the christian home as it is in the sphere of nature and the church. showing the mission, duties, influences, habits, and responsibilities of home its education, government, and discipline; with hints on "match making," and the relation of parents to the marriage choice of their children; together with a consideration of the tests in the selection of a companion, etc. by rev. s. philips, a.m. published by gurdon bill, springfield, mass. h. c. johnson, detroit, mich. "sweet is the smile of home! the mutual look, when hearts are of each other sure; sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, the haunt of all affections pure." preface. it is a fact conceded by all, that the constitution of the christian family, and its social and spiritual relations, are not as fully developed as they should be. in this age of extreme individualism, we have almost left out of view the mission of home as the first form of society, and the important bearing it has upon the formation of character. its interests are not appreciated; its duties and privileges are neglected; husbands and wives do not fully realize their moral relation to each other; parents are inclined to renounce their authority; and children, brought up in a state of domestic libertinism, neither respect nor obey their parents as they should. the idea of human character as a development from the nursery to the grave, is not realized. home as a preparation for both the state and the church, and its bearing, as such, upon the prosperity of both, are renounced as traditionary, and too old and stale to suit this age of mechanical progression and "young americanism." as a consequence, the influence of home is lost; the lambs of the flock are neglected, grow up in spiritual ignorance, and become a curse both to themselves and to their parents. the vice and infidelity which prevail to such an alarming extent in the present day, may be ascribed to parental neglect of the young. the desolating curse of heaven invariably accompanies neglect of domestic obligations and duties; it was this that constituted that dreadful degeneracy which preceded the coming of the messiah. the parents were alienated from the children, and the children from their parents. and the only way in which the jews could avert deserved and impending ruin, was by "turning the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." we must adopt the same method. we need in the present day a deeper and more scriptural sense, both in the state and church, of the importance of the family, and of its position in the sphere of natural and religious life. the attention of the people should be directed to the nature, the influences, the responsibilities, the prerogatives, duties and blessings of the christian home. any work which contributes to this end is worthy of our high regard and subserves a noble purpose; for it is only when the details of home-life are given to the public, that proper interest in them will be developed, and we can hope for a better state of things in this first form of associated life. the following work is an humble contribution to this important cause. it is intended to excite interest in the religious elements of family life, and to show that the development of individual character and happiness in the church and state, in time and in eternity, starts with, and depends upon, home-training and nurture. the author, in presenting it to the public, is fully conscious of its many palpable imperfections; yet, as it is his first effort, and as it was prepared amid the multiplied perplexities and interruptions of his professional life, he confidently expects that it will be received with charitable consideration. it is now published as an introduction to a work on the historical development of home, to which his attention has for years been directed. if this unassuming volume should be instrumental in the saving of one family from ruin, we shall feel ourself fully compensated. the author. chambersburg, pa., . contents. preface chapter i. what is the christian home.--_section i.: home in the sphere of nature._--the power of home-association. inadequate ideas of home. home is a divine institute. its highest conception. definition of home. its two-fold aspect. as simply physical. as purely moral. home in the sphere of natural affection. home-love. home-ties. the angel-spirit of home. our nature demands home. home-sickness. conclusion. _section ii.: some in the sphere of the church_.--the heathen home. constituent elements of the christian home. marriage. husband and wife. parents and children. union of the members of a family. the christian home must be churchly. how we abuse it. examples of true homes. parental neglect. address to parents and children. home-meetings and greetings. chapter ii. the mission of the christian home.--the nature of this mission. david. joshua. it is two-fold. the temporal well-being of the members. how parents abuse this part of the home-mission. the eternal well-being of the members. extent of the home-mission. its importance and responsibility. seen in the vicarious character of home. the principle of moral reproduction. the visitation of parental iniquity upon the children. the guilt of unfaithfulness to this mission. qualifications for it. the law of equality in marriage. how parents may disqualify themselves for it. incentives to faithfulness. address to parents. chapter iii. family religion.--the christian home demands family religion. what is it? different from personal religion. co-existent with. home. essential to its constitution. its historical development from eden to the present age. its present neglect. what it includes. the example of our primitive fathers. the forms in which it is developed. the home-mission demands it. its necessity seen in the value of the soul. home without it. home with it. relations of home demand it. reply to excuses from it. defect of it now. reasons for this. it is implied in the marriage relation and obligation. motives to establish it. chapter iv. the relation of home to the church.--it must be churchly. this relation is vital and necessary, involving mutual dependence. relation of preparation. home completes itself in the church. it has power only in the sphere of the church. this relation involves duties and responsibilities. chapter v. home-influence.--home has power. this is either a curse or a blessing. what is home-influence? its character. its degree estimated from the force of first impressions. scripture testimony to it. its legitimate objects. how it acts in the formation of character. augustine. washington. john q. adams. bishop hall. dr. doddridge. dr. cumming. a mother won to christ by a daughter. its influence upon the state. napoleon. homes of the revolution. the spartan mother and home. its influence upon the church. its responsibility inferred. chapter vi. home as a stewardship.--what is a steward? home is a stewardship. parents. home-interests. identity of interest between the master and steward. mother of moses. character and responsibilities of this stewardship. the social prostitution of home. the principle of accountability this stewardship involves. the final settlement. chapter vii. responsibilities of the christian home.--these inferred from home-influence and stewardship. their measure. by the magnitude of home-interest. by the kind of influence upon the members. by the guilt and punishment of parental unfaithfulness. they are incentives to parental integrity. a family drama in two acts. filial responsibility. address to parents and children. chapter viii. the family bible.--the memories which cluster around it. the household interests it contains. the bible as a family record. as a home-inheritance. as the gift of a mother's love. an indispensable appendage to home. its adaptation to home. it should be used as the text-book of home-education. its abuse and neglect. chapter ix. infancy.--new eras in family history. the first-born. charm and interest of infancy. the infant as a member of home. its emblematic character. its helplessness. its prophetical character. the trust and responsibility involved. the mother's relation to infancy. address to parents. chapter x. home-dedication.--the hebrew mother and her child. reasons for dedication. dedication of children. abraham. offering of isaac. little samuel. david. typical character of old testament family offerings. benefits of home-dedication. duty of parents to devote their sons to the ministry. the unfaithfulness of parents to this duty. chapter xi. christian baptism.--the baptismal altar. it is the sacrament of home-dedication. infants are its true subjects. home demands it. infant baptism proven, by the child's need of salvation, by the idea and mission of christ, by the idea of the church, by the hereditary character of sin, by the relation of christian parents to their children, by the constitution of family life. enemies of infant baptism. why opposed to it. their sophistry. dr. a. carson. appeal to parents. duty and privilege of parents to have their children baptized. its neglect and abuse. how abused. the old landmarks. striking statistics. abuse by parents and children. chapter xii. christian names.--proper kind of names. law of correspondence and association. christian names. much in a name. naming a child should not be arbitrary. nebuchadnezzar. adam. the hebrews. woman. eve. cain. seth. samuel. dr. krummacher. names now given. the folly and evil of it. why we should give suitable names. why scriptural names. mary. instances of proper christian names. chapter xiii. home as a nursery.--idea of nursing. what a nursery is. the sense in which home is a nursery. character of the home-nursery. the mother's special sphere. relation of the nursery to the formation of character. the nursery is physical. sickly and immoral nurses. consequences. it is intellectual. its abuse. it is moral and spiritual. the ways in which the nursery is abused. boarding schools. chapter xiv. home-sympathy.--an argument against the neglect and abuse of the nursery. its natural elements. its definition and nature. the ancients. baptista porta. plato. middle ages. it is passive and active. its disease. good samaritan. rousseau. robespierre. its relation to natural affection. its relation to woman. its religious elements. christ. ruth. joseph. mother of samuel. peter. esther. paul. family of lazarus. its true pattern. its attractive power. unfaithfulness to its law. its highest element. chapter xv. family prayer.--its relation to home-sympathy. its necessity. its idea. dr. dwight's view. the duty to establish it proven. its neglect. excuses from family prayer. address to parents. chapter xvi. home-education.--_section i.: the character of home-education._ what is home-education. different kinds. it must be physical. intellectual. moral. the means. circumstances. temptation. example. training. habit. the feelings. conscience. motives. cardinal virtues. when it should begin. it must be religious. necessity of this. st. pierre. the mother as teacher. objections considered. encouragement to home-training. dr. doddridge. a pious minister. dr. dwight. young edwards. polycarp. timothy. john randolph. j.q. adams. daniel. the power of home-training in religion. _section ii.: the neglect and abuse of home-education._--popular prejudices exposed. dr. johnson. edmund burke. miss sedgwick. everett. robert hall. fruits of a neglected education. law of the icelanders. parents are responsible. crates. pleasure of teaching the young. thompson. abuse of it. fashionable boarding-schools. a hopeful young lady. how to ruin a son. duty of parents inferred. books. bartholin. home-training not isolated from church-training. must be churchly. chapter xvii. family habits.--their importance. their idea. different kinds. their formation. tobacco and liquor. evil and good habits. family prayer. omission of duty. their influence. rev. c.c. colton. a criminal in india. habit as the interpreter of character. its reproductive power. we are responsible for our habits. christian habits. habit of industry. rutherford. habits of perseverance and contentment. chapter xviii. home-government.--home is a little commonwealth. includes the legal principle. relation of parents to children. principle of home-government. parental authority threefold. schlegel. old roman law. a divine, inalienable right. extent of parental authority. false view of it. correlative relation between filial obedience and parental authority. character and extent of filial obedience. neglect and abuse of home-government. parental indulgence and despotism. the true medium. address to parents. chapter xix. home-discipline.--its idea. its necessity. false systems. discipline from the standpoint of law without love. its fruits. a quaint anecdote. the europeans. the arabs. discipline from the standpoint of love without law. examples. eli. david. its fruits. true christian discipline. chastisement. a model system. abraham. his children. when discipline should be introduced. when it should be administered. importance of parental co-operation. favoritism. relation of command to chastisement. the kind of rein and whip. when corporeal punishment should be used. dr. south. dr. bell. its adaptation to the real wants of the child. fidelity to threats and promises. examination of offenses. never chastise in anger. let your child know the object of discipline. chapter xx. home-example.--its idea and influence. the child is the moral reproduction of the parent. solomon. paul. shakspeare. dr. young. its necessity proven from its relation to precept--william jay; from its adaptation to the capacity and imitative disposition of the child. duty of parents to show a model example to the child. archbishop tillotson. motives to this duty. obstacles to the efficacy of good home-example. unequal marriages. jacob's marriage. zacharias and elizabeth. chapter xxi. the choice of pursuits.--duty of preparation for some useful occupation. this should be made in childhood. the part parents should take in this. duty of all persons to engage in some useful pursuit shown from the relation of the individual to the state, from the possibility of future misfortune, from the excessive prodigality of those who have been brought up in idleness. law of the athenians. what parents should consider in their selection of an occupation for their children. injudicious course of some parents. fruits of disobedience to the law of adaptation. social position. exigencies. but one pursuit. jack of all trades. loaferism. fruits of indolence. chapter xxii. the home-parlor.--its idea and relations to society. why we should hold it sacred. the most dangerous departments of home. duty of parents to instruct their children in reference to it. how far the christian parlor may conform to the laws and customs of fashion. adulteration of the christian home through indiscriminate association. the sad and demoralizing effects. address to parents. chapter xxiii. match-making.--_section i.: the relation of parents to the marriage choice of their children_.--the bridal hour. a home-crisis. the bride's farewell. have parents a right to take any part in the marriage choice of their children? this right proven from their relation to their children, from the inexperience of children, from sacred history. the patriarchal age. judaism. the christian church. the extent of this right. the duties it involves. moral control. coercive measures. improper parental interposition. its sad effects. persuasive measures. should parents banish and disinherit children for their marrying against their will? paley. _section ii.: false tests in the selection of a companion_.--the mere outward. how we determine unhappy matches. the manner of paying addresses. the habit of match-making. tricks of match-makers. the sad fruits. book match-makers. their auxiliaries. the evil. how parents may preserve their children. false influences. smitten. outward beauty. impulsive passion. falling in love at first sight. wealth. rank. english aristocracy. nepotism. snobbishness. _section iii.: true tests in the selection of a companion_.--judicious views of the nature and responsibilities of the marriage institution. our forefathers. reciprocal affection. paley. true love. adaptation of character and position. fitness of circumstances, means, and age. religious equality and adaptation. only in the lord. the sad effect of inequality. should persons marry outside of their own branch of the church? sin and curse of disobedience to the law of religious equality. duty of parents in reference to religious equality. all matches not made in heaven. law of moses. abraham. historical instances of the fruits of disobeying this law. reasonableness of the law. the primitive christians. sense of the christian church. address to christians. chapter xxiv. the children's patrimony.--the question this involves. not confined to wealth. a good character and occupation. true religion. how parents should proceed in the distribution of their property. why they should give only a competency. the rules to determine a competence. paley. what the law of competence forbids. penalties of its violation. history. impartiality. paley. the infatuation of many parents. chapter xxv. the promises of the christian home.--two kinds. divine promises to parents and children. those of punishment. law of reproduction. iniquity of the parents upon the children. promises of reward. in this life. john q. adams. in the life to come. god's fidelity to his promises. they are conditional. when they become absolute. popular objections. compatibility between promises and agencies. paul. moses. promises made by parents. chapter xxvi. the bereavements of home.--separation. bereavements diversified. reverses of fortune. death. first death. of husband and father. of a wife and mother. of children. of the infant. of the first-born. wisdom and goodness of god in bereavements. discipline. moral instruction. the dead and living still together. benefit. death of little children is a kindness to them. why. why christ became a little child. we should not wish them back. their death is a benefit to the living. communion of saints. ministering spirits. the spirit-world. a ministering child. a ministering mother. infant salvation. zuinlius. calvin. dr. junkin. newton. the hope of re-union in heaven. we should not murmur against god. this does not forbid godly sorrow and tears. meekly submit. chapter xxvii. the memories of home.--chief justice gibson. relation of memory to bereavement. memories are pleasing and painful. pleasing and pious memories. a mother's recollection. the pleasures of remembering the pious dead. irving. the saving influence of memory. painful memories. critical power of memory. mementoes of home. pictures. memorials. letters from home. seek pleasing memories. chapter xxviii. the antitype of the christian home.--typical relation between home and heaven. the christian's tent-home in its relation to heaven. the antitypical character of heaven. a comparative view of our earthly and our heavenly home. christ the center of heaven's joy and attraction. union between home and heaven. a conscious union of the members in heaven. family recognition and love in heaven. family greeting and joy in heaven. longings after heaven. conclusion. chapter i. what is the christian home? section i. home in the sphere of nature. "my home! the spirit of its love is breathing in every wind that plays across my track, from its white walls the very tendrils wreathing seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back. there am i loved--there prayed for!--there my mother sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye, there my young sisters watch to greet their brother; soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly! and what is home? and where, but with the loving?" home! that name touches every fibre of the soul, and strikes every chord of the human heart as with angelic fingers. nothing but death can break its spell. what tender associations are linked with home! what pleasing images and deep emotions it awakens! it calls up the fondest memories of life, and opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated thought and feeling. "home! 'tis a blessed name! and they who rove, careless or scornful of its pleasant bonds, nor gather round them those linked soul to soul by nature's fondest ties,... but dream they're happy!" but what _is_ home,--home in the sphere of nature? it is not simply an ideal which feeds the fancy, nor the flimsy emotion of a sentimental heart. we should seek for its meaning, not in the flowery vales of imagination, but amid the sober realities of thought and of faith. home is not the mere dwelling place of our parents, and the theater upon which we played the part of merry childhood. it is not simply a habitation. this would identify it with the lion's lair and the eagle's nest. it is not the mere mechanical juxtaposition of so many human beings, herding together like animals in the den or stall. it is not mere conventionalism,--a human association made up of the nursery, the parlor, the outward of domestic life, resting upon some evanescent passion, some sensual impression and policy. these do not make up the idea of home. home is a divine institution, coeval and congenital with man. the first home was in eden; the last home will be in heaven. it is the first form of society, a little commonwealth in which we first lose our individualism and come to the consciousness of our relation to others. thus it is the foundation of all our relationships in life,--the preparation-state for our position in the state and in the church. it is the first form and development of the associating principle, the normal relation in which human character first unfolds itself. it is the first partnership of nature and of life; and when it involves "the communion of saints," it reaches its highest form of development. it is an organic unity of nature and of interest,--the moral center of all those educational influences which are exerted upon our inward being. the idea of the home-institution rests upon the true love of our moral nature, involving the marriage union of congenial souls, binding up into itself the whole of life, forming and moulding all its relations, and causing body, mind and spirit to partake of a common evolution. the loving soul is the central fact of home. in it the inner life of the members find their true complement, and enjoy a kind of community of consciousness. "home's not merely four square walls, though with pictures hung and gilded; home is where affection calls-- filled with shrines the heart hath builded." home may be viewed in a two-fold aspect, as simply physical, and as purely moral. the former comes finally to its full meaning and force only in the latter. they are interwoven; we cannot understand the one without the other; they are complements; and the complete idea of home as we find it in the sphere of nature, lies in the living union of both. by the physical idea of home, we mean, not only its outward, mechanical structure, made up of different parts and members, but that living whole or oneness into which these parts are bound up. hence it is not merely adventitious,--a corporation of individual interests, but that organic unity of natural life and interest in which the members are bound up. by the moral idea of home, we mean the union of the moral life and interests of its members. this explodes the infidel systems of fourierism, socialism, mormonism, and "woman's rights." these forms of agrarianism destroy the ethical idea and mission of home; for they are not only opposed to revelation and history, but violate the plainest maxims of natural affection. love is an essential element of home. without this we may have the form of a home, but not its spirit, its beating heart, its true motive power, and its sunshine. the inward stream would he gone, and home would not be the oneness of kindred souls. home-love is instinctive, and begets all those silken chords, those sweet harmonies, those tender sympathies and endearments which give to the family its magic power. this home-love is the mother of all home delights, yea, of all the love of life. we first draw love from our mother's breast, and it is love which ministers to our first wants. it flashes from parent to parent, and from parent to child, making-up the sunshine and the loveliness of domestic life. without it home would have no meaning. it engenders the "home-feeling" and the "home-sickness," and is the moral net-work of the home-existence and economy. it is stronger than death; it rises superior to adversity, and towers in sublime beauty above the niggardly selfishness of the world. misfortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it; temptation cannot enslave it. it is the guardian angel of the nursery and the sick-bed; it gives an affectionate concord to the partnership of home-life and interest. circumstances cannot modify it; it ever remains the same, to sweeten existence, to purify the cup of life, to smooth our rugged pathway to the grave, and to melt into moral pliability the brittle nature of man. it is the ministering spirit of home, hovering in soothing caresses over the cradle and the death-beds of the household, and filling up the urn of all its sacred memories. but home demands not only such love, but ties, tender, strong, and sacred. these bind up the many in the one. they are the fibres of the home-life, and cannot be wrenched without causing the heart to bleed at every pore. death may dissect them and tear away the objects around which they entwine; and they will still live in the imperishable love which survives. from them proceed mutual devotions and confiding faith. they bind together in one all-expanding unity, the perogatives of the husband, and the subordination of the wife, the authority of the parent and the obedience of the child. "o, not the smile of other lands, though far and wide our feet may roam, can e'er untie the genial bands that knit our hearts to home!" the mother is the angel-spirit of home. her tender yearnings over the cradle of her infant babe, her guardian care of the child and youth, and her bosom companionship with the man of her love and choice, make her the personal center of the interests, the hopes and the happiness of the family. her love glows in her sympathies and reigns in all her thoughts and deeds. it never cools, never tires, never dreads, never sleeps, but ever glows and burns with increasing ardor, and with sweet and holy incense upon the altar of home-devotion. and even when she is gone to her last rest, the sainted mother in heaven sways a mightier influence over her wayward husband or child, than when she was present. her departed spirit still hovers over his affections, overshadows his path, and draws him by unseen cords to herself in heaven. our nature demands home. it is the first essential element of our social being. the whole social system rests upon it: body, mind and spirit are concerned in it. these cannot be complete out of the home-relations; there would be no proper equilibrium of life and character without the home feeling and influence. the heart, when bereaved and disappointed, naturally turns for refuge to home-life and sympathy. no spot is so attractive to the weary one; it is the heart's moral oasis; there is a mother's watchful love, and a father's sustaining influence; there is a husband's protection, and a wife's tender sympathy; there is the circle of loving brothers and sisters,--happy in each other's love. oh, what is life without these? a desolation!--a painful, glooming pilgrimage through "desert heaths and barren sands." but home gives to life its fertilizing dews, its budding hopes, and its blossoming joys. when far away in distant lands or upon the ocean's heaving breast, we pine away and become "home-sick;" no voice there like a mother's; no sympathy there like a wife's; no loved one there like a child; no resting place there like home; and we cry out, "home! sweet, sweet home!" thus our nature instinctively longs for the deep love and the true hearts of home. it has for our life more satisfaction than all the honors, and the riches and the luxuries of the world. we soon grow sick of these, and become sick for home, however humble it may be. its endearments are ever fresh, as if in the bursting joys of their first experience. they remain unforgotten in our memories and imperishable in our hearts. when friends become cold, society heartless, and adversity frowns darkly and heavily upon us, oh, it is then that we turn with fond assurance to home, where loved ones will weep as well as rejoice with us. "oh, the blessing of a home, where old and young mix kindly, the young unawed, the old unchilled, in unreserved communion! oh that refuge from the world, when a stricken son or daughter may seek with confidence of love, a father's hearth and heart; come unto me, my son, if men rebuke and mock thee, there always shall be one to bless,--for i am on thy side!" section ii. home in the sphere of the church. "a holy home, where those who sought the footprints of the lord, along the paths of pain, and care, and gloom, shall find the rest of heaven a rich reward." what is the _christian_ home? only in the sphere of christianity does the true idea of home become fully developed. home with the savage is but a herding, a servitude. even among many of the jews it was little better than a mahommedan seraglio. the most eminent of the heathen world degrade the family by making it the scene of lust, and introducing concubinage and polygamy. plato, one of the most enlightened of the heathen, had base conceptions of home, and abused its highest and holiest prerogatives by his ideas of polygamy. we find too that in the ethics of aristotle, the most lovely and sacred attributes of the family are totally discarded. the home which he holds up to view is unadorned with chastity and virtue. and sophocles follows in the same path, stripping home of all that is sacred and essential to its true constitution. and when we come down to the present age, and view this divine institute in the light of mormonism and socialism, who will say that here we have unfolded its true idea and sacred character? how different is the true christian home! here the marriage union is preserved "honorable," held sacred, and woman is raised to her true position. in the sphere of the christian church, home is brought fairly and completely into view. here it rises above the measure of natural affection, and temporal interest. it enters the sphere of supernatural faith, and becomes the adumbration of our home in heaven. the christian home is a true type of the church. "the husband is the head of the wife, as christ is of the church." the love of the family is self-denying and holy, like that between christ and his church. the children are "the heritage of the lord;" the parents are his stewards. like the church, the christian home has its ministry. yea, the church is in the home, as the mother is in her child. we cannot separate them; they are correlatives. the one demands the other. the christian home can have existence only in the sphere of the church. it is the vestibule of the church, bound to her by the bonds of christian marriage, of holy baptism, and of the communion of saints, leading to her in the course of moral development, and completing her life only in the church-consciousness. home is, therefore, a partnership of spiritual as well as of natural life. the members thereof dwell "as being heirs together of the grace of life." "heavenly mindedness," "the hidden man of the heart," and a "hope full of immortality," are the ornaments of the christian home. hers is "the incorruptibility of a meek and quiet spirit;" her members are "joint heirs of salvation;" they are "one," not only in nature, but "in christ." they enjoy a "communion in spirit," that their "joy might be full." "what god, therefore, hath joined together, let not man put asunder." such a home, being "right with god," must be "full of good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy." here the christian shows his real character. in the sphere of the church, the family reaches its highest excellence and its purest enjoyment. says the learned d'aubigne, "without the knowledge and the love of god, a family is but a collection of individuals who may have more or less of natural affection for one another; but the real bond,--the love of god our father, in jesus christ, our lord,--is wanting." we, therefore, abuse the idea of home when we divest it of the religious element. as the family is a divine institute and a type of the church and of heaven, it cannot be understood in its isolation from christianity; it must involve christian principles, duties, and interests; and embrace in its educational functions, a preparation, not only for the state, but also for the church. the church gives to home a sacred religious ministry, a spiritual calling, a divine mission; investing it with prophetic, priestly and kingly prerogatives, and laying it under religious responsibilities. this gives to the christian home its true meaning, and secures for its members-- "a sacred and home-felt delight, a sober certainty of waking bliss." such was the home of abraham, who "commanded his children and his household to keep the way of the lord, to do justice and judgment,"--of joshua, who with "his house served the lord,"--of david, who "returned to bless his household,"--of job, who "offered burnt-offering according to the number of his sons,"--of cornelius, who "feared god with all his house,"--of lydia, and crispus, and the jailor of philippi, who "believed in the lord with all their house." how many christian parents practically discard this attribute of home! while all their temporal interests cluster around their home, and their hearts are fondly wedded to it as their retreat from a cold and repulsive world, they never think perhaps that god is in their family, that he has instituted it, and given those cherished ones who "set like olive plants around their table." they are faithful to all natural duties, and make ample provision for the temporal wants of their offspring; the mother bends with untiring assiduity over the cradle of her babe, and ministers to all its wants, watching with delight every opening beauty of that bud of promise, and willingly sacrificing all for its good. with what rapture she catches its first lispings of mother! the father toils from year to year to secure it a fair patrimony, a finished education, and an honorable position in life. how unremittingly these parents watch over the sick-bed of their children and of each other; and oh, what burning tears gush forth as the utterance of their agonizing hearts, when death threatens to blight a single bud, or lay his cold hand upon a single member! this is all right, noble, and faithful to the natural elements of home. natural affection prompts it, and it is well. but if this is all; if christian parents and their children are governed only by the promptings of nature; if they are bound together by no spiritual ties and interests and hopes; if they are not prompted by faith to make provision for the soul, and for eternity; then we think they have not as yet realized the deepest and holiest significance of their home. the christian home demands the christian consciousness,--the sense of a spirit-world with all its obligations and interests and responsibilities. oh, is it not too often the case that even the christian mother, while she teaches her babe the accents of her own name, never thinks of teaching it to lisp the name of jesus,--never seeks to unfold its infant spirit,--never supplies it with spiritual food, nor directs its soul to the eternal world! in the same way the pious wife neglects her impenitent husband; and the pious husband, his reckless wife. there is too much such dereliction of duty in the homes of church members. our homes give us an interest in, and bind us by peculiar bonds to, the eternal world; those loved ones who have gone before us, look down from heaven upon those they have left behind; though absent from us in body, their spirits are still with us; and they come thronging upon glowing pinions, as ministering spirits, to our hearts. mother! that little babe that perished in your arms, hovers over thee now, and is the guardian angel of your heart and home. it meets thee still! and oh, how joyful will your home-meeting be in heaven! children! the spirit of your sainted mother lingers around your home to minister in holy things to thee. she has left you in body; she lies mouldering now in the humid earth; but she is with thee in spirit. your home, dwelling in the sphere of the church on earth, has a spiritual communion with the sainted ones of the church in heaven. thus, as the home-feeling can never he eradicated, so the home-meetings can never be broken up. even the dead are with us there; their seats may be empty, and their forms may no longer move before us; but their spirits meet with us, and imprint their ministrations upon our hearts. the dead and the living meet in home! "we are all here! father, mother, sister, brother, all who hold each other dear, each chair is filled, we're all at home! let gentle peace assert her power, and kind affection rule the hour-- we're all--all here! even they--the dead--though dead so dear, fond memory to her duty true, brings back their faded forms to view. how life-like through the mist of years, each well-remembered face appears; we hear their words, their smiles behold, they're round us as they were of old-- we are all here!" chapter ii. the mission of the christian home. "if in the family thou art the best, pray oft, and be mouth unto the rest; whom god hath made the heads of families, he hath made priests to offer sacrifice." the home is a divine institution, and includes the religious element, moving in the sphere of nature and of the church, then its calling must be of god; its mission is divine; it is designed to subserve a spiritual purpose; it has a soul-mission. this was the view of david when he "returned to _bless_ his household." to him his family was a church in miniature, and he its priest. thus too joshua felt that his service of god must include family worship. what then is the mission, of the christian home? it is two-fold,--the temporal and eternal well-being of its members. it is the mission of home to provide for the temporal well-being of its members. they are parts of one great whole. each must seek the welfare of all the rest. this involves obedience to the law of co-operation; and has special reference to that provision which the heads of families should make for the wants of those who are placed under their protection. as the parent sustains a physical, intellectual and moral relation to the child, it is his mission to provide for its physical, mental and moral wants. "he that provideth not for his own house hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." natural affection will prompt to this. children are in a state of utter helplessness. the infant is at the mercy of the parent. instinct impels the parent to provide for its wants. even the brute does this. that it is a part, therefore, of the home mission to provide for the physical wants of the dependents there, is very evident. to refuse to fulfill it is a crime against nature. this part of the home-mission includes the education of the body, by properly unfolding and directing its powers, and providing it with appropriate nutriment, raiment and shelter. in a word, we should make proper provision for the development and maturity of the physical life of our children. this is the mission of the parent until the child is able to provide for itself. this, says blackstone, "is a principle of natural law;" and, in the language of puffendorf, is "an obligation laid on parents, not only by nature herself, but by their own proper act in bringing them into the world." the laws of the land also command it. the child has a legal claim upon the parent for physical sustenance and education. it is another part of the home-mission to provide for the intellectual wants and welfare of the child. children have mind as well as body. the former needs nourishment and training as well as the latter. hence it is as much the mission of the family to minister to the well-being of the mind of the child, as to that of its body. civil law enforces this. children have a legal as well as a natural claim to mental culture. in a word, it is the home-mission to provide for the child all things necessary to prepare it for a citizenship in the state. parents abuse this mission in two ways, either when they by their own indolence and dissipation compel their children to support them; or, on the other hand, when they become the willing slaves of their children, labor to amass a fortune for them, and, in the anticipation of that, permit them to grow up in ignorance, idleness, and prodigality, fit only to abuse and spend the fruit of parental servitude. in this way the misapplied provision made by parents often becomes a curse, not only to the members of the family, but to the state and church. another part of the home-mission is, the spiritual and eternal well-being of its members. this is seen in the typical character of the christian family. it is an emblem of the church and of heaven. according to this, parents are called to administer the means of grace to their household, to provide for soul as well as for body, to prepare the child for a true membership in the church, as well as for a citizenship in the state, to train for heaven as well as for earth. parents are "priests unto their families," and have the commission to act for them as faithful stewards of god in all things pertaining to their everlasting welfare. their souls, as well as their bodies, are committed to their trust, and god says to them,-- "go nurse them for the king of heaven, and he will pay thee hire." this is their great mission, and corresponds with the conception of the christian home as a spiritual nursery. the family is "god's husbandry;" and this implies a spiritual culture. as its members dwell as "being heirs together of the grace of life," it is the function of each to labor to make all the rest "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of god." parents should provide for the religious wants of their children. mere physical maintenance and mental culture cannot supersede the necessity of spiritual training. children have a right to such training. this religious provision is twofold; their moral and spiritual faculties should be developed; and their moral nature supplied with appropriate nutriment. all the wants of their moral nature are to be faithfully provided for. the home-mission involves the business of education of body, of mind, and of spirit;--of preparation for the state, for the church, for eternity. it is this which makes it so sacred and responsible. strip the christian family of its mission as a nursery for the soul; wrest from the parents their high prerogative as stewards of god; and you heathenize home, yea, you brutalize it! tell me, what christian home can accomplish its holy mission, when the soul is neglected, when religion is left out of view, when training up for god is abandoned, when the church is repudiated, and eternity cast off? you may provide for the body and mind of your children; you may amass for them a fortune; you may give them an accomplished education; you may introduce them into the best society; you may establish them in the best business; you may fit them for an honorable and responsible position in life; you may be careful of their health and reputation; and you may caress them with all the tender ardor of the parental heart and hand; yet if you provide not for their souls; if you seek not their salvation; if you minister only to their temporal, and not to their eternal welfare, all will be vain, yea, a curse both to you and to them. husband and wife may love each other, and live together in all the peace and harmony of reciprocated affection; yet if the religious part of their home-mission remain unfulfilled, their family is divested of its noblest attraction; its greatest interests will fall into ruin; its highest destiny will not be attained; and soon its fruits will be entombed in oblivion; while their