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 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY BLAKE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 D LOTHROP COMPANY 
 
 FRAXKLIX AXD HAWLEY STREETS 
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELA
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1883. 
 D. LOTHROP & COMPANY.
 
 TO BUSY MOTHERS 
 
 HOPING TO HELP SOLVE SOME OF THE TROUBLESOME 
 PROBLEMS OF A WOMAN'S LIFE
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 CHAPTER i. How TO GET THEM 7 
 
 CHAPTER 2. How TO USE THEM 41 
 
 CHAPTER 3. WHY WE WANT THEM 65 
 
 II. LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER FIRST SERIES 
 
 LETTER i. BABY'S SLEEP 84 
 
 LETTER 2. BABY'S FOOD . 92 
 
 LETTER 3. THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE . . . 103 
 
 LETTER 4. HINTS ON EDUCATION 118 
 
 LETTER 5. CULTIVATION OF LITERARY TASTE IN CHIL- 
 DREN . 128 
 
 III. LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER SECOND SERIES 
 
 LETTER i. INDOOR AMUSEMENTS 140 
 
 LETTER 2. GIRLS' DOLLS AND BOYS' COLLECTIONS . 153 
 LETTER 3. SOME QUESTIONS OF ORDER. SUNDAY OCCU- 
 PATIONS 164 
 
 LETTER 4. OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS . . . 184 
 
 IV. A MOTHER'S DREAM OF HEAVEN . . .192 
 
 V. HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY . 198
 
 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 
 
 "WELL," exclaims tired Mrs. Motherly, "if any- 
 body needs twenty-six hours a day, I am sure I do, 
 and ten days a week, into the bargain ! The days 
 are not half long enough ; and when night comes, 
 the thought of the things I ought to have done but 
 couldn't, tires me more than all I have done. 
 This very day, when I expected to do so much 
 sewing, has slipped away, while I have trotted 
 around after the children, washing faces, brushing 
 tangled hair, putting on rubber boots and taking 
 them off again in fifteen minutes, and picking up 
 blocks and playthings, scarfs and mittens, over and 
 over again. I have mended unexpected tears in 
 jackets and dresses, put court-plaster on ' skatched 
 
 finders,' settled twenty quarrels between the baby 
 7
 
 8 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 and the next older, threaded needles for ' make- 
 believe sewings,' and all the time been trying to 
 sew, or dust, or sweep, or make gingerbread, till I 
 feel as if I were in a dozen pieces, and every piece 
 trying to do something different. At night I am 
 so tired that all I ask for is a place to crawl into 
 and sleep if I can, and even that must be with one 
 eye open, to see that the baby doesn't get uncov- 
 ered. Yet there are people so unfeeling as to say 
 I ought to try to get time to read and all that ! " 
 
 Not so fast, my little mother. It is all true, 
 every word of it, but let us see if it isn't possible 
 to save a little time out of even these busy, weary- 
 ing days for something higher then mere physical 
 needs. 
 
 In order to find out how to save it, let us see 
 what we do with it. Suppose we sort over our 
 work as we do our work-baskets, and see if we 
 cannot make a little time by saving it. 
 
 The first and most important of our duties is the 
 care of the children, including, of course, their 
 physical, moral, and intellectual training. 
 
 Next comes the housekeeping, i. e., the literal 
 keeping the house in order, looking after its clean- 
 liness and general pleasantness.
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 9 
 
 Then, cooking or preparing and serving the 
 food, including the care of the table and all that 
 pertains to it. This is really another part of 
 the housekeeping, and perhaps ought to be in- 
 cluded in it, except that in some households the 
 details are given over entirely to servants, while in 
 others, they are in greater or less degree the work 
 of the lady of the house. 
 
 And, lastly, the sewing. 
 
 As regards the care of the children, it is almost 
 impossible that there can be any superfluities. To 
 every true mother, their welfare is first and fore- 
 most. Better that cobwebs festoon our parlor- 
 walls, and dust lie inch deep on our books, than, 
 that we neglect our children for anything, no mat- 
 ter how good that thing in itself may be. Mission- 
 ary meetings at one end of the scale, and balls and 
 fashionable society at the other, are all blame- 
 worthy, if on account of them the children suffer. 
 When " culture " turns them over to the tender 
 mercies of servants, it becomes only a refined form 
 of selfishness. 
 
 By caring for the children, I do not mean pro- 
 viding them with plenty of wholesome food and 
 warm, clean clothing merely, but I would also
 
 IO TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 include that indefinable something which, for want 
 of a better word, I must call " mothering." It 
 consists in acts of loving, motherly attention, such 
 as taking up the tired baby toward nightfall, and 
 nestling him in your arms for a little rest, and in 
 calling the equally tired older child from her too- 
 absorbing play, and by quiet conversation soothing 
 her busy brain into a condition for restful sleep, 
 instead of leaving it to toss the weary body through 
 hours of uneasy dreaming. It will lead you cheer- 
 fully to lay down the interesting book or fascinat- 
 ing sewing to cover Tommy's ball or to loop up the 
 refractory overskirt on Bessie's doll, and patiently 
 to restore order after your dining-room has been 
 turned into Pandemonium on a Saturday afternoon 
 by Harry and " the boys." It will help you to 
 teach both plaintiff and defendant in a family quar- 
 rel something about the rights of both persons and 
 property, and to show them that there can be 
 honor among children as well as among thieves. 
 These things take time, and plenty of it, but they 
 are a part of a child's birthright. 
 
 But some mothers " mother " their children too 
 much, don't they ? To be sure they do ; there's a 
 difference in hens, even ; some cluck and scratch
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. II 
 
 and bustle about, with so much maternal eagerness 
 and ignorance as to tread the life out of half their 
 chicks, while others go clucking around in an 
 amiable, comfortable fashion, always spreading 
 their wings at just the right moment to shelter 
 their brood from every real or imaginary danger. 
 These are the hens farmers keep to "set." They 
 are such "good mothers," and their chickens 
 always turn out well. So it is with children. 
 Where every want is anticipated, where a child 
 seldom does anything for itself, is dressed and 
 undressed, rocked and amused long past babyhood, 
 is never allowed to try experiments and make 
 failures, the mother becomes a slave and the child 
 a helpless doll. 
 
 There is such a thing as judicious neglect in the 
 care of children. By this I mean a careful care- 
 lessness which allows them to look out for them- 
 selves as far as they safely can, but yet is always 
 ready to step in at just the right moment. To be 
 sure, their clothes will get soiled and their heads 
 bumped oftener, but they will grow up more sturdy 
 and self-reliant than where they are constantly 
 watched. At first the mother will not save much 
 time by this sort of training. Indeed, it is a good
 
 12 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 deal easier to do everything for a child than to 
 direct him in his awkward efforts to help himself. 
 For instance, the four-year-old boy wants to wash 
 his own hands, brush his teeth, and button his 
 boots. You know he'll let the water run up his 
 sleeves and spill it on the floor and the washstand, 
 but you let him try. He is so proud to think he 
 is helping mamma, that you haven't the heart to 
 tell him he has hindered more than he has helped. 
 And when you find that he has carefully washed 
 the inside of his hands which were clean enough 
 before, while the backs of them are as dirty as ever, 
 and that his boots are on the wrong feet, you use 
 some ingenious pretext to remedy defects, and 
 then quietly laugh to hear him shout to somebody, 
 " I'm 'most a big boy ; I d'essed myself all alone." 
 But what a relief it is, when he is six or seven 
 years old, to have him do these things for himself ! 
 But if we cannot save much time from the care 
 of the children, perhaps there is some unnecessary 
 work in our housekeeping. Haven't you ever 
 thought, after some domestic upheaval, such as 
 house-cleaning or a "thorough sweeping" "I 
 don't believe it pays after all It don't look 
 much cleaner than it did before ! " But when
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 1 3 
 
 your husband mildly suggests the same thing, 
 did you not, my dear little hypocrite, fiercely 
 declare that men never did appreciate woman's 
 work? How would he like his house to be as 
 dirty as a barn ? A sweet little lady, one of these 
 model housekeepers, once said to me, " I have 
 just cleaned my spare room, and, honestly, I don't 
 suppose there have been six people in it since last 
 faH. But, then, I know it's clean, and that's some- 
 thing." 
 
 Think of the paint-scrubbing, spring and fall, in 
 places where a fly wouldn't dare to set his foot, and 
 couldn't if he dared, and the sweeping and dusting 
 on regular days, not because the rooms need it, 
 " but then, you know, it's time for it." I suppose 
 I shall be misunderstood. Neat housekeepers wiM 
 look aghast, and say, " Well, I can't abide dirt 
 anyway," intimating that dirt (not dust, that's too 
 mild but real, unmitigated, horrible dirt) would 
 lie in shovelfuls all about, if they didn't throw soul 
 and body into the search after it. On the other 
 hand, aunt Easybody, who " runs in " for an hour's 
 gossip with her neighbor in the morning before she 
 dusts her sitting-room, and Fanny Meander, who 
 sits down to alter the trimming on her spring hat,
 
 14 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 with her bed unmade and her room in disorder, 
 will each sweetly smile and say, " That's just my 
 doctrine." But I don't mean either of you, nor 
 Mrs. Aimless, who devours " Mrs. Southworth " 
 and calls it " culture," while her children make 
 mud-pies in the street. I am talking to these 
 particular, conscientious housekeepers who are 
 working and worrying (principally worrying) 
 themselves into early graves, for fear every nook 
 and corner from attic to cellar will not be in 
 immaculate, speckless, dustless order. It is beau- 
 tiful to have it so, you say, thinking of Mrs. A.'s 
 exquisite housekeeping. But Mrs. A. has a corps 
 of well-trained, faithful servants, a house so large 
 and well arranged that all the actual work-rooms 
 are snugly tucked out of sight. The laundry has 
 marched away from the kitchen, the sewing-room 
 bidden good-by to the family sitting-room, and 
 the nursery and play-room has slyly walked 
 up-stairs into a place by itself. Yet some either 
 alone or with the aid of a " cheap " Irish girl, try 
 in their inconvenient, crowded houses to reproduce 
 Mrs. A.'s results. It would be a disgrace to her if 
 she didn't do it it is almost as much of a dis- 
 grace to them that they do ; for what costs her
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 1 5 
 
 only money costs them vitality, and leaves them 
 neither time or thought for anything else. 
 
 Again, while some of us burden ourselves through 
 superfluous neatness, others do the same thing 
 through excessive elaboration in their housekeep- 
 ing. You have been ushered into some of these 
 delightful parlors, where blossoming plants, and 
 ivys in brackets, singing birds and pictures and 
 bronzes are arranged in beautiful profusion. Now, 
 some one must dust the statuettes, and water the 
 plants, arrange the flowers, and take care of the 
 birds. There are many ladies who are not so 
 occupied with other duties but that they can find 
 time for these things and for reading and study 
 too. Occasionally a servant may be found who 
 can be trusted to do all this. But there are busy 
 mothers of little children whose minutes are so 
 taken up that the time thus used may be all that 
 can be spared from imperatively necessary work. 
 Now, for the sake of a greater good, may it not be 
 better for such persons to deny themselves these 
 things or at least to substitute for them some- 
 thing simpler ? Don't suppose for an instant that 
 I would counsel empty, barn-like rooms. It is part 
 of our work for husband and children to make
 
 16 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 home just as attractive as possible. But among 
 the host of elegant things there are some which 
 almost take care of themselves. You will see at 
 once the difference between pictures on the walls 
 and those on easels ; ferneries, and stands of grow- 
 ing plants ; hanging baskets of autumn leaves and 
 clematis, and those which need to be taken down 
 to be watered every day. These things are meant 
 to express culture and refinement in their owners. 
 There may be times when even these must be put 
 one side, that the mistress may possess the sub- 
 stance of which they are but the shadow. 
 
 Now, let us look at the third division of our 
 work, viz., that of cooking. In some households 
 this means frying doughnuts, making pies, and 
 cooking the greater part of the meals, even where 
 a servant is kept, because some one fancies that no 
 one can suit him but "mother." In others it is 
 the preparation of the syllabubs, and meringues 
 and cake, the "fancy-work" of cooking. To save 
 time here you will have to make an ally of your 
 husband. He can help or hinder more than any- 
 body else. Husbands are usually quite ignorant 
 concerning the time and strength it takes for all 
 this cooking. At heart, they wish their wives to 
 
 -.
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. I/ 
 
 have the best opportunities, but they see them 
 frittering their time away on other things and can- 
 not understand why they should not cook to please 
 them as well as dress to please themselves. For 
 this ignorance and thoughtlessness the mothers of 
 the men are somewhat responsible, and many 
 wives, instead of enlightening their husbands, in- 
 crease the mischief, often out of their very desire 
 to please them and "make home happy." Be- 
 cause the husband has had a hard day's work 
 in his office, study or shop, his affectionate 
 wife, anxious to give him pleasure on his re- 
 turn home, carefully prepares some marvelous 
 bit of cookery a chicken-pie, a Neapolitan 
 pudding, a salad, or a frosted cocoanut-cake 
 on the principle of counter-irritation, I presume. 
 And the man eats the tempting, indigestible 
 dainty, thinking what a good wife he has. She 
 enjoys it, too, with that mild and genial glow 
 which a benevolent mind, conscious of a good 
 deed, always feels. Some years hence, when he 
 groans under the torments of dyspepsia, neither 
 of them will ever think of laying the blame 
 to the dainty dishes prepared at the sacrifice 
 of so much time and strength. " But he has
 
 1 8 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 always been brought up to have such things, 
 and likes them." That settles the question. 
 Certainly, people must always have what they 
 like, and what they have been used to ! But 
 wouldn't it be well for the children to have a 
 different diet ? What sort of stomachs will 
 they have if they eat such things ? For eat 
 more of them than they ought they will, you 
 may be sure, if they are on the table, even if 
 other food is prepared for them, which few 
 mothers will take the trouble to do. Besides, 
 they will be grown up some day, and then 
 they must have these things because they have 
 " been brought up to have them," etc. 
 
 Perhaps if any one article could stand as a 
 representative of all those things which it is 
 difficult to make well, and which are good-for- 
 nothing, physiologically, when they are made, 
 it would be that curious Americanism pie. 
 I never could understand the peculiar fascina- 
 tion which these wedge-shaped compounds have 
 for the masculine palate, but the man or boy 
 who can resist the blandishments of a piece 
 of pie would be a natural curiosity. The un- 
 der-crust may be " soggy ; " that's no matter ;
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 19 
 
 there's the top-crust and the "filling." The 
 one may be leathery, the other full of all the 
 untold indigestible horrors of molasses and 
 mince-meat, citron and cinnamon, cloves and 
 cider, apples and allspice, butter and brandy, 
 sugar and suet, wine and raisins but it's pie, 
 and that's enough. For the sake of the next 
 generation of wives, mothers of growing boys 
 ought to educate them into a better taste, lest 
 by and by " a piece of pie like that my mother 
 used to make " be the dreadful will-o'-the-wisp 
 to lure the poor wife into a slough of despond. 
 And you, tired housewife, by occasional des- 
 serts of fruits and puddings, introduce your 
 husband into the boundless supply of whole- 
 some and toothsome things that we neglect for 
 the sake of pie. He may speak scornfully of 
 your blanc-manges and custards, or, as the des- 
 sert comes on, raise his eyebrows and say 
 significantly, " Nothing but apples ? " or " Oh ! 
 it's rice again." But do not press your " re- 
 form " unreasonably ; remember the defects of 
 his early education, and if you can convince 
 him that it really saves your time and strength, 
 and if your puddings and custards are good,
 
 2O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 he will soon be willing to accept the substi- 
 tute for a part of the time at least. 
 
 As we all know, there are some women 
 who are natural cooks. The " natural deprav- 
 ity of inanimate objects" seems charmed away 
 when they get hold of bowl and spoon. Their 
 ovens always bake on both top and bottom. 
 Their soups never scorch, nor biscuits sour. 
 They are the ones who always carry " their 
 recipes in their head." With what exasperat- 
 ing indefiniteness do they answer you when 
 you ask them how they make any particular 
 thing muffins, for instance. 
 
 " Dear me, I never have much of a rule about 
 liuch things." 
 
 " But can't you give me a little idea ? John has 
 so often spoken of your muffins since we took tea 
 with you, I should like to learn how to make them." 
 
 " Well, I stir up a pretty stiff batter ; depends 
 something on how many folks I have to tea." 
 
 " Do you use milk ? " 
 
 "Yes, if I have it ; if not, I take water." 
 
 " Any eggs ? " 
 
 " Well, if eggs are cheap, I break in a couple, if 
 they are dear, I don't always."
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 21 
 
 " You use some butter ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! a piece about as big as an egg." 
 
 She pauses, as if that were all. You timidly 
 suggest 
 
 " Cream tartar or soda ? " 
 
 A look of surprise creeps over her face, as if she 
 would say, " What does the woman mean by asking 
 so many questions ? " but she says 
 
 "Well, if I have sour milk, I don't use cream 
 tartar ; if the milk's sweet, I put in a couple of 
 spoonsful of cream tartar and one of soda." 
 
 You wish you dared ask whether it's table or tea- 
 spoonfuls she means, but if you are a novice, think 
 it must be tablespoonfuls, the muffins are so very 
 light. 
 
 She evidently now considers the thing complete. 
 
 " You haven't said anything about the flour ? " 
 you inquire, with inward trembling ; but you 
 really do wish to please John. 
 
 The look of surprise changes to a wide-eyed 
 amazement. 
 
 " Flour ? Why, I supposed any goose would 
 know about that. A good bowlful, of course. I 
 always use my own judgment about the flour." 
 
 You retire from the field discomfited, but not
 
 22 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 being easily discouraged, try to follow these 
 " directions." The result is something very differ- 
 ent from Mrs. Handy's delicate muffins. John 
 breaks one open suspiciously, and, after a minute's 
 inspection, pushes back his plate with that 
 expression of huge patience which men assume 
 when they want to say something severe but don't 
 
 and says : 
 
 " Haven't you any bread, Mary ? Don't let the 
 children touch these. They are as tough as leather. 
 Why don't you ask Mrs. Handy how she makes 
 her muffins ? They're something like." 
 
 You nerve yourself and pleasantly ask if he 
 wouldn't like a slice of dry toast. ( Such a comfort 
 as dry toast is under such circumstances ! ) In a 
 week or two, after a series of experiments, you 
 finally evolve from your "inner consciousness," 
 and flour and eggs, some very creditable muffins, 
 
 but you don't call your experience judgment. 
 There are many cases where it is a woman's 
 
 duty to prepare the food herself, as, for instance, 
 when the fickle appetite of the invalid husband, or 
 delicate child, or aged parent, needs the persua- 
 sion of the unmistakable flavor which " mother's " 
 practiced hand alone can give. Where, for any
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 23 
 
 reason, the lady "does her own work," this is a 
 necessity. However, I am speaking of super- 
 fluous, not of necessary labor, and should be very 
 sorry to be understood as advocating the idea 
 that the careful preparation of the family's food is 
 a superfluity, for it is not. The comfort and 
 health of the family really depend upon this 
 department of our work more than upon any other, 
 but elaborate cooking is not always healthful, nor 
 are simple dishes necessarily unpalatable. 
 
 There must be a judicious unselfishness in this 
 matter as in many others. A selfish wife may 
 neglect to gratify the reasonable preferences of 
 her husband, saying, " Oh ! I can't bother with it ; 
 Bridget can do it as well as I, if he only thought 
 so." And on the other hand an over-indulgent 
 wife may spend time and strength she can ill 
 afford to lose, in a hot kitchen, because a whim- 
 sical husband thinks nobody else can broil a steak 
 or make a pie good enough for his lordly appetite. 
 
 Busy as these departments of our daily labor 
 keep us, I think we shall find on examination 
 that our sewing lays upon us the most unnec- 
 essary as well as the heaviest burdens. The 
 difference between dresses simply made and those
 
 24 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 loaded with trimming represents hours of labor 
 which minister to no one's health or happiness. 
 Our children are just as well off if their under- 
 clothing is innocent of tucks and ruffles. " Yes," 
 I hear half a dozen say at once. " But I do 
 like to see children handsomely dressed, and I 
 like to wear pretty dresses myself." To be sure, 
 it is perfectly right to gratify our feminine 
 penchant for pretty things within reasonable 
 limits. But it depends something on what it 
 costs. Mrs. Easy-money is able to pay for the 
 making of all the elaborate garments she wears, 
 but it is a different matter when poor Mrs. 
 Struggle-hard attempts to make all these fine 
 things herself, and to do a good share of house- 
 work besides. And isn't there another side to 
 it ? May not simpler things be actually pret- 
 tier, if they were only the fashion ? Have you 
 never turned your head to look at a lady 
 passing you on the street, the elegant sim- 
 plicity of whose dress was positively refreshing, 
 and then gone home and worked over your 
 yards of trimming as blindly and vigorously as 
 ever? Just think of the hours we have spent 
 and must spend wearily sewing together, and
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 2$ 
 
 sewing on, what next year's dictum will say 
 take off, and put on higher or lower, upside 
 down or downside up. And the thought and 
 the talk it takes ! Is not a new dress a thing 
 to be dreaded ? First there is the question 
 of the material and the color, even to what 
 is the fashionable shade. Then the cost and 
 the "wear" of the particular kind of cloth 
 we decide upon ; next the bewildering inquiry 
 of how to make it up. Some ladies spend 
 hours settling this question alone, aside from 
 the actual work itself. Lest you may think I 
 exaggerate, let me repeat to you a conversation 
 which actually took place in a dressmaker's 
 room in Boston, where the ladies are popularly 
 supposed (by those who don't live there) to be 
 far above such things. This dialogue was 
 reported to me verbatim by the victim who lost 
 one hour and a quarter of her precious time 
 as she waited in the ante-room while this lady 
 discussed with the dressmaker the comparative 
 merits of polonaises and overskirts, fringes and 
 knife-plaiting, and this was the finale: 
 
 Lady. What would you have up the front? 
 
 Dressmaker. Bows are pretty.
 
 26 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Z. Yes, so they are ; but they've been worn 
 so long. Can't you think of something newer? 
 
 D. Not that would be so suitable for your 
 material. 
 
 Z. Would you have the bows of ribbon or 
 of silk? 
 
 D. Just as you like about that. 
 
 L. If I have ribbon, would it be prettier 
 to have the ends pointed or square? 
 
 D. It doesn't make much difference. 
 
 L. Now, don't you really think that silk 
 is more stylish than ribbon ? 
 
 D. Perhaps, as your trimmings are silk, silk 
 would look better. 
 
 L. How do you make silk bows this season ? 
 
 D. Last year we fringed a great many; we 
 don't do it so much this season. I have run the 
 silk together and turned it for some, and the 
 effect is very pretty. 
 
 L. How many would you have five or six ? 
 
 D. Five is enough. You are not very tall. 
 
 L. I wish you would tell me what a French 
 bow is ? 
 
 D. I don't believe I can describe it. It doesn't 
 differ much from any other bow.
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 2/ 
 
 L. I saw some bows on an elegant suit at 
 Chandler's, yesterday, and I thought they must 
 be French bows. 
 
 D. Very likely. 
 
 L. There seemed to be something stiff in the 
 middle of the bow to keep it up. 
 
 D. Yes ; we have to put something there, or 
 they would soon " flat " down. 
 
 L, Well, isn't there something you can put 
 into the middle that will make them keep their 
 place and yet not be so stiff? 
 
 D. I don't know of anything else. 
 
 L. Well, I think I'll have about five French 
 bows, and if I see anything different that I like 
 better, I'll send you word. Good morning ! 
 
 Of course we cannot ignore the fashions alto- 
 gether ; a dress so plain as to be ridiculous is 
 as far from the standard of good taste as one 
 over-trimmed, but in our present variety of 
 fashions there is always some mode which is 
 both tasteful and easily accomplished. But ask 
 yourself honestly how often when settling the 
 question of " how to make it," do you choose 
 such a style in preference to the most elabo- 
 rate and the "latest"
 
 28 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 It does not follow, of course, that every 
 handsomely dressed lady is perforce a slave to 
 her needle. There are natural seamstresses 
 whose deft fingers, out of common materials, 
 will conjure garments almost as magically as 
 the fairy godmother changed Cinderella's rags 
 into a beautiful ball-dress. Their artistic gift 
 ekes out scanty purses, and they are elegant 
 in apparel which costs little in time or money. 
 Sewing is a pastime to them ; after two or 
 three hours' work they are as fresh as daisies, 
 and will accomplish more in half a day than 
 their less gifted sisters will in a week. They 
 never can understand what a torment sewing 
 is for those who don't like it ; who plod along, 
 drearily sticking the needle in and out, inva- 
 riably doing everything the hardest way, for- 
 getting what they are about, and sewing the 
 wrong pieces together and having to rip the 
 work out, just as they imagine it completed. 
 
 It will not do to judge harshly from appear- 
 ances. Mrs. R's dainty ruffles may not cost 
 her any more time and strength than Mrs. 
 W's plain folds do her. Still, if these skil- 
 ful fingers could only be satisfied to do plainer
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 2Q 
 
 work, how much time their quickness might 
 save not only to their fortunate owners, but 
 also to others who vainly try to " keep up " 
 with them. 
 
 But I hear Mrs. Motherly exclaim, half 
 indignantly : " I don't see how all this applies 
 to me. I never had an elegant dress in my 
 life, and I am sure I don't take one needless 
 stitch in my children's clothes. But when you 
 think how the knees and elbows push through, 
 how the skirts and sleeves grow short, and 
 how the old material, which I must use for 
 economy's sake, wears out before its time 
 you see the necessary sewing for three or 
 four little children is a great burden. If I 
 could only afford to hire some of it donej " 
 
 One instance of actual practice is worth a 
 good deal of theory. So let me tell you a 
 true story. 
 
 " Once upon a time " the mother of a 
 family of little children found the long sum- 
 mer days qoming on apace, and the pile of 
 little unfinished dresses and skirts and jackets 
 growing larger instead of smaller. She strug- 
 gled bravely for awhile to diminish it herself,
 
 3O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 but as the days grew warmer her strength 
 grew less. The children needed more and 
 more attention, and still that sewing loomed 
 up before her, a perfect Hill Difficulty. A 
 seamstress for a couple of weeks could do the 
 most important part of it ; the rest she could 
 finish at her leisure. But a seamstress would 
 cost money, and where was it to come from ; 
 for as is the case in a good many families, 
 there were more ways for dollars to go out 
 than for them to come in, and everything 
 seemed economized to the last degree already. 
 At last she thought of her summer bonnet. 
 In the spring she had bought a dark-brown 
 straw and trimmed it plainly, saying to her- 
 self, "When warm weather comes I'll have a 
 delicate summery bonnet. It is so pleasant on 
 a hot day to put on something light, and 
 fresh, and pretty. My last year's hat was 
 " fussed up " out of old, and vexed my soul 
 every time I put it on." But the price of a 
 bonnet would pay a seamstress as long as she 
 needed one. One Sunday as she was dressing 
 for church, she took out the brown straw and 
 tried by smoothing out the wrinkled ribbons
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 3! 
 
 and " perking up," as women do, the mussed 
 daisies, to give it an air or freshness, then 
 shook her head and said, " It's of no use ; I 
 can't and I won't wear that all summer. It 
 looks hot and shabby already." 
 
 That week things were worse than ever. 
 The teething baby needed constant care. The 
 little girls complained of their warm woollen 
 dresses, and wished mamma would hurry up 
 and finish their light cambrics. She snatched 
 every spare moment for sewing and grew 
 nervous and irritable over the hurry and con- 
 finement. Sunday came again, and with it a 
 nervous headache. Too worn out to go to 
 church, she lay on her bed and thought 
 "What a fool I am ! What difference will it 
 make if I do wear that old thing? I hate 
 the very sight of it now. But I can't go on 
 this way ; I shall be dead and buried long 
 before summer is over, and then what good 
 will forty new bonnets do me?" 
 
 On Monday, before her resolution had time 
 to cool, she engaged the seamstress, and before 
 long had the satisfaction of seeing her little 
 girls in their fresh print dresses, baby in his
 
 32 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 short clothes, and was comfortable herself in 
 cool cambrics and lawns. And she wore the 
 brown straw triumphantly through the season, 
 though sometimes when she saw the dainty 
 bonnets of her neighbors, she sighed a little, 
 yet the remembrance of the afternoon naps 
 she had taken, the books she had read and 
 the twilight walks and talks she had had 
 with the children, all of which that old brown 
 straw had bought, was quite sufficient com- 
 pensation for her self-denial. 
 
