Page Twelve
THE CAROLINA UNION FARMER
[Thursday, July 25, 1912.
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Country Home Department.
Conducted by Mrs. E. D. Nall, Sanford, N. C., to Whom all Mat
ter for this Department Should be Sent.
I trust that every boy in our cir
cle of readers read every word
of the “Boys’ Number,” and if only
one boy decided henceforth to be a
“Dependable Boy,” it was well worth
while. The girls have right-of-way
this week, and it is our hope that
they may receive a greater vision of
the life that counts from reading its
columns. I would be delighted to
receive letters for this page from the
girls who are interested in it.
THE GIRLS THAT ARE WANTED.
The girls that are wanted are home
girls.
Girls that are mother’s right hand.
That fathers and brothers can trust
in.
And the little ones understand.
Girls that are wanted are wise girls.
That know what to do and to say.
That drive with a smile and a soft
word.
The wrath of the household away.
The girls that are wanted are good
girls.
Good girls from the heart to the
lips;
Pure as the lily is white and pure.
From its heart to its sweet leaf
tips. —Selected.
THE GAME OF GIRLS.
A list of questions is prepared be
forehand and given to each guest,
with the request that opposite each
question they write the girl’s name
that best answers the question.
Which is the most spiteful girl?
Anno Mosity (animosity).
Which is the most lavish? Jenny
Rosity (generosity).
The most brilliant girl in the
north? Aurora Boris Alice (Aurora
Borealis).
The most musical girl? Sara Nade
(serenade).
The liveliest girl? Annie Mation
(animation).
The most warlike? Milly Tary
(military).
The most deceitful? Duplie Kate
(duplicate).
The smallest girl? Minnie Mum
(minnimum).
The most angular? Polly Gon
(polygon).
The most attractive? Mag Nett
(magnet).
The most fashionable? Elly Gant
(elegant).
The most vexing? Net Tell (net
tle).
THE “HARD TIME GIRL.”
You can pick her out on the street
as easily as if she were labeled, the
girl who has a hard time, or think
so. Sometimes she looks cross, as if
her hardships had turned her temper
sour, like cream in midsummer; and
sometimes she is only pensive and
sad. She is so sorry for herself that
there is no mistaking her mood; it
surrounds her like an atmosphere.
Sometimes the hard time of which
this young person is so acutely con
scious consists in wearing her last
season’s hat a second summer; some
times her aggrieved air is due to
the fact that.one or two of her par
ticular friends are abroad for the
summer, while she has only been in
vited to spend a fortnight on her un
cle’s farm. Of course there are at
times less trivial reasons. A girl
thrown unexpectedly upon her own
resources, forced to earn her own liv
ing and without having anything that
the world particularly desires to of
fer in exchange for her bread and
butter, is perhaps hardly to be
blamed if she were having a rather
hard time. But the one whose lot
seems hard because she has to do
without things that some other girls
have, or because everything does not
go exactly to suit her, should make
the acquaintance of an employe in a
canning factory in a large city on the
Atlantic Coast. She is eighteen, the
oldest of five children, and, since her
mother’s death, she has done her best
to fill that vacant place. She is astir
*by 4 o’clock in the morning, putting
up a luncheon for her father and
herself, and preparing the mid-day
meal so that the children can have
something to eat when they come
from school at noon. In the evenings
she works till late—washing, sew
ing, sweeping, scrubbing. The little
house is as neat as wax.
“O, we’re going finely!” this girl
told a visitor, who made the mistake
of sympathizing with her. “We’re
buying the house, you know. We pay
so much a week, and we haven’t fall
en behind yet. If pa wasn’t as steady
as clock-work, we couldn’t do it, you
know. And the children help more
than you’d believe. Tired? “O, I get
tired sometimes; but a night’s sleep
is all I need.”