children, neglected and perishing, will look back upon that home with a bitterness of spirit which the world can neither soothe nor extract! how many such homes there are! even the homes of church members are too often reckless of their high vocation. their moral stewardship is neglected; their dedications, formal and heartless. no prayers are heard; no bible read; no instructions given; no pious examples set; no holy discipline exercised. their interests, their hopes and their enjoyments; their education, their labor and their rest, are all of the world,--worldly. the curse of god is upon such a home! the importance and responsibility of the home-mission may be seen in its vicarious character, and in its influence upon the members. the principle of moral reproduction is manifest in all the home-relations. what the parent does is reproduced, as it were, in the child, and will tell upon the generations that follow them. those close affinities by which all the members are allied, give to each a moulding influence over all the rest. the parents live, not for themselves alone, but for their children, and the consequence of such a life is also entailed upon their offspring. "the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." if the parent "sow to the flesh," the child, with him, "shall of the flesh reap corruption;" but if he "sow to the spirit," his offspring, with him, shall "of the spirit reap life everlasting." sacred and profane history proves and illustrates this great truth. did not god punish the first born of israel, because their fathers had sinned? and is it not a matter of daily observation that the wickedness of the parent is entailed upon the child? such is indeed the affinity between them that the child cannot, unless by some special interposition of providence, escape the curse of a parent's sin. "if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." the guilt and condemnation of unfaithfulness to the home-mission may be inferred from its importance and responsibility. those who are unfaithful are guilty of "blood." we see the curse of such neglect in that deterioration of character which so rapidly succeeds parental delinquency. they must answer before god for the loss which the soul, the state, and the church sustain thereby. "it shall be more tolerable for sodom and gomorrah in the day of judgment than for them." the christian home should be qualified for this mission. there can be no such qualification, however, where the marriage alliance involves inequality--one of the parents a christian, the other not; for they cannot "dwell together as heirs of the grace of life," neither can they effectually dispense that grace to their offspring. when thus "the house is divided against itself, it must fall." "be ye not, therefore, unequally yoked together." if one draws heavenward and the other hellward, there will be a halting between baal and god, and the influence of the one will be counteracted by that of the other. what communion hath light with darkness? "what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" thus divided, their home will be unfit for its high vocation. hence parents, in their marriage alliance as well as in their individual character, should qualify themselves for the responsible mission of home. can the ungodly wife or husband fulfill this mission? can the irreligious parent bring up his offspring "in the nurture and admonition of the lord?" many parents disqualify themselves for their home-mission by devoting too much attention to society,--by spending more time abroad, at parties, theaters and masquerade balls, in gossiping and recreation, than at home with each other and with their children. they commit their children, with all the family interests, to nurses and servants. they regard their offspring as mere playthings to be dandled upon the knee, brought up like calves in the stall, and then turned out to shape their own destiny. this is a sad mistake! there is no substitute for home,--no transfer of a parent's commission, no adequate compensation for a parent's loss. none can effectually take the parent's place. their influence is overwhelming and absolute. "with what a kingly power their love might rule the fountains of the new-born mind!" not even the dark villainies which have disgraced humanity can neutralize it. gray-haired and demon guilt will weep in his dismal cell over the melting, soothing memories of home. their impressions are indelible, "like the deep borings into the flinty rock." to erase them we must remove every strata of their being. they give texture and coloring to the whole woof and web of the child's character. the mother especially preoeccupies the unwritten page of its being, and mingles with it in its cradle dreams, making thus a deathless impress upon its soul. "the mother in her office, holds the key of the soul; and she it is who stamps the coin of character, and makes the being who would be a savage but for her cares, a christian man!" what a folly and a sin, therefore, for christian parents to give over their holy mission to another, while they immerse themselves in the forbidden pleasures and recreations of the world! oh, if you are loving, faithful parents, you will love the society of your household more than the fashions and the fashionable resorts of the world; you will not substitute the "nurse" and the "boarding school" for the more efficient ministrations of the christian home. "if ye count society for past time,--what happier recreation than a nursling, its winning ways, its prattling tongue, its innocence and mirth? if ye count society for good,--how fair a field is here, to guide these souls to god, and multiply thyself in heaven!" "walk, therefore, worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness." "magnify your office." be faithful to your home-mission. draw your pleasure from it. souls are committed to your trust and hang upon your hire. your regard for the temporal and eternal welfare of your children should prompt you to faithfulness to the holy mission of your family. you love your children, and desire their welfare and happiness. but do what you will for them, if you are unfaithful to their souls, you wrest from them the means of safety and of happiness; you aid in their misery in this and in the world to come. you are more cruel to them than was herod who slew the bodies of children. you murder their souls. he murdered the children of others; you murder your own; he employed others to do it for him; you do the work of slaughter yourself! if, then, you love your children; if their souls are committed to you; if your unfaithfulness to them may result in their ruin; if god blesses the holy mission of your home to their temporal and eternal welfare; if its fulfillment by you be "like words spoken in a whispering-gallery, which, will be heard at the distance of years, and echoed along the corridors of ages yet to come;" and if it will prove to them in life like the lone star to the mariner upon the dark and stormy sea,--should you not be faithful to your home-vocation! not only so, but your regard for your own comfort and happiness here and hereafter should impel you to this faithfulness. do you love yourself? do you regard your own comfort and welfare? would you avoid painful solicitude, bitter reflection, heart-burning remorse, dreadful foreboding? then be faithful to the home-mission. if you are, god will bless you for it through your children. what a comfort it will be to you to see them become christians, enter the church, and, at their side around the lord's table, hold communion with them in the joys of faith and in the anticipations of heaven! and should god remove them from you by death, you will be cheered amidst the agonies of separation by their dying consolation. the hope of a speedy reunion with them in heaven would afford a sweet solace to your bereaved heart. or should you be taken before them, what a comfort would they afford you in your last moments! with the glow of christian faith and hope, they would whisper to you the consolations of the gospel, and bless you for your faithfulness to them. and when you and they shall meet at the bar of god, they will rise up and call you blessed. but, on the other hand, should you neglect them; and, as a consequence, they grow up in wickedness and crime; oh, what a source of withering remorse they would cause you! no sin more heavily punishes the guilty, and mingles for him a more bitter cup, than the sin of parental neglect. what if after the lapse of a few years, your neglected child be taken from you, and consigned to the cold grave, think you not that when you meet it before the bar of god, it will rise up as a witness against you, and pour down its curses upon your head! but suppose that child grows up, unprovided for by you in its early life; and profligacy mark his pathway, and demon guilt throw its chains around him in the prison cell; and he trace back the beginning of his ruin to your unfaithfulness, oh, with what pungency would the reflection send the pang of remorse to your soul! "go ask that musing father, why yon grave so narrow, and so noteless, might not close without a tear?" because of the bitter and heart-stricken memories of a neglected, ruined child that slumbers there! or suppose that you die before your neglected children, think you not that the recollection of your past parental unfaithfulness will plant thorns in your pillow, and invest with deeper shades of horror your descent to the dark valley of death? and oh, when you meet them before the bar of the avenging judge, most fearful will be your interview with them. tell me, how will you dare to meet them there, when the voice of their blood will cry out from the hallowed ground of home against you! and then, eternity, oh, eternity! who shall bring out from the secrets of the eternal world, those awful maledictions which god has attached to parental unfaithfulness? provide, therefore, for your family as the lord commands. remember that if you do not, you "deny the faith and are worse than an infidel;" and in the day of judgment "it shall be more tolerable for sodom and gomorrah than for you." chapter iii. family religion. "lo! where yon cottage whitens through the green, the loveliest feature of a matchless scene; beneath its shading elm, with pious fear, an aged mother draws her children near, while from the holy word, with earnest air, she teaches them the privilege of prayer. look! how their infant eyes with rapture speak; mark the flushed lily on the dimpled cheek; their hearts are filled with gratitude and love, their hopes are centered in a world above!" the christian home demands a family religion. this makes it a "household of god." without this it is but a "den of thieves." it is "the one thing needful." what is "family religion?" it is not an exotic, but is indigenous to the christian home. it is not a "new measure," but an essential ingredient of the home-constitution,--coexistent with home itself. the first family "began to call upon the name of the lord;" the first parent acted as high-priest of god in his family. it is not individual piety as such, not simply closet devotion, but family service of god,--religion taken up in the home-consciousness and life. hence a family, and not simply a personal religion. such religion, we say, is as old as the church. we find it in eden, in the tents of the patriarchs and in the wilderness of the prophets. we find it in the tent of abraham in the plains of mamre, in the "house" of moses, in the "service" of joshua, in the "offerings" of job, and in the palace of david and solomon. it is also a prominent feature of the gospel economy. the commendation bestowed by paul upon timothy, was that "from a child" he enjoyed the "unfeigned faith" of his mother eunice and his grandmother lois. paul exhorts christians thus: "rule well your own houses; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." the same family religion was a prominent feature of the homes of the primitive christians. with them, every house was a sanctuary, and every parent a minister in holy things to its members. the bible was not only a parlor ornament, but a lamp to their feet and a guide to their path, used, meditated upon, prayed over. says turtullian of its members, "they are united in spirit and in flesh; they kneel down together; they pray and fast together; they teach, exhort and support each other with gentleness." how, alas! have christian homes degenerated since then in family piety! they received a reviving impulse in the reformation; yet even this was meteor-like, and seemed but the transient glow of some mere natural emotion. the fire which then flashed so brilliantly upon the altar of home, has now become taper-like and sepulchral; and the altar of family religion, like the altar of jehovah upon mt. carmel, has been demolished, and forsaken. only here and there do we find a christian home erect and surround a christian altar. parents seem now ashamed to serve the lord at home. they have neither time nor inclination. upon the subject of religion they maintain a bashful, sullen, wonderful silence before their families. they seem to be impressed with the strange idea that their wives and children put no confidence in their piety, (and may they not have reason for it?) and that it would, therefore, be vain for them to pray, or exhort their households. "many walk thus," says paul, "of whom i have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of christ!" upon them shall be answered the prayer of jeremiah, "oh lord, pour out thy fury upon the families that call not upon thy name!" thus, therefore, we see that the christian home demands a family religion. the private devotion of the individual can be no effectual substitute for it. "the parents pair their secret homage, and offer up to heaven the warm request, that he who stills the raven's clamorous nest, and decks the lily fair in flowery pride, would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, for them and for their little ones provide." family religion includes parental bible instruction, family prayer, and religious education, government, discipline and example. these involve the parent's position in his household as a prophet, priest, and king. "thou shalt teach my words diligently unto thy children, and talk of them when thou sittest in thy house." "daily let part of holy writ be read, let as the body, so the soul have bread. for look! how many souls in thy house be, with just as many souls god trusteth thee!" thus felt and acted our primitive fathers. by every winning art, they sought to fill their children with the knowledge of god's word. the entire range of nursery instruction and amusement was comprised in scripture pictures and hieroglyphics. they intermingled religion with all their home pursuits, and entwined it with their earliest and purest associations of childhood. if christian parents would follow their example now, in these days of parental delinquency, we would not behold so many of their children grow up in religious ignorance and indifference. the same may be said of the family altar and prayer. a prayerless family is an irreligious, godless family. says henry, "they who daily pray in their houses do well; they that not only pray, but read the scriptures, do better; but they do best of all, who not only pray and read the scriptures, but sing the praises of god." besides, the religion of home implies that we "command our children and household to keep the way of the lord,"--that we "bring them up in his nurture and admonition," and "train them up as he would have them go;" and that in things pertaining to their spiritual welfare we "go in and out" before them as their pattern and example, bidding them to "follow us even as we follow christ," and living in their midst as "the living epistles of christ, known and read" of them all. family religion must "show itself by its works" of christian charity and benevolence to the poor, the sick and the distressed. we should "lay by" a certain amount each year of what god bestows, for the support of the church and the propagation of the gospel. oh, how little do christians now give to these benevolent objects! a penurious, close-fisted, selfish home cannot be a religious household. family religion must be reproductive, must return to god as well as receive from him. but as these characteristic features of the christian home will be considered hereafter, we shall not enlarge upon them here. suffice it to say that the mission of home demands family religion. its interests cannot be secured without it. let our homes be divorced from piety, and they will become selfish, sensual, unsatisfactory, and unhappy. piety should always reign in our homes,--not only on the sabbath, but during the week; not only in sickness and adversity, but in health and prosperity. it must, if genuine, inspire and consecrate the minutest interests and employments of the household. it must appear in every scene and feeling and look, and in each heart, as the life, the light, the hope, and the joy of all the members. the necessity of family religion is seen in the value of the soul. the soul is the dearest treasure and the most responsible trust of home. what shall it profit the family if its members gain the whole world and lose their own souls? what would christian parents give in exchange for the souls of their little ones? is it not more important that they teach them to pray than to dance, to "seek the kingdom of heaven" than the enjoyment of "the pleasures of sin for a season?" oh, what is home without a title to, and personal meetness for, that kingdom? it is a moral waste; its members move in the putrid atmosphere of vitiated feeling and misdirected power. brutal passions become dominant; we hear the stern voice of parental despotism; we behold a scene of filial strife and insubordination; there is throughout a heart-blank. domestic life becomes clouded by a thousand crosses and disappointments; the solemn realities of the eternal world are cast into the shade; the home-conscience and feeling become stultified; the sense of moral duty distorted, and all the true interests of home appear in a haze. natural affection is debased, and love is prostituted to the base designs of self, and the entire family, with all its tender cords, ardent hopes, and promised interests, becomes engulfed in the vortex of criminal worldliness! but reverse the picture! see what home becomes with religion as its life and rule. human nature is there checked and moulded by the amiable spirit and lovely character of jesus. the mind is expanded, the heart softened, sentiments refined, passions subdued, hopes elevated, pursuits ennobled, the world cast into the shade, and heaven realized as the first prize. the great want of our intellectual and moral nature is here met, and home education becomes impregnated with the spirit and elements of our preparation for eternity. the relations of home demand family religion. these are relations of mutual dependence, involving such close affinity that the good or evil which befalls one member must in some degree extend to all the other members. they involve "helps." each member becomes an instrument in the salvation or damnation of the others. "for what knowest, o wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, o man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?"-- cor. vii., . "if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." they stimulate each other either to salvation or to ruin; and hence those children that go to ruin in consequence of parental unfaithfulness, will "curse the father that begat them, the womb that bare them," and the day they entered their home. many parents seek to excuse themselves from the practice of family religion, upon the ground that they have not the capacity nor the time. if so, you should not have married. but if you are christians, you have the capacity, and you will take the time. but some are ashamed to begin family religion. ashamed of what? of your piety? of your children? of the true glory and greatness of your home? then you are ashamed of jesus! you should rather blush that you have not begun this good work. the great defect of family religion in the present day is, that it is not educational. parents wait until their children have grown up, and established habits of sin, when they suppose that the efforts of some "protracted meeting" will compensate for their neglect in childhood. they overlook the command of god to teach them his words. the influence of this defect and delusion has been most destructive. many christian homes are now altogether destitute of religious appliances. if the angel that visited the homes of israel were to visit the christian homes of this age, would he not be tempted to say, as abraham said to abimelech, "surely the fear of god is not in this place!" one great reason, perhaps, why there are so many such homes is, that there are now so many irreligious marriages, where husband and wife are "unequally yoked together," one a believer and the other not. "how can two walk together except they be agreed?" can there be family religion when husband and wife are traveling to eternity in opposite roads? no! there will be hindrances instead of "helps." if they marry not "in the lord," religion will not be in their home. says the pious jay, "i am persuaded that it is very much owing to the prevalence of these indiscriminate and unhallowed connections, that we have fallen so far short of those men of god, who are gone before us, in the discharge of family worship, and in the training up of our households in the nurture and admonition of the lord." family religion is implied in the marriage relation and obligation. it is included in the necessities of our children, and in the covenant promises of god. the penalties of its neglect, and the rewards of our faithfulness to it, should prompt us to its establishment in our homes. its absence is a curse; its presence a blessing. it is a foretaste of heaven. like manna, it will feed our souls, quench our thirst, sweeten the cup of life, and shed a halo of glory and of gladness around our firesides. let yours, therefore, be the religious home; and then be sure that god will delight to dwell therein, and his blessing will descend, like the dews of heaven, upon it. your children shall "not be found begging bread," but shall be like "olive plants around your table,"--the "heritage of the lord." yours will be the home of love and harmony; it shall have the charter of family rights and privileges, the ward of family interests, the palladium of family hopes and happiness. your household piety will be the crowning attribute of your peaceful home,--the "crown of living stars" that shall adorn the night of its tribulation, and the pillar of cloud and of fire in its pilgrimage to a "better country." it shall strew the family threshold with the flowers of promise, and enshrine the memory of loved ones gone before, in all the fragrance of that "blessed hope" of reunion in heaven which looms up from a dying hour. it shall give to the infant soul its "perfect flowering," and expand it in all the fullness of a generous love and conscious blessedness, making it "lustrous in the livery of divine knowledge." and then in the dark hour of home separation and bereavement, when the question is put to thee, mourning parents, "is it well with the child? is it well with thee?" you can answer with joy, "it is well!" chapter iv. the relation of home to the church. the christian home sustains a direct relation to the church. this relation is similar to that which it sustains to the state. the nature and mission of home demand the church. the former is the adumbration of the latter. the one is in the other. "greet the church that is in thine house." the church was in the house of aquila and priscilla, in the tent of abraham, and in the palace of david. it must be in every christian home, and every christian home must be in the church. in a word, our families must be churchly. this relation is vital and necessary,--a relation of mutual dependence. the family is a preparation for the church, subordinate to it, and must, therefore, throw its influence in its favor, be moulded by it, and labor with direct reference to the church in the way of training up for membership in it. as the civil and political relations of home involve the duty of parents to train up their children for efficient citizenship in the state, so its moral and religious relations involve the duty of education for the church. hence the christian home is churchly in its spirit, religion, education, influence, and mission. family religion is an element of home, not only as a mere fact or principle in its subjective form, but in the form and force of the church. in its unchurchly form it is powerless. it must be experienced and administered in a churchly spirit and way, not as something detached from the organic embodiment of christianity. the relation of the church to the family forbids this. the church pervades all the forms of society. it includes the home and the state. it gives to each proper vitality, legitimate principles, proper direction, and a true destiny. but home is not only a preparation for the church, but completes itself in the church,--never out of the church. by the "mystery" of marriage and the sacrament of holy baptism, home and the church are bound up into each other by indissoluble bonds. the one receives the mark and superscription of the other; the one is the type or emblem of the other. the church, through her ordinances, ministry and means of grace, is brought directly "into the house," and operates there constantly as a spiritual leaven. it is the purpose of god that our homes be entrenched within the sacred enclosures of his church. the former, in its relation to the latter, is like "a wheel within a wheel,"--one of the parts which make up the great machinery of the kingdom of grace, operating harmoniously and in its place with all the rest, and for the same end. the former is built upon the latter,--receives her dedication and sanctity from it. they are correlatives. the one demands the other. hence they cannot be divorced. the individual passes over to the church through the christian home. the one is the step to the other. they have the same foundation. home is not erected upon a quicksand, but reared upon the same rock upon which the church is built. like the church, it rises superior to all the fluctuations of civil society, and will live and flourish in all its tender charities, in all its sweet enjoyments, and in all its moral force, in the humble cottage as well as in the costly palace, under the shadow of liberty as well as under the frowns of despotism, in every nation, age, and clime. like the church of which it is the type, it can never be made desolate; break it up on earth, and you find it in heaven. its nuptial union with the church is like that between the latter and christ. nothing can throw over our homes a higher sanctity, or invest them with greater beauty, or be to them a greater bulwark of strength, than the church. home is the nursery of the church. "those who are planted in the house of the lord shall flourish in the courts of our god, and shall bring forth fruit in old age." thus, therefore, we see that the relation between the christian home and the church is one of mutual dependence. the latter, as the highest form of religious association, demands the former, and the former looks to the latter as its completion. where the religion of the family does not move in the element of the church, it is at best but sentimentalism on the one hand, and rationalism on the other. it is a spurious pietism. to be genuine it must be moulded by the church. without this it is destitute of sterling principle, of a living-faith, of well-directed effort and lofty aims. the family which does not move in the element of the church is a perversion of the true purpose of god in its institution. it will afford no legitimate development of christian doctrine, and the whole scheme of its religion will rest for its execution upon unreliable agencies extraneous to home itself. hence we find that the piety of those families or individuals that isolate themselves from the church, is at best but ephemeral in its existence, contracted in spirit, moving and operating by mere impulse and irregular starts, and withal destitute of vitality and saving influence. a death-bed scene may awaken a transient and visionary sense of duty; adversity may startle the drowsy ear, and cause the parents to turn for the time to the souls of their children; but these continue only while the tear and the wound are fresh, and the apprehensions of the eternal world are moving in their terrible visions before them! the efficacy of the christian home, therefore, depends upon its true relation to the church. the members should be conscious of this. then both parents and children will appreciate the religious ministrations of home. then the former will not grow weary in well doing, but will have something to rest upon, something to look to; and the latter will love the church of their fathers, and venerate the family as its nursery. but the relation between the christian home and the church implies reciprocal obligations and duties. the former should not only exist under the patronage of the latter, but in the spirit of a true subordination. parents should teach and rule and appropriate the means of grace under the supervision of the church. they should take their household, with them to her public service, send their children to her schools, and in all respects bring them up in her nurture and admonition. thus the family should exist as the faithful daughter of the church; and as the latter in the wilderness "leaned upon her beloved," so the former should repose itself upon her who is "the mother of us all," and in whom, as the "body of christ," shall "all the families of the earth be blessed." as her loving and confiding daughter, the family should live under her government and discipline, listen to her maternal voice, and be led by her maternal hand. the minister in his pastoral functions, is the representative of the church in each of the families of his flock; and should, therefore, be received, loved, confided in and obeyed, as such. the home that repels his proffered ministrations in the name and according to the will of the church, throws off its allegiance to the latter, and through it, to christ,--her glorious head, and is hence unworthy of the name of christian home. the true christian home yearns after the church, loves to lean upon it, to look up to it, to consecrate all to it, to move and develop its interests in the sphere of the church, and to labor to complete itself in it. "for her my tears shall fall; for her my prayers ascend; to her my cares and toils be giv'n, till toils and cares shall end." chapter v. home influence. "by the soft green light in the woody glade, on the banks of moss, where thy childhood play'd; by the gathering round the winter hearth, when the twilight call'd unto household mirth, by the quiet hour when hearts unite in the parting prayer and the kind 'good night;' by the smiling eye and the loving tone, over thy life has the spell been thrown, and bless that gift, it hath gentle might, a guarding power and a guiding light!" the christian home has an influence which is stronger than death. it is a law to our hearts, and binds us with, a spell which neither time nor change can break. the darkest villainies which have disgraced humanity cannot neutralize it. gray-haired and demon guilt will make his dismal cell the sacred urn of tears wept over the memories of home; and these will soften and melt into penitence even the heart of adamant. [illustration: maternal influence] the home-influence is either a blessing or a curse, either for good or for evil. it cannot be neutral. in either case it is mighty, commencing with our birth, going with us through life, clinging to us in death, and reaching into the eternal world. it is that unitive power which arises out of the manifold relations and associations of domestic life. the specific influences of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother and sister, of teacher and pupil, united and harmoniously blended, constitute the home-influence. from this we may infer the character of home-influence. it is great, silent, irresistible, and permanent. like the calm, deep stream, it moves on in silent, but overwhelming power. it strikes its roots deep into the human heart, and spreads its branches wide over our whole being. like the lily that braves the tempest, and "the alpine flower that leans its cheek on the bosom of eternal snows," it is exerted amid the wildest storms of life, and breathes a softening spell in our bosom even when a heartless world is freezing up the fountains of sympathy and love. it is governing, restraining, attracting and traditional. it holds the empire of the heart, and rules the life. it restrains the wayward passions of the child, and checks him in his mad career of ruin. "hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling, let him see thee speaking to thy god; he will not forget it afterward; when old and gray, will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piety, and the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man in his sin!" home-influence is traditional. it passes down the current of life from one generation to another. its continuity is preserved from first to last. the homes of our forefathers rule us even now, and will pass from us to our children's children. hence it has been called the "fixed capital" of home. it keeps up a continuous stream of home-life and feeling and interest. hence the family likeness, moral as well as physical,--the family virtues and vices,--coming from the family root and rising into all the branches, and developing in all the elements of the family history. home-influence is attractive. it draws us to home, and throws a spell around our existence, which we have not the power to break. "the holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass'd, the prayer at my mother's knee-- darken'd and troubled i come at last, thou home of my boyish glee!" home-influence may he estimated from the immense force of first impressions. it is the prerogative of home to make the first impression upon our nature, and to give that nature its first direction onward and upward. it uncovers the moral fountain, chooses its channel, and gives the stream its first impulse. it makes the "first stamp and sets the first seal" upon the plastic nature of the child. it gives the first tone to our desires, and furnishes ingredients that will either sweeten or embitter the whole cup of life. these impressions are indelible, and durable as life. compared with them, other impressions are like those made upon sand or wax. these are like "the deep borings into the flinty rock." to erase them we must remove every strata of our being. even the infidel lives under the holy influence of a pious mother's impressions. john randolph could never shake off the restraining influence of a little prayer his mother taught him when a child. it preserved him from the clutches of avowed infidelity. the promises of god bear testimony to the influence of the christian home. "when he grows old he will not depart from it!" history confirms and illustrates this. look at those scenes of intemperance and riot, of crime and of blood, which throw the mantle of infamy over human life! look at your prisons, your hospitals, and your gibbets; go to the gaming-table and the rum-shop. tell me, who are those that are there? what is their history? where did they come from? from the faithful christian home? had they pious fathers and mothers? did they go to these places under the holy influence of devout and faithful parents? no! and who are they that are dying without hope and without god? who are they that now throng the regions of the damned? those who were "trained up in the way they should go?" no! if they are, then the promises of god must fail. you may perhaps find a few such. but these are exceptions to a general law. the damning influence of their unfaithful home brought them there. could they but speak to us from their chambers of wo, we should hear them pouring out curses upon their parents, and ascribing the cause of their ruin to their neglect. on the other hand, could we but listen to the anthems of the redeemed in heaven, we should doubtless hear sentiments of gratitude for a mother's prayer and a father's counsel. let us now briefly advert to the objects of home-influence. it is exerted upon the members of home, especially upon the formation of their character and destiny. it moulds their character. the parents assimilate their children to themselves to such an extent that we can judge the former by the latter. lamartine says that, when he wants to know a woman's character, he ascertains it by an inspection of her home,--that he judges the daughter by the mother. his judgment rests upon the known influence the latter has over the former. it gives texture and coloring to the whole woof and web of character. it forms the head and the heart, moulds the affections, the will and the conscience, and throws around our entire nature the means and appliances of its development for good or for evil. every word, every incident, every look, every lesson of home, has its bearing upon our life. had one of these been omitted, our lives would perhaps be different. one prayer in our childhood, was perhaps the lever that raised us from ruin. one omission of parental duty may result in the destruction of the child. what an influence home exerts upon our faith! most of our convictions and opinions rest upon home-teaching and faith. a minister was once asked, "do you not believe christianity upon its evidences?" he replied, "no; i believe it because my mother taught me!" the same may be said of its influence upon our sympathies, and in the formation of habits. it draws us by magnetic power to home, and develops in us all that which is included in home-feeling and home-sickness. "i need but pluck yon garden flower, from where the wild weeds rise, to wake with strange and sudden power, a thousand sympathies!" in this respect how irresistible is the influence of a mother's love and kindness! her very name awakens the torpid streams of life, gives a fresh glow to the tablets of memory, and fills our hearts with a deep gush of consecrated feeling. our habits, too, are formed under the moulding power of home. the "tender twig" is there bent, the spirit shaped, principles implanted, and the whole character is formed until it becomes a habit. goodness or evil are there "resolved into necessity." who does not feel this influence of home upon all his habits of life? the gray-haired father who wails in his second infancy, feels the traces of his childhood-home in his spirit, desires and habits. ask the strong man in the prime of life, whether the most firm and reliable principles of his character were not the inheritance of the parental home. what an influence the teaching's and prayers of his mother monica had upon the whole character of the pious augustine! the sterling worth of washington is a testimony to the formative power of parental instruction. john quincy adams, even when his eloquence thundered through our legislative halls, and caused a nation to startle from her slumber, bent his aged form before god, and repeated the prayer of his childhood. "how often in old age," says bishop hall, "have i valued those divine passages of experimental divinity that i heard from the lips of a mother!" dr. doddridge ever lived under the influence of those scripture instructions his mother gave him from the dutch tiles of her fireside. he says, "these lessons were the instruments of my conversion." "generally," says dr. cumming, "when, there is a sarah in the house, there will be an isaac in the cradle; wherever there is a eunice teaching a timothy the scriptures from a child, there will be a timothy teaching the gospel to the rest of mankind." by the force of this same influence, the pious wife may win over to christ her ungodly husband, and the godly child may save the unbelieving parent. "well," said a mother one day weeping, "i will resist no longer! how can i bear to see my dear child love and read the scriptures, while i never look into the bible,--to see her retire and seek god, while i never pray,--to see her going to the lord's table, while his death is nothing to me! i know she is right, and i am wrong. i ought to have taught her; but i am sure she has taught me. how can i bear to see her joining the church of god, and leaving me behind--perhaps forever!" the christian home has its influence also upon the state. it forms the citizen, lays the foundation for civil and political character, prepares the social element and taste, and determines our national prosperity or adversity. we owe to the family, therefore, what we are as a nation as well as individuals. we trace this influence in the pulpit, on the rostrum, in the press, in our civil and political institutions. it is written upon the scroll of our national glory. the most illustrious statesmen, the most distinguished warriors, the most eloquent ministers, and the greatest benefactors of human kind, owe their greatness to the fostering influence of home. napoleon knew and felt this when he said, "what france wants is good mothers, and you may be sure then that france will have good sons." the homes of the american revolution made the men of the revolution. their influence reaches yet far into the inmost frame and constitution of our glorious republic. it controls the fountains of her power, forms the character of her citizens and statesmen, and shapes our destiny as a people. did not the spartan mother and her home give character to the spartan nation? her lessons to her child infused the iron nerve into the heart of that nation, and caused her sons, in the wild tumult of battle, "either to live behind their shields, or to die upon them!" her influence fired them with a patriotism which was stronger than death. had it been hallowed by the pure spirit and principles of christianity, what a power for good it would have been! but alas! the home of an aspasia had not the heart and ornaments of the christian family. though "the monuments of cornelia's virtues were the character of her children," yet these were not "the ornaments of a quiet spirit." had the central heart of the spartan home been that of the christian mother, the spartan nation would now perhaps adorn the brightest page of history. but the family, whether christian or heathen, exerts an overwhelming influence over the state. it is on the family altar that the fire of patriotism is first kindled, and often, too, by a mother's hand. "it hath led the freeman forth to stand in the mountain battles of his land; it hath brought the wanderer o'er the seas, to die on the hills of his own fresh breeze." the same, too, may be said of the influence of home on the church. it is the nursery of the church, lays the foundation of her membership, and conditions the character of her members. the most faithful of her ministers and members are those generally who have been trained up in the most faithful families. wherever there is the greatest number of such homes, there the church enjoys the greatest prosperity. what a fearful responsibility must rest, therefore upon the christian home! if its influence is for good or for evil, for weal or for woe, for heaven or for hell; if it is either a powerful emissary of satan for the soul's destruction, or an efficient agent of god for the soul's salvation, then how responsible are those who wield this influence! "upon thy heart is laid a spell, holy and precious--oh! guard it well!" are you not, christian parents, responsible to god for the exercise of such sovereign power over the character and well-being of your dear children? and will not the day soon come when you must "give an account of your stewardship?" oh! what if it be exerted for the ruin of your loved ones, and they "curse the day you begat them?" what if, in the day of final reckoning, you find your hands drenched in the blood of your offspring, and hear the voice of that blood cry out from the hallowed ground of home against you, saying, "how long, oh lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on earth?" oh see, then, that your influence be wielded for good. "for round the heart thy power hast spun a thousand dear mysterious ties; then take the heart thy charms have won, and nurse it for the skies!" chapter vi. home as a stewardship. "take this child away, and nurse it for me, and i will give thee thy wages."