 It is very easy to let time slip through 
 our fingers, even when doing only necessary 
 work. There is so much about woman's work 
 that may be made to spread over hours or 
 crowded into minutes, according to the way you 
 do it. If you believe in gilding refined gold or 
 painting the lily, or if you are one of those 
 unfortunates who walk around in a peck 
 measure all day, your work, however simple, 
 will never be done. I once heard a lady 
 describe her dressmaker as such a wasteful 
 cutter, " because she cut right into the whole 
 cloth for everything, without the least attempt 
 to see if she could do anything with the
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 33 
 
 pieces." A great many women use their time 
 in just the same way. They fill up whole 
 mornings with little, unimportant things that 
 might as well be crowded into odd minutes, 
 and start their large enterprises just when 
 they cannot finish them without serious inter- 
 ruption and delay. System accomplishes as 
 much in housekeeping as in anything else. It 
 it a great help to have a plan for each day 
 thought out the evening before or early in 
 the morning. By this I don't mean a cast- 
 iron, inflexible frame, in which you and your 
 family are comfortable, but a judicious, practi- 
 cable idea of what you wish to do that parti- 
 cular day ; a plan flexible enough to allow 
 for unforeseen emergencies, yet firm enough to 
 keep you steadfast to your purpose. A wise 
 foresight will have always ready some light 
 sewing to " catch up " when your neighbor 
 runs in for an afternoon's chat, or your hus- 
 band wants to read you something from the 
 last magazine. Your fingers can be busy 
 while your mind is free to listen. It is the 
 half-hours of idleness that makes the "drive" 
 and overwork when crowded into a corner.
 
 34 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 There is yet another superfluity to be given 
 up, if we would gain time by saving it, which 
 can hardly come under the head of work ; viz., 
 much of so-called " society," not simply fash- 
 ionable society ; those who are absorbed in 
 that have little time or thought for personal 
 culture, except to furnish material for the even- 
 ing's " small talk." But there is a good deal 
 of aimless running back and forth, many of 
 these little evening gatherings and tea-parties, 
 where nothing more important is discussed than 
 Mrs. Smith's new baby, or whether polonaises 
 are to be worn or not. These all take time 
 without rendering any equivalent for it. 
 
 No one more than a mother of little chil- 
 dren, who is tied to a never-ending routine of 
 distracting cares, needs the refreshment which 
 comes from an occasional neighborly call on 
 some congenial friend. It is a change, as well 
 as an interchange, of thought. They compare 
 experiences, and she goes back to her duties 
 with clearer eyes for having taken an outside 
 view of her home as well as an inside view 
 of other people's. Even cerem Dnious calls are 
 very useful as an expression of courtesy to
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 35 
 
 new-comers, and a means of keeping up a half- 
 formal acquaintanceship between those who wish 
 for that and nothing more. We must give 
 some time to other people besides our own 
 families, or we shall grow narrow and selfish ; 
 but it ought to be in such a way that both 
 we and they are the better for it. But where 
 our calls consist principally in getting inside 
 of Mrs. A.'s handsome parlor and wondering 
 what "did possess her to buy such a queer 
 carpet ; and she, on her part, to think it ex- 
 travagance for one in Mrs. B.'s circumstances 
 to wear such a handsome velvet cloak, the 
 time is worse than wasted. Haven't you seen 
 in driving through some of our Celtic suburbs 
 two frowsy-headed Irish women with sleeves 
 rolled above their red elbows exchanging con- 
 fidences over a rickety fence, while the open 
 door into the cheerless cottage discloses a vista 
 of general untidiness beyond ? This is not so 
 very much worse than much of the "visiting" 
 which many women in better circumstances 
 indulge. 
 
 Can't you remember the mental and moral 
 exasperation with which you have felt the price-
 
 36 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 less minutes of an especially busy morning 
 slide forever away, while politeness forced you 
 to sit helpless, listening to the aimless chat- 
 ter of some voluble acquaintance ? The smell 
 of burning cookery may come up from the 
 kitchen, or the sound of the baby's fretting 
 from the nursery ; but, like the " wedding 
 guest" held by the "cold, glittering eye" of 
 the " Ancient Mariner," you 
 
 Cannot choose but hear. 
 
 Women are singularly slow to comprehend 
 that their time is worth anything in dollars 
 and cents. The elegant lady-clerk who conde- 
 scends to show you kid gloves while she makes 
 a scornful mental inventory of your visible 
 wardrobe, as well as the servant-girl in your 
 kitchen, have little idea that their time is pur- 
 chased by their employer. How they will frit- 
 ter it away, and how abused they feel if they 
 are brought to an account for it ! This disre- 
 gard on our part of the value of time is one 
 reason for men's contempt of women's work. 
 
 It requires resolution and steady perseverance
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 37 
 
 to withdraw ourselves, day by day, from the 
 petty things that crowd up for notice, and to 
 bestow our attention upon mental culture. You 
 must expect to be misunderstood sometimes 
 and criticised often. Somebody will be sure to 
 say, " Oh ! she's strong-minded," or, " I believe 
 she affects literature." And one of these same 
 critical somebodies will be sure to " run in " 
 to your sitting-room some unlucky morning 
 when Bridget hasn't returned from her cousin's 
 wake, and you are wrestling with the breakfast 
 dishes in the kitchen, getting the children ready 
 for school, binding up the baby's burnt fingers, 
 and trying to trade with the ragman all at once. 
 Of course your husband's dressing-gown and 
 slippers and morning paper lie just where he 
 dropped them (he is the best man in the world, 
 but he cannot be taught to see any disorder 
 in leaving his occasional articles of wearing- 
 apparel anywhere and everywhere), and of course 
 the children have just raced through the room, 
 leaving muddy " tracks " and cracker-crumbs, 
 and all the doors open behind them. Perhaps 
 your visitor, if she be inclined to say severe 
 things, will close her description to her friends
 
 38 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 with, " Oh, well, the rest of us could get time 
 for reading and all that if we should let things 
 go at ' sixes and sevens,' as some people do ! " 
 
 Console yourself by thinking that some of 
 our most able literary women have been 
 excellent housekeepers. Remember how Char- 
 lotte Bronte* stopped in the midst of some of 
 the most exciting passages in "Jane Eyre," 
 to go out into the kitchen and take the black 
 specks out of the potatoes, unknown to poor old 
 "Tabby," rather than hurt her sensitive feelings 
 by ordering the younger servant to do it. Re- 
 member what a devoted mother to her numerous 
 and fast-coming brood of children, Baroness 
 Eunsen was. Think, too, of the excellent 
 cook-books, which such busy literary women as 
 Mrs. Whitney and Marion Harland have written. 
 
 It is one phase of the popular unjust 
 judgment of women, even in these liberal 
 days, that it regards literary women as nec- 
 essarily neglectful of household affairs, in the 
 face of well-known facts to the contrary. A 
 man of undoubted genius may be never so 
 absent-minded, his financial affairs may get 
 into the wildest confusion, and people only
 
 HOW TO GET THEM. 39 
 
 smile and say, " Well, one man can't be 
 everything." But if it is a woman, no matter 
 how great her ability, if her parlor table is 
 dusty, or if occasionally the buttons are off 
 her children's boots, people shake their heads 
 solemnly, and say, "Oh, these literary women!" 
 Perhaps the secret of the prejudice is, that 
 there are those who affect the eccentricities of 
 genius without the genius itself, which alone 
 makes the eccentricities endurable. De Quincey, 
 speaking of his mother, says, "Though unpre- 
 tending to the name and honors of a literary 
 woman, I presume to call her (what many 
 literary women are not) an intellectual woman." 
 So, although leaving household duties neglected 
 in order to write weak articles for still 
 weaker papers, may be the fault of a so-called 
 literary woman, it is not a characteristic of 
 one who is either intellectual or womanly. 
 The popular verdict is right, so far as this, 
 that a mother's first duty is to her family, 
 and nothing which conflicts with and forces 
 her to neglect that, is either womanly or 
 proper. Be very sure that your family are 
 contented and comfortable; that your husband
 
 4O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 finds yjur intelligent sympathy and counsel an 
 aid to him in his work ; that the children's 
 place in the mother's heart is warm and 
 ample ; in a word, that your culture is but a 
 gathering up of precious things to be poured 
 out for their benefit, and you can snap your 
 fingers at what your neighbors say and think. 
 After all, these things are relative. What 
 to one family is a luxury, to another may 
 be the most pressing of necessities. The 
 society in which we move, the reasonable 
 demands and wishes of our nearest friends, 
 our own tastes and abilities must all be con- 
 sidered before any one of us can answer the 
 question, " How can I gain more time for my 
 own personal culture, without neglecting any 
 essential item of my daily duties ? " In this 
 matter of " time," there are no patent rights, 
 and no monopolies. We each have all the 
 time there is ; our mental and moral status is 
 determined by what we do with it.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 
 
 TAKING it for granted that without neg- 
 lecting our families we can in these various 
 ways save an hour or two a day, the next 
 question is, how we can use them to the 
 best advantage, for it will be very easy to let 
 the time gained slip through our fingers even 
 after we have worked hard to get it. 
 
 The first thing is to set apart some definite 
 time in the day for this purpose. Consider 
 that you have earned it. You certainly have, 
 if a long day's work can do it. Talk about 
 the ten-hour law ! I wish every mother of 
 little children could get her whole day's work 
 into twelve hours. Most mothers find their 
 heads and hands employed till the younger chil- 
 dren, at least, are in bed. Take that hour, 
 then, as early in the evening as possible. I 
 41
 
 42 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 know the mending-basket will loom up before 
 you ; there will be a three-cornered rent in 
 Mary's school-dress, boot buttons will be off 
 shoes that must be put on in the morning ; 
 but do only what is imperative, and let 
 the rest go. Impress it on your mind that 
 you take this time, not as a mere selfish 'indul- 
 gence, but to fit yourself better for your other 
 duties, and obstacles will vanish. 
 
 Perhaps your tired head and nerves will refuse to 
 read anything serious. Then laugh over " Alice in 
 Wonderland," or H. H.'s " Bits of Travel." What- 
 ever hour you choose be resolute about taking it. 
 There will be plenty of necessary interruptions ; 
 accept these cheerfully ; but do not let trifles in- 
 terrupt you, and do not be yourself guilty of mak- 
 ing any unnecessary hindrances. You will be 
 fortunate if you can average four or five evenings 
 a week. But that time steadily improved for a 
 year will accomplish an amount of work which will 
 surprise you. You have probably heard the story 
 of the young man who read Macaulay's " History 
 of England " in a few months, by reading a little 
 every day while waiting for his meals. The books 
 lay on the parlor table of his boarding-house, and
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 43 
 
 while his companions were " fooling," as they ap- 
 propriately called it, he read a few pages, finishing 
 the volumes long before he or any one else would 
 have supposed it possible. After awhile you will 
 find yourself planning your work ahead and crowd- 
 ing other duties closer, so as to leave this time free, 
 just as your boy expedites his hoeing in the gar- 
 den when there is a base-ball match in prospect. 
 
 When the first hour is over, if you must, take 
 up your work again ; you will at least have some- 
 thing better to think of than your servants' failings 
 or the neighbors' gossip. Add to this time all the 
 little odd nlinutes of the day. Keep your book 
 (with a mark in it, so that you can open it instantly 
 to the place ) where you can catch it up when you 
 are waiting for John to come to dinner, or 
 holding the baby or watching the baking of your 
 cake. Only take warning from King Alfred's 
 example, and don't let the cake burn. 
 
 First of all, however, be careful not to fritter 
 away the best of the hour reading the paper. 
 There is a deal of time wasted over newspapers. 
 Now don't look at me that way, nor say in that 
 severe tone, " We must read the papers. We 
 ought to keep informed about events in our own
 
 44 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 country, at least." Granted ; but how does a 
 woman read the papers ? She generally begins 
 with the first thing she happens to see on the first 
 page, without much regard to the arrangement of 
 that particular journal. If political news comes 
 first, she reads a little on that subject till she 
 thinks, " Oh, this is stupid," and then her wander- 
 ing eyes light on the column of jokes and anecdotes. 
 Perhaps close by is a li fashion chit-chat " or a 
 " what to wear" article. She reads this, of course, 
 with a vaguely virtuous hope of getting some idea 
 about making or selecting her winter wardrobe, 
 though experience ought to have taught her that 
 practical ideas are seldom found in a fashion article. 
 In the next column is the local news, including a 
 thrilling account of Tom Jones's runaway. She 
 knows T. J. and is interested to hear that " the 
 spirited animals were finally controlled with no more 
 serious damage than" etc. Next comes the 
 notice of Miss Croesus's wedding. To be sure she 
 don't happen to belong to that " set," and so was 
 not invited, but she feels a mild flavor of second 
 hand delight at the glowing descriptions of the 
 bride's superb point-lace and her general graceful- 
 ness, and it is certainly worth knowing that the
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 45 
 
 " bridesmaids, Misses Gusher, Puffer and Troddle, 
 daughters of some of our most wealthy and influen- 
 tial citizens, were radiant with the charms of their 
 youthful beauty." If she is "musical," she must 
 read about Madame Hi-puff's concert, in order to 
 learn that she treated somebody's concerto " with 
 exquisite phrasing and delicate shading, and that 
 her technique was almost perfect, especially in the 
 arpeggio passages." If artistically inclined she 
 must look at the art notices. It is worth 
 some sacrifice of time to know that " our young 
 townsman, the gifted Mr. Burnt-Umber, throws his 
 whole soul into his pictures," that he has a "judi- 
 cious feeling for nature," and displays " great 
 breadth of treatment," and "depth of color," and 
 " vigorous handling." Her imagination delights 
 itself in the description of his " wonderful chiaro- 
 scuro,"' "the crispy freshness of his foliage," and 
 " the juicy tenderness of his greens." By this 
 time half an hour or more has gone and she has not 
 read the paper yet ; that is, has not read to 
 learn about important current events. 
 
 Now, how does a man read his paper? He first 
 reads whatever is of value in his particular busi- 
 ness, then the news from Washington, if Congress
 
 46 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 is in session ; next, that from Europe ; then fires 
 and failures, and the money market ; after that, it 
 not too hurried, he turns to the editorials, or 
 searches out items of especial interest. In fifteen 
 minutes he is ready to lay the paper aside. 
 
 In planning to use our reading hours to the best 
 advantage, it is well to remember that it takes no 
 longer to read the best than the poorest. It is 
 easy to spend time enough over some foolish news- 
 paper story, to read one of Shakespeare's plays. 
 Keep on hand some good, hearty book with "meat" 
 in it, chosen because you are really interested in it, 
 not because it is "considered" the correct thing 
 to read. If you are too tired and sleepy to read any- 
 thing difficult, try something light, but let it be the 
 best of its kind, not " slops." It is a good plan to 
 have some book like Howell's " Wedding Journey," 
 or Warner's " Back-log Studies," to read in the 
 odd minutes and in those evenings when you are 
 too thoroughly tired in mind and body to read any- 
 thing heavier, and keep the " hearty book " for the 
 times when you are fresher. The great danger of 
 this is that the easy reading becomes so interesting 
 that the steady, substantial work is crowded out, 
 But are we not sometimes frightened into thinking
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 47 
 
 that good reading must necessarily be tiresome ? 
 Novels with exciting plots are more fatiguing to a 
 brain weary with the distractions of woman's work 
 than a thoughtful essay or a majestic poem ? It is 
 not stimulus that is needed, but change. In 
 Macaulay's "Essays," or a good translation of the 
 " Iliad," the perfection of the style or the music of 
 the rhythm falls on a tired spirit like showers on 
 the thirsty earth. Yet fatigued and busy women 
 stir up their already excited nerves with Charles 
 Reade or Wilkie Collins, and then complain that 
 they " can't read evenings ; it makes them so 
 nervous they can't sleep. 
 
 Women sometimes think they will not be inter- 
 ested in the standard English classics, just because 
 they are standard and classic. Not long since an 
 intelligent lady was telling me how surprised she 
 was to find Bacon's "Essays" so interesting. She 
 said : " I was lying on the lounge in my husband's 
 library, one evening, after an unusually wearisome 
 day, and took it up because it was the nearest 
 book, and I really felt as if I could not go across 
 the room for another. I was perfectly absorbed 
 before I knew it, and read for an hour with a sense 
 of freshness and exhilaration which I had not
 
 48 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 known for a long time. I felt as if somehow I had 
 got back to the beginning of things. I had 
 always supposed that Lord Bacon, being very 
 learned, was therefore very dull and entirely be- 
 yond my comprehension. 
 If you like history, 
 
 The world is all before you, where to choose ; 
 
 if you are fond of science, you cannot fail to 
 be interested in the papers and books in this 
 field never so numerous and never so well 
 adapted for popular reading as now. If you 
 imagine any of these departments " too literary," 
 and cannot be happy without a novel, there 
 are works of fiction that are as important 
 a part of one's education as quadratic equa- 
 tions, to say the least : " Romola," Ivanhoe," 
 "Hypatia," "David Copperfield," " Pendennis," 
 "The Scarlet Letter." Just think of all the 
 books so well worth reading, and yet people will 
 continue to draw out of the libraries dreary 
 "society novels," or poor translations of 
 worse French and German love-stories ! It 
 is like eating apple-skins and potato-parings
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 49 
 
 when bananas and oranges might be had for 
 the picking ! Bishop Potter says, " It is nearly 
 an axiom that people will not be better than 
 the books they read." Consider, therefore, 
 what kind of books you read. 
 
 No doubt many read poor books because they 
 do not know just what they want. The catalogue 
 of the library is a bewildering labyrinth, and they 
 choose books at random, for a " taking " title, or 
 because somebody else says they are splendid. 
 To avoid this, it is a good plan to make a 
 list of books and authors that you wish to 
 read. Have in your work-basket or table- 
 drawer, where you can lay your hand on them 
 easily, some slips of paper or a little memoran- 
 dum book and a pencil. If you have to go into 
 the next room or down-stairs after paper, and 
 then hunt up a pencil, and perhaps a knife 
 to sharpen it with, the chances are that you 
 will never make your list. Then if in your 
 reading, or in conversation with some one who 
 knows, you find a tempting allusion to some 
 book or author, you can " make a note of it." 
 With your list in your pocket or your head, 
 you can go to the public library and intelli-
 
 5O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 gently choose something you really care to 
 read and which will pay you for the time you 
 spend. 
 
 There is very little difficulty in getting 
 good books. Most of the large cities and 
 towns have well-selected public libraries, and in 
 smaller places half a dozen ladies, by a syste- 
 matic exchange of their own and their friends' 
 books, could find good reading enough for 
 several months at least. Very few people 
 would refuse to lend books to a club of ladies, 
 were some one of their number responsible that 
 they were carefully used and promptly returned. 
 The persons who really love books most 
 devotedly, generally take pleasure in lending 
 them to appreciative readers. 
 
 Not only keep on hand one substantial book, 
 but let your reading run for awhile on one 
 topic and its relations. A great deal of the 
 good of our reading is dissipated by leaving 
 one subject before we have read enough about 
 it to clinch it in our minds. The next topic 
 taken up pushes the first one out before it 
 has had time to get rooted. 
 
 Now don't conjure up an elephantine vision
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. $1 
 
 of a ponderous "course of reading." The very 
 name is depressing, for it recalls to almost 
 every one some discouraging experience. In 
 the ignorance and enthusiasm of girlhood, I 
 asked a " bookish " elderly clergyman for a 
 "course of reading." He very willingly handed 
 me a list of books covering a sheet of com- 
 mercial note paper, made up largely of such 
 works as Rollin's " Ancient History," Grote's 
 " Greece," Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," and 
 Buckle's " History of Civilization," with Whate- 
 ely's "Evidences," and Butler's "Analogy," for 
 a diversion. With a commendable desire to be 
 thorough and to begin at the beginning, I 
 attacked Rollin. On account of some trouble 
 with my eyes, half an hour a day was all I was 
 allowed to read. By chance I happened to men- 
 tion what I was doing to an enterprising sopho- 
 more of my acquaintance, who asked merrily : 
 
 " How long do you suppose it will take you 
 to read Rollin, in half-hour installments ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I can't tell," I answered. 
 
 "Well, somewhere between ten and fifteen 
 years," he replied ; " and you may expect to 
 finish your list sometime in the next century."
 
 52 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 The very thought so frightened me that I 
 never opened the book again, not even to 
 count the pages to see if he was right. 
 
 But this is reading by course, not by 
 topics. A friend of mine tried to read 
 Macaulay's " History of England," without much 
 knowledge of the detail of English history. 
 She found so much of which she knew noth- 
 ing taken for granted as familiar, that she 
 grew quite discouraged, and gave it up. One 
 day she saw the "Student's Hume." Here was 
 the very book she wanted, and taking that 
 and the " Student's France," for a basis, she 
 constructed a course of reading to meet her 
 own necessities. She began with the Norman 
 conquest, for she had no interest in the end- 
 less squabbles of the Saxons and Danes. 
 (Some time afterward, however, when she was 
 tracing the rise of the European nations, she 
 was glad to read this earlier history.) She 
 read first the story of the reign of an Eng- 
 lish king, then that of the contemporary 
 French sovereign, at the same time weaving in 
 a woof of poetry, romance, and biography. 
 Bulwer's and Tennyson's " Harold/' made the
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 53 
 
 times of the Norman conquest vivid and real ; 
 " Ivanhoe," " Kenilworth," and Shakespeare's 
 " Henries," filled out the pictures of the days of 
 the Plantagenets and Tudors ; the "Abbot," and 
 "Woodstock," gave her the "local coloring" of 
 the times of Mary, Queen of Scotts, and Crom- 
 well. She ran over some of the Erckmann-Chat- 
 rian tales and Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities," 
 for a more vivid idea of the awful days of the 
 French Revolution. The gossipy " Queens of 
 " England," (abridged edition) showed her how 
 the royal wives and mothers felt and acted, and 
 Victor Hugo, in " Les Miserables," furnished a 
 thrilling description of the battle of Waterloo. 
 In this manner, with a poem here, a novel 
 or biography there, she made up a glowing 
 mosaic of the most important events in the 
 history of the two countries nearest allied to 
 our own, and with none of the tedium which 
 belongs to the popular idea of reading history, 
 and was thus prepared to enjoy Macaulay, 
 Thiers, or Carlyle. How much more satisfac- 
 tory her two or three years' work than if, 
 like a humming-bird, she had sipped a little 
 here, and a little there, and alighted nowhere!
 
 54 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Green's " Short History of the English People " 
 (the revised edition) is even better than the 
 " Student's Hume," for the framework of 
 such a course of reading, and Yonge's " Paral- 
 lel History of France and England " has the 
 important events arranged in tables, to enable 
 the eye to assist the memory. 
 
 The deeply interesting story of the downfall 
 of the Roman Empire, the progress of Chris- 
 tianity, the growth of the Church, the invasions 
 of the barbarians, and the rise of the modern 
 European nations, can be read in the same 
 manner with the "Student's Gibbon " for a basis, 
 with Charles Kingsley's " Roman and Teuton," 
 White's " Eighteen Christian Centuries," and 
 Creasy's "Decisive Battles of the World," to group 
 events and trace out causes and consequences, 
 Guizot's " History of Civilization " for the pro- 
 founder philosophy of history. 
 
 The modern discoveries in astronomy and 
 chemistry made by spectrum analysis, form an- 
 other intensely interesting group of topics. 
 One must read scientific books, however, as we 
 make children's dresses, with great tucks, and 
 " turnings-in," to allow for growth.
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 55 
 
 Take some standard work on English litera- 
 ture for the basis of another set of subjects, 
 and read selections from the works of such 
 authors as interest you most. Taine would be 
 excellent for this purpose, provided you can get 
 the " inevitable French flavor " out of your 
 mouth afterwards. 
 
 Imagine the delight of a course of reading 
 which should take in biographies like " Recollec- 
 tions of Mary Somerville," Mrs. Gaskell's " Life 
 of Charlotte Bronte," Lockhart's "Walter Scott," 
 Forster's " Life of Dickens," " Life and Letters of 
 Macaulay," " Memoir of Charles Kingsley," "Au- 
 tobiography of Harriet Martineau" and supplement 
 each with two or three of each author's best 
 and most characteristic works, and with extracts 
 from the writings of his most noted contem- 
 poraries. Why, one could move in "the best 
 society " all the while, and that without the 
 bother of dinner-parties and new dresses, either ! 
 Reading by topics in this way necessitates 
 the cultivation of the art of judicious " skip- 
 ping." Not by any means a picking out of the 
 easy passages and excluding the difficult ones 
 often just the reverse ; but a selection from
 
 56 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 the book of what you want now. Another 
 time you may want something entirely differ- 
 ent. Suppose you are reading "Romola," and 
 want more information about Savonarola and 
 his times. The first four chapters of Grimm's 
 "Life of Michael Angelo" will be just what you 
 need. You may leave the rest of the book 
 till some future day, when you wish to trace 
 the intricacies of Florentine history, or are in- 
 terested in the life of the artist or the history 
 of art. Many people who would never have 
 patience to read the whole of the first volume 
 of Taine's " English Literature" would enjoy very 
 much his chapters on Dickens, Tennyson, and 
 Macaulay, especially if they had just read some 
 of the works of these authors. Others, inter- 
 ested in the rise of the English language and 
 literature, would turn to his opening chapters 
 with equal enjoyment. 
 
 When you find what you want, pounce upon 
 it, whether it is in the last, middle, or first 
 chapter. It is not necessary to begin at the 
 beginning of the world. Begin right in the 
 very middle of things, wherever you are inter- 
 ested, and "read out." When you have got
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 57 
 
 out, you will want to turn around and " read 
 in " again, to the place you began. A recent 
 writer maintains that the best method is to 
 read backward, taking the present as a vantage- 
 point of vital interest, and searching for 
 causes. 
 
 Gibbon is said to have read from several 
 books at once. One topic would suggest an- 
 other in a different book ; that would broaden 
 out into something else ; that to something 
 still different, until he had a dozen books piled 
 up about him before he was ready to return 
 to the original work. 
 
 Do not be afraid that your reading will be 
 disconnected. Everything must hang on to 
 something else, and have something else hang- 
 ing on to it. Group the events around some 
 central point, and then what goes before and 
 what comes after that will take their proper 
 places naturally. 
 
 Or, again, let the different events in the 
 history of a nation or a century be strung on 
 the thread of some important idea. In English 
 history it might be the rise and progress of 
 English liberty; and then John and the Magna
 
 58 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Charta, Henry the Eighth's defiance of the pope, 
 the Stuarts and Cromwell, and a hundred 
 other persons and events will fall into line. 
 In mediaeval history let it be the progress of 
 Christianity, and the confusion and clamor 
 of sects, the roar and smoke of battles, will 
 be only the cloud of dust that conceals, not 
 impedes, the march of human progress. 
 
 But you say, "I can't remember history." 
 Don't try to. Most people try to remember 
 too many details, and end by forgetting every- 
 thing. Here, as in every other department of 
 knowledge, you must " dare to be ignorant of 
 many things, that you may not be ignorant of 
 everything." It is not the detail of battles 
 and generals and kings and emperors and pre- 
 lates, and assassinations and dethronements and 
 dates that you want ; it is the march of events 
 "the swing of the centuries." The details 
 are useful to give vividness to your idea of 
 the whole. If, when you read that "the first 
 century of the Christian era was characterized 
 by a series of execrable emperors, who by 
 their extravagance and their crimes were sow- 
 ing the seeds for the dissolution of the em-
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 59 
 
 pire," you have no knowledge of the details ; 
 these words alone convey very little meaning 
 to your mind, and are soon forgotten. But if 
 this sentence brings before you Claudius and 
 Caligula, and the martyred Christians flaming 
 in tarred sheets as torches to light Nero's 
 pleasure-gardens, it matters little if you have 
 forgotten the exact succession, or the dates of 
 each emperor's reign. Dates are great bug- 
 bears. Some people remember them naturally ; 
 for others, it is hard and unsatisfactory work. 
 But almost any one can remember the century 
 in which an important event took place. There 
 are only eighteen since the Christian era ; that 
 is not very formidable. Group events together 
 in centuries, and characterize each one by 
 some memorable facts, or men, or discoveries. 
 Make little lists of the representative great 
 things in art, war, literature, science. The 
 making of the lists will help you to remember 
 them ; looking them over afterward will refresh 
 your memory without forcing you to read 
 long chapters again. 
 
 But somebody asks, " If you go reading here 
 and there in this manner, how do you know
 
 6O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 what books you want, and when you get the 
 books, how do you find out what parts you 
 want ? " Just as you do other things. Look 
 and ask. By what mysterious freemasonry does 
 a new fashion in hair dressing spread itself 
 through the country ? " French twists " break 
 out in New York and Boston. In a week a 
 few favored heads in New Haven, Hartford, 
 Springfield and Worcester, are arranged after 
 that 'fashion. In less than three months there 
 isn't a young lady of any pretension to style 
 in any town in New England who would think 
 of wearing her hair in any other way. 
 