She looked older than she should
have done, this girl of eighteen. Hard
work, responsibility were leaving
their traces upon her. But as she
sat there smiling, the baby on her
knee, nothing in her manner indicat
ed the belief that she was having a
hard time.
The fact is that hard times are, for
the most part, of home manufacture.
They depend not so much on what we
have to do as on the spirit with
which we shoulder our burdens.—
Exchange.
THE GIRL’S BOOKS.
“My girls are the greatest readers
you ever saw,” said busy Mrs. G .
“Some people have lots of trouble
with their girls wanting to gad about,
but mine are satisfied if they can
just have a book and not be bothered.
I suppose I ought to make them do
a little more housework, but as long
as they don’t worry mie like some
girls do their mothers, I can manage
very well alone.”
“What do they read?” asked a vis
itor.
“Oh, everything. One of the neigh
bors has a big trunk filled with books
and they borrow them right along.
Sometimes they read the same ones
over again if they don’t have new
ones.”
, “I suppose they get a great many
books out of the new public library?”
“Why, no; and it’s funny they
(Jon’t. They say the books in the li-^
brary are dry and hard to read. I’m
pften surprised that they don’t go
there, but they say it is such a long
walk.”
The “long walk” was accounted
for when the visitor saw the stack of
books on the sitting-room table. It
was not the walk at all, but the fact
that the girls had acquired a taste
i^or such books as the library trustees
would not have permitted in the
building. When young girls are
brought up on blood and thunder
stories it is hard to entice them to
good poetry, history and descriptive
books.
“Do you read the books, too?” ask
ed the visitor.
“Mercy no! I don’t have time for
reading. Half the time 1 don’t
glance through the papers, let alone
read a book.”
“Aren’t you afraid your children
may read trashy books? 1 notice
that a great many of the books ^n
your table are paper-backed novels
that I would not allow in my house.
A book may have a paper back and
be a good one, but those over there
are the worst things any person
could read. It really seems terrible
to me that 6weet, innocent young
girls should be exposed to such dan
gers. Just take a glance through
one of them. You will find profane
language, vulgar expressions, and
suggestive thoughts of the worst
type. The vile book habit is as bad
as the liquor habit, almost, for it
gives girls wrong ideas of life and
unfits them for everything sensible
and good.”
For the first time the mother thor
oughly examined the books and the
result was a wholesale condemnation
of all fiction. She forbade the girls
reading anything and kept them so
busy at housework and sewing as to
make them rebellious and stubborn.
With their dreamy and high-flown
ideas gleaned from books telling of
counts, dukes and court life, they
found the home duties drudgery and
bitterly complained of their lot in
life. Of course they read cheap nov
els on the sly, just as fhe person
with a taste for drugs can find ways
of satisfying his appetite, but the
mother told everyone of her success
in breaking up the habit.
“All you have to do is to lay down
the law and see that it is obeyed,”
she said, but with the latter part of
her statement she had the difficulty.
At the age of sixteen one daughter
ran away with a worthless boy and
the other made a bad marriage later
on. They bitterly repented of their
folly when too late, but both are ad
dicted to reading dozens of trashy
novels each year to the present day.
The woe-begone heroines of the flashy
pages are wept over as of yore and
housework and children have to wait
until the end of the fascinating story
is reached.
Mothers, do keep some sweet, pure,
ennobling literature for the children,
for it costs very little, and then read
it with them. Educate them early
in life to love the things that are
pure and lovely and of good report if
you want to keep them unspotted
from the world. Let nothing trashy
find a place on the girl’s book-shelf
and you will never be troubled with
false ideas crowding out your care
ful teaching. It is the same old ad
monition, “Train up a child in the
way he should go and when he is old
he will not depart therefrom,” and it
has lost none of its force since the
day it was penned. To many moth
ers a book is a book and there is no
distinction made until it is too late,
but the prudent woman examines first
the reading she allows her children
to absorb. Let us have a wholesome,
vigorous and determined crusade
against vile books in which every
mother of the land shall join.—Moth
ers’ Magazine.