--exodus ii., . "for look, how many souls in thy house be, with just as many souls god trusteth thee!" the christian home is a stewardship. the parents are stewards of god. a steward is a servant of a particular kind, to whom the master commits a certain portion of his interest to be prosecuted in his name and by his authority, and according to his laws and regulations. the steward must act according to the will of his master, in his dealing with what is committed to his care. such was eliezer in the house of abraham; and such was joseph in the house of potiphar. one of the specific duties of a steward was to dispense portions of food to the different members of the household, to give servants their portion in due season, and to superintend the general interests of the master's household. in a religious sense, a steward is a minister of christ, whose duty is to dispense the provisions of the gospel, to preach its doctrines and to administer its ordinances. it is required of such that they be found faithful.-- cor., chap. iv. in its application to the christian home, it expresses its relation of subordination to god, and the kind of services which the former must render to the latter. the stewardship of home is that official character with which god has invested the family. in this sense the proprietorship of parents is from god. they are invested only with delegated authority. their home is held by them only in trust. it belongs to them in the same sense in which a household belongs to a steward. it is not at their absolute disposal. it is the "household of the lord," and they are to live and rule therein as the lord directs. they are to appropriate it and dispose of its interests according to the known law and will of their divine master, and in this sense, yield, with their whole household, a voluntary subordination to his authority. as a stewardship, god has entrusted the christian home with important interests. he has committed to her trust, body and soul, talents and means of grace. he has entrusted to the parents the training of their children both for time and for eternity. these children are the heritage of the lord; they are not at the absolute disposal of their parents; but merely entrusted to their care to be educated and dealt with according to the will of god. there is one great peculiarity in this stewardship of the christian family,--the absolute identity of interest between the master and the steward. the interest of the former is that also of the latter; and the latter, in promoting the interest of his lord, is but advancing his own welfare. such is the economy of the gospel, and it is this which makes the servitude of the christian so delightful. faithfulness to god is faithfulness to our own souls. parents who are thus faithful to god must be faithful to themselves and to their children. thus, then, the interest of god in our families is the welfare of all the members. when we act towards our children as god directs, we are but promoting their greatest welfare. this is one prominent feature of god's mercy towards us in all his dealings with us. he identifies his interest with the interest of his people. this is a powerful incentive to parental integrity, and is beautifully exemplified in the mother of moses. when the daughter of pharaoh said to her, "take this child and nurse it for me, and i will pay thee thy wages," was not the interest of the queen and the nurse the same? in nursing him for the queen, that devoted mother nursed him also for herself; and in doing this, she was also promoting the welfare of her son, and executing the will of god concerning him. this illustrates the principle of stewardship in the christian home. of every child, god says to its parent,-- "go nurse it for the king of heaven, and he will pay thee hire." here is the important trust; here, too, is the duty of the steward. it is a trust from god, and the nursing is for god. the child is a tender plant, an invaluable treasure, more priceless than gold, or pearls, or diamonds. your duty as a steward, is to nurse it, to cultivate it, to polish the lovely gem, to take care of it. and in doing this for god, are you not also doing it for the child,--yea, if you are christian parents,--for yourselves? will not even natural affection, as well as the discerning eye of faith, like that of the mother of moses, detect in this stewardship an identity between the interest of the master and that of the steward? it was not the simple compensation which stimulated the mother of moses to accede to the proposition of pharaoh's daughter. what cared she for the "hire," if she could but save her son! this was her great reward. thus the interest of the child should be the reward of the parent. god will, it is true, reward the faithful steward of the family; but he specially rewards and blesses parental faithfulness in making his purposes concerning home, identical with the parent's and the children's welfare. in this domestic stewardship, "like warp and woof, all interests are woven fast; locked in sympathy like the keys of an organ vast." "fear not, little flock; for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. who, then, is that faithful and wise steward whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. of a truth i say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all he hath. but and if that servant say in his heart, my lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to beat the men-servants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. and that servant which knew his lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." here, then, we have the character and duties of the steward in the christian home, the rewards of their faithfulness, and the penalties of their unfaithfulness. as the stewards of god, we must be faithful, giving the souls as well as the bodies of our children "their meat in due season;" we must not "waste the goods" of our lord, but be "blameless, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as we have been taught." as the faithful stewards of god, we should dedicate our household in all respects to him, and make it tributary to his glory. "seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you." the unjust steward will first seek the world and the things of the world, its gold, its pleasures and its honors; and after that seek the kingdom of heaven. but this is reversing the order of procedure as prescribed by the master; it is running counter to his will, and, consequently, wasting his goods. but the greatest trust committed to parents is, the souls of their children; and hence their most responsible duty, as the stewards of god, is to attend to their salvation. you should "give them the bread of life in due season." it will be of no avail for you to inquire, "what shall they eat, and what shall they drink, and wherewithal shall they be clothed;" if you neglect this their highest interest and your greatest trust? "what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" it is not the wealth, nor the magnificence of life which will make your home happy; these are but the outward and fleeting ornaments of the world, and are too often the gaudy drapery in which demon guilt and misery are clothed. "the cobwebbed cottage, with its ragged wall of mouldering mud, is royalty to me," if souls are there "fed upon the sincere milk of the word," and "trained up in the ways of the lord." the training of the soul for heaven is both the duty and the glory of our homes. what if parents lay up affluence here for their children, and secure for them all that the world calls interest, while they permit their souls to famish, and do nothing for their redemption! will not such parents be denounced in the day of judgment as unjust and unfaithful stewards? and yet alas! how many such christian parents there are who prostitute this highest interest of home either at the altar of mammon or of fashion! the precious time and talents with which god has entrusted them, they squander away in things of folly and of sin, leaving their children to grow up in spiritual ignorance and wickedness, while they resort to balls and theaters and masquerades, in pursuit of unhallowed amusement and pleasure. such are unnatural parents as well as unjust stewards, and their homes will ere long be made desolate. other parents prostitute the holy trust of home to money. they are "self-willed" stewards, "given to filthy lucre," who, for the sake of a few dollars, will "waste the goods" of their lord, make their homes a drudgery, and work their children like their horses, bring them up in ignorance, like "calves in the stall," and contract their whole existence, and all their capacities, desires and hopes, in the narrow compass of work and money. we would direct the attention of such parents to our last thought upon the stewardship of the christian home, (the practical view of which we shall consider in the next chapter,) viz., that it involves the principle of accountability. it implies a settlement, a time when the master and his steward shall meet together to close accounts. "give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward." that time will be when "the dead, both small and great, shall stand before god." then he will examine into your stewardship. he will ask you how you employed your talents, and to what purpose you appropriated those interests he committed to your trust; and whether you were faithful to those souls which "hung upon your hire;" whether you "nursed them for him," and whether you provided them with "their meat in due season." and if you can answer, "yea, lord, here are those talents which thou hast given me; behold i have gained for thee five other talents. here, lord, are those children whom thou hast given me; i have brought them up in thy nurture, and trained them in thy ways." your lord will then answer, "well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things; behold i will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord!" but if you have been unfaithful as stewards, and have made your household unproductive for god, then you shall hear from his lips the dreadful denunciation, "thou wicked and slothful servant!" "take the talent from him, and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; for unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath!" chapter vii. responsibilities of the christian home. "what a holy charge is theirs!--with what a kingly power their love might rule the fountains of the new-born mind! warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow good seed before the world has sown its tares." from the potent influence and moral stewardship of the christian home, we may infer its responsibility. the former is the argument for the latter. the extent of the one is the measure of the other. "to whom much is given, of them much will be required." our responsibilities are thus commensurate with our abilities. if the latter are properly devoted, we have our reward; if not, our curse. god will hold us accountable for the achievements we make by the abilities he has given us. if he gives us a field to cultivate, seed to sow, plants to train up, then we are responsible for the harvest, just in proportion to our agency in its production. if there is not a harvest of the right kind, because we neglected to cultivate the soil, to sow the proper seed, and to train up the plants, then he will hold, us accountable, and "we shall not come out thence till we have paid the uttermost farthing." this is an evident gospel principle. who will doubt its application to the christian home? the family is such a field; the seed of good or evil the parents can sow therein; their children are young and tender plants, entrusted to their care; their mission from god is to "bring them up in his nurture" and to "train them in his ways." and where god gives the command, he also gives the power to obey. if, then, by their neglect, these tender plants are blighted, grow up in the crooked ways of folly and iniquity, and the leprosy of sin spread its dreadful infection over all the posterity of home; if, as a consequence of their unfaithfulness, the family becomes a moral desolation, and the anathemas of unnumbered souls in perdition, rise up in the day of judgment against them; or if, on the other hand, as the fruit of their faithful stewardship, blessings and testimonials of gratitude are now pouring forth from the sainted loved ones in glory, is it not plain that a responsibility rests upon the christian home, commensurate with, those abilities which god has given her, and with those interests he has entrusted to her care? let us look at the objective force of this. the family is responsible for the kind of influence she exerts upon her members look at this in its practical light. there is a family. god has given children to the parents. how fondly they cling to them, and look up to them for support and direction. they inherit from their parents a predisposition to evil or to good; they imitate them as their example, in all things, take their word as the law of life, and follow in their footsteps as the sure path to happiness. these parents are members of the church, and, as such, have dedicated their children to the lord at the altar of baptism, and there in the presence of god and a witnessing assembly, they vowed to bring them up in the nurture of their divine master, and to minister in spiritual things to their souls. yet in this home, no prayer is offered up, no bible instructions given, no holy example set, no christian government and discipline instituted, no religious interests promoted. but on the other hand, sin is overlooked, winked at, and the world alone sought. these children behold their parents toil day after day to provide for their natural life; they notice the interest they take in their health and education, and the self-denial with which they seek to secure for them a temporal competency. and from all this they quickly and very justly infer that their parents love their bodies and value this world, and by the force of filial imitation they soon learn to do the same, and with their parents, neglect their souls and kneel at the altars of mammon rather than bow in prayer before god. and thus they go on from one step in departure from god to another, until they die without hope and without salvation. tell me now, will not god hold these parents responsible for the ruin of their children? will not the "blood of their destruction rest upon them?" will not the "voice of that blood" cry out from their family against them? if, as a consequence of their negligence and of the unholy influence they exerted upon them, they become desperadoes in crime and villainy, and at last drench their hands in a brother's blood; and expiate their guilt upon the gibbet, and from there go down to the grave of infamy and to the hell of the murderer, will not their blood, "cry unto them," and will not the woes and anathemas of almighty god come in upon them like a flood? home-responsibility may be inferred from the relation of the family to god as a stewardship. we have seen that parents are stewards of god in their household, and that as such they are placed over their children, invested with delegated authority. god entrusts them to the care of their parents. their nature is pliable, fit for any impression, exposed to sin and ruin, entering upon a course of life which must terminate in eternal happiness or misery, with bodies to develop, minds to educate, hearts to mould, volitions to direct, habits to form, energies to rule, pursuits to follow, interests to secure, temptations to resist, trials to endure, souls to save! oh, how the parental heart must swell with emotions too big for utterance, when they contemplate these features of their important trust. what a mission this, to superintend the character and shape the destiny of such a being! such is the plastic power you exert upon it, that upon your guidance will hinge its weal or its woe; and yours, therefore, will be the lasting benefit or the lasting shame. what you are now doing for your children is incorporated with their very being, and will be as imperishable as their undying souls. as the stewards of god, your provision for them will be "either a savor of life unto life or a savor of death unto death." we have seen that god has given to you the ability and means of making them subservient to his glory; and hence from you he will require them as entrusted talents. if you have been unfaithful to them, your punishment will be in proportion to the wretchedness entailed upon your children. if, instead of the bread from heaven, you feed their souls with the husks of life, and lead them on by the opiates of bastard joys; if, "when they ask of you bread, you give them a stone, or for a fish, you give them a serpent," will it not be "more tolerable for sodom and gomorrah in the day of judgment than for you?" thus, therefore, you see, christian parents, how your responsibility is measured, by the magnitude of those interests committed to your care, by the kind of influence you exert over them, and by the enormity of that guilt and wo which are consequent upon your unfaithfulness. let this be an incentive to parental integrity. the day is rapidly approaching when you must give an account of your stewardship. oh, what, if in that day you behold your children "fit for the eternal burning," and remember that that fitness is but the impress of a parent's hand! though it is painful to lose a child here; bitter tears are shed; pungent agonies are felt; there are heart-burnings kindled over the grave of buried love. but oh, how much more agonizing it is to bend over the dying bed of an impenitent, ruined child! and especially if, in that terrible moment, he turns his eyes, wild with despair and ominous of curses, upon the parents, and ascribes his ruin to their neglect! let me ask you, would not this part of that sad drama add to your cup of bitterness, give a fearful emphasis to all your sighs, and burnings to your flooding tears? god would also speak to you, and say as he did to cain, "the voice of thy" children's "blood crieth unto me!" "and now thou art cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy" children's "blood from thy hand." but the scene would not close at the death-bed of your child; the second act would open at the bar of god. the maledictions of that ruined one would there be poured out with increased fury upon you. parents of my home on earth! i am lost--lost forever! soon i shall go where "the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." had you, in the home of my childhood, but instructed me, and been as faithful to my soul as you were to my body, i might stand here with a palm of victory in my hand, a crown of glory on my head, the joy of the redeemed in my heart, and with hosannas of praise upon my lips, rise upward to the untold felicities of god's eternal throne! but you did not! you fed my body, but you starved my soul, and left it to perish forever! cursed, be the day in which you begat me, and the paps that gave me suck! cursed be the years that i lived under your roof,--cursed be you! oh, parents, such rebuke would leave an undying worm in your souls; and would cry unto you from the very depths of hell. this is no over-wrought picture. it is but the scripture prospectus of that terrible scene which shall be enacted "in the terrible and notable day of the lord," when every christian home shall be called to give an "account of her stewardship," and be dealt with "according to the deeds done in the body." and let me say too, that a similar and corresponding responsibility rests upon those children who enjoy the benefits of a faithful christian home. they must answer to god for every blessing there enjoyed. if they turn a deaf ear and a cold heart to all the entreaties of their parents, and resist those saving influences which are brought to bear upon them, and as a consequence, become outcasts from society and from heaven, then let me warn them that, every prayer they heard at the family altar, every lesson given, every admonition delivered, and every holy example set them, by their pious parents, will be ingredients in that bitter cup which it will take eternity for them to exhaust! oh, children of the christian home! think of this, and remember the responsibility of enjoying the precious benefits of a pious, faithful parent. they will be your weal or your woe,--your lasting glory or your lasting shame! and, ye parents, be faithful to those little ones that are growing up "like olive plants around your table," so that in the day of judgment, you may say with joy, in the full assurance of reward, "here are we, lord, and the children whom thou hast given us!" and your reward shall be, "well done, thou good and faithful servant! enter thou into the joy of thy lord!" chapter viii. the family bible. "what household thoughts around thee, as their shrine, cling reverently!--of anxious looks beguiled, my mother's eyes upon thy page divine, each day were bent; her accents, gravely mild, breathed out thy love; whilst i, a dreamy child, wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away, ... yet would the solemn word, at times, with kindlings of young wonder heard fall on my wakened spirit, there to be a seed not lost; for which in darker years, o, book of heaven! i pour with grateful tears, heart-blessings on the holy dead, and thee!" the family bible! what sweet and hallowed memories cling like tendrils around that book of books! how familiar its sacred pages! how often in the sunny days of childhood, we were fed from its manna by the maternal hand! it was our guide to the opening path of life, and a lamp to the feeble, faltering steps of youth. who can forget the family bible? it was the household oracle of our grandfathers and grandmothers,--of our dear parents. it bears the record of their venerated names; their birth, their baptism, their confirmation, their marriage, are here; and "though they are with the silent dead, here are they living still!" how joyfully they gathered around the cheerful hearth to read this book divine. how often their hearts drew consolation from its living springs! what a balm it has poured into bleeding and disconsolate hearts. it has irradiated with the glories of eternal day, the darkest chamber of their home. what brilliant hopes and promises it has hung around the parental heart! and here too are the names of our parents,--long since gathered with their fathers. here too are our names, and birth, and baptism, written by that parental hand, long since cold in death! "my father read this holy book to brothers, sisters dear; how calm was my poor mother's look, who loved god's word to hear. her angel-face--i see it yet! what thronging memories come? again that little group is met within the halls of home!" that old family bible! do we not love it? our names and our children's names are drawn from it. it is the message of our father in heaven. it is the link which connects our earthly with our heavenly home; and when we open its sacred page, we gaze upon words which our loved ones in heaven have whispered, and which dwell even now upon their sainted lips; and which when we utter them, there is joy in heaven! we would, therefore, say to the infidel, of this "family tree," as the returning child said to the woodsman, of the old tree which sheltered the slumbers and frolics of his childhood, "i'll protect it now." the old family bible! what an inheritance from a christian home! clasp it, child, to thy heart; it was the gift of a mother's love! it bears the impress of her hand; it is the memento of her devotedness to thee; and when just before her spirit took its flight to a better land, she gave it as a guide for her child to the same happy home: "my mother's hand this bible clasped; she, dying, gave it me!" and the spirit of that sainted mother shall still whisper to me through these sacred pages. in the light of this lamp i follow her to a better home. with this blessed chart i shall meet her in heaven. "with faltering lip and throbbing brow, i press it to my heart." every christian home has a family bible. it is found in the hut as well as in the palace. it is an indispensable appendage to home. without it the christian home would be in darkness; with it, she is a "light which shineth in darkness." it is the chart and compass of the parent and the child in their pilgrimage to a better home. "therein thy dim eyes will meet a cheering light; and silent words of mercy breathed from heaven, will be exhaled from the blest page into thy withered heart." like an ethereal principle of light and life, its blessed truths extend with electric force through all the avenues and elements of the home-existence, "giving music to language, elevation to thought, vitality to feeling, intensity to power, beauty and happiness." the bible is adapted to the christian home. it is the book for the family. it is the guardian of her interests, the exposition of her duties, her privileges, her hopes and her enjoyments. it exposes her errors, reveals her authority and government, sanctions her obedience, proclaims her promises, and points out her path to heaven. it makes sacred her marriages, furnishes names for her children, gives the sacrament of her dedication to god, and consecrates her bereavements. it is the fountain of her richest blessings, the source of her true consolation, and the ground of her brightest hope. it is, therefore, the book of home. she may have large and splendid libraries; history, poetry, philosophy, fiction, yea, all the works of classic greece and rome, may crowd upon her shelves; but of these she will soon grow wearied, and the dust of neglect will gather thick upon their gilded leaves; but of the bible the christian home can never become weary. its sufficiency for all her purposes will throw a garland of freshness around every page; its variety and manifoldness; its simplicity and beauty; its depth of thought and intensity of feeling, adapt it to every capacity and to every want, to every emergency and to every member, of the household. the little child and the old man, hoary with the frost of many winters, find an equal interest there. the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the high and the low, are alike enriched from its inexhaustible treasury. it is a book for the mind, the heart, the conscience, the will and the life. it suits the palace and the cottage, the afflicted and the prosperous, the living and the dying. it is a comfort to "the house of mourning," and a check to "the house of feasting." it "giveth seed to the sower, and bread to the eater." it is simple, yet grand; mysterious, yet plain; and though from god, it is nevertheless, within the comprehension of a little child. you may send your children to school to study other books, from which they may be educated for this world; but in this divine book they study the science of the eternal world. the family bible has given to the christian home that unmeasured superiority in all the dignities and decencies and enjoyments of life, over the home of the heathen. it has elevated woman, revealed her true mission, developed the true idea and sacredness of marriage and of the home-relationship; it has unfolded the holy mission of the mother, the responsibilities of the parent, and the blessings of the child. take this book from the family, and she will degenerate into a mere conventionalism, marriage into a "social contract;" the spirit of mother will depart; natural affection will sink to mere brute fondness, and what we now call home would become a den of sullen selfishness and barbaric lust! the bible should, therefore, be the text-book of home-education. where it is not, parents are recreant to their duty. it is the basis of all teaching, because it reveals "the truth, the way and the life," because it is god's testimony and message, and is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," and was written "for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope," and be made "wise unto salvation." "while thou wert teaching my lips to move and my heart to rise in prayer, i learned the way to a home above; and thou shalt meet me there!" its invaluable treasures, its manifoldness, its beautiful simplicity, its striking narrative, its startling history, its touches of home-life, its expansive views of human nature, of this life and of that which is to come, its poetry, eloquence, and soul-stirring sympathies and aspirations, make it the book for home-training. these features of its character will develop in beautiful harmony the whole nature of your child. do you wish to inspire them with song? what songs are like those of zion? do you wish them to come under the influence of eloquent oration? what orations so eloquent as those of the prophets, of christ, and of his apostles? do you desire to refine and elevate their souls with beauty and sublimity? here in these sacred pages is a beauty ever fresh, and a sublimity which towers in dazzling radiance far beyond the reach of human genius. this is evident from the fact that tributes of admiration have been paid to the bible by the most eminent poets, jurists, statesmen, and philosophers, such as milton, hale, boyle, newton and locke. erasmus and john locke betook themselves solely to the bible, after they had wandered through the gloomy maze of human erudition. neither grecian song nor roman eloquence; neither the waters of castalia, nor the fine-spun theorisms of scholastic philosophy, could satisfy their yearnings. but when they wandered amid the consecrated bowers of zion, and drank from siloah's brook, the thirst of their genius was quenched, and they took their seats with mary at the feet of jesus, and like little children, learned of him! even deists and infidels have yielded their tribute of praise. what says the infidel rosseau? hear him: "the majesty of the scriptures strikes me with astonishment. look at the volumes of the philosophers, with all their pomp, how contemptible do they appear in comparison with this! is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime, can be the work, of men?" thus "learning and zeal, from age to age, have worshiped, loved, explored the page." how often is this precious book abused! in many would-be christian homes, it is used more for an ornament of fashion than for a lamp to the christian's path. we find the bible upon their parlor table, but how seldom in the family room! they make it a part of their fashionable furniture, to be looked at as a pretty, gilded thing. its golden clasps and beautiful binding make it an attractive appendage to the parlor. hence they buy the bible, but not the truth it contains. they place it upon the table as such; and indeed many do not even give it that prominence, but, yielding to the taste of fashion, place it under the parlor table, and there it rests, unmolested, untouched and unread even for years. in many professedly religious families this is their family bible! ah! it is not so heartsome as that well-marked and long-used old bible which lies upon the table of the nursery room, speaking of many year's service in family devotion! the other unused bible seems like a stranger to the home-heart, and lies in the parlor just to show their visiting friends that they have a bible! go into the nursery and other private apartments of that home, and you see no bible, while you behold piles of romance and filthy novels,--those exponents of a vitiated taste and a corrupt society, suited to destroy the young forever;--whose outward appearance indicates a studied perusal by both parents and children, and shows perhaps that they have been wept over; and whose inward substance must ever nauseate healthy reason, as well as poison the heart of youth, leading them from the sober realities of life into a world of nonentities. but upon the family bible you cannot trace the hand of diligent piety. it is shoved back into some part of the room, as a worthless thing, obsolete and superfluous. and see! it is not even kept in decent order. the dust of many day's neglect has gathered thick upon its lids. oh, christian parents, when you thus close up the wells of salvation by the trash of degenerate taste and vitiated morals, you are despising the testimonies of the lord, and leading your children step by step to the verge of destruction. you may buy them splendid, bibles, gilt and clasped with gold, and have their names labeled in golden letters upon its lid; but if the good old family bible is neglected, and the yellow covered literature of the day substituted in its stead; if you permit them to buy and read love-sick tales in preference to their bible, and they see you do the same, you are but making a mock of god's word, and must answer before him for your children's neglect of its sacred pages. let me, therefore, affectionately admonish you to be faithful to that precious book you call the family bible. read it to your children every day. from its sacred pages teach them the way to live and the way to die. let it be an opened, studied family chart to guide you and them in visions of untold glory to the many mansions of your father's offered home in heaven. it will soothe your sorrows, calm your fears, strengthen your faith, brighten your hopes, and throw around the graves of the loved and the cherished dead, the light and promise of reunion in heaven! "a drop of balm from this rich store, hath healed the broken heart once more. like angels round a dying bed, its truths a heavenly radiance shed; and hovering on celestial wings, breathe music from unnumbered strings." chapter ix. infancy. "a babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love; a resting place for innocence on earth; a link between angels and men; yet it is a talent of trust to be rendered back with interest; a delight, but redolent of care, honey sweet, but lacking not the bitter, for character groweth day by day, and all things aid it in unfolding, and the bent unto good or evil may be given, in the hours of infancy." the birth of each child constitutes a new era in the christian home, and multiplies its cares, its pleasures and its responsibilities. the first-born babe, like "the first gilt thing that wears the trembling pearls of spring," throws the rainbow colors of hope and joy over the bowers of home, and awakens in the bosom of parents, emotions and sympathies, new-born and never before experienced; cords in the heart, before untouched, now begin to thrill with new joy; sympathies, before unfelt, now swell the bosom. sleep on, thou little one, in thy "rosy mesh of infancy," in the first buddings of thy being! these hours of thy innocence are the happiest of thy life. thou art "the parent's transport and the parent's care." blessings are fondly poured upon thy head. rest thee there in thy little bed, thou happy emblem of the loved and pure in heaven! "visions sure of joy are gladdening his rest; and ah, who knows but waiting angels do converse in sleep with babes like this!" imparting to his infant soul unutterable things, whispering soft of bliss immortal given, and pouring into his new-born senses the dreams of opening heaven. what charms and momentous interests surround the cradle of infancy! when the first wailing of dependence reaches the listening ear, what new-born sympathies spring up in the parent's bosom! what a thrill of rapture the first soft smile of her babe sends to the mother's heart! it is this, the parents' likeness unsullied by their faults and cares; it is this, their living love in personal being,--their love breathing and smiling before them, lisping their names; it is this,--their new-born hope and care,--that gives to infancy such a charm, such a never-dying interest, and causes the parent to cling to it with such fond tenacity. "can a mother forget her sucking child?" never, while she claims a mother's heart! the couch of her babe is the depository of all those fond hopes and joys and cares and memories to which a mother's heart is sacred. the infant is the most interesting member of the christian home. it is the first budding of home-life, disclosing every day some new beauty, "the father's lustre and the mother's bloom," to gladden the hearts of the family. "as the dewy morning is more beautiful than the perfect day; as the opening bud is more lovely than the full blown flower, so is the joyous dawn of infant life more interesting than the calm monotony of riper years." it is the most interesting, because the purest, member of the household. it is the connecting link which binds home to its great antitype above. "ye stand nearest to god, ye little ones," nearer than those who have tasted the bitter cup of actual sin. they are the budding promises, the young loves, the precious plants of home; they are its sunshine, its progressive interest, its prophetic happiness, the first link in the chain of its perpetuity. like the purple hue of the wild heath, throwing its gay color over the rugged hill-side, they cast a magic polish over the spirit of the parent, causing the home-fireside to glow with new life and cheerfulness. infants are emblems of the loved and sainted ones in heaven. "of such is the kingdom of heaven." "except ye become as this little child, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." this is based upon proper principles. the heart of the child is purely devotional and confidential. it is a helpless dependent upon the parent. it abdicates its self-will with joy; silently do the laws of home control it; its reverence and love are the melody of its being; its life is an exchange of obedience for protection. its path is chosen for it by the lamp of parental experience, and the calm pure light of a mother's love. how close it keeps to the heart that loves it, and to the hand that leads it! it looks without doubt or suspicion in the parent's eye, and makes the parent's home and interest its own. here is a picture of the true child of god in his tent-home on earth, and in his eternal home in heaven. for this they are given to us. as they are to us, their parents, so should we be to our father in heaven, and so are all those loved and sainted ones who have gone before us. "little children, flowers from heaven, strewn on earth by god's own hand, earnest emblems to us given, from, the fields of angel-land!" hence it was that jesus loved little children, took them in his arms, blessed them, and regarded them as "the lambs of his flock." "he shall gather the lambs with his arm." he gazed with pleasure into their sweet faces, invited their parents to bring them unto him, and held them up as the type of the spirit and character of the admitted, into heaven. and the aged john, having in view this typical character of children, addressed his followers as his little children! infants are helpless dependents upon others for subsistence and protection. if abandoned at their birth, their first breath would soon be succeeded by their last. hence they demand all the attention which maternal love and tenderness can bestow. they live like the tender bud or the opening blossom, exposed to the blight of a thousand fortuitous events. hence their existence is very precarious; in a moment they may sink like the frosted flower in its lovely blush. this may be said of the soul as well as of the body and mind. what an argument, therefore, we have here for parental diligence and promptness in duty to the eternal as well as to the temporal well-being of the child. the infant is the first prophecy of the man. it is the germ of manhood. it is the man in a state of involution. it is the undeveloped man. infancy is the twilight of life,--the first morning of an endless being, the age of germ and of mere sense. as the first dawn of spring is the season of the undeveloped harvest, so childhood is manhood in possibility. the infant is the vernal bud of life; it is a being of promise and of hope,--the prophecy of the future man. hence the age of education. the mother, in the nursery, is ever evolving into the strength of maturity those powers of her child which will be wielded for happiness or for misery. her babe is an "embryo angel, or an infant fiend." we behold in that fragile form, the bud of the strong man,--the possibility of one who may in a few years arouse with his thrilling eloquence a slumbering nation, or with the torch and sword of revolution, overturn empires and dethrone kings, or with his feet upon the walls of zion, and the words of life upon his lips, overthrow the strongholds of satan, and bring the rebel sinner in penitence to the feet of jesus. yea, we see in that wailing infant of a week, the outspringing of an immortal spirit which may soon hover on cherub-pinion around the throne of god, or perhaps, in a few years, sink to the regions of untold anguish. oh, it is this which gives to the cradle of infancy such a thrilling interest. the star of those new-born hopes, which hangs over it, will set in eternal night, or rise with increasing splendor, till it is lost in the full blaze of eternal day! infants are a great, a dangerous and responsible trust. they are the property of god,--"an heritage from the lord," given to their parents as a loan, a "talent of trust to be rendered back with interest." the infant is especially the mother's trust. "though first by thee it lived, on thee it smiled, yet not for thee existence must it hold, for god's it is, not thine!" given by its creator in trust to her, it is her task to bring it up for god. here especially do we see the holy mission of the mother. none but the mother's heart and love can give security for this trust. the father is unfit by nature for the delicate training of infancy. the mother's hand alone can smooth the infant's couch, and her voice alone can sing him to his rosy rest. her never-wearied love alone can watch beside him "till the last pale star had set," "while to the fullness of her heart's glad heavings his fair cheek rose and fell; and his bright hair waved softly to her breast." she is the ministering angel of infancy, and the priestess of the nursery of home. she sets the first seal, makes the first stamp, gives the first direction, supplies the first want, and soothes the first sorrow. to her is committed human life in its most helpless and dangerous state. touch it then with the rude hand of parental selfishness; let it grow up in a barren soil, amid noxious weeds, under the influence of unholy example; and the delicate tints of this blossom will soon fade; the blush of loveliness will soon give way to the blight of moral deformity. [illustration: teaching the scriptures. j. porter] hence every babe will be the parent's glory or the parent's shame, their weal or their woe. if entrusted to them, god will hold them responsible for its moral training. he will require it from them with interest. their trust involves the eternal happiness or misery of their child. the productions of art will perish; the sun will be blotted out, and all the glory and magnificence of the world will vanish away, but your babe will live forever. it will survive the wreck of nature, and either shine as a diadem in the redeemer's crown of glory, or dwell in the blackness and darkness of perdition forever. to you, christian parents, as the stewards of god, this precious being is entrusted. the care of its body, mind and spirit is committed to you; and its character and destiny in after life will be the fruit of your dealings with it. it looks to you for all things. it confides in you, draws its confidence from your protection, relies on your known love, takes you as the pattern of its life, imitates you as its example, learns from you as its teacher, is ruled by you as its governor, is measured by you as its model, feels satisfied with you as its sufficiency, and rests its all upon you as its all and in all. thus you are the very life and soul of its being, and hence in its maturity, it will be a fair exponent of your character. you are the center around which its life revolves, the