odd years of mortal environment we are taught +to pattern our own lives close upon. How about his politeness when he +talked with the hypocrites and rebuked the pharisees? How about his +policy when he drove the money-changers before a stinging whip, and +championed the cause of the sinful woman? Oh! I tell you, the soul +that is always looking out for the chance to score one for the winning +cause, and throw up its hat with the crowd that makes the most noise, +is poor stock to invest in. In the time of need such a friend would +turn out worse than a real estate investment in a Calumet swamp. + + + + +XXVI. + +THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN. + +Shall I tell you plainly, and without any mincing, what type of woman I +think the most dangerous? It is not the virago, the wounds of a sharp +tongue are hard enough to bear, but there is a balm for them. Mother +may be overworked, or sister may be fretted; something is the matter +with the digestion, often, when the one we love scolds and is +excessively disagreeable in manner and speech. The harshest word is +soon excused and overlooked by the smile and the caress that are sure +to follow. So, bad as a scolding, nagging tongue may be, it has its +alleviations, and somewhere there is an excuse made to fit it. But +what palliation is there for the offense of the woman who seeks by +blandishments and artifices of the evil one's own concoction to steal +the affection of a man away from his wife? There are more such people +in the world than you can imagine (and the evil is not confined to the +one sex either.) An intriguing woman (or man) who steals into a happy +home and seeks to undermine it, deserves to be stoned on the highway. +She may steal your purse, your diamonds, or your checkbook, and, while +love reigns on its rightful throne, the home will be happy; but let her +seek to discrown love, and entertain a clandestine passion in its +place, and the foundation of the stoutest home that was ever founded on +the rocks of time will tumble in ruin about her ears. Avoid the +intriguing, fascinating, dangerous, designing woman, then, who +recognizes no sanctity in wedded honor, and by her wiles and witcheries +lets in a thousand devils to the heart and home she curses with her +presence. + + + + +XXVII. + +SERMONS FROM FLIES. + +I chanced to stand the other day in a stuffy little room, the only +window of which was shaded by a ground glass light. Before the gray +void of this cheerless window a few flies darted hither and thither in +consequential flurry, while I myself, for the time being a most blue +and down-cast mortal, was battling with the thought that life, after +all, was hardly worth the living, and the outlook for anything better +in a dim and uncertain future, too dubious to be entertained. But all +at once my vision seemed to pierce the shaded pane that intervened +between me and the great, rushing, riotous world, and such a conception +of all that lay the other side the ground glass window overflowed my +soul, that I felt rebuked as by an audible voice. + +XXVIII. + +THE MAN WHO KNOWS IT ALL. + +There is a type of humanity we all encounter from day to day, at whose +funeral I shall carry a banner and beat a tom-tom. He is the man who +knows it all. In his grave, human forethought, and general knowledge, +and mortal perfection and everything worth knowing, shall one day lie +down and die. He never makes mistakes, nor loses his temper, nor gets +the worst of an argument, nor is worsted in a bargain. He never acts +on impulse, nor jumps without looking, nor commits himself rashly, nor +loses the wind out of his sails. He is so overwhelmingly superior +(sometimes he is a woman!) that in his presence you are a child of +wrath, a hopeless imbecile, and a black sheep all in one, and yet--how +you hate him and how you long to see some brave young David come along +and hit him with a sling shot! Such a man as he, is fitted to bring +the average human to the dust as quickly and as surely as a well aimed +bullet brings down a wild duck. + + + + +XXIX. + +BALD HEADS AND UNEQUAL CHANCES. + +What a superior chance a man has in this world over a woman! In the +matter of physical attributes alone his innings are as far ahead of +hers as the man who carries the banner in a Fourth of July procession +is ahead of the little boy who tugs along behind with the lemonade +pail. The other evening I attended the theatre, and casting my eye +over the audience between acts, I beheld no less than a score of +bald-headed men. They were composed, and even cheerful, under an +infliction that would have ostracized a woman. Imagine a man taking a +bald-headed woman to see the "Railroad of Love!" Imagine a bald-headed +girl with a fat, red neck and white eyelashes being in eager demand for +parties, coaching jubilees or private suppers. There never was a man +so homely, so halt, so deficient in beauty or brain that he could not +get a wife when he wanted, but the candidates for the position of +mistress of any man's household must be pretty, graceful and sweet. +The chances are uneven, my dear, but what are you going to do about it? + + + + +XXX. + +HUMAN STRAWS. + +There is not much credit in being jolly when the joints of life are +well oiled and events move as smoothly as feathers drawn through cream. +The glory lies in maintaining your serenity under adverse +circumstances; in emulating Mark Tapley, and being jolly when there is +not a hand's breadth of blue in all the heavens. There are straws laid +upon us every day, which, if they do not break our backs, at least go +far to loosen the vertebrae of our temper. One of these straws is the +man who expectorates in public places. What shall I do with that man? +I cannot kill him, because there is a law against the violent removal +of even a human straw. To be sure, he is the most insignificant straw +that the wind of destiny blows across the waste of life. He never +will mature a head of wheat though you give him eleven eternities to do +it in. But he serves his purpose, and breaks the back of toleration. + + + + +XXXI. + +A SALLOW FACED GIRL FOR YOUR PITY. + +On the opposite corner sits a half-grown girl peddling apples. She +polishes the fruit occasionally with a rag that she carries about her +person (let us humbly hope it is not her handkerchief!) and now and +then breaks into a double shuffle to dissipate the chill that invades +her ill-clothed frame. What taste of joy do you suppose that child +ever got out of the pewter cup the fates pour for her? Does she ever +find time to run about with other children, playing the games which the +generations hand down from one to the other? Does she ever play "tag," +or "gray wolf," or "I spy?" Does she ever swing in a hammock like +other girls when the days are long and blithe and sweet, as free from +care as a cloud or a butterfly? Does life hold for her one sparkle in +its poor cup of wine, one flavor that is not sordid and low and mean? +You say it is easy to sit here all day selling apples, and wonder why I +hold this sallow-faced girl up for special pity. To be sure there is +no hardship in the part of her life visible to us. But in her dull +soul lurks constantly the shadow of an ever present fear. The poor +child is accountable to a cruel master, whether father or mother it +matters little, who beats her each night that she returns to her +wretched home with a scanty showing of nickels; and the consciousness +of dull times and slow sales keeps her in a state of trepidation, which +in you or me, my dear, would soon lapse into "nervous prostration," a +big doctor's fee, and a change of air. Yet mark my words, if the +dark-browed liberator of sorrow's captives were to proffer my little +fruit peddler the exchange of death for all this wearing apprehension +and constant toil, do you think she would accept the transfer? Not +she. The "captain" out snow-balling to-day in her love-guarded home, +with never a fear to shadow her sunny eyes, nor a big sorrow to start +the showery tears, would not plead harder for the boon of longer living. + + + + +XXXII. + +AND YET HE CLINGS TO LIFE. + +As I sit here by my window I am reminded that this is a queer world and +queer be the mortals that pass through it. There is that wreck of a +man over yonder squeezing a bit of weird melody out of an old accordion +and expecting the tortured public to throw a penny into his hat now and +then to pay him for his trouble. Do you suppose that man knows what +happiness means, as God designed it. He was, without doubt, a sad and +grimy little baby once, brought up on gin slightly adulterated with his +mother's milk. He was pounded daily before he was two years old, +starved and cuffed and kicked all the way up to manhood, and now his +neck is so completely under the heel of hydra-headed disaster, +wickedness and want, that all he can find to do in this big and busy +world is to sit on the sidewalk and lacerate the public ear with those +dreadful discords. And yet, if death were to step up to that beggar's +side and offer him release, instant and sure, in the form of a falling +brick or a horse running amuck on the crowded sidewalk, he would cling +to the miserable shred he calls life as eagerly as though he were the +crown prince himself, with the heritage of his kingdom yet unwon. + + + + +XXXIII. + +OH! TO RID THE WORLD OF SHAMS. + +If you go to a florist and ask for a sweet pink root, you may get +fooled on the label, but when blooming time comes round there will be +no difficulty in deciding whether the flower you took on trust was pink +or onion. Plant a seed in the horticultural kingdom by any name you +please, there will be no mistake possible when June comes. A carrot is +bound to yield carrots, and a rose will repeat the bright wonder of its +beauty throughout the dreamy summer days, in spite of any other name +the florist may have blundered upon in the labeling. Not so with +humanity. There are souls that pass through life with the label of +lily, balm or heart's-ease tagged to them, when they are nothing better +than wild onion at heart. There are lives sown in out of the way +places, and carelessly passed by as weeds, whose blossom angels might +stoop to wear in the whiteness of their own pure breasts. Oh, to rid +the world of its shams! To sweep away the "Chadbands" with a feather +duster, as the new girl removes dust; to open the windows and shoo away +the traitors as one drives flies, to hoe out society plats as one hoes +garden beds, and thin out the flaunting weeds so that the lilies may +find room to grow; to turn the strong light of discerning truth upon +hypocrites until, as the microscope changes a globule of dew into the +abode of 10,000 wriggling abominations, so the deceitful heart shall +stand revealed for what it actually is, rather than for what it seems +to be. + + + + +XXXIV. + +DRESS PARADE OF THE GREAT ALIKE + +I am tired of the endless dress parade of the "Great Alike." I am +weary of walking in line, like convicts in stripes. I glory in cranks +who serve their own individuality and are in bondage to nobody. The +onward sweep of progress in this age has opened up the way for +non-conformists. It is not a matter of heresy, nowadays, to think for +yourself, dress for yourself, and be yourself. I confess that I have +no heart pinings for such nonconformists as Dr. Mary Walker or any +other individual who believes that eccentricity, serving no purpose but +to make one conspicuous, is interesting. There are certain general +rules of conduct that must be observed or the world would go to wreck +like a wild freight train. It would be embarrassing to all concerned +were I to decline to conform to the conventional custom of wearing +shoes and bonnets, but when fashion ordains French heels and dead +birds, if I decline to walk in file with the conformist, I am something +of a hero, perhaps, and certainly preserve my own self-respect better +than if I yielded to either a harmful or a cruel custom. When +etiquette rules that I go through the world armed with a haughty +reserve, like a picket soldier with a shotgun, if I conform to that +rule, I act upon the warm impulses of natural living as the +refrigerator acts upon meat; I may preserve the proprieties, but I +chill the juices. + + + + +XXXV. + +IF GOD MADE YOU A WILLOW DON'T TRY TO BE A PINE + +I wish I could spend a fortnight in a world where folks dared to be +true to themselves; where the conformist was shelved with last year's +calendars, and a man studied out his own route to heaven and had the +courage to walk in it. I would like to dwell with individuals and not +with packs of human cards shuffled together in sets. I would like to +feel my soul kindle into respect for distinct personalities, each one +making his garment after his own measurement, and not trying to fit his +coat after the cut of his neighbor's jacket. I would like to live for +a while with men and women, rather than with human sheep blindly +following a leader. Life is something better than a sheep-path +aimlessly skirting the hills. It is a growth upward through the +infinite blue into heaven. It is the spreading of many and various +branches. If you are a willow, don't attempt to be a pine, and if the +Lord made you to grow like an elm don't pattern yourself after a scrub +oak. The rebuke "what will people say?" should never be applied to the +waywardness of a child. Teach it rather to ask: "How will my own +self-respect stand this test?" Such training will evolve something +rarer in the way of development than a candle-mold or a yard-stick. + + + + +XXXVI. + +TWO TYPES. + +How full the streets are, to be sure! Where do all the folks come from +and where do they stop? Surely there are not roofs enough to cover the +steady stream of humanity that courses through the thoroughfares from +dawn to night time. To one who walks much to and fro in the town there +comes a rare chance to study human types. Books hold nothing within +their covers so grotesque and so pathetic, so inexplicable and so queer +as the folks that jostle one another on the streets! There is the +precise female who nips along in a little apologetic way, as though +there was an impropriety in the very act of locomotion for which she +would fain atone. From the crown of her head to her boot tips she is +proper, stupid and decorous, but too much of her company would prove to +endurance what sultry weather proves to cream. In fact, I think if I +were told I had to live with some of the women I meet on the streets, I +would fall on my hat pin, as the old Romans did upon their swords, as +the pleasanter alternative. There is nothing more charming than a +bright woman, but she must be superior to her own environments and be +able to talk and think about other things than a correct code of +etiquette, her costumes and her domestic concerns. + +There is a man I sometimes encounter on the street between whom and +myself there looms a day of bitter reckoning. He wears rubbers if the +day is at all moist, and next to ear muffs, galoshes on an able bodied +man goad me to fury. If the Lord made you a man, be a man and not a +molly-coddle. Soup without meat, bread without salt, pie-crust without +a filling, slack-baked dough, all these are prototypes of the man +without endurance or sufficient stamina to stand getting his delicate +feet dashed with dew, or his shell-like ears nipped by frost. + + + + +XXXVII. + +A DREAM GARDEN. + +Country living is delightful, but, like all other blessings, it has its +alternates of shadow. I used to sit here by my window last April and +gloat over the prospects for the vegetable garden a tramp laid out and +seeded for me in the early spring. What luscious peas were going to +clamber over the trellis along about the middle of July! What golden +squashes were going to nestle in the little hollows! What lusty corn +was going to stride the hillocks! What colonies of beans and beds of +lettuce should fill the spaces, like stars in the wake of a triumphant +moon, and how odorous the breath of the healthful onion should be upon +the midsummer air! But listen. No Assyrian ever yet came down upon +the fold as my neighbor's chickens have descended upon the fair +territory of my garden. As for shooing a chicken off, my dear, when +its gigantic intellect is set upon scratching up a seeded bed, you +might as well attempt to wave back a thunderstorm with a fan. + +I have undertaken several difficult things in my life, but never one so +hopeless as convincing a calm and resolute hen that she is an intruder. +I spent one glad summer trying to keep a brood out of a geranium bed, +and had typhoid fever all the fall just from overwork and worry. But +say there had been no chickens to "wear the heart and waste the body," +how about potato bugs, and caterpillars and huge and gruesome slugs? I +never go out to sprinkle the sad pea vines or pick the drooping lettuce +but what I resolve myself into a magnet to lure the early +vegetable-devouring reptile from its lair. Large 7 by 9 caterpillars +and zebra-striped ladybugs disport themselves on neck and ankle until I +flee the scene. + + + + +XXXVIII. + +ANYTHING WORSE THAN A BLUE-JAY? HARDLY! + +If there is anything worse than a blue-jay, name it. Perhaps a mannish +woman, with a shrill voice and a waspish tongue, is as bad, but she +can't be worse. There are something less than a hundred of these +feathered hornets dwelling in the grove that surrounds my house, and +they began before sunrise to call names and fight clamorous battles. +One of them starts the row by crying something in the ear of a +neighbor, which sounds like a challenge blown through a fish horn. At +this the insulted neighbor flops down off the tree where he lives, and +says naughty words very thick and very fast. Then five or six old +ladies poke their heads over the sides of their nests and call +"Police!" A squad of bluecoats comes tearing ever the border and +attacks the original culprit. He whips out his fish horn and summons a +general uprising. Very soon there is a battle royal, to which the old +ladies add zest by squeaking out dire threats in shrill falsetto voices +pitched at high "C." This keeps up until somebody arises and declaims +from my open window, dancing meanwhile in helpless rage, to see how +futile is the voice of august man when blue-jays hold the floor. Talk +about the English sparrow! It is a mild-mannered little gentleman +compared to the noisy jay. Its politeness and amiability are +Chesterfieldan beside the behavior of its handsomely attired but +boorish neighbor. And as for fighting, why, I verily believe a bluejay +in good condition could "do up" John L. Sullivan so quickly the gentle +pugilist would never know what struck him. + + + + +XXXIX. + +GOOD HEALTH A BLESSING. + +What roses are with worms in the bud, such are women without health. +There can be no beauty in unwholesomeness, there can be nothing +attractive in a delicate pallor caused by the disregard of hygiene, or +in a willowy figure, the result of lacing. If I could now and then +thread some particular bead on an electric wire that should tingle and +thrill wherever it touched, or write in a streak of zig-zag light +across the sky, I might, perhaps, compel attention to what I have to +say. There are certain laws of health which, if they only might be +regarded, would make us all as beautiful in outward seeming as we +strive to be, no doubt, in spirit. Ever so pure and lovely a soul in +an unhealthy body is like a bird trying to thrive and sing in an +ill-kept cage, or a flower blooming with a blight set deep within its +withering petals. You or I can serve neither heaven nor mankind +worthily if we disregard the laws of health, and bear about with us a +frail and poorly nurtured body. There are "shut in" spirits, to be +sure, captives from birth to pain, the record of whose patient +endurance of suffering sweetens the world in which they live, as a rose +shut within a dull and prosy book imparts to its pages a fragrance born +of summer and heaven; but such lives are the exception. The true +destiny of the sons and daughters of earth is to grow within the garden +of life as a sapling rather than as a sickly weed, developing timber +rather than pith, and yielding finally to death, the sharp-axed old +woodman, as the tree falls, to pass onward to new opportunities of +power and service. The tree does not decay where it stands, nor does +it often fall because its core is honeycombed by disease. It is cut +down in the meridian of its strength, because somewhere on distant seas +a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home +is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber. +So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly +growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended +more strictly to the laws of health, and when death came to us at last +it should only be because there was need of good timber further on. + + + + +XL. + +WHY, BLESS MY SOUL! IT REALLY SEEMS TO THINK. + +I was watching not long since, a man talking to a bright woman on the +train, and his manner of comporting himself set me to thinking of the +peculiar ways men have of addressing themselves to women. Some talk to +a woman very much as they might talk to the