HAPPINESS WITHOUT EFFORT.
If girls could only be taught a
proper sense of values there would
be fewer unhappy women in the
world. Personal happiness is a won
derful thing, and a life filled with
its exquisite light sheds beauty on
countless other lives. But, if, as hap
pens to many, personal happiness
passes one by, it does not mean that
one’s life is ruined and ineffectual.
At least, if a woman is wise it does
not.
Yet so many women having staked
all on finding personal happiness
hare neglected to provide themselves
with any effective substitute if they
miss it. The unwisdom of this should
be apparent to the most thoughtless
of girls, and the girl who thinks se
riously will ask herself this question:
“If I miss personal happiness what
have I to take its place?”
“Well,” asks the eager girl impa
tiently, “what is there to take the
place of happiness?” And so in the
fullness of her youth she scorns the
wise woman’s reply, but in it dwells
the germ of contentment and peace
for the long, barren years that may
be hers.
A finely educated, deeply apprecia
tive intellect is an excellent substi
tute for the fickle we call personal
happiness. If a woman has used her
brain and cultivated her personality
to its greatest extent, though she
may never attain happiness, she may
gain a great deal of satisfaction from
life.
For the treasures of the brain are
generally secure, but the treasures of
the heart are at the mercy of every
wind that blows. One’s happiness
may be fickled from one by a single
glance, or a disloyal act, or an un
spoken word, but the things of the
hrain that give us pleasure once we
have made them ours cannot be tak
en from us. Store the mind with
interesting things, make it the home
of charming ideas, and one has in
sured herself against the utter weari
ness and disgust of life which stifles
one when personal happiness is lost.
If girls could only he made to see
the sanity of this reasoning; if they
could only be Induced to lay up men
tal treasures for themselves, they
would run a better chance of catch
ing the will-o’-the-wisp of happiness
than they do by rushing recklessly
about seeking the frail and fleeting
thing. But one can only impress this
on the soul when youth is gone.
The girl who has allowed her brain
to lie fallow, who has failed to make
use of her opportunities to cultivate
her talents, has deliberately shut the
door on a world of beauty that will
bring her satisfaction when her
search for happiness proves futile.
She, by her own desire, starts on
this doubtful search without making
the slightest provision for disaster;
she has not even taken the simple
precaution of laying in a stock of sup
plies but'sets forth gaily unprepared
to meet the trials and disappoint
ments of a long journey.
What girl would be so simple as
to make an actual journey with noth
ing but the gown on her back? Then
how has she the courage to stay on
the colossal quest of happiness cloth
ed in nothing but youth and person
ality ?—Selected.
GIRLS WHO HA\"E A TALENT.
It has been said by eminent psy
chologists that every person has some
talent—some gift that may be devel
oped worthily—and so it may be
safely said that most girls are tal
ented. Now there are talents and
talents. To paint or write or play
some instrument or sing, are not the
only talents. A girl may have a won
derful gift for dressmaking, for de
signing beautiful things, for trim
ming hats, for cooking, for the mak
ing of rare dishes, for designing lit
tle, fancy gifts for favors and holiday
presents, for teaching, for house fur
nishing, for shopping professionally,
for nursing, for mending, and so on.
No talent that is really a talent is to
be despised,but should be brought
out and made the most of. By atten
tion and concentration, any talent
whatsoever may be made to pay very
handsomely, and it is only the people
with trained talents who make mon
ey. But, as psychologists have said
that most people are talented, one
should make sure what one’s talent
is, and then go ahead to perfect it,
to bring it out and make the very
most of it that can be made.
It is always a joy to follow a gen
uine talent, so be very careful to an
alyze the feelings in this matter at
the start; and if there is and feeling
that one does not enjoy that particu
lar thing nor feel inspired to work
a* it, one must look about to find
what one really does enjoy.
When a girl has really found her