circumference beyond which it never seeks to go. what, therefore, if you are unfit to move and act in its presence! what, if in its imitation of you, its life be a progressive departure from god! oh, what, if in the day of judgment, it be an outcast from heaven, and, as such, bear the impress of a parent's hand! god will then hold you accountable for every injury you may have done your child. begin, therefore, the work of training that infant, now, while its nature is pliable, susceptible, yet tenacious of first impressions. "with his mother's milk the young child drinketh education." what you now do for your child will be seen in all future ages. "scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, the scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come." "it will not depart from the ways in which you train it." if, therefore, you would be a blessing to your child, and avert those terrible judgments of god which rest upon parental delinquency, begin now, while your infant is in the cradle, to sow the seeds of life. prune well the tender olive plants, and direct its evolving life in the way god would have it go. "soon as the playful innocent can prove a tear of pity or a smile of love," teach it to lisp the name of jesus and to walk in his commandments. but alas! how many christian parents are recreant to this duty! how many destroy their children by the over-indulgence of a misdirected love and sympathy, and by procrastinating the period of home-education. forgetful of the power of first impressions, they wait until their children are established in sin, and the seeds of evil are sown in their hearts. this is the reason why so many reckless and wicked children come out of christian homes. their parents permit their misdirected fondness to absorb all their thoughts and apprehensions of danger and responsibility. their love for the body and mind of their children seems to repel all love for, or interest in, their soul. the former they tenderly nurse, fondly caress, and zealously direct. but the soul of the infant is unhonored, unloved and uncared for. it is blighted in its first bursting of beauty. oh, cruel and unthinking parents! why will you thus abuse the loveliest and noblest part of your child? why make that babe of yours a mere plaything? if "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings god has perfected praise," then why not train them up to praise him? "take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for i say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven." oh, you who are the nurse of infant innocence, have you ever thought of the deep curse that will attend your neglect of the babe which god has given you! have you, pious mother, as you pressed your child to your bosom, ever thought that it would one day be a witness for or against you? far better for thee and it that it were not born and you never revered as mother, than that you should nourish it for spiritual beggary here, and for the eternal burnings hereafter! oh, look upon that babe! it is the gift of god--given to thee, mother, to nurse for him. look upon that cherished one! see its smile of confidence turned to you! it is a frail and helpless bark on the tumultuous sea of life; it looks to you for direction,--for compass and for chart; your prayers for it will be heard; your hand can save it; the touch of your impressions will be a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. "then take the heart thy charms have won, and nurse it for the skies!" chapter x. home dedication. "the rose was rich in bloom on sharon's plain, when a young mother with her first born thence went up to zion, for the boy was vowed unto the temple-service; by the hand she led him, and her silent soul, the while, oft as the dewy laughter of his eye met her sweet serious glance, rejoiced to think that aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers, to bring before her god!" beautiful thought, and thrice beautiful deed,--fresh from the pure fount of maternal piety! the hebrew mother consecrating her first-born child to the temple-service,--dedicating him to the god who gave him! what visions of unearthly glory must have been before her, as she led her little boy before the altar of the "king of kings!" happy mother! thou hast long since gone to thy great reward. and happy child! to be led by such a mother. ye are now together in that temple "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," and with united voice swelling those anthems of glory which are poured from angelic lips and harps to him who sitteth upon the throne. what an example is this for the christian parent! god is the father of every home. from him cometh down every good and perfect gift; and hence to him should all the interests and the loved ones of the household, be dedicated. this is essential to the very conception of a christian home. but especially should the children be dedicated to the lord. that infant over which the mother bends and watches with such passionate fondness, is "an heritage of the lord," given to her only in trust, and will again be required from her. as soon as children are given they should be devoted to him; for "the flower, when offered in the bud, is no mean sacrifice." then and then only will parents properly respect and value their offspring, and deal with them as becometh the property of god. by withholding them, the parents become guilty of the deed of ananias and sapphira. like the hebrew mother, every christian parent will gratefully devote them to him, and rejoice that they have such a pure oblation to "bring before their god." "my child, my treasure, i have given thee up to him who gave thee me! ere yet thine eye rested with conscious love upon thy mother, long ere thy lips could gently sound her name, she gave thee up to god; she sought for thee one boon alone, that thou mightest he his child; his child sojourning on this distant land, his child above the blue and radiant sky, 'tis all i ask of thee, beloved one, still!" here is a dedication worthy of a christian mother. natural affection and human pride might lead the fond mother to dedicate her child at the altar of mammon, to gold, to fame, to magnificence, to the world. but no, every wish of the pious mother's heart is merged in one great wish and prayer, "that thou may'st be his child." the dedication of our children to the lord is one of the first acts of the religious ministry of home. all the means of grace will be of no avail without it. what will the acts of the gospel minister avail if they are not preceded by an offering of himself to the lord who has called him? his holy vocation demands such an offering. it is his voluntary response to and acceptance of his calling of god. thus with christian parents. what will baptism avail, so far as the parents are concerned, without this dedication of their children to him in whose name they are baptised? no more than the form apart from the spirit. it would be but a mockery of god. we have a beautiful example and illustration of this dedication, in the family of the faithful abraham. "by faith abraham, when he was tried, offered up isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son." we might at first view regard this act of his as an evidence of his want of parental sympathy and tenderness. but not so; it is rather an evidence of these. what he did was the prompting of a true faith, yielding implicit obedience to the lord, and offering as an obligation to him, what he loved most upon earth. had he not loved him so dearly, god would not have chosen him as a means of testing his father's religious fidelity. hence this oblation of his son was the best evidence of his supreme love to god, and that all he had was consecrated to his service. this act called for the subordination of natural affection to christian faith and love. "take now thine only son isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering!" what a startling command was this! how it must have stirred up the soul of that parent, and for the time caused a bitter conflict between natural affection and christian faith! "take thy son,"--had it been a slave, the command would not have been so stirring; but a son, an only son, the joy of his heart, and the pride and hope of his age,--the son he so much loved,--oh it was this that harrowed up such a revulsion in his soul, and, for the moment doubtless, caused him to shrink from the very thought of obedience. but the command was imperious,--it was from god; and though the parent shrunk from the deed, yet the faith of the faithful servant gained a signal triumph over all the protestations of natural affection, and silenced all its rising murmurs; for "abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with, him, and isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which god had told him." there he built an altar, laid the wood in order, bound isaac, and laid him upon the wood on the altar. but when with uplifted sacrificial knife, he was about to slay his son, just at the point where god had the true test of his faith, a ministering angel stayed his hand, and prevented the bloody form in which he was about to offer his only son to god; "for now i know that thou fearest god, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me!" he needed now but dedicate him in the moral sense to god. the case of samuel is another instance of the offering of children unto the lord. his mother had asked him of the lord, and vowed, as she prayed, to "give him unto the lord all the days of his life."-- sam. i., . her prayer was answered, and in obedience to her holy vow, she took him, when very young, with her to the temple, where she offered him up as an oblation to the lord. "for this child i prayed, and the lord hath given me my petition which i asked of him; therefore also have i lent him to the lord; as long as he liveth shall he be lent unto the lord!" david also consecrated all that he had to the lord,--his possessions as well as his children. when he built a house, he dedicated it to the lord, and prepared "a psalm and song at the dedication of the house." here in these examples of old testament family offerings to god, we have a type and illustration of the oblations of the christian home. the lord does not ask the christian parent, as he did abraham, to build an altar upon the summit of some lofty cliff, and there to thrust a sacrificial knife to the heart of his child, and offer his quivering flesh and bleeding body a burnt offering to him; but he commands him to bring his child to the altar of baptism in his church, and there dedicate his life, his talents, his all, as a living sacrifice "holy and acceptable unto god," vowing before witnessing angels and men that, as the steward of god and the representative of the child, he will hold it sacred, as the property of the lord, given to him only in trust; that he will consult and faithfully execute the will of the lord concerning the child, and that in all his relations to it, he will seek to make it subserve his purposes and reflect his glory. this is the most precious and acceptable oblation of the parent's heart and home,--more precious than gold or pearls, than rivers of blood, or streams of oil; and where there is a corresponding dedication of all that belongs to home, it promotes and preserves the highest privileges and the greatest well-being of the child. with the deep and sublime feelings of faith we should, therefore, take our little ones, in infancy, before the lord, as the free-will offering of the christian home; and in all subsequent periods of their life under the parental roof, we should eagerly watch, in each expanding faculty, in each growing inclination, in the bent of each tender thought, in the warm glow of each feeling and desire, for some indications of the will of god concerning their mission in this life. this leads us to remark finally, that, in the dedication of our children to the lord, we should have reference to the highest function within the calling of man, viz: the christian ministry; or in other words, we should offer our sons to god with the hope and prayer that he may call them to the work of the ministry, and every indication of his answer to our prayer, given in their mental and moral fitness, should encourage the parent to train them up with special reference to that sacred office. this, the state of the church and the many destitute and waste places of the earth, imperiously demand. like the hebrew mother, we should at least devote one of our sons to the temple-service, direct his attention to it, favor it by all our intercourse with him, and use all proper means for his preparation for it. and you may be assured that god will answer your prayer. your offering, if holy, will be acceptable. "even thus, of old, a babe was offered up-- young samuel, for the service of his temple; nor he refused the boon, but poured on him the anointing of all gifts and graces meet for his high office." but alas! how many parents refuse thus to yield their sons unto god! they will formally and outwardly dedicate their children to him in holy baptism; but afterwards obstruct their way to the ministry, yea, even discourage it for reasons the most worldly and infidel. they will remind them of its arduous duties and self-denials; they will remind them that it affords no money speculations, that the salary of ministers is so small, no wealth can be amassed by preaching, and besides, they will have to remove so far from home. and thus by urging such frivolous objections, they beget in their sons a prejudice against the ministry,--yea, a contempt for it. ah, if preaching were a money-making business; if it opened the door to luxury and affluence and worldly ease, then i am sure every parent would show the outward piety of dedicating his sons (and daughters too) to the ministry. here we see how natural affection, misdirected by the love of worldly gain, neutralizes the promptings of faith. had abraham lived under the same influence, he would not have obeyed the edict of god. it is because of the dominant spirit of worldliness in the christian home, that the laborers upon the walls of zion are inadequate to the great work to be done, that they are insufficient for the great harvest of souls. and this will ever continue so long as christian parents refuse to make an offering of their sons to god, and turn their homes into a den of thieves. such parental reservation of children for filthy lucre and the pleasures of sin for a season, involves a guilt which no redeeming attribute can mitigate. if god gave his only son to suffer and die upon the accursed tree, shall we, his professed followers, not give in turn our sons to him, to proclaim the glad news of a purchased and offered redemption? think of this, oh ye who profess to be the parents of a christian home, and have with the lip had your children dedicated to god in baptism! think that the gift of god has bought them with a price, and that as they belong to him, you rob god when you withhold them, and deal with them as your own property, leaving out of view the great law of stewardship. mistaken parents! methinks you would give your children to all save to god; you would devote them to any thing but religion. you fit them for this life, choose their occupation, labor to leave them a large inheritance, and rejoice when they rise to eminence in the world. but in all this, god, religion and eternity are cast into the shade; you act towards them as if god had no claim upon them, and you were under no obligations to meet that claim. think of this, ye who have been recreant to your duty,--ye who have not followed abraham to the mount of oblation, nor brought up your sons as an offered samuel. oh think, that god will demand of you these children, and that if they are not now devoted to the lord, you will not have them to return to him in the great day of final reckoning. may the momentous interests and responsibilities of that coming day bring you with your children around the altar of consecration, and constrain you there to say-- "i give thee to thy god--the god that gave thee, a well-spring of deep gladness to my heart! and precious as thou art, and pure as dew of hermon, he shall have thee, my own, my beautiful, my undefiled! and thou shalt be his child!" chapter xi. christian baptism. "water--of blest purity emblem--do we pour on thee; little one! regenerate be-- only by the crimson flood of the spotless, in the blood of the very son of god! father, son and holy ghost! take the feeble, take the lost, purchased once at calvary's cost!" what delightful associations cluster around the baptismal altar! how tenderly does the pious mother fold her babe to her yearning heart, as she devoutly approaches that consecrated spot, and there dedicates in and through this holy sacrament, the child of her love and hope, to him who gave it! what a holy charge she there assumes; what a sacred vow she there makes; what a solemn promise she there gives; what a momentous interest is entrusted to her there; what a weight of responsibility is there laid upon her! her charge is an infant soul; her vow is to be faithful to it; her promise is to train it up for god; and her's will be the lasting glory or the lasting shame! these very engagements and trusts elevate the pious parents; diffuse a tenderness and sympathy over all the domestic relations, and make better husbands, better wives, better parents, and better children, by the deep insight which is given to their faith in those mysterious relations and mutual obligations which bind them together. as the consecrated water falls upon the face of the devoted child, the parents feel the solemn vow sink deep into the soul, and realize the weight of that responsibility which god lays upon them. god commands us not only to dedicate our children to him, but to do so in the way he has appointed, viz., in and through christian baptism. in this way we bring our children into the church, and train them up in a churchly way. we bring them to god through the church. in their baptism we have, as it were, a confirmation of their dedication by "the mighty master's seal." it is the link which binds our children to the church, the rite of their initiation into the kingdom of christ, the sign and seal of their saving relation to the covenant of grace. by it they are solemnly set apart to the service of god, enrolled among the members of his kingdom, entitled to its privileges and guardian care, and placed in the appointed way of salvation and eternal life, receiving the seal and superscription of the son of god. this is indispensable to the demands of the christian faith. to deny that infants are thus included in the covenant of grace, destroys the purity and spiritual unity of the christian compact, and subverts the foundations and harmony of the christian home. it is revolting to the parent's faith to forbid his little ones the privilege of the church, and to treat them as aliens from the covenant of promise. does the gospel place them under such a ban of proscription? surely not! he who instituted the family relation had special regard to the family in all the appointments of his grace. his command is like that of noah, "come thou and all thy house into the ark." "the promise is unto you and your children." this is the comfort of the parent, that his children are planted by the ordinance of god into the soil of grace, where they may grow up as a tender plant in the likeness of his death, and be "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that shall bring forth his fruit in his season; his leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." baptism in the christian home is eminently infant baptism. take this away, and you sever the strongest cord that binds church and home. as the jew was commanded to circumcise his child, and thus bring it into proper relations to the theocratical covenant, so the christian has a similar command from christ to bring his children, through the holy sacrament of baptism, to him. it is not our purpose to discuss the baptistic question. when we shall have thrown sufficient light upon it to convince the christian parent, that it is a duty to have little children dedicated to god in baptism, our plan shall be fully executed. we must either admit infant baptism, or deny that the christian covenant includes children, and that the parent is bound to dedicate them to god. hence the objection brought against infant baptism can, with equal propriety, be urged against circumcision; for the latter is the type of the former. in baptism christ places himself in true organic relations to the child, and thus opens up to it the sources from which alone the christian life can proceed and develop itself. the baptism of our children is grounded in their need of salvation at every age and stage of development. it is also based upon the very idea of christ himself; upon primitive christianity; upon the extent and compass of the christian covenant; and upon those vital relations which believing parents sustain to their offspring. it might be proven from the commission given by christ to his disciples to "preach the gospel to every creature;" from his language and conduct in reference to children; from the usage of the apostles and of the apostolic church. the idea and mission of christ himself, we think, would be a sufficient argument in favor of infant baptism. he included in his life the stage of childhood, and came to save the child as well as the man. his own infancy and childhood are securities for this. he entered into and passed through all the various states and stages of man's development on earth, and thus became adapted to the wants of every period of our life,--man's infancy as well as man's maturity. ireneus says, "christ jesus became a child to children, a youth to youth, and a man to man." the fact, too, that the blessings of the covenant of grace are extended to the children of believing parents, is sufficient to prove the validity of infant baptism. peter said on the day of pentecost, when he called upon his hearers to be baptized: "for the promise is to you, and your children, and all that are afar off, even as many as the lord our god shall call." thus his gospel excludes none, neither is it restricted to a certain age or capacity. as the child, as well as the man, fell and died in the first adam, so the child, as well as the man, can be made alive in the second adam. as infants, therefore, are subjects of grace, why not subjects also of baptism? as they are included in the covenant, why not enter it by the divinely constituted sacrament of initiation? as they are included in the plan of salvation, why not receive it in a churchly way? if christ is the saviour of infants, why not bring them to him through baptism? besides, the idea of following christ reaches its full meaning only through infant baptism. his own infancy, as we have already seen, is a warrant of this. without it he cannot penetrate and rule in every natural stage of human life. hence a denial of infant baptism is a subversion of the fundamentals of christian doctrine. the very constitution of the christian family, its unity and mission must be overthrown; for infant baptism is incorporated with the nature of christianity itself, with the conception and necessities of the individual christian life, and of the christian family life. and yet with the plainest teachings of the gospel before them, is it not strange that there are so many virulent enemies to infant baptism? their rejection of it seems to rest mainly upon the untenable position that baptism has meaning and force only when it is the fruit of an antecedent, self-conscious faith on the part of the subject, and that it is but the outward demonstration of a separate and prior participation of some inward grace. as infants have not a self-conscious faith, it is believed, therefore, that they are not, of course, fit subjects of baptism. there is a cunning sophistry in all this. it goes upon the supposition that faith necessarily demands the prior development of self-consciousness. it assumes that faith is bound to a particular age, and can be exercised only after the full and complete development of the logical consciousness, and is dependent upon it; it also assumes that this faith must necessarily be exercised by the subject of christian baptism. now this is all mere assumption. there is no scripture for it. in all this, the distinction is not made between faith in its first bud, and faith in its ripe fruit. the first may exist in the unconscious infant, just as undeveloped reason exists there; because natural powers do not generate supernatural faith. faith is the gift of god; and its existence does not depend upon any particular stage of mental development. the enemies of infant baptism can see nothing in baptism. they can see no objective force in that holy sacrament; but regard it as something merely external, extraneous, unproductive,--a mere unmeaning form in which a prior faith is pleased to express itself, as the conclusion of a work already accomplished. the great error here lies just in this, that they mistake it as an act of faith, whereas it is an act of christ. they think it is the formal rite through which they elect and receive christ; whereas it is the sacrament in which christ elects and receives them. if, in church worship, man placed himself in a relation to god, without god placing himself in a relation to man, then we might reject infant baptism. but this is not so. god, in baptism, places himself in a relation to the subject, receives the subject until it become a part of the organism of grace in its subjective and objective force, and is recognized as a member of the church of christ. now the falsity of the position assumed by the enemies of infant baptism lies just here, that only the subjective side of baptism is held up, while its objective, sacramental character is left altogether out of view. it reverses the relative positions of faith and baptism, making the former to take the place of the latter, and holding that any one dissociated with the church, can receive and exercise a true living faith, which overthrows the very idea of the church itself. it makes faith first, baptism second, entering the church third; whereas baptism comes before the conscious faith of the subject. if so, then why object to infant baptism? baptism is that sacrament by means of which the order of divine grace is continued. it generates faith, and its development is from authoritative, to free, personal faith. "what the personal election of christ was to the first circle of disciples, that baptism is for the successive church, the divine fact through which christ gives to his church its true and eternal beginning in the individual." if so, then is it not plain that baptism goes before the self-conscious faith of the subject? and if this church-founding sacrament brings your child into a living and saving relation to the church, then why deny it that baptism? dare you reverse the divine procedure which god has ordained for the salvation of his people? and if christ is related to the individual only through the general; if he is related to the members only through the body, and having fellowship with them only as the head of that body, then is it not plain that your children, in order to come to him as such, to be incorporated with him and related to him in a saving way, must come to him through the church,--must become a member of it, and that too in the manner and through the medium he has prescribed, viz., baptism? he who, for the reason, therefore, that children can have no self-conscious faith, refuses to have them baptized, but exposes his ignorance of the divine procedure of grace as developed in the church, of the true moral relation between parent and child, and of the scripture idea of the christian home. why not for the very same reason refuse to teach them, to have them pray, to bring them up to church service? yea, why not deny to them salvation itself? for the very same reason for which you reject infant baptism, you must also reject infant salvation; for faith is held up in the word of god as a qualification for salvation with more emphasis than as a qualification for baptism. hence if you say that infants cannot be baptized because incapable of faith, you must also say, by a parity of reasoning, that infants cannot be saved, because incapable of faith. this is a dilemma, and to avoid it, some enemies to infant baptism have even confessed that they see no hope for the salvation of children. thus dr. alexander carson says, "the gospel has nothing to do with infants. it is good news, but to infants it is no news at all. none can be saved by the gospel who do not believe it! consequently by the gospel no infants can be saved!" but if out of christ there is no salvation, then tell me, how will infants be saved? we have no answer from these enemies, yea, there is no answer! christian parents! what think you of this? when bending over the grave of a beloved child, with the cherished hope of meeting it in heaven, how would such intelligence as this startle you from your dream of reunion there, and cast a deep pall of desolation around your sorrowing hearts? does not the parent's faith forbid the intrusion of a doctrine so revolting as this? though you have been in your home, the divinely appointed representative of your child, and in its baptism exercised faith in its behalf, on the ground of those natural and moral relations which the lord has constituted between you and your child, yet in this startling dogma of the enemies of its baptism, you find a virtual denial of the existence of such moral relations and parental vicarage; yea, a denial of parental stewardship and of the religious ministry of the christian home. the revulsion with which the christian heart receives such a denial of infant baptism is at least a presumptive evidence against it. but we think enough has been said to lay the foundation of some practical comments upon the subject of christian baptism. if it is a fact that infants are proper subjects of baptism, then it is the duty of christian parents to have them baptized. it is not only a duty, but a delightful privilege, to consecrate them to god in a perpetual covenant never to be forgotten, regarding them as the members of the kingdom of christ, and so called to be god's children by adoption and grace. their baptism involves many parental duties and responsibilities. if it is both a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace, and a means of grace, so that the parent's faith, in their baptism, places the child in covenant relation to the incarnate word, through the life-giving spirit, then it is plain that the parent is bound to secure for the child those blessings which that baptism contemplates, and which hang upon the exercise of a receiving faith. this sacrament gives the child a churchly claim upon parental interposition in its behalf, in all things pertaining to its spiritual culture,--in a true religious training, in a proper direction in the use of the means of grace, in a holy christian example. here it is the parent's duty to represent the church, to act for the church in religious ministrations to the child, to be the steward of the church in the christian home, to rear up the child for a responsible membership. no parent, therefore, who neglects the baptism of the child, can have "the answer of a good conscience towards god." if we are satisfied to have our homes separate from the church; if we are satisfied with individualistic, disembodied, unassociated christianity,--a religion that owns no church, but which has its origin, root and maturity in the self-conscious activity of the individual, we may then neglect this duty. but in doing so, to be consistent, we must also discard the sister ordinance of the lord's supper, yea, all the churchly means of grace; yea, the church itself; for why repudiate one ordinance,--one idea of associated christianity, and not all the others? that baptism is greatly abused and neglected, none will deny. it is often abused by neglect of the proper time of its administration. the earliest period of infancy is the proper time; for then there will be a proper correspondence in time between the dedication and the baptism. in this we have an example from jewish circumcision. the pious jew took the infant when it was but eight days old, and had it circumcised. but many christian parents defer the baptism of their children until late childhood, while their vows of dedication are left in mere naked feeling and resolution, having no sacramental force and expression; and as a consequence will grow cold and indifferent. when parents thus delay having their children brought within the fold of god and the bosom of the church, they presume to be wiser than god, and oppose their own weak reason to his word and promises. baptism is often abused, also, by being used as a mere habit, an unmeaning form, without a proper sense of its significance, importance, duties and responsibilities. it is administered because others do the same,--because customary among most church members, and because perhaps it looks like an adherence to the outward of christianity and the church at least. when they have thus obeyed the law of habit, and girded themselves with the formula of parental duty, they feel they have done enough; and perhaps neither their children nor the vows they assumed at their baptism ever after recur to them as objects of specific duty. but we would remind such parents, that habit is not always duty, and our adherence to habit does not prove our sincerity and the truthfulness of our purpose. it does not always imply "the answer of a good conscience towards god." if having our children baptized is simple obedience to the law of habit, it is not the performance of a parental duty, but the abuse of a blessed privilege; there is in it all no living churchly expression of willing vows. in this way we only reach its outward form, and we do that, not because of its inherent worth, not because of a duty and privilege; but because we desire to cope with others, and decorate our religion in the popular dress of other people's habits. baptism is also abused by mistaking the object and design of its administration. why do many parents have their children baptized? because they wish to express their vows of dedication in that sacramental form and way which god has appointed? because they desire to bring them into the fold and bosom of the church, and place them in saving relations to the means of grace? alas, no! but too often because they make their baptism the mere occasion of giving them, in a formal, public way, their christian names. they christen their children to give them a name; and often with them this holy sacrament is as empty as the name. their baptism, in their view, is but the sealing and confirming the name they had before chosen for the child; and when this is done they have no more thought of the baptism. with them the baptism of their children is the ordinance of name-giving. before it takes place they are busied about getting a name from the most approved, and fashionable novels of the day. this takes the place of dedication. their prior thoughts are all absorbed in getting a strange, new-fangled name,--such an one as will carry you away by association to some love-sick tale, or remind you of the burning of rome, or some other deed which has disgraced humanity. and then as soon as this is done, they fix upon some auspicious occasion when either in the church or in the presence of a select company at home, (for children cry now-a-days too much to bring them to church) they have their pastor to baptize them. perhaps a great feast is prepared; godfathers and godmothers (if they have the warrant of some valuable presents) are chosen; and then in all the glare and parade of fashion, they have the ordinance administered. and what then is the first joyful cry of the fond parents, after the solemn ceremony is ended? why "now, dear, you have your name!" and this is the end,--yes, the finale of the vows there made before god,--the end of all until god shall call them to account! it requires but very little discrimination to see that in all this the nature, design, and obligations of christian baptism are left totally out of view. they do not here appreciate this ordinance as a channel for the communication of god's grace to their children. when baptized they do not regard them as having been received into gracious relation to god, as plants in the lord's vineyard, as having put on christ, and as having their ingrafting into him not only signified but sealed. thus being undervalued, it is, as a consequence, abused and neglected. the great neglect of christian baptism is doubtless owing to the low, unscriptural views of its nature and practical importance; for if they realized its relations to the plan of salvation, and its office in the appropriation of that salvation to their children, they would not permit them to grow up unbaptized, neither would they be recreant to the solemn duties which are binding upon the parent after its administration. but upon the subject of baptism itself, we have seen that there is great laxity of feeling and opinion. the spirit of our fathers upon this point is becoming so diluted that we can scarcely discern any longer a vestige of the good old landmarks of their sacramental character. instead of walking in them, christians are now falling a prey to a latitudinarian spirit of the most destructive kind. they are, in leaving these old landmarks, falling into the clutches of rationalism and radicalism, which will ere long leave their homes and their church "a wreck at random driven, without one glimpse of reason or of heaven!" even ministers themselves seem to grow indifferent to this wide-spread and growing evil. they hardly ever utter a word of warning from the pulpit against it. their members may be known by them to neglect the baptism of their children; and yet by their silence they wink at this dereliction; and when they have occasion to speak of this ordinance, many advert to it as a mere sign, as something only outward, not communicating an invisible grace, not as a seal of the new covenant, ingrafting into christ. no wonder when this holy sacrament is thus disparagingly spoken of, that christian parents will neglect it practically, as a redundancy in the church,--as a tradition coming in its last wailing cry from ages and forms departed,--as a church rite marked obsolete, as an old ceremonial savoring of old jewish shackles, embodying no substantial grace, and unfit for this age of railroad progression and gospel libertinism. will any one deny the extent of such a spirit in the church and homes of the present day? let him refer to church statistics, where he may receive some idea of the magnitude of this evil. in them we can see the extent to which parents have neglected the baptism of their children. we take from a note in the "mercersburg review" the following statistical items: "the presbytery of londonderry reports but one baptism to sixty-four communicants; the presbytery of buffalo city, the same; the presbytery of rochester city, one to forty-six; the presbytery of michigan, one to seventy-seven; the presbytery of columbus, one to thirty. in the presbytery of new brunswick, there are three churches which report thus: one reports three hundred and forty-three communicants, and three baptisms; another reports three hundred and forty communicants, and two baptisms. in philadelphia, one church reports three hundred and three communicants, and seven baptisms; another, two hundred and eighty-seven communicants, and one baptism." these statistics speak volumes. they tell us how christian parents neglect the baptism of their children, and also how the church winks at it. and from this neglect we can easily infer their indifference to it. if we refer to the statistics of all other churches, we shall witness a similar neglect. no branch of the church now is free from the imputation of such neglect. it is now difficult indeed, to induce parents to have their children baptized, because they think it is no use! "let them wait," say they, "till they grow up, and then they will know more about it!" this shows us where the parent stands, viz., in an unchurchly state, and radical to the very core. it shows us what that influence is, which is at work upon his mind. "he will know more about it!"--just as if that in religion is worthless until we know all about it. baptism then is not worth anything until the child understands all about it! in that parental utterance we hear the wildest shout of triumphant rationalism! but again, baptism is often abused by parental unfaithfulness to its obligations. in the baptism of their children, parents solemnly vow to bring them up in the nurture of the lord, to train them up in his holy ways, to teach them by precept and example, to pray for them and teach them the privilege of prayer. and yet how grossly are these solemn vows left unperformed, and even never thought of in all after life! perhaps the very opposite course is taken even on the day of baptism. parents! by this you endanger your own souls as well as the souls of your children. how will the memory of such neglected duty and privilege sink with deepening anguish in your souls, when you shall be called hence to answer to god for your parental stewardship! be not deceived; god is not mocked; neither will he hold you guiltless when you thus outrage his holy sacrament. baptism is often abused by the unfaithfulness of children to its privileges, influences and blessings. many children fight against these, prevent parents from performing their duties, and repel all the overtures of the christian home, all the offers of the spirit's baptism, abandoning the means of grace, refusing to assume the baptismal engagement taken for them by their parents; and thus, so far as they are concerned, undo and neutralize what their parents did for them. oh, ye baptized children,--ye to whom the holy ministry of home has been faithfully applied,--know ye not that the frowns of abused heaven are upon you, and that the memory of your rebellion against the prerogatives of the family, will constitute an ingredient in your cup of woe? the privilege of baptism lays you under solemn requisition. if unfaithful to it, it will be your condemnation, and add new fuel to the flame of a burning conscience. parents and children! be faithful to this holy ordinance of god. it is a solemn service. you should approach the baptismal font with a trembling step and a consecrated heart. and what a solemn moment it is, when you take your child away from that altar! there you gave it up to god,--dedicated it to his service; and there in turn he commits it to you in trust, saying to you as pharaoh's daughter said to the mother of moses, "take this child and nurse it for me, and i will pay thee thy wages," and you bore it away, as did that faithful mother, to bring it up for god. there you solemnly promised that in training that child, the will of god should be your will, and the law of all your conduct towards it. you can never forget that solemn transaction, and how you there vowed before witnessing men and angels that you would be faithful to the little one god has given you. what now has been the result? eternity will answer. chapter xii. christian names. "she named the child ichabod."