 One girl says to another : 
 
 " Did you see Mary New-fangle's hair last 
 Sunday ? " 
 
 " Yes ; dreadfully unbecoming, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Of course ; but then it is so stylish. I 
 wonder how she does it." 
 
 " I don't know exactly, but I got a good 
 look at it, and I think I know how it goes 
 up." 
 
 So one retires to her room, and, after an 
 hour's struggle with hand-glass and hair-pins, 
 comes forth with that satisfying consciousness
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 6 1 
 
 of being in the latest style, which, according 
 to Emerson, " gives a feeling of inward tran- 
 quil ity which religion is powerless to bestow." 
 The other girl, on the strength of a greater 
 intimacy with the fortunate possessor of the 
 "French twist," makes her a morning call. 
 Naturally she speaks of the becomingness of 
 the new style, and asks her how she does it. 
 Of course she gives the required information, 
 and if she is good-natured, takes her friend 
 into her own room and does it for her. Some 
 of the thought and ingenuity required to fol- 
 low the fashions would help to teach us what 
 books we wanted. 
 
 Ghnce over the heads of chapters and table 
 of contents, and you will soon find whether 
 what you are looking for is in that book or 
 not. Ask people who know where you can 
 find the best reading on such and such a 
 topic or epoch. The faculty of picking up in- 
 formation is a very valuable one, and like the 
 skilful playing of the chromatic scale can only 
 be cultivated by practice. 
 
 Reading in this way, too, soon awakens the 
 desire to own books, as it shows the need of having
 
 62 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 at hand a library even if only a small one ot 
 well-selected and standard books of reference. To 
 wait till you can get the book you want from the 
 public library is often to wait till your interest in 
 that particular matter has gone. 
 
 How strange when books are such a "fountain 
 of delight " that people gratify almost every other 
 want first ! How few young people of moderate" 
 means in furnishing a house make any reasonable 
 provision for the buying of books ! Yet often 
 the difference between ingrain and Brussels car- 
 pets, common and cut glass, plain shades and lace 
 curtains would be sufficient to make a good begin- 
 ning for a library. And if the books were properly 
 selected, and not of the kind that " cometh up as a 
 flower," they would be as good as new long after 
 the carpets have faded and the dainty goblets gone 
 to the ash-heaps. When people know how to buy 
 books there is nothing of which they can get so 
 much for their money. Almost any family that 
 can afford a piano could by a little self-denial have 
 some good encyclopaedia, and what an amount of 
 information and culture may be gained by both, 
 parents and children by a habit of constant refer- 
 ence to it ! Yet many people who consider them-
 
 HOW TO USE THEM. 6$ 
 
 selves cultivated and intelligent, who perhaps wear 
 velvet cloaks and costly jewelry, keep horses and 
 smoke expensive cigars, content themselves with a 
 showy edition of Dickens, half a dozen " blue-and- 
 gold " poets, and a few miscellaneous books, and 
 call it a library. 
 
 If you wish to get the full good of your read- 
 ing cultivate the habit of writing something, either 
 out of, or about, the books you read. You 
 would probably wish to make a brief synopsis 
 of the important facts and arguments in his- 
 torical and scientific works. Of many other 
 books it would be most natural to write a few 
 words concerning the general impression the 
 book makes on your mind, whether you like it 
 or not, and the reasons for your opinions. It 
 cultivates one's taste and judgment, as well as 
 assists the memory. It helps, too, to get one's 
 ideas about the books into some tangible shape. 
 
 I have a lady friend by no means a lady 
 of leisure who for several years has made it 
 a rule to write in a small blank book kept for 
 that purpose a few words about every book she 
 reads sometimes an abstract of the principal 
 points in the volume. A habit of frequent re-
 
 64 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 currence to that little note book keeps her read- 
 ing fresh in her mind. This is not formidable 
 business if you do not attempt anything too 
 elaborate. And even if it should take time and 
 patiei.ce you may find your reward in the re- 
 flection that a few good books remembered are 
 worth twenty poor ones forgotten.
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 
 
 AFTER all this is the most important ques- 
 tion, for unless we know why we want this 
 time, we will neither try to save it, nor if we 
 save it, care how we use it. 
 
 There is a large class of women whose one 
 ambition is, " to have things like other people ; " 
 i. e., to have them a little better than their 
 neighbors, or in the " latest style." Beyond that, 
 there is nothing more to wish for, and any one 
 who bestows much time or thought on any- 
 thing else is a puzzle to them. You remember 
 them as schoolgirls with what enthusiasm they 
 would tell you all about the latest fashions, and 
 how sweetly amiable they would look as they 
 missed the simplest question in their lessons. 
 
 Besides these, there are other women who do 
 not care for reading and study. Not because 
 6s
 
 66 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 they are frivolous, but, as they say themselves, 
 "they haven't the head for it." They agree with 
 George the Fourth. "What, what, what did you 
 ever see such stuff as Shakespeare ? " Of course 
 this is a misfortune, not a fault, any more than 
 color-blindness or deafness is. But they must 
 not try to limit other women to their own nar- 
 row horizon. Neither of these two classes will 
 be interested in the answer to our question 
 why we want more time for reading and study ? 
 But there are a great many women who con- 
 scientiously think that they must give up their 
 lives to sewing and housework, and feel grieved 
 and disappointed that they have so little time 
 for anything else. To read an hour a day 
 seems to them as impossible as to climb the 
 Himalayas, and they have been so educated by 
 years of precept and habit, that they actually 
 feel as if they were doing something wrong 
 when they sit down deliberately with a book. 
 To be sure, sometimes, they are carried away 
 by the whirlwind of a fascinating novel, but 
 they feel, all the time, an uneasy sense of the 
 necessary after repentance. Some of these 
 women, however, will attempt any marvel of
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 6? 
 
 fancy work or dressmaking, and " take no note 
 of time." Now if these conscientious, hard- 
 working women could only be convinced that 
 their usefulness would be increased by reading, 
 they would find time even among their many 
 duties, for that which would help them to do 
 more and better work. 
 
 Let us see if such is not the case, and if 
 it is, will it not answer our question, Why ? 
 And we will begin with the very lowest and 
 most selfish reason of all, viz : Reading rests 
 its, physically and mentally. Said an overworked 
 careworn woman, " It does me good sometimes 
 to forget about my work for a little while. If 
 I can put it out of my mind I can go back 
 to it, and do twice as much as I could if I 
 kept on when I was all tired out." Overwork 
 of any kind unfits us for our duties, as we 
 know by sad experience. How wretched those 
 days are when we get up in the morning with 
 every muscle aching and every nerve on edge ; 
 when a child's voice asking a question irritates 
 us like a blow in the face; when we feel "as 
 if we couldn't speak a civil word to anybody," 
 all because we "overdid" house-cleaning, or
 
 68 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 sewing, or preserving, the day before ! This work 
 may have seemed necessary. But this is only 
 an additional reason for us to be economical 
 of our physical strength. Now after some such 
 day, draw up your lounge where the light will 
 fall just over your shoulder, arrange your sofa 
 pillows so that your head will be erect, while 
 your spine and shoulders are supported, lift up 
 your feet on the lounge and take your book. 
 Try reading an hour in this position, and see if 
 the rest and change of thought do not lighten 
 your burdens, and make you forget your weari- 
 ness. 
 
 The lawyer needs to get away from his briefs, 
 the merchant from his ledgers, the mechanic 
 from his shop. A man would soon go crazy 
 who could not turn the key upon these things, 
 however much his mind may revert to them 
 from a distance. The men who have combined 
 great power of work with great power of endur- 
 ance, have been those who could enter heartily 
 into something else when the working day was 
 done. But a mother with young children cannot 
 get away from her work. It wakes up in the 
 morning with her (generally before she does), and
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 69 
 
 goes to bed beside her at night. If she leaves 
 the children it is only for a short time, and 
 that with an uneasy sense of direful accidents 
 to clothes, if not of life or limb. But she can 
 sit, with her cares and comforts asleep up-stairs, 
 or maybe at her feet, and 
 
 Gloriously forget herself to plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong into a book's profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth. 
 
 As much as she needs to read for the sake 
 of her children, she sometimes also needs to 
 read that she may forget for the time being 
 that she has any children. 
 
 This habit of reading will also be of great 
 comfort to us if our lives are quiet and com- 
 monplace. We shall not fret, and chafe, and 
 long after excitement and gayety if we are 
 shut up in solitary farmhouses or in unfre- 
 quented and unfashionable by-streets. We shall 
 not be "driven to go to bed at nine o'clock, 
 evening after evening, because there is nothing 
 going on," like some uninteresting young ladies 
 I once heard of, nor dread winter evenings and 
 rainy days, for we shall have plenty of company.
 
 7O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 \ 
 
 But laying aside the thought of our own rest 
 and comfort, let us look a little higher. For 
 the cJiildreri s sake ive must make the most of 
 ourselves. Many an unselfish mother has said, 
 " Oh, I cannot take all this time, there are so 
 many things to do for the children." She does 
 not realize that she may do more for them in 
 the end by cultivating herself than if she spends 
 all her time on clothes and cooking. A gener- 
 osity which makes the recipient weak or selfish 
 is not a blessing, but a curse. Have you not 
 seen grown-up sons who snubbed their mother's 
 opinions in the same breath with which they 
 called her to bring their slippers ? The meek 
 little woman has " trotted around " to wait on 
 them so long that they have come to think 
 that that is all she is good for. Their sisters 
 keep " Ma " in the background because she 
 "hasn't a bit of style," and is "so unculti- 
 vated," forgetting that she has always worn 
 shabby clothes that they might wear fine ones ; 
 that her hands have become horny with hard 
 work that theirs might be kept soft and white 
 for the piano, and that she has denied herself 
 books and leisure that they might have both.
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. /I 
 
 And there are other children, too noble for 
 such base ingratitude, who feel a keen, though 
 secret sense of loss as they kiss the dear 
 withered cheek and think how much more of 
 a woman " mother " might have been if she 
 had not shut herself away from the culture 
 and sweet companionship of books. 
 
 The love even of husband and children to 
 be permanent and valuable, must be founded 
 on genuine respect for character. Every mother 
 has a right to time for mental and spiritual 
 development as really as she has a right to 
 sunshine and air, and to food and sleep. She 
 cannot exist physically without the one ; she 
 cannot grow mentally and spiritually without the 
 other. If she throws herself so energetically 
 into her duties as seamstress and nursery-maid 
 that she has no time nor strength for any- 
 thing else, ought she to be disappointed if in 
 the end she receives only seamstress and 
 nursery-maid's wages ? Is there a more beau- 
 tiful sight than a circle of grown-up sons and 
 daughters with their mother as the chief cen- 
 tre, not merely of physical comfort, but of in 
 tellectual and spiritual companionship ?
 
 72 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Where the tall son, preparing his Commence- 
 ment essay, reads the first draft of it to his 
 mother, being sure that her intelligent criti- 
 cism will be helpful and stimulating ; where 
 the daughters select the choicest bits from the 
 new books to read to her, because " mother 
 always enjoys the best things;" and when the 
 schoolgirl, lost in the bewildering maze of 
 mediaeval history, or mental philosophy, instinct- 
 ively thinks, " I'll ask mother about this. If 
 she don't know herself, she'll know what book 
 will help me out." 
 
 She must have brains, you say, to be this. 
 Of course she must, and most women do have 
 more brains than they get credit for ; the trou- 
 ble being that they do not know how to use 
 or cultivate what they have. She must love 
 her reading and study, that she may have en- 
 thusiasm to arouse, and tact to sustain, the 
 children's interest in these things. If she is 
 musical, the practice hour under her supervision 
 will be no longer a distasteful drudgery. If 
 she loves history, mamma's true stories of Col- 
 umbus and Arthur, Hannibal and Alexander, 
 will be better than fairy tales. If. she is fond
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 73 
 
 of poetry, the children will listen entranced to 
 the "Lady of the Lake," and the "May Queen," 
 to the melody of Longfellow, and the ballads 
 of Whittier. If she enjoys scientific studies, 
 she will set the boys, armed with hammers and 
 baskets, to turning over every stone-wall in the 
 country, not after chipmunks, but after minerals 
 for their cabinets. They will shut up and feed 
 great ugly caterpillars, and eagerly watch them 
 turn into gorgeous moths and butterflies. The 
 girls will come to her with flowers from every 
 ramble, as I saw a four-year-old "tot" last 
 spring go running to her mother with a little 
 basketful of dandelions and "pussy-willows," to 
 ask for an "atomy" (botany) lesson. 
 
 Charles Kingsley's mother "was full of poetry 
 and enthusiasm, with a love for science and 
 literature." If Lord Byron's mother had been 
 a Monica, his fate and influence might have 
 been very different. Lord Macaulay says, " Affec- 
 tion has at least as much to do as vanity 
 with my wish to distinguish myself. This I owe 
 to my dear mother, and to the interest which 
 she always took in my childish successes." 
 
 In contrast to all this, is it not pitiful to see
 
 74 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 a mother made of such pallid, neutral stuff, 
 that she is only a negative element in the for- 
 mation of her children's characters ? Yet some 
 of the zeal which goes into the latest fash- 
 ions or into pie-crust would give her time 
 enough for these other things. Remember that 
 to every child (till he learns better) his mother 
 is the ideal of everything that is noble and 
 beautiful in womanhood. Happy the child who 
 never is, because he never needs to be disen- 
 chanted ! And on the other hand, as Ritcher 
 says, " Unhappy the man whose mother does 
 not make all mothers interesting." 
 
 A mother needs to read, also that she may 
 learn the best methods of managing and edu- 
 cating her children. Now laugh and say some- 
 thing about "old maid's theories." This is 
 the place for it. It is true that one great- 
 hearted, quick-witted mother without a " speck " 
 of theory, but rich with the wisdom of experi- 
 ence, will do better in bringing up a family than 
 twenty old maids stuffed full of all the theories ever 
 made or books ever written. Yet such a mother 
 could not read Abbot's " Gentle Measures with 
 the Young," or Harriet Martineau's " Household
 
 WHY WE WANT THOL 75 
 
 Education," without being helped at least to realize 
 something of the importance of her work. But 
 she must have time to think as well as to read. 
 She needs to look carefully at each child's peculiar 
 disposition, and to think about her management of 
 it. She must ask herself whether she is patient 
 enough with the heedless, firm enough with the 
 rebellious, stimulating enough with the indolent, 
 thoughtful enough for the sensitive, and winning 
 and tender enough with the reserved and undemon- 
 strative. It is a fearful thing for a mother to be 
 so absorbed in work of any kind as not to be 
 acquainted with her own children, for sometimes 
 her sins of omission are more fatal than Luer sins of 
 commission. 
 
 Another reason why a mother should read is 
 that she may direct the children in the choice of 
 books. It is as important in these days to teach 
 our children what to read as how to read, else they 
 are at the mercy of a flood of trashy fictitious litera- 
 ture. Hear what a New York librarian says : 
 " You would be surprised to know the number of 
 books young girls manage to get through with. I 
 have an unceasing call for works of fiction. Some 
 of these young misses average two or three books
 
 76 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 a day, and the more ' love ' the better they like 
 them." But how can a mother direct her children 
 if she seldom reads at all, and then nothing better 
 than such books ? How can she educate unless 
 she herself has been educated, by careful reading 
 into an appreciation of what is really good ? A 
 well-read mother can direct her boy to adventures 
 as marvellous as those of the cheapest fiction, in the 
 chapters of Doctor Kane and Doctor Livingstone, 
 to stories as interesting in Jacob Abbott's histories 
 of kings and heroes. Her girls need not devour 
 Miss Braddon's and Mrs. Southworth's novels, 
 while there is Mrs. Muloch-Craik, and Mrs. Charles, 
 and Mrs. Whitney. Children are generally glad 
 of suggestions about, and interest in, their reading, 
 if it is only begun soon enough, and done in the 
 right way. 
 
 " But how can I do all this," asks a young 
 mother despairingly, " with this little baby in my 
 arms ? " Comfort yourself, my dear woman ; he 
 will not be a baby in your arms always, and even if 
 brothers and sisters take his place, they must grow 
 up, too. For a few years they will fill up the most 
 of your time. But if you only realize that the 
 quality of your character is to enter into the
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 77 
 
 make-up of his mental and moral status, as truly as 
 the quality of his oatmeal porridge is to enter into 
 his bodily substance, you will not put all your 
 energies into the care of the one, and leave none 
 for the cultivation of the other. 
 
 A woman may do all this for the sake of her 
 husband, as well as for her children. Sir James 
 Mackintosh said of his wife, " To her I owe what- 
 ever I am ; and to her whatever I shall be." We 
 need only to mention the names of Lady Augusta 
 Stanley, Mrs. Disraeli, Mrs. Sevvard, Mrs. Mill, 
 and Mrs. Charles Kingsley, to understand what a 
 help a cultivated and intelligent wife may be to a 
 husband in public life. A gentleman who stands 
 at the very height of his profession said only a few 
 months ago, of a friend just called to one of the 
 most important and honorable places in this coun- 
 try, " He is thoroughly a self-made man, except in 
 so far as his wife has given him the assistance of an 
 excellent mind." 
 
 But you say at once, young men are afraid of 
 "superior girls;" they do not want "gifted" 
 wives. That is because they share in the popular 
 delusion that a " gifted woman " always is a being 
 with indefinite back hair and inky fingers ; whose
 
 78 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 table is set with sour bread and sticky crockery ; 
 and whose children roam uncombed and untaught, 
 a terror to the neighbors. But it is a delusion, 
 after all ; for there have been women who were 
 "domestic," and yet they were not entirely 
 absorbed in the quality of their soft gingerbread, or 
 the heels of their children's winter stockings. In 
 a New England village lives a bright-eyed little 
 woman, whose excellent classical education is of 
 practical assistance to her husband. He is a 
 teacher. She corrects the Latin exercises of his 
 classes, does all her own housework, and takes the 
 entire care of her little child, and does it all well. 
 Her house is bright with plants and flowers, and 
 "like wax-work" in its beautitul neatness ; she is 
 always tastefully dressed ; her child has that unmis- 
 takably air of being happily and tenderly cared for, 
 and her Latin is not like Aurora Leigl\'s Greek 
 
 * * lady's Greek, 
 Without the accents. 
 
 A woman's influence and work should radiate 
 beyond the circle of home life. Here, at once, we 
 stumble involuntarily upon a most perplexing dis-
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 79 
 
 cussion. We have had the question of woman 
 suffrage dinned into our ears with such an un- 
 ceasing clatter that some women have a latent 
 suspicion that everything said about lifting them 
 above their common-place routine is a part of some 
 secret plot to take them, willy-nilly, from their 
 quiet homes, and make them presidents or gov- 
 ernors, or at least judges of police courts at 
 once. 
 
 Women of quite ordinary capacity will say, 
 perhaps holding in their hands the fashion-book 
 they have been diligently studying for half an 
 hour, " Well, I like these other things very 
 much ; but, after all, you know a ' woman's 
 proper sphere' is among domestic duties" 
 words as true as mathematics, unless made an 
 excuse for indolent lapsing into stupidity. 
 
 It is quite pertinent to ask, What is woman's 
 proper sphere ? Every true woman instinctively 
 feels, whether she confesses it or not, that a 
 woman's happiest place is, as Mrs. Browning 
 says, in 
 
 The sweet, safe corner of the household fire, 
 Behind the heads of children.
 
 8O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 t* 
 
 Such a home is almost the ideal of almost 
 every girlish heart. But there are some who 
 never have it. To enter upon life with the 
 desire to get such a home, is to defeat that 
 very purpose, or to obtain in its place a mis- 
 erable substitute ; for, like every other gracious 
 gift, it comes, not by seeking, but in its own 
 natural way.* With some the bright vision 
 of married life has faded in its realization into 
 a cruel mockery. With others the black pall 
 of bereavement has shut the very sunshine out 
 of the heavens. In other homes, the woman's 
 heart yearns for the little ones who have never 
 come, and she looks forward to a future where 
 her name will always be written "childless." 
 What shall these do ? Because the heart is 
 desolate and the hands are empty, must the 
 heads be empty, too ? Let us not deceive our- 
 selves. Whether a woman works in the shelter 
 
 * I think those married women who indiscriminately urge 
 their acquaintance to marry, much to blame. For my part, I can 
 only say with deeper sincerity and fuller significance what I have 
 always said in theory : Wait God's will. From a letter of Char- 
 lotte Bronte, in Reid's Life.
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 8 1 
 
 of her own home or outside of it, she has 
 duties to society and an influence over it, which 
 she cannot avoid. How good or how broad 
 that influence may be, depends upon her in- 
 tellectual and moral culture. We must not be 
 hindered from any possible attainment by the 
 fear that we shall be suspected of sympathy in 
 a movement which so many of us regard with 
 distrust. Just as some women drag their long 
 dresses through the dirt, for fear if they shorten 
 them that terrible somebody, of whom we are 
 all so afraid, will think they want to wear the 
 hideous " Bloomers." 
 
 Whatever the past may have been, we know 
 that in the future woman can and will take 
 any place she is competent to fill. She ought 
 to wish 110 other. It is of little use for women 
 to whine over their "wrongs," or to storm and 
 scold at "man's tyranny." Men are quite as 
 willing to give us a place in the ranks of the 
 world's workers as we are to earn it, or to let 
 other women earn it, in peace and comfort. It 
 is well to remember that whatever has helped 
 to elevate woman to her present position has 
 been done by those brave spirits who have res-
 
 82 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 olutely wrought at their chosen labor, ignoring 
 the petty ostracism of their next-door neighbors, 
 who called them "singular," "eccentric," or 
 "strong-minded." And it takes some courage 
 to bear just that, especially if the woman is 
 also sensitive and longs for the approbation of 
 others to supplement the approval of her own 
 conscience. Did it ever occur to you how 
 much more comfortable it must be for ordinary 
 mortals to have the cordial sympathy of the 
 people one must see every day, than to meet 
 chilling indifference or downright opposition 
 from them, even if a distant public applaud 
 especially if, as is usually the case, the public 
 praise brings with it the public right of criticism ? 
 No, we must be careful not to judge harshly those 
 who are called to work outside of the beaten paths. 
 We do not know how the woman's nature has 
 drawn back, how the woman's voice has pleaded, 
 " Who am I, that thou shouldst put such a 
 word into my mouth?" how, perhaps, the hin- 
 drances of home life have been stricken away one 
 by one, till she is fain obliged to listen to the 
 voice, either from within or without, which calls 
 her to her task. When a woman has excep-
 
 WHY WE WANT THEM. 83 
 
 tional gifts, she has probably an exceptional 
 work in the world to do, and ought to do it. 
 
 Let the suffrage question take care of itself. 
 It sinks into insignificance beside the more im- 
 portant and practical one : Are American women 
 doing the most that is possible with the oppor- 
 tunities they now possess ?
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER. I. 
 
 BABY'S SLEEP. 
 
 MY DEAR : I was greatly interested in 
 
 your letter, especially in what you had to say 
 about the "new baby." But I hardly know 
 whether to be more amused or flattered at 
 the idea of your asking me for advice about 
 managing him me, who consider myself an 
 inexperienced young mother, too. Why, Mary 
 is only six years old now. Yet six years' 
 experience is better than six months, and there 
 may be something in your idea, that the moth- 
 ers of grown-up children forget a little just 
 what they did do, when their children were 
 "wee babies." And, to tell you the truth 
 to whisper it between you and me I don't 
 like to ask these old experienced housekeepers 
 and mothers many questions. There is such a 
 flavor of superior wisdom in her answers ; 
 
 84
 
 BABY'S SLEEP. 85 
 
 their " doxy " is so unmistakably orthodoxy, and 
 everybody else's " doxy " heterodoxy ; and they 
 don't agree among themselves, either. Mrs. 
 Superior Wisdom will tell you that she always 
 managed her babies this way, while Mrs. Self- 
 complacency declares that she treated hers 
 diametrically opposite, and "my children," she 
 says, with an unanswerable sniff and toss 
 of the head, " turned out about as well as 
 most people's children, after all." 
 
 The great fact which we are all apt to for- 
 get in talking about the management of chil- 
 dren is, that no two jpabies are just alike, 
 and what suits one case perfectly, will work 
 mischief in another. As Mrs. Partington says : 
 "There's as much difference in folks as in 
 anybody," and babies are only "folks" just 
 started. 
 
 You remember that old fellow we studied 
 about at school, with his iron bedstead, who 
 cut off the heads of those who were too 
 long, and stretched out those who were too 
 short ? Well, don't try to bring up your baby 
 after that fashion. It is worse than useless to 
 have a set of inexorable rules. The rules
 
 86 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 should be made to fit the baby, not the baby 
 the rules. 
 
 In the simple matter of putting baby to 
 sleep, Mrs. Superior Wisdom will say in her 
 lofty way : " I don't believe in rocking or cud- 
 dling babies at all ; I always used to lay 
 mine right down on the bed, and go away 
 and leave them. If they cried, they might cry 
 till they got tired." Now, Mrs. Superior Wis- 
 dom's children are what grandmother Badger 
 calls "white, still children like dipped candles 
 by natur'," with no more nerves than an 
 oyster ; of course they would lie still and go 
 to sleep, they didn't want anything better. 
 But with a child who inherits a nervous tem- 
 perament, who is so wide awake all over, that 
 it is a slow process for muscles, and nerves, 
 and brain to quiet themselves, sleep must be 
 coaxed. I know all about it. Didn't I listen 
 to Mrs. S. W., and out of the depths of my 
 conscientious desire to be a Spartan, sensible 
 mother, put my oldest baby to all manner of 
 unnecessary misery ? She was a nervous, excita- 
 ble child now, if over-tired, will lie broad 
 awake for an hour or two in the middle of
 
 BABY'S SLEEP. 87 
 
 the night and I let her cry herself to sleep, 
 well, more times than I shall another, if I 
 have forty. And her poor father was insane 
 enough to think he must "spat" her to make 
 her stop crying and go to sleep. "It was noth- 
 ing but temper," he said, while I, poor mis- 
 guided wretch, aided and abetted him ! There 
 ought to be a petition in the Litany "From 
 all our negligences and ignorances, Good Lord, 
 deliver our children ! " 
 
 And then by way of contrast, is my baby 
 a serene little specimen of perfect health, who 
 will be put into her bed wide awake, and 
 settle herself down in the pillows just as you 
 or I would. But let me warn you against 
 rockers. I have brought up two in a rocking- 
 cradle, and one without, and I am decidedly 
 " anti-rockers." You may say, that you don't 
 rock the baby much, only "jog" him a little 
 to keep him asleep. In a short time the 
 young tyrant rather likes the "jogging" process 
 and keeps awake to be rocked, and you won- 
 der why the baby don't sleep nights. He 
 wants to be rocked as in the day-time. " But 
 how do you get them to sleep ? " you ask.
 
 88 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 First, see that they are well-fed a half- 
 satisfied stomach is a sure enemy to repose 
 and warmly wrapped up, especially that the 
 feet are warm, not hot or perspiring, and that 
 the room is rather cool and darkened a little. 
 Their brains and eyes need darkness just as 
 ours do, and what refreshment do we get 
 from sleeping with sunshine or lamp-light shin- 
 ing right into our faces ? If it is evening, and 
 you use your sleeping-room for your sitting and 
 sewing-room, be sure that the air you've 
 breathed all day is "let out" and fresh air 
 " let in ' ' before baby is put to bed for the 
 night. Take him into another room, close the 
 register, and open the windows and doors for 
 ten minutes. By that time the air will be 
 thoroughly changed. Then close the windows 
 and open the register, and in a short time 
 you can bring the little one back into a fresh, 
 yet warm room. It would save many a rest- 
 less night, if this simple rule were oftener 
 observed. 
 
 All this granted, the matter is comparatively 
 easy. If you nurse your baby, as I hope you 
 do for your own comfort and his too, he will
 
 BABY'S SLEEP. 89 
 
 probably drop quietly asleep in your arms ; if 
 you feed him, then lay him gently down in 
 his crib. If it is winter, have the pillow 
 slightly warmed (not heated through and through 
 before a hot register,) but just enough to take 
 off that unpleasant chill of cold cotton. He 
 will probably nestle his little cheek into it 
 and go right to sleep. If he cries a few min- 
 utes, don't mind it, he will soon stop ; but, 
 if he screams violently and seems quite posi- 
 tive in his own mind that he don't like it, 
 take him up and " cuddle " him to your warm 
 cheek and rock him a few minutes (don't walk 
 with him, out of regard to your own back, 
 for he is growing heavier everyday); "mother" 
 him a little, and ten chances to one, the 
 little head will drop softly down, the warm 
 breath will come steadily and regularly against 
 your neck, and you will sit with the little 
 form nestled close and warm. Nobody but a 
 mother knows just how sweet it is to have 
 one's own baby calmly asleep in one's arms. 
 