wonderful automaton around +at the museum when it plays a game of chess. "Why, bless my soul, it +really seems to be thinking! What apparent intelligence? What evident +faculty of mental independence! It almost appears to possess the power +of coherent thought!" Others sit in the presence of a woman as though +she was a dish of ice cream. "How sweet." "How refreshing." "How +altogether nice!" Many behave in her company as though she was a +loaded gun, and liable to do mischief, while a very few act as though +she was above the wiles of flattery, and not to be bought for the price +of a new bonnet. Hasten the day, good Lord, when she shall be regarded +as something wiser and nobler than an automaton, less perishable than a +confection, more comforting and peace-producing than a fire-arm, a +veritable comrade for man at his best, not so much prized for the vain +and evanescent charm of her beauty as for the steadfastness and the +incorruptible purity of her soul. + + + + +XLI. + +TAKE TO DRINK, OF COURSE! + +What would a man do, I yonder, if things went so irretrievably wrong +with him as they do with some of us women? Why, take to drink, of +course. That is a sovereign consolation I am told for many ills. A +woman has no equivalent for whisky. She must needs clench her hands +and set her teeth and bear her lot. And yet you tell us a man is the +stronger. I tell you, my dear, I know a dozen women who could discount +any soldier that ever fought in the Crimean wars, for downright heroism +and pluck. Where do you find the man who is willing to wear shabby +clothes and old boots and a seedy hat that his boys may go fine as +fiddles? Where do you find a man who will get up cold mornings and +make the fire, tramp to work through snow, pick his way through +flooding rain, weather northeast blasts and go hungry and cold that he +may keep the children together which a bad and wayward mother has +deserted? First thing a man would do in such a case would be to board +the children out with convenient relatives while he looked around for a +divorce and another wife! How long would a man brace up under the +servant question? How long would he endure the insolence and the +flings of cruel and covert enemies because the children needed all he +could give them, and, only along the thorny road of continual +harassment and trial might he attain the earnings needed to render them +happy and comfortable? If a man is insulted he settles the insult with +a blow straight from the shoulder and that is the end of it; he would +never be able to endure, as some women do, a never-ending round of +persecution that would whiten the hairs on a sealskin jacket! + + + + +XLII. + +A WARNING TO GIRLS. + +There is one thing we sometimes see in the face of the young that is +sadder than the ravages of any disease or the disfigurement of any +deformity. Shall I tell you what it is? It is the mark that an impure +thought or an unclean jest leaves behind it. No serpent ever went +gliding through the grass and left the trail of defilement more +palpably in its wake than vulgarity marks the face. You may be ever so +secret in your enjoyment of a shady story, you may hide ever so +cunningly the fact that you carry something in your pocket which you +purpose to show only to a few and which will perhaps start the laugh +that, like a bird of carrion, waits upon impurity and moral corruption +for its choicest feeding, but the mark of what you tell, and what you +do, and what you laugh at, is left behind like a sketch traced in +indelible fluid. There is no beauty that can stand the disfigurement +of such a scar. However bright your eyes, and rosy-red your color, and +soft the contour of lip and cheek, when the relish of an impure jest +creeps in, the comeliness fades and perishes, as lilies in the languor +of a poisonous breath from off the marshes. I beg of you, dear girls, +shun the companion who seeks to foul your soul with an obscene story or +picture, as you would shun the contagion of smallpox. If I had a +daughter who went out into the world to earn her bread, as some of you +do, and any one should seek to corrupt her purity by insidious +advances, I would get down on my knees and pray God, to take her to +himself before her fair, sweet innocence should sully under the breath +of corruption and moral death. Nobody ever went to the devil yet by +one big bound, like a tiger out of a jungle or a trout to the fly; it +is an imperceptible passage down an easy slope, and the first step of +all is sometimes taken when a young girl lends her ears to a smutty +story or a questionable jest. Then let me say again, and I wish I +could borrow Fort Sheridan's bugle to blow it far and wide, that every +girl might hear: Close your ears and harden your hearts against the +insidious advance of evil. Have nothing to do with a desk-mate or with +a comrade who seeks to amuse or entertain you with conversation you +would not care to have "mother" hear, and which you would be sorry to +remember, if this night the death angel came knocking at the door and +summoned your soul away upon its lonely journey to find its God. + + + + +XLIII. + +A FROG MAY DO WHAT A MAN MAY NOT. + +A bull-frog in a malarial pond is expected to croak and make all the +protest he can against his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a +crown and sent upon earth to be educated for the court of the King of +kings! Placed in an emerald world with a hither edge of opaline shadow +and a fine spray of diamond-dust to set it sparkling; with ten million +singing birds to form its orchestra; sunset clouds and sunrise mists to +drape it, and countless flowers to make it sweet while the hand of God +himself upholds it on its way among the clustering stars, what right +has a man to find fault with his surroundings, or lament himself that +all things do not go to suit him here below? When it shall be in order +for the glow-worm to call the midday sun to account, or for the +wood-tick to find fault with the century old oak that protects it; or +for the blue-bird to question the haze on a midsummer horizon because, +forsooth! it is a little off color with his own wings, then it will be +time for man to find fault with the ordering of the seasons and the +allotment of the weather in the world he is allowed to inhabit. + + + + +XLIV. + +THANKING GOD FOR A GOOD HUSBAND. + +About one hour of the twenty-four would perhaps be the proportion of +time a woman ought to spend upon her knees thanking God for a good +husband. When I see the hosts of sorry maids, and women wearing +draggled widow's weeds who fill the ranks of the great army of the +self-supporting; when I see them trooping along in the rain, slipping +along in the mud, leaping for turning bridges, and hanging on to the +straps in horse cars, I feel like sending out a circular to sheltered +and happy wives bidding them be thankful for their lot. To be sure, +one would rather be a scrub-woman or a circus-jumper than be the wife +of some men we wot of, but in the main, a woman well married is like a +jewel well set, or like a light well sheltered from the wind. + + + + +XLV. + +JUST A LITTLE TIRED! + +What a grubby old stopping place this world is, anyway. How hard we +have to work just to keep the flesh on our bones and that flesh +covered, even with nothing better than homespun. And we are getting a +little tired of it all, aren't we, my dear? Just a little tired of the +treadmill, where, like a sheep in a dairy, we pace our limited beat to +bring a handful of inadequate butter. We have trudged to and fro about +long enough, and have half a mind to throw up the contract with fate. +But hold on a bit. There is something worse than too much work, and +that is idleness. Imagine a sudden hush in all the myriad sounds of +labor. The ceasing of the whirr of countless wheels whereat men stand +day after day through toilful years, fashioning everything from a pin's +head to a ship's mast; the suspended click of millions of sewing +machines, above which bend delicate women stitching their lives into +shirts and garments that find their way onto bargain tables, where rich +women crowd to seize the advantage of the discount. Let all suspended +hammers in the myriad workshops swing into silence and all footsteps +cease their weary plodding to and fro, I think the awful hush would far +transcend the muteness of midnight or that still hour when dawn steals +in among the pallid stars, and on the dim, uncertain shore of time the +tide of man's vitality ebbs faint and low. There is no blight so fell +as the blight of enforced calm. It is in the unworked garden that +weeds grow. It is in the stagnant water that disease germs waken to +horrid life. Ennui palls upon a brave heart. Ennui is like a +long-winded, amiable, but watery-idea'd friend who drops in to see us +and dribbles platitudes until every nerve is tapped. Ennui is like +being forced to drink tepid water or to eat soup without salt. Labor, +on the contrary, is like a friend with grit and tonic in his make-up. +It comes to us as a wind visits the forest, and sets our faculties +stirring as the wind rustles the leaves and sets the wood fragrance +flying. It puts spice in our broth and ice in our drink. It puts a +flavor in life that starts an appetite, or, in other words, awakens +ambition. Although the world is full of toilers it would be worse off +were it full of idlers. Good, hard workers find no time to make +mischief. Your anarchists and your breeders of discord are never found +among busy men; they breed, like mosquitoes, out of stagnant places. +It is the idle man that quickens hatred and contention, as it is the +setting hen and not the scratching one that hatches out the eggs. + + + + +XLVI. + +PAINTING THE OLD HOMESTEAD. + +It had been a battle renewed for more years than there are dandelions +just now in the front yard. Various members of the family had declared +from time to time that if the old house was not painted it would fall +to pieces from sheer mortification at its own disreputable appearance. + +"Why, you can put your toothpick right through the rotten shingles," +cried the doctor. "The only way to save it is to paint it." + +Now, I have always been the odd sheep of a highly decorous fold. I +have more love for nature than hard good sense, I am told. So I loathe +paint just as I hate surface manners. I want the true grain all the +way through, be it in boards or people. I love the weather stain on an +old house. I love the mossy touches, the lichen grays and the russet +browns that age imparts to the shingles, and I almost feel like +murdering the paint fiend when he comes around every spring, and +transforms some dear old landmark into a gorgeous "Mrs. Skewton," with +hideous coats and splashy trimmings. But alas for sentiment when the +money bags are against it! Profit before poetry any day in this +nineteenth century, my dear, and so when an interested capitalist came +up from town and gave it as his opinion that the old house would be +worth a third more if put on the market in a terra cotta coat with +sage-green trimmings the day was lost for me. I had to strike my +colors like many another idealist in this practical world. In the +first place, there has been for the last fifteen years or so, a vine +growing all over the old home, catching its lithe tendrils into the +roof and making cathedral lights in all the windows. It has been the +home of generations of robins. It has hung full of purple, bell-shaped +blossoms on coral stems that have attracted a thousand humming birds +and honey bees by their fragrance. It has changed into a veritable +cloth of gold in early September, and in late October has flamed into +scarlet against the gray roof, like a blaze that quivers athwart a +stormy sky. It has been the joy of my life and the inspiration of my +dreams, but it had to come down before the paint-pot! So one night +when I reached home, tired to death with a hand-to-hand encounter with +the demon who gives poor mortals their bread and butter for an +equivalent of flesh and blood and spirit, I noticed that the little +folks greeted me with an air of subdued decorum as though fresh from a +funeral. There were no caperings, no flauntings, no cavortings. Each +young minx had on her Sunday go-to-meeting air, and the boy stood with +his hat on one side of his head, as though for a sixpence he would +fight all creation. Wondering at the change, I happened to look toward +the house, and there it stood in the light of the fading day, like a +poor old woman without a veil to hide her wrinkles! Every window +looked ashamed of itself, and on the ground lay the dear old vine, +prone as a lost reputation. + +"I never see such an ill-fired crank in all the days of my life!" +remarked the painter to the new girl, after I had held a brief but +spirited interview with him over the garden fence; "blanked if she +didn't cry because her vine was down!" + + + + +XLVII. + +THE OLD SITTING-ROOM STOVE. + +What is there within the home, during the winter season at least, that +seems so thoroughly to constitute the soul of home as the family-room +stove? It can never be replaced by that ugly hole in the floor which +floods our rooms with furnace heat, with no glow of cheerful firelight, +no flicker of flame or changeful play of shadow out of which to weave +fantastic dreams and fancies. I once watched the dying out of one of +these fires in a great base burner, around which for years a large and +loving family had gathered. The furniture of the home had all been +sold, and the family was about to scatter. The trunks were packed and +gone, the last article removed from the place, and the old stove was +left to burn out its fire at the last, that it, too, might be removed +next morning. And after the evening had come and was far spent, the +last evening wherein any right should remain to us to enter the old +home as its owners and occupants, I took my pass-key and slipped over +from the neighbor's for my final good-bye to the dear old home. The +fire-light, like the glance of a reproachful eye, shone upon me through +the gloom of the deserted parlor. "Have I not warmed you and comforted +you and cheered you with my genial glow?" a voice seemed to say; "and +now you have come to see me die! I am the vital spirit of your home. +I am dying, and nothing can ever reanimate these deserted rooms again +with the dear, the beautiful past." + +Like the eye of one who is going down to death, the firelight faded and +finally went out in the pallor of ashes, while I, sitting alone in the +darkness, felt the whole world drearier for a little space for the +final extinguishment of this fire, the death hour of a once happy home. + + + + +XLVIII. + +A TALK ABOUT DIVORCE. + +Somebody asked me the other day if I favored divorce. Like everything +else in the world the matter depends largely upon special circumstance, +but in the main I do not believe in divorce. If husbands and wives +cannot live together without quarreling, let them live apart, but they +have no business to sever the bond that unites them. The promise to +take each other for "better or for worse" must be regarded in both +readings of the clause. If the "worse" comes along we have no right to +ignore it because the "better" has failed. If your husband is a +drunkard, all the more reason for you to stand by him if you are a good +woman. If he is cruel and abusive, you need not put your life in +danger by staying under his roof, but you need not throw him over and +get another husband. If he goes into the gutter, pull him out, and +know that your experience is only a big dose of the "worse" you +promised to take along with the "better." It is the quinine with the +honey, and you have no right to reject it. There are 10,000 things +that work discord in married life that a little tact and forbearance +would dissipate, as a steady wind will blow away gnats. The trouble +with all of us is, we make too much of trifles. We nurse them, and +feed them, and magnify them, until from gnats they grow to be buzzards +with their beaks in our hearts. Not for one sin, nor seven sins, nor +seventy sins, forsake the friend you chose from all the world to make +your own. A good woman will save anything but a liar, and God's grace +is adequate, in time, for even him. I say unto wives, be +large-hearted, wide in your charity, generous, not paltry, nor +exacting, (exaction has murdered more loves than Herod murdered +babies!) companionable, forbearing and true, and stand by your husbands +through everything. And I say unto men, be _men_! Don't choose a +wife, in the first place, for the mere exterior of a pretty face and +form. Be as alert in the choice of a wife as you are in a bargain. +You don't invest in a house just because it looks well, or buy a suit +of clothes at first sight, or dash on change and snatch at the first +deal. After you are once married stand by your choice like a man. If +you must have your beer, don't sneak out of it on a clove and a lie; +carefully weigh the cost, and if you conclude to risk everything for +the gratification of an appetite drink at home and above board, and +don't attempt to deceive your wife with subterfuges and excuses. Don't +run after other women because your wife is not so young as she once +was, or because the bloom is faded a little from the face you once +thought so fair. It is the part of an Indian to retract a gift once +given, or to go back on a bargain. Don't live together if you can't +rise above the level of fighting cats, but be careful how you throw +aside the bonds that God has joined between you. Live the lot you have +chosen as bravely as you can, remembering that the thorn that you have +developed will never change into a rose by mere change of +circumstances. Divorce and the mere shifting of the stage setting will +never make your tragedy over into a vaudeville or a light opera. + + + + +XLIX. + +GONE BACK TO FLIPPITY-FLOPPITY SKIRTS. + +The rainy season is here again, and where is dress-reform? My soul +grew sick, the other morning as, with unfurled umbrella, lunch-basket, +bundle, and draperies, I beheld the working woman on her weary march. +Give a man a petticoat, a bundle and an umbrella, and the streets would +be full of capering lunatics whenever it rained. Stay at home, did you +say? That is good advice for the woman who has nothing else to do, but +in these latter days the right sort of husband don't go round. Either +he died in the war or the stock has run low, so that more than half the +well-meaning women have no homes to stay in. What Moses is going to +lead the poor creatures to the commonsense suit that shall protect them +from the inclement weather they are forced to meet as they go abroad to +earn their bread and salt? It must be a concerted movement, for there +is none among us who dares take the war path alone. The children of +Israel went in a crowd and so must we. For a principle there are those +among us who would die, perhaps, but there is no principle on the earth +below nor in the heaven above for which we would suffer ridicule. As +for me, I have furled my banner and laid aside my bugle. I am tired of +being a martyr to an unpopular cause. I am too big a coward to be +caught making an everlasting object of myself. I have gone back to +flippity-floppity skirts and long gowns and all the rest of the "flesh +pots." Browning says of a certain class of people: "The dread of shame +has made them tame," and I am one of the tame ones. A domestic tabby +couldn't be tamer, nor a yellow bird fed on lump sugar. I expect +nothing but that my winter's hat will be adorned with a chubby green +parrot, and that I shall walk the street leading a brimstone dog by a +magenta ribbon. If one is forced to eat, drink and sleep with the +Romans, perhaps it is better for one's peace of mind not to be too +pronounced a Greek! + + + + +L. + +I SHALL MEET HIM SOME DAY. + +I shall meet the man who ties his horse's nose in a bag, some day, in +single combat, and there will be only one of us left to tell the tale +of the encounter. Wouldn't I love to see that man forced to take his +dinner while tied up in a flour bag! I should love to deal out his +coffee through a garden hose, and serve his vegetables through a +long-distance telephone. There is nothing like turn about to incite +justice in the human breast. While we are afflicted with such an +epidemic of strikes, why not have one that has some sense in it. Let +the overworked horses, straining themselves blind with terrible loads, +go on a strike. Let the persecuted dogs, deprived of water and +scrimped for food, stoned and hounded as mad when they are only crazed +by man's inhumanity, go on a strike. Let the cattle, and the countless +thousands of stock, prodded into cars and cramped in long passages of +transit, blinded with the crash of fellow-victims' horns while crowded +together in their inadequate quarters, trampled under riotous hoofs, +and kept without food and overfilled with water to make them look fat, +go on a strike. Let the chickens and geese and all the live feathered +stock on South Water Street, kept in little bits of coops and flung +headlong and screaming down into dark cellars, trundled over rough +roads in jolting wagons and utterly deprived for hours