-- samuel. "thus was the building left ridiculous, and the work confusion named." christian baptism suggests christian names. this introduces us to an important topic, viz., the kind of names christian parents should give to their children at their baptism. baptismal names are indeed an important item of the christian home. much more depends upon them than we are at first sight of the subject, disposed to grant. christianity eminently includes the great law of correspondence between its inward spirit and its outward form. its form and contents cannot be separated. the principle of fitness, it everywhere exhibits; and hence its nomenclature is the herald of its spirit and truth. the names that religion has given to her followers signify some principle of association between them. they were adopted to designate some fact in the history of the individual, or in his relation to the church. hence the names adopted for the children of the christian home should be the utterance of some fact or calling which belongs to that home. their name is one of the first things which children know, and hence it makes a deep impression upon them. and as our christian names are given to us at the time of our baptism, one would think that there is always a correspondence between the name and some fact or interest connected with the occasion. we should then receive a christian name, a name which does not bind us by the laws of association to what is evil either in the past or the present, but which indicates a relation to some precious boon involved in the dedication of the child to god. is this always so? by no means. it once was. it was so in the hebrew home and in the families of the apostolic age. but in this day of parental rage after new-fangled things and names, taken from works of fiction and novels of doubtful character, we find that parents care but very little about the baptismal name being the herald of a religious fact. "what is in a name?" was a question propounded by a poet. his answer was "nothing!" "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." the principle here evolved is false. there is much in a name; and at the creation names were not mechanically given to things; but there was a vital correspondence between the name and the thing named. much depends upon the name. it exerts a potent influence for good, or for evil upon the bearer and upon all around him. primarily, a name supposed some correspondence between its meaning and the person who bore it. hence the name should not be arbitrary in its application, but should "link its fitness to idea," and with the person, run in parallel courses. "for mind is apt and quick to wed ideas and names together, nor stoppeth its perceptions to be curious of priorities." nebuchadnezzar, king of babylon, felt that practically there was much in a name, when he heathenized the names of the young hebrew captives. by this he thought to detach them from their hebrew associations. god was in each of their original names, and in this way they were reminded of their religion. but the names this chaldee king gave them were either social or alluded to the idolatry of babylon. their hebrew names were to them witnesses for god, mementoes of the faith of their fathers; hence the king, to destroy their influence, called daniel, belteshazzar, i.e. "the treasurer of the god bel;" hannaniah he called shadrach, i.e. "the messenger of the king;" mishael he called meshach, i.e. "the devotee of the goddess shesach." he showed his cunning in this, and a historical testimony to the potent influence of a name. by this same rule of correspondence, adam doubtless named, by order of his creator, the things of nature as they struck his senses. "he specified the partridge by her cry, and the forest prowler by his roving, the tree by its use, and the flower by its beauty, and everything according to its truth." the hebrews obeyed the same law in naming their children. with them there was a sacred importance attached to the giving of a name. for every chosen name they had a reason which involved the person's life, character or destiny. adam named the companion of his bosom, "woman because she was taken out of man." he called "his wife's name eve, because she was the mother of all living." eve called her first-born cain (possession) "because i have gotten a man from the lord." she called another son seth (appointed,) "for god hath appointed me another seed instead of abel, whom cain slew." samuel was so named because he was "asked of and sent to god." god himself often gave names to his people; and each name thus given, conveyed a promise, or taught some rule of life, or bore some divine memorial, or indicated some calling of the person named. says dr. krummacher on this point: "names were to the people like memoranda, and like the bells on the garments of the priests, reminding them of the lord and his government, and furnishing matter for a variety of salutary reflections. to the receivers of them they ministered consolation and strength, warning and encouragement; and to others they served to attract the attention and heart of god." this was right, and fully accorded with the economy of the hebrew home, and with the conception of language itself. would that the christian home followed her pious example! but christians now are too much under the influence of irreligious fashion. instead of giving their children those good old religious names which their fathers bore, and which are endeared to us by many hallowed associations, they now repudiate them with a sneer as too vulgar and tasteless. they are out of fashion, too common, don't lead us into a labyrinth of love-scrapes and scenes of refined iniquity, and are now only fit for a servant. hence instead of resorting to the bible for a name, these sentimental parents will pore over filthy novels, or catch at some foreign accent, to get a name which may have a fashionable sound, and a claim upon the prevailing taste of the times, and which may remind one of the battles of some ambitious general, or of the adventures of some love-sick swain, or of the tragic deeds of some fashionable libertine! and when such a name is found to suit the ear of fashion and of folly, it is applied to the child, and reiterated by the minister before the baptismal font; and as often as it is afterwards repeated it reminds one perhaps of deeds which put modesty to blush, and startle the ear of justice and humanity. what a burning shame is this to the christian home! the child who is cursed with such a name has ever before him the memorandum of his parent's folly, and as a recognized example, the character of him after whom he has been named. as often as he is hailed by it, he blushes to think that he has been called by pious parents after one who, perhaps, has turned many a home into desolation, and disgraced and blighted forever the fond hopes and joys of the young and old. have thoughts and associations like these no demoralizing influence? how can parents admonish their children against novel reading after they have taken their names from novels? the giving of christian names at the present time is indeed a ridiculous farce, an insult to christianity, and a representation of stoical infidelity before the baptismal altar. it is there an act of the babylonish king to heathenize the child. we might almost say that the folly has become a rage. the rage for new names especially,--names which do not adorn the sacred page, nor carry us back to the times and faith of our fathers, but which have gained notoriety in the world of fiction, and associate us with the lover's affrays and with the desperado's feats,--these are the names which christian parents too often seek with avidity for their children. if you were to judge their homes by these names, you would think yourself in a turkish seraglio, or amid the voluptuous scenes of a parisian court, or in the bosom of a heathen family. what, for instance, is there about such names as nero, caesar, pompey, punch, that would remind you that you were in a christian home? it is often disgusting, too, to see how some christian parents, who live in humble life, seek to ape, in their children, the empty sounding titles of the world. they only show their vanity and weakness, and often bring ridicule upon their children; for-- "to lend the low-born noble names, is to shed upon them ridicule and evil; yea, many weeds run rank in pride, if men have dubbed them cedars, and to herald common mediocrity with the noisy notes of fame, tendeth to its deeper scorn, as if it were to call the mole a mammoth." when we thus give our children names associated with battle-fields, empty titles, brilliant honors, and lucrative offices,--positions in life which they can never expect to reach, and which, if they did, would not do honor to the child of a christian family, we do them great injury; we fasten in them feelings the most disastrous, and draw out propensities unbecoming the child devoted to the lord, breeding in his soul a peevish repining at his station. alas! that christian homes should ever become so servile in their devotions to the rotten sentiments and flimsy interests of misguided and perverted fashion! her smile in your home is that of a harlot; her touch is the withering blight of corruption; her dominion is the desolation of family hopes and the extermination of those sacred prerogatives with which the lord has invested the christian fireside. the ball will take the place of prayer; novels will take the place of the bible; favorites will take the place of husbands and wives; and the children will regard their parents only as their masters. christian parents should, therefore, give suitable names to their children, that is, such names as will correspond with their state, character and relations to god,--names which do not suggest the idea of war, rapine, humbug, romance, and sensuality, but which are associated with the christian life and calling, and which serve as a true index to the spirit and character of the parental fireside. reason, as well as faith, will dictate such a choice; for "there is wisdom in calling a thing fitly; names should note particulars through a character obvious to all men, and worthy of their instant acceptation." our name is the first and the last possession at our disposal. it determines from the days of childhood our inclinations. it employs our attention through life, and even transports us beyond the grave. hence we should give appropriate names to our children,--such as will interest them, and neither be a reproach, on the one hand, nor reach to unattainable and unworthy heights, on the other; for the mind of your child will take a bias, from its name, to good or to evil. why not adopt scriptural names for them? are they not as beautiful as other names? they are. and is not their influence as salutary? it is. and are they not more suitable for the christian home than any other? they are. where is there a more lovely name than mary,--lovely in its utterance, and thrice lovely in the glowing memories which cluster around it, and in the hallowed home-associations it awakens in the christian heart, drawing us at once to the feet of jesus, where a mary sat in confiding pupilage, and sealed her instructions and gratitude with the tear-drop that glowed like early dew upon her dimpled cheek? would christian parents desire to give their children more beautiful names,--beautiful in the light of history and of heaven,--than that of benjamin, "son of the right hand;" of david, "dear, beloved;" of dionysius, "divinely touched;" of eleazar, "help of god;" of eli, "my offering;" of enoch, "dedicated;" of jacob, "my present;" of lemuel, "god is with them;" of nathan, "given, gift;" of nathaniel, "gift of god;" of samuel, "asked of god and sent of god," &c.? besides, there are names of distinguished christians, such as wilberforce, howard, page, martyn, paul, peter, john, fenelon, clement, baxter, &c.,--bright as dew-drops on the page of history, and as beautiful in their enunciation as any chosen from the world of heartless fashion,--as beautiful in sound, and infinitely more so in associations which bind them to deeds of humanity and christian love. the utterance of such names would be more becoming the christian home; because they aid in developing the purest, holiest and loftiest idea of its nature and calling. such names will bind your little ones to pure and holy persons and deeds, and will suit the book of life in which you hope to have them enrolled. "then, safe within a better home, where time and its titles are not found, god will give thee his new name, and write it on thy heart; a name, better than of sons, a name dearer than of daughters, a name of union, peace and praise, as numbered in thy god." chapter xiii. home as a nursery. "the ostrich, silliest of the feathered kind, and formed of god without a parent's mind, commits her eggs, incautious, to the dust, forgetful that the foot may crush the trust; and, while on public nurseries they rely, not knowing, and too oft not caring why, irrational in what they thus prefer no few, that would seem wise, resemble her." to nurse means to educate or draw out and direct what exists in a state of mere involution. it means to protect, to foster, to supply with appropriate food, to cause to grow or promote growth, to manage with a view to increase. thus greece was the nurse of the liberal arts; rome was the nurse of law. in horticulture, a shrub or tree is the nurse or protector of a young and tender plant. we are said to nurse our national resources. isaiah, in speaking of the coming messiah and the glory of his church, says, "thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side." "kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers." the place or apartment appropriated to such nursing is called a nursery. thus a plantation of young trees is called a nursery. shakspeare calls padua the nursery of arts. we call a very bad place the nursery of thieves and rogues. dram-shops are the nurseries of intemperance. commerce is called the nursery of seamen. universities are the nurseries of the arts and sciences. the church on earth is called the nursery of the church in heaven. christian families are called the nurseries of the church on earth, because in the former its members are nursed and propagated for the purpose of being transplanted into the latter. in the same sense and for the same reason, the christian home is the nursery of the young,--of human nature in its normal state. and as home is the nursery of the state as well as of the church on earth and in heaven, we must see that it is a physical, intellectual and religious nursery. we shall briefly consider it in these aspects. indeed the christian home cannot be considered in a more interesting and responsible light. the little child, dedicated to god in holy baptism, is entirely helpless and dependent upon the ministrations of the nursery. there is the department of its first impressions, of its first directions, of its first intellectual and moral formation, of the first evolution of physical and moral life. there the child exists as but the germ of what is to be. it grows up under the fostering care and plastic power of the parents. god's commission to them in the nursery is, to bring up these germs of life, in his nurture admonition. "take the germ, and make it a bud of moral beauty. let the dews of knowledge, and the light of virtue, wake it in richest fragrance and in purest hues." the nursery is the department of home in which the mother fulfils her peculiar mission. this is her special sphere. none can effectually take her place there. she is the center of attraction, the guardian of the infant's destiny; and none like she, can overrule the unfolding life and character of the child. god has fitted her for the work of the nursery. here she reigns supreme, the arbitress of the everlasting weal or woe of untutored infancy. on her the fairest hopes of educated man depend, and in the exercise of her power there, she sways a nation's destiny, gives to the infant body and soul their beauty, their bias and their direction. she there possesses the immense force of first impressions. the soul of her child lies unveiled before her, and she makes the stamp of her own spirit and personality upon its pliable nature. she there engrafts it, as it were, into her own being, and from the combined elements of her own character, builds up and establishes the character of her offspring. hers will, therefore, be the glory or the shame. "then take the heart thy charms have won, and nurse it for the skies." the nursery is that department of home in which the formation of our character is begun. infancy demands the nursery. it is not full-formed and equipped for the battle of life. it lies in the cradle in a state of mere involution, and in the hands of its parents is altogether passive, and susceptible of impressions as wax before the sun. the germ of the man is there; but it has yet to be developed. its indwelling life must be nurtured with tender and assiduous care. it demands an influence suited to the expansion of its nature into bloom and maturity. it demands physical development, mental evolution, moral training, and spiritual elevation. in order to these it must live amidst the sweet and plastic socialities of maternal relationship. it must come under the fostering influence of a mother's heart, and be reared up by the tender touches of a mother's hand. this idea is embodied in home as a nursery. this is fourfold in its conception and relation to the child. the nursery is physical. this involves the means of keeping the child in health, and the appliances of a vigorous physical development. the christian mother, to this end, should make herself acquainted with the physiology of the infant body. many well-meaning mothers, from sheer ignorance, destroy the health of their children; and it is on this account perhaps that four-tenths of them die under five years of age. they should also consider the bearing of the body upon the mind and morals of their children. how often do ignorant and indolent parents, by giving their children over to the care of sickly and immoral nurses, ruin forever the health and souls of their offspring. much, then, depends upon the physical nurture of your child. if you would not injure its mind and soul, you must nurse its body with tender care and wisdom. a vital bond unites them; they reciprocally influence each other, and hence what affects the one must have a corresponding influence upon the other. neglect the body of your child; destroy its health either by extreme and fastidious care, or by a brutal neglect, and you at the same time do lasting injury to its mind and morals; for the body as the vehicle of mind and spirit, is used for spiritual ends, and should, therefore, be nurtured with direct reference to these. your child, in the nursery, is like the tender plant. the storm of passion and the chill of indifference and the oppression of parental tyranny should not be heard and felt there; for where the storm rages and coldness freezes and the hand of cruelty oppresses, we can have no beautiful and vigorous development of physical or moral powers. there will be a stinted and one-sided growth. at best it will be dwarfish, and tend to counteract the spontaneous outflow of mental and moral life. the tender plant, when, cramped and clogged by existing impediments, cannot spring up into beauteous maturity. neither can your child, when crammed with sweetmeats, and oppressed and screwed into monstrous contortions by the cruel inquisition of fashion and fashionable garments. in this way the misdirected love and cruel pride of mothers often destroy the health and beauty of their children. they cause a sickly and dwarfish growth by too much confinement and mental taxation, by a too rigid choice of diet, by daily, uncalled for decoctions of medicine, and by fitting the body in a dress as the chinese do their children's feet in shoes; in a word, by making the entire nursery life too artificial, and substituting the laws of art for those of nature. the result must be a delicate, artificial constitution, too fragile for the trials and duties of life. the body of your child has not the blooming, blushing form of nature, but the cold marble cast of a statue; and it imprints itself upon the disposition, the spirit, the mental faculties. it shows itself in peevishness, in imbecility, in such a passive, slavish subjection to the rules and interests of mere artificial life, as to admit no hope almost of spiritual progression. the nursery is also intellectual. the mind of your child is unfolding as well as its body; and hence the former, as well as the latter, demands the nursery. how much of the mental vigor and attainments of children depend upon the prudent management of the nursery. hence parents should "exert a prudent care to feed our infant minds with proper fare; and wisely store the nursery by degrees with wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease. and thus well-tutored only while we share a mother's lectures and a nurse's care." parents may abuse the minds of their children in the nursery, either by total neglect, or by immature education, by too early training and too close confinement to books at a very early age, thus taxing the mind beyond its capacities. this is often the case when children betray great precocity of intellect; and the pride of the parent seeks to gratify itself through the supposed gift of the child. in this way parents often reduce their children to hopeless mental imbecility. again, parents often injure the minds of their children by their misguided efforts to train the mind. even in training them to speak, how imprudent they are in calling words and giving ideas in mutilated language. it is just as easy to teach children to speak correctly, and to call all things by their proper names, as to abuse their vernacular tongue. such mutilations are impediments to the growth of the intellect. the child must afterwards be taught to undo what it was taught to do and say in the nursery. but as this subject will be fully considered in the chapter on home education, we shall refrain from further comment here. the nursery is moral and spiritual. the first moral and religious training of the child belongs to the nursery, and is the work of the mother. upon her personal exhibition of truth, justice, virtue, &c., depends the same moral elements in the character of her child. in the nursery we receive our first lessons in virtue or in vice, in honesty or dishonesty, in truth or in falsehood, in purity or in corruption. the full-grown man is the matured child morally as well as physically and intellectually. the same may be said of the spiritual formation and growth of the child. spiritual culture belongs eminently to the nursery. there the pious parent should begin the work of her child's salvation. from what we have now seen of the nursery, we may infer its very common abuse by christian parents in various ways. they abuse it either by forsaking its duties, or giving it over to nurses. the whole subject warns parents against giving over their children to dissolute nurses. what a blushing shame and disgrace to the very name of christian mother, it is for her to throw the whole care and responsibility of the nursery upon hired and irreligious servants. and why is this so often done? to relieve the mother from the trouble of her children, and afford her time and opportunity to mingle unfettered in the giddy whirl of fashionable dissipation. in circles of opulent society it would now be considered a drudgery and a disgrace for mothers to attend upon the duties of this responsible department of home. but the nurse cannot be a substitute for the mother. "then why resign into a stranger's hand a task so much within your own command, that god and nature, and your interest too seem with one voice to delegate to you?" the same may be said of boarding schools, to which many parents send their children to rid themselves of the trouble of training them up. they are sent there at the very age in which they mostly need the fostering care of a parent. there they soon become alienated from home, and lose the benefit of its influence; and there too they often contract habits and are filled with sentiments the most degenerating and corrupt. they grow up and enter society without any conscious relation to home, and as a consequence, regard society as a mere heartless conventionalism. to this part of the subject we shall, in another chapter, devote special attention. it demands the prayerful consideration of christian parents. "why hire a lodging in a house unknown, for one whose tenderest thoughts all hover round your own? this second weaning, needless as it is, how does it lacerate both your heart and his!" chapter xiv. home-sympathy. "sweet sensibility! thou keen delight! unprompted moral! sudden sense of right! perception exquisite! fair virtue's seed! thou quick precursor of the liberal deed! thou hasty conscience! reason's blushing morn! instinctive kindness, ere reflection's born! prompt sense of equity! to thee belongs the swift redress of unexamined wrongs! eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried, but always apt to choose the suffering side!" where shall we find a more exquisite picture of home-sympathy than this, from the pen of that truly pious woman, hannah more! we consider the home-sympathy as an argument against the neglect and abuse of the nursery. it is the instinctive impulse of the parent's heart to be faithful to the trust of home. what mother, prompted by such sympathy, can be recreant to the duties of her household? can she, keenly sensible to the danger of her children, anxious for their welfare, prompt to do them justice, eager to procure them interests and joys, yearning to alleviate their misfortunes, push them from her arms, and give them over to the care of unfeeling and immoral nurses? if among all the members of the christian home "there is a holy tenderness, a nameless sympathy, a fountain love,-- branched infinite from parents to children, from husband to wife, from child to child, that binds, supports, and sweetens human life," then the law of sympathy is the standard of faithfulness to the loved ones of home, and its violation is an abuse of the affections and faith of the heart. we shall now consider the natural and spiritual sympathy of home. what are the natural elements of home-sympathy? the original meaning of sympathy is "harmony of the affections." as such it is an instinctive element of human nature. "sympathy," says adams in his elements of christian science, "is a natural harmony by which, upon matters especially that concern the affections, one human being shall, under certain conditions, feel, feel in despite of all concealment of language, the real state of the other." it is, in a word, that law of our nature which makes the feeling of one become affected in the same way as are the feelings of another, so that, in obedience to this law, "we rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep." in order to this the motive need not be the same in those in whom the feeling is the same; for that feeling engenders a feeling of its own kind in the other, independent of similar motive. home-sympathy is that primary power of the heart by which all the affections of one member are extended to all the other members. it awakens in each for all the others, those delicate sensibilities which impel to the most self-denying and benevolent acts. the parent who sympathizes with the child, will extend to it all the aids within a parent's ability. its nature is to yield more of itself to weeping than to rejoicing, to misery than to joy. the parent will exert more power and do more for the wretched child than for those of his children who are not in the same condition. he will leave the latter in their security, and seek the one lost sheep of his little flock. thus it exerts a sheltering influence against the dangers and miseries of human life. it is the law of home-preservation, written upon the heart, obeyed by the affections, and impelling each member to yield a voluntary devotion to the welfare of all the others. it is this which makes it one of the most lovely attributes of home. it is one of the golden chains that link its members together in close unity, making one heart of the many that are thus fused together, and blending into beautiful unison their specific feelings, and hopes and interests. it is, therefore, the law of oneness in the family, weaving together, like warp and woof, the existence of the members, and locking each heart into one great home-heart, "like the keys of an organ vast," so that if one heart be out of tune, the home-heart feels the painful jar, and gives forth discordant sounds. by it we are not only bound to our kindred, but to our friends, our nation, our race. it impels us to all our acts of benevolence even to an enemy. earth would be a dreary scene, and society would be a curse, if it did not reign in human nature. sympathy was a rich and interesting theme with the ancients. it entered into all their philosophy and religion, and gave rise to numerous fables. they believed that sympathy was a miraculous principle, and that it reigned in irrational and inanimate things. thus they thought that "two harps being tuned alike, and one being played, the chords of the other would follow the tune with a faint, sympathetic music." it was also believed that precious stones sympathized with certain persons, that the stars sympathized with men, that the efficacy of ointment depended upon sympathy, that "wounds could be healed at a distance by an ointment whose force depended upon sympathy, the ointment being smeared upon the weapon, not upon the wound." upon this belief many erroneous, superstitious and dangerous systems of philosophy and religion were established. the natural philosophy of baptista porta, or albertus magnus, was founded upon the principle of sympathy. plato applied this principle to marriage, and maintained that "marriage was the union of two souls that once, in their preexistent state, were one, and that sympathy urges them to union again, and sends them unconsciously seeking it over the world." in the middle ages it was maintained that two friends could be so moved with mutual sympathy as to have, under certain conditions, a true and perfect knowledge of one another's state, even when at a great distance apart. to the revival of this erroneous view of the law of sympathy may be ascribed the theories of mesmerism and spiritual rappings at the present day. home-sympathy, viewed as a feeling and a faculty, is twofold in its nature, viz., passive and active. as passive, it is the mere sense of harmony of feeling among all the members, producing the idea and feeling of the oneness of home. it makes a unity of affection, so that the temper, hopes and interests of each member have a living echo and response in all the others. it gives to home its unitive heart, preserves its vital coherence, fuses all the hearts together, makes each a thread in the web of home-being, where each finds its true measure, is inspired with the home-feeling when all is right, and oppressed with home-sickness when separated from it. but home-sympathy is also active. as such it is "the active power that one person has naturally of entering into the feelings of another, and being himself affected as that other is." each member of home has the power in his feelings of making the feelings of all the other members his own, though he may not have the causes of the feelings of the one with whom he sympathizes. thus one friend may feel the grief of another, actually and really, though he may not suffer the loss of that friend. he can make the emotion which that loss caused, his own. we may weep with the mother who pours her floods of anguish upon the grave of her child, though we may not have sustained the same loss. the husband weeps with his wife, though he may not be able to feel the pangs which penetrate her heart. the child can enter into the feelings of the parent, and be affected to tears or to joy by them. and thus the home-sympathy demands that all the emotions of home, whether joyful or painful, must affect all,--must vibrate from heart to heart. it involves the power of home-transference, by which, each member conveys to his own affections, all within home. it is thus the law of adaptation and assimilation, for the home-affections. in obedience to this law the hearts and interests of the members are bound up in beautiful harmony. the necessities of one are supplied by all. it is this which makes the members faithful to each other, and prompts them to deeds of disinterested love. it is, therefore, only when the home-sympathy, as a feeling and a faculty, is carried out and acted upon according to its instinctive impulses, that it becomes an effective agent of good. this, however, is not always done. often it is neutralized by not being permitted to express itself according to the laws of its own operation. many members have acute feelings and great powers of sympathy, but it exists in them only as feeling, only as a stimulus, a sentiment, and is, therefore, nothing but home-sentimentalism,--a disease of home-sympathy. thus, for instance, parents may weep over the wickedness of their children, and the pious wife may lament the impenitence of her husband; but if they go no further, their sympathy is really false, because it does not share in and feel the state of others, nor seek to alleviate their impending miseries. the home-sympathy is not simply the look of the priest and levite upon the half-dead traveler, but also the help of the good samaritan. its language is not only, "be ye clothed and fed," but also, "i will clothe and feed thee." the mere indulgence in the feeling of sympathy is but to harden the heart in the end. such were the sympathies of rosseau,--mere heart-stimuli, without legitimate deeds and objective force, existing only as a love-sick sentiment. and this was both the theme of his eloquence and the cause of his misery. such, too, were the sympathies of robespierre,--a mere ebullition of disembodied sentiment, borne up like a floating bubble upon muddy waters, and exploding upon the slightest depression. but, on the other hand, when home-sympathy is issued in faithful action as its emotions prompt, it becomes an efficient agent in the happiness and peace of the family. it not only gives eloquence to the tongue, tears to the eye, but faithfulness to the life. it serves as a key-note to the mind and heart, framing the home-energy, revealing to us our real state, and prompting, by the instinct of love, the means for our highest welfare. "how glows the joyous parent to descry, a guileless bosom true to sympathy! a long lost friend, or hapless child restored, smiles at his blazing hearth and social board; warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow, and virtue triumphs o'er remembered woe!" sympathy is excited and measured by the power of natural affection. in proportion to the strength of the latter will be the attractive power of the former. that soothing voice which calms the wailing-infant; that fond bosom from which the child draws its subsistence, and on which it pillows its weary head; that smile which throws a sunshine around its existence, and all those acts of kindness administered by the hand of love, draw the child instinctively to the parent's heart, and blend in sweetest union its very being with theirs. the principle of home-sympathy reigns in some degree in every household whose members have not sunk below the level of the brute. its nature demands that it be mutual. it should glow with peculiar warmth in the wife, the mother, and the sister; because it is a more prominent instinct of woman. it is an intuition of the mother's heart. "when pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou!" who but she can smooth the pillow and soothe the anguish of the child of affliction? there is a tenderness in her nature, a softness in her touch, a lightness in her step, a soothing expression in her face, a tender beam in her eye, which man can never have, and which eminently fits her for the lead in home-sympathy. the want of it is a libel upon her sex. it is her prerogative,--the magic power she wields in the formation and reformation of character. but her sympathy should find response in the bosom of her husband, the father, the brother; for, if true, it must he mutual. their joys and their sorrows must be common. thus heart must answer to heart, and face. "the cruelty of that man," says j.a. james, "wants a name, and i know of none sufficiently emphatic, who denies his sympathy to a suffering woman, whose only sin is a broken constitution, and whose calamity is the result of her marriage." without such mutual sympathy, the members of the family would be cold and repulsive, and society would be deprived of its most lovely attributes; its members would lose the connecting link which brings them together, and its entire fabric would fall to pieces and degenerate into barbaric individualism. "had earth no sympathy, no tears would flow, in heart-felt sorrow, for another's woe; the joyous spirit then would weary roam, a stranger to the dear delights of home." we shall now consider briefly the religious elements of home-sympathy. these involve harmony of the spiritual affections, and a transfer to all the members, of the religious experience and enjoyment of each. as natural sympathy arises out of and is measured by natural affection, so spiritual sympathy is the product of faith and love. hence the latter is purer, more refined and efficient than the former. if the members of the family are the children of god, they will live together in the unity of the spirit as well as of natural affection. the sympathy of the pious portion will be interposed in behalf of the salvation of the impenitent members. there will be an identity of soul-interest. the pious mother will make the everlasting interests of her husband and child, her own; and will labor with the same assiduity to promote them as she does to promote her own salvation. she will thus enter into the spiritual emotions of her kindred, and bear them vicariously, making thus her religious sympathies the law of preservation to all the members of her household. the living stream of this sympathy is given by christ in his address to the weeping daughters of jerusalem: "daughters of jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children!" the following is also its living utterance: "my son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine." we have also a beautiful exhibition of it in the touching history of ruth, in the life of joseph, and in the mother of samuel. peter describes it when he says, "be all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." esther expresses it in the exclamation, "how can i endure to see the destruction of my kindred!" paul gives utterance to it when he says, "i would be accursed for my brethren and kindred's sake." jesus exemplifies it in his intercourse with the family of lazarus; he shows its emotion and its active charities when he stands on the grave of that friend, and weeps, and calls him from the dead. his sympathy for a lost world is the true pattern of home-sympathy. it was disinterested, superior to all selfishness, self-denying, active, and prompting him to do and suffer all that he did. it was not measured by the merits of the object after which it yearned. he sympathized with all, "for each he had a brother's interest in his heart." and its softening influence fell, like morning dew, upon the heart of adamant, melting it into contrition and love. "in every pang that rends the heart, the man of sorrows had a part; he sympathizes in our grief, and to the sufferer sends relief." see him bend over the bed of jairus's daughter; see him opening the eyes of the blind, healing the paralytic, comforting and feeding the poor widow, and cheering the bereaved and troubled heart. wherever he went he was "a brother born for them in adversity." see him on the cross, when weltering in blood and struggling with the pangs of a cruel death, he casts his languid eye upon his aged mother who is there weeping her pungent woes, and makes provision for her comfort. his sympathy now for all is the same. "none ever came unblest away; then, though all earthly ties be riven, smile, for thou hast a friend in heaven!" it is this sympathy which makes him a member of every christian home. and when the sympathy of its members is the reproduction of his, they will, like mary, sit in loving pupilage at his feet, each becoming the agent of blessings for all the rest. the wife will seek the salvation of her husband; the mother will labor with unwearied diligence for the redemption of her child. thus when home-sympathy is purified and developed by christian faith and love, it opens up the most elevated of all home-feeling and solicitude, and becomes the most effectual safeguard against impending ruin. no family can be true to its privileges and mission without it. it allures to the cross, leads all the members in the path of the sympathizing one, and prompts them to say, "entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest i will go, and where thou lodgest, i will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy god my god; where thou diest i will die, and there will i be buried; the lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." what would the christian home be, therefore, without such sympathy? powerless, amoral desolation! we read in god's word, of men losing natural affection, and of mothers forgetting their sucking children. but these were worse than brutes. what shall we then say of christian parents being devoid of spiritual sympathy,--shedding no tear of anguish over their moral ruin, nor showing the least concern about their salvation? such parents do not rejoice even over the return of their children to god. they are a disgrace to the christian name, and bring infamy upon the christian home. some parents do not proceed quite so far. they indulge in the feeling of sympathy for their children; but alas! that feeling is never expressed in efforts to save them. it is all expended in vain and fruitless lamentations, and is, therefore, at best but a morbid sentimentalism,--but a cloak behind which are lurking parental hard-heartedness and religious apathy; proving plainly the great truth advanced by adams, in his elements of christian science, "that an indulgence in the feelings of sympathy without carrying them out to the relief of actual distress, produces hardness of heart to such a degree that the most pitiless and cruel, the most licentious and unnatural, and ungrateful conduct shall be joined with the most overflowing and deeply thrilling sentiment." let those parents who are ever lamenting the wickedness of their children, but do nothing to make them better, ponder well this sentiment, and see it in the grin, of their own hypocrisy, and the desolation of their injured home and children. let the other members, as well as the parents, take the timely warning. let the pious wife here see the character of her sympathy for her impenitent husband. and let each see that their pious sympathy "always issue forth in actions." let that sympathy give not only eloquence to the tongue, tears to your eye, and sighs to your heart, but also faithfulness to your life and holy calling. as the cry of hunger from your children, and their shivering cold in winter, prompt you to provide for their natural wants, so let their moral wants impel you to fidelity to their souls. all will be vain without this. the stern demands of a father's authority, and the formal teachings of a mother's lip, will fall like the frost of a winter's morning, upon their tender hearts,--only to sear and to harden and to freeze up the heart against god. for "he will not let love's work impart full solace, lest it steal the heart." but when pure and holy sympathy goes out, in its softening influence after the young;-- "then, feeling is diffused in every part, thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart." such sympathy has a saving influence upon both the parent and the child. it softens and refines the former, while it forms and allures the latter. the child fondly leans upon the parents, looks up to them for support and enjoyment, and is led by them in whatever path they choose. by its influence the feeling of natural and spiritual helplessness becomes developed in the child; the sense of dependence on a superior is awakened; and with these, all those feelings of confidence and veneration, which lay the foundation of religious affections, are unfolded. the parent's influence, both as to kind and degree, depends, therefore, upon the character of home-sympathy. if it is but natural, the parental influence will not extend beyond the worldly gain and temporal welfare of the child. the parent will exert no power over the soul. but if it be spiritual, and extend beyond the mere instincts of natural affection, it will expand the mind, and develop all the melting charities of our nature. it will pass with a new transferring and transforming power, from husband to wife, from parent to child, from kindred to kindred. wherever it finds its way; whatever fiber of the heart it may touch, it begets a new and holy affection, unites the energies, lightens the toils, soothes the sorrows, and exalts the hopes, of all the members. it reflects a softening luster from eye to eye, goes with electric flash from heart to heart, glows in its warmth throughout all its moral courses, accumulates the home-endearments, stimulates each member to religious exertions for all the rest, and lays the foundation in each heart for an unbroken home-communion of their sainted spirits in heaven! it cements them together in their tent-home, creating a sweet concord of hearts and hopes and joys; and then elevates them unitedly in fond anticipation of reunion in their eternal home. they blend their tears together over the grave of buried love, and enjoy the saintly sympathy of loved ones gone before them. this is its most lovely feature. tell me, is there not a bond of sympathy between jesus and his people here,--between loved ones in heaven and their pious kindred on earth? do not the tears of the christian home reflect the tears of jesus? these are to the heart like the dews of hermon,--like the dews that descended upon the mountains of zion. "no radiant pearl which crested fortune wears, no gem that, sparkling, hangs from beauty's ears, not the bright stars which night's blue arch adorn, nor rising sun that gilds the vernal morn, shine with such luster as the tear that breaks for others' woe, down virtue's lovely cheeks." is such, christian brother, the sympathy of your home? it will be a safeguard against the follies and the false interests of life. it will restrict the fashionable taste and sentiments of the age. it will teach wisdom to the pious mother, and be a sure defense against the dangers and indiscretions of the nursery and fashionable boarding school. under its influence, mothers will not trust the souls of their children to the guardianship of irreligious nurses, nor expose them to the perils of a corrupted and heartless fashion. they will deny themselves the ruinous pleasures of a gay and reckless association with the world; and with maternal solicitude, attend upon the opening of those buds of life which god has committed to them. the pious mother will wield her power over her children, by the force of this sympathy; for her's is the deepest, purest, and most saving of all home-sympathy: "earth may chill and sever other sympathies, and prove how weak all human bonds are--it may kill friendship, and crush hearts with them--but the thrill of the maternal breast must ever move in blest communion with her child, and fill even heaven itself with prayers and hymns of love!" chapter xv. family prayer. "hush! 