 Now, all this seems like a great ado about 
 nothing, perhaps, but when you think just what 
 their sleep is to them, it is very important.
 
 9O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 They are in a new and wonderful existence ; 
 they are learning how to use their muscles, their 
 eyes, and their ears ; their little brains and nerves 
 are taxed severely. They arc not only keep- 
 ing up the waste of their bodies as we do, 
 but rapidly adding new material, in a few 
 months doubling their weight. Now, their 
 sleep renews their strength, especially keeps 
 their brains and nervous systems from being 
 overtaxed. A child that sleeps well is almost 
 always a healthy child, and vice versa. 
 
 To get the full benefit of this sleep, they 
 should have favorable conditions for it, warmth, 
 quiet, darkness. They should not be permitted 
 to be exhausted by excessive crying, nor dis- 
 turbed by noise, but should be kept in a 
 calm and comfortable state all over. Yet, I 
 have heard mothers speak approvingly of put- 
 ting their babies to sleep in the same room 
 where they were talking over their sewing, 
 and where other children were at play, and 
 all the bustle and stir of three or four people, 
 busy at various occupations. " Oh ! they get 
 used to it, and it's so much bother to take 
 them into another room ! " A mother should
 
 BABY'S SLEEP. 91 
 
 not ask herself what is the easiest way to get 
 along and have the most time for ruffling her 
 dresses or making calls, or pickling and pre- 
 serving, or scrubbing paint, but in what way 
 she can give her little one the best start in 
 life, and insure the harmonious development of 
 all his powers and faculties. And several 
 hours out of the twenty-four spent in health- 
 ful, restful sleep, will go a long way toward 
 the " sound mind in a sound body," which you 
 wish your child to possess when he grows up. 
 
 So you see there's a philosophy in baby's 
 nap as well as in some other things. I believe 
 that Sir Joshua Reynolds's motto applies to 
 the case of children as well as to painting 
 pictures : " God does not give excellence to 
 man, save as the reward of labor." If you 
 want to have healthy, well-developed children, it 
 will be only by that wise attention to detail, 
 which is the very soul of success in every- 
 thing. 
 
 But I shall weary you with my "preachment." 
 If you are not " talked to death," this time, 
 I may write you again about baby's food and 
 clothing, and half a dozen other things.
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER. II. 
 
 BABY'S FOOD. 
 
 MY DEAR : I am very glad if my "ad- 
 vice," as you call it, was of any value to you ; 
 and now you ask for more this time on the 
 subject of feeding the baby. In answer to your 
 questions, I shall simply tell you how I man- 
 aged mine. My ideas may not suit either your 
 notions or the baby's. In that case, try some- 
 thing different. If you only take common sense 
 for your guide, you won't go far astray. Oh ! 
 if I only could, wouldn't I found a Professor- 
 ship of Common Sense in some of these new 
 female colleges, for the sake of the poor little 
 babies to come, whose mothers will be edu- 
 cated in everything else except a common 
 sense-i-ble way of doing every-day things. But 
 that's a digression ; now to business. 
 
 When my babies were four or five months 
 old, I found it necessary to feed them a little. 
 92
 
 BABY S FOOD. 93 
 
 At first, it was only sweetened milk and water 
 once or twice a day. Gradually I increased 
 the number of times, and also added other 
 things, like thoroughly boiled oatmeal and hominy, 
 Graham crackers and milk, etc., till, by the 
 time they were a year old, they were weaned 
 without knowing it, and also had quite a " bill 
 of fare." I fed them with a spoon, too, from 
 the beginning; and, though it waa a little more 
 trouble at first, it saved me the necessity of 
 weaning them from the bottle. I also taught 
 them to drink from a small cup before they 
 were six months old. They spluttered and spilled 
 it at first ; but it was so convenient a way of 
 feeding them in the night, that it paid for the 
 extra trouble, and they soon learned to take it 
 nicely. And that reminds me how grateful they 
 are for a drink of fresh water occasionally. I 
 have seen a fretful baby quieted by that when 
 everything else failed. Ice rubbed on swollen 
 gums, and then allowed to melt in the mouth, 
 will afford great relief to a teething baby. In 
 your choice of food, be governed by the state 
 of the system. Some children need aperient, 
 others astringent food, and different articles at
 
 94 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 different times. By watching matters yourself, 
 you can regulate them perfectly in this way 
 without medicine, which should always be a der- 
 nier resort. The maximum of mother and the 
 minimum of doctor, you know. A healthy 
 child ought to live the first two or three years 
 of its life (and a good deal longer) without know- 
 ing what medicine is for such purposes. 
 
 Another important matter is to be regular in 
 your times of feeding them. A ten months' 
 old baby should have its five or six meals a 
 day as regularly as your three. Their stomachs 
 need intervals of rest as much as "grown-up" 
 ones, and will become accustomed to it very 
 readily. My little Katie, just one year old, has 
 her first breakfast soon after waking say be- 
 fore seven o'clock ; her second meal before her 
 morning nap about ten; her dinner which I 
 make the heartiest meal, and at which I try 
 any new article of food, since she can digest it 
 better then than earlier or later between twelve 
 and one ; her supper at four or thereabout, and 
 her "night-cap" about six just before she is 
 undressed and put into her crib. If she wakes 
 late in the evening, I give her a drink of milk ;
 
 BABY'S FOOD. 95 
 
 but she doesn't always want it, and when she 
 is a little older, I can accustom her to do with- 
 out it. 
 
 The pernicious habits some children have of 
 eating at odd hours is enough to destroy the 
 best natural digestion. Their appetites have no 
 zest to them, and they eat so little at the regu- 
 lar meal, that they soon begin to crave some- 
 thing more, and, taking a little then, destroy 
 the real healthy hunger, but do not satisfy the 
 stomach's needs ; and so they go never really 
 hungry, never fully satisfied. A healthy, well- 
 trained child will seldom ask for anything between 
 meals. Yet there are exceptions to such a 
 rule. Let a child come down stairs after a 
 restless night, on a hot, sultry morning. He 
 feels the need of food, yet the appetite rejects 
 anything that is not tempting. Suppose he is 
 helped, as children are in so many families, on 
 the principle that anything is good enough for 
 a child. The scorched, tough ends of the steak, 
 a "messy" (pardon the word, but it fits) spoonful 
 of warmed-up potato is " dumped " upon his plate. 
 It does not look nice to begin with, nor, to 
 tell the truth, does it taste much better. He
 
 C/5 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 takes a few mouthfuls, enough to satisfy the 
 immediate hunger, then wants to run back to 
 his play, always especially engrossing about meal- 
 time. The mother, too busy or careless to notice 
 what he has eaten, lets him go, and wonders 
 by ten o'clock what makes him so cross or so 
 listless. After such a breakfast, or rather no 
 breakfast, by eleven or twelve o'clock he begins 
 to ask for something to eat. If the mother 
 manages her children more by rule than by 
 "judgment" (as the cooks say), she sternly re- 
 fuses. " It isn't good for children to eat between 
 meals ; " or she goes to the other extreme and 
 gives him a sweet cake or some candy or too 
 much of something else, any of which equally 
 defeats the poor stomach's struggling attempts 
 towards an equilibrium. 
 
 But let the watchful mother, remembering his 
 light breakfast, at ten o'clock, or long enough 
 before dinner not to interfere with it, give him 
 a cup of milk with a few Graham crackers, or a 
 piece of bread and butter or a little fruit, just 
 enough to give the stomach strength to wait 
 till the next proper meal. We know by experi- 
 ence that there is such a thing as being too
 
 BABY S FOOD. 97 
 
 hungry to eat. Now, suppose, instead of the 
 breakfast I have described, he finds a dish 
 of fresh berries with a bit of nice bread and 
 butter at his plate (alas ! so few families know 
 really what good bread and butter is) or a saucer 
 of oatmeal smoothly cooked and rather thin, with 
 plenty of milk or cream, but not thick and dark 
 and pasty as oatmeal is apt to be. By the time 
 the hearty part of the meal is served he is 
 ready to eat it, or if not has taken something 
 really nourishing, what there is of it. A child's 
 appetite, needs to be encouraged at proper times, 
 that it may be discouraged at improper times. 
 Take care that your children eat heartily of 
 wholesome food at the table, and they will not 
 trouble you between meals. And here I think 
 sometimes particular, careful parents make a mis- 
 take. They are constantly repressing a child's 
 appetite, as if to eat too much was one of the great 
 dangers. I sometimes see children of well-to-do 
 parents who actually look under-fed, whose 
 mothers are constantly saying at the table, 
 " No, you have had enough. You *do not need 
 any more." A healthy child's appetite ought 
 not to urge him to over-eating provided, and
 
 98 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 here is the root of the trouble, provided the food 
 is of the right quality. If a child is allowed to 
 make the principal part of his meal from the 
 dessert at dinner, or the cake and sweetmeats 
 at supper, he will eat too much. Haven't you 
 been "out to tea" and seen children crum- 
 ble up their biscuit without eating it, and then 
 eat two or three large pieces of rich cake? 
 I take it for granted that you will not feel 
 satisfied if your child is merely free from actual 
 disease ; you want him to be positively healthy, 
 ruddy-cheeked, strong-limbed, active enough to 
 enjoy a winter walk without taking cold, vigor- 
 ous enough to bear a summer's heat without 
 " running down," full of overflowing life and 
 animal spirits. Then you will need to ask your- 
 self regarding his food, and to ascertain, not only 
 what won't hurt him, but what will give him the 
 best material for building up bones and muscles, 
 nerve and brain tissues ; in short, what sort of 
 timber you will furnish him to build his house 
 with. I often recall what an old doctor said 
 to me concerning children's taking cold : " They 
 don't have croup or lung fever from every un- 
 necessary exposure ; but a certain part of their
 
 BABY S FOOD. 99 
 
 vitality, which ought to go toward their growth, 
 is expended in resisting the evil influence." So 
 with food. 
 
 There are plenty of things which grown peo- 
 ple eat without much thought (and I don't know 
 that it does them much harm, 
 
 For they are old and tough, 
 And can eat them well enough,) 
 
 articles which are neither nutritious nor easily 
 digested, but which it is sheer robbery to feed to 
 children ; for instance, pies, rich cake, sausages, 
 indeed pork in any form, fried things generally, 
 all kinds of hot breads and biscuits, doughnuts, 
 griddle-cakes, etc. These should all be tabooed 
 in the nursery. 
 
 And people give them to their children in 
 this land of plenty, where there is such a variety 
 of prepared cereal food, oatmeal, cracked wheat, 
 hominy, Graham flour, rice, corn starch, etc., 
 and where, the whole year round, fresh, luscious 
 fruit of some kind is always plenty and cheap. 
 Compare a dessert of apples or oranges to one 
 of mince pie, or a breakfast of beefsteak and 
 oatmeal to one of sausages and griddle-cakes 1
 
 IOO TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Yet, I have heard mothers say who have 
 brought their children up on a course of griddle- 
 cakes, doughnuts and soda biscuits : " Oh, I let 
 my children eat anything; there is no use in 
 being fussy, and they're as well as most peo- 
 ple," in the face of the fact that no one of 
 them enjoys really robust health; that unusual 
 fatigue overcomes them completely, and head- 
 aches and billious attacks abound. Some people 
 seem to think that as long as their children 
 are not writhing in the actual agonies of the 
 stomach-ache, nothing has hurt them. 
 
 "But you don't object to griddle-cakes," I 
 hear you say. " Why, we had them almost the 
 year round for breakfast at father's, and we 
 children didn't eat anything else." 
 
 There is just the mischief of it. Two or 
 three light, carefully fried griddle-cakes to " finish 
 off" a substantial breakfast of meat or fish might 
 have a negative virtue, though I doubt if they 
 could have a positive one ; but for a growing 
 child to take, on a fasting stomach, to begin 
 the day's work with plateful after plateful of 
 the leathery, grease-soaked compounds that go 
 by the name of griddle-cakes, with syrup or
 
 BABY S FOOD. IOI 
 
 molasses to complete the mischief it seems 
 as if a little reflection would teach the most 
 ignorant mother better. For those who give 
 them to their children for supper, I haven't a 
 word to say. " They are joined to their idols ; 
 let them alone." 
 
 After all, the question isn't, What is the mini- 
 mum of care and thought required to bring 
 children up to the point where they can take 
 care of themselves ? but, What is the maximum 
 development of all their physical and mental 
 powers ? Has the average man or woman so 
 much physical health and mental culture that 
 we can afford to cast aside as unnecessary any 
 helps to a higher standard of physical develop- 
 ment ? How quickly your eye singles out in 
 a group of children the rosy cheeked and 
 thoroughly healthy-looking ones ! They are the 
 exception, not the rule.' You may see intelligent 
 faces, perhaps, but heavy eyes, pale cheeks and 
 narrow shoulders ; children entering in life 
 weighted with a body which will fail to do half 
 the work they have a right to expect of it. Now, 
 isn't it worth while to give the little folks a 
 fair start ?
 
 IO2 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 It is a very solemn thought that the useful- 
 ness and happiness of their mature years will 
 be largely augmented or diminished by their 
 health of body ; and for that we mothers are 
 directly responsible. I know there are hereditary 
 taints and predispositions to disease, and that no 
 human foresight can altogether prevent acci- 
 dents and contagious diseases ; yet, for a child's 
 normal physical condition, his mother is really 
 responsible. At all events, he should have no 
 worse constitution than he was born with, and, 
 if possible, a better one. 
 
 Did you ever think of all it meant to you 
 as a mother in those passages where Paul speaks 
 of our bodies as being made fit temples for the 
 indwelling of the Holy Spirit ? 
 
 But I have said enough to set you think- 
 ing, and remember that "the best living is to 
 make our lives the fruit of our best thinking."
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER. III. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. 
 
 MY DEAR : "How tempus does fugit" as 
 
 the college boys used to say ! To think your 
 last letter has lain unanswered so long, and 
 that baby is almost two years old ! And 
 besides after my long delay, I shall have to 
 be so ungracious as to give you the bitter 
 tonic of a little scolding I told you you'd 
 repent asking my advice for, from the tone 
 of your last letter, I am afraid you're making 
 one of the commonest mistakes of young 
 mothers. You say you get almost discouraged ; 
 your little boy has such a naughty temper, 
 and it is so hard to make him obey you ; 
 you never would have believed that a child 
 so young could be so self-willed and passion- 
 ate. Will you think me very cruel if I tell 
 you that I'm afraid you're as much to 
 blame as he is, and that the root of the dif- 
 
 103
 
 IO4 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 ficulty is too much sewing-machine, and too 
 little fresh air ! You sit down in your nursery 
 with the baby playing about on the floor, and 
 take care of him and sew all day, going out 
 but seldom ; isn't that so ? I can hear your 
 answer already " Yes ; but how can I help 
 it ? I can't leave him much with the girl ; 
 the kitchen floor isn't a fit place for him, and 
 she's too busy to take proper care of him. 
 If I go out I must take him, and to stop 
 and dress him and myself uses up so much 
 time out of the very best part of the day, 
 that I don't seem to accomplish anything with 
 my sewing. Besides, I am making him some 
 of the sweetest little dresses, with such cun- 
 ning little tucks, that I can't bear to leave 
 them." 
 
 And so you sew on, impatient at every 
 interruption. Your very interest in your work 
 making you "hurry to see how it is going to 
 look," the atmosphere of the nursery growing 
 more and more charged with mental electricity 
 and bad air, till finally the little fellow makes 
 some request more unreasonable than any 
 previous one, but which, if you were in your
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. 10$ 
 
 best estate, you would refuse so pleasantly or 
 substitute something equally good so readily 
 that he would be quite satisfied. Instead you 
 are provoked that he should ask anything 
 more when you are half-killing yourself (as you 
 think) for him now, and you give him an 
 angry denial. Then comes a storm of angry 
 crying ; your irritated nerves respond with an 
 equally angry (shall I say it ? Oh ! poor 
 human nature, it's true) shake or even slap. 
 He answers back saucily, or refuses to obey 
 you, perhaps even strikes at you with his 
 puny little hand, and then you must punish 
 him. But in what state of mind or body is 
 either of you for that most difficult and delicate 
 task a just and fair punishment. The affair 
 degenerates into an angry quarrel between a strong 
 person and a very weak one. Well for you if, 
 before the thing is over, the little fellow 
 doesn't say between his sobs, as I heard a 
 child say once, " Mamma, I didn't mean to 
 be naughty ; but you beginned it, mamma ! " 
 
 With what a sinking heart and reproachful 
 conscience you look back after your passion 
 has cooled off, and very likely, unless you are
 
 IO6 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 a good deal wiser than most of us, feeling 
 your injustice, you undo what little good your 
 discipline may have done, by injudicious indul- 
 gence afterward. And what has become of 
 your sewing ? Now, suppose you philosophically 
 say, I might as well take care of this child 
 out-of-doors as in the house ; and so you and 
 he go out for a walk, leaving your nursery 
 windows open meanwhile. How changed every- 
 thing is when you return ! How much better 
 he behaves ! you say ; and I doubt not if he 
 could speak, he would say the same thing of 
 you. "But the dress isn't finished that day.'' 
 No, but " as the life is more than meat, and 
 the body than raiment," so are red cheeks 
 better than white dresses, and a happy heart 
 than a ruffle. 
 
 Then on long hot summer afternoons there is 
 a deal of moral suasion in a good bath and 
 fresh clothing, even if he has had his regular 
 " wash " in the morning. I have seen three 
 or four children behaving like a troop of snarl- 
 ing little savages, transformed by a course of cold 
 water, hair brushes and a few clean clothes, 
 into a company of pleasant, well-behaved, civil-
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. IO/ 
 
 ized little Christians. If children's clothes are 
 uncomfortable, either too tight or too loose, 
 they will sometimes be cross from that alone. 
 Think of the miseries children endure from 
 tight skirt-bindings, loose underwaists that drag 
 down on their shoulders, stockings that won't 
 stay up, and hats that continually slip off ! 
 
 There will come times, too, when the child 
 makes a direct issue against your authority. 
 Such a moment is a very serious one, and no 
 mother ought to enter upon the conflict with- 
 out lifting-up of the heart to the source of all 
 wisdom for guidance and discretion. 
 
 You must remember that in this matter of 
 government you are aiming to teach your child 
 not merely to mind you now, but how to 
 govern himself when he grows up ; for he will 
 not always have you to teach him. You are 
 to instruct him to have command over his 
 passions, and appetites, and will, and incli- 
 nations, just as in learning to walk he learns 
 how to control and use his muscles and sinews. 
 Not to "break his will," not to put him in 
 subjection, but to teach him to control his will 
 by his reason. To do this he must learn to obey
 
 IO8 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 you, because it is right he should ; because you 
 are set over him as an authority for him till 
 he is old enough to be an authority for him- 
 self ; not because you have whipped him into 
 a fear of you. I will not say that a child 
 brought up on this principal will always spring 
 at your bidding like a well-whipped hound ; 
 but I do think he can be trusted to obey as 
 well in your absence as in your sight/ and com- 
 petent to see the right from the wrong in 
 any ordinary emergency of temptation. 
 
 It is very important not to allow your punish- 
 ment to be cumulative ; that is, not to heap 
 one thing on top of another. Because a child 
 has done wrong and been punished, to refuse 
 him his good-night kiss, or something like that, 
 is to a sensitive nature sometimes sheer cruelty. 
 Remember that the child has not forfeited your 
 love ; you are not angry with him, but with his 
 offense, and may combine the strongest indig- 
 nation against that, with the most loving ten- 
 derness and yearning over him. The punish- 
 ment over and the child repentant, consider the 
 matter settled, and never allow any one, especially 
 a servant, to taunt him with it afterward.
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. 109 
 
 I was quite surprised once to hear an amiable 
 lady tell how angry she was made when a child, 
 by an old colored servant who said to her with 
 an indescribable sneer, " Oh, your father had 
 to whip you, did he ? " The lady's eyes flashed 
 as she said, " I have never forgotten how like 
 a tiger I felt ; I could have killed the old 
 woman if I had been strong enough." 
 
 Another important thing is to give the child 
 time enough to understand what you do want, 
 and to see the reasonableness of your com- 
 mands. Don't spring at him in a highwayman, 
 your-money-or-your-life fashion : " Mind me in- 
 stantly, or I'll thrash you." Many a child has 
 been fairly startled into disobedience, by the 
 suddenness of his parent's commands which 
 aroused his natural resistance before he fairly 
 comprehended what was wanted. Of course a 
 parent must sometimes require instant and un- 
 hesitating obedience ; but when children are 
 accustomed to see that you have good reasons 
 for your commands generally, they will obey 
 without reasons when it is necessary they should. 
 On this account punishments which give them 
 time to think over matters are better than
 
 IIO TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 those which simply inflict pain. For instance, 
 if a child meddles mischievously, and you wish 
 to teach him to let things alone, tie up the 
 offending hands, and make him sit still half 
 an hour. You don't hurt him physically at all, 
 as a smart " whipping " would ; but the restraint 
 teaches him the lesson without pain. If he 
 runs away, tie up his feet. But let me say 
 in passing, do not send a child to bed supper- 
 less as a punishment. It is a barbarity. Did 
 you ever know a grown man or woman who 
 wasn't made cross and ugly by lack of food, 
 and we punish children not to stir up all the 
 hatefulness in them, but to make them see 
 their naughtiness and have no more of it. 
 
 There will be times, and I say it in all sadness, 
 when nothing will answer but the rod. But this 
 does not mean an angry beating, nor even to 
 break the yardstick over his head. ( A good 
 conscientious mother actually told me once, quite 
 unconscious of any thing queer about it, that 
 they hadn't any yardstick ; her husband had 
 broken it, punishing the children.) It should 
 always be the last resort, and never, never, NEVER 
 when the parent is angry. Stop and think about
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. I 1 1 
 
 it, be sure you are right and just and calm. 
 Then do it, if you must, with a firm mouth 
 and eyes full of tears. I have seen a father 
 punish his child in that spirit, and the instant 
 the punishment was over, the little creature 
 crept up into his arms, and laid her head on 
 his broad breast, while he was not ashamed to 
 let his tears mingle with hers. Such punish- 
 ments will not come very often, and I believe 
 need never be necessary after a child is six 
 or seven years old. Perhaps I can explain more 
 clearly what I mean by teaching a child to 
 control his will by telling you a little incident 
 which happened in my own family only a few 
 days ago. You know what a quick-tempered, 
 impetuous little whirlwind Mary was. She has 
 wonderfully improved in self-control, and we 
 haven't had any "tantrums," as she calls them, 
 for some time. Just before dinner is always a 
 bad time for discipline, for the best-tempered 
 child is apt to be cross when hungry ; there- 
 fore, avoid the occasion as carefully as you would 
 a conflict with your servant girl on Monday. 
 It was at that unlucky hour that I, unawares, 
 and in the most innocent manner, raised the
 
 112 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 demon of temper. Mary passed in front of me 
 as I sat sewing. It is a bad habit of hers, 
 and I pleasantly told her to go back and go 
 behind my chair. To my amazement she flew 
 into a passion, and though she threw herself 
 angrily back into her place by the window, she 
 absolutely refused to pass out behind my chair as 
 I wished. What should I do ? Here was direct 
 disobedience. She must obey me for her own 
 good ; but how should I make her do it ? 
 Punish her till she did ? or appeal to her sense 
 of right in the matter ? In the calmest voice 
 I could command in my surprise, I said to her: 
 " Mary, you know that it is perfectly right for 
 mamma to ask you to do this. If you do it 
 pleasantly, it won't take you a minute ; but if 
 you are cross and ugly about it, you will grow 
 crosser and uglier every minute, until by and 
 by mamma will have to punish you severely 
 in some way." Reaching over and kissing her 
 forehead, I added, " Mamma doesn't want to 
 punish you, but you must do as I say ; now 
 how much better to do it of your own accord." 
 But there was no response to this ; nothing but 
 angry defiance in look and tone. I spoke more
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. 113 
 
 sternly this time "Now, Mary, you must do 
 as mamma asks you to, because it is right you 
 should. Neither mamma nor you can go down 
 to dinner till you come out behind the chair 
 properly ; you are making us both very unhappy 
 because you are determined not to do right." 
 Still there was no relenting. I arose and made 
 preparations for dinner, showing that I expected 
 she would do what was right a great help 
 in itself sometimes then quietly seated my- 
 self again and waited. She was still angrily 
 twisting herself about and thumping on the 
 window-sill. "Mary," said I very sadly, "are 
 you going to oblige me to make you mind me 
 by punishing you ? Can't you obey me because 
 you love me and know what is right ? There 
 is a very naughty spirit in your little heart 
 now. That same naughty spirit makes grown-up 
 people do very, very wicked things ; are you going 
 to let it have its own way now ? If you do, by 
 and by it will be a great deal stronger than 
 you are." 
 
 " Why don't you make me mind you ? " she 
 said sullenly. 
 
 " Because you know yourself just what you
 
 114 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 ought to do, and I want to give you a little 
 chance to do right yourself. But I can't wait 
 a very great while. If you don't do it your- 
 self I shall have to make you do it, because, 
 my dear child, God has given you to me that 
 I may teach you how to grow up to be a good 
 woman, and if I don't make you obey me, I 
 sha'n't be obeying Him." 
 
 I waited a few minutes in silence. Suddenly 
 she flounced out and rushed ^ross the room, 
 passing behind the chair. "There, I did it," 
 she said angrily, "but not because you wanted 
 me to." 
 
 "Well, then," said I, "you ought to go back 
 and do it because I wanted you to." Some- 
 what to my surprise, she walked back and 
 stood sullenly there. 
 
 "Now," said I very pleasantly, "will you not 
 come out as you ought to ? " 
 
 I had arisen from my chair in response to 
 some call from one of the younger children, 
 and reached my hand toward her. She came 
 directly forward, took my hand and burst into 
 tears, completely subdued. I took her in my 
 lap a few minutes, bathed her hot face and
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. 
 
 eyes, and said a few soothing words to her. 
 The dinner bell rang, and we went down to 
 dinner. I said nothing more about the matter 
 then, diverting her mind by some pleasant stories 
 and cheerful conversation, and giving time for 
 her nervous agitation to subside. After dinner, 
 when I saw that she was quite calm, I took 
 her to my own room, and taking her in my 
 lap, had a long talk, telling her why it was 
 that we must^)bey everybody had to obey 
 something ; she would have obeyed the naughty 
 spirit if she hadn't obeyed me. Ever since 
 she has been old enough to understand it, we 
 have always, after any naughtiness of hers, had 
 a quiet talk about it, followed by kneeling down 
 together and asking help from God to keep her 
 from doing wrong again ; so I was not sur- 
 prised when she whispered in my ear, " Mamma, 
 hadn't we better tell Jesus about it ? " And 
 when I heard her penitent voice broken by 
 sobs, saying, " Dear Jesus, I'm sorry I didn't 
 want to mind mamma ; please forgive me and 
 make me always mind her and you too," I felt 
 she had learned a lesson in true obedience 
 which she would never forget.
 
 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 "Well," you say, "this is all very well; but 
 how shall I begin with my two-year-old little tot ? 
 I can't go through such a course of reasoning 
 with him." Of course not ; but suppose a case, 
 where you appeal to what little reason he has. 
 You know all about the reckless, indiscriminate 
 way such babies have of seizing everything they 
 can reach your work-basket, table ornaments, 
 and such things. The mother's first impulse is 
 to put everything out of the way, and I have 
 been in rooms where the baby's entrance was 
 the signal for a grand stampede of everything 
 movable and breakable. Now, a better way, I 
 think, is to allow things to remain unless it 
 is something very fragile and choice and 
 when his lordship " grabs " at it, to take hold 
 of his hand, shake your head and say " No, 
 no," in a very decided tone. He will probably 
 make a brave fight to get it ; but if he sees 
 the " No, no," means No (and you may have 
 to snap his fingers pretty sharply before he sees 
 it ), he'll soon learn there are some things which 
 have rights which even he is bound to respect. 
 There is a great difference in children about 
 it; but with time and patience I believe they
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE. I I/ 
 
 can all be taught (and sooner than most people 
 think) that there are certain things they mustn't 
 touch and here is a beginning in self-control. 
 If you once have a clear idea of just what 
 you want to do, you will be able to find ways 
 to do it from day to day. You will be sur- 
 prised how easily and naturally the little fellow 
 will learn, and how one day's teaching will pre- 
 pare the way for the next day's opportunity. 
 It is "here a little and there a good deal." 
 With patience, care and common sense, you'll 
 find your boy at six years neither a cringing 
 mean-spirited little sneak, nor an uproarious 
 tyrant ; but a manly, happy obedient child. Try 
 it and see.
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER. - IV. 
 