at a time of a +drop of water to cool the fever of their terrible fear, go on a strike. +Let the horses of these fat aldermen, left all day in the court house +alleyway without food and checked tight with head-check lines, go on a +strike. Let the patient nags that stand all day by the curbstone and +are plagued and annoyed by mischievous boys, go on a strike. In such a +strike as any of these the Lord himself might condescend to take sides +with the oppressed against the oppressor. + + + + +LI. + +A MANNISH WOMAN. + +There are many disagreeable things to be met with in life, but none +that is much harder upon the nerves than a mannish woman. With a +strident voice and a swaggering walk, and a clattering tongue, she +takes her course through the world like a cat-bird through an orchard; +the thrushes and the robins are driven right and left before the +advance of the noisy nuisance. A coarse-tongued man is bad enough, +heaven knows, but when a woman descends to slangy speech, and vulgar +jests, and harsh diatribes, there is no language strong enough with +which to denounce her. On the principle that a strawberry is quicker +to spoil than a pumpkin, it takes less to render a woman obnoxious than +to make a man unfit for decent company. I am no lover of +butter-mouthed girls, of prudes and "prunes and prism" fine ladies; I +love sprightliness and gay spirits and unconventionality, but the +moment a woman steps over the border land that separates delicacy of +feeling, womanliness and lovableness, from rudeness, loud-voiced slang +and the unblushing desire for notoriety, she becomes, in the eyes of +all whose opinion is worth having, a miserable caricature upon her sex. +It is not quite so bad to see a young girl making a fool of herself as +to see an elderly woman comporting herself in a giddy manner in public +places. We look for feather-heads among juveniles, but surely the +cares and troubles of fifty years should tame down the high spirits of +any woman. Chance took me into a public office the other day, largely +conducted by women. Conspicuous among the clerks was a woman whose age +must have exceeded fifty years. She was exchanging loud pleasantries +with a couple of beardless boys upon the question of "getting tight." +Noble theme for a woman old enough to be their grandmother to choose! +As I listened to the coarse jests and looked into her hard and unlovely +face, I could but wonder how nature ever made the mistake to label such +material--"woman." It would be no more of a surprise to find a +confectioner's stock made up of coarse salt, marked "sugar," or to buy +burdock of a florist, merely because the tag attached to it was +lettered "moss rose." + + + + +LII. + +THE ONLY WAY TO CONQUER A HARD DESTINY. + +The only way to conquer a cast-iron destiny is to yield to it. You +will break to pieces if you are always casting yourself upon the rocks. +Sit down on the "sorrowing stone" now and then, but don't expect to +last long if you are constantly flinging yourself head first against +it. If life holds nothing nobler and sweeter than the routine of +uncongenial work, if all the pleasant anticipations and lively hopes of +youth remain but as cotton fabrics do when the colors have washed away, +if good intention and noble purpose glimmer only a little now and then +from out the murky environments of your lot, as fisher lights at sea, +accept the inevitable and make the best of it. Nothing can stop us if +we are bound to grow. We are not like trees that can be hewed down by +every chance woodman's axe; death is the only woodman abroad for us, +and he does not hew down, he simply transplants. God is our only +judge; to him alone shall we yield the record of life's troubled day, +and isn't it a great comfort to think that he so fully understands what +have been our limitations, and how we have been handicapped and baffled +and hindered? If jockeys were to enter their horses for the great +Derby with the understanding that the road was rough and the horses +blind, do you think much would be expected of the finish? And is +heaven less discriminating than a horse jockey? + + + + +LIII. + +THE "SMART" PERSON. + +Next to a steam calliope preserve me from a "smart" person. There is +as much difference between smartness and brain as there is between a +jewsharp and a flute, or between mustard and wine. A "smart" person +may turn off a lot of work and make things hum, so does a buzz-saw! +Who would not rather spend an afternoon with a lark than with a hornet? +The lark may not be so active, but activity is not always the most +desirable thing in the world. A smart person may accomplish more than +a dreamer, but in the long run I'll take my chance with the latter. +When we go up to St. Peter's gate by and by, after life's long, +blundering march is over, it will not be the answer to such questions +as this: "How many socks can you darn in an afternoon, besides baking +bread, washing windows, tending babies and scrubbing floors?" that is +going to help us; but, "How many times have you stopped your work to +bind up a broken heart, or say a comforting word, or help carry a +burden for somebody worse off than yourself?" I tell you, smart folks +never have the time to be sympathetic; they always have too much +thundering work on hand. + + + + +LIV. + +A PRETTY STREET INCIDENT. + +The other day a horse was trying to get a very small quantity of oats +from the depths of a very small nosebag. In vain the poor fellow +tossed his head and did his best to gain his dinner. At last, just as +he was settling down to dumb and despairing patience, a bright-faced +boy of perhaps ten or twelve years of age happened along. Seeing the +dilemma of the horse, the little fellow stopped and said: "Halloa, +can't get your oats, can you? Never mind, I'll fix you!" And +straightway he shortened up the straps that held the bag in place, and, +with a kindly pat and a cheery word which the grateful horse seemed to +appreciate, went his way. I would like to be the mother, or the aunt, +or even the first cousin of that boy. I would rather that he should +belong to me than that I should own a Paganini violin, or a first-water +diamond the size of a Concord grape. Bless his heart, wherever he is, +and may he long continue to live in a world that needs him. Kindness +of heart, and tenderness; consideration for the needs of the helpless +and the weak, and the courage that dares be true to a merciful impulse, +are traits that go far toward the make-up of angels. We need +tender-hearted boys more than we need a new tariff to bring up and +develop the resources of the country. The boy that succeeds in +bringing in the greatest number of dead sparrows may be the embryo man +of the future, and you may praise his energy and his smartness, but +give me the boy who took the trouble to adjust the nose-bag every time. +A little less business acumen, a good bit less greed and cruelty, will +tell on future character to the comfort of all concerned. + + + + +LV. + +POLICY A DAMASCUS BLADE, NOT A CLUB. + +Policy in the hands of a diplomat is like a sharp sword in the grasp of +an able fencer, but policy in the hands of fools, is like a good knife +wielded by a half-wit. It takes brains to be truly politic, the +unfortunate person who attempts to be cautious, and wise, and reticent, +and to let policy thread every action as a string runs through glass +beads, only succeeds in making himself ridiculous. To be afraid to +speak what is in your mind for fear you will make yourself unpopular, +to be too cautious to mention the fact that you are having a new latch +put on your front gate for fear that you might be over-communicative, +to be backward in taking sides for fear of committing yourself to a +losing cause, may be politic to your own feeble intelligence, but in +the estimation of brainy folks it is a species of feline idiocy worse +than fits. + + + + +LVI. + +THE CONSTANT YEARS BRING AGE TO ALL. + +All day long it has been trying to snow out here in the country. To me +not even June, with its showering apple-tree flowers and its +alternations of silver rain and golden sunshine, is more beautiful than +these soft winter days, full of snow-feathers and great shadows. I +love to watch the young pines take on their holiday attire. How they +robe themselves from head to foot in draperies of fleecy white, pin +diamonds in their dark branches and wind about their slender girth the +strands of evanescent pearl! I love to watch the skies at dawn when +they kindle like a flame above the bluffs and scatter sparkles of light +as a red rose scatters its petals. Where has the last year fled? It +seems but yesterday that I sat by this same window and hatched the +lilac plumes unfold on that old bush that to-day is getting ready to +don its ermine. Why, at this rate, my dear, it won't be longer than +day after to-morrow morning before you and I wake up and find ourselves +old folks. How odd it will seem to look in the glass and see wisps of +frosted stubble in place of the wavy locks of brown, and jet, and gold! +Ah, well, it is a comfort to think that some folks defy time, and are +as young at seventy as at seventeen. Beauty fades, and witchery takes +unto itself wings, but true hearts, like wine, mellow and enrich with +years. + + + + +LVII. + +DID YOU EVER READ THE "LITTLE PILGRIM." + +I often sit for a half hour or more in the depot waiting-room, and for +lack of anything else to do employ the time in watching the people who +crowd through the swinging doors. Did you ever read the "Little +Pilgrim?" Do you recall the chapter wherein the disembodied spirits +are represented as lingering near the gates to watch the coming in of +newly liberated souls? Sometimes while sitting in one of the big +rocking chairs I imagine to myself that the constantly opening doors +are the portals of death and I the lingering one who watches the +throngs that are constantly exchanging earth for paradise. Along comes +an old man with a shabby bundle; he cautiously opens the door and slips +in like one who offers an excuse for his presence on the thither side. +Presently he lays down his bundle and seats himself, a pilgrim whose +wanderings and weariness are over. The brilliant lights, the +comfortable surroundings, the sound of pleasant voices all fill his +heart with joy, and he settles himself back, thoroughly glad to be at +rest. Next, a beautiful woman enters, her face is lined with care and +her dark, bright eyes are full of trouble. She does not tarry, but +hurries on like one seeking for something yet to come. A little child, +with lingering, backward glance, flits through the swinging door as if +loath to say good-bye to some one on the other side. A hard-featured +man, whose sullen glance travels quickly about the place, comes next; +he seems seeking for some one to welcome him, and is abashed to find +himself alone among unheeding strangers. Next a bevy of laughing girls +come in together, and the door, swinging quickly behind them, discloses +a band of young companions who lingeringly turn away, content to know +the sheltered ones are safely gathered out of the darkness and the +storm which they must still face. Some enter the door as though +bewildered; some as though glad to find rest; some as though frightened +at unknown harm, and some as though suspicious of all that they beheld. +Once I noticed a poor creature who came through the door crying +bitterly, but her tears were quickly dried by a waiting one who sprang +forward and greeted her with a tender embrace. And at another time a +baby came through in the arms of one who held it close so that it was +not conscious of the transition. Sometimes I am glad to believe that +death is no more than the swinging door which divides two apartments in +a mighty mansion, and that our going through is no more than the +exchange of a cold and unlighted hallway for a spacious living-room +where all is light and warmth and blessed activity. + + + + +LVIII. + +EATING MILK TOAST WITH A SPOON! + +Eating milk toast with a spoon and stopping between each mouthful to +swear! That was what I saw and heard a brawny man doing not long since +in a popular down-town restaurant. The action and the manner of speech +did not harmonize. If I felt it borne in upon me that I must be a +profane fellow to prove my manliness, I would choose another diet than +spoon victuals to nourish my formidable zest for naughtiness. Rare +beef or wild game would be less incongruous. There are times when a +man may be excused for using objectionable language. Stress of +righteous indignation, seasons of personal conflict with hansom cabmen, +large-headed street car conductors, ubiquitous, never-dying +expectorators and many other particular forms of torment may make a man +swear a bit now and then, but what shall we say of a bearded creature +with the dew of a babe's food upon his chin who rends the placid air +with unnecessary cursing? Sew up his lips with a surgeon's needle and +throw him into the fool-killer's bag! + + + + +LIX. + +BOYS, YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU. + +Boys, you know I like you and will stand a good deal of your swaggering +ways. I like to see how fresh you are, and do not want to have you +salted down too early by the processes of life. But one thing let me +ask you. Don't wear silk hats before the down is fully apparent upon +your chin. If there is an embarrassing sight left to one grown wan and +worn in watching the foolishness of folly, it is the sight of a +stripling in a plug hat. I would rather see a yearling colt hauling +lumber, or a babe in arms scanning Homer. It is cruel; it is +premature. Be a boy until you are fit to be a man, and hold to a boy's +mode of dress at least until you are old enough to command the respect +of sensible girls by something more notable than cigarette smoking and +athletic sports. + + + + +LX. + +WHAT TO DO WITH GROWLERS. + +I often hear people making a big fuss about little things. My path in +life leads me among many "kickers" and many "growlers." Do you know +what I would like to do with some of these malcontents and whiners? I +would like to send them up for a week to watch life in the county +hospital. I would like to seat them by a bedside where a noble woman +lies dying all alone of a terrible disease. I would like to have them +become acquainted with her bravery and the more than queenly calm with +which she confronts her destiny. I would like to have them linger in +the corridors and hear the moans from the wards and private rooms where +the maimed and the crippled and the incurable are faintly struggling in +the grasp of death. I would like to lead them through the children's +ward, where mites of humanity cursed with heredity's blight, removed +from a mother's bosom, consigned to suffering throughout the span of +their feeble days, lie faintly breathing their lives away. And then +would like to say to them: "You contemptible cowards, you abominable +fussers, you inexcusable kickers, see what the Lord might bring you to +if he unloosed the leash and set real troubles in your track. Quit +complaining and go to thanking heaven for all your unspeakable mercies!" + + + + +LXI. + +GOD BLESS 'EM! + +Every morning just at 7 the entire neighborhood turns out to see them +pass. She is a demure little lady with a face that makes one think of +a blush rose, a little past its prime, but mighty sweet to look upon. +She wears a mite of a white sun-bonnet, clean as fresh fallen snow, and +starched and stiff as the best pearl gloss cap make it. The cape of +this cute little bonnet shades a round white throat, and the strings +are tied beneath the chin in a ravishing bow that stands guard over a +dimple. She has been married quite ten years, and they say that the +two little children who were cradled for a few happy months on her soft +breast are waiting and watching for her coming the other side of the +river of death. He is a matter-of-fact looking man, with a resolute +face and a constant smile in his eyes. He always carries a +lunch-basket in one hand and with the other guides the steps of the +faithful little woman who accompanies him part way on the march of his +daily grind. He works downtown in a big warehouse and he makes hardly +enough money each week to keep you in cigars, my good friend, or your +wife in novels. Though it rain, or though it shine, though the winds +blow or the winds are low, whatever betide of chance, or change, or +weather, there is not a morning that he goes to work that she does not +walk with him as far as the corner, and in the face of men and angels, +grip car conductors and clerks, shop girls and grimacing urchins, kiss +him good-bye. She stands and watches until he is well on his way, then +waves him a final farewell, and trips back home in the serene shadow of +her little bonnet. Now you may ridicule that love and call it "spoony" +and "silly," but, I tell you, a legacy of gold or a hatful of diamonds +could not begin to outvalue such love in a man's home. God bless the +two, say I, and roll round the joyful day when love and its free and +beautiful demonstration shall shine athwart the heresies of +conventionality as April suns dispel the winter's fog with the splendor +of their broadcast shining. + + + + +LXII. + +"UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE." + +I was riding up-town in a cable car not long ago late at night. The +moon was at its full and all the ugliness of the city was shrouded, +like a homely woman in a bridal veil of shimmering lace. We skimmed +along on a smooth and unobstructed track, like a sloop with every sail +set, heading for the open sea. There were no idle chatterers aboard, +and from the stalwart gripman at his post of duty, to the shrinking +little girl passenger, who was half afraid and half delighted to be +abroad so late alone, everybody and everything was in harmony with the +hour and scene. Suddenly there fluttered into the car a snowy moth, +astray from some flower garden in the country and quite bewildered and +lost in the barren city. The beautiful creature fluttered into a +lady's face and she screamed and struggled as though attacked by a +rabid beast. "Oh, kill it! kill the horrid thing," she cried, while +her attendant beat the air with his cane and sought to drive the +dangerous interloper away. It rested for a moment upon the gripman's +cap, where it looked like a feather dropped from a wandering bird. At +last it settled upon the breast of a little child sleeping in its +mother's arms. The mother brushed it away with her handkerchief as +though its presence brought defilement. A gentleman who was seated +near me caught the bewildered thing and with a very tender touch held +it for a block or so until we came to one of the pretty parks that make +our city so attractive. Stepping from the car, he loosened his grasp +upon the captive moth near a big syringa bush that adorned the entrance +way. He watched the dainty white wings flutter down into the cool +seclusion of the blossom then turned and boarded the car and pursued +his homeward way conscious, let us hope, of a very pretty and graceful +deed of kindness to a most insignificant claimant for protection and +succor. Sentimental, was it? Well, God help the world when all +sentimentality of this kind is gone out of it. + + + + +LXIII. + +TAKING INVENTORY. + +How poor the most of us prove to be when we take inventory of the +soul's stock! We have lots of bonnets, and plenty of dresses, and no +end of lingerie, we women, but how are we off for the things that count +when the dry goods and the furbelows shall be forgotten? How about +love, of the right kind, the love that ennobles rather than degrades, +and how about loyalty, and patience, and truth? If one of Chicago's +big firms should close its doors to take inventory of stock in January +and find it had nothing but the labels on empty bales to account for, +its poverty would be as nothing to the poverty of the soul we are going +to schedule shortly behind the closed door of the grave. What slaves +we are to passion; how we hate one another for fancied or even actual +slights, when we have such a little moment of time in which to indulge +the evil tempers! How we bicker, and lie, and betray, the while the +messenger stands already at the door to bid us begone from the scene of +our petty conflicts. For my part, the interest we take in things that +pertain to this perishable life, when we are so soon going where these +are not to be; the choice we make of ranks and reputations, shams and +seemings, dinners and wines, jewels and fabrics; the importance we +attach to bubbles that break before we reach them; the allurements that +draw us far from the ideals we started out to gain; the way we content +ourselves with the environments of evil and forego forever the voice +that calls us away to partake of things which shall be as wine and +honey to the soul, frightens me; startles me as the sudden thunder of +the surf might startle one who sojourned by an unseen sea. + + + + +LXIV. + +DON'T MARRY HIM TO SAVE HIM. + +If any young woman who reads this is contemplating marriage with a wild +and wayward man, hoping to reform him, I want her to stop right here +and decide to give up the contract. As well might she go out and smile +down a northwest wind or expostulate with a cyclone to its own undoing. +If a man drinks to excess before he marries, there is no reason to hope +he will learn moderation afterward. If you become his wife with the +full knowledge of his habits, you will have no right to leave him or +forsake him after marriage because of his unfortunate addictions and +predilections. Once having taken the vows you have no right to refuse +to pay them to the uttermost. And the life you will lead will be +perhaps a trifle less pleasant than the life of a parlor boarder in +sheol. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STRING OF AMBER BEADS*** + + +******* This file should be named 17019-8.txt or 17019-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/0/1/17019 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/17019-8.zip b/17019-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..90b3130 --- /dev/null +++ b/17019-8.zip diff --git a/17019.txt b/17019.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2095d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17019.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2486 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A String of Amber Beads, by Martha Everts +Holden + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A String of Amber Beads + + +Author: Martha Everts Holden + + + +Release Date: November 6, 2005 [eBook #17019] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STRING OF AMBER BEADS*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +A STRING OF AMBER BEADS + +by + +MARTHA EVERTS HOLDEN + +"AMBER" + + + + + + + +Siegel, Cooper Co., +New York. ---------- Chicago. +Copyright 1893 by +Charles H. Kerr & Company + + + + + +DEDICATED + +TO THE LATE + +ANDREW SHUMAN + + +MY LITERARY ADVISER + +AND + +TRUEST FRIEND + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + I. "I DIDN'T THINK." + II. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE." + III. A COWARDLY MATE. + IV. THEY CARRY NO BANNER. + V. SHUT IN. + VI. THE CIRCLING YEAR--A CLOCK. + VII. SOMETHING BETTER THAN SURFACE MANNERS. + VIII. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. + IX. THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME MOST WEARY. + X. NOTHING SO GRAND AS FORCE. + XI. A RAINY RHAPSODY. + XII. CAUSE FOR WONDER. + XIII. THE FIRST KATYDID. + XIV. A PLEA FOR MEN. + XV. WHAT I'M TIRED OF. + XVI. NOTHING LIKE A GOOD LAUGH. + XVII. HOLD! ENOUGH!! + XVIII. RIPE OPPORTUNITIES. + XIX. A SUNSET CLOUD. + XX. ONE SECRET OF SUCCESS. + XXI. A NEW BEATITUDE. + XXII. BLESSED BE BASHFULNESS. + XXIII. A BEWITCHED VIOLIN. + XXIV. A HAT PIN PROBLEM. + XXV. POLITENESS VS. SINCERITY. + XXVI. THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN. + XXVII. SERMONS FROM FLIES. + XXVIII. THE MAN WHO KNOWS IT ALL. + XXIX. BALD HEADS AND UNEQUAL CHANCES. + XXX. HUMAN STRAWS. + XXXI. A SALLOW FACED GIRL FOR YOUR PITY. + XXXII. AND YET HE CLINGS TO LIFE. + XXXIII. OH! TO RID THE WORLD OF SHAMS. + XXXIV. DRESS PARADE OF THE GREAT ALIKE. + XXXV. IF GOD MADE YOU A WILLOW DON'T TRY TO BE A PINE. + XXXVI. TWO TYPES. + XXXVII. A DREAM GARDEN. + XXXVIII. ANYTHING WORSE THAN A BLUE-JAY? HARDLY! + XXXIX. GOOD HEALTH A BLESSING. + XL. WHY, BLESS MY SOUL! IT REALLY SEEMS TO THINK. + XLI. TAKE TO DRINK, OF COURSE! + XLII. A WARNING TO GIRLS. + XLIII. A FROG MAY DO WHAT A MAN MAY NOT. + XLIV. THANKING GOD FOR A GOOD HUSBAND. + XLV. JUST A LITTLE TIRED! + XLVI. PAINTING THE OLD HOMESTEAD. + XLVII. THE OLD SITTING-ROOM STOVE. + XLVIII. A TALK ABOUT DIVORCE. + XLIX. GONE BACK TO FLIPPITY-FLOPPITY SKIRTS. + L. I SHALL MEET HIM SOME DAY. + LI. A MANNISH WOMAN. + LII. THE ONLY WAY TO CONQUER A HARD DESTINY. + LIII. THE "SMART" PERSON. + LIV. A PRETTY STREET INCIDENT. + LV. POLICY A DAMASCUS BLADE, NOT A CLUB. + LVI. THE CONSTANT YEARS BRING AGE TO ALL. + LVII. DID YOU EVER READ THE "LITTLE PILGRIM." + LVIII. EATING MILK TOAST WITH A SPOON! + LIX. BOYS, YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU. + LX. WHAT TO DO WITH GROWLERS. + LXI. GOD BLESS 'EM! + LXII. "UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE." + LXIII. TAKING INVENTORY. + LXIV. DON'T MARRY HIM TO SAVE HIM. + + + + +A STRING OF BEADS + + +I. + +"I DIDN'T THINK." + +"I didn't think!" A woman flings the whiteness of her reputation in +the dust, and, waking to the realization of her loss when the cruel +glare of the world's disapproval reveals it, she seeks to plead her +thoughtlessness as an entreaty of the world's pardon. But the +flint-hearted world is slow to grant it, if she be a woman. "You have +thrown your rose in the dust, go live there with it," the world cries, +and there is no appeal, although the dust become the grave of all that +is bright and lovely and sweet in a thoughtless woman's really innocent +life. A young girl flirts with a stranger on the street. The result +is something disagreeable, and straight-way comes the excuse: "Why, I +didn't think! I meant no harm; I just wanted to have a little fun." +Now, look me straight in the eye, young gossamer-head, while I tell you +what I _know_. The girl who will flirt with strange men in public +places, however harmless and innocent it may appear, places herself in +that man's estimation upon a level with the most abandoned of her sex +and courts the same regard. Strong language, perhaps you think, but I +tell you it is gospel truth, and I feel like going into orders and +preaching from a pulpit whenever I see a thoughtless, gay and giddy +girl tiptoeing her way upon the road that leads direct to destruction. +The boat that dances like a feather on the current a mile above +Niagara's plunge is just as much lost as when it enters the swirling, +swinging wrath of waters, unless some strong hand head it up stream and +out of danger. A flirtation to-day is a ripple merely, but to-morrow +it will be a breaker, and then a whirlpool, and after that comes +hopeless loss of character. Girls, I have seen you gather up your +roses from their vases at night and fold them away in damp paper to +protect their loveliness for another day. I have seen you pluck the +jewels like sun sparkles from your fingers and your ears, and lay them +in velvet caskets which you locked with a silver key for safe beeping. +You do all this for flowers which a thousand suns shall duplicate in +beauty, and for jewels for which a handful of dollars can reimburse +your loss; but you are infinitely careless with the delicate rose of +maidenliness, which, once faded, no summer shining can ever woo back to +freshness, and with the unsullied jewel of personal reputation which +all the wealth of kings can never buy back again, once lost. See to it +that you preserve that modesty and womanliness without which the +prettiest girl in the world is no better than a bit of scentless lawn +in a milliner's window, as compared to the white rose in the garden, +around which the honey bees gather. See to it that you lock up the +unsullied splendor of the jewel of your reputation as carefully as you +do your diamonds, and carry the key within your heart of hearts. + + + + +II. + +"STAY WHERE YOU ARE." + +I received a letter the other day in which the writer said: "Amber, I +want to come to the city and earn my living. What chance have I?" And +I felt like posting back an immediate answer and saying: "Stay where +you are." I didn't do it, though, for I knew it would be useless. The +child is bound to come, and come she will. And she will drift into a +third-rate Chicago boarding-house, than which if there is anything +meaner--let us pray! And if she is pretty she will have to carry +herself like snow on high hills to avoid contamination. If she is +confiding and innocent the fate of that highly persecuted heroine of +old-fashioned romance, Clarissa Harlowe, is before her. If she is +homely the doors of opportunity are firmly closed against her. If she +is smart she will perhaps succeed in earning enough money to pay her +board bill and have sufficient left over to indulge in the maddening +extravagance of an occasional paper of pins or a ball of tape! What +if, after hard labor, and repeated failure, she does secure something +like success? No sooner will she do so, than up will step some dapper +youth who will beckon her over the border into the land where troubles +just begin. She won't know how to sew, or bake, or make good coffee, +for such arts are liable to be overlooked when a girl makes a career +for herself, and so love will gallop away over the hills like a +riderless steed, and happiness will flare like a light in a windy +night. Oh, no, my little country maid, stay where you are, if you have +a home and friends. Be content with fishing for trout in the brook +rather than cruising a stormy sea for whales. A great city is a cruel +place for young lives. It takes them as the cider press takes juicy +apples, sun-kissed and flavored with the breath of the hills, and +crushes them into pulp. There is a spoonful of juice for each apple, +but cider is cheap! + + + + +III. + +A COWARDLY MATE. + +I know a wife who is waiting, safe and sound in her father's home, for +her young husband to earn the money single handed to make a home worthy +of her acceptance. She makes me think of the first mate of a ship who +should stay on shore until the captain tested the ability of his vessel +to weather the storm. Back to your ship, you cowardly one! If the +boat goes down, go down with it, but do not count yourself worthy of +any fair weather you did not help to gain! A woman who will do all she +can to win a man's love merely for the profit his purse is going to be +to her, and will desert him when the cash runs low, is a bad woman and +carries a bad heart in her bosom. Why, you are never really wedded +until you have had dark days together. What earthly purpose would a +cable serve that never was tested by a weight? Of what use is the tie +that binds wedded hearts together if like a filament of floss it parts +when the strain is brought to bear upon it? It is not when you are +young, my dear, when the skies are blue and every wayside weed flaunts +a summer blossom, that the story of your life is recorded. It is when +"Darby and Joan" are faded and wasted and old, when poverty has nipped +the roses, when trouble and want and care have flown like uncanny birds +over their heads (but never yet nested in their hearts, thank God), +that the completed chronicle of their lives furnishes the record over +which heaven smiles or weeps. + + + + +IV. + +THEY CARRY NO BANNER. + +There never yet was a grand procession that was not accompanied, or, +rather, in great measure made up of, followers and onlookers. So in +this life parade of ours, with its ever varying pageant and brilliant +display, there are comparatively few who carry banners, who disport the +epaulette, and the gold lace. And sometimes, we who help swell the +ranks of those who watch and wait, grow discouraged, almost thinking +that life is a failure because it holds no gala-day for us, nothing but +sober tints and quiet duties. What chance for any one, and a woman +especially, to make a career for herself, tied down to a lot of +precious babies, or lassooed by ten thousand galloping cares! As well +expect a rose to blossom in midwinter hedges, or a lark to sing in a +snowstorm, as to look for bloom and song in such a life! But just bend +down your ear a minute, poor, tired, overworked and troubled sister, I +have a special word for you. It is simply impossible for circumstances +of any sort to overthrow the high spirit of one who believes in +something yet to come and out of sight. What are poverty and adverse +fate and mocking hopes and disappointed ambition to the soul which is +only journeying through an unfriendly world to a heritage that cannot +fail? As well might a flower complain of the rains that called it from +the sod, of the winds that rocked it, and the cloudless noons that +flamed above it, when June at last has lightly laid the coronal of +summer's perfect bloom upon its bending bough. We shall find our June +somewhere, never fear. Be content then a little longer with +uncongenial surroundings and a life that knows no outlook of hope. Be +all the sweeter and the stronger and the braver that the way is short. +To-morrow, in the Palace of Love, the dark and unfriendly inn that +sheltered us for a night upon the way, shall be forgotten. + + + + +V. + +SHUT IN. + +Were you ever shut in by a fog? Lost at mid-day in a soundless, +rayless world of nebulous vapor--so seemingly alone in the universe +that your voice found no echo, and your ears caught no footfall in all +the vast domain of silence about you? The other morning, when I left +the house, I paused in wonderment at the strange world into which I was +about to plunge. All landmarks were gone, nothing but silver and gray +left of nature's brilliant tints, not even so much shadow as an artist +might use to accentuate a bird's wing in crayon--no heaven above, no +earth beneath. The interior of a raised biscuit could not have been +more densely uniform than the atmosphere. It seemed as if the world +had slipped its moorings and drifted off its course into companionless +space, leaving me behind, as an ocean steamer sometimes leaves a +straggler on an uninhabited shore. I felt like sending forth a call +that should give my bearings and bring back a boat to the rescue. I +groped my way down the steps, and, following an intuition, sought the +station. Ahead of me I heard muffled steps, yet saw no form. But +suddenly a doorway opened in the east and out strode the sun. In the +air above and about me, behold, the wonder of diamond domes and slender +minarets traced in pearl! The wayside banks were fringed with crystal +spray of downbeaten weed and bush that sparkled like the billows of a +sunlit sea. The tall elms here and there towered like the masts of +returning ships, slow sailing from a wintry voyage back to summer lands +and splendor. There was no sound in all the air, but the whole +universe seemed singing as when the morning stars chorused the glory of +God. More and more widely opened that doorway in the east; step by +step advanced the great magician, and over all the world the splendor +grew, until it seemed too much for mortal eyes to bear, when lo! a +touch dispelled it all and commonplace day stood revealed. + + + + +VI. + +THE CIRCLING YEAR--A CLOCK. + +The circling year is a clock whereon nature writes the hours in +blossoms. First come the wind flowers and the violets, they denote the +early morning hours and are quickly passed. The forenoon is marked by +lilacs, apple blooms and roses. The day's meridian is reached with +lilies, red carnations, and the dusky splendor of pansies and passion +flowers. Then come the languid poppy and the prim little 4 o'clock, +the marigold, the sweet pea, and later the dahlia and the many-tinted +chrysanthemum to mark the day's decline. Lastly the goldenrod, the +aster and the gentian, tell us it is evening time, and night and frost +are close at hand. The rose hour has struck already for '93. The +garden beds are full of scattered petals and the dusty roadways glimmer +with ghostly blossoms too wan to be roses, and wafted by a breath into +nothingness. With such a calendar to mark the advance of decay and +death the seasons differ from the mortal race which substitutes aches +and pains for a horologe of flowers, and grows old by processes of +physical failure and mental blight. + + + + +VII. + +SOMETHING BETTER THAN SURFACE MANNERS. + +There are days when my heart is so full of love for young girls that as +I pass them on the street I feel myself smiling as one does to walk by +a garden of daffodils. And when I see how careful some of them are to +be circumspect and demure, I think to myself how fine a thing it is, to +be sure, to have good manners! How happy the parent whose young +daughter knows just how to hold her hands in company, just how and when +to smile, just how to enter a room or gracefully leave it. Easy, +indeed, must lie the head of that mother who is secure in the knowledge +that her daughter will never make a false step in the stately minuet of +etiquette, or strike a discordant note in the festival of life; that +she will never laugh too loud, nor turn her head in the street, even +when the gay and glittering "king of the cannibal isles" rides by, nor +do anything odd or queer or unconventional. To the mother who believes +that good manners can be taught in books and conned in dancing schools, +there is something to satisfy the heart's finest craving in a strictly +conventional daughter, who thinks and acts and speaks by rule, and +whose life is like the life of an apricot, canned, or a music box wound +up with a key. But to my thinking, my dear, good manners are not put +on and off like varying fashions, nor done up like sweetmeats, pound +for pound, and kept in the storeroom for state occasions. They strike +root from the heart out, and the prettiest manners in the world are +only the blossoming of a good heart. Surface manners are like cut +flowers stuck in a shallow glass with just enough water to keep them +fresh an hour or so, but the courtesy that has its growth in the heart +is like the rosebush in the garden that no inclement season can kill, +and no dark day force to forego the unfolding of a bud. + + + + +VIII. + +MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. + +I am more and more convinced the longer I live that the very best +advice that was ever given from friend to friend is contained in those +four words: "Mind your own business." The following of it would save +many a heartache. Its observance would insure against every sort of +wrangling. When we mind our own business we are sure of success in +what we undertake, and may count upon a glorious immunity from failure. +When the husbandman harvests a crop by hanging over the fence and +watching his neighbor hoe weeds, it will be time for you and for me to +achieve renown in any undertaking in which we do not exclusively mind +our own business. If I had a family of young folks to give advice to, +my early, late and constant admonition would be always and everywhere +to "mind their own business." Thus should they woo harmony and peace, +and live to enjoy something like the completeness of life. + + + + +IX. + +THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME MOST WEARY. + +In the ups and downs and hithers and thithers of an eventful life shall +I tell you the people who have made me the most weary? It is not the +bad people, nor the foolish people; we can get along with all such +because of a streak of common humanity in us all, but I cannot survive +without extreme lassitude the decorous people; those who slip through +life without sound or sparkle, those who behave themselves upon every +occasion, and would pass through a dynamite explosion without rumpling +a hair; those who never have done anything out of the way and never +will, simply for the same reason that a fish cannot perspire--no blood +in 'em! Cut them and they would run cold sap, like a maple tree in +April. Such people are always frightened to death for fear of what the +world is going to say about them. They are under everlasting bonds to +keep the peace. I wonder that they ever un-bend to kiss their +children. If one of them lived in my house I should stick pins in him. +Morality and goodness that lie no deeper than "behavior" are like the +veneering they put on cheap tables--very tawdry and soon peeled off. + + + + +X. + +NOTHING SO GRAND AS FORCE. + +Reading about the superb management of the big fire the other day, a +certain girl of my acquaintance remarked: "Is there anything so grand +in a man as force? In my estimation those firemen and the chief who so +splendidly controlled them are as far superior to the dancing youth, we +meet at parties and hops, as meat is better than foam." Put that into +your pipe, you callow striplings, who aim to be lady-killers! It is +not your tennis suits, nor your small feet, nor your ability to dance +and lead the german that makes a woman's heart kindle at your approach. +It is your response to an emergency, your muscle in a tilt against +odds, your endurance and force, that will win the way to feminine +regard. As for me there is something pathetic in the sight of a big, +handsome fellow in dancing pumps and a Prince Albert coat. I would +rather see him swinging a blacksmith's hammer, or driving a plow +through stony furrows if need be. The "original man" was not created +to shine in the military schottische or win his laurels in the berlin. + + + + +XI. + +A RAINY RHAPSODY. + +Gently, idly, lazily, as petals from an over-blown rose, while I write, +the welcome rain is falling. The sky is neutral tinted, save in the +east, where a faint blush lingers. All along the country roadways a +thousand fainting clovers uplift their purple crests, and in the dusky +spaces of the dense June woods a host of grateful leaves wait and +beckon. A voice comes from the garden bed; it is the complaint of the +pansy. "Here I lie," it says, "with all my jewels low in the dust. +Where is the purple of my amethysts, the yellow of my topaz, the +inimitable sheen of my milk-white pearls? Alas and alack for pansies +when the rain beats them