'tis a holy hour,--the quiet room seems like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds a faint and starry radiance through the room and the sweet stillness, down on yon bright heads with all their clustering locks, untouched by care, and bowed, as flowers are bowed with night,--in prayer. gaze on, 'tis lovely--childhood's lip and cheek mantling beneath its earnest brow of thought!" home-sympathy will prompt to family devotion. the latter is the fruit of the former. a prayerless home is destitute of religious sympathy. the family demands prayer. its relation to god, its dependence and specific duties, involve devotion. communion with god constitutes a part of the intercourse and society of home. the necessity of family prayer arises out of the home-constitution and mission. family mercies and blessings; family dangers and weaknesses; family hopes and temptations,--all bespeak the importance of family worship. if you occupy the responsible station of a parent; if god has made you the head of a religious household, and you profess to stand and live on the lord's side, then, tell me, have you not by implication vowed to maintain regular family worship? besides, the benefits and privilege of prayer develop the obligation of the family to engage in it. is not every privilege a duty? and if it is a duty for individuals and congregations to pray, is it not, for a similar reason, the duty of the family to establish her altar of devotion? as a family we daily need and receive mercies, daily sin, are tempted and in danger every day; why not then as a family daily pray? but what is family prayer? it is not simply individual prayer, not the altar of the closet; but the home-altar, around which all the members gather morning and evening, as a family-unit, with one heart, one faith and one hope, to commune with god and supplicate his mercy. "in the devotion of this little assembly," says dr. dwight, "parents pray for their children, and children for their parents; the husband for the wife, and the wife for the husband; while brothers and sisters send up their requests to the throne of infinite mercy, to call down blessings on each other. who that wears the name of a man can be indifferent here? must not the venerable character of the parent, the peculiar tenderness of the conjugal union, the affectionate intimacy of the filial and fraternal relations; must not the nearest of relations long existing, the interchange of kindness long continued, and the oneness of interests long cemented,--all warm the heart, heighten the importance of every petition, and increase the fervor of every devotional effort?" what scene can be more lovely on earth, more like the heavenly home, and more pleasing to god, than that of a pious family kneeling with one accord around the home-altar, and uniting their supplications to their father in heaven! how sublime the act of those parents who thus pray for the blessing of god upon their household! how lovely the scene of a pious mother gathering her little ones around her at the bedside, and teaching them the privilege of prayer! and what a safeguard is this home-devotion, against all the machinations of satan! "our hearths are altars all; the prayers of hungry souls and poor, like armed angels at the door, our unseen foes appal!" it is this which makes home a type of heaven, the dwelling place of god. the family altar is heaven's threshold. and happy are those children who at that altar, have been consecrated by a father's blessing, baptized by a mother's tears, and borne up to heaven upon their joint petitions, as a voluntary thank-offering to god. the home that has honored god with an altar of devotion may well be called blessed. "child, amidst the flowers at play, while the red light fades away; mother, with thine earnest eye ever following silently; father, by the breeze of eve called thy warmest work to leave; pray!--ere yet the dark hours be, lift the heart and bend the knee." the duty thus to establish family prayer is imperative. it is a duty because god commands it, and the mission of home cannot be fulfilled without it. it is a duty because a privilege and a blessing, and the condition of parental efficiency in all other duties;--because the moral and spiritual growth of the child depends upon it. it is one of the most effectual means of grace. all the instructions, all the discipline and example, of the parent will be in vain without it. hence both natural affection and christian faith should suggest its establishment. parents are bound to do so by their covenant vows, by the obligations of baptism, by all the interests and hopes of their household. they have dedicated their children to god, and pledged themselves to educate them for him, and to train them up in his ways. tell me then, can you be faithful to these vows and obligations without family prayer? can you fulfil your covenant engagements, hope to receive your reward, and see your children grow up in the nurture of the lord's vineyard, without rearing up a family altar? the promised blessings of family prayer show that every faithful christian home must have its family altar. these are unspeakable. it is a sure defence against sin; it sanctifies the members, and throws a hallowed atmosphere around our household. the child will come under its restraining and saving influence. a mother's prayer will haunt the child, and draw it as if by magic power towards herself in heaven: "he might forget her melting prayer, while pleasure's pulses madly fly, but in the still, unbroken air, her gentle tones come stealing by,-- and years of sin and manhood flee, and leave him at his mother's knee!" it affords home security and happiness, removes family friction, and causes all the complicated wheels of the home-machinery to move on noiselessly and smoothly. it promotes union and harmony, expunges all selfishness, allays petulant feelings and turbulent passions, destroys peevishness of temper, and makes home-intercourse holy and delightful. it causes the members to reciprocate each other's affections, hushes the voice of recrimination, and exerts a softening and harmonizing influence over each heart. the dew of hermon falls upon the home where prayer is wont to be made. its members enjoy the good and the pleasantness of dwelling together in unity. it gives tone and intensity to their affections and sympathies: it throws a sunshine around their hopes and interests: it increases their happiness, and takes away the poignancy of their grief and sorrow. it availeth much, therefore, both for time and eternity. its voice has sent many a poor prodigal home to his father's house. its answer has often been, "this man was born there!" the child, kneeling beside the pious mother, and pouring forth its infant prayer to god, must attract the notice of the heavenly host, and receive into its soul the power of a new life. "who would not be an infant now, to breathe an infant's prayer? o manhood! could thy spirit kneel beside that sunny child, as fondly pray, and purely feel, with soul as undefiled. that moment would encircle thee, with light and love divine; thy gaze might dwell on deity, and heaven itself be thine." and yet the neglect of family prayer is a very general defect of the christian home. no home-duty has indeed been more grossly neglected and abused. some attend to it only occasionally; some only in times of affliction and distress, as if then only they needed to pray to god; some only on the sabbath, as if that were the only day to commune with him. some perform it only in a formal way, having the form without the spirit of prayer, as if god did not require the fervent, in order to the effectual, prayer that availeth much. as a general thing, at the present day, not more than three or four families out of a whole congregation, have established the family altar. the parents may engage in closet prayer, but their children are strangers to the fact. their devotions they seem zealous to conceal, as if they were ashamed of their piety. can this be right? is this the will of god? no! methinks if the parent is faithful to the duty of private prayer, he cannot omit the duty and privilege of family devotion. but why neglect family prayer? are you ashamed of your children? have you no time? then you are unworthy of a family, and should not profess to act towards them as the steward of god. think you that god will not answer and bless your prayers? what more could you do and hope for your children than to offer up supplications for them to god? "what could a mother's prayer, in all the wildest ecstacy of hope, ask for her darling like the bliss of heaven?" many seek by the most frivolous excuses, to justify their neglect of family prayer. some will urge the press of other duties, alleging that other engagements prevent it. this is false. god lays upon you no engagement that is designed to supersede the necessity of prayer. besides, you will find that you really waste more time than it would require for family devotion. and further, can you spend your time to better purpose than in family prayer? i think not. it is the best husbandry of time. says philip henry to his children, "prayer and provender hinder no man's journey." but another pleads incapacity. he has not the gift of speech, and cannot make an eloquent prayer. this is no excuse. prayer is the gift of the holy spirit; and if you have the spirit of prayer, you will find words for its utterance. besides, eloquence does not condition the efficacy of prayer. where there is a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. "when we of helps or hopes are quite bereaven, our humble prayers have entrance into heaven." we have the capacity to ask for what we earnestly desire and feel the need of. the anger of god will kindle against you for this excuse, as it kindled against moses for a similar one. when he called him to be his messenger to israel, moses said, as you do, "o my lord, i am not eloquent,--i am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. and the lord said unto him, who hath made man's mouth? or, who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not i the lord? the anger of the lord was kindled against him." let me, therefore, urge upon you, christian parents, to make prayer a prominent element of your home. you should be a priest unto your family,--a leader in home-communion with god. your children have a right to expect this from you. if you are a church member, how strange and startling must be the enunciation in heaven, that you are a prayerless christian, and your home destitute of the altar! and do you think that, continuing thus, you will be admitted into that heavenly home where there is one unbroken voice of prayer and praise to god? do you not tremble at the prospect of those tremendous denunciations which the lord has uttered against those who neglect and abuse the privilege of prayer? "pour out thy fury upon the families that have not called upon thy name." oh then, make your home a house of prayer; lead your little flock in sweet communion with god. establish in them the habit of devotion: shape their consciences by prayer. in this way you shall secure for yourself and them the blessing of god: his smile shall ever rest upon your household: salvation shall be the heritage of your children; they will grow up in the divine life; and will live amid the blessing's of prayer, and be faithful to its requisitions: "hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling; let him see thee speaking to thy god; he will not forget it afterwards; when old and gray will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piety, and the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man in his sin!" chapter xvi. home-education. section i. the character of home education. "scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, the scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come; wherefore, though the voice of instruction waiteth for the ear of reason, yet with his mother's milk the young child drinketh education." we come now to consider one of the most important features of the christian home, viz., as a school for the education of character. this is important because of its vital bearing upon the interests of home. the parent is not only king and priest, but prophet in the family. it is the first school. we there receive a training for good or for evil. there is not a word, nor an emotion, nor an act, nor even a look there, which does not teach the child something. character is ever being framed and moulded there. every habit there formed, and every action there performed, imply a principle which shall enter as an element into the future character of the child. what is home-education? it is the physical, mental, moral, and religious development of the child. to educate means to draw out as well as to instil in. it means the evolution of our nature as well as the communication of facts and principles to us. the home training does not, therefore, consist of simple information, but is a nurture of body, mind and spirit. from this we may infer the frequent mistakes of parents, in substituting mere book-learning for a training up and nurture, dealing with their children as if they had no faculties, and making the entire education of their children mechanical and empirical. home training involves the development of all their faculties as a unit and in their living relation, causing the body to move right, the mind to think right, the heart to feel right, and the soul to love right; changing your children from creatures of mere impulse, prejudice and passion, to thinking, loving and reasoning beings. to educate them is to bring out their hidden powers, to form their character, and prepare them for their station in life. thus home-education means a drawing out and also a bringing up,--a training for man, and a bringing up for god; a training and nurture for the family, the state, and the church,--for time and for eternity. these must be done together; they involve but one process, and are conditioned by each other. we cannot separate a secular from a religious education, neither can we separate a training from a bringing up. while those faculties of the child which exist in a state of mere involution, are being developed, its nature must be supplied with appropriate food; and every element of its education must possess the plastic power of evolving and giving specific form to its future character and destiny. thus the parent, in teaching, must have a forming influence over the child; and his instructions must correspond in character, kind and extent, with the nature, wants, and destiny of the child. what are now the different kinds or parts of home-education? it must be physical. the child has a physical nature, physical wants, and is related to the material world; and should, therefore, receive a physical education. the object of this is to ensure that sound, vigorous frame of body which is not only a great blessing in itself, but an essential concomitant of a sound state and vigorous development of mind. it refers to the proper management of the health of the child, its diet, habits of exercise and recreation. parents should teach their children the nature of the body, its dangers, and bearing upon their future happiness. they should teach them to govern their appetite, and train them up to habits of exercise and early rising. this part of home-education begins in the nursery,--in the cradle, and is not complete till the body is brought to maturity in all its functions. neglect of it will result in physical imbecility, and often in mental derangement. the object secured by it is, the preservation of the health and constitution of the child. in this we see its importance. what is your wealth, your station, your influence, if through your neglect of your children, they are deprived of health, and grow up with the seeds of immature death springing up in their system? in the physical training of children due regard should be had to cleanliness, exercise, diet and dress. without this all will be vain. many parents keep them within doors, never let them enjoy the pure air, nor exercise the muscular system, keep their bodies cooped in clothing too small, and feasted upon a diet unwholesome; and as a consequence, they show a sickly growth, and become unfit either for the burdens or for the enjoyments of life. the importance of exercise in the open air, and abstemiousness in diet, is proven from the health of those nations that train their children in all the exercise of riding, leaping, running and fencing, and subject them from infancy to the most frugal diet. thus the perfect forms and vigorous health of the greeks, the romans and persians were the fruit of national attention paid to physical education. every home should have its suitable gymnasium. how many parents, by their violation of the laws of health, prostitute the strength of their children to profligacy and indolence. home-education must be intellectual. much of human character and happiness depends upon the education of the mind, both as respects the development of its faculties and the application of legitimate truth. the mind is the man. it is not, as locke declares, like a blank sheet of paper or a chest of drawers; but has an intuitional as well as a logical consciousness, innate ideas as well as capacities of receiving truth; while all its faculties involve a unity, and exist in the child in a state of involution; the abuse and neglect of one of which will have their bearing upon all the rest; and the mind without proper culture in its undeveloped state in the child, will show the symptoms of its abuse in the man. the character of the mind in the man will indicate the character of its education in the child. this education should begin properly with the first symptoms of consciousness. all the powers of the intellect should be unfolded. parents should be the principals in the mental training of their children. the manner and means of such training will be considered in another place. our purpose here is simply to state this as a part of home-training. from the important part which the mind acts in the great drama of human life and destiny, we think that no intelligent parent would presume to repudiate its education. home-education must be moral. the family should develop the moral nature of the child. the will should be educated; the sense of right and wrong trained; the emotions cultivated; the passions and desires ruled; the conscience and faith developed. the necessity of this is seen in the fact that our nature is fallen and perverted. the means of educating the moral nature of the child, are natural and revealed. both are of divine appointment. the former are those which lie within the circumference of our abilities, and will be of no avail without the latter, which are found in the scriptures and church. what are some of these means? . parents should place their children in circumstances calculated to form a good moral character. they should surround them with a moral atmosphere, that they may, with their first breath, inhale a pure moral being, and escape the contamination of evil. this has been called "the education of circumstances." much of character depends upon position and the circumstances in which we are placed. this is seen in the difference between those children who have enjoyed the true christian home, and those who have not. hence the first thing parents should consider in the moral training of their children is, the home in which they are to be trained. this home should afford them circumstances the most favorable to their moral culture. . they should remove all temptation. evil propensities are called forth by temptation; and a child loses the power to resist in proportion to the frequency of the temptation. hence the exposure of our children to temptation but educates and strengthens their propensities to evil. on the other hand, if we remove temptation, these propensities will not be called into activity, and will lose their tenacity. never allow your children to tamper with sin in any form; teach them how to resist temptation; inspire them with an abhorrence and a dread of all evil. in this way you prepare them for the reception and reproduction of moral truth. . another means of moral education is example. this has been styled the "education of example." this has more power than precept. the efficiency of this means is based upon the natural disposition of the child to imitate. children take their parents as the standard of all that is good, and will, therefore, follow them in evil as well as in good. hence the parent's example should be a correct model of sound morality. the child will be the moral counterpart of the parent. you can see the parent's home in the child. he is the moral daguerreotype of his parent. this but shows the importance of good example in his moral training. . but one of the most effectual means is, by moral training, by which we mean, to draw out and properly direct the moral faculties, and to habituate them to the exercise of moral principle. without this, all mechanical education will be fruitless. to call forth muscular power you must exercise the muscles. so you give the child moral stamina by developing its moral faculties, and establishing in them the habit of moral action. this training has its foundation in the law of habit. it is given, with its results, in the word of god. "train up a child," &c. also in the old maxim, "just as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined." "scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, the scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come!" the power and pleasure of doing a thing depends much upon habit. our nature may become habituated to good or evil; we become passive in proportion to the habit. how important, then, that the moral powers of our children be trained up to principles and action until habits of good thought, feeling, and conduct, are established. then they will not depart from them; and their moral life will be spontaneous and a source of enjoyment. the feelings, appetites and instincts of children should be thus specially trained. according to dr. gall, there are two classes of feelings,--the selfish, yet necessary for the preservation of the individual; and the unselfish, or those which are directed to objects apart from self, yet liable to abuse and misdirection. both of these demand a home-training. the parent should give to each its true direction, restrain and harmonize them in their relations and respective spheres of activity, and bring them under law, and place before each its legitimate object and end. then, and then only, do they become laws of self-preservation. the natural appetites are subject to abuse, and when unrestrained, defeat the very ends of their existence. thus the appetite for food may be over-indulged through mistaken parental kindness, until habits of sensualism are established, and the child becomes a glutton, and finds the grave of infamy. how many children have been thus destroyed in soul and body by parental indulgence and neglect of their natural feelings and appetites. the feeling of cruelty, revenge, malice, falsehood, tale-bearing, dishonesty, vanity, &c., have, in the same way and by the same indulgence, been engendered in the children of christian parents. the same, too, may be said of the unselfish feelings. these have been called the moral sentiments; and upon their proper training depends the formation of a positive moral character. the conscience comes under this head. the parent should train that important faculty of the child. it should be taught to act from the standpoint of conscience, and to form the habit of conscientiousness in word and deed. this includes the training of the motives also, and of all the cardinal moral virtues, such as justice, honor, chastity, veneration, kindness, &c. "teach your children," says goodrich in his fireside education, "never to wound a person's feelings because he is poor, because he is deformed, because he is unfortunate, because he holds an humble station in life, because he is poorly clad, because he is weak in body and mind, because he is awkward, or because the god of nature has bestowed upon him a darker skin than theirs." this early education should commence as soon as the necessities of the child demand it. a child should be taught what is necessary for it to know and practice as soon as that necessity exists and the child is capable of learning. scripture sanctions this. our fathers did so. it was the injunction of moses to the children of israel: deut. vi., - . god commands you to break up the fallow ground and sow the good seed at the first dawn of the spring-life of your children, and then to pray for the "early and the latter rain," "teaching, with pious care, the dawning light of infant intellect to know the lord." home-education should be religious. as the child has a religious nature, religious wants, and a religious end to accomplish, it should receive from its parents a religious training. religion is educational. we are commanded to teach religion to our children. the admonition to "train up a child in the way he should go," and to "bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the lord," is a scripture sanction of religious education. nature and the bible are the text-books for such a training. the child should be taught natural and revealed religion. such education involves the development of the child's religious nature, and the diligent use of those means by which it may become an adopted child of god. education should be suited to the wants and the destination of the child. religion is its first want,--the one thing needful, the chief concern; and should, therefore, be the first object of attention in home-training. the fear and love of god should be the first lesson taught. this is the beginning of wisdom. teach your children to love him above father and mother, sister and brother. the child is capable of such ideas of god. children can possess the sentiment of god; and when this is instilled and developed as a rudiment of their character, they have a preparation for the grace of god. what is the mere secular, without such a religious education? it is education without its essence; for piety is the essence of all education. irreligious training is destructive,--a curse rather than a blessing,--only a training up to crime and to ruin. "the mildew of a cultivated, but depraved mind, blights whatever it falls upon." "religion," says dr. barrow, "is the only science, which is equally and indispensably necessary to men of every rank, every age, and every profession." "the end of learning," says milton, "is to repair the ruins of our first parents, by requiring to know god aright, and out of that knowledge, to love him, and to imitate him." we see, therefore, that religious training is the only true palladium of your children's happiness and destiny; and should be the great end of all home-teaching. tinge all their thoughts and feelings with a sense of eternity. train them up to build for another world. stamp the impress of a future life upon their tender hearts. beget in them longings after immortality. see that their designs extend beyond this world. as the spartan mother gave character to her nation by the instructions she gave her child, so you give character to your religion, your church, your home, by the spiritual culture of your offspring. let the jewels you give them be the virtues and the gifts of the holy ghost,--the ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit. "take the germ, and make it a bud of moral beauty. let the dews of knowledge and the light of virtue, wake it in richest fragrance and in purest hues." childhood is the period in which the principles of christianity can be the most effectually engrafted in our nature. its pliability at that period insures its free assimilation to the spirit and truth of religion. "would to god," says st. pierre, "i had preserved the sentiment of the existence of the supreme being, and of his principal attributes, as pure as i had it in my earliest years!" it is the heart more than the head that religion demands; and you can fill the young heart with sentiments of god better than if you wait till it grows hard as adamant in sin. you can elevate the soul of your child to god, and teach it to raise its little hands and voice in prayer to the most high. you can teach it this from the book of nature and of revelation,--from the daisies that spring up among the grass upon which it frolics, by the mellow fruits after which it longs, by the stars that shine in unclouded luster above it, and by the breezes which ruffle its silken curls, and bring perfume to its smiling face. to the mother especially, is committed the religious education of the child at home. she is eminently adapted, if herself a christian, for such a work. her love, her piety, which breathes in every word, in every look, makes her instructions effectual and pleasing. "'tis pleasing to be schooled by female lips and eyes, they smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong, they smile still more; and then there comes encouragement in the soft hand over the brow, perhaps even a chaste kiss-- i learned the little that i know by this." they can better reach and train the heart. religion is heart-wisdom. "my son, give me thy heart!" we may use the head as an avenue to the heart, yet nothing is done in the religion of our children until the heart be carried. it is only in that inner shrine that there can be deposited the wisdom that is from above, and only then will they be made wise unto salvation. and who is better able to storm and carry that inner citadel, and lead its subdued inmates to the cross, than the pious, tender-hearted, soliciting mother! some parents object to the religious training of their children, "because," say they, "there is danger of having their minds biased by some particular creed; they should be left, therefore, to themselves till they are capable of making a choice, and then let them choose their creed." this is all a miserable subterfuge, and in direct opposition to the explicit command of god and the whole tenor of the gospel plan of salvation. it goes upon the assumption that religion is but an opinion--a subscription to a certain creed, learning certain doctrines--a mere thing for the head. tell me, is it worse to bias their minds to a particular creed, than to let them grow up biased to the world, to the devil and all his works? is it all of home, religious culture to bias them to a particular creed? besides, is it not the right, yea, the duty of parents to bias their children in favor of the religious creed of the parental home? it shows, therefore, that those parents who, for this reason, object to religious training, have but little love for, and confidence in, their own creed, or they would not shrink from biasing their children to it. to encourage christian parents to give their children a good religious education, god has given them numerous examples, from both sacred and profane history, of conversion and eminent piety in the age of childhood, as the direct fruit of early parental instruction. look, for instance, at the child samuel worshiping the lord. look, too, at the case of moses and of david, of joseph and of john the baptist. dr. doddridge, we are told, "was brought up in the early knowledge of religion by his pious parents." his mother "taught him the history of the old and new testaments before he could read, by the assistance of some dutch tiles in the chimney of the room where they commonly sat; and her wise and pious reflections on the stories there represented were the means of making some good impressions on his heart, which never wore out." an eminently pious minister thus writes to his parents, confirming by his own blessed experience the early fruits of religious training: "i verily believe that had my religious training been confined to the gleanings of the sabbath school, instead of the steady enforcement of the mosaic arrangement at home by my parents, i might now be pursuing a far different course, and living for a far different end. many, very many times, as early in childhood as i can recollect, has the spirit of god convicted me of sin, as my father at home has taught me out of the scriptures, and i cannot easily forget that the same high-priest of the home-church once tore from me the hypocrite's hope. and that dear place had another to carry on the work; gentler but not weaker; and memory recalls a mother pressing her face close to mine as she often knelt with me before the mercy-seat. i will not cast reproach on any institution which has been productive of good to myself and to others, but with profound gratitude will say, home was the place of my spiritual nativity, and my parents were god's instruments in leading me to christ!" the eminent piety of dr. dwight stands on record as the fruit of a mother's faithful religious training; for "she taught him from the very dawn of reason to fear god and keep his commandments, and the impressions then made upon his mind in infancy, were never effaced." the mother of young edwards is another example of early piety as the fruit of religious home-culture. the aged polycarp, when under arrest during the persecution under marcus aurelius, in reply to the injunction of the pro-consul, "swear, curse christ, and i release thee!" exclaimed, "six and eighty years have i served him, and he has done me nothing but good; and how could i curse him, my lord and saviour?" thus showing himself to have been a christian at the early age of four years! it was through the instructions of his grandmother lois, and his mother eunice, that young timothy "knew from a child the holy scriptures, which made him wise unto salvation." and what an effectual antidote are such instructions against vice and temptation! how many have by them been arrested from the devouring jaws of infidelity and ruin! thus it was with john randolph, who said that in the days of the french revolution, when infidel reason took the place of god and the bible, and infidelity prowled unmolested throughout france, he would have become an infidel himself, had it not been for the remembrance of his childhood days, when his pious mother taught him to kneel by her side, and to say, "our father, who art in heaven!" thus, too, with the pious and learned j.q. adams, who daily repeated the little prayers his mother taught him when a child. thus, then, we see that parents are encouraged by the most brilliant examples of history, to teach their children religion at the home-fireside, "when thou liest down and risest up." oh, let the gentle courtesies and sweet endearments of home engrave the word and spirit of god upon their tender hearts. wait not until they are matured in rebellion, and sin lay beds of flinty rock over their hearts; but let them breathe from infancy the atmosphere of holiness, and drink from the living fountains of divine truth. see that your homes become their birth-place in the spiritual kingdom of christ. such religious training will be the guardian of their future life, and will fortify them against impending evil. what made daniel steadfast amidst all the efforts to heathenize him during his captivity in babylon? his early religious culture. it was the means of his preservation. the truth had been deeply engraven upon his heart when young, and nothing could ever efface it. his early home-impressions glowed there with pristine freshness and power amid all the terrors which surrounded him in the den and before the throne of his implacable foe. these home instructions may be silenced for a time, but never destroyed. they may be overshadowed, but not annihilated. says dr. cumming, "the words spoken by parents to their children in the privacy of home are like words spoken in a whispering-gallery, and will be clearly heard at the distance of years, and along the corridors of ages that are yet to come. they will prove like the lone star to the mariner upon a dark and stormy sea, associated with a mother's love, with a father's example, with the roof-tree beneath which they lived and loved, and will prove in after life to mould the man and enable him to adorn and improve the age in which he is placed." be faithful, therefore, in the spiritual culture of your children. give them "line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." lead them on by degrees to christ until each indelible impression becomes an established habit. in the morning of their life sow the seed; and god will give the increase; and then in the day of judgment your children will rise up and call you blessed! section ii. neglect and abuse of home-education. "accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace; we slight the precious kernel of the stone, and toil to polish its rough coat alone. a just deportment, manners graced with ease, elegant phases, and figure formed to please, are qualities that seem to comprehend whatever parents, guardians, schools intend; hence all that interferes, and dares to clash with indolence and luxury, is trash!" home-education in all its parts is most sadly neglected and abused at the present day. many parents think that the office of teacher is not included in the parental character and mission. the neglect of home-training seems to arise out of an existing-prejudice against it. some think that education will unfit their children for industry,--will make them indolent and proud. they regard mental culture as an enemy to both industry and virtue. strange delusion! the mind is given to use, not to abuse; and its abuse is no argument against its proper use. god has given the mind, and intends it to be developed and cultivated. if, therefore, its training has made it indolent and dissipated, it only proves its education to be spurious. you might, by a parity of reasoning, blindfold the eye that it might not he covetous, or tie up the hand lest it pick a man's pocket, or hobble the feet lest they run into evil ways, as to keep the mind in ignorance lest it become wicked. besides, we find more real indolence and wickedness among the ignorant than among the educated; for man will be educated in something. if you do not educate your child in the truths of nature and religion, be assured he will become trained in falsehood and in the ways of satan. "uneducated mind is uneducated vice." a proper education is a divine alchemy which turns all the baser parts of man's nature into gold. without it all is discord and darkness within and without. besides, ignorance leads to misery because it leads to wickedness. dr. johnson was once asked, "who is the most miserable man?" he replied, "that man who cannot read on a rainy day!" it has well been said by edmund burke that "education is the cheap defense of nations." why? because it prevents vice, poverty, misery, and relieves the state of the support of paupers and criminals. "a good education," says miss sedgwick, "is a young man's best capital." says governor everett to parents, "sow the seed of instruction in your son's and daughter's minds. it will flourish when that over-arching heaven shall pass away like a scroll, and the eternal sun which lightens it, shall set in blood." says the rev. robert hall, "i am persuaded that the extreme profligacy, improvidence, and misery, which are so prevalent among the laboring classes in many countries, are chiefly to be ascribed to the want of education." what indeed can we look for but wretchedness and guilt from that child that has been left by its cruel parents to grow up "darkening in the deeper ignorance of mankind, with all its jealousies, and its narrow-mindedness, and its superstitions, and its penury of enjoyments, poor amid the intellectual and moral riches of the universe; blind in this splendid temple which god has lighted up, and famishing amid the profusions of omnipotence?" and, parents, let me ask you, if you thus neglect the proper education of your children, and as a consequence, such pauperism of estate, of mind, and of morals, come upon them, will you not have to answer for all this to god? "oh, woe for those who trample on the mind, that fearful thing! they know not what they do, nor what they deal with!" your children, thus neglected, will become victims to inordinate passion, without power to discern between reality and illusion, ignorant of what is true happiness, living for mere sense, with their moral nature enclosed in the iron mail of superstition, while the good seeds of truth sown upon their hearts "wither away, because they have no depth of earth." parents cannot, therefore, neglect the education of their children without incurring disgrace and guilt before god and man. they will meet a merited retribution both here and hereafter. the justice of this is forcibly illustrated in a law of the icelanders, which makes the court inquire, when a child is accursed, whether the parents have given the offender a good education? and if not, the court inflicts the punishment on the parents. this but expresses the higher law of god which holds parents responsible for the training of their children. listen to the threatening voice of god in history. crates, an ancient philosopher, used to say that if he could reach the highest eminence in the city, he would make this proclamation: "what mean ye, fellow-citizens, to be so anxious after wealth, but so indifferent to your children's education? it is like being solicitous about the shoe, but neglecting entirely the foot that is to wear it!" we would reiterate that proclamation in this age of superior intelligence. to the pious parent there is a pleasure in training