 HINTS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 MY DEAR : I am going to write you 
 
 to-day about the education of your little boy, 
 something which, perhaps, you have scarcely 
 thought of. I imagine I can hear your tone 
 of amazement as you say ; " The education of 
 a two-year-old baby ? Why, he is too young 
 to learn his letters even." Certainly he is, 
 and I hope he won't know them for at least 
 three years to come. But learning the alpha- 
 bet, important as it is, is very far from being 
 the first step in a child's education. Educa- 
 tion, you know, is a leading out of our facul- 
 ties, a kind of mental getting our tools in 
 order in such a way that we can use ourselves 
 to the very best advantage. Now, these little 
 people come into the world, developed, in some 
 
 respects, but little better than jelly-fishes, which 
 uS
 
 HINTS ON EDUCATION. I IQ 
 
 somebody says, consist of a mouth and a 
 stomach ; but every year, or month I might 
 say, different and higher sets of faculties are 
 developed. How much a child has to learn 
 the first three years of his life ! First, the 
 eye must be taught to see, and in seeing, it 
 learns, unconsciously, many things about the 
 laws of color, size, and distance ; then the 
 muscles and sinews must be trained to act in 
 obedience to the will, and the body must learn 
 the art of balancing itself (by no means an 
 easy task if it seem so, learn to skate.) 
 Later comes the learning to talk, which is 
 something like learning German or Greek, with 
 organs unaccustomed to utter intelligible 
 sounds. 
 
 The busy handling and tasting which little 
 babies do are not mere idle amusements, but 
 the efforts of the senses to carry impressions 
 of this strange world to the rapidly-developing 
 brain. First, the child sees an object, then he 
 reaches to take it ; in other words, to feel of 
 it then into his mouth it goes, to be tasted. 
 Compare this process with the way you make 
 the acquaintance of a strange object a new
 
 I2O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 dish at the table, for instance. At first you 
 look at it rather critically (if it don't look 
 nice, you think you " don't care for any, thank 
 you"), but if you are of an inquiring turn of 
 mind, and also courageous, you take a little 
 on your plate, and then " poke " at it with 
 ,your spoon, because you're too well-bred to 
 take it in your fingers ; but the impulse is to 
 find out how it feels whether it is hard or 
 soft, rough or smooth. If you are with other 
 people, you delicately inhale its fragrance ; but 
 if you are by yourself, you get a good sniff 
 at it, to see what it smells like ; then you are 
 ready to taste it. In other words, you learn 
 about new things just as the baby does. 
 
 You must take your baby just where he is 
 now, not much more than a little animal, and 
 educate his physical nature, so rapidly develop- 
 ing. For instance, he has just reached the 
 climbing age. Every chair and stool is a worry 
 to you ; and a pair of stairs is a perpetual 
 terror. Now show him how to get *up and 
 down the stairs, how to place his feet in 
 climbing up into chairs. Let him tumble a 
 little. It will only make him more careful.
 
 HINTS ON EDUCATION. 121 
 
 It is but a foretaste of the hard schooling 
 which experience gives us all our lives. Better 
 a little fall with you close by to stop it at 
 the right place, than a great one when you 
 are " off-guard " some day. (Remember that 
 too, when he is in his teens.) But, I beg of 
 you, if you want to see him grow up active, 
 strong-limbed and agile, do not keep his white 
 dresses too clean, nor tie his sashes after the 
 present uncomfortable fashion, so that he isn't 
 conscious of any legs above his knees. Then, 
 let him feed himself. He'll make a miserable 
 mess of it at first, but protect him well with 
 bib and tin tray, and he'll soon teach his 
 spoon the way to his mouth. Let him burn 
 his fingers when the stove is not very hot ; he 
 won't touch it when it would be dangerous. 
 
 As he grows older, and his intellectual na- 
 ture begins to wake up, his endless "why?" 
 and "what for?" are the keys with which he 
 unlocks the hidden treasures of the strange 
 world he has come to live in. As Tennyson says : 
 
 In children a great curiousness is well 
 
 Who have themselves ,to learn, and all the world.
 
 122 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 I doubt if we always think of that when 
 their irrepressible curiosity drives us almost 
 distracted. When he comes running to you 
 with some queer thing or other he has found, 
 or asks you why you do this or don't do that, 
 you may be sure that his perceptive faculties 
 are beginning to stir themselves. Tiresome as 
 his questions are, they show that his mind is 
 wide-awake and ready to receive on that sub- 
 ject at least. A question he asks you, all 
 eagerness, to hear your answer, is worth twenty 
 you ask him sometime when he doesn't care 
 a fig about it. Parents often persistently snub 
 their children and "shut them up" for six or 
 eight years, and then wonder why teachers 
 never can get them to " open out " again. 
 "Such teachers!" they say. "The children 
 don't take the least interest in their lessons," 
 never thinking that they did their best to take 
 all the edge off their minds before they sent 
 them to school to be " sharpened up." Even 
 if the subject is one quite beyond your boy, 
 and he can't understand your answer very well, 
 the fact that he knows something about it will 
 prepare his mind for a clearer understanding
 
 HINTS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 of it the next time he meets it. Of course 
 it is of the first importance that your expla- 
 nation shall be correct as far as it goes. Be- 
 sides this, it is a source of great comfort to 
 a child to feel that his parents care enough 
 about what interests him to talk with him 
 about it. May not the decrease of confidence 
 which parents complain of in their grown-up 
 children have its beginning in the days of 
 childhood, when neither father nor mother could 
 spend time to answer their questions, and other 
 people did ? 
 
 In addition to teaching him about the things 
 lie naturally notices himself, you wish to 
 show him how to keep his eyes and ears open 
 to everything about him. His senses are his 
 teachers, and the things he sees and touches 
 are what interest him first. If his senses can 
 be trained to accurate and constant observa- 
 tion, he has the elements of education in 
 himself, whether he has the advantages of 
 the schools or not. He will always 
 
 Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
 
 This can be done in a great many ways,
 
 124 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 varying according to the tastes and mental 
 capacity of the children as well as the dif- 
 ferent circumstances and talents of the mother. 
 For instance, a mother is out with her chil- 
 dren for a walk in the country, wheeling the 
 baby's carriage. The children spy some flowers 
 growing by the roadside, and ask in eager 
 child-fashion : " Oh ! what's that, mamma ? " 
 It is very natural and easy to say, " Oh ! 
 don't touch it, it's nothing but a horrid weed 
 perhaps it's poisonous." The children's interest 
 is dulled at once, and they run on, presently 
 finding something else. The answer this time 
 is, " That's a thistle ; don't try to pick it ; 
 you'll prick your fingers." And so the mother 
 trudges along, wearily thinking over her plans 
 for to-morrow's breakfast, or wondering if her 
 last year's travelling suit would "make over" 
 for a school dress for Susie, while the chil- 
 dren go frolicking here and there, getting into 
 mischief, and, very likely, having a scolding 
 before they get home, and all gaining nothing 
 from their walk except the freshness which 
 physical exercise and pure air bring to us in 
 spite of ourselves. Now, suppose she says
 
 HINTS ON EDUCATION. 12$ 
 
 as the children bring her the flower, "Why, 
 that's a Scotch thistle ; how did you manage 
 to get it without pricking your fingers ? " 
 an implied commendation of the child's skill 
 which he likes as well as you the praise of 
 your canned strawberries. (" Hardly any one 
 succeeds in keeping the real fruit flavor, you 
 know.") The mother goes on to say, " See 
 the pretty soft purple color, with all those 
 ' prickers ' around it, like soldiers guarding a 
 beautiful queen. Do you notice how each 
 flower, as you call it, is made of a great 
 many little flowers ? And there's one gone to 
 seed. Get it, Charlie, if you can, and let's 
 look at it." Now, the children's interest is 
 wide awake, and they ask a whole bookful of 
 questions. Baby, in her carriage, begins to be 
 impatient at the interruption of her ride. 
 " Let's walk along, and I'll tell you a story 
 about it." So the mother tells how once 
 when the English army was creeping up at 
 night to surprise the sleeping Scotch, a bare- 
 footed soldier stepping on a thistle alarmed 
 the camp with his cry of pain, and the enemy 
 were driven back in defeat, and how the
 
 126 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Scotch, in memory of the event, adopted the 
 thistle as their national emblem. The children 
 enjoy the mother's interest in what has inter- 
 ested them ; she, in her turn, is refreshed by 
 the change of thought from her ordinary cares ; 
 and they all come home invigorated mentally 
 as well as bodily. 
 
 Perhaps some day, in years to come, bending 
 wearily over school-books, the child reads the 
 incident of the thistle in his history, and, as 
 a flash of lightning illuminates a room at mid- 
 night, the whole scene stands out in his 
 memory ; the green-bordered roadside, the warm, 
 level rays of the late afternoon sun touching 
 the spires and roofs of the distant city, his 
 little sister in her carriage, his mother's smile 
 and voice ; and the whole lesson is brightened 
 by this reflection from his boyhood. In ways 
 like these, you can bind yourself with silken 
 cords about his future. From what wrong and 
 wickedness in his restless youth and early man- 
 hood little memories like these may beguile 
 him, you cannot tell. 
 
 To advance a step farther from the realm of 
 simple sight and touch, there are many his-
 
 HINTS ON EDUCATION. I2/ 
 
 torical stories which are as fascinating as fairy 
 tales ; for instance, King Alfred and the burnt 
 cakes, Columbus seeing the light on the shore 
 after his three weary days of watching, or 
 Washington crossing the Delaware. These 
 things, once committed to a child's memory, 
 are never "dropped out" as so much later 
 acquirement is, and they will serve as pegs to 
 hang historical knowledge on hereafter, or as 
 centres around which he will naturally group 
 other facts. One such story will make a whole 
 reign or epoch seem real to him. You ought 
 so to instruct your child that he will find 
 when he begins to study, that he knows a 
 great many things about history, geography, 
 and the physical sciences even, which he never 
 can remember not to have known, nor where 
 he learned them ; but there they are, a fertile 
 sub-soil for other seeds to grow in. 
 
 I meant to say something about the cultiva- 
 tion of your boy's literary taste, but I see 
 that I must reserve that until another letter.
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER. V. 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF LITERARY TASTE IN CHIL- 
 DREN. 
 
 DEAR : When I wrote you the other day 
 
 I said something about the various ways in 
 which little children can be educated long be- 
 fore they are old enough to go to school. Their 
 literary taste, also, can be cultivated at a very 
 early age. Now, don't misunderstand me, and 
 say you don't like precocious children, like 
 Macaulay, for instance for, between you and 
 me, I think he must have been an insufferable 
 little " prig," if he did all the wonderful things 
 his " Life " says he did. Children can learn 
 to like the good things in our literature, and 
 need not be confined to a mental diet of 
 "Mother Goose." Not that I don't believe in 
 "Mother Goose." Nothing ever can take the 
 place of "Boy-Blue" and "Bo-peep." But be- 
 
 128
 
 LITERARY TASTE IN CHILDREN. I2Q 
 
 cause children like molasses candy, are they 
 never to have beefsteak and bread ? And en 
 passant, let me suggest what an excellent basis 
 " Mother Goose " makes for stories, when a 
 mother's wits fail under the insatiable demands 
 for " a story, a new one, something we have 
 never heard before." Take "Jack Homer;" 
 dress him up in a new name, and, with vari- 
 ations and details innumerable, a la Susan Cool- 
 idge, make a new story. You can even smug- 
 gle in a little moral about selfishness if you're 
 skilful, and then end by repeating the immortal 
 verse, and the children's shouts of laughter 
 will repay you for the exercise of your imagin- 
 ation. And here let me whisper what a help 
 such a story is, when you're doing disagreeable 
 things, like washing their ears, or combing 
 snarls out of their hair, at which even good 
 children fret and twist about. 
 
 But I was speaking about cultivating a child's 
 literary taste. I know two little girls, aged 
 seven and four, who, quite unconsciously, have 
 made the acquaintance of some of the writings 
 of our best poets, and find great delight in 
 them, and are learning to appreciate good
 
 I3O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 things in a perfectly natural, child-like way. 
 The eldest was a very nervous, excitable child ; 
 it was almost impossible to quiet her to sleep, 
 and she was very wakeful at night. When she 
 was about three years old, her mother began 
 reading to her at bedtime some of those 
 pretty little pieces of poetry for children such 
 as are found in so many collections like " Hymns 
 and Rhymes for Home and School," " Our 
 Baby," and the like, and found the rhythm so 
 soothing to the child's restless nerves, that 
 she committed several to memory, to use when 
 the book was not at hand. She kept the little 
 book or newspaper scrap in her work-basket, 
 and when she was holding the baby, or could 
 do nothing else, she learned a stanza or two. 
 She soon had quite a collection at her tongue's 
 end, and now it is part of the bedtime routine for 
 mamma to repeat one or two. The little rol- 
 licking four-year-old, a perfect embodiment of 
 animal life and spirits, generally calls for Tenny- 
 son's " Sweet and Low, Wind of the Western 
 Sea," while the older one is charmed by Mary 
 Howitt's pretty ballad of " Mabel on Midsum- 
 mer. Eve," sweet, pure, good English, all of
 
 LITERARY TASTE IN CHILDREN. 13! 
 
 it. I watched the elder child as she stood at 
 the window beside her mother one wild No- 
 vember morning, looking at the dead leaves 
 whirling in the wind, while the mother recited 
 to her Bryant's lines, " The melancholy days 
 are come." It was almost as good as the poem 
 to see the child's gray eyes kindle with appre- 
 ciation as she eagerly drank in the words. 
 One can see the influence of this culture in 
 the little songs they make up for their dollies ; 
 a jingle and jargon, of course, but interspersed 
 with remembered lines from their " little verses," 
 and having withal a good deal of rhythm and 
 movement about them. Their ear has been ed- 
 ucated to a certain standard of appreciation, 
 just as German children who grow up in an 
 atmosphere of good music find delight in har- 
 monies which are hardly understood by our 
 less cultivated American ears. Of course, you 
 must carefully select beforehand to suit the 
 children's minds, and must explain similes and 
 allusions. 
 
 On the other hand, if children's minds are 
 so susceptible to good impressions, they are 
 equally affected by bad ones. A child's world
 
 132 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 is made up of the things he has already 
 learned ; and these things are conveyed to his 
 mind by what he has actually seen himself, or 
 by pictures and stories of what he has not 
 seen. His imagination is as quick to supply 
 " missing links " as the most enthusiastic Dar- 
 winian. What isn't there ought to be, so it's 
 all right. Whether he lives in a world peopled 
 by distorted, horrible, unnatural objects, or in 
 one full of all lovely and pleasant ones, de- 
 pends very largely on the pictures he sees and 
 the stories he hears. If his picture-books are 
 of the hideous order, in which a blue-bearded 
 monster holds a sword over an equally horrible 
 pink-and-scarlet woman, you must expect him 
 to wake at night from dreadful dreams shriek- 
 ing with terror, and imagining grotesque figures 
 leering at him from every dark corner ; and 
 much more so if he is allowed to hear ghost 
 and hobgoblin stories told by superstitious ser- 
 vant girls. Besides this, if his ideas of art are 
 built upon the basis of a Punch-and-Judy style 
 of picture-books, agents' engravings, or news- 
 paper and tea-store chromos, he must pass 
 through a long course of training before he is
 
 LITERARY TASTE IN CHILDREN. 133 
 
 capable of knowing what a good picture is, if 
 indeed he ever does know. In these days of 
 photographs and beautiful children's books, 
 there is no reason why people of even moder- 
 ate means should not educate their children 
 into something like a sense of artistic appre- 
 ciation. Why, you can buy at any print-store 
 a good photograph, neatly framed, of any of 
 the great pictures of the world (the " San Sis- 
 tine " cherubs, for instance) for a dollar. And 
 yet how many people there are who would 
 spend that money for Hamburg edgings with- 
 out a thought, but would never dream of buy- 
 ing a good picture to hang on the nursery 
 wall. 
 
 Now, I can hear you say with a sigh, " Oh 
 dear ! this all takes so much time and thought." 
 Of course it does ; so does everything that is 
 good for anything. As to time, you have "all 
 there is;" it depends only upon what you use 
 it for. I feel almost like groaning when a 
 young mother shows me some marvel of em- 
 broidery or machine-stitching, saying triumph- 
 antly, "There, I did every stitch of that 
 myself ! " When will women learn that their
 
 134 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 time is worth too much for better things, to 
 be spent upon such trifles. It is really pitiful 
 to see a good, conscientious little mother reso- 
 lutely shutting herself away from so much that 
 is best and sweetest in her children's lives for 
 the sake of tucking their dresses and ruffling 
 their petticoats. How surprised and grieved 
 she will be to find that her boys and girls, 
 at sixteen, regard " mother " chiefly as a most 
 excellent person to keep shirts in order and to 
 make new dresses, and not as one to whom 
 they care to go for social companionship ! 
 Yet, before they are snubbed out of it by re- 
 peated rebuffs, such as " Run away,' I'm too 
 busy to listen to your nonsense," children 
 naturally go to their mothers with all their 
 sorrows and pleasures; and if "mother" can 
 only enter into all their little plans, how 
 pleased they are ! Such a shout of delight as 
 I heard last summer from Mrs. Friendly's cro- 
 quet-ground, where her two little girls were 
 playing ! " Oh, goody, goody ! mamma is coming 
 to play with us ! " She was a busy mother, 
 too, and I know would have much preferred 
 to use what few moments of recreation she
 
 LITERARY TASTE IN CHILDREN. 135 
 
 could snatch, for something more interesting 
 than playing croquet with little children, not 
 much taller than their mallets. She has often 
 said to me, " I cannot let my children grow 
 away from me ; I must keep right along with 
 them all the time, and whether it is croquet 
 with the little ones, or Latin grammar and 
 new skates with the boys, or French dictation 
 and sash-ribbons with the girls, I must be ' in 
 it ' as far as I can." 
 
 But really, the most difficult part of all this 
 is to think of it. We are so preoccupied with 
 our cares and plans that we haven't " the heart 
 at leisure from itself" thus even to sympathize 
 with our children. We brood over Bridget's 
 deficiencies and our plans for trimming Mary's 
 dresses, to say nothing of heavier burdens, till 
 our poor heads are half-distracted. Yet if we 
 could only lift ourselves above these thoughts 
 into a clearer atmosphere while we are with 
 the children, we would find ourselves refreshed 
 when we go down into the fogs and mists 
 again. It is the everlasting monotony of our 
 work of the same things over and over every day 
 that wear upon us mentally quite as much as
 
 136 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 / 
 
 bodily. If we could only be strong enough to 
 make our intercourse with the children lift us 
 out of the " ruts " of our dull planning and 
 thinking, this culture of them would be a change 
 and stimulus instead of an additional burden. 
 (A change from saddle to harness often rests 
 the galled horse, you know.) We should find 
 ourselves snatching little bits of time to look 
 into encyclopaedias and histories to see if our 
 facts are correct ; brightening up rusty school- 
 knowledge ; perhaps even turning into account 
 our schoolgirl accomplishments of drawing, and 
 music, and composition ; and certainly reading 
 with some thought for the children, which of 
 itself would supply the lack of purpose so usual 
 in women's reading. The little we do is apt 
 to be desultory and unsatisfactory ; a hodge- 
 podge of popular novels and the newspaper. 
 We have so little time to read, we say, but 
 we let slip five and ten-minute chances, or waste 
 them over some frivolous story, because we 
 haven't, or think we haven't, any object to 
 stimulate us. Our husbands read and study in 
 the direction of their business or professions, 
 and their minds are constantly sharpened by
 
 LITERARY TASTE IN CHILDREN. 137 
 
 the necessities of their daily work. Ours, if we 
 are not careful, are narrowed by the necessary 
 and important attention to the detail of house- 
 keeping, till we can talk an hour over the 
 comparative advantages and disadvantages of 
 Irish or colored help, or discuss "knife-plaiting" 
 
 like philosophers ; but beyond that . Yet, 
 
 I am confident of my sex's ability, and sure 
 that there are a good many of us who wish 
 for better things, and if we could only once 
 get into the way of it, would find ourselves 
 accumulating knowledge and growing in culture 
 from year to year, and that, too, without hav- 
 ing dusty furniture, or unmannerly children. 
 Let the desire to cultivate and educate the 
 children be an inspiration, and we'll find our- 
 selves cultivated and educated by the same 
 process. 
 
 We shall find some things crowded out of 
 our busy lives. We must have fewer clothes, 
 less trimming, simpler cooking ; but the men- 
 tal furnishing of the family will be so much 
 more complete. Hear what Gladstone says 
 about man's work, and make the application 
 to woman's : " To comprehend a man's life, it
 
 138 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 is necessary to know, not merely what he does, 
 but also what he purposely leaves undone. 
 There is a limit to the work that can be got 
 out of a human body or a human brain, and 
 he is a wise man who wastes no energy on 
 pursuits for which he is not fitted ; and he 
 is still wiser who, from among the things that 
 he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows 
 the best." 
 
 You will perceive that I have said nothing 
 about religious education. I know so well how 
 the joy and beauty of happy Christian living 
 pervades your home that it does not seem 
 necessary. A child cannot grow up in such 
 an atmosphere without being religiously edu- 
 cated any more than the morning-glory can 
 help taking color and beauty from the sun- 
 beams which surround it. In a home like 
 yours, where every one is courteous to every 
 one else the children included the grace of 
 politeness will become incorporated into a 
 child's nature, not a mere surface "veneer," 
 but as a genuine, hearty unselfishness. 
 
 Now, don't beguile yourself by thinking 
 " These things are well enough, but far beyond
 
 LITERARY TASTE IN CHILDREN. 139 
 
 me now ; when my boy is older I'll begin." 
 Your baby will be in college before you know 
 it. Children have a curious way of growing 
 older every week, and we must take them as 
 well as old Father Time by the "forelock," 
 if we are going to do much with them.
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER 
 SECOND SERIES. I. 
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 MY DEAR : I can scarcely realize all the 
 
 changes you speak of in your last letter. I 
 sometimes think we busy grown-up people never 
 would know how fast we are growing older if 
 the children did not grow up so fast. To 
 think that " that baby " is a great boy of ten, 
 and there are three younger ones ! And you 
 ask for more "advice," something for older 
 children like that I gave you a few years ago 
 for the little ones, especially some ways of 
 amusing them on stormy days when they are 
 all shut up in the house together. I don't 
 wonder that you say you are sometimes almost 
 frantic by five o'clock. Haven't I been there 
 myself ? Isn't it the very hardest hour of the 
 whole day ? The children miss the fresh air. 
 They have played so hard indoors that they 
 
 140
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. 14! 
 
 are tired and cross, and squabble with each 
 other, and finally they all flock about your 
 chair, restless and impatient for something, they 
 don't know what. You are hurrying to finish 
 a piece of sewing before the early-gathering 
 twilight quite creeps over you, perhaps a trifle 
 impatient that it has come so soon. One tired 
 little head comes down into your lap, and 
 pulls your work out of your hands. Another 
 uneasy mortal climbs upon your chair, jogs 
 your elbow, and unthreads your needle. Be- 
 hind you Johnny is slyly teasing the baby 
 who finally breaks out into a loud wail. 
 
 Now lay aside your work, you are ruining 
 your eyes, your nerves, your temper, and 
 accomplishing nothing. Take the children to 
 the washstand, bathe the hot cheeks and wash 
 the moist little hands cold water is a means 
 of grace sometimes smooth the tangled hair, 
 take off the heavy boots and put on slippers. 
 The judicious distribution of clean aprons also 
 adds materially on these occasions to the sum 
 total of human happiness. As you are so 
 fortunate as to be musical gather them about 
 the piano, start off with some bright and
 
 142 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 rollicking song, or "Mother Goose" jingle, the 
 " Muffin Man " or the " Shaker Dance " with 
 its accompanying gestures. After you have 
 worked off some of the surplus electricity in 
 this way you can gradually lead them up to 
 quieter songs. Perhaps by the time your 
 husband's key clicks in the front door, he 
 will be greeted by the sweet strains of some 
 such dear, old-fashioned hymn as " Glory to thee, 
 my God, this night." It will surely be a 
 pleasanter welcome than to hear you say, 
 " There children, your father is coming, now 
 you'll have to behave." 
 
 If you tire of the piano, books are never 
 failing. Read a chapter in the "Arabian 
 Nights," " Robinson Crusoe," or coming down 
 to modern times, the "Bodleys." If these are 
 beyond your audience, try " Dotty Dimple " 
 and her cousins, or the ever-delightful " Mother 
 Goose." If you make wise selections, the 
 children will surely listen. They are naturally 
 fond of melody and rhyme ; if they never 
 hear anything better, they will be satisfied 
 with mere jingle. But try spirited ballads and 
 little poems by our best authors and see how
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. 143 
 
 quickly they will learn to appreciate them. 
 Few boys will be deaf to " How they brought 
 the good news from Ghent," and few girls 
 but will be charmed with Westwood's " Little 
 Bell." There is no lack of books to cull 
 from. Almost every household possesses some 
 of our standard poets, or selections from their 
 works. There are little compilations like Lucy 
 Larcom's " Hillside and Roadside Poems," Mrs. 
 Giles' " Hymns and Rhymes for Home and 
 School," " Hymns for Mothers and Children," 
 Elliot's "Poetry for Children," to say noth- 
 ing of the school readers, which contain many 
 excellent selections. Of larger and more expen- 
 sive works, there are Dana's " Household Book 
 of Poetry," Mackay's " Thousand and One 
 Gems," or, best of all for children, Whittier's 
 "Child Life" in prose and poetry. 
 
 You can make a book for yourself by saving 
 favorite bits of poetry by known and unknown 
 authors, which go floating through our news 
 papers and magazines. Before you are aware, 
 you will have an attractive book, dear to the 
 children because you made it, and an educa- 
 tion and refreshment to yourself. But perhaps
 
 144 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 the children are too uneasy to listen to read- 
 ing. Then tell them a story. If you cannot 
 " make up " one, fall back on the classics, 
 "Cinderella," or "Jack the Giant Killer," or one 
 of Hans Andersen's tender little "Marchen." Tell 
 " Thumbelina " once and see if you haven't a 
 story always ready. 
 
 Where the children are old enough to sit 
 up for some time after supper there is another 
 hour to be provided for. Don't you remember 
 those delightful evenings spent at the houses 
 of your playmates where the mother, and 
 sometimes the father, took part in the games 
 of "Twenty Questions," "Stage Coach," or 
 " Proverbs, " where they popped corn and ate 
 apples with the children ? But you cry in 
 dismay, "What is to become of my reading 
 hour ? The evenings are the only times I 
 have for myself." True, but by eight o'clock 
 the younger ones ought to be in bed, and 
 the older ready to go to their lessons or their 
 library books. You may become interested in 
 your book, but not so absorbed that you can- 
 not stop to help Mary about her map ques- 
 tions, or to talk with Tom about Stanley's
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. 145 
 
 "Across the Dark Continent." Your children's 
 reading and study, as well as their play, 
 ought always to have a decided flavor of 
 "mother" in it. 
 
 This does not provide for the days, and 
 that is, after all, the main question. Have 
 you ever tried a scrap-book ? It makes no 
 end of litter, unless managed just right ; but 
 let it once become an " institution," to be 
 provided for as you do for the week's wash- 
 ing, and it will keep the children whole- 
 somely busy for many an hour. Understand, 
 to begin with, that the main object is to 
 amuse, not to produce results. If you expect 
 the children to make nice picture books, you 
 will either be wofully disappointed, or be 
 obliged to do the main part of it yourself. 
 For the youngest children, fold into book-form 
 large sheets of brown wrapping paper, and let 
 them put on them anything they choose. 
 They will be pleased with anything that will 
 paste, especially if it is bright colored. For 
 the older ones you can get sheets of white 
 paper at any printing office. Make stout 
 covers of cotton cloth, pasted on stiff paper
 
 146 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 and sew it all firmly together, book-binder 
 fashion. For pictures use odd magazines, old 
 papers, publishers' catalogues, advertising circu- 
 lars, old books whose bindings are hopelessly 
 broken, and the like. You will be surprised 
 if you stop to think how many things are 
 " illustrated " nowadays, whose ultimate destiny 
 is the waste basket. It is hardly necessary 
 to say that they should not be allowed to 
 have pictures that are really bad, either in 
 subject or design. Because we do not want 
 to cut up our"Aldines" and "Art Journals," 
 we need not think that the " Weekly Ter- 
 rifice " or the patent medicine almanacs are 
 good enough for them. There are so many 
 good and cheap pictures everywhere that there 
 is no excuse for children or anybody else 
 looking at bad ones. If the children are old 
 enough to do the work nicely, or you are at 
 leisure to direct them, they will make very 
 handsome books, but if not, let them put 
 pictures in, upside down or wrong side out, 
 and they will enjoy the doing of it just as 
 well. The girl of eight or nine will produce 
 very different results from the child of five or
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. 147 
 
 six, and should have better materials ; but the 
 little one will take quite as much pride hi 
 his "s'cap book" even if it has a piano 0:1 
 top of a church steeple, and a flaming insur- 
 ance laid side by side with last year's calendar 
 upside down.. 
 