earthward!" The marigold, like a +yellow-haired boy with his straw hat well back from his flying mane, +whistles softly to himself for joy, and buries his hands in the pockets +of his green breeches. The peonies burn low their tinted globes of +light, and the sweet peas swing like idle girls upon the tendrils of +their drooping vines. The dog lifts his nose and sniffs the moist air +approvingly, while poor Old Tom, the cat, blinks benignly upon the +scene. In the poultry yard the hens pose in the same indescribable +amaze that has bewildered their species since the dawn of time. I +think the first chicken that was ever hatched in Eden must have +experienced some great nervous shock that has descended along the +infinite line of its progeny. The monotonous rooster chants ever and +anon from the top of the fence his unalterable convictions. The ducks +waddle waggishly through the rain and the pigeons coo softly the +mellowest melodies that ever sounded from a feathered throat. + + + + +XII. + +CAUSE FOR WONDER. + +I do not wonder so much that so few people blossom into sunny old age, +as I wonder that one-half of humanity ever shows a leaf or unfolds a +bud. Look at the idiots who have children. Look at the little ones +thrown into the street like troublesome kittens. Look at the +injudicious methods of diet and training. I declare, my dear, if I +were to go into the room where Theodore Thomas was rehearsing his +orchestra, and see the flutists using their flutes for hammers, and the +violinists using their violins for tennis rackets, and the divine old +cello in the hands of a lusty blacksmith who was utilizing it for an +anvil, the sight would be nothing to what it is to see the muddle we +make of the children's sweet lives. God meant us for musical +instruments, and gave to each soul its capacity for some original +harmony. Can a flute keep its tone for three score years it you use it +for a clothes stick on wash day, or a violin retain intact the angel +voice within it if you let rats breed and nest in it, fling it against +the side of the house and dance on it with hob-nailed boots? If an +instrument subjected to such usage pipes out a silver note once in a +dozen years, uncover your head when you hear it, for it is the original +angel within the mechanism, which nothing can kill! + + + + +XIII. + +THE FIRST KATYDID. + +The first katydid of the season has whipped out his bow and drawn the +preparatory note across the strings of his violin. He is alone at +present and he plays to an empty house, but it will not be long before +the orchestra fills up and the music is in full blast. The cricket is +getting ready to throw aside the green baize that has held his piccolo +so long, and before the middle of the month there will not be a tuft of +grass nor a shelter of low-lying leaves that is not alive with the +shrill, complaining sweetness of his theme. The goldenrod has lighted +the candles in the candelabra that skirt the borders of the wood, and +the aster has already hung out her purple gown and her yellow laces +upon the bushes that follow the windings of the steep ravine. Only six +weeks to frost! Only six weeks to the time for the unbottling of the +year's vintage and the exchange of tea for sparkling wine. Hasten +forward, then, oh, days of radiant life and sparkling weather! We are +tired of torrid waves and flies; of snakes, hornets and cyclones. + + + + +XIV. + +A PLEA FOR MEN. + +A more or less extended experience as a bread-winner has taught me a +noble charity for men. I used to think that all the head of a family +was good for was to accumulate riches and pay bills, but I am beginning +to think that there is many a martyr spirit hidden away beneath the +business man's suit of tweed. Wife and daughters stand ever before +him, like hoppers waiting for grist to grind. "Give! Give!" is their +constant cry, like the rattle of the upper and nether stones. This +panegyric does not apply to the man who frequents clubs and spends his +money on between-meal drinks and lottery tickets. It applies rather to +the unselfish, hardworking father of a family, who works early and late +to keep his daughters like lilies that have no need to toil, and to +help maintain the ostentation of vain display upon which depends the +social success of a worldly and frivolous wife. It would be far more +to those daughters' credit if they did something in the line of honest +and honorable toil to support themselves, rather than live on the +heart's blood of an unselfish and overworked father; and as for the +wife who exacts the income of a duchess to keep up the silly parade of +Vanity Fair, there may come a day for her, when, shorn of the generous +and loving support of a good husband, and forced to earn her own +livelihood, as the penniless widows of bankrupt men are sometimes +forced to do, she will appreciate, too late, the blessing that Heaven +has taken from her. + + + + +XV. + +WHAT I'M TIRED OF. + +I am tired of many things. I am tired of the miserable little god, +"worry," shrined in every home. I am tired of doing perpetual homage +to the same black-faced little wretch. I am tired of putting down +pride and curbing a righteous indignation. I am tired of keeping my +hands off human weeds. I am tired of crucifying my tastes, and +cultivating the nickel that springs perennial to meet my needs. I am +tired of poverty and all needful discipline. I am tired of seeing +babies born to people who don't know how to bring them up. I am tired +of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the +platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am +tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier +and marching with the advance guard. I am tired of girls who giggle +and of boys who swear. I am tired of married women who think it +charming to be a little giddy, and of married men who ogle young girls +and other men's wives. I am tired of a world where love is like the +blossom of the century plant, unfolding only once in a hundred years. +I am tired of men who are worthless and decayed to the core, like +blighted peaches. I am tired of seeing such men in power. I am tired +of being obliged to smile where I long to smite. I am tired of +vulgarity which glides forever through the world like the snake through +Eden. I am tired of women who bear the hearts of tigers, and of men +who roar like lions, yet show the valor of mice. I am tired of living +shoulder to shoulder with my pet antipathies. I am tired of the +everlasting inveighing against capital, when any idiot knows that +capital is the king-bolt that holds the world together. I am tired of +wearing shabby clothes, and meeting folks who judge of a parcel by the +quality of wrapping paper it is incased in. I am tired of being +well-behaved and decorous when I want to fling stones and make faces. +I am tired of smelling the game dinner of my neighbor and sitting down +at home to beans and bacon. I am tired of many more things, the +enumeration of which would take from now until the day after forever. + + + + +XVI. + +NOTHING LIKE A GOOD LAUGH. + +Do you know, my dear, that there is absolutely nothing that will help +you to bear the ills of life so well as a good laugh. Laugh all you +can, and the small imps in blue who love to preempt their quarters in a +human heart will scatter away like owls before the music of flutes. +There are few of the minor difficulties and annoyances that will not +dissipate at the charge of the nonsense brigade. If the clothes line +breaks, if the cat tips over the milk and the dog elopes with the +roast, if the children fall into the mud simultaneously with the advent +of clean aprons, if the new girl quits in the middle of housecleaning, +and though you search the earth with candles you find none to take her +place, if the neighbor in whom you have trusted goes back on you and +decides to keep chickens, if the chariot wheels of the uninvited guest +draw near when you are out of provender, and the gaping of your empty +purse is like the unfilled mouth of a young robin take courage if you +have enough sunshine in your heart, to keep a laugh on your lips. +Before good nature, half the cares of daily living will fly away like +midges before the wind; try it. + + + + +XVII. + +HOLD! ENOUGH!! + +The other evening it chanced that a combination of disastrous +circumstances wrought havoc with my temper. I lost my train; my head +hummed like a bumblebee with weary pain, and the elastic that held my +hat to its moorings broke, so that that capering compromise between +inanimate matter and demoniac possession blew half a block up street on +its own account, and was brought back to me by a youthful son of +Belial, who took my very last quarter as reward for the lively chase. + +"There's no use!" said I to myself as I jogged along through the +gloaming; "blessed be the woman who knows enough to cry 'hold!' against +such odds!" + +And just then I spied a wizened little mite of a woman trotting by, +carrying a gripsack bigger than herself. She grasped it, and held it +against her wan little stomach, as a Roman warrior might carry his +shield into battle--plucky to the last. + +"Now," said I, "look here, Amber, have you a fifty pound sachel to tug +through the darkness? No! Then you might be worse off." + +And I went on a little farther and I met the brave firemen going home +drenched and worn from the big fire. "You coward!" said I to myself, +"what if you were a fireman! Something to growl about then, I guess." + +And I went a bit farther and I saw a little white coffin in a window. +"How about that?" said I. "If the darlings were gone to their long +home you might talk about trouble!" + +And a few moments later I ran across an old man without any legs, +peddling papers. And then I said: "Do you call your life a grind, +madam, with two legs to walk upon, and a sufficient income to admit of +an occasional fling? What if you had wooden legs, and peddled papers?" + +Now, I have told you this for a purpose. However dark your lot may be +there are worse all around you. You may be inclined to think that the +bloom and the brightness have gone out of your life, leaving nothing +behind them but what remains of the carnation when the frost finds +it--a withered stalk. But if you will take the trouble to watch, you +will find that there is always something harder to bear than your own +trouble, and, put to the test, you wouldn't change crosses with your +neighbor. + + + + +XVIII. + +RIPE OPPORTUNITIES. + +What if a man went over the lake to St. Joe to visit the peach orchards +at the maturity of their delicious harvest! The consent of the owner +of the fairest plantation of the many has been gained, let us imagine, +for the plucking of the perfect fruit. And yet, in despite of +opportunity and privilege, what would you think of one who came home +with empty baskets and an unappeased relish for ripe peaches? Would +you not think such a one a dullard, or, at least, stupidly blind to his +opportunities? And if you chanced to hear him crying over his empty +basket later on, would you not revile him for a lazy fellow? We all of +us, from day to day, miss chances of far greater value than the ripest +peach that ever mellowed in the sun. The opportunity to say a kind and +encouraging word swings low upon the bough of to-day. Why not gather +it in? The chance to help, to succor, to protect, the chance to lend a +helping hand, to share a burden, to soothe a sorrow, to plant a loving +thought, or twine a memory that shall blossom like a rose upon the +terrace of to-morrow, all are our own as we pass through the world on +our way to heaven. We may not come this way again. See to it, then, +that we carry full baskets on the homeward faring. + + + + +XIX. + +A SUNSET CLOUD. + +Not long ago there slowly ascended into the evening sky a pillar of +cloud so vast that all measurements sank into insignificance beside it. +Its color was of softest gray just touched with the flush that deepens +the inmost chamber of a shell, or blushes in the unfolded petals of a +wind flower. With majestic yet almost imperceptible motion this cloud +mounted the blue background of the sky. The spectre of a faded moon +hung motionless above it an instant only, and then was swiftly drawn +within its soft eclipse. Changing from moment to moment, the great +mass took on all semblances of vivid fancy, until the evening sky +seemed the arena of dreamland's cohorts. With indescribable grace and +with the delicate lightness of a fairy footfall the mighty visitant +advanced and took possession of the heavenly field. Suddenly the full +glory of the setting sun smote it from outer rim to base. In less time +than it takes to tell the story the cloud was dissipated in a spray of +feathery light. It drifted like a wreath before the wind and lost +itself in the illimitable spaces of the air, as dust in the splendor of +a summer day. It broke upon the hills in a shower of flame and +dissolved above the still waters of the lake in tremulous flakes of +light. The sight was worth going far to see, and yet I am willing to +wager my to-morrow's dinner that not one-fiftieth of the folks for whom +I write, saw it, or would have left their supper to watch the glorious +spectacle. + + + + +XX. + +ONE SECRET OF SUCCESS. + +There is just one thing nowadays that never fails to bring success, and +that is assurance. If you are going to make yourself known, it is no +longer the thing to quietly hand out your card and a modest credential; +you must advance with a trumpet and blow a brazen blast to shake the +stars. The time has gone by when self-advancement can be gained by +modest and unassuming methods. To stand with lifted hat and solicit a +hearing savors of an all too humble spirit. The easily abashed may +starve in a garret, or go die on the highways. There is no chance for +them in the jostle of life. The gilded circus chariot, with a full +brass band and a plump goddess distributing posters, is what takes the +popular heart by storm. Your silent entry into town, depending upon +the merits of your wares to work up a trade, is chimerical and +obsolete. We no longer sit in the shadow and play flutes; we parade in +a sawdust ring and play on trombones, or take our place on a raised +platform and beat the bass drum, and in that way we draw a crowd and +gather in the coppers, and that is what we live for, isn't it? + + + + +XXI. + +A NEW BEATITUDE. + +There should be a new beatitude, and it should read, "Blessed is the +man who hath the courage of his convictions." It should apply to poor, +long-suffering women as well. We have plenty of the sort of courage +that will lead a man to step in front of a runaway horse, or dash into +a burning house, or throw himself off a dock to rescue a perishing +wretch, but there is a dearth of the kind of bravery that will enable +either man or woman to face a laugh in defense of a principle, or +succor a losing cause despite a sneer. How the best of us will retreat +trailing our banner in the dust, when the hot shot of ridicule +confronts us from the enemy's camp, or when some merry sentinel +challenges us with the opprobrious epithet, "crank." Why, I believe +there is hardly a man or woman to-day who would have the courage to +march up to a half-grown boy and knock the cigarette out of his mouth, +or tackle the omnipresent, from everlasting to everlasting expectorator +and buffet him into decency, or drive the "nose-bag" and the +"head-check" fiend at the point of an umbrella from all future +molestation of the noble horse he persecutes! We all believe in the +extermination of public nuisances, but we have not the courage of our +convictions to enable us to fight the fight of the just to overthrow +the rampancy of the evil doer. + + + + +XXII. + +BLESSED BE BASHFULNESS. + +Like the presence of a fresh clover in a meadow of sun-scorched +grasses, or the sound of a singing lark in a council of crows, is the +sight of a bashful child. In this age of juvenile precocity and +pinafore wisdom I would rather run across a downright timid boy or girl +than drink Arctic soda in dog days. Never be distressed, then, when +"johnnie" hangs his head and blushes like a girl, or when his little +sister stands on one foot and fairly writhes with embarrassment in the +presence of strangers. Count it rather the very crown of joy that you +are the parent of a fresh and innocent child, rather than the +superfluous attendant of a _blase_ infant, who discounts a circus +herald in "cheek" and outdistances a drummer in politic address and +unabashed effrontery. If I had my way I would put half the little +mannikins and pattern dolls of our latter day nurseries into a big +corn-popper and see if I couldn't evolve something sweeter and more +wholesome out of the hard, round, compact little kernels of their +present individuality. I would utterly do away with children's parties +and "butterfly balls" and kirmess dissipations. There should be a new +deal of bread and milk all around. Every boy in the land should go to +bed at sundown, and every girl should wear a sunbonnet. There should +be no carrying of canes, or eating of candy, or wearing of jewelry, or +talking of beaux, and I would dig up from the grave of the long ago the +quaint old custom of courtesying to strangers, of keeping silent until +spoken to, and of universal respect for the aged. This world would +brighten up like a rose garden after a shower with the presence of so +many modest little girls and bashful boys of the good old-fashioned +sort. + + + + +XXIII. + +A BEWITCHED VIOLIN. + +I went to the Auditorium the other night to hear somebody play on the +violin. But that was not a violin which the slender, dark eyed +performer used, and the music that so charmed me was not drawn from +strings and flashed forth by any ordinary bow. The heavenly notes to +which I listened were like those that young leaves give forth when May +winds find them, or that ripples make, drawn softly over pebbly +beaches. And when they died away and floated like a whisper through +the hushed house, it was no longer music; it was a great +golden-jacketed bee settling sleepily into the heart of a rose; it was +the chime of a vesper-bell broken in mellow cadences between vine-clad +hills; it was a something that had no form nor shape, nor semblance to +any earthly thing, yet floated midway between the earth and sky, light +as the frailest flower of snow the north wind ever cradled, +substanceless as smoke or wind-followed mist. + + + + +XXIV. + +A HAT PIN PROBLEM. + +I overheard the following conversation the other day in a popular +refectory: + +"Do your children mind you?" + +"I guess not; they never pay any more attention to me than if I was a +dummy. It takes their father to bring them to terms every time!" + +"I am so glad to hear it. I like to know that somebody else besides me +has a hard time with their children. I declare the only way I can get +baby to mind already is to jab him with a hat-pin!" + +I waited to hear no more. With sad precipitation I gathered up my +check and fled. Had I waited another minute I should have said to that +mother: "Madam, I will give you a problem to solve. If, at the age of +three, a child needs the impetus of one hat-pin to make him obey, how +many meat-axes will it require to keep him in order at the age of ten? +And if you are such a poor miserable failure as a mother and a woman +now, just at the commencement of an immortal destiny, what have the +eternities in store for you?" + +Why, oh, why are children sent to people who have no more idea about +bringing them up than a trout has about training hop-vines? It is a +question that has given and does give me much uneasiness. + + + + +XXV. + +POLITENESS VS. SINCERITY. + +You imagine it is not polite to be plain spoken! My dear, there are +times when to be merely "polite" is to be a toady! There are times +when politeness is a pillow of hen feathers, wherewith to smother honor +and strangle truth. If all you care for is to be popular, to go +through life like a molasses-drop in a child's mouth, why, then, choose +your way and live up to it, but don't expect to rank higher than +molasses, and cheap molasses at that. For my part I would rather be +outspoken in the cause of right, even if plain speech did offend, than +be a coward and a woolly mouth. Somebody once lived upon earth, the +example of whose thirty odd years of mortal environment we are taught +to pattern our own lives close upon. How about his politeness when he +talked with the hypocrites and rebuked the pharisees? How about his +policy when he drove the money-changers before a stinging whip, and +championed the cause of the sinful woman? Oh! I tell you, the soul +that is always looking out for the chance to score one for the winning +cause, and throw up its hat with the crowd that makes the most noise, +is poor stock to invest in. In the time of need such a friend would +turn out worse than a real estate investment in a Calumet swamp. + + + + +XXVI. + +THE MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN. + +Shall I tell you plainly, and without any mincing, what type of woman I +think the most dangerous? It is not the virago, the wounds of a sharp +tongue are hard enough to bear, but there is a balm for them. Mother +may be overworked, or sister may be fretted; something is the matter +with the digestion, often, when the one we love scolds and is +excessively disagreeable in manner and speech. The harshest word is +soon excused and overlooked by the smile and the caress that are sure +to follow. So, bad as a scolding, nagging tongue may be, it has its +alleviations, and somewhere there is an excuse made to fit it. But +what palliation is there for the offense of the woman who seeks by +blandishments and artifices of the evil one's own concoction to steal +the affection of a man away from his wife? There are more such people +in the world than you can imagine (and the evil is not confined to the +one sex either.) An intriguing woman (or man) who steals into a happy +home and seeks to undermine it, deserves to be stoned on the highway. +She may steal your purse, your diamonds, or your checkbook, and, while +love reigns on its rightful throne, the home will be happy; but let her +seek to discrown love, and entertain a clandestine passion in its +place, and the foundation of the stoutest home that was ever founded on +the rocks of time will tumble in ruin about her ears. Avoid the +intriguing, fascinating, dangerous, designing woman, then, who +recognizes no sanctity in wedded honor, and by her wiles and witcheries +lets in a thousand devils to the heart and home she curses with her +presence. + + + + +XXVII. + +SERMONS FROM FLIES. + +I chanced to stand the other day in a stuffy little room, the only +window of which was shaded by a ground glass light. Before the gray +void of this cheerless window a few flies darted hither and thither in +consequential flurry, while I myself, for the time being a most blue +and down-cast mortal, was battling with the thought that life, after +all, was hardly worth the living, and the outlook for anything better +in a dim and uncertain future, too dubious to be entertained. But all +at once my vision seemed to pierce the shaded pane that intervened +between me and the great, rushing, riotous world, and such a conception +of all that lay the other side the ground glass window overflowed my +soul, that I felt rebuked as by an audible voice. + +XXVIII. + +THE MAN WHO KNOWS IT ALL. + +There is a type of humanity we all encounter from day to day, at whose +funeral I shall carry a banner and beat a tom-tom. He is the man who +knows it all. In his grave, human forethought, and general knowledge, +and mortal perfection and everything worth knowing, shall one day lie +down and die. He never makes mistakes, nor loses his temper, nor gets +the worst of an argument, nor is worsted in a bargain. He never acts +on impulse, nor jumps without looking, nor commits himself rashly, nor +loses the wind out of his sails. He is so overwhelmingly superior +(sometimes he is a woman!) that in his presence you are a child of +wrath, a hopeless imbecile, and a black sheep all in one, and yet--how +you hate him and how you long to see some brave young David come along +and hit him with a sling shot! Such a man as he, is fitted to bring +the average human to the dust as quickly and as surely as a well aimed +bullet brings down a wild duck. + + + + +XXIX. + +BALD HEADS AND UNEQUAL CHANCES. + +What a superior chance a man has in this world over a woman! In the +matter of physical attributes alone his innings are as far ahead of +hers as the man who carries the banner in a Fourth of July procession +is ahead of the little boy who tugs along behind with the lemonade +pail. The other evening I attended the theatre, and casting my eye +over the audience between acts, I beheld no less than a score of +bald-headed men. They were composed, and even cheerful, under an +infliction that would have ostracized a woman. Imagine a man taking a +bald-headed woman to see the "Railroad of Love!" Imagine a bald-headed +girl with a fat, red neck and white eyelashes being in eager demand for +parties, coaching jubilees or private suppers. There never was a man +so homely, so halt, so deficient in beauty or brain that he could not +get a wife when he wanted, but the candidates for the position of +mistress of any man's household must be pretty, graceful and sweet. +The chances are uneven, my dear, but what are you going to do about it? + + + + +XXX. + +HUMAN STRAWS. + +There is not much credit in being jolly when the joints of life are +well oiled and events move as smoothly as feathers drawn through cream. +The glory lies in maintaining your serenity under adverse +circumstances; in emulating Mark Tapley, and being jolly when there is +not a hand's breadth of blue in all the heavens. There are straws laid +upon us every day, which, if they do not break our backs, at least go +far to loosen the vertebrae of our temper. One of these straws is the +man who expectorates in public places. What shall I do with that man? +I cannot kill him, because there is a law against the violent removal +of even a human straw. To be sure, he is the most insignificant straw +that the wind of destiny blows across the waste of life. He never +will mature a head of wheat though you give him eleven eternities to do +it in. But he serves his purpose, and breaks the back of toleration. + + + + +XXXI. + +A SALLOW FACED GIRL FOR YOUR PITY. + +On the opposite corner sits a half-grown girl peddling apples. She +polishes the fruit occasionally with a rag that she carries about her +person (let us humbly hope it is not her handkerchief!) and now and +then breaks into a double shuffle to dissipate the chill that invades +her ill-clothed frame. What taste of joy do you suppose that child +ever got out of the pewter cup the fates pour for her? Does she ever +find time to run about with other children, playing the games which the +generations hand down from one to the other? Does she ever play "tag," +or "gray wolf," or "I spy?" Does she ever swing in a hammock like +other girls when the days are long and blithe and sweet, as free from +care as a cloud or a butterfly? Does life hold for her one sparkle in +its poor cup of wine, one flavor that is not sordid and low and mean? +You say it is easy to sit here all day selling apples, and wonder why I +hold this sallow-faced girl up for special pity. To be sure there is +no hardship in the part of her life visible to us. But in her dull +soul lurks constantly the shadow of an ever present fear. The poor +child is accountable to a cruel master, whether father or mother it +matters little, who beats her each night that she returns to her +wretched home with a scanty showing of nickels; and the consciousness +of dull times and slow sales keeps her in a state of trepidation, which +in you or me, my dear, would soon lapse into "nervous prostration," a +big doctor's fee, and a change of air. Yet mark my words, if the +dark-browed liberator of sorrow's captives were to proffer my little +fruit peddler the exchange of death for all this wearing apprehension +and constant toil, do you think she would accept the transfer? Not +she. The "captain" out snow-balling to-day in her love-guarded home, +with never a fear to shadow her sunny eyes, nor a big sorrow to start +the showery tears, would not plead harder for the boon of longer living. + + + + +XXXII. + +AND YET HE CLINGS TO LIFE. + +As I sit here by my window I am reminded that this is a queer world and +queer be the mortals that pass through it. There is that wreck of a +man over yonder squeezing a bit of weird melody out of an old accordion +and expecting the tortured public to throw a penny into his hat now and +then to pay him for his trouble. Do you suppose that man knows what +happiness means, as God designed it. He was, without doubt, a sad and +grimy little baby once, brought up on gin slightly adulterated with his +mother's milk. He was pounded daily before he was two years old, +starved and cuffed and kicked all the way up to manhood, and now his +neck is so completely under the heel of hydra-headed disaster, +wickedness and want, that all he can find to do in this big and busy +world is to sit on the sidewalk and lacerate the public ear with those +dreadful discords. And yet, if death were to step up to that beggar's +side and offer him release, instant and sure, in the form of a falling +brick or a horse running amuck on the crowded sidewalk, he would cling +to the miserable shred he calls life as eagerly as though he were the +crown prince himself, with the heritage of his kingdom yet unwon. + + + + +XXXIII. + +OH! TO RID THE WORLD OF SHAMS. + +If you go to a florist and ask for a sweet pink root, you may get +fooled on the label, but when blooming time comes round there will be +no difficulty in deciding whether the flower you took on trust was pink +or onion. Plant a seed in the horticultural kingdom by any name you +please, there will be no mistake possible when June comes. A carrot is +bound to yield carrots, and a rose will repeat the bright wonder of its +beauty throughout the dreamy summer days, in spite of any other name +the florist may have blundered upon in the labeling. Not so with +humanity. There are souls that pass through life with the label of +lily, balm or heart's-ease tagged to them, when they are nothing better +than wild onion at heart. There are lives sown in out of the way +places, and carelessly passed by as weeds, whose blossom angels might +stoop to wear in the whiteness of their own pure breasts. Oh, to rid +the world of its shams! To sweep away the "Chadbands" with a feather +duster, as the new girl removes dust; to open the windows and shoo away +the traitors as one drives flies, to hoe out society plats as one hoes +garden beds, and thin out the flaunting weeds so that the lilies may +find room to grow; to turn the strong light of discerning truth upon +hypocrites until, as the microscope changes a globule of dew into the +abode of 10,000 wriggling abominations, so the deceitful heart shall +stand revealed for what it actually is, rather than for what it seems +to be. + + + + +XXXIV. + +DRESS PARADE OF THE GREAT ALIKE + +I am tired of the endless dress parade of the "Great Alike." I am +weary of walking in line, like convicts in stripes. I glory in cranks +who serve their own individuality and are in bondage to nobody. The +onward sweep of progress in this age has opened up the way for +non-conformists. It is not a matter of heresy, nowadays, to think for +yourself, dress for yourself, and be yourself. I confess that I have +no heart pinings for such nonconformists as Dr. Mary Walker or any +other individual who believes that eccentricity, serving no purpose but +to make one conspicuous, is interesting. There are certain general +rules of conduct that must be observed or the world would go to wreck +like a wild freight train. It would be embarrassing to all concerned +were I to decline to conform to the conventional custom of wearing +shoes and bonnets, but when fashion ordains French heels and dead +birds, if I decline to walk in file with the conformist, I am something +of a hero, perhaps, and certainly preserve my own self-respect better +than if I yielded to either a harmful or a cruel custom. When +etiquette rules that I go through the world armed with a haughty +reserve, like a picket soldier with a shotgun, if I conform to that +rule, I act upon the warm impulses of natural living as the +refrigerator acts upon meat; I may preserve the proprieties, but I +chill the juices. + + + + +XXXV. + +IF GOD MADE YOU A WILLOW DON'T TRY TO BE A PINE + +I wish I could spend a fortnight in a world where folks dared to be +true to themselves; where the conformist was shelved with last year's +calendars, and a man studied out his own route to heaven and had the +courage to walk in it. I would like to dwell with individuals and not +with packs of human cards shuffled together in sets. I would like to +feel my soul kindle into respect for distinct personalities, each one +making his garment after his own measurement, and not trying to fit his +coat after the cut of his neighbor's jacket. I would like to live for +a while with men and women, rather than with human sheep blindly +following a leader. Life is something better than a sheep-path +aimlessly skirting the hills. It is a growth upward through the +infinite blue into heaven. It is the spreading of many and various +branches. If you are a willow, don't attempt to be a pine, and if the +Lord made you to grow like an elm don't pattern yourself after a scrub +oak. The rebuke "what will people say?" should never be applied to the +waywardness of a child. Teach it rather to ask: "How will my own +self-respect stand this test?" Such training will evolve something +rarer in the way of development than a candle-mold or a yard-stick. + + + + +XXXVI. + +TWO TYPES. + +How full the streets are, to be sure! Where do all the folks come from +and where do they stop? Surely there are not roofs enough to cover the +steady stream of humanity that courses through the thoroughfares from +dawn to night time. To one who walks much to and fro in the town there +comes a rare chance to study human types. Books hold nothing within +their covers so grotesque and so pathetic, so inexplicable and so queer +as the folks that jostle one another on the streets! There is the +precise female who nips along in a little apologetic way, as though +there was an impropriety in the very act of locomotion for which she +would fain atone. From the crown of her head to her boot tips she is +proper, stupid and decorous, but too much of her company would prove to +endurance what sultry weather proves to cream. In fact, I think if I +were told I had to live with some of the women I meet on the streets, I +would fall on my hat pin, as the old Romans did upon their swords, as +the pleasanter alternative. There is nothing more charming than a +bright woman, but she must be superior to her own environments and be +able to talk and think about other things than a correct code of +etiquette, her costumes and her domestic concerns. + +There is a man I sometimes encounter on the street between whom and +myself there looms a day of bitter reckoning. He wears rubbers if the +day is at all moist, and next to ear muffs, galoshes on an able bodied +man goad me to fury. If the Lord made you a man, be a man and not a +molly-coddle. Soup without meat, bread without salt, pie-crust without +a filling, slack-baked dough, all these are prototypes of the man +without endurance or sufficient stamina to stand getting his delicate +feet dashed with dew, or his shell-like ears nipped by frost. + + + + +XXXVII. + +A DREAM GARDEN. + +Country living is delightful, but, like all other blessings, it has its +alternates of shadow. I used to sit here by my window last April and +gloat over the prospects for the vegetable garden a tramp laid out and +seeded for me in the early spring. What luscious peas were going to +clamber over the trellis along about the middle of July! What golden +squashes were going to nestle in the little hollows! What lusty corn +was going to stride the hillocks! What colonies of beans and beds of +lettuce should fill the spaces, like stars in the wake of a triumphant +moon, and how odorous the breath of the healthful onion should be upon +the midsummer air! But listen. No Assyrian ever yet came down upon +the fold as my neighbor's chickens have descended upon the fair +territory of my garden. As for shooing a chicken off, my dear, when +its gigantic intellect is set upon scratching up a seeded bed, you +might as well attempt to wave back a thunderstorm with a fan. + +I have undertaken several difficult things in my life, but never one so +hopeless as convincing a calm and resolute hen that she is an intruder. +I spent one glad summer trying to keep a brood out of a geranium bed, +and had typhoid fever all the fall just from overwork and worry. But +say there had been no chickens to "wear the heart and waste the body," +how about potato bugs, and caterpillars and huge and gruesome slugs? I +never go out to sprinkle the sad pea vines or pick the drooping lettuce +but what I resolve myself into a magnet to lure the early +vegetable-devouring reptile from its lair. Large 7 by 9 caterpillars +and zebra-striped ladybugs disport themselves on neck and ankle until I +flee the scene. + + + + +XXXVIII. + +ANYTHING WORSE THAN A BLUE-JAY? HARDLY! + +If there is anything worse than a blue-jay, name it. Perhaps a mannish +woman, with a shrill voice and a waspish tongue, is as bad, but she +can't be worse. There are something less than a hundred of these +feathered hornets dwelling in the grove that surrounds my house, and +they began before sunrise to call names and fight clamorous battles. +One of them starts the row by crying something in the ear of a +neighbor, which sounds like a challenge blown through a fish horn. At +this the insulted neighbor flops down off the tree where he lives, and +says naughty words very thick and very fast. Then five or six old +ladies poke their heads over the sides of their nests and call +"Police!" A squad of bluecoats comes tearing ever the border and +attacks the original culprit. He whips out his fish horn and summons a +general uprising. Very soon there is a battle royal, to which the old +ladies add zest by squeaking out dire threats in shrill falsetto voices +pitched at high "C." This keeps up until somebody arises and declaims +from my open window, dancing meanwhile in helpless rage, to see how +futile is the voice of august man when blue-jays hold the floor. Talk +about the English sparrow! It is a mild-mannered little gentleman +compared to the noisy jay. Its politeness and amiability are +Chesterfieldan beside the behavior of its handsomely attired but +boorish neighbor. And as for fighting, why, I verily believe a bluejay +in good condition could "do up" John L. Sullivan so quickly the gentle +pugilist would never know what struck him. + + + + +XXXIX. + +GOOD HEALTH A BLESSING. + +What roses are with worms in the bud, such are women without health. +There can be no beauty in unwholesomeness, there can be nothing +attractive in a delicate pallor caused by the disregard of hygiene, or +in a willowy figure, the result of lacing. If I could now and then +thread some particular bead on an electric wire that should tingle and +thrill wherever it touched, or write in a streak of zig-zag light +across the sky, I might, perhaps, compel attention to what I have to +say. There are certain laws of health which, if they only might be +regarded, would make us all as beautiful in outward seeming as we +strive to be, no doubt, in spirit. Ever so pure and lovely a soul in +an unhealthy body is like a bird trying to thrive and sing in an +ill-kept cage, or a flower blooming with a blight set deep within its +withering petals. You or I can serve neither heaven nor mankind +worthily if we disregard the laws of health, and bear about with us a +frail and poorly nurtured body. There are "shut in" spirits, to be +sure, captives from birth to pain, the record of whose patient +endurance of suffering sweetens the world in which they live, as a rose +shut within a dull and prosy book imparts to its pages a fragrance born +of summer and heaven; but such lives are the exception. The true +destiny of the sons and daughters of earth is to grow within the garden +of life as a sapling rather than as a sickly weed, developing timber +rather than pith, and yielding finally to death, the sharp-axed old +woodman, as the tree falls, to pass onward to new opportunities of +power and service. The tree does not decay where it stands, nor does +it often fall because its core is honeycombed by disease. It is cut +down in the meridian of its strength, because somewhere on distant seas +a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home +is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber. +So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly +growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended +more strictly to the laws of health, and when death came to us at last +it should only be because there was need of good timber further on. + + + + +XL. + +WHY, BLESS MY SOUL! IT REALLY SEEMS TO THINK. + +I was watching not long since, a man talking to a bright woman on the +train, and his manner of comporting himself set me to thinking of the +peculiar ways men have of addressing themselves to women. Some talk to +a woman very much as they might talk to the wonderful automaton around +at the museum when it plays a game of chess. "Why, bless my soul, it +really seems to be thinking! What apparent intelligence? What evident +faculty of mental independence! It almost appears to possess the power +of coherent thought!" Others sit in the presence of a woman as though +she was a dish of ice cream. "How sweet." "How refreshing." "How +altogether nice!" Many behave in her company as though she was a +loaded gun, and liable to do mischief, while a very few act as though +she was above the wiles of flattery, and not to be bought for the price +of a new bonnet. Hasten the day, good Lord, when she shall be regarded +as something wiser and nobler than an automaton, less perishable than a +confection, more comforting and peace-producing than a fire-arm, a +veritable comrade for man at his best, not so much prized for the vain +and evanescent charm