the young and tender heart for god. what a beautiful tribute did thompson yield to this pleasure in the following lines: "delightful task! to rear the tender thought, to teach the young idea how to shoot, to pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, to breathe enlivening spirit, and to fix the generous purpose in the glowing breast!" but home-education, at the present day, is as much abused as it is neglected. the criminality of the former is perhaps greater than that of the latter. this may have more reference to the female than to the male portion of the family. the abuse here consists of the want of a training up to wisdom. we see this in what is called the fashionable, instead of the christian, education, received at some of our fashionable boarding schools. here the child is sent with no home-training whatever, to be trained up a fashionable doll, fit to be played with and dandled upon the arms of a whining and heartless society, with no preparation for companionship in life, destitute of substantial character, with undoctrinated feelings of aversion to religion, fit only for a puppet show in some gay and thoughtless circle; kneeling before fashion as her god, and giving her hand in marriage only to a golden and a gilded calf. according to this abuse of home-education, "a young maiden is kept in the nursery and the school room, like a ship on the stocks, while she is furbished with abundance of showy accomplishments, and is launched like the ship, looking taut and trim, but empty of everything that can make her useful." thus one great abuse of home-education is to substitute the boarding school for home-culture,--to send our children to such school at an age when they should he trained by and live under the direct influence of the parent. this generally ends in initiated profligacy, and alienation from home, while at best but a dunce after his course of training is ended. "would you your son should be a sot and a dunce, lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once? train him in public with a mob of boys, childish in mischief only and in noise." too often is it the case that the artifices and refinements of our fashionable boarding-schools, have a most withering influence upon body, mind and soul, enfeebling and distorting the body, producing depraved stomachs, whimsical nerves, peevish tempers, indolent minds, and depraved morals. they become but wrecks of what they were when they first entered the school. this has been called "the stiff and starched system of muslin education," and is the nursery of pale, sickly, listless, peevish children. but this is not the only abuse of home-education. even when the training is begun at home, the very idea of education is often abused, because inefficient, destitute of true moral elements, and partial both as to the mode and as to the substance of it. the true resources of life are not developed; there is no instruction given in the principles and conditions of temporal and eternal well-being; there is no discipline of the mind, or body or morals. but the great idea and aim of education with many parents now, is to teach the child to read and write and cipher as a means of making money and getting along in this world,--not, of course, to prevent them from cheating others, but others from cheating them. all is prostituted to money and business. character and happiness are left out of view. what have our schools now to do with the propensities, appetites, temperaments, habits and character of the pupils? and how are the parents who send their children to school to have them trained up with reference to these! all that is now looked at, is that learning which will fit the child for business. as a consequence most of our schools are a disgrace to the very name of education. more evil actually results from them than good. the mind and heart are injured,--the one but half trained; the other corrupted. mental and moral training are divorced; hence one-sided, and the very end of education defeated. the child has no incentive to a virtuous and a noble life, and sinks down to the groveling drudgery of money-making. it is educated for nature, but not for god,--for this, but not for the next life. if we would not abuse home-education we must not separate the moral from the mental,--the secular from the religious; for in doing so, we expose the child to rationalism and infidelity on the one hand, and to superstition and spiritualism on the other. this course is generally taken by parents when they educate their children for mere worldly utility and fashion, when they have not the welfare of the soul in view, and look only to the advantage of the body. the duty then of christian parents to give their children a true home-education may be seen from the consequences of its neglect and abuse on the one hand, and from its value and importance on the other. they should furnish them with all the necessary means, opportunities, and directions, of a christian education. give them proper books. "without books," says the quaint bartholin, "god is silent, justice dormant, science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in cimmerian darkness." bring them up to the habit of properly reading and studying these books. "a reading people will soon become a thinking people, and a thinking people must soon become a great people." every book you furnish your child, and which it reads with reflection is "like a cast of the weaver's shuttle, adding another thread to the indestructible web of existence." it will be worth more to him than all your hoarded gold and silver. make diligent use of those great auxiliaries to home-education, which the church has instituted, such as sabbath schools, bible classes and catechisation. home-education does not imply a system of parental training isolated from the educational ministrations of the church; but is churchly in its spirit and in all its parts, and should in all respects be connected with the church. home training is a duty you owe to the church. by virtue of your relation to her, she has the authority to demand of you such a training of your child; and by virtue of your relation to the child, he has a right to such an education, and can demand it from you. it stands on the basis of parental duty imposed on you by god himself. it is a prime necessity. it is your children's birthright, which they themselves cannot sell with impunity, for the pottage of gold or silver or pleasure: neither can you neglect or abuse it without guilt before god. it is, therefore, a duty which you cannot shake off, and which involves both for you and for your child, the most momentous consequences. christian parents! be faithful to this duty. magnify your office as a teacher; be faithful to your household as a school. diligently serve your children as the pupils that god has put under your care. educate them for him. teach them to "walk by faith, not by sight." cultivate in them a sense of the unseen world,--the feeling of the actual influence of the spirit of god, the guardianship of his holy angels, and of the communion of saints. teach them how to live and how to die; and by the force of your own holy example allure them to the cross, and lead them onward and upward in the living way of eternal life. you are encouraged to do so by the assurance of god that "when they grow old they will not depart from it." chapter xvii. family habits. "dost thou live, man, dost thou live, or only breathe and labor? art thou free, or enslaved to a routine, the daily machinery of habit? for one man is quickened into life, where thousands exist as in a torpor, feeding, toiling, sleeping, an insensate weary round; the plough, or the ledger, or the trade, with animal cares and indolence, make the mass of vital years a heavy lump unleavened." much of the character, usefulness and happiness of home depend upon home habits. no one is without habits, good or bad. they have much to do with our welfare here and hereafter. hence the importance of establishing proper habits. habit is a state of any thing, implying some continuance or permanence. it may be formed by nature or induced by extraneous circumstances. it is a settled disposition of the mind or body, involving an aptitude for the performance of certain actions, acquired by custom or frequent repetition. there are habits of the body, of the mind, of action; physical, mental, moral and religious habits. all these are included in the term home-habits. habit has been considered an "ultimate fact," that is, one of those qualities of life which are found to exist, and beyond which no investigation can be made. habit may be referred to the law of action which pervades all vital being. nature demands the repetition of vital action, and habit arises from this demand and from the manner in which it is supplied. it is the fruit of the operation of the law of repetition of action in all life. hence it is, that habit becomes a part of our very existence, and that the well-being and happiness of our existence depend so much upon it. the facility of action depends upon habit. in proportion as the actions of life become a habit, they will be easily performed, and performed with pleasure. the capacity to establish habits is the consequence of the power given us to promote our own welfare. this capacity is designed to bind us to that course of action which will accomplish the purposes of our existence. if rightly used, it is the guardian of our happiness; but if misused it will be our certain ruin. it will delight and fascinate until it subjugate our will, and lead us on, as in the case of the drunkard and the gambler, to infamy and to hell. home-habits are easily formed and established. some kind, either good or bad, are being established every day. they are often secretly and unconsciously formed. all the principles and rules of conduct there introduced become at once the nuclei of future habits. those increase in power and supremacy as they are formed. we see this in the use of tobacco and intoxicating drink. these are, at first, disagreeable, and the victim has the power of repelling and overcoming them; but soon the habit is formed, when their use becomes pleasant, and he is made a willing slave to them. the same may he said of the habits of industry, of study, of frugality, yea, of all the moral and religious acts of the christian. it is easy to form such habits in children. evil habits are more easily established, because we are naturally inclined to all evil; and when once formed, no parental interposition can break them up. hence the importance of an early training up to good. if parents but leave their children to their own ways, they will run into evil habits; for sin is an epidemic. profanity and falsehood and all other outrages against god will soon become the controlling habits of their lives. but when taken early, parents have complete power over their offspring. it is, therefore, a gross abuse of the christian home when parents become indifferent to the formation of habits. it is their duty to crush every evil habit in its incipient state. the forming of a good habit may not at first be congenial with our feelings. it may be irksome. but if we persevere in it, that which at first was painful and difficult will soon be a source of enjoyment. thus the habit of family prayer may at first be repulsive even to the christian parent; a feeling of delicacy and the sense of unworthiness may, at the family altar, repress the feelings of enjoyment experienced in the closet; but soon the habit of this devotion will be formed, when it will be enjoyed as an essential part of home. to abandon it would be like breaking up the tenderest ties which bind the members together. the same may be said of the omission of a duty. how easily can the christian form the habit of omitting family prayer or any other duty! every such omission but forms and increases the habit, until it gains an ascendancy over our sense of duty, and at last exhibits its sovereign power in our total abandonment of the duty. each omission has the power of reproducing itself in other and more frequent omissions. in this way christian homes insensibly become unfaithful to their high vocation, and degenerate finally into complete apathy and estrangement from god. that indulgence which the misguided sympathy of too many parents prompts to, and which does away with all parental restraint, is the cause of children coming under the curse of evil habits. in this way parents often contribute to the temporal and eternal ruin of their offspring. this indulgence is no evidence of tender love, but of parental infatuation. it shows a blind and unholy love,--a love which owns no law, which is governed by no sense of duty, and which excludes all discipline; and hence unlike the love of god, who "chastiseth every one whom he loveth and receiveth." the force and influence of home-habits will teach us the importance of establishing such only as receive the sanction of god. habits, as we have seen, are much more easily formed than broken. when once established they enslave us to them, and subject our character to their iron despotism. they become the channel through which our life flows. the stream of our existence first forms the channel, and then the channel rules, guides and controls the current of the stream. the deeper the channel is wrought, the greater is its moulding and controlling influence over the stream. thus our habits become our masters, and are the irrevocable rulers of our life. this is true of good, as well as of bad habits. we come into voluntary subjection to them, until we shrink from the first proposal to depart from them. "habit," says the rev. c.c. colton, "will reconcile us to everything but change, and even to change, if it recur not too quickly. milton, therefore, makes his hell an ice-house, as well as an oven, and freezes his devils at one period, but bakes them at another. the late sir george staunton informed, me, that he had visited a man in india, who had committed a murder, and in order not only to save his life, but what was of much more consequence, his caste, he submitted to the penalty imposed; this was, that he should sleep for seven years on a bedstead, without any mattress, the whole surface of which was studded with points of iron resembling nails, but not so sharp as to penetrate the flesh. sir george saw him in the fifth year of his probation, and his skin then was like the hide of a rhinoceros, but more callous. at that time, however, he could sleep comfortably on his bed of thorns, and remarked that at the expiration of the term of his sentence, he should most probably continue that system from choice, which he had been obliged to adopt from necessity." this illustrates the force of established habit, and the pliability of our nature in yielding a voluntary subjection to it. what is at first involuntary, painful, and a self-denial to us, wall when it passes into a habit, become agreeable, because the habit bends our nature to it, chains us down to it, infatuates the will, and thus becomes, as it were, a second nature. if so, it is very plain that our habits are either a blessing or a curse. when good they are a safeguard against evil, give stability to our character, and are the law of perseverance in well-doing. such habits in the christian home form, an irresistible bulwark against the intrusions of temptation and iniquity. but when they are bad, they chain us to evil, and impel us onward and downward to ruin. hence from his habits we can easily estimate the merit or demerit of a person, know all his weak points and idiosyncrasies, and what will be the probable termination of his existence. the same may be said of the habits of a family. they enter into its very constitution, rule and direct all its activities and interests. they cling to each member with more than magic power, and become interwoven with his very being; and by them we may easily ascertain the moral and spiritual strength of that family; we can tell whether the parents are faithful to their mission, and whether its members will be likely to pass over from the home of their childhood to the church of christ. who has not felt this power of habit? who has not wept over some habits which haunt him like an evil spirit; and rejoiced over others as a safeguard from sin and a propellor to good? is it not, therefore, a matter of momentous interest to the christian home, that it establish habits of the right kind and quality? it should never be forgotten by christian parents, and they cannot be too careful to impress it upon their children, that habit engenders habit,--has the power of reproducing itself, and begetting habits of its own kind, increasing according to the laws of growth, as it is thus reproduced. a habit in one member of a family may produce a like habit in all the other members. the habits of the husband may be engendered in the wife, and those of the parents, in their children. if so, then are we not responsible for our habits? and shall any other kind save christian habits, be found in the christian home? these we cannot give in detail. it is plain that those habits only are christian, which receive the sanction of god's word and spirit, and find a response in the christian faith and conscience. here, for instance, is a habit being formed,--habit of thought: is it pure? here is a habit of conversation: is it holy? here is a habit of action: is it godly? and if not, it does not belong to the christian home. see, then, ye members of the christian home, to the habits you are forming. form the habit of "doing all thing's decently and in order." let the work and duties of each day be done according to method. this is essential to success in your pursuits and aims. without this, your christian life may be blustering and stormy, but you will accomplish little, and will be as unstable as water. one duty will interfere with another. you may have family prayer and instruction to-day, but something will prevent it to-morrow. establish the habit of christian industry. be diligent; not slothful in business. industry must be the price of all you obtain. you must be instant in season. the christian home cannot be an indolent, idle home. whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might. press forward. it is said of rutherford that "such was his unwearied assiduity and diligence, that he seemed to pray constantly, to preach constantly, to catechise constantly, and to visit the sick, exhorting from house to house, to teach as much in the schools, and spend as much time with the students in fitting them for the ministry, as if he had been sequestered from all the world, and yet withal, to write as much as if he had been constantly shut up in his study." such should be the industry of each christian home. without it, temptation will beset the members. "a busy man is troubled with but one devil, but the idle man with a thousand." establish the habit also of perseverance in well-doing. "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the lord." "be not weary in well-doing." let the strata of your home be made up of the immovable rock. he only that continueth unto the end shall be saved. having done all, stand! let your motto be, _perseverando vinces_. form the habit of contentment with your home and condition in life. "godliness with contentment is great gain." if your home is humble, and not adorned with the embellishments and luxuries of life, yet it may be holy, and hence, happy. avoid all castle-building. do not fancy a better home, and fall out with the one you enjoy. never permit the flimsy creations of a distorted imagination to gain an ascendancy over your reason and faith. live above all sentimentalism and day-dreaming; and in all the feelings and conduct of your household, submit to the guidance of a superintending providence, walking by faith and not by sight, assured that your present home is but probationary and preparatory to a better home in heaven. chapter xviii. home-government. "alas! for a thousand fathers, whose indulgent sloth hath emptied the vial of confusion over a thousand homes. alas! for the palaces and hovels, that might have been nurseries for heaven, by hot intestine broils blighted into schools for hell; none knoweth his place, yet all refuse to serve, none weareth the crown, yet all usurp the scepter; the mother, heart-stricken years agone, hath dropped into an early grave; the silent sisters long to leave a home they cannot love; the brothers, casting off restraint, follow their wayward wills." home is a little commonwealth jointly governed by the parents. it involves law. the mutual relation of parent and child implies authority on the one hand, and obedience on the other. this is the principle of all government. home is the first form of society. as such it must have a government. its institution implies the prerogatives of the parent and the subordination of the child. without this there would be no order, no harmony, no training for the state or the church; for-- "society is a chain of obligations, and its links support each other; the branch cannot but wither that is cut from the parent vine." the relation of the parent to the child is that of a superior to an inferior. the right of the parent is to command; the duty of the child is to obey. hence it is the relation of authority to subordination. this relation includes the principles of home-government. the parent is not the author of his authority. it is delegated to him. neither can he make arbitrary laws for home; these must be the laws of god. it is as much the duty of the parent to rule as it is for the child to be ruled. the principle of home-government is love,--love ruling and obeying according to law. these are exercised, as it were, by the instinct of natural affection as taken up and refined by the christian life and faith. this government implies reciprocity of right,--the right of the parent to govern and the right of the child to be governed. it is similar in its fundamentals to the government of the state and church. it involves the legislative, judicial and executive functions; its elements are law, authority, obedience, and penalties. the basis of its laws is the word of god. we may consider the whole subject under two general heads, viz., parental authority, and filial obedience. . parental authority is threefold, legislative, judicial and executive. the two latter we shall more fully consider under the head of home-discipline. the legislative authority of the parent is confined to the development of god's laws for the christian home. he cannot enact arbitrary laws. his authority is founded on his relation to his children as the author of their being; "yet it does not admit," says schlegel, "of being set forth and comprised in any exact and positive formularies." it does not, as in the old roman law, concede to the parent the power over the life of the child. this would not only violate the law of natural affection, but would be an amalgamation of the family and state. neither is the parental authority merely conventional, given to the parent by the state as a policy. it is no civil or political investiture, making the parent a delegated civil ruler; but comes from god as an in alienable right, and independent, as such, of the state. it does not, therefore, rest upon civil legislation, but has its foundation in human nature and the revealed law of god; neither can the state legislate upon it, except in cases where its exercise becomes an infringement upon the prerogatives of the state itself. parents are magistrates under god, and, as his stewards, cannot abdicate their authority, nor delegate it to another. neither can they be tyrants in the exercise of it. god has given to them the principles of home-legislation, the standard of judicial authority, and the rules of their executive power. god gives the law. the parent is only deputy governor,--steward, "bound to be faithful." hence the obligation of the child to obey the steward is as great as that to obey the master. "where the principal is silent, take heed that thou despise not the deputy." here, then, we have the extent of the parent's authority, and the spirit and manner in which it should be exercised. his power is grafted on the strength of another, and should not extend beyond it. its exercise should not run into despotism on the one hand, nor into indifferentism on the other. according to the vagaries of some religious sentimentalists and fanatics, it is supposed that religion supersedes the necessity of parental government. they think that such authority runs counter to the spirit and requisitions of the gospel. but this is asserted in the broad face of god's word. the promptings of such sentimentalism are to permit children to do as they please, and to bring them up under the influence of domestic libertinism. honor thy father and thy mother, is a command which explodes such a gaudy theory; and he who does not obey it, brutalizes human nature, dishonors god, subverts the principles of constitutional society, throws off allegiance to the prerogatives of a divinely constituted superior, and overthrows both church and state. hence the severe penalties attached, in the mosaic law, to disobedience of parental authority. "he that curseth his father or mother, shall surely be put to death." "the eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." and hence also that affectionate obedience which joseph yielded to his aged father, and that profound veneration with which he kneeled before him to receive his dying blessing. . filial obedience is the correlative of parental authority. if parents have authority, children must yield obedience to it. this is not only necessary to home-government, but also to the proper formation of the character of the child. it must be trained up under law and authority to prepare it for citizenship in the state. this must be the obedience of confidence and love. it does not imply the subordination of the slave. as the father's authority is not that of the despot, so the obedience of the child is not that of the servile, trembling subject. it is not unnatural,--no infringement upon the rights and liberties of the child. his subordination to the parent is the law of his liberty. he is not free without it. the home in which filial obedience is not yielded to parental authority is "a marvel of permitted chaos," and will soon become desolate, a scene of anarchy and strife. the members live in a state of lawlessness, destitute of reciprocated affection,--the parent unhonored, the father and mother despised and cursed, and the child untrained, uncared for, lawless, and unfit for the state or the church. if, therefore, god has constituted governmental relations in the christian home, and invested the parent with authority over his children, who will deny the coordinate obligations of the child to yield reverence, submission and gratitude to the parent? "children, obey your parents in all thing's; for this is well pleasing unto the lord." this is called the first commandment with promise. it is one of promise both to the parent and the child. children are bound to obey their parents in all things, that is, in all things lawful and in accordance with the revealed will of god. the child is not bound to obey the parent's command to sin,--to lie, steal, or neglect the means of grace; because these are express violations of god's law; and in such instances the authority of god supersedes that of the parent. obey god rather than man. but, on the other hand, the obligation of the child is, to obey the parent in all things lawful and christian. where this is not done the christian home becomes a curse. what an evil is a refractory child! how often does the parental eye weep in bitterness over such a child! how often have such children brought their parents down in sorrow to the grave! let them think of this. let parents think of this before it is too late. let them think of the fearful criminality which is attached to parental indulgence and filial disobedience. we may neglect and abuse the home-government in two ways, either by over-indulgence, or by the iron rod of tyranny. when we make it lax in its restraints and requisitions, it becomes merely nominal, and its laws are never enforced and obeyed. often parents voluntarily relinquish their right and duty to rule their household; and as a consequence, their children abandon the duty of obedience, and grow up in a lawless state; or if they do command, they never execute their commands, but leave all to the discretion of their children. they violate their laws with impunity, until all influence over them is lost, and the child becomes master of the parent. the self-will of the former takes the place of the authority of the latter, until at last the home-government becomes a complete farce and mockery. such parents are always making laws and giving commands; but never enforce them; they complain that they cannot get their children to obey them; and this cannot is but the utterance and exponent of their unfaithfulness and disgrace. the opposite abuse of home-government is parental despotism,--ruling with a rod of iron, making slaves of children, acting the unfeeling and heartless tyrant over them, assuming towards them attitudes of hard task-masters, and making them obey from motives of trembling, fear and dread. there is no christianity in all this. it engenders in them the spirit of a slave; it roots out all confidence and love; their obedience becomes involuntary and mechanical. they shrink in silent dread from the presence of their parents, and long for the time when they can escape their galling yoke. the parental rod destroys the filial love and confidence. hence the obedience of the latter is servile; and home loses its tender affections and sympathies, and becomes to them a workhouse, a confinement; its restrictions are a yoke; its interests are repulsive, and all its natural affinities give way to complete alienation. the children of such homes, when grown up, are the most lawless and reckless, ready at once to pass over from extreme servitude to libertinism. the government of the christian home lies in a medium between these two extremes. it is mild, yet decisive, firm; not lawless, yet not despotic; but combines in proper order and harmony, the true elements of parental authority and filial subordination. love and fear harmonize; the child fears because he loves; and is prompted to obedience by both. "but give thy son his way, he will hate thee and scorn thee together." christian parents! be faithful to the government of your household. like abraham, command your household. without this, your children will be your curse and the curse of the state. wherever they go they will become the standard-bearer of the turbulent, and brandish the torch of discord, until at last, perhaps, they will die in a dungeon or upon the gibbet. and then the curse will recoil upon you. it will strike deep into your hearts. it will come to you in the darkness of unfulfilled promises and blighted hopes and injured affections and desolated homes and wounded spirits and disgraced names and infamous memories! and you, in the face of these, will go down with bleeding sorrow to the grave, and up to the bar of god with the blood of your children's destruction upon your skirts, its voice crying unto you from the grave of infamy and from the world of eternal retribution. you will then see the folly and the fruits of your diseased affection and misguided indulgence,-- "a kindness,--most unkind, that hath always spared the rod; a weak and numbing indecision in the mind that should be master; a foolish love, pregnant of hate, that never frowned on sin; a moral cowardice, that never dared command!" chapter xix. home-discipline. "in ancient days, there dwelt a sage called discipline, his eye was meek, and a smile played on his lips, and in his speech was heard paternal sweetness, dignity, and love. the occupation dearest to his heart was to encourage goodness. if e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must, that one, among so many, overleaped the limits of control, his gentle eye grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke, his frown was full of terror, and his voice shook the delinquent with such fits of awe as left him not, till penitence had won lost favor back again, and closed the breach." discipline involves the judicial and executive functions of the home-government. it is the method of regulating and executing the principles and practice of government. it includes the rein and the rod, the treatment of offences against the laws of home, the execution of the parental authority by the imposition of proper restraints upon the child. it involves a reciprocity of duty,--the duty of the parent to correct, and the duty of the child to submit. god has given this discipline; he has invested the parent with power to execute it, and imposed upon the child the obligation to live submissively under it. all must admit the necessity of home-discipline. "it must needs be that offense come." there is a corresponding needs be in the proper treatment of these offenses when they do come. law implies penalties; and the proper character and execution of these are as essential to the true object and end of government as is the law itself. the former would he powerless without the latter. through the agency of home-discipline the proper fear and love of the child are developed in due proportion and brought into proper relations to each other, making the fear filial and the love reverential. there is, therefore, the same call for discipline in the family as there is in the state and the church. it is the condition of true harmony between, the parent and child. "the child that is used to constraint, feareth not more than he loveth; but give thy son his way, he will hate thee and scorn thee together." it is necessary because god commands it; and he commands it because it is indispensable to the security and well-being of the child, and, we might add, of the state and the church. "withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. he that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." children are by nature depraved, and if left to themselves, will choose evil rather than good; hence, as foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, the rod of correction must be used to drive them from it. he must be restrained, corrected, educated under law. in the language of cowper-- "plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong; man's coltish disposition asks the thong; and without discipline, the favorite child, like a neglected forester, runs wild." there are two false systems of home-discipline, viz., the despotism of discipline, or discipline from the standpoint of law without love; and the libertinism of discipline, or discipline from the standpoint of love without law. home-discipline from the standpoint of law without love, involves the principle of parental despotism. it is extreme legal severity, and consists in the treatment of children as if they were brutes, using no other mode of correction than that of direct corporeal punishment. this but hardens them, and begets a roughness of nature and spirit like the discipline under which they are brought up. many parents seek to justify such mechanical severity by the saying of solomon, "he that spareth the rod spoileth the child." but their interpretation of this does not show the wisdom of the wise man. they suppose the term rod, must mean the iron rod of the unfeeling and unloving despot. not so; god has a rod for all his children; but it is the rod of a compassionate father, and does not always inflict corporeal punishment. it is exercised because he loves them, not because he delights in revenge and in their misery. he uses it, not to have them obey him from fear of punishment, not to force them into a slavish service, and to cause them to shrink with trembling awe from his presence; but to correct their faults by drawing them to him in fond embrace, in grateful penitence and hopeful reformation, under the deep conviction that every stroke of his rod was the work of love, forcing from them a kiss for his rod, and a blessing for his hand, the utterance of a sanction for his deed, "it was good for me that i was afflicted!" this rod is very different, however, from that of the despot beneath whom the child crouches with trembling dread, and under the influence of whom he becomes, like the down-trodden subject, servile, brutish and rebellious. you will reap bitter fruits from such a discipline, which is but the exponent of the letter of the law without its spirit, and which has nothing for the child but the scowl and the frown and the cruel lash. you might as well seek to "gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles," as to reap from it a true reformation and religious training. your child will be trained to hate the law, to despise authority, and to regard his obedience as a compromise of true liberty. he will, therefore, seek liberty only in the usurpation of law and government. he will contemn love, because where it should have been disinterested, and shown in its greatest tenderness and purity,--in the parent's heart, it was abused and silenced. that discipline, therefore, which is ever magnifying trifles, finding fault, scolding and storming, and threatening and whipping, and falling upon the child, like the continual dropping of rain in a winter day, casts a withering gloom over home, makes it repulsive to the child, gives to the parent a forbidding aspect, until the children become provoked to wrath, and regard their home as a prison, their life as a slavery, and long for the time when they may leave home and parents forever. such discipline makes the reign of the parent a reign of terror. it reminds one of the laws of draco, written in blood. it produces in the child a broken spirit, a reckless desperation, a hardened contumacy, a deep and sullen melancholy, a mental and moral hardihood which prepares him for deeds of outrage upon law and humanity. it is unnatural, revolting to human nature, to beat and crush, as if with an iron rod, the tender child of our hearts and hopes. it extinguishes natural affection; and no subsequent kindness can rekindle the flame. the child becomes forever alienated, and bears the curse of its maltreatment upon its character and destiny. "ye parents, provoke not your children to anger, lest they should be discouraged." the following quaint anecdote is a good commentary upon such discipline: a blacksmith brought up his son, to whom he was very severe, to his own trade. the urchin was, nevertheless, an audacious dog. one day the old vulcan was attempting to harden a cold chisel which he had made of foreign steel, but could not succeed; "horsewhip it, father," exclaimed the youth, "if that will not harden it, nothing will!" nothing justifies such cruel discipline. it results in depravity of life. the most notorious criminals began their career under the lash of parental cruelty. if rods and stripes and cries and tears and cruel beating are the first lessons of life we are to learn, then we shall be educated in as well as by these. the europeans surpass all other nations in cruelty to their offspring. the arab is tender to his children, and rules them by kindness and caresses. he restrains them by the corrections of wisely exerted love. cruelty does not become the christian home. it is revolting to see a parent stand with a rod over his child, to make him read the bible or say his prayers. you cannot whip religion into a child. this is opposite to humanity and religion. home-discipline from the standpoint of love without law, is the second false system which we have mentioned, and involves the principle of parental libertinism. it does not consist so much in the want as in the neglect and abuse of discipline. the restraints may be sufficient, and the threats abundant, but they are never executed. when the children disobey, the parents may flounder and storm, loud and long, but all ends in words, in a storm of passion or whining complaint, and the child is thus encouraged to repeat the misconduct, feeling that his parents have no respect for their word. such a home becomes scolding, but not an orderly home. "discipline at length, o'erlooked and unemployed, grow sick and died, then study languished, emulation slept, and virtue fled. what was learned, if aught was learned in childhood, is forgot; and such expense as pinches parents blue, and mortifies the liberal hand of love, is squandered in pursuit of idle sports and vicious pleasures." parents, through their misguided sympathy, often connive at filial disobedience. their kindness is most unkind. their parental love issues forth as a mere burst of feeling, unguided by either reason or law. hence, their sentimental hearts become an asylum for filial delinquency and criminality. this is no proof of love, but the opposite; for "he that spareth the rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." love will thus prompt the parent to chasten his son while there is hope. eli was an example of extreme parental indulgence. "his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." it was the defect also of david's discipline, and the fruit of this defect caused him to cry out in bitter anguish, "oh absalom, my son, my son, would to god i had died for thee!" that parent who cannot restrain his children, does not bear rule in his house, and as a consequence, cannot bless his household. that parental tenderness which withholds the proper restraints of discipline from an erring child, is most cruel and ruinous. it is winking at his wayward temper, his licentious passions and growing habits of vice. and these, in their terrible maturity, will recoil upon the deluded parent, "biting like a serpent and stinging like an adder." nothing is more ruinous to a child and disastrous to the hopes and happiness of home, than such relaxation of discipline. "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." how many mothers have bitterly experienced this, and wept bitter tears over the memory of their degraded and wretched offspring! it is ruinous to the parent. he will both curse and despise thee. your unlawful indulgence, therefore, is infanticide. your cruel embraces are hugging your child to death. the sentiment of love should never crush the reason and violate the laws of love. do you permit your sick to die rather than to inflict the pain of giving them the medicine to cure? this would be madness. and yet you do a similar deed when you indulge your child in wickedness. he will grow up lawless, headstrong, rebellious; and these may lead him on to poverty, infamy, crime and perdition, ending thus in total shipwreck of character and soul. you thus make for society bad members, drunkards, blackguards, paupers, criminals; and furnish fuel for the eternal burnings. and will not the curse rest upon you? it is wonderful to what an extent this extreme indulgence prevails at the present day. many parents seem insensible even to the necessity of any discipline, and think it is an infringement upon the liberties of the child. mistaken parents! such views are opposed to the laws of god and man. by them you sow for yourselves and children the seeds of a future retribution. thus we see that there are two dangerous extremes or false systems of home-discipline, viz., the exercise of parental fondness and sympathy without parental authority, on the one hand, and the exercise of parental authority without proper sympathy, on the other. misguided sympathy and fondness will produce filial libertinism; and despotic authority will beget filial servility. true christian home-discipline lies in a medium between these. it involves the union of true parental sympathy and authority, of proper love and proper law; for affection, when not united to authority and law, degenerates into sentimental fondness; and authority and law, when, not tempered with love, degenerate into brutal tyranny, and produce inward servility and outward bondage. the parents who are, in discipline, prompted by the first, may be loved, but will not be respected. those who are ruled by the second, may be dreaded, but will not be loved. the first does violence to law, and ends in the insubordination of the child and the imbecility of the parent. the second does violence to love, makes duty