 Do not give them many pictures at a time, 
 and insist that they finish cutting them out 
 before they begin to paste them in. Other- 
 wise, they will have paste, scissors, pictures and 
 waste-paper " heaped in confusion dire." I 
 know of no amusement to which children will 
 return with greater delight, and out of which 
 they will get so much pleasure for the same 
 expenditure of time and money. 
 
 If your pictures are too good to give to the 
 children, make the book yourself, if you have 
 time, and let them stand by and look. They 
 can help by preparing the pictures for you to 
 paste. 
 
 In such a book you can put all these brig!; 
 little reward and Christmas and Easter cards, 
 pictures and valentines which are continually 
 floating into a family of children. These pretty 
 things soon get lost and spoiled, but if put
 
 148 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 into a book at once they make a very inter- 
 esting and pretty picture-book. If the leaves 
 are made of cloth, and the book, when fin- 
 ished, is simply bound by a bookbinder, it will 
 last a whole generation of children and be a 
 never-failing delight. 
 
 When they get tired of pasting, let them 
 paint the pictures. The little ones can use 
 colored crayons or pencils ; the older ones will 
 enjoy best the toy water-color paint boxes. 
 Give them a few instructions about rubbing 
 off the colors, and teach them to use the tips 
 of the brushes, net to daub with the whole 
 brush. Provide them with tiny cups for the 
 water, and something on which to wipe the 
 brushes. A few minutes' instruction to begin 
 with will help them very much, and they will 
 paint by the hour. 
 
 Another amusement can be furnished them 
 by cutting tissue-paper into square pieces about 
 as large as an ordinary book, and letting them 
 trace the pictures in their " St Nicholas " or 
 " Nursery " or scrap-books. This is a good 
 preparation for their writing and drawing les- 
 sons by and by. Some systems of drawing
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. 149 
 
 and writing begin with tracing lines of copies 
 through thin paper in just this way. The lit- 
 tle folks will learn a great deal about form 
 and color by all this handling of and looking 
 at pictures, to say nothing of what they learn 
 from the pictures themselves. 
 
 The success of these amusements will depend 
 very much upon the good condition of their 
 tools and materials. If the paste is lumpy, 
 the pencils dull, the paper crumpled, the 
 brushes the wrong kind or worn out, the 
 embryo artists will soon come flocking back 
 to your sewing-chair, complaining, "O, mamma, 
 we can't do anything with it. Why can't we 
 go out doors ? It is horrid in the house." 
 
 Through the long summer days, especially if 
 several very warm ones come in succession, 
 children often droop and look pale with- 
 out seeming really sick. The truth is that they 
 are over-tired with play and the heat, and do 
 not sleep as well or as much as in the lon- 
 ger and cooler nights. Have them go up- 
 stairs after their mid-day dinner, take off their 
 shoes and stockings and as much of their 
 clothing as you think they can bear without
 
 I5O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 taking cold. Now send each child into a room 
 by itself, to lie down and rest. Give them 
 books to read or look at, or pencil and paper 
 to draw with. Do not say anything about a 
 nap ; children over five years old generally 
 " hate naps," but insist that they keep quiet 
 and do not talk to each other. Very likely 
 the youngest or most fatigued will drop off 
 into a little sleep which will refresh him very 
 much. 
 
 An hour or two of quiet even if they do 
 not sleep will rest the busy little muscles ; 
 the separation from each other will rest the 
 busy little brains and tongue. And here is 
 the real benefit of the plan ; if they are 
 allowed to tumble all over the beds and frolic 
 with each other they do not get the quiet 
 they need. What a relief it is to us some- 
 times to have an hour or two by ourselves 
 away from our best friends. After they get 
 up and are washed and dressed you will be 
 astonished to see how amiable they have grown. 
 
 And these same hot afternoons afford an 
 excellent opportunity to teach them how to 
 bathe themselves. There is no hurry about
 
 INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. I$I 
 
 their dressing; it is so much time saved from 
 exposure to the hot sun. As long as they 
 do it themselves, no matter if it takes an 
 hour. Send them into the bath-room. (It is 
 not necessary to add with certain restrictions 
 as to age and sex.) If they are wide-awake 
 children they will frolic fast enough to be in 
 no danger of taking cold. You will enjoy the 
 shouts and laughter that come from the bath- 
 room, especially if you don't have to stay 
 there yourself. When you think they have 
 "splashed" enough, show them how to dry 
 themselves, but let them do it all. The older 
 ones will help the younger, and they will soon 
 learn to be skilful enough to give themselves 
 their regular bath. That will be a great help 
 to you, for it is quite a tax on time and 
 strength to bathe three or four lively children. 
 Besides you want them to grow up with 
 habits of personal neatness, and after they 
 have once learned the comfort of frequent 
 baths and how to serve themselves, they will 
 need no other teaching. After such a rest in 
 the middle of the day, they can enjoy the 
 evening's coolness a little later. It does some-
 
 152 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 times seem rather hard to send children 
 up-stairs into warm rooms to bed, in the long 
 June twilights, almost the only part of the day 
 that is pleasant or even endurable. 
 
 But I have told you enough for a begin- 
 ning. Try these plans and see how you like 
 them. You may modify them and suit your- 
 self better.
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER 
 SECOND SERIES. II. 
 
 GIRLS DOLLS AND BOYS* COLLECTIONS. 
 
 MY DEAR : Something for the little girls, 
 
 this time, is it ? Dolls first of course. I 
 think Eve must have been the only woman 
 who couldn't recollect playing with paper dolls. 
 There is a limit to a family of ordinary dolls, 
 for the dresses are generally beyond the power 
 of the little mothers to make ; and the 
 patience of the best-natured real mother fails if 
 she has too many grandchildren to sew for. 
 But paper dolls ! Why, a child can have a 
 hundred or two, and if she makes and clothes 
 them all, who can complain ? Of course, those 
 they make themselves are a great deal more 
 precious than any you can buy. Besides, like 
 almost everything else, the doing is better 
 than the thing done. But home-made dolls 
 
 'S3
 
 154 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 are apt to have homely faces. To remedy 
 this, let them make bodies to match the pretty 
 little heads that come among the embossed 
 pictures used for decorating. An ingenious 
 girl will soon learn how to do it, if you give 
 her a single pattern, and will vary the bodies 
 to suit the heads. As for the ladies, a body 
 is not at all necessary the elaborately 
 trimmed and trailed skirts make up for that 
 slight deficiency. Old fashion plates and 
 pattern catalogues will furnish hosts of dolls, 
 and tissue paper and a little ingenuity will 
 provide wardrobes. I saw a little girl of eight 
 years made as happy as a queen by a birth- 
 day present of a complete dressmaking estab- 
 lishment for her paper dolls. It was a small 
 wooden box, neatly lined with colored paper, 
 and holding a bottle of mucilage, a pair of 
 blunt-pointed scissors "for her very own," and 
 a dozen half-sheets of bright-colored tissue 
 paper. The other half-sheets were laid one 
 side to be brought out when these were gone. 
 The cost of such a box, as you see, is trifling, 
 but more amusement could be got out of it 
 than from any costly toy.
 
 GIRLS AND BOYS COLLECTIONS. 155 
 
 If your little girls are like mine, they are 
 constantly teasing for " something to sew," and 
 that, too, when you are too busy to oversee 
 their patchwork, or anything you wish them to 
 do well. If you give them an old stocking to 
 darn, it takes only a few minutes to mend 
 that all up into a heap, and then the cry 
 begins, " Mamma, that is all sewed up ; I 
 want something more." At your leisure cut 
 some perforated card-board into pieces small 
 enough to be handled easily ; mark with a 
 lead pencil some sort of a pattern flowers, 
 birds, letters, animals, anything and let them 
 embroider it with bright-colored worsted. (Be- 
 tween you and me, they will not be much 
 more hideous and useless than a good deal 
 of the " fancy work " with which grown-up 
 girls amuse themselves.) The older children 
 will enjoy marking the "patterns" for the 
 younger ones, and the important question 
 whether the cat's tail shall be pink or scarlet, 
 or the house blue or yellow, will make it as 
 lively as a sewing society. You can vary this 
 amusement by letting them prick patterns in 
 stiff paper with a large needle. Paper prick-
 
 156 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 ing is one of the prettiest of the Kinder- 
 garten " occupations." Words like papa, mamma, 
 sister, etc., can be marked for them to prick 
 and work into " book-marks " for birthday 
 presents. Do not expect any of these things 
 to be either pretty or good for anything ; 
 then you will not worry yourself or the chil- 
 dren over them. All you care for is to keep 
 them busy and interested ; it is only another 
 form of play. 
 
 When, however, the children are large enough 
 to sew in good earnest, they can amuse them- 
 selves and learn a great deal about cutting, 
 fitting, and sewing, by making their dolls' 
 clothes. Cut paper patterns for them, show 
 them how to lay these patterns on the cloth, 
 and give them a few directions about begin- 
 ning ; then let them cut the garments out 
 themselves. When the cutting is finished, pin 
 the separate pieces together and let them 
 baste the garment. Stitch the long seams on 
 your machine, leaving them to do such short 
 ones as will teach them the various stitches 
 without discouraging them by the amount. 
 "What!" says one, who believes that woman
 
 GIRLS AND BOYS COLLECTIONS. I $7 
 
 was made for the needle, not the needle for 
 woman " teach a girl to sew by stitching 
 her dolls' clothes on the sewing-machine ? " 
 Yes ; why not ? We do not teach children to 
 walk by starting them on a pedestrian tour 
 from New York to Boston. Nor is it neces- 
 sary in order to teach a girl to sew that she 
 should do so many yards of hemming and then 
 so many more of something else. I never 
 could see any sense in giving " over-and-ovcr " 
 to beginners. It is one of the most difficult 
 stitches to do neatly, and yet little girls are 
 usually given " patch-work " for their first les- 
 son. Many a woman carries a life-long dislike 
 to sewing because of the coarse towels and 
 dull patch-work she dragged over in those 
 dreary hours when she was "learning to sew." 
 Don't you remember how you used to say, " If 
 I could only have something pretty and that 
 could ever be finished ! " What grown woman 
 does not get "tired to death" of a garment 
 which lies in her work-basket for weeks ? 
 And a little girl's sewing work soiled by long 
 handling and perhaps bitter tears, is anything 
 but inviting. Her interest m it is gone long
 
 158 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 before it is finished. But if she helps cut 
 out the doll's dress herself and sees it "go 
 together " in a single afternoon, she is eager 
 to finish it and put it on the dolly. And 
 she learns too, to expect to finish things up 
 speedily, to turn off work as we say, which 
 is a very important part of the training of an 
 embryo housekeeper. 
 
 To "dress up" is another favorite amuse- 
 ment with little girls. Give them some cast- 
 off garments for this purpose, old finery worse 
 than useless to give to the poor. A long 
 skirt is indispensable. Show them how to pin 
 it back, so as to be short enough in front to 
 walk in, and yet float off in a long trail 
 behind. Take that old bonnet and pin some 
 ribbons on it ; give them that faded sash of 
 the baby's and a bright scarf for a shawl. I 
 have seen a yard or two of pink mosquito 
 netting used with astonishing effect. They will 
 array themselves gorgeously and " go out call- 
 ing," when they will mimic you and your 
 friends with small talk till you will wish you 
 had set them a better example. Let them 
 have these things to keep and provide a place
 
 GIRLS AND BOYS COLLECTIONS. I_ 
 
 to put them in, when they are through play- ' 
 ing with them (and sec that they put them 
 there), and you will be surprised at the amount 
 of fun they will get out of them. 
 
 An ingenious mother can use the "gifts" 
 and "occupations " of the Kindergarten to some 
 extent for the little ones, even if she does 
 not carry out all the ideas fully. Children are 
 very fond of mat-weaving, and sometimes pro- 
 duce and imitate very pretty patterns. They 
 delight in clay-modeling; it is a kind of scien- 
 tific mud-pie. It is rather dirty work, how- 
 ever. 
 
 But we must not forget the boys entirely. 
 Let them turn their country rambles in the 
 long summer vacation to good account by 
 making " collections." The arranging and re- 
 arranging these will keep them busy many a 
 stormy winter's day. It is not the things col- 
 lected which are of any value, usually though 
 they d3 pick up a good deal of information 
 from their bugs, butterflies, stones, shells, 
 coins, or postage stamps but, most of all, the 
 schooling in energy and perseverance. Even a 
 collection of stamps and postmarks from old
 
 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 .envelopes, insignificant as it may' seem at first 
 sight, will help to organize their geographical 
 knowledge. The countries, States, or subdivis- 
 ions arrange themselves and form a rough 
 frame-work to uphold the facts learned from 
 books or general reading in after years. And 
 let me just whisper to you here, if you go 
 with them on these expeditions into the woods 
 and fields, don't "nag" them all the while. 
 Never mind if it does take your breath away 
 to see the trees they climb and the steep 
 places they look over. How can they walk 
 quietly along as you do when there is a whole 
 world full of things to see and hear ? Be 
 thankful for their superabundant vitality which 
 sends them careering up and down into all 
 sorts of accessible and inaccessible places. 
 Don't let your presence be a restraint and a 
 worry. Give them liberty to do foolish and 
 unnecessary things, as seems to you. Poor 
 fellows ! the time will come soon enough when 
 the heads will be tired and the legs be glad 
 to walk soberly along. These collections will 
 furnish a wide-awake mother constant favorable 
 opportunities for training her children, morally
 
 GIRLS AND BOYS' COLLECTIONS. l6l 
 
 as well as mentally. An over-generous child, 
 \vho will be tempted to give everything away, 
 will learn to count the cost before he commits 
 himself. A careless one will, perhaps, learn to 
 take care of his treasures, if he finds that is 
 the only way to have any. Again, the contin- 
 ual exchanges with their playmates may be the 
 means of teaching them to be both honest 
 and prudent. For instance, here is a boy who 
 imposes upon a little fellow by exchanging a 
 worthless United States stamp for a valuable 
 foreign one. If he is your boy you will give 
 him some forcible advice about common hon- 
 esty. Tell him that Charles Dickens said, 
 " Your ' smart ' men will have America by the 
 neck and strangle her some day.' And you 
 don't want him to be one of them. If your 
 boy was the victim, teach him to be more 
 careful in his bargains and not to believe every- 
 thing that is told him. Boys who have learned 
 to be both honest and wary have made a good 
 beginning in their business education. 
 
 Do not be dismayed if, after you have taken 
 considerable trouble to provide some of these 
 amusements for them, they don't " take " to
 
 1 62 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 them or soon tire of them. They are capri- 
 cious about their plays. The engrossing pursuit 
 of one week is entirely cast aside the next. 
 It is of no use to force an interest in any- 
 thing. But watch and be ready to help, direct, 
 encourage or check, as the case may be, those 
 things which please them. The object of all these 
 things is not so much to amuse the children 
 as to teach them how to amuse and occupy 
 themselves, to learn how to use brains, eyes, 
 and fingers ; to be deft and neat, and busy 
 and happy. It is as possible for a mother to 
 do too much herself in amusing her children 
 as in taking care of them. Where a child 
 seldom does anything for itself, is never allowed 
 to try experiments, and make failures, the 
 mother becomes a slave, and the child a help- 
 less doll. It might as well be wrapped in pink 
 cotton, like a set of jewelry, for any use it 
 learns to make of itself. But how hardly the 
 world uses these helpless little creatures when 
 they grow up. The girls lose their etherial 
 beauty and fade into spiritless women or quer- 
 ulous invalids. The boys lose heart at their 
 first rebuffs, and settle back on to any one
 
 GIRLS AND BOYS* COLLECTION. 163 
 
 who will carry them along. We mothers must 
 aim at the golden mean between too much care 
 and too little. And as their food helps to 
 make up their physical status, so their play 
 can contribute towards their mental and moral 
 stamina. It is all worth looking after. As 
 Michael Angelo said, " Perfection is made up 
 of trifles, but perfection itself is no trifle."
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER 
 SECOND SERIES III. 
 
 SOME QUESTIONS OF ORDER AND SUNDAY 
 OCCUPATION. 
 
 MY DEAR : I laughed over your last 
 
 letter, I couldn't help it, in spite of its dismal 
 tone. You say "your 'amusements' are dread- 
 ful. What with the snippings for the paper 
 dolls, the paste and the cuttings for the 
 scrap-books and the rubbish they bring in 
 with their ' collections,' it is brush up and pick 
 up from morning till night." It is discourag- 
 ing, that is a fact. After you have spent an 
 hour in making your sitting-room look neat 
 and inviting to find Mary's twenty-five paper 
 dolls and their wardrobes encamped on the 
 sofa, or Jamie's box of horse-chestnuts and 
 little stones emptied on the hearth-rug. And 
 if you complain, the bright little faces cloud 
 over and you know they think, even if they 
 
 164
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. 165 
 
 don't say it, " I can't have a bit of fun any- 
 where." But have you not a room that you 
 can devote to the children and their play- 
 things ? Not some dark and dismal corner, 
 good for nothing else, but warm and light, 
 and not too far away from you. Such a room 
 needs sonic furniture, too. An empty room is 
 as desolate and uninviting for them as for 
 you. An old lounge, not too good to be 
 climbed all over and made into a coach or 
 railroad train, a large table for the pasting 
 and painting and drawing, with chairs of the 
 right height for them to sit comfortably at 
 in, an old book-case for the boys' " collec- 
 tions,'' an old bureau or trunk for the doll's 
 clothes, will make it a child's paradise. Every 
 article of furniture will have a dozen different 
 uses. The girls will curtain off the corners 
 with sheets or mosquito netting for their 
 separate houses, and will display much taste 
 and ingenuity in arranging their dolls airl 
 furniture. The boys can fit up their side 
 with their work-bench and tools, and' make 
 ships and shavings without disturbing anybody. 
 If the room has a large closet with shelves
 
 l66 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 and drawers, so much the better. It will 
 sometimes be as a forcible old lady said 
 once of a similar place "a perfect old glory- 
 hole." There will be dolls in various kinds of 
 undress uniform all over the floor, The large 
 wooden box you have covered with carpet for 
 the playthings will hold all sorts of toys in 
 all stages of demolition. If a child wants to 
 find one, he tips the box over, empties them 
 all on the floor, then runs away and leaves 
 mamma to pick them up, if she will. But 
 she mustn't for here is just the place to 
 teach the children how to be neat and 
 orderly ; a larger how than we arc apt to 
 think, sometimes. Habits of neatness and 
 order are something to be learned as well as 
 Latin grammar, and for most people they are 
 quite as difficult. The children will enjoy 
 their play-place much better if their playthings 
 arc where they can find them. They will not 
 play long in a room in hopeless disorder, 
 though they will do their best to get it so. 
 I am inclined to think that one cause of 
 our ill-success in teaching our children to be 
 orderly is often that they really do not know
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. l6/ 
 
 where different articles belong ; perhaps they 
 do not belong anywhere. We do not provide 
 suitable and accessible places for their play- 
 things. Our collars and laces would fare ill 
 if we were expected to keep them in the 
 same box with our slippers and overshoes. 
 Yet, when Tommy throws his skates on to the 
 same shelf in the same closet where Fanny 
 keeps her wax doll, much to the damage of 
 dolly's nose, we scold Fanny and tell her she 
 can't have any more nice things till she learns 
 to take better care of them ! Ought we to 
 blame a child, when his playthings arc kept 
 in a closet at the end of a long, dark passage- 
 way, if he dreads to put them up, and runs 
 off when he can, leaving you to " pick up " 
 after him ? 
 
 It will be a good deal easier for you to do 
 all this yourself than to teach him to do it. 
 It will be much more convenient for you to 
 clear away blocks than to stand over him and 
 direct his efforts and insist that no other play 
 shall be begun till these things are put in 
 their places ; but mothers must not ask what 
 is the easiest way, but what is best.
 
 168 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 Of course, even if they have the responsi- 
 bility of keeping their play-place in order, you 
 will have to exercise considerable supervision. 
 But a few minutes of your practiced hand, 
 when you are making your morning rounds, 
 will straighten out a good many matters. The 
 children can spend an hour or two occasion- 
 ally on a rainy day, under your direction, 
 playing, " clean house." Just think what 
 " eternal vigilance " our houses demand of us, 
 and be charitable towards the children's short- 
 comings in their domains. 
 
 Other people's children, visitors, not so care- 
 fully trained as yours, perhaps will sometimes 
 bring dismay and disorder. I knew a mother 
 who was much annoyed by her child-visitors, 
 who would scatter everything over the floor 
 till the instant of departure arrived, then leave 
 the poor little host, tired and flushed, to do the 
 " cleaning-up," which, of course, seemed very 
 stupid after the fun was all over and the 
 company gone. She told her boy when he 
 went visiting that he might stay five minutes 
 after the time set for coming home to help 
 his little playmates put their things away.
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. 169 
 
 Whether the mothers took the hint and gave 
 their children similar directions, I have never 
 heard. But perhaps you cannot set apart and 
 warm a room expressly for the children. Or 
 even if you could, they may be too young 
 and timid to be happy away from you. There 
 is no place quite like mamma's room, after all. 
 I must tell you the experience of a friend of 
 mine, who found, as you have, that there 
 must be a definite place for this kind of 
 work. She could not spare another room, so 
 after some experimenting she made a " chil- 
 dren's corner" in her own room. She got 
 papa to make them a low, broad table out of 
 some extra extension-table leaves nailed firmly 
 to a support just high enough to match the 
 children's little chairs. She nailed down a 
 small drugget in a sunny, pleasant corner, 
 making, as it were, a little room in the large 
 room. The low table and the little chairs 
 stood in the middle of this tiny room, a waste- 
 basket stood on one side of the table, and a 
 small commode on the other. The children 
 could sit at their work and throw the waste 
 papers into the basket, or take their books
 
 I/O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 and pictures out of the commode almost with- 
 out leaving their seats. Here they sat and 
 made scrap books, and drew and painted 
 pictures, and cut paper dolls, and " played tea- 
 party " whenever the fancy pleased them. It 
 was always ready. There were no chairs to 
 be dragged out of their places, or a table to 
 be cleared off before they could begin their 
 operations. If in the intervals of dressing or 
 undressing, there was a spare moment long 
 enough to cut out or paste in a picture, it 
 was done. It was not difficult to keep in 
 tolerable order either, for the pictures were 
 kept in a large box which easily shoved into 
 the closet. The scissors and paste had their 
 appropriate and accessible places. All the 
 "litter" was kept within the line of the drug- 
 get, and anything found outside of it, or 
 on the floor, after one notice of clearing- 
 up time, was liable to confiscation. After the 
 scissors and pencils had been put on a high 
 shelf for some hours, they learned to keep 
 them where they belonged, and the comfort, 
 to the children and the relief to the mother 
 of such a place was almost incalculable.
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. \J I 
 
 I have seen a broad window shelf used as 
 a place for older children to keep their writ- 
 ing and drawing materials, where they wrote 
 their little letters and did all that miscellaneous 
 scribbling so dear to their hearts and so 
 troublesome to older people. A hanging scrap- 
 bag received the bits of paper, a small broom 
 and toy dustpan stood in the corner close by, 
 and they were expected to leave things tidy 
 when they finished their literary labors, or ran 
 the risk of being called in from some delight- 
 ful play to do it. 
 
 For their other plays you will need to pro- 
 vide other places according to circumstances 
 and your other household arrangements. For 
 instance, give up one of the lower shelves of 
 your library book-case for their picture and 
 story books. Let the girls have a hall-chamber 
 for their dolls' houses, where boys are not 
 allowed except in slippers and "on good 
 behavior." If you encourage and help them 
 and protect them from the boys' inroads, they 
 will Icaru to make and keep their dolls' beds 
 very dainty with pillow shams and lace cano- 
 pies. Give the boys a corner in the wood-
 
 1/2 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 shed or attic, for their bench and tools, and 
 you will be able to solve more or less satis- 
 factorily the problem of where to keep the 
 children's things. 
 
 I know a household where the boys' turn- 
 ing-lathe and jig-saw occupies a corner of the 
 back-parlor opposite the piano. A large square 
 of oil-cloth protects the carpet and defines the 
 boundaries, but there the boys make chess-men 
 and chips, wall-pockets and saw-dust, right "in 
 the midst of things." Not every mother could 
 or would give up her back-parlor, but many 
 mothers would be willing to set up a jig-saw 
 in every corner of the house if it would 
 insure her boys growing up into such fine, 
 manly fellows, such a help and comfort, as this 
 mother's sons are to her. 
 
 Another very important thing, and one too 
 often forgotten, is to teach the children to 
 respect each other's property. Let each child 
 have his or her shelf or drawer for his most 
 precious possessions, and allow no one else to 
 molest it. Give the older children the high 
 shelves, out of the reach of the younger ones, 
 for their treasures. It is not a small matter
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. 1/3 
 
 to come home from school and find that some- 
 thing very precious has been ruined beyond 
 repair, and to be carelessly told in excuse, 
 " Oh, the baby got it ! " I fear we do not 
 always appreciate how much suffering the 
 havoc of the " baby " causes the older ones. 
 And see that you respect their rights, too. 
 It may be nothing but a ragged bit of lace, 
 or a string tied to a button, which you are 
 sweeping into the dustpan, but if you are as 
 well acquainted with your children's pastimes 
 as you ought to be, you will recognize dolly's 
 best lace collar or a part of Ned's "machinery." 
 It is only in your eyes a stray picture from 
 an old magazine, or perhaps a cast-off blank 
 book which you are throwing into the fire, 
 but it is the frontispiece for Jane's scrap-book, 
 or Mary's diary, precious to her soul. It 
 takes only a minute to rescue these trifles and 
 put them in their places, and that minute is 
 well and wisely spent ; for in it you have 
 shown your sympathy with your children's 
 pleasures and gives them a practical lesson on 
 the rights of property. 
 
 All these things are a deal of trouble and
 
 1/4 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 make a woman a slave to her children, you 
 say. Yes ; but isn't it better to be a " slave " 
 to the children than to the children's clothes ? 
 and many mothers are willing bond-servants to 
 them. A child once said to her mother who 
 was complaining of the care she was, " If you 
 don't want to take care of a little girl, what 
 do you keep one for?" Children must respect 
 grown-up people's feelings, of course, but grown- 
 up people must respect their necessities. Amuse- 
 ments of some kind they must and will have. 
 It depends upon you whether they have them 
 under your eye and with your cordial cooperation, 
 or whether, repressed and chidden at home, they 
 steal slyly away to other and quieter, but 
 perhaps disreputable sports. To forbid children 
 doing everything they like is not training 
 them, any more than merely chaining up a dog 
 will teach him to be a good watch-dog. Chil- 
 dren who are constantly hushed and repressed, 
 so far from being trained, grow up spiritless 
 and subdued, or sullen and defiant. Even 
 noise, trying as it is to us, is a necessary 
 part of a child's life, just as is his constant 
 restless activity. To play " bear " or " blind
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. 1/5 
 
 man's buff" without the noise is, as Kingsley 
 says of something else, like playing ' Hamlet ' 
 with the part of Hamlet left out, and the 
 ghost and queen into the bargain." It is not 
 always, or even usually, the quietest children 
 who are the most trusty. Said a lady of 
 much experience in a boys' boarding-school, 
 " I often think that these noisy fellows who 
 ' slam and bang ' around their rooms and wear 
 out the carpets and nick the crockery, are not 
 half as apt to have vicious habits as those 
 quiet sly fellows who always move about as if 
 they had rubbers on. We should give our 
 children plenty of well-regulated liberty, but 
 keep the " veto " power in our own hands. 
 
 Do not be troubled. Children can be taught 
 to be orderly without becoming precise little 
 prigs, and they can have jolly good times 
 without being riotous. 
 