of her beauty as for the steadfastness and the +incorruptible purity of her soul. + + + + +XLI. + +TAKE TO DRINK, OF COURSE! + +What would a man do, I yonder, if things went so irretrievably wrong +with him as they do with some of us women? Why, take to drink, of +course. That is a sovereign consolation I am told for many ills. A +woman has no equivalent for whisky. She must needs clench her hands +and set her teeth and bear her lot. And yet you tell us a man is the +stronger. I tell you, my dear, I know a dozen women who could discount +any soldier that ever fought in the Crimean wars, for downright heroism +and pluck. Where do you find the man who is willing to wear shabby +clothes and old boots and a seedy hat that his boys may go fine as +fiddles? Where do you find a man who will get up cold mornings and +make the fire, tramp to work through snow, pick his way through +flooding rain, weather northeast blasts and go hungry and cold that he +may keep the children together which a bad and wayward mother has +deserted? First thing a man would do in such a case would be to board +the children out with convenient relatives while he looked around for a +divorce and another wife! How long would a man brace up under the +servant question? How long would he endure the insolence and the +flings of cruel and covert enemies because the children needed all he +could give them, and, only along the thorny road of continual +harassment and trial might he attain the earnings needed to render them +happy and comfortable? If a man is insulted he settles the insult with +a blow straight from the shoulder and that is the end of it; he would +never be able to endure, as some women do, a never-ending round of +persecution that would whiten the hairs on a sealskin jacket! + + + + +XLII. + +A WARNING TO GIRLS. + +There is one thing we sometimes see in the face of the young that is +sadder than the ravages of any disease or the disfigurement of any +deformity. Shall I tell you what it is? It is the mark that an impure +thought or an unclean jest leaves behind it. No serpent ever went +gliding through the grass and left the trail of defilement more +palpably in its wake than vulgarity marks the face. You may be ever so +secret in your enjoyment of a shady story, you may hide ever so +cunningly the fact that you carry something in your pocket which you +purpose to show only to a few and which will perhaps start the laugh +that, like a bird of carrion, waits upon impurity and moral corruption +for its choicest feeding, but the mark of what you tell, and what you +do, and what you laugh at, is left behind like a sketch traced in +indelible fluid. There is no beauty that can stand the disfigurement +of such a scar. However bright your eyes, and rosy-red your color, and +soft the contour of lip and cheek, when the relish of an impure jest +creeps in, the comeliness fades and perishes, as lilies in the languor +of a poisonous breath from off the marshes. I beg of you, dear girls, +shun the companion who seeks to foul your soul with an obscene story or +picture, as you would shun the contagion of smallpox. If I had a +daughter who went out into the world to earn her bread, as some of you +do, and any one should seek to corrupt her purity by insidious +advances, I would get down on my knees and pray God, to take her to +himself before her fair, sweet innocence should sully under the breath +of corruption and moral death. Nobody ever went to the devil yet by +one big bound, like a tiger out of a jungle or a trout to the fly; it +is an imperceptible passage down an easy slope, and the first step of +all is sometimes taken when a young girl lends her ears to a smutty +story or a questionable jest. Then let me say again, and I wish I +could borrow Fort Sheridan's bugle to blow it far and wide, that every +girl might hear: Close your ears and harden your hearts against the +insidious advance of evil. Have nothing to do with a desk-mate or with +a comrade who seeks to amuse or entertain you with conversation you +would not care to have "mother" hear, and which you would be sorry to +remember, if this night the death angel came knocking at the door and +summoned your soul away upon its lonely journey to find its God. + + + + +XLIII. + +A FROG MAY DO WHAT A MAN MAY NOT. + +A bull-frog in a malarial pond is expected to croak and make all the +protest he can against his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a +crown and sent upon earth to be educated for the court of the King of +kings! Placed in an emerald world with a hither edge of opaline shadow +and a fine spray of diamond-dust to set it sparkling; with ten million +singing birds to form its orchestra; sunset clouds and sunrise mists to +drape it, and countless flowers to make it sweet while the hand of God +himself upholds it on its way among the clustering stars, what right +has a man to find fault with his surroundings, or lament himself that +all things do not go to suit him here below? When it shall be in order +for the glow-worm to call the midday sun to account, or for the +wood-tick to find fault with the century old oak that protects it; or +for the blue-bird to question the haze on a midsummer horizon because, +forsooth! it is a little off color with his own wings, then it will be +time for man to find fault with the ordering of the seasons and the +allotment of the weather in the world he is allowed to inhabit. + + + + +XLIV. + +THANKING GOD FOR A GOOD HUSBAND. + +About one hour of the twenty-four would perhaps be the proportion of +time a woman ought to spend upon her knees thanking God for a good +husband. When I see the hosts of sorry maids, and women wearing +draggled widow's weeds who fill the ranks of the great army of the +self-supporting; when I see them trooping along in the rain, slipping +along in the mud, leaping for turning bridges, and hanging on to the +straps in horse cars, I feel like sending out a circular to sheltered +and happy wives bidding them be thankful for their lot. To be sure, +one would rather be a scrub-woman or a circus-jumper than be the wife +of some men we wot of, but in the main, a woman well married is like a +jewel well set, or like a light well sheltered from the wind. + + + + +XLV. + +JUST A LITTLE TIRED! + +What a grubby old stopping place this world is, anyway. How hard we +have to work just to keep the flesh on our bones and that flesh +covered, even with nothing better than homespun. And we are getting a +little tired of it all, aren't we, my dear? Just a little tired of the +treadmill, where, like a sheep in a dairy, we pace our limited beat to +bring a handful of inadequate butter. We have trudged to and fro about +long enough, and have half a mind to throw up the contract with fate. +But hold on a bit. There is something worse than too much work, and +that is idleness. Imagine a sudden hush in all the myriad sounds of +labor. The ceasing of the whirr of countless wheels whereat men stand +day after day through toilful years, fashioning everything from a pin's +head to a ship's mast; the suspended click of millions of sewing +machines, above which bend delicate women stitching their lives into +shirts and garments that find their way onto bargain tables, where rich +women crowd to seize the advantage of the discount. Let all suspended +hammers in the myriad workshops swing into silence and all footsteps +cease their weary plodding to and fro, I think the awful hush would far +transcend the muteness of midnight or that still hour when dawn steals +in among the pallid stars, and on the dim, uncertain shore of time the +tide of man's vitality ebbs faint and low. There is no blight so fell +as the blight of enforced calm. It is in the unworked garden that +weeds grow. It is in the stagnant water that disease germs waken to +horrid life. Ennui palls upon a brave heart. Ennui is like a +long-winded, amiable, but watery-idea'd friend who drops in to see us +and dribbles platitudes until every nerve is tapped. Ennui is like +being forced to drink tepid water or to eat soup without salt. Labor, +on the contrary, is like a friend with grit and tonic in his make-up. +It comes to us as a wind visits the forest, and sets our faculties +stirring as the wind rustles the leaves and sets the wood fragrance +flying. It puts spice in our broth and ice in our drink. It puts a +flavor in life that starts an appetite, or, in other words, awakens +ambition. Although the world is full of toilers it would be worse off +were it full of idlers. Good, hard workers find no time to make +mischief. Your anarchists and your breeders of discord are never found +among busy men; they breed, like mosquitoes, out of stagnant places. +It is the idle man that quickens hatred and contention, as it is the +setting hen and not the scratching one that hatches out the eggs. + + + + +XLVI. + +PAINTING THE OLD HOMESTEAD. + +It had been a battle renewed for more years than there are dandelions +just now in the front yard. Various members of the family had declared +from time to time that if the old house was not painted it would fall +to pieces from sheer mortification at its own disreputable appearance. + +"Why, you can put your toothpick right through the rotten shingles," +cried the doctor. "The only way to save it is to paint it." + +Now, I have always been the odd sheep of a highly decorous fold. I +have more love for nature than hard good sense, I am told. So I loathe +paint just as I hate surface manners. I want the true grain all the +way through, be it in boards or people. I love the weather stain on an +old house. I love the mossy touches, the lichen grays and the russet +browns that age imparts to the shingles, and I almost feel like +murdering the paint fiend when he comes around every spring, and +transforms some dear old landmark into a gorgeous "Mrs. Skewton," with +hideous coats and splashy trimmings. But alas for sentiment when the +money bags are against it! Profit before poetry any day in this +nineteenth century, my dear, and so when an interested capitalist came +up from town and gave it as his opinion that the old house would be +worth a third more if put on the market in a terra cotta coat with +sage-green trimmings the day was lost for me. I had to strike my +colors like many another idealist in this practical world. In the +first place, there has been for the last fifteen years or so, a vine +growing all over the old home, catching its lithe tendrils into the +roof and making cathedral lights in all the windows. It has been the +home of generations of robins. It has hung full of purple, bell-shaped +blossoms on coral stems that have attracted a thousand humming birds +and honey bees by their fragrance. It has changed into a veritable +cloth of gold in early September, and in late October has flamed into +scarlet against the gray roof, like a blaze that quivers athwart a +stormy sky. It has been the joy of my life and the inspiration of my +dreams, but it had to come down before the paint-pot! So one night +when I reached home, tired to death with a hand-to-hand encounter with +the demon who gives poor mortals their bread and butter for an +equivalent of flesh and blood and spirit, I noticed that the little +folks greeted me with an air of subdued decorum as though fresh from a +funeral. There were no caperings, no flauntings, no cavortings. Each +young minx had on her Sunday go-to-meeting air, and the boy stood with +his hat on one side of his head, as though for a sixpence he would +fight all creation. Wondering at the change, I happened to look toward +the house, and there it stood in the light of the fading day, like a +poor old woman without a veil to hide her wrinkles! Every window +looked ashamed of itself, and on the ground lay the dear old vine, +prone as a lost reputation. + +"I never see such an ill-fired crank in all the days of my life!" +remarked the painter to the new girl, after I had held a brief but +spirited interview with him over the garden fence; "blanked if she +didn't cry because her vine was down!" + + + + +XLVII. + +THE OLD SITTING-ROOM STOVE. + +What is there within the home, during the winter season at least, that +seems so thoroughly to constitute the soul of home as the family-room +stove? It can never be replaced by that ugly hole in the floor which +floods our rooms with furnace heat, with no glow of cheerful firelight, +no flicker of flame or changeful play of shadow out of which to weave +fantastic dreams and fancies. I once watched the dying out of one of +these fires in a great base burner, around which for years a large and +loving family had gathered. The furniture of the home had all been +sold, and the family was about to scatter. The trunks were packed and +gone, the last article removed from the place, and the old stove was +left to burn out its fire at the last, that it, too, might be removed +next morning. And after the evening had come and was far spent, the +last evening wherein any right should remain to us to enter the old +home as its owners and occupants, I took my pass-key and slipped over +from the neighbor's for my final good-bye to the dear old home. The +fire-light, like the glance of a reproachful eye, shone upon me through +the gloom of the deserted parlor. "Have I not warmed you and comforted +you and cheered you with my genial glow?" a voice seemed to say; "and +now you have come to see me die! I am the vital spirit of your home. +I am dying, and nothing can ever reanimate these deserted rooms again +with the dear, the beautiful past." + +Like the eye of one who is going down to death, the firelight faded and +finally went out in the pallor of ashes, while I, sitting alone in the +darkness, felt the whole world drearier for a little space for the +final extinguishment of this fire, the death hour of a once happy home. + + + + +XLVIII. + +A TALK ABOUT DIVORCE. + +Somebody asked me the other day if I favored divorce. Like everything +else in the world the matter depends largely upon special circumstance, +but in the main I do not believe in divorce. If husbands and wives +cannot live together without quarreling, let them live apart, but they +have no business to sever the bond that unites them. The promise to +take each other for "better or for worse" must be regarded in both +readings of the clause. If the "worse" comes along we have no right to +ignore it because the "better" has failed. If your husband is a +drunkard, all the more reason for you to stand by him if you are a good +woman. If he is cruel and abusive, you need not put your life in +danger by staying under his roof, but you need not throw him over and +get another husband. If he goes into the gutter, pull him out, and +know that your experience is only a big dose of the "worse" you +promised to take along with the "better." It is the quinine with the +honey, and you have no right to reject it. There are 10,000 things +that work discord in married life that a little tact and forbearance +would dissipate, as a steady wind will blow away gnats. The trouble +with all of us is, we make too much of trifles. We nurse them, and +feed them, and magnify them, until from gnats they grow to be buzzards +with their beaks in our hearts. Not for one sin, nor seven sins, nor +seventy sins, forsake the friend you chose from all the world to make +your own. A good woman will save anything but a liar, and God's grace +is adequate, in time, for even him. I say unto wives, be +large-hearted, wide in your charity, generous, not paltry, nor +exacting, (exaction has murdered more loves than Herod murdered +babies!) companionable, forbearing and true, and stand by your husbands +through everything. And I say unto men, be _men_! Don't choose a +wife, in the first place, for the mere exterior of a pretty face and +form. Be as alert in the choice of a wife as you are in a bargain. +You don't invest in a house just because it looks well, or buy a suit +of clothes at first sight, or dash on change and snatch at the first +deal. After you are once married stand by your choice like a man. If +you must have your beer, don't sneak out of it on a clove and a lie; +carefully weigh the cost, and if you conclude to risk everything for +the gratification of an appetite drink at home and above board, and +don't attempt to deceive your wife with subterfuges and excuses. Don't +run after other women because your wife is not so young as she once +was, or because the bloom is faded a little from the face you once +thought so fair. It is the part of an Indian to retract a gift once +given, or to go back on a bargain. Don't live together if you can't +rise above the level of fighting cats, but be careful how you throw +aside the bonds that God has joined between you. Live the lot you have +chosen as bravely as you can, remembering that the thorn that you have +developed will never change into a rose by mere change of +circumstances. Divorce and the mere shifting of the stage setting will +never make your tragedy over into a vaudeville or a light opera. + + + + +XLIX. + +GONE BACK TO FLIPPITY-FLOPPITY SKIRTS. + +The rainy season is here again, and where is dress-reform? My soul +grew sick, the other morning as, with unfurled umbrella, lunch-basket, +bundle, and draperies, I beheld the working woman on her weary march. +Give a man a petticoat, a bundle and an umbrella, and the streets would +be full of capering lunatics whenever it rained. Stay at home, did you +say? That is good advice for the woman who has nothing else to do, but +in these latter days the right sort of husband don't go round. Either +he died in the war or the stock has run low, so that more than half the +well-meaning women have no homes to stay in. What Moses is going to +lead the poor creatures to the commonsense suit that shall protect them +from the inclement weather they are forced to meet as they go abroad to +earn their bread and salt? It must be a concerted movement, for there +is none among us who dares take the war path alone. The children of +Israel went in a crowd and so must we. For a principle there are those +among us who would die, perhaps, but there is no principle on the earth +below nor in the heaven above for which we would suffer ridicule. As +for me, I have furled my banner and laid aside my bugle. I am tired of +being a martyr to an unpopular cause. I am too big a coward to be +caught making an everlasting object of myself. I have gone back to +flippity-floppity skirts and long gowns and all the rest of the "flesh +pots." Browning says of a certain class of people: "The dread of shame +has made them tame," and I am one of the tame ones. A domestic tabby +couldn't be tamer, nor a yellow bird fed on lump sugar. I expect +nothing but that my winter's hat will be adorned with a chubby green +parrot, and that I shall walk the street leading a brimstone dog by a +magenta ribbon. If one is forced to eat, drink and sleep with the +Romans, perhaps it is better for one's peace of mind not to be too +pronounced a Greek! + + + + +L. + +I SHALL MEET HIM SOME DAY. + +I shall meet the man who ties his horse's nose in a bag, some day, in +single combat, and there will be only one of us left to tell the tale +of the encounter. Wouldn't I love to see that man forced to take his +dinner while tied up in a flour bag! I should love to deal out his +coffee through a garden hose, and serve his vegetables through a +long-distance telephone. There is nothing like turn about to incite +justice in the human breast. While we are afflicted with such an +epidemic of strikes, why not have one that has some sense in it. Let +the overworked horses, straining themselves blind with terrible loads, +go on a strike. Let the persecuted dogs, deprived of water and +scrimped for food, stoned and hounded as mad when they are only crazed +by man's inhumanity, go on a strike. Let the cattle, and the countless +thousands of stock, prodded into cars and cramped in long passages of +transit, blinded with the crash of fellow-victims' horns while crowded +together in their inadequate quarters, trampled under riotous hoofs, +and kept without food and overfilled with water to make them look fat, +go on a strike. Let the chickens and geese and all the live feathered +stock on South Water Street, kept in little bits of coops and flung +headlong and screaming down into dark cellars, trundled over rough +roads in jolting wagons and utterly deprived for hours at a time of a +drop of water to cool the fever of their terrible fear, go on a strike. +Let the horses of these fat aldermen, left all day in the court house +alleyway without food and checked tight with head-check lines, go on a +strike. Let the patient nags that stand all day by the curbstone and +are plagued and annoyed by mischievous boys, go on a strike. In such a +strike as any of these the Lord himself might condescend to take sides +with the oppressed against the oppressor. + + + + +LI. + +A MANNISH WOMAN. + +There are many disagreeable things to be met with in life, but none +that is much harder upon the nerves than a mannish woman. With a +strident voice and a swaggering walk, and a clattering tongue, she +takes her course through the world like a cat-bird through an orchard; +the thrushes and the robins are driven right and left before the +advance of the noisy