 I had nearly forgotten your question about 
 neighborly visiting back and forth among chil- 
 dren. You say you live in a street rich in 
 children, and that it sometimes seems as if 
 your four, and Mrs. Brown's three, and Mrs. 
 Jones's two, were too many for one yard or
 
 176 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 house at once. That seems quite likely. Now 
 what can you do about it ? You do not want 
 to, and could not if you did, keep your chil- 
 dren secluded by themselves. They ought to 
 play more or less with other children, but this 
 promiscuous running to and fro without any 
 restrictions keeps them under continual excite- 
 ment and makes them dissatisfied with any 
 quiet home pleasures. They all get too tired, 
 and then begin to quarrel, and it is very diffi- 
 cult to settle disputes between different sets 
 of children, brought up under different home 
 governments and with different ideas of justice. 
 You have taken pains to provide your children 
 with croquet and hammock, balls and kites and 
 carts. You have made rules as to their use, 
 and penalties as to their abuse. But you can- 
 not enforce those rules for other people's chil- 
 dren, and if they destroy your children's property, 
 either accidentally or carelessly, what redress 
 have you ? You can only comfort the grief of 
 your child as best you can, and, if your purse 
 is long enough, buy a new toy. Besides all 
 this, it is not agreeable to have a troop of 
 noisy children go tramping through your house
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. 1/7 
 
 at all times. Even well-taught children "forget 
 their manners " in the eagerness of their play. 
 I have known children of well-bred families 
 \v?.lk boldly into the sleeping-rooms of grown 
 people without knocking, or even regarding 
 closed doors, watching with curious eyes the 
 unpacking of trunks, the fitting of dresses, or 
 even the progress of toilet operations. 
 
 Yes, you say ; but will not my neighbors 
 think I am proud and exclusive if I do not 
 allow my children to play with theirs ? Very 
 likely some will ; but have you not a right to 
 defend yourself and children against intrusion ? 
 Our neighbor's good opinion is worth having 
 if it does not cost too much. But a rigid 
 exclusion is not best, nor necessary. A play 
 of a few hours together between children of 
 different families is a good thing. Let the 
 visits be worth asking for, and have definite 
 limits, then the children enjoy them, and the 
 mothers know what to expect. An invitation 
 to dinner or tea becomes a real treat under 
 such circumstances. This will seem exclusive 
 to some, I know. I remember the wide-eyed 
 surprise with which a mother accosted me one
 
 178 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 day when I went after my little girl who had 
 overstaid her time at her house. 
 
 "Why," said she, "do you expect she will 
 come home at the time you say, and do you 
 feel worried if she don't ? My children go off 
 in the morning Saturdays, and if I don't see 
 them until afternoon, I know they are at some 
 of the neighbors and I don't worry a bit ! " 
 
 Perhaps the neighbors did, however ! If you 
 do not allow your children to run into your 
 neighbors' houses without permission, they will 
 not be apt to allow theirs to come into yours 
 without similar restrictions. And, isn't it quite 
 possible that your children, who probably are 
 no cherubs, but very human, trouble your 
 neighbors in all these ways, and that instead 
 of feeling hurt at reasonable restrictions on 
 their visits, they really would be quite relieved ? 
 These things bear turning round sometimes. 
 
 Now, a word about the Sunday question 
 what to do with the little ones who are too 
 young to read. It is true that if the mother 
 spends all her spare time reading and talking 
 to them, Sunday is anything but a day of rest 
 to her, and the children are apt to get ner-
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. 
 
 vous and restless, and by night are " too cross 
 for anything." But we recognize that the day 
 must be made different from others. It 01 
 to be the plcasantest and sunniest of the whole 
 week. I know of one family in which the 
 custom was adopted of giving some trifling 
 present on Sunday morning at the breakfast- 
 table. It was often nothing more than an orange 
 or a bunch of white grapes or a paper doll, 
 but, slight as it was, it marked the day and 
 made it one to be pleasantly anticipated. The 
 experiment has been tried of having Sunday 
 toys, or a book of Sunday pictures, not to be 
 brought out except on that day. Noisy plays 
 should be forbidden the croquet set and the 
 carts should be put away. If the little girls 
 have their dolls, they are not to make dresses 
 for them, but only to take care of them, just 
 as mamma takes care of the baby on Sunday. 
 It is carefully explained to the little ones that 
 when they get old enough to read, they 
 be "too big" to play on Sunday. All 
 sets apart the day as one of quiet enjoyment, 
 and prepares them to understand real Sabbath- 
 keeping when they grow up. Happy that fam-
 
 ISO TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 ily where the father, perhaps too busy through 
 the week to get much acquainted with his 
 children, takes an hour or two of the precious 
 Sunday-time to talk or read to them. -We hear 
 a great deal of the value of the mother's in- 
 fluence; the father's ought to be just as val- 
 uable. The children need the invigorating 
 
 O O 
 
 influence of another mind, fresh from a new 
 sphere of thought and action. Papa's stories 
 are different from mamma's, and so refresh the 
 children. While the weary mother steals away, 
 out of all the children's chatter and confusion 
 (so necessary and yet so wearisome when you 
 hear it all the time) for a precious quiet hour 
 or two all by herself, she has the inexpressible 
 comfort of feeling that the children are not 
 left to hear the gossip of servants, but are 
 being taught in some things even better than 
 she could do it. Our younger children are 
 sometimes too much left to feminine influence. 
 The servants and their day and Sunday-school 
 teachers are almost always women ; good and 
 faithful ones they may be, but the children 
 need the masculine clement of strength and 
 enterprise to supplement the feminine teachings
 
 QUESTIONS OF ORDER. l8l 
 
 of docility and gentleness. One balances and 
 completes the other. The girls ought to be 
 stimulated and strengthened in character by 
 contact with their father's mind. The boys 
 should learn from his example what true man- 
 liness is. They see sham manliness enough 
 every week-day among their school-fellows. To 
 our busy business and working men, Sunday 
 is the only time they have to really reach 
 their children. The fact that papa is to be at 
 home all day ought to be the very biggest 
 and best treat of the whole happy Sunday- 
 time. I heard a four-year-old " tot " say, last 
 night in the midst of the bed-time frolic : " Oh, 
 isn't it most time for Thunday to come again ? 
 I think Thunday is the bethtest of all."
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MOTHER 
 SECOND SERIES. IV. 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS. 
 
 MY DEAR : There is a great deal of truth 
 
 in one remark in your last letter. There is 
 danger that where so much is done to amuse 
 children and make them happy, that they will 
 grow up selfish and exacting. Here is one of 
 the defects of our American training. Every- 
 thing is made so pleasant and easy for our 
 young people that they take it for granted 
 that the world was made principally that they 
 might have a good time in it, but never feel 
 the least responsibility about making a good 
 time for anybody else. Even the path to the 
 schoolroom is made so smooth that they feel 
 impatient and almost angry when they encoun- 
 ter a real difficulty. They actually do not 
 practise self-denial enough themselves to appre- 
 ciate it in other people. The last year's bon- 
 182
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS. 183 
 
 net and worn glove-tips of the returned mis- 
 sionary lady awaken only a good-natured 
 contempt in the mind of the thoughtless girl 
 whose mother has never allowed her to look 
 shabby, and who thinks if anybody else does, 
 it is because they don't know any better. 
 
 Our American life tends in this direction. To 
 get all the enjoyment possible out of life 
 without very much thought whether anybody 
 else gets any pleasure or comfort in return 
 is the main-spring of too many lives. We need 
 to watch ourselves lest in our desire to give 
 our children a sunny childhood we forget to 
 teach them how to make other people's lives 
 sunny. Always to receive and never to give 
 is as bad for children as for grown people. 
 TQT be sure there is not much they can do, 
 and what they can is worth very little in 
 itself, but just because it develops a generous 
 thoughtfulness for others, encourage them in 
 all their little plans for other people's pleasure. 
 Children are naturally generous, and delight to 
 make and give presents until they see their 
 gifts considered as rubbish. Probably they 
 are, but a great deal of love can be put into
 
 184 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 very common things. You keep their birthdays. 
 Encourage them to remember the birthdays 
 of the older members of the family, even if 
 their celebrations are troublesome and their 
 presents useless. In the family festivals, let 
 them have something to do for somebody else. 
 Do not let all the doing always be on your 
 side. 
 
 I have seen seme very pretty little affairs 
 arranged by children for such occasions. I 
 remember one design by a girl nine years 
 old, for her mamma's birthday. She dressed 
 herself and her sisters to represent the four 
 seasons, and each one brought to the mother 
 a trifling gift, repeating in turn a line of a 
 verse of poetry she had found in an illumin- 
 ated calendar. 
 
 The youngest, dressed in her best white 
 dress, trimmed with artificial apple-blossoms 
 and lilies of the valley, and carrying her 
 present in a tiny basket, hidden among spring 
 flowers, represented spring. As she handed 
 her present to her mother, she said : 
 
 First beautiful spring, with flowers and song.
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS. 185 
 
 Summer, also in white, with bright ribbons, 
 followed with her gift, saying : 
 
 S 
 Next, rosy summer comes tripping along. 
 
 Autumn glowing in a garnet dress, and 
 wearing a wreath of bright leaves and wheat, 
 brought her present in a basket of red apples, 
 and repeated : 
 
 Then blushing autumn, with rich fruits laden, 
 
 while, 
 
 Last, sober winter, cold thoughtful maiden, 
 
 clad all in white, with a band of swan's down 
 around her head, drew out her gift from a 
 large cornucopia filled with cotton, to repre- 
 sent snow. 
 
 Of course, the mother had been consulted, 
 and had given permission to use the finery, 
 She entered into the spirit of the occasion, 
 and gave advice and made suggestions, but 
 was conveniently blind till everything was com- 
 plete. It occupied the children for the best
 
 1 86 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 part of the afternoon, and under all the fun 
 of the thing was the pleasant consciousness 
 that they really were doing something for the 
 happiness of mamma, who had done so much 
 for them. 
 
 These same children were greatly amused 
 with the pictures and poetry in " St. Nicholas " 
 of the 
 
 Three wise old women were they, were they, 
 Who went to walk on a winter's day 
 One carried a basket to hold some berries, 
 One carried a ladder to climb for cherries; 
 The third, and she was the wisest one, 
 Carried a fan to keep off the sun. 
 
 So they "made a game of it" for a Thanks- 
 giving evening celebration. They appeared sud- 
 denly in the sitting-room,, dressed like old 
 women, with marvellous bonnets, one with a 
 huge market basket, the little three-year-old 
 with a great palm-leaf fan, almost as big as 
 she was, and the oldest carrying the family 
 step-ladder. When the wind blew them all 
 away, one of the audience had to represent 
 wind, and lay the ladder down, and it was
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS. 187 
 
 quite a comical sight to see them bail out 
 the imaginary water and attend to their bon- 
 nets and their balance at the same time. 
 
 On another occasion, with the help of play- 
 mates, they added the " Three Wise Men " to 
 the performance, though this was more diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 Another family of boys and girls, a little 
 older, were always getting up tableaux and 
 burlesque-opera entertainments for their father's 
 birthdays. It was no end of trouble, and old 
 clothes and the tableaux did not always "pre- 
 serve the unities," but they were pleasant 
 recollections long after the merry boys and 
 girls were fathers and mothers themselves. 
 
 I saw another birthday celebration once, and I 
 shall never forget it. The mother's birthday 
 had come too soon for the child's calculation, 
 and there was no preparation made. The 
 oldest, a sensitive, loving child of seven years, 
 was overwhelmed with grief, and sobbed, 
 "Mamma is ahvays giving us something, and 
 getting up things for us, and now we have 
 forgotten her. Oh ! dear, dear ! " 
 
 Close by stood a little basketful of stones,
 
 1 88 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 picked up in their afternoon ramble just 
 such stones as you can find in any New 
 England pasture lot or by any stone wall. 
 But the white, imperfect quartz crystals and 
 the shining little bits of mica seemed very 
 beautiful to the child. Suddenly she noticed 
 the basket. There was a hurried consultation 
 with her younger sister, a great parade of 
 secrecy and business, a rattling of stones in 
 the kitchen washbasin, and much dancing 
 about and shouts, of " Now, mamma, we've 
 got something for your birthday. Don't look 
 into that basket! Now, don't guess oh! 
 you never can guess what it is ! " 
 
 The next morning at breakfast there was 
 something on mamma's plate, heaping up the 
 napkin so carefully spread over it. 
 
 When the napkin was lifted there was 
 nothing but the little heap of shining stones, 
 but the children were as happy as if they 
 had been gold and diamonds. Said the young- 
 est : " Mamma, I picked out the very prettiest 
 the very whitest and shiny-est;" and the 
 oldest added, " We washed them just as care- 
 fully last night."
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAYS. 189 
 
 The father said afterward : 
 
 " They came to me in the evening in great 
 glee, for now they had something for mamma, 
 and they showed me the stones, all wet and 
 dripping in the basket about as pitiful a 
 thing for a present as could be imagined." 
 
 A trifle, you say, but the love and delight 
 that went with that worthless little pile of 
 stones could not be counted by dollars. Xo 
 wonder the mother's eyes grew dim as she 
 looked from the stones heaped up on her 
 plate to the glowing faces of the children, and 
 that she carefully put the stones away. Trifles 
 like these are the very dearest of treasures 
 to a mother's heart, if some day the bright 
 eyes that shone with delight are forever shut 
 from her sight, and the busy little hands are 
 folded still and cold. 
 
 You never know how long you and your 
 children will have each other. At best, they 
 will not be little children always. Make the 
 life which you live together as happy and as 
 full of yourself as possible. If you can do 
 but little, put plenty of love and sunshine 
 into that little. It is worth a great deal to
 
 I9O TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 have them to grow up with the habit of 
 being happy. If this habit comes not because 
 every wish is gratified, but because they are 
 always busy at some cheerful or helpful work, 
 never fear that they will grow up querulous 
 and selfish. Children so trained are not apt 
 to fall into fashionable listlessness, or to give 
 themselves up to idle grief, if disappointment 
 and sorrow come into their maturer lives. 
 
 The effect of such a home atmosphere as 
 this is incalculable. It not only tends to 
 strengthen and purify each separate individual 
 in the family, but its influence is still deeper 
 and more far-reaching. Whatever tends to 
 make our family life purer and stronger is 
 doing the best and noblest service for society. 
 Here we must look for our strongest bulwark 
 against the rising tides of evil that beat against 
 our social system. 
 
 We women listen to the growl of the storm 
 in other countries ; we tremble for our own, 
 and feel so useless and insignificant! 
 
 Brave little Holland keeps the whole mighty 
 Atlantic at bay with her dykes of common- 
 place earth and stones and turf mere every-
 
 OTHER PEOPLE S BIRTHDAYS. IQI 
 
 day material. Take courage, weary mother. 
 Your life may seem to you not much more 
 than a dreary grind, day after day, to sup- 
 ply the physical wants of your children ; but if 
 they grow up to love and honor you be- 
 cause you deserve their love and honor if they 
 go out from you to build up other homes 
 like the one you have made to them the 
 purest and sweetest place on earth, you have 
 built a few rods of dyke over against your own 
 house, and so have built, not for yourself alone, 
 but for all society not for to-day alone, but 
 for all time.
 
 A MOTHER'S DREAM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 IT had been an unusually wearisome day. 
 It had seemed to the poor mother as if Puck 
 himself had possessed the younger children, 
 while the older ones had been self-willed and 
 disobedient. A sullen and careless servant had 
 made her feel that everything was going wrong 
 down-stairs, yet she had been tied hand and 
 foot to the nursery with the fretful, exacting 
 children. As if to try her over-worked nerves 
 to the utmost, a strong wind had kept every 
 loose blind and door banging and shaking, till 
 every fibre of her weary frame responded with 
 a confused sense of hurry and unrest. 
 
 She wanted to do so much for her children, 
 for their souls as well as for their bodies, and 
 to-day she had worked so hard and accom- 
 plished so little. She had long ago given up 
 fine clothes and luxurious living for the sake 
 
 192
 
 A MOTHER'S DREAM OF HEAVEN. 193 
 
 of having time to care for their higher needs, 
 but sometimes she was obliged to neglect 
 these. She thought hopelessly to-night of the 
 necessary time she had spent in the care of 
 their physical wants, of the imperative demands 
 of every moment, and felt that she had done 
 nothing all day for their minds, their manners, 
 or their morals. So she was weary, not with 
 bodily fatigue merely, but with the tenfold 
 heavier burden of unsuccessful toil, and unac- 
 complished endeavor. Now the night had come, 
 and the little ones slept in their white-covered 
 beds. " At last," she sighed gratefully, then 
 reproached herself: "What should I do without 
 them ? " She sat before the nursery fire with 
 the baby peacefully sleeping in her arms. As 
 she gazed down on the placid little face, and 
 heard the steady breathing from the little 
 beds, there stole over her that feeling of rest 
 and relief, which comes only to the tired 
 mother when all the restless little ones are 
 safe in bed. She laid the baby softly in her 
 cradle and tenderly tucked her in. It was not 
 quite time for the father's home-coming, and 
 she took up half mechanically a magazine lying
 
 IQ4 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 on the table. Listlessly turning its leaves, 
 her eye caught these words : 
 
 Like a cradle rocking, rocking, 
 
 Silent, peaceful, to and fro 
 Like a mother's sweet looks dropping, 
 
 On the little face below 
 Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, 
 
 Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow; 
 Falls the light of God's face bending 
 
 Down, and watching us below. 
 
 And as feeble babes that suffer, 
 
 Toss and cry, and will not rest, 
 Are the ones the tender mother 
 
 Holds the closest, loves the best 
 So when we are weak and wretched, 
 
 By our sins weighed down, distressed, 
 Then it is that God's great patience 
 
 Holds us closest, loves us best. 
 
 She leaned her head back against her chair 
 and closed her eyes. The image of " the green 
 earth swinging jarless, noiseless, safe and slow," 
 was very grateful to her. She thought how 
 God's loving care extended not only over the 
 green earth, but to all the creatures on it ; of 
 the little sparrows in their .nests, of the
 
 A MOTHER'S DREAM OF HEAVEN. 195 
 
 "young ravens who cry," how "He opens his 
 hand and satisfies the desire of every living 
 thing." Gradually these thoughts unfolded as 
 it were into a fair vision. She seemed up- 
 borne on the pinions of some mighty bird, 
 balanced motionless in mid-heaven over a vast 
 expanse of mountains and hills stretching away 
 inimitably into blue and purple billows, rising, 
 receding, fading away far out on the horizon 
 line. Near at hand the mountains lifted their 
 gray summits towards the upper air. Their 
 mighty buttresses sweeping downward to the 
 valleys were seamed with deep ravines where 
 here and there twinkling lights were reflected 
 from placid lakes or distant thread-like rivers. 
 Everywhere was vastness, stability, strength 
 perfect peace. The largeness, of the prospect 
 lifted her above her petty cares and vexations ; 
 her soul was calmed and strengthened by the 
 strong, calm mountains. Over all the glo- 
 rious October sunshine seemed to fall flood- 
 ing and suffusing everything ; a sunshine that 
 warmed, but did not scorch ; that glowed, but 
 did not dazzle. Then the words she had so 
 often heard came softly into her mind with
 
 196 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 a new meaning. "They need no candle, 
 neither light of the sun, for the Lord God 
 giveth them light," and she knew it was not 
 sunshine that filled the golden air, but the 
 living light of God's presence. There came 
 slowly a sense of a vast ineffable tenderness, a 
 mighty love brooding and leaning over the whole 
 wide expanse of lifted peak and rounded summit, 
 wooded valley and distant shining river, as a 
 mother's face radiant with the love she cannot 
 speak, bends over the cradle of her sleeping 
 child. She seemed encircled and upheld by 
 the "everlasting arms," gathered close and 
 warm near to his mighty presence. Upon her 
 soul fell a "peace past understanding," and 
 softly like the sound of distant music came 
 the words, 
 
 'I lie within the light of God 
 
 As I lie upon your breast, 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 And the weary are at rest. 
 
 The vision slowly faded. The baby stirred 
 softly in the cradle. The quick mother-ear 
 heard the little rustle, and she opened her
 
 A MOTHERS DREAM OF HEAVEX. 197 
 
 eyes again on the familiar scene. The moun- 
 tain glory had vanished, the golden glow had 
 departed, but the peace and rest remained. 
 She felt yet the encircling and upholding love, 
 the tenderness of the unseen radiant face, and 
 for many days " as one whom his mother 
 comforteth," so did God comfort her.
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS 
 BABY. 
 
 IN spite of all the statements to the con- 
 trary, there are men who help take care of 
 their children. They are the kindest and best 
 husbands in the world. They do not wish to 
 see their wives overburdened with care and 
 worry, and they intend to help them a great 
 deal, and actually do. Yet it cannot be de- 
 nied, that their opinion concerning the value 
 of their services and their wives' opinion on 
 the same subject do not exactly coincide. 
 One of these good husbands will help dress 
 the children for breakfast, and speak of it with 
 a grandly virtuous air, while the fact is that 
 he only washed the face of one while his 
 wife washed and dressed the other three. He 
 helps get the children ready for church ; that 
 is, he buttons up Dick's boots, and helps Jenny 
 
 198
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS^BABY. 199 
 
 put on her gloves after he has leisurely and 
 comfortably dressed himself, while his wife 
 ties sashes, and hunts up odd gloves, and puts 
 on collars, and curls one child's hair and 
 washes another's hands, and in the intervals 
 " does up " her own hair, and saves the baby 
 from the razor, and Jenny's best bonnet from 
 the baby. He stands patiently (?) in the hall 
 as the bells begin to toll, and mildly calls, 
 "It is getting late, Maria," which fact Maria 
 knows as well as he does, for her hands are 
 trembling so with nervousness and haste that 
 she can hardly put a single pin in its right place. 
 Just as the last strokes of the bell are sound- 
 ing, they hurry off to church, losing entirely 
 the calming influence which comes from a 
 leisurely walk on a fine Sunday morning. He 
 takes the opportunity to remark, with just a 
 shade of reproof in his gentle tones, " I 
 can't understand why it takes you so long to 
 get ready. It really does seem with all I help 
 you, we need not be obliged to hurry so. I 
 don't like to see you go up the aisle with your 
 face as red as a lobster," which of course is 
 very soothing to Maria's irritated nerves.
 
 2OO TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 The father cares for the baby at night in 
 very much the same fashion. The mother has 
 lifted the child into her own bed, and back 
 into its cradle again, in the vain hope that 
 in one place or the other he will go to sleep, 
 has brought " drinks of water " for him, rocked 
 the cradle and sang to its uneasy occupant 
 softly and sleepily for an hour, till finally she 
 thinks that if she is to be in this semi-amphib- 
 ious state, half out of bed and half in, the 
 air from the open window is too cool for 
 her. She knows if she tries to shut it her- 
 self the little tyrant will instantly miss her 
 presence and be ten times wider awake than 
 ever, and all the hour's singing and rocking 
 will be labor lost. So, with much regret, she 
 softly asks John to get up and close the win- 
 dow. He has lain remarkably still and breathed 
 rather heavily, and is somewhat difficult to 
 arouse for a man who afterward declares that 
 he was wide awake all the time. But like the 
 good husband he is, he cheerfully closes the 
 window, and gets an extra blanket for the 
 baby, and pleasantly asks, as he settles down 
 into the pillows again, " What makes the baby
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY. 2OI 
 
 so uneasy to-night ? " He manifests a strange 
 indifference to his wife's reply, and in fact 
 nothing more is heard from him till morning, 
 while his wife sleepily and painfully works 
 away for an hour longer. But at breakfast, 
 with what calm complacency does he speak of 
 the trouble the baby made us last night, with 
 an "us" fairly editorial in its comprehensive- 
 ness. The next night he goes into a room by 
 himself to sleep. He "can't stand it to have 
 his rest broken so," but adds generously, " I'll 
 take care of him the next night." And so 
 he does till about twelve o'clock, when the baby 
 wakes and cries. For ten minutes he tries 
 faithfully to get him to sleep again, and then 
 ignominiously retreats and calls for " mamma." 
 But it is in travelling on a hot summer's 
 day, with a year-old baby, that the husband's 
 virtues shine brightest. Mamma is tired and 
 needs rest. They are going to spend a week 
 with some friends a day's journey in the coun- 
 try. She is half-inclined to leave the baby at 
 home. Her mother will "come over" and look 
 after him, and "it's only for a few days after 
 all." But he says decidedly, "Oh, no! take
 
 202 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 him, by all means. Our cousins will all want 
 to see him, and he is such a good little fellow. 
 I'll help you to take care of him on the 
 way, and there will always be somebody there 
 who will want to amuse him." 
 
 She, being young and inexperienced, has not 
 yet learned that nobody ever takes care of a 
 baby to any extent, so long as its mother is 
 near, for both mother and baby have notions 
 of their t own as to what " taking care of" 
 means. Besides, she- has a mother's instinctive 
 desire to keep her child with her, and so 
 says no more about it. 
 
 Then comes the usual ordeal of "getting 
 ready," on which her husband makes the criti- 
 cisms customary to men, who cannot under- 
 stand why women do not find a clean pocket- 
 handkerchief and an extra collar sufficient addi- 
 tional wardrobe for a week, as they do. How- 
 ever, at last they are ready to start. There 
 is the large travelling-bag, with all sorts of 
 mysterious appurtenances for the baby's toilet, 
 the little travelling-bag with the lunch, and 
 some crackers and a silver cup for the baby, 
 the shawl-strap bundle enormously swollen by
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY. 2O3 
 
 a small pillow, also for the baby, for " he 
 might go to sleep in the cars, you know." 
 (Alas, how the best-laid schemes o' mice and 
 mothers gang aft a-gley !) And lastly the baby, 
 the largest and liveliest bundle of all. 
 
 The father sets out with the best of reso- 
 lutions. He is going to take care of that baby 
 all day. His wife needs the rest, and she 
 shall have it. How little we realize what it 
 will cost us to execute our good intentions. 
 How different they look to us, when we are 
 actually " under fire," from what they did 
 when in peace and quietness we made them! 
 He places his wife in the most comfortable 
 seat he can find, a bag at her feet, a shawl at 
 her back, takes the baby in his lap, and the 
 day's campaign begins. 
 
 An hour goes by very pleasantly. The baby 
 is amused by the novelty of the situation, and 
 his father silently congratulates himself on the 
 wisdom of his management. " Women wouldn't 
 have half the trouble they do if they only knew how 
 to manage," he says to himself. Just here, the 
 newsboy appears with the morning papers. 
 Secretly glad of a diversion, he buys a paper,
 
 2O4 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 and the baby goes to its mamma. The young 
 rascal, by this time tired of sitting still, and 
 missing too, the steady support of his father's 
 strong arms, begins to wriggle and twist. He 
 slips down on the floor, his mother lifts him 
 up again. He sits still two seconds and a half, 
 and attracted by something outside, slips 
 down again and stands tottering half a minute. 
 Then she drags him back into her lap. Great, 
 heavy fellow ! how he pulls on her arms and 
 shoulders. But she is used to it and only 
 
 wonders what ails her arms and back that 
 
 
 
 they get so tired every day. She is sure she 
 doesn't do much but take care of that baby. 
 Next, he " flops " over upon the opposite seat, 
 in a few minutes "flops" back, slips down on 
 his mother's lap, wriggles and twists awhile, 
 gets a drink of water from the water boy and 
 spills it on his mother's clean cuffs and his 
 own white dress, slips down again, and again 
 she lifts him back. All this time papa is 
 calmly reading his paper. Having finished it 
 and become convinced that the country is 
 going to hold together a little longer, he hands 
 the paper to his wife. (Did you ever see a
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY. 
 
 man offer the paper to his wife before he 
 had read it himself, especially if it was near 
 election ? ) Yes, she would like to look at it, 
 if he will see to the baby. 
 
 " Certainly," with the slightest shade of in- 
 jured innocence in his tones, "haven't I done 
 so all the morning ? Besides, the baby will 
 take care of himself, he is big enough." 
 
 Mamma is wisely silent, and begins to look 
 over the paper. The young scamp, who never 
 thought of touching it so long as his father 
 had it, now begins a series of indiscriminate 
 dashes at it, which, combined with v the motion 
 of the cars, makes reading a matter of diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 " Let him have it," says the mother, " I am 
 too sleepy to read." 
 
 " Why don't you take a nap ? It would do 
 you good," exclaims the husband. " Let me 
 arrange a place for you." 
 
 And in a few minutes the shawls and bags 
 are arranged into a very tempting resting-place 
 for the tired mother. She, who rose at five 
 o'clock to get ready, willingly lays her head 
 back on the shawl and closes her eyes, just
 
 2O6 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 as the " chug-chug " of the cars begins to be 
 a continuous " hum-m-m," she is startled by a 
 scream from the baby, who has a suspicious- 
 looking red spot over his eye. Papa looks a 
 little confused, and explains: 
 
 '"Why, you see, he sat so still that I 
 thought I could read the President's message, 
 and the first thing I knew he had tumbled 
 off the seat." 
 
 But from the " big bag " mamma produces 
 arnica and an old handkerchief, while papa 
 wonders how she could have known he was 
 going to get bumped, and thinks it is not 
 such a bad thing to " get ready " after 'all. 
 
 " Never mind, he is all right now. You go 
 to sleep again, and I'll devote myself to 
 him." 
 
 So, once more, the weary eyes close, and 
 this time everything fairly fades out of sight, 
 and she is in that delightful state when one 
 is asleep just enough to be conscious of the 
 comfort of it, when her husband says : 
 
 " Maria, I am sorry to disturb you, but 
 really I think this child is hungry, and I 
 can't find his bottle of milk."
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY. 2O/ 
 
 So she raises herself and feeds him. Of 
 course she has slept only enough to make it 
 impossible for her to go to sleep again, but not 
 enough to rest her very much. 
 
 By this time they have reached Springfield. 
 Papa gets out, buys a cup of tea for mamma, 
 walks up and down the platform, exchanges a 
 hearty word or two with some one, jumps on 
 again as the train moves off, and leisurely 
 walks into the car just as she has worked 
 herself into a frenzy of apprehension for fear 
 he is left. The recollection of the fact that 
 he has the tickets and the checks in his 
 pocket, and that she has but fifty cents in 
 hers, does not tend to calm her nerves. The 
 possession of a little extra money is a wonder- 
 ful sec?}tive on such occasions, but men do 
 not always think of that. 
 
 " What a rest it is to stop awhile ! " says he, as 
 he settles himself down into the seat again. She, 
 shut up in the stifling car in the dingy and 
 smoky depot, with the restless baby crawling 
 into and out of her lap all the while, wonders 
 why it has not seemed pleasant to her, but 
 only wonders. A woman's mind is not gener-
 
 2O8 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 ally given to analyzing sensations. Neither of 
 them thought what a relief it would have been 
 to both mother and child if he had taken the 
 baby up and down the platform a few times. 
 
 " Now, let us have our lunch," he continues, 
 and the lunch iDag is opened. Mamma eats 
 hers in the intervals of feeding the baby and 
 rescuing her own food from his reckless grasps. 
 As it is, he manages to tip over a cup of 
 milk upon the only thing she really cares much 
 about. Papa eats his with a vigorous appetite, 
 and then says : 
 
 "Well, now, you have had your nap, and I 
 guess I'll take mine," and forthwith he pro- 
 ceeds to sleep a good hour. 
 
 Meanwhile, mamma tries to get the wrig- 
 gling baby to sleep. But no, the condensed 
 quintessence of forty eels could not be livelier. 
 He is on the seats, down on the floor, and 
 up again all at once, and her back and arms 
 and shoulders ache again and again with lift- 
 ing him. Presently papa shows signs of 
 returning consciousness. In sheer desperation 
 mamma says : 
 
 " Don't you believe you could take this
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY. 2O9 
 
 child in your arms and get him to sleep ? " 
 adding, with a spice of worldly wisdom, " he 
 will be so cross when he gets there, if he 
 loses his nap." 
 
 Papa's fatherly pride is touched. He does 
 not want his baby to make a poor impression 
 on his new friends. Besides, mamma looks tired, 
 and isn't he taking care of that baby ? So, 
 with great cheerfulness, he takes the restless 
 boy. The father's strong arms and broad 
 chest are a pleasant contrast to mamma's un- 
 steady grasp, and the child nestles close up 
 to him. The tired little head leans heavily 
 on his shoulder, the white lids droop over the 
 blue eyes, and in a little while he is fast 
 asleep. Papa enjoys holding the precious 
 bundle for awhile. There is a slight tinge of 
 complacency in thinking of the ease with 
 which he put him to sleep, after mamma had 
 tried so long in vain. Presently, however, his 
 stout arms begin to ache, and he proposes to 
 use the pillow which has made the shawl 
 strap bundle so bulky. So mamma prepares a 
 tempting bed ; as soon as his lordship's head 
 touches it than his eyes fly wide open.
 
 2IO TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 The father feels as if he had done so well, 
 that he deserves a little rest, and so says : 
 
 "There's a man in the next car I want to 
 see. I guess I'll step in there for a few min- 
 utes." 
 
 So off he goes for half an hour, and talks 
 politics and trade and hard times till he feels 
 quite refreshed. The baby is crosser than ever, 
 slips down and is pulled up, bumps his head 
 against the window and cries for water. But 
 the water boy has apparently gone down to 
 the bottom of the Red Sea with Pharaoh after 
 it, for he comes no more. Just as the mother's 
 patience and temper are worn threadbare, the 
 smiling father appears with an old army friend 
 whom he has just discovered, and whom he 
 wishes to introduce to his wife and baby. 
 
 Mamma instinctively feels, though she can- 
 not see, that her bonnet is awry, her "crimps" 
 all out, that the marks of baby's smutty 
 fingers are on her cuffs and collar, neck-tie 
 and bonnet strings. As for the baby him- 
 self! hair all sticky and standing, milk around 
 his mouth, dust on his sleeves, cracker-crumbs 
 in his lap, cinders sticking all over his moist
 
 HOW A MAN TAKES CARE OF HIS BABY. 2 1 I 
 
 little hands and .face, and on every spot on 
 his white dress where he has spilled milk or 
 water. He is a very different little fellow 
 from the sweet-looking baby in his fresh 
 white dress and brown sash who came into 
 the cars in the morning. Mamma is so un- 
 comfortably conscious of the baby's soiled dress, 
 and her own dilapidated appearance, and so 
 vexed at John for bringing a stranger to see 
 them, when they are in such a plight, that 
 she is not very entertaining. John is dimly 
 conscious that his family do not appear as 
 well as usual, and wonders where the baby 
 got such a dirty face. The old army friend 
 being a bachelor, is a little surprised at his 
 comrade's enthusiasm over either wife or baby, 
 but praises the child, according to the elasti- 
 city of his conscience, and does not prolong 
 the interview beyond the demands of politeness. 
 However, everything must have an end, and 
 this journey is no exception. Already passen- 
 gers are beginning to gather up bags and 
 parcels, and soon our travellers are seated in 
 the coach which is to carry them up the " long 
 hill" to the pleasant farm-house.
 
 212 TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
 
 " I am so tired ! " gasps the poor mother, 
 and her face confirms the truth of her words. 
 The father feels distressed, but only says : 
 
 " I am very sorry ; but never mind, we are 
 almost there," while he thinks, " How little 
 these women can endure ! Here I have taken 
 care of that child all the way up, and feel as fresh 
 as can be, and she is all tired out with the 
 journey. What a pity our American women 
 haven't more stamina 1"
 
 SELF-GIVING. 
 
 * Have read with interest, and with admiration ot the vivid- 
 ness and accuracy which characterize the descriptions given." 
 
 Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, D. D., Bishop of Rhode Island 
 " Very interesting. A true insight ; literally truth." Chris- 
 tian Observer, Louisville, Ky. 
 
 " It is best that the truth should be told about this matter." 
 The Budget, Boston. 
 
 "Important information. Highly interesting as a story." 
 Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia. 
 
 " Very instructive. His revealments are not at all damaging 
 to any who regard them properly. \Vish all would read it." 
 Journal and Messenger, Cincinnati. 
 
 "Impartial, thorough and attractive." Journal, Providence. 
 
 " Will receive a cordial welcome by a host of his admirers." 
 
 The Methodist, Philadelphia. 
 
 " As throwing light upon the practical features of the mission- 
 ary operations of to-day, the work has no equal in missionary 
 literature.'' Advocate of Missions, Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 " Illustrates powerfully ' Self-Giving.' Read intelligently, the 
 influence of the book will be thoroughly good." President 
 Hovey, Newton Theo. Sem. 
 
 " A valuable work, rich in hints and suggestions. Sec'y N 
 G. Clark, D. D., American Board. 
 
 " How much we have enjoyed ! All the churches are greatly 
 Indebted." Rev. B. H. Badley, Methodist Missionary, Luck- 
 now, India. 
 
 "Deserving and certain of larger circulation than even same 
 author's Tour of Missions." Rev. J. Nevius. D. D., Presby 
 terian Missionary, China.
 
 The Yensie Walton Books. 
 
 These books, from the pen of Mrs. S. R. Graham Clark, are possessed 
 of such conspicuous merits, as to secure for them the unqualified com- 
 mendation of eminent religious journals such as the Central Christian 
 Advocate, The Journal and Messenger, The Neiu Orleans Christian 
 Advocate, The Lutheran Observer, Christian at Work. The Dover 
 Morning Star, The Gospel Banner, Philadelphia Methodist, Herald 
 and Presbyter. 
 
 YENSIE WALTON. OUR STREET. 
 
 YENSIE WALTON'S WOMAMHOOD. 
 THE TRIPLE E. ACHOR. 
 
 i2mo, cloth, illustrated, uniform binding, $1-50 each. 
 YENSIE WALTON. 
 
 " Yensie Walton," by Mrs. S. R. Graham Clark. Boston : D. Loth- 
 rop & Co. Full of striking incident and scenes of great pathos, with 
 occasional gleams of humor and fun by way of relief to the more tragic 
 parts of the narrative. The characters are strongly drawn, and, in gen- 
 eral, are thoroughly human, not gifted with impossible perfections, but 
 having those infirmities of the flesh which make us all akin. It will take 
 rank among the best and most popular Sunday-school books. Episcopal 
 Register. 
 
 A pure sweet story of girl life, quiet, and yet of sufficient interest to hold 
 the attention of the most careless reader. Zioii's Advocate, 
 
 YENSIE WALTON'S WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The many readers who have made the acquaintance of " Yensie Wal- 
 ton " in one of the best Sunday-school books ever published, will be de- 
 lighted to renew that acquaintance, and to keep their former companion 
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 The heroine is an excellent character for imitation, and the entire atmos. 
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 cate. 
 OUR STREET, 
 
 By the same author, is a capital story of every day life which deals with 
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 THE TRIPLE E, 
 
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 Lute Falconer. $1.50. The Judge's Sons. $1.50. 
 
 Hester's Happy Summer. $1.25. Daisy Seymour. $1.25. 
 
 One Year of My Life. $1.25. Olive Loring's Mission. $1.25. 
 
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 The $1000 Prize Series. 
 
 Striking for the Right. $r.75. Coming to the Light. $1.50. 
 
 Walter Macdonald. $1.50. Ralph's Possession. $1.50. 
 
 The Wadsworth Boys. $1.50. Sunset Mountain. #1.50. 
 
 Silent Tom. $1.75. The Old Stone House. $1.50. 
 
 The Blount Farrtily. $i <;. Golden Lines, f 150. 
 
 The Marble Preacher. $1.50. Luck of Alden Farm. $1.50. 
 
 Evening Rest. $r.5o. Glimpses Through. $1.50 
 
 Margaret Worthington. $1.50. Grace Avery's Influence. $150. 
 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, Boston.
 
 "PANSY' BOOKS. 
 
 Probably no livinjj author ha* exerted an influence upor fs 
 
 \:i''riran people at large, at all comparab.o with Pansy's. Tl,m.- 
 jands upon thousands of families road her bonks every wef k, anu 
 .lie effect in the direction of right feeling, right thinking, and 
 right living is incalculable. 
 
 Each volunio 12mo. Cloth. Price, ?1.50. 
 FOUR GIKL.S .v r CHAI-TU \<\- \. Mom;i:x PROPHETS. 
 
 CnAUTAUqOA GlHI.S AT IIoMK. KciloINO AM) llh-ECHOIXO. 
 
 KITH F.K>MNK'.S CROSSES. TIIO-K 1 
 
 F.sri.i: Kir.D. THK K.vsnoLrns. 
 
 IIM.IA UIKD. TIP LI:\VIS. 
 
 KlMi's IV\r<;HTEH. SlDM.V M.VIiTIX'8 ClIHISTMA* 
 
 \Visi: .\NI> OniKp.wtsr:. DIVKI-IS WDMT-.X. 
 
 .'"-> TKIS UIKI> ' YI:T Si'EAKixo." A NK\V <;I:.,KT. 
 
 LINKS is nERF.rr.v's F.i! K. TIIR POCKET MF.ASI-RK. 
 
 FhoM DIKKKKKXT SrAxi)- Mi:s. S. I.MMOX SMITH. 
 
 TIIKF.E PKOPI.K. [POIXTS. Tin; HAI.I. IN THE (IKOVE. 
 
 do, >I;IK>UI \\-/./ J[AX OK TIIK Hiir-r.. 
 
 Ax I'.NMI.I.sS ( 'IIAIX. 
 
 Each volume l-'nio. Cloth. Price. .?!. -25. 
 
 Ci xxixo WOUKMKX. Mis.s Tia-i II.I.A HCXTEH and 
 (iuAXDi-A's DAISLIXG. MY DAC< iiiii: >t >AX. 
 
 Mi:s. DEAX'S WAY. WHAT SIIK SAID and 
 DK. DEAX'S WAY. PEOPI E WHO HA\ KN'T Tiv 
 
 Each volume IGmo. Cloth. Price. SI. on. 
 
 NEXT THIXGS. Mi;s. HAURY HARPER'S 
 
 I'.VX.sY S<-)tAP BOOK. A\VAkEXIX(S. 
 
 FIVE FKIEXDS. NEW YEVH'S TAXGLKS. 
 
 SOME Yofxo HKKOIM :>. 
 Each volume IGmo. Cloth. 1'rice, S.75. 
 GETTIXO AHEAD. /ESSIK \\'ELIJ. 
 
 T\vo lk)Y8. l>o< IA'> .1. IIXAL. 
 
 Six LITTLE GIRLS. HELEN LESTER. 
 
 PAXSIES. BEKXII-.'S WHITE CITICKIW. 
 
 THAT BOY BOB. M.u-v MI-UTUX ABROAD. 
 
 SIDE BY SIDE. Price, $.60. 
 
 The Little Pansy Series, 10 vols. Boards, $:{.00. Cloth, 
 ilotber's Boys and Girls' Library. 12 vols. Quarto Boards, S' 
 Pansy Primary Library, 30 vol. "loth. Price, 87.50. 
 Half Hour Library. Octavo, 3 vols. Price, S4.20.
 
 MARIE OLIVER'S STORIES. 
 
 3 vols, I2mo cloth, illustrated, $1.50 each; the set $4.50. 
 
 RUBY HAMILTON. OLD AND NEW FRIENDS. 
 
 SUBA'3 DISCIPLINE. 
 
 Extracts fro:n comments of well-known journals. 
 RUBY HAMILTON. 
 
 This is a very excellent Sunday-school book, which can be 
 honestly commended for youthful readers. The Watchman. 
 
 It is a well-told story, conveys a pure, healthful lesson, and 
 is one of the best books of its class. Philadelphia Enquirer. 
 
 This is one of the best Sunday-school books in Lothrop's 
 long and admirable list. The story is a sweet one, and 
 charmingly told. Church Mirror. 
 
 The spirit throughout is healthy and devout. . . . Al- 
 together it is a charming and instructive book. The Church- 
 9tan. 
 
 OLD AND NEW FRIENDS. 
 
 A very excellent specimen of the class of fiction designed 
 for young folk who have ceased to be children without 
 having become mature men and women. N. Y. Evening 
 Post. 
 
 Many readers will remember " Ruby Hamilton," a volume 
 which created quite a sensation at the time of itspi-blication. 
 . . . This volume, a continuation of this story, ought to 
 become as popular as its predecessor. Christian Mirror. 
 
 Contains some charming pictures of home-life. . . . 
 Cannot but help and strengthen the boy whose impulses 
 are for good. Herald and Presbyter. 
 
 Like all that comes from this author's pen, this volume 
 has merits of both substance and style. Western Christian 
 Advocate. 
 
 Adds another to the list of really goo j story books. 
 Cincinnati Journal and Messenger. 
 
 SISBA'S DISCIPLINE. 
 
 A good book to teach the uses of trouble in building up char- 
 acter. Western Recorder. 
 
 Has a varied and absorbing interest from its beginning to its 
 close. . . . Sometimes sad and wonderfully pathetic; some- 
 times bright and cheerful, it is impressive always. In every 
 respect it is the best religious story we have seen for many a 
 day, and one . . . that can scarcely fail to benefit any 
 reader whom God leads along rough paths. The Interior. 
 
 Should be in every Sunday-school library. The Standard, 
 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers. Boston.
 
 "Ideal American magazines!" 
 
 It is a fact acknowledged by 
 the English press that American 
 magazines, by enterprise, able edi- 
 torship, and liberal expenditure for 
 the finest of current art and litera- 
 ture, have won a rank far in ad- 
 vance of European magazines. 
 
 It is also a fact that for 
 young people 
 
 WIDE AWAKE 
 
 Stands foremost ] 
 
 In fleasiire-ghiing ! 
 lit practical helping I 
 Each year's numbers contain a thousand quarto pages, covering th widest 
 n'>;;e ;>f literature of interest and value to younj; people, from such authors as 
 John G. Whittier, Charles Egbert (Jradduck, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Susan 
 Conliclse, Edward Everett Hale, Arthur Oilman, Edwin Arnold, Rose 
 Kinpsley, Dinah Mulock Craik, Maigaret Sidney, Helen Hunt Jackson 
 (H. H.), Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elbridge S. Brooks and hundreds of 
 otheis; and k.itf a thousand illustrations by F. H. Lnngren.W. T Smedley, 
 Miss L. B. Humphrey, F. S. Church, Mary Hallock Foote, F. Childe 
 Hassam, E. H. Garrett, Hy. Samlham and other leading American artists. 
 
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 \Vii>K AWAKE is the official organ of the C. Y. F. R. U. The Required 
 Readings are also issued simultaneously as the CHAUTAUQI'A YOUNG FCLKS* 
 JOURNAL, with additional matter, at 75 cents a year. 
 
 I -'or the youuger ISoys and Girln and thr Rabies: 
 
 Our Little Men 
 and Women, 
 
 With its 75 full-pag' 
 
 ictnres a i 
 _er!ess srr 
 d 
 
 lor the youngest readers 
 $1.00 ay tar. 
 
 Babyland 
 
 Xi-ver fails to carry de- Edited by th 
 ;e light to the babies and author of th( 
 
 The Pansy, 
 
 the famous 
 Pansy 
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 a serial by " Pansy.' 
 Ji.oo a year. 
 
 Send for specimen copies, circulars, etc., to the Publishers, 
 
 D. LOTHEOP & CO., BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.
 
 SPARE MINUTE SERIES. 
 
 THOUGHTS THAT BREATHE. 
 From Dean Stanley. Introduction by Phillips Brooks. 
 
 CHEERFUL WORDS. 
 From George MacDonald. Introduction by James T. Fields 
 
 THE MIGHT OF RIGHT. 
 
 From Rt. Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone. Introduction by John D. 
 Long, LL. D. 
 
 TRUE MANLINESS. 
 
 From Thomas Hughes. Introduction by Hon. James Russell 
 Lowell. 
 
 LIVING TRUTHS. 
 
 From Charles Kingsley. Introduction by W. D. Howells. 
 
 RIGHT TO THE POINT. 
 
 From Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. Introduction by Newman 
 Hall, LL. B. 
 
 MANY COLORED THREADS. 
 From Goethe. Introduction by Alexander McKenzie, D. D. 
 
 ECHOES OF MANY VOICES. 
 Introduction by Mrs. E. A. Thurston. 
 
 TREASURE THOUGHTS. 
 From Canon Farrar. Introduction by Rose Porter. 
 
 Each volume, \2ino, doth, $1.00. 
 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, 
 
 Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston
 
 BOOKS FOR GIRLS. 
 
 HOLD UP YOUR HEADS , GIRLS ! By ANNIE H. RYDBK. f t.oa, 
 
 One of the brightest, breeziest books ior giris ever written ; as sweet and 
 wholesome as the breath of clover on a dear June morning, and as full of life 
 and inspiration as a trumpet ca,l. The writer, a popular teacher, speaks of 
 what she knows, and has put her own magnetism into these little plain, sensi- 
 ble, earnest talks, and the girls will read them and be thrilled by them as by a 
 personal presence. 
 
 A NEW DEPARTURE FOR GIRLS. By MARGARET SIDNEY. 
 75 cents. 
 
 In this bright little story, we see what may be really done in the way of self- 
 support by young women of sturdy independence and courage, with no false 
 pride to deter them from taking up the homely work which they are capable 
 of doing. It will give an incentive to many a baffled, discouraged girl who 
 has failed from trying to work in the o'.d ruts. 
 
 HOW THEY LEARNED HOUSEWORK. By CHRISTINA 
 
 GOODWIN. 75 ceius. 
 
 Four merry schoolgirls during vacation time are inducted into the mysteries 
 of chamber-work, cooking, washing, ironing, pntting up preserves and cutting 
 and making underclothes, all under the careful supervision of our of the moth- 
 ers. The whole thing is made attractive for them in a way that is simply cap- 
 tivating, and the story of their experiment is full of interest. 
 A GIRL'S ROOM. With plans and designs for work upstairs and 
 
 down, and entertainments for herself and friends. By SOME FRIENDS op 
 
 THE GIRLS. $i.oo. 
 
 This dainty volume not only shows girls how to make their rooms cosey and 
 attractive at small trouble and expense, but also how to pass a social evening 
 with various games, and to prepare many pretty and useful articles for them- 
 selves and friends. 
 
 CHRISTIE'S CHRISTMAS. By PANSY. i2mo, fully illustrated, 
 
 $1.50. 
 
 Christie is one of those delightfully life-like, naive and interesting charac- 
 ters which no one so well as Pansy can portray, and in the study of which 
 every reader will find delight and profit. 
 
 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. By MRS. S. D. POWER. 
 i6mo, extra cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Articles on household matters, written in a clear, fascinating style out of 
 the experience of a writer who knows whereof she speaks. Every girl and 
 young housekeeper should own a copy. 
 
 BRAVE GIRLS. By MARY HARTWBLL CATHERWOOD, NORA PERRY, 
 
 MRS. JOHN SHERWOOD and others. #1.50. 
 
 Here are deeds of stirring adventure and peril, and quiet heroism no less 
 brave, to incite girls to be faithful and fearless, strong and true to the right. 
 
 NEW EVERY MORNING: Selections of Readings for 
 Girls. By ANNIE H. KYDFR. Ji.oo. 
 
 This is just such a book as one would expect from the popular author of 
 " Hold up your Heads, Girls! " and will be no less a favorite The selections 
 are all choice and apprporiate, and will be eagerly read each morning by the 
 happy owners. 
 Any book mentioned herein will be sent postpaid on 
 
 receipt of price by 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., 32 Franklin Street, Boetoa.
 
 Classified List. Pansy. 
 
 THE PANSY BOOKS. 
 
 There are substantial reasons for the great popularity of the 
 4 Pansy Books," and foremost amorig these is their truth to nature 
 and to life. The genuineness of the types of character which 
 they portray is indeed remarkable. 
 
 " Her stories move alternately to laughter and tears." ... 
 "Brimful of the sweetness of evangelical^eligion." ... 
 * Girl life and character portrayed with rare power." . . . 
 " Too much cannot be said of the insight given into the true way 
 of studying and using the word of God." . . . These are a 
 few quotations from words of praise everywhere spoken. The 
 " Pansy Books " may be purchased by any Sunday-school without 
 hesitation as to their character or acceptability. 
 
 Each volume izmo, $1.50. 
 
 Chautauqna Girls at Home. Links in Rebecca's Life. 
 
 Christie's Christmas. Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On. 
 
 Divers Women. Modern Prophets. 
 
 Echoing and Re-echoing. Man of the House (The). 
 
 Endless Chain (An). New Graft on the Family Tree (A\ 
 
 Ester Ried. One Commonplace Day. 
 
 Ester Ried Yet Speaking. Pocket Measure (The). 
 
 Four Girls at Chautauqua. Ruth Erskine's Crosses. 
 
 From different Standpoints. Randolphs (The). 
 
 Hall in the Grove (The). Sidney Martin's Christmas. 
 
 Household Puzzles. Those Boys. 
 
 Interrupted. Three People. 
 
 Julia Ried. Tip Lewi? and his Lamp. 
 
 King's Daughter (The). Wise and Otherwise.
 
 ELLA FARMAN'S BOOKS. 
 
 These books, by the Editor of WIDE AWAKE, are full of 
 sympathy with youth, always sunshiny and hopeful, point- 
 ing out new ways to do things md unexpected causes for 
 happiness and gladness. 9 vols., large i6mo, illust., 10.00. 
 
 ANNA MAYLIE. 
 
 A story of faithful, resolute work in the Sunday-school 
 an; in the field of the Western religious pioneer. A stand- 
 ard book for the libraries of Christian families. 121110, 
 $1.50. 
 
 A LITTLE WOMAN. 
 A beautiful story of what a little girl may do. i6mo, 
 
 $1 oo. 
 
 GRANDMA CROSBY'S HOUSEHOLD 
 A story narrating the noble possibilities of even the 
 simplest farmhouse life. i6mo, illust., $1.00. 
 
 A GIRL'S MONEY. 
 
 A fascinating and pathetic story of a girl who was true to 
 her ideals. i6n.% illust., $1.00. 
 
 G001>-FOR-NO THING POLLY. 
 
 The story of a boy who ran away from home, assisted by 
 his father and the minister. 161110, cloth, illust., $1.00. 
 
 HOW TWO GIRLS TRIED FARMING. 
 A piquant narrative of an actual experience. i6mo, 
 paper, 50 cents. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 THE COOKING CLUB OF TU-WHIT HOLLOW. 
 
 A merry, biigh book that will help make good house- 
 keepers of our daughters ; as through and through the 
 sparkling story runs practical lessons and valuable sug- 
 estions. 16010, $i oo. 
 
 MRS. KURD'S NIECE. 
 
 This is one of Miss Farman's strongest works for girls, 
 with characters finely drawn. i2mo, cloth, illustrated, $1.50. 
 
 A WHITE HAND. 
 A story of American society. i6mo, illust., 1.501
 
 MARGARET SIDNEY'S BOOKS. 
 
 That "Child Classic," FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW 
 THEY GREW\ comes out in a new, charming edition. $1.50. 
 The perfect reproduction of child life in its minutest phases catches one's 
 
 attention at once. Christian Advocate. 
 
 SO AS BY FIRE. $1.25. 
 
 We 1iave followed with intense interest the story of David Folsom. 
 Woman at Work. 
 
 THE PETTIBONE NAME. $1.25. 
 
 This is a capital story illustrating New England life. Inter-Ocean, Chi- 
 cago. 
 
 The characters of the story seem to be '.tudies from life. Boston Post. 
 HALF YEAR AT BRONCK1ON. #1.25- 
 
 A lively boy writes, " This is abouc the best book that ever was written or 
 ever can be." 
 
 HOW THEY WENT TO EUROPE. i6mo, illustrated. 
 
 The plan of the book resembles, in some respects, that of " A Voyage 
 Around my Room." It is certainly bright. N. Y. Independent. 
 
 THE GOLDEN WEST. Extra cloth, $2.25 ; boards, $1.75. 
 
 The best travel book for children. It combines fun with instruction in the 
 right proportions. The pictures of the States west of the Mississippi and 
 along the sunny Pacific slopes, are full of graphic coloring. 
 
 WHO TOLD IT TO ME? $1.25. 
 
 A most stirring story of school life in New England. The characters make 
 their mark in the war for the Union. It is such a book as you would expect 
 from Margaret Sidney. 
 
 WHAT THE SEVEN DID. Boards, $1.75; extra cloth, ^.fj. 
 
 A royal gift book for children. They read it again and again, and, best of 
 ill, they practice it. Many Wordsworth Clubs are doing deeds of charity ac- 
 cording to the model iu this book. 
 
 A NEW DEPARTURE FOR GIRLS. 75 cents. 
 
 The most practical, sensible and to-the-point book which has been written 
 for girls within the last fifty years a godsend to the " Helen Harknesses" 
 of our great cities, and small towns as well. That this kindly effort has already 
 reached young women is evident from advertisements already appearing in the 
 " Wanted " columns of the Boston dailies. 
 
 POLLY : Where she lived, what she said and "what she 
 
 Did. Quarto, 50 cents. 
 
 With twelve full-page pictures by Margaret Johnson. A story of a funny 
 parrot and two charming children. 
 
 ON EASTER DAY. An illustrated poem. 35 cents. 
 
 THE MINUTE MAN. A ballad of the "shot heard round the world." 
 Illustrated, 1.50. 
 
 HESTILR, and other New England Stories. A story for adults $1.25. 
 
 The character touches are strong and well-defined. It is fresh with New 
 England atmosphere. 
 
 TWO MODERN LITTLE PRINCES, and other Stories for young 
 people. $1.00. ^ 
 
 Full of exquisite touches of humor and pathos, and cosey home Ufa 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1886, uv D. LOTHROP & Co.
 
 TV 
 
 6 1988 
 
 M
 
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