nuisance. A coarse-tongued man is bad enough, +heaven knows, but when a woman descends to slangy speech, and vulgar +jests, and harsh diatribes, there is no language strong enough with +which to denounce her. On the principle that a strawberry is quicker +to spoil than a pumpkin, it takes less to render a woman obnoxious than +to make a man unfit for decent company. I am no lover of +butter-mouthed girls, of prudes and "prunes and prism" fine ladies; I +love sprightliness and gay spirits and unconventionality, but the +moment a woman steps over the border land that separates delicacy of +feeling, womanliness and lovableness, from rudeness, loud-voiced slang +and the unblushing desire for notoriety, she becomes, in the eyes of +all whose opinion is worth having, a miserable caricature upon her sex. +It is not quite so bad to see a young girl making a fool of herself as +to see an elderly woman comporting herself in a giddy manner in public +places. We look for feather-heads among juveniles, but surely the +cares and troubles of fifty years should tame down the high spirits of +any woman. Chance took me into a public office the other day, largely +conducted by women. Conspicuous among the clerks was a woman whose age +must have exceeded fifty years. She was exchanging loud pleasantries +with a couple of beardless boys upon the question of "getting tight." +Noble theme for a woman old enough to be their grandmother to choose! +As I listened to the coarse jests and looked into her hard and unlovely +face, I could but wonder how nature ever made the mistake to label such +material--"woman." It would be no more of a surprise to find a +confectioner's stock made up of coarse salt, marked "sugar," or to buy +burdock of a florist, merely because the tag attached to it was +lettered "moss rose." + + + + +LII. + +THE ONLY WAY TO CONQUER A HARD DESTINY. + +The only way to conquer a cast-iron destiny is to yield to it. You +will break to pieces if you are always casting yourself upon the rocks. +Sit down on the "sorrowing stone" now and then, but don't expect to +last long if you are constantly flinging yourself head first against +it. If life holds nothing nobler and sweeter than the routine of +uncongenial work, if all the pleasant anticipations and lively hopes of +youth remain but as cotton fabrics do when the colors have washed away, +if good intention and noble purpose glimmer only a little now and then +from out the murky environments of your lot, as fisher lights at sea, +accept the inevitable and make the best of it. Nothing can stop us if +we are bound to grow. We are not like trees that can be hewed down by +every chance woodman's axe; death is the only woodman abroad for us, +and he does not hew down, he simply transplants. God is our only +judge; to him alone shall we yield the record of life's troubled day, +and isn't it a great comfort to think that he so fully understands what +have been our limitations, and how we have been handicapped and baffled +and hindered? If jockeys were to enter their horses for the great +Derby with the understanding that the road was rough and the horses +blind, do you think much would be expected of the finish? And is +heaven less discriminating than a horse jockey? + + + + +LIII. + +THE "SMART" PERSON. + +Next to a steam calliope preserve me from a "smart" person. There is +as much difference between smartness and brain as there is between a +jewsharp and a flute, or between mustard and wine. A "smart" person +may turn off a lot of work and make things hum, so does a buzz-saw! +Who would not rather spend an afternoon with a lark than with a hornet? +The lark may not be so active, but activity is not always the most +desirable thing in the world. A smart person may accomplish more than +a dreamer, but in the long run I'll take my chance with the latter. +When we go up to St. Peter's gate by and by, after life's long, +blundering march is over, it will not be the answer to such questions +as this: "How many socks can you darn in an afternoon, besides baking +bread, washing windows, tending babies and scrubbing floors?" that is +going to help us; but, "How many times have you stopped your work to +bind up a broken heart, or say a comforting word, or help carry a +burden for somebody worse off than yourself?" I tell you, smart folks +never have the time to be sympathetic; they always have too much +thundering work on hand. + + + + +LIV. + +A PRETTY STREET INCIDENT. + +The other day a horse was trying to get a very small quantity of oats +from the depths of a very small nosebag. In vain the poor fellow +tossed his head and did his best to gain his dinner. At last, just as +he was settling down to dumb and despairing patience, a bright-faced +boy of perhaps ten or twelve years of age happened along. Seeing the +dilemma of the horse, the little fellow stopped and said: "Halloa, +can't get your oats, can you? Never mind, I'll fix you!" And +straightway he shortened up the straps that held the bag in place, and, +with a kindly pat and a cheery word which the grateful horse seemed to +appreciate, went his way. I would like to be the mother, or the aunt, +or even the first cousin of that boy. I would rather that he should +belong to me than that I should own a Paganini violin, or a first-water +diamond the size of a Concord grape. Bless his heart, wherever he is, +and may he long continue to live in a world that needs him. Kindness +of heart, and tenderness; consideration for the needs of the helpless +and the weak, and the courage that dares be true to a merciful impulse, +are traits that go far toward the make-up of angels. We need +tender-hearted boys more than we need a new tariff to bring up and +develop the resources of the country. The boy that succeeds in +bringing in the greatest number of dead sparrows may be the embryo man +of the future, and you may praise his energy and his smartness, but +give me the boy who took the trouble to adjust the nose-bag every time. +A little less business acumen, a good bit less greed and cruelty, will +tell on future character to the comfort of all concerned. + + + + +LV. + +POLICY A DAMASCUS BLADE, NOT A CLUB. + +Policy in the hands of a diplomat is like a sharp sword in the grasp of +an able fencer, but policy in the hands of fools, is like a good knife +wielded by a half-wit. It takes brains to be truly politic, the +unfortunate person who attempts to be cautious, and wise, and reticent, +and to let policy thread every action as a string runs through glass +beads, only succeeds in making himself ridiculous. To be afraid to +speak what is in your mind for fear you will make yourself unpopular, +to be too cautious to mention the fact that you are having a new latch +put on your front gate for fear that you might be over-communicative, +to be backward in taking sides for fear of committing yourself to a +losing cause, may be politic to your own feeble intelligence, but in +the estimation of brainy folks it is a species of feline idiocy worse +than fits. + + + + +LVI. + +THE CONSTANT YEARS BRING AGE TO ALL. + +All day long it has been trying to snow out here in the country. To me +not even June, with its showering apple-tree flowers and its +alternations of silver rain and golden sunshine, is more beautiful than +these soft winter days, full of snow-feathers and great shadows. I +love to watch the young pines take on their holiday attire. How they +robe themselves from head to foot in draperies of fleecy white, pin +diamonds in their dark branches and wind about their slender girth the +strands of evanescent pearl! I love to watch the skies at dawn when +they kindle like a flame above the bluffs and scatter sparkles of light +as a red rose scatters its petals. Where has the last year fled? It +seems but yesterday that I sat by this same window and hatched the +lilac plumes unfold on that old bush that to-day is getting ready to +don its ermine. Why, at this rate, my dear, it won't be longer than +day after to-morrow morning before you and I wake up and find ourselves +old folks. How odd it will seem to look in the glass and see wisps of +frosted stubble in place of the wavy locks of brown, and jet, and gold! +Ah, well, it is a comfort to think that some folks defy time, and are +as young at seventy as at seventeen. Beauty fades, and witchery takes +unto itself wings, but true hearts, like wine, mellow and enrich with +years. + + + + +LVII. + +DID YOU EVER READ THE "LITTLE PILGRIM." + +I often sit for a half hour or more in the depot waiting-room, and for +lack of anything else to do employ the time in watching the people who +crowd through the swinging doors. Did you ever read the "Little +Pilgrim?" Do you recall the chapter wherein the disembodied spirits +are represented as lingering near the gates to watch the coming in of +newly liberated souls? Sometimes while sitting in one of the big +rocking chairs I imagine to myself that the constantly opening doors +are the portals of death and I the lingering one who watches the +throngs that are constantly exchanging earth for paradise. Along comes +an old man with a shabby bundle; he cautiously opens the door and slips +in like one who offers an excuse for his presence on the thither side. +Presently he lays down his bundle and seats himself, a pilgrim whose +wanderings and weariness are over. The brilliant lights, the +comfortable surroundings, the sound of pleasant voices all fill his +heart with joy, and he settles himself back, thoroughly glad to be at +rest. Next, a beautiful woman enters, her face is lined with care and +her dark, bright eyes are full of trouble. She does not tarry, but +hurries on like one seeking for something yet to come. A little child, +with lingering, backward glance, flits through the swinging door as if +loath to say good-bye to some one on the other side. A hard-featured +man, whose sullen glance travels quickly about the place, comes next; +he seems seeking for some one to welcome him, and is abashed to find +himself alone among unheeding strangers. Next a bevy of laughing girls +come in together, and the door, swinging quickly behind them, discloses +a band of young companions who lingeringly turn away, content to know +the sheltered ones are safely gathered out of the darkness and the +storm which they must still face. Some enter the door as though +bewildered; some as though glad to find rest; some as though frightened +at unknown harm, and some as though suspicious of all that they beheld. +Once I noticed a poor creature who came through the door crying +bitterly, but her tears were quickly dried by a waiting one who sprang +forward and greeted her with a tender embrace. And at another time a +baby came through in the arms of one who held it close so that it was +not conscious of the transition. Sometimes I am glad to believe that +death is no more than the swinging door which divides two apartments in +a mighty mansion, and that our going through is no more than the +exchange of a cold and unlighted hallway for a spacious living-room +where all is light and warmth and blessed activity. + + + + +LVIII. + +EATING MILK TOAST WITH A SPOON! + +Eating milk toast with a spoon and stopping between each mouthful to +swear! That was what I saw and heard a brawny man doing not long since +in a popular down-town restaurant. The action and the manner of speech +did not harmonize. If I felt it borne in upon me that I must be a +profane fellow to prove my manliness, I would choose another diet than +spoon victuals to nourish my formidable zest for naughtiness. Rare +beef or wild game would be less incongruous. There are times when a +man may be excused for using objectionable language. Stress of +righteous indignation, seasons of personal conflict with hansom cabmen, +large-headed street car conductors, ubiquitous, never-dying +expectorators and many other particular forms of torment may make a man +swear a bit now and then, but what shall we say of a bearded creature +with the dew of a babe's food upon his chin who rends the placid air +with unnecessary cursing? Sew up his lips with a surgeon's needle and +throw him into the fool-killer's bag! + + + + +LIX. + +BOYS, YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU. + +Boys, you know I like you and will stand a good deal of your swaggering +ways. I like to see how fresh you are, and do not want to have you +salted down too early by the processes of life. But one thing let me +ask you. Don't wear silk hats before the down is fully apparent upon +your chin. If there is an embarrassing sight left to one grown wan and +worn in watching the foolishness of folly, it is the sight of a +stripling in a plug hat. I would rather see a yearling colt hauling +lumber, or a babe in arms scanning Homer. It is cruel; it is +premature. Be a boy until you are fit to be a man, and hold to a boy's +mode of dress at least until you are old enough to command the respect +of sensible girls by something more notable than cigarette smoking and +athletic sports. + + + + +LX. + +WHAT TO DO WITH GROWLERS. + +I often hear people making a big fuss about little things. My path in +life leads me among many "kickers" and many "growlers." Do you know +what I would like to do with some of these malcontents and whiners? I +would like to send them up for a week to watch life in the county +hospital. I would like to seat them by a bedside where a noble woman +lies dying all alone of a terrible disease. I would like to have them +become acquainted with her bravery and the more than queenly calm with +which she confronts her destiny. I would like to have them linger in +the corridors and hear the moans from the wards and private rooms where +the maimed and the crippled and the incurable are faintly struggling in +the grasp of death. I would like to lead them through the children's +ward, where mites of humanity cursed with heredity's blight, removed +from a mother's bosom, consigned to suffering throughout the span of +their feeble days, lie faintly breathing their lives away. And then +would like to say to them: "You contemptible cowards, you abominable +fussers, you inexcusable kickers, see what the Lord might bring you to +if he unloosed the leash and set real troubles in your track. Quit +complaining and go to thanking heaven for all your unspeakable mercies!" + + + + +LXI. + +GOD BLESS 'EM! + +Every morning just at 7 the entire neighborhood turns out to see them +pass. She is a demure little lady with a face that makes one think of +a blush rose, a little past its prime, but mighty sweet to look upon. +She wears a mite of a white sun-bonnet, clean as fresh fallen snow, and +starched and stiff as the best pearl gloss cap make it. The cape of +this cute little bonnet shades a round white throat, and the strings +are tied beneath the chin in a ravishing bow that stands guard over a +dimple. She has been married quite ten years, and they say that the +two little children who were cradled for a few happy months on her soft +breast are waiting and watching for her coming the other side of the +river of death. He is a matter-of-fact looking man, with a resolute +face and a constant smile in his eyes. He always carries a +lunch-basket in one hand and with the other guides the steps of the +faithful little woman who accompanies him part way on the march of his +daily grind. He works downtown in a big warehouse and he makes hardly +enough money each week to keep you in cigars, my good friend, or your +wife in novels. Though it rain, or though it shine, though the winds +blow or the winds are low, whatever betide of chance, or change, or +weather, there is not a morning that he goes to work that she does not +walk with him as far as the corner, and in the face of men and angels, +grip car conductors and clerks, shop girls and grimacing urchins, kiss +him good-bye. She stands and watches until he is well on his way, then +waves him a final farewell, and trips back home in the serene shadow of +her little bonnet. Now you may ridicule that love and call it "spoony" +and "silly," but, I tell you, a legacy of gold or a hatful of diamonds +could not begin to outvalue such love in a man's home. God bless the +two, say I, and roll round the joyful day when love and its free and +beautiful demonstration shall shine athwart the heresies of +conventionality as April suns dispel the winter's fog with the splendor +of their broadcast shining. + + + + +LXII. + +"UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE." + +I was riding up-town in a cable car not long ago late at night. The +moon was at its full and all the ugliness of the city was shrouded, +like a homely woman in a bridal veil of shimmering lace. We skimmed +along on a smooth and unobstructed track, like a sloop with every sail +set, heading for the open sea. There were no idle chatterers aboard, +and from the stalwart gripman at his post of duty, to the shrinking +little girl passenger, who was half afraid and half delighted to be +abroad so late alone, everybody and everything was in harmony with the +hour and scene. Suddenly there fluttered into the car a snowy moth, +astray from some flower garden in the country and quite bewildered and +lost in the barren city. The beautiful creature fluttered into a +lady's face and she screamed and struggled as though attacked by a +rabid beast. "Oh, kill it! kill the horrid thing," she cried, while +her attendant beat the air with his cane and sought to drive the +dangerous interloper away. It rested for a moment upon the gripman's +cap, where it looked like a feather dropped from a wandering bird. At +last it settled upon the breast of a little child sleeping in its +mother's arms. The mother brushed it away with her handkerchief as +though its presence brought defilement. A gentleman who was seated +near me caught the bewildered thing and with a very tender touch held +it for a block or so until we came to one of the pretty parks that make +our city so attractive. Stepping from the car, he loosened his grasp +upon the captive moth near a big syringa bush that adorned the entrance +way. He watched the dainty white wings flutter down into the cool +seclusion of the blossom then turned and boarded the car and pursued +his homeward way conscious, let us hope, of a very pretty and graceful +deed of kindness to a most insignificant claimant for protection and +succor. Sentimental, was it? Well, God help the world when all +sentimentality of this kind is gone out of it. + + + + +LXIII. + +TAKING INVENTORY. + +How poor the most of us prove to be when we take inventory of the +soul's stock! We have lots of bonnets, and plenty of dresses, and no +end of lingerie, we women, but how are we off for the things that count +when the dry goods and the furbelows shall be forgotten? How about +love, of the right kind, the love that ennobles rather than degrades, +and how about loyalty, and patience, and truth? If one of Chicago's +big firms should close its doors to take inventory of stock in January +and find it had nothing but the labels on empty bales to account for, +its poverty would be as nothing to the poverty of the soul we are going +to schedule shortly behind the closed door of the grave. What slaves +we are to passion; how we hate one another for fancied or even actual +slights, when we have such a little moment of time in which to indulge +the evil tempers! How we bicker, and lie, and betray, the while the +messenger stands already at the door to bid us begone from the scene of +our petty conflicts. For my part, the interest we take in things that +pertain to this perishable life, when we are so soon going where these +are not to be; the choice we make of ranks and reputations, shams and +seemings, dinners and wines, jewels and fabrics; the importance we +attach to bubbles that break before we reach them; the allurements that +draw us far from the ideals we started out to gain; the way we content +ourselves with the environments of evil and forego forever the voice +that calls us away to partake of things which shall be as wine and +honey to the soul, frightens me; startles me as the sudden thunder of +the surf might startle one who sojourned by an unseen sea. + + + + +LXIV. + +DON'T MARRY HIM TO SAVE HIM. + +If any young woman who reads this is contemplating marriage with a wild +and wayward man, hoping to reform him, I want her to stop right here +and decide to give up the contract. As well might she go out and smile +down a northwest wind or expostulate with a cyclone to its own undoing. +If a man drinks to excess before he marries, there is no reason to hope +he will learn moderation afterward. If you become his wife with the +full knowledge of his habits, you will have no right to leave him or +forsake him after marriage because of his unfortunate addictions and +predilections. Once having taken the vows you have no right to refuse +to pay them to the uttermost. And the life you will lead will be +perhaps a trifle less pleasant than the life of a parlor boarder in +sheol. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STRING OF AMBER BEADS*** + + +******* This file should be named 17019.txt or 17019.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/0/1/17019 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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