a task, correction a corporeal punishment, the child a slave, the parent a despot, and ends consequently in the destruction of natural affection. hence, in home-discipline, true severity and true sympathy should unite and temper each other. without this the very ends proposed will be frustrated. true home-discipline repudiates the legal idea of punishment as much as of impunity. it lies in a medium between these, and involves the idea of christian correction or chastisement. we should correct, but not punish our children. correction is not the mere execution of legal penalties as such, but the fruit of christian love and concern for the child. it does not mean simple corporeal chastisement, but moral restraints. the impunity is the fruit of love without law; the corporeal punishment is the execution of law without love; christian correction is the interposition of love acting according to law in restraining the child. hence, true discipline is the correction of the child by the love of the parent, according to the laws of home-government. abraham instituted in his household a model system of home-discipline. "i know him," says god, "that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the ways of the lord to do justice and judgment." he was not a tyrant; his comrades did not bear the rough sternness of a despot, neither did his power wear the scowl of vengeance. but these bore the firmness and decision of love tempered and directed by the law of christian duty and responsibility. they showed his station as a father; they wore the exponent of his authority as a parent, whose love was a safeguard against tyranny on the one hand, and whose accountability to god was a security against anarchy, on the other. hence, his children respected his station, venerated his name, appreciated his love, confided in his sympathy, and yielded a voluntary obedience to his commands; for they discerned in them the blessing; and when offenses came, they bent in the spirit of loving submission and pupilage, under his rod of correction, and kissed it as the means of their reformation and culture. thus does home-discipline involve the firmness of parental authority united with the mildness of parental love. love should hold the reins and use the rod. then it will purify and elevate natural affection, and develop in the child a sense of proper fear, without either disrespectful familiarity or mechanical servitude. the efficiency of home-discipline depends upon its early introduction, upon the decision with which it is administered, upon its adaptation to the real wants of the child, and upon the manner in which it is applied. it should be commenced in due season, as soon as the child can understand its meaning and object. the child should be made to understand that he lives under authority and restraint. this will prepare him for a profitable correction when necessary. the great fault of many parents is that they begin too late to correct their children, and leave them until then in ignorance of its nature and intent. hence, the child will not appreciate the parent's motive, and will lack that pliability of spirit which is essential to reformation. "the sceptre," says james, in his family monitor, "should be seen by him before the rod; and an early, judicious and steady exhibition of the former, would render the latter almost unnecessary. he must be made to submit, and that while young, and then submission will become a habit; the reins must be felt by him early, and he will thus learn to obey them." home-discipline should be steady, uniform, consistent and reasonable. both parents and children should be guided by the dictates of reason and religion. it should not be administered by the caprice of passion, nor received in the spirit of insubordination. it should be prompted by a parent's heart, and inflicted by a parent's hand. convince the recreant child that you correct him from motives of love, and for his own good. let reason and love be at the bottom of every chastisement; let them hold the reins and guide the rod; and when the latter is used, let it be from necessity. lay no injunction upon your child without the ensurance of a compliance. your discipline should never involve impossibilities or uncertainties; neither should you permit your child to sport with your injunctions. every command should produce either obedience or correction. you should be firm in the infliction of a threatened chastisement, and faithful in the fulfilment of a promise to reward. many parents are always scolding, threatening and promising, but never execute and fulfil. as a consequence they run from one extreme of discipline to another. in home-discipline, parents should act harmoniously and cooperate with each other. they should be of one mind and of one heart, and equally bear the burden. the one should not oppose the discipline which the other is administering. this destroys its effect, and leaves the child in a state of indecision, leading to prejudice against one or the other of the parents. it too often happens that parents thus take opposite sides,--the father too severe perhaps, and the mother too indulgent. thus divided, their house must fall. nothing is more ruinous to the child than for the mother to counteract by soothing opiates, the admonitions of the father. children soon see this, and will as soon hate their father. when one parent thus holds the reins without the rod, and the other uses the rod without the reins, the very ends of discipline are frustrated. sometimes the child is given over to the mother exclusively till a certain age, when the father begins to act without the mother. this is wrong. a child is never too young to be ruled by the father, and never too old to come under the softening influence of the mother. discipline should be administered with impartiality. never make one child a favorite. favoritism and consequent indulgence, will produce prejudice against the other children. it will introduce dissension among them. this is unworthy the christian parent and his home. the history of jacob and joseph, as regards both the subject and the victim of parental favoritism, is a warning against such partiality. it produces, pride, envy, jealousy, family broils and strife, in which even the parents take a part, and by which the husband is often set against his wife, parents against children, and children against each other. correction is an essential element of true discipline. "the rod and the reproof give wisdom." there are two things in correction,--the reins and the whip, or the command and the chastisement. the one should not take the place of the other. the scepter must not be converted into a whip. if the reins are properly held and used, the whip need scarcely ever be required. if the child is timely and properly trained, commanded and chided, he will not require much chastisement,--perhaps no corporeal punishment. it is better to prevent crimes than to punish them; for prevention is more than cure. hence the first thing in discipline is timely and wholesome command. guide and train your child properly, and you need seldom resort to coercion. training and leading are better than forcing. by the former you establish a habit of systematic obedience which will soon become a pleasure to the child. by the latter you jade and vex and burden him. but when the reins will not do alone, then the whip must be resorted to. and the question at once arises, what kind of a whip? we answer, not such as you use to your horses and oxen in the team,--not the horse-whip. corporeal punishment should be used only as a last resort, when all other corrections have failed, when the child becomes an outlaw, and his reprobate heart can be reached only through the infliction of bodily pain. as a general thing it is even then unavailing, because too mechanical to produce permanent good, and not adapted to mental and moral reformation. sometimes, however, there is necessity in the use of this rod. "every child," says dr. south, "has some brute in it, and some man in it, and just in proportion to the brute we must whip it." when thus necessary we should not shrink from this kind of correction. "it is pusillanimity, as well as folly, to shrink from the crushing of the egg, but to wait composedly for the hatching of the viper." yet, on the other hand, in the language of dr. bell, "a maximum of attainment can be made only by a minimum of punishment." in the discipline of home, whether by guidance or by forcing, whether by the rein or the rod, much depends upon the manner in which it is administered. it should always be adapted to the peculiar character and offense of the child. you can restrain some children better by kind words and promises than by rough admonitions and threats. study, therefore, the peculiarities of your child, and prudently apportion the correction to the offense. if there are sincere penitence and confession, the correction should be purely moral. let the object of every correction be to produce penitence and reformation of heart as well as of conduct, and a hatred of the offense. always execute your threats and fulfill your promises at the time and on the occasion designated. threaten as little as possible, and be not hasty in your threats. treat your children as rational and moral beings: "be obeyed when thou commandest, but command not often; spare not, if thy word hath passed for punishment; let not thy child see thee humbled, nor learn to think thee false." always examine the offense before you punish. see whether it is of ignorance or not,--whether of the head or the heart,--whether intentional or accidental. examine his motives in committing the offense. if you find he merits correction, before you inflict it, lay before him the nature and enormity of the offense, wherein he disobeyed, the guilt of that disobedience, its consequences, and your duty to correct him for it. never correct in a state of anger. some correct only when they are in a violent passion. this is ruling from passion, not from principle. it is like administering medicine scalding hot, which rather burns than cures. be judicious and kind in all your discipline; otherwise you may engender in your child the very propensities and improprieties of action you desire to eradicate. a mild rebuke in the season of calmness, is better than a rod in the heat of passion. let your children know and see that all your discipline is for their own good,--to arrest them from danger and ruin, and to train them up in the way god would have them go. let your words and deeds show this in the form of parental kindness and sympathy and solicitude. this will do more than the angry look, the stormy threat, and the cruel lash. "by kindness the wolf and the zebra become docile as the spaniel and the horse; the kite feedeth with the starling under the law of kindness; that law shall tame the fiercest, bring down the battlements of pride, cherish the weak, control the strong, and win the fearful spirit. let thy carriage be the gentleness of love, not the stern front of tyranny." chapter xx. home-example. "example strikes all human hearts! a bad example more; more still a father's!" example has much to do with the interests of home. it plays an important part in the formation of character; and its influence is felt more than that of precept. our object in this chapter is to show the bearing of example upon the well-being of the christian home. example may be good or bad. its power arises out of the home-confidence and authority. children possess an imitative disposition. they look up to their parents as the pattern or model of their character, and conclude what they do is right and worthy of their imitation. hence the parental example may lead the child to happiness or to ruin. "lo! thou art a landmark on a hill; thy little ones copy thee in all things. show me a child undutiful, i shall know where to look for a foolish father; but how can that son reverence an example he dare not follow? should he imitate thee in thine evil? his scorn is thy rebuke." the power and influence of the home-example are incalculable. example is teaching by action. by it the child inherits the spirit and character of the parent. such is its influence that you can estimate the parent by the child. show me a child, polite, courteous, refined, moral and honorable in all his sentiments and conduct; and i will point you to a well-conducted nursery, to noble and high-minded parents, faithful to their offspring. theirs is a holy and a happy home; and the blessing of god rests upon it. but on the other hand, in the wayward, dissolute child i discern unfaithful parents who have no respect for religion, and who take no interest in the spiritual welfare of their children. thus the child is a living commentary upon its home and its parents. the fruits of the latter will be seen in the character of the former. the child is the moral reproduction of the parent. hence the pious parent is rewarded in his child, and the immoral parent is cursed in his child. whatsoever thou sowest in thy child, that shalt thou also reap. [illustration: sunshine of youth.] the precepts of home are unavailing unless enforced by a corresponding example. nothing is so forcible and encouraging as the "follow me." it proves sincerity and earnestness; and is adapted to the imitative capacity and disposition of the child. it is all-commanding and resistless. says solomon, "iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." says paul "it is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." says shakspeare, "one drunkard loves another of the name." says dr. young-- "ambition fires ambition; love of gain strikes like a pestilence from breast to breast; riot, pride, perfidy, blue vapor's breath; and inhumanity is caught from man, from smiling man." if such is the influence of example, we must admit the necessity of a true christian example in the family. it is necessary because it is the condition of the efficacy of home-precepts. "during the minority of reason, imitation is the regent of the soul, and they who are least swayed by argument are most governed by example." we learn from example before we can speak. hence if we would have our children walk in the way of god's commandments, we must go before them; we must take the lead; we must exemplify in our action what we incorporate in our oral instructions; our light must shine not only upon, but before them; they must see our good works as well as hear our good precepts. said a man once to j.a. james, "i owe everything under god, to the eminent and consistent piety of my father. so thoroughly consistent was he, that i could find nothing in the smallest degree at variance with his character as a professor of religion. this kept its hold upon me." it was the means of his conversion to god. thus children readily discern any discrepancy between a parent's teaching and example. if we are professors of religion, and they see us worldly-minded, grasping after riches, pleasures and honors; the dupes of ungodly fashion, manifesting a malicious spirit, indolent, prayerless, and indifferent to their spiritual welfare, what do they infer but that we are hypocrites, and will our precepts then do them any good? no. "line upon line and precept upon precept" will be given to no purpose. hence the necessity of enforcing our precepts by christian deportment. speak in an angry tone before your child; and what will it avail for you to admonish him against anger? many parents express surprise that all they can say to their children does no good; they remain stubborn, self-willed and recreant. but if these parents will look at what they have done as well as said, they will perhaps be less surprised. they may find a solution of the problem in their own capricious disposition, turbulent passions and ungodly walk. the child will soon discard a parent's precepts when they are not enforced by a parent's example. hence that parent who ruins his own soul can do but little for the soul of his child. the blasphemer and sabbath-breaker is unfit to correct his child, for swearing and sabbath-breaking. he alone who doeth the truth can teach his children truth. he only who has good habits can teach his children good habits. "who loves," says william jay, "to take his meat from a leprous hand?" a drunkard will make a poor preacher of sobriety. a proud, passionate father is a wretched recommender of humility and meekness to his children. what those who are under his care, see, will more than counteract what they hear; and all his efforts will be rejected with the question, "thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" hence parents should say to their children, "be ye followers of me, even as i also am of christ." their example should include all their precepts. in this way they both hear and see religion in its living, moving and breathing form before them. they should thus go in and out before them, leading them step by step to heaven. "as a bird each fond endearment tries to tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies, they tried each art, reproved each dull delay, allured to brighter worlds, and led the way!" it is also necessary because of its adaptation to the capacities and imitative disposition of children. they judge by the organs of sense, and by their perceptions of truth through externals. naked abstract truth does not sufficiently interest them. they are pleased with history, narrative, illustration, more than with philosophy. they are awake to the first and receive from them a lasting impression; while the impression made by the second is dreamy and ephemeral. they will never forget your example because it is adapted to their taste and capacity. long after they have forgotten your precepts upon the duty and privilege of prayer, will they remember your prayers; and long after the influence of the former has faded, will that of the latter rule and allure them to god. hence the necessity of a christian home-example. "if any have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home." if such, then, are its influence and necessity, we can easily infer the duty of parents to show their children a christian example. if they form their character upon the approved model of their parents, then the duty to give them a christian model is very obvious. they will rather follow your ungodly example than obey your godly precepts. "to give children," says archbishop tillotson, "good instruction and a bad example, is but beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven--while you take them by the hand to lead them in the way to hell." this duty is, therefore, enforced by the most powerful motives. the influence and benefit of a pious example; the promised rewards attending it; the deep curse that attends its absence; the misery which a bad example entails upon all the members of the christian household; and especially the fruits of both a good and bad example, in eternity,--all these considerations should prompt you to the faithful performance of this duty. if the members of your household may he ruined here by a bad example, what will be its consequences in the eternal world? "if men of good lives, who, by their virtuous actions, stir up others to noble and religious imitation, receive the greater glory after death as sin must needs confess; what may they feel in height of torment, and in weight of vengeance, not only they themselves not doing well, but set a light up to show men to hell?" we see a similar inducement to this duty in the blessings and rewards of a pious example. its blessings are unspeakable both here and hereafter. the temporal and eternal welfare of your home, the hope of meeting your children in heaven, and receiving there the promised reward of your stewardship, depend upon this duty. that family is happy as wall as holy, where the parents rear up their children under the fostering influence of a christian example. "behold his little ones around him! they bask in the sunshine of smile; and infant innocence and joy lighten these happy faces; he is holy, and they honor him; he is loving; and they love him; he is consistent, and they esteem him; he is firm, and they fear him. his house is the palace of peace; for the prince of peace is there. even so, from the bustle of life, he goeth to his well-ordered home." a serious obstacle to the efficacy of a good example is, the too frequent want of agreement in the example of the parents. that of the father often conflicts with and neutralizes that of the mother. they are not one in their example. this the children soon see, and disregard the good rather than the bad example. "how can two walk together except they he agreed?" the child cannot follow the pious father in the way of life, when the ungodly mother secretly and openly draws him back. operated upon by two opposite influences, he will move between them. we are here taught the imprudence, and we might add, sin, of pious persons forming a matrimonial alliance with wicked and ungodly persons. in the choice of a companion for life, we should consider an agreement in religious as well as in social character. how many unhappy matches and homes and children and parents have been made by disobedience to the divine precept, "be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers?" isaac and rebecca showed their appreciation of this precept in the care they took to procure a pious wife for jacob. "i am weary of my life," says rebecca, "because of the daughters of heth; if jacob take a wife of the daughters of heth, such as these, what good shall my life do me?" this should be the solicitude of every christian parent. parents should possess unanimity of spirit and practice in making up and giving the home-example. they should walk unitedly, like zacharias and elizabeth, in all the ordinances and statutes of the lord blameless. chapter xxi the choice of pursuits. "for what then was i born? to fill the circling year with daily toil for daily bread, with sordid pains and pleasures? to walk this chequered world, alternate light and darkness, the day-dreams of deep thought followed by the night-dreams of fancy? to be one in a full procession?--to dig my kindred clay? to decorate the gallery of art? to clear a few acres of forest? for more than these, my soul, thy god hath lent thee life!" the choice of positions and pursuits in life is one important and responsible mission of home. children look up to their parents to aid them in this. they are to have them prepared for a useful citizenship in the state. life demands that each of us, in obedience to the law of self-preservation and of our relations to human society, prepare for some useful occupation, not only for a livelihood, but also for the benefit of the state. the duty and the interest of the parent are to bring up the child to such a pursuit as is best adapted to his circumstances and abilities. our character, success and happiness in life, depend upon our obedience to this law of adaptation. as such pursuits are chosen and prepared for, while under the guardian care of our parents, it is evident they should take an active part both in the choice and the preparation. they are responsible for these as far as their influence extends. it is their duty to afford their children aid in choosing and preparing for a useful and appropriate occupation, to fit them for the circumstances in which the providence of god may place them, and to educate them for an efficient citizenship in the state. this is but developing the principle of self-preservation in the child, and fitting him for a proper adherence to it in after life. the home prepares the individual for his legitimate position in the state as well as in the church; and this implies not only his education in the principles and practice of virtue and religion, but also in some useful and appropriate pursuit, by which he may meet the wants and prepare for the exigencies of life. to rear up your children therefore, in idleness and ignorance of any useful occupation, is not only doing great injustice to the child, but also to human society, subjecting her to expenditure and corruption in the support and influence of paupers and criminals. every child should learn some trade or profession in order to self-subsistence and to the prosperity and well-being of the state. hence it is a breach of moral obligation for parents, whether rich or poor, to permit their children to grow up in idleness and vagrancy. if they do so, and as a consequence, drag out an impoverished and miserable existence, struggling between the importunities of want and those precarious contingencies upon which its satisfaction is suspended; and in the hour of despair and urgent necessity, they resort to crime in order to meet their wants, or to dissipation in order to avert their wretchedness for a time, is it not plain that their parents are responsible to god for all their crime and misery? nothing will, therefore, justify them in their omission of this duty. no amount of inherited wealth; no dependence upon wealthy relatives; no honorable station in society, will excuse them from training up their children to some useful employment by which, if circumstances demand, they may secure a subsistence. and even if their legacy render it unnecessary to be followed in order to subsistence, it is a duty which is due to the state. no man can with impunity live in the state without some employment. this would be an infringement upon her rights and an abuse of her privileges. the individual, with all his wealth and talents, belongs to the state, and should, therefore, make such an appropriation of these as will be most conducive to its welfare. and besides, we know not what disastrous changes may take place in life. the parental legacy may soon be squandered by the child, and he be left without funds or friends; the emergencies of the future may increase beyond all anticipation; sickness and manifold adversities may soon sweep away all his inheritance. and then what will become of your child if he is ignorant of any pursuit in which to engage for a subsistence? besides, it is a matter of very common observation, that those who receive a large legacy and have been brought up in idleness, become prodigal in their expenditure, and squander their fortune by dissipation more rapidly than their parents amassed it by industry and frugality; and then, ignorant and helpless and profligate, they eke out a wretched existence in abject poverty, resorting to illegitimate means for a living, until the last fruits of their improper training may be seen in the state's prison or upon the gibbet. history will afford ample illustration of this. from it we may easily infer the duty of parental interposition. the athenians expressed their sense of this duty in the enactment of a law that, if parents did not qualify their children for securing a livelihood by having them learn some occupation, the child was not bound to make provision for the parent when old and necessitous. in the selection of an occupation for his children, the parent should consult their taste and talents and circumstances, and choose for them a pursuit adapted to these. if his child is better suited for a mechanical pursuit, he should direct his attention to it, and educate him for it. and thus in all respects he should obey the great law of correspondence between the taste and capacity of the child, and the occupation to be chosen for him. the violation of this law does great injury to the child and to society, inasmuch as it prevents his success and contentment, and floods the state with quacks and humbuggery. the parent should never compel the child to learn a trade or profession which he dislikes, and for which he shows no talents. many parents, through a false pride, force their children into a profession for which they have neither inclination nor capacity. while the parent has a right to interfere in the choice of a pursuit, his interference should not be arbitrary, neither should it run counter to the will of the child unless for special moral and religious reasons, or on account of inability to gratify him. however, this is often done. even though they acknowledge their unfitness for a profession, yet their misguided pride prompts them to drag their children into a calling which in after life they disgrace. some parents, on the other hand, through a penurious spirit, refuse to aid their sons in their preparation for a profession for which their talents eminently qualify them. they refuse to educate their sons for the ministry because it is not a lucrative calling, though they give evidence of both mental and moral adaptation for that holy office. others, through a blind zeal and a false pride, force their sons into this sacred calling. mistaken parents! rather let your children break stone upon the road, or dig in the earth, yea, rather let them beg their bread, than thrust them into an occupation to which god has not called them, and for which they have neither inclination nor talents, and in which they would, perhaps, not only ruin their own souls, but contribute to the damnation of others. "there are diversities of gifts and of operations." all are not called nor fitted for the ministry. children soon give indications of specific talents and suitableness for a calling in life. we should critically observe their early propensities. these will indicate their peculiar talents. unfit for and disliking an occupation, they will become unsettled, and dissatisfied, and at best will be but mimics and quacks. their business will make them sullen slaves. it is because of parental disobedience to this law of adaptation that we have so much humbuggery in the world at the present day. study, therefore, the infantile predilections of your children to particular employments. these will be an index to their providential calling, and should govern your choice for them. the social position of the child should also be considered. if possible, the character of his pursuits should not conflict with those social elements in which he has been reared up. it should not detract from his standing in society, nor disrupt his associations in life. many parents, for the sake of money, will refuse to educate and fit their children for sustaining the position they hold in society. they bring them up in ignorance, and devote them exclusively to mammon; and then when thrown upon their own resources they are qualified neither in manners nor in pursuit for a continuance in those peculiar relations to society which they at first sustained. the exigencies of the child should also be considered. if his home can afford him no patrimony, it is then more important to consider the lucrative character of the pursuit chosen, and also the demands of that social position he is to maintain in life. its profits should then be fully adequate to these demands, and suited to the emergencies which are peculiar to his circumstances. the capital required to engage in it, and its bearing upon the health of body and mind, should also be regarded. this is an important consideration, and not sufficiently attended to by parents. how many children are forced into employments which they have not the means of carrying on, and for which their state of health altogether unfits them! a pursuit involving sedentary habits does not suit a child whose state of health demands exercise. you should make choice of but one pursuit for your child, and discourage in him the american tendency to be "jack of all trades." one occupation, whatever it may be, whether trade or profession, if properly pursued, will demand all his energies, and give him no time to follow another; and besides, it will afford him an ample subsistence. there is much truth in the two old and quaint adages, "jack of all trades, and master of none;" "he has too many irons in the fire,--some of them must burn!" show your children the truth and application of these. but while this is one extreme, and detrimental to the interests of the child, its opposite extreme, viz., that of bringing up the child to no pursuit whatever, is still more injurious. we had better have too many irons in the fire than none at all. it is a base and cowardly desertion of duty to shrink from the task of human occupation. constituted as human society is, the members of it being mutually dependent upon each other for support, it is evident that our happiness materially depends upon the active concurrence of each individual in the general system of social well-being. he who withholds, therefore, his cooperation and stands aloof from all employment, destroys a link in that chain of things by which the fabric of society is kept together and preserved. he is unfaithful to those sacred obligations which arise out of our relations to the state and the church, and he abuses those inalienable rights with which god has invested the social compact. besides, he fails to meet those conditions upon which the vigorous development of individual life and character depends. indolence is no friend either to physical, mental or moral development. the body becomes imbecile, the spirit supine and sentimental, the morals vitiated, and the mind sinks into complete puerility. activity is a law of all life, and the condition of its healthy development and maturity. without it we resort to jejune amusement, and from amusement we are hurried on to dissipation, to the card table and dram shop; and from dissipation we sink to degradation, infamy and wretchedness. idleness is thus the fruitful mother of vice and misery. our lives cannot exist in a state of neutrality between active good and active evil. it is, therefore, the duty of the christian home to prepare her young members for some useful calling in life, not only as a means of subsistence, but also as a safeguard against the evils of idleness. chapter xxii. the home-parlor. "the foolish floatiness of vanity, and solemn trumperies of pride,-- harmful copings with the better, and empty-headed apings of the worse; vapid pleasures, the weariness of gaiety, the strife and bustle of the world; the hollowness of courtesies, and substance of deceits, idleness and pastime-- all these and many more alike, thick conveying fancies, flit in throngs about my theme, as honey-bees at even to their hives!" the christian home includes the parlor. this department we must give but a brief and passing notice. yet it is as important and responsible as the nursery. in it we have a view of the relations of home to society beyond it. the parlor is set apart for social communion with the world. much of momentous interest is involved in this relation. the choice of companions, the forming of attachments and matrimonial alliances, the establishment of social position and influence in life beyond the family,--these are all involved in the home-parlor. if we would, therefore, escape the shackles and contamination of corrupt society, we must hold the parlor sacred and give to it the air and bearing of at least a moral aristocracy. home is the first form of society. the law of love rules and reigns there. it is enthroned in the heart, and casts light around our existence. in that society we live above the trammels of artificial life. in its parlor the members merge with society beyond its sacred precincts. hence it is the most beautiful room; the best furniture is there; smiles adorn it; friends meet there; fashion meets there in her silks and jewels, with her circumstance and custom, her sympathies, antipathies and divers kinds of conversation; form and profession reign there; flatteries and hypocrisies intrude themselves there; pledges are given there; attachments and vows are made there; the mind and heart are impressed and moulded there; the cobweb lines of etiquette are drawn there; a panorama of social fascinations pass before the youthful eye there,--these make the parlor the most dangerous department of home. there the young receive their first introduction to society; there they see the world in all the brilliancy of outward life, in the pomp and pageantry of a vanity fair. all seems to them as a fairy dream, as a brilliant romance; their hearts are allured by these outward attractions; their imaginations are fed upon the unreal, and they learn to judge character by the external habiliments in which its reality is concealed. they estimate worth by the beauty of the face and form, by the cost of dress and the genuflections of the body. they form their notions of happiness from fashion, fortune and position. they become enslaved to love-sick novels and fashionable amusements. there, too, they make choice of companions; there they form matrimonial alliances; there their hearts are developed, their minds trained for social life, their affections directed, and influence brought to bear upon them, which will determine their weal or their woe. if such be the influence of the home-parlor, should it not be held sacred, and made to correspond, in all the uses for which it is set apart, with the spirit and character of a christian family; and should not its doors be effectually guarded against the intrusion of spurious and demoralizing elements of society? parents should teach their children all about the character, interests and deceptions of parlor-life. they should undeceive them in their natural proneness to judge people from the standpoint of character assumed in the parlor. they see the lamb there, but not the lion; the smile but not the frown; the affability of manner, but not the tyranny of spirit. they hear the language of flattery, but not the tongue of slander. they see no weak points, detect no evil temper and bad habits. there is an artificial screen behind which all that is revolting and dangerous is concealed. who would venture to judge a person by his mechanical movements in the parlor? many are there the very opposite to what they are elsewhere:-- "abroad too kind, at home 'tis steadfast hate, and one eternal tempest of debate. what foul eruptions from a look most meek! what thunders bursting from a dimpled cheek! such dead devotion, such zeal for crimes, such licensed ill, such masquerading times, such venal faiths, such misapplied applause, such flattered guilt, and such inverted laws!" one of the most dangerous periods of life is, when we leave the nursery and school, and enter the parlor. with what solicitude, therefore, should christian parents guard their parlors from social corruption. they should prepare their children for society, not only by teaching them its manners and customs, how to act in company, how to grace a party, and move with refined ease among companions there, but also by teaching them the dangers and corruptions which lurk in their midst and follow in the train of rustling silks and fashionable denouement. they should never permit their parlor to become the scene of fashionable tyranny. the christian parlor can be no depot for fashion. it should be sacred to god and to the church. it should be a true exponent of the social elements of christianity. it should not be a hermitage, a state of seclusion from the world; but should conform to fashion, yet so far only as the laws of a sanctified taste and refinement will admit. these laws exclude all compromise and amalgamation with the ungodly spirit and customs of the world. allegiance to the higher and better law of god will keep us from submission to the laws of a depraved taste and carnal desire. we must keep ourselves unspotted from the world. whenever we submit with scrupulous exactness to the laws of fashion; whenever we yield a servile complaisance to its forms and ceremonies, wink at its extremes and immoralities and absurd expenditures, seek its flatteries and indulge in its whims and caprices, by throwing open our parlors as the theatre of their denouement, and introducing our children to their actors and master-spirits, we prostitute our homes, our religion and those whom god has given us to train up for himself, to interests and pleasures the most unworthy the christian name and character. there is much danger now of the christian home becoming in this way slavishly bound to the influence and attractions of society beyond the pale of the church, until all relish for home-enjoyment is lost, and its members no longer seek and enjoy each other's association. they drain the cup of voluptuous pleasure to its dregs, and flee from home as jejune and supine. the husband leaves his wife, and seeks his company in fashionable saloons, at the card table or in halls of revelry. the wife leaves the society of her children, and in company with a bosom companion, seeks to throw off the tedium of home, at masquerade meetings, at the theater or in the ball-room, where "vice, once by modest nature chained, and legal ties, expatiates unrestrained; without thin decency held up to view, naked she stalks o'er law and gospel too!" the children follow their example; become disgusted with each other's company, and sacrifice their time and talents to a thousand little trifles and absurdities. taste becomes depraved, and loses all relish for rational enjoyment. the heart teems with idle fancies and vain imaginations. sentimentalism takes the place of religion; filthy literature and fashionable cards shove the family bible in some obscure nook of their parlor and their hearts. the hours devoted to family prayer are now spent in a giddy whirl of amusement and intoxicating pleasure, in the study of the latest fashions and of the newly-published love adventures of some nabob in the world of refined scoundrelism. the parental solicitude, once directed to the eternal welfare of the child, is now expended in match-making and setting out in the world. thus does the christian home often become adulterated with the world by its indiscriminate association with unfit social elements. that portion of society whose master-spirits are love-stricken poets, languishing girls, amorous grandmothers, and sap-headed fiction writers, is certainly unfit for a place in the parlor of the christian family. we should not permit the principles of common-sense decorum to give place to the lawless vagaries of fancy and the hollow-hearted forms of artificial life. under the gaudy drapery of smiles and flounces, of rustling silks and blandishments, there are hearts as brutish and stultified, and heads as brainless and incapable of gentle and moral emotion, and characters as selfish and ungenerous, as were ever concealed beneath the rags of poverty, or the uncouth manners and rough garb of the incarcerated villain! it is, therefore, beneath the dignity of the christian to permit his home to become in any way a prey to immoral and irreligious associations and influences. like the personal character of the christian, it should be kept unspotted from the world; and no spirit, no customs, no companions, opposed to religion, should be permitted to enter its sacred limits. heedless of this important requisition, parents may soon see their children depart from the ways in which they were trained in the nursery, and at last become a curse to them, and bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. here is indeed the great fault of many christian parents in the present day. they do not exert that guardian care they should over the social relations and interests of their children. they are too unscrupulous in their introduction to the world, and leave them in ignorance of its snares and deceptions. what results can they look for if they permit their parlor tables to become burdened with french novels, and their children to mingle in company whose influence is the most detrimental to the interests of pure and undefiled religion? can they reflect upon their daughters for forming improper attachments and alliances? can they wonder if their sons become desperadoes, and ridicule the religion of their parents? no! they permitted them to dally with the fangs of a viper which found a ready admittance into their parlor; and upon them, therefore, will rest the responsibility,--yea, the deep and eternal curse! woe unto thee, thou unfaithful parent; the voice of thy children's blood shall send up from the hallowed ground of home, one loud and penetrating cry to god for vengeance; and thou shalt be "beaten with many stripes." it will not only cry out against you, but cling to you! guard your parlor, therefore, from the corrupting influence of all immoral associations. be not carried away by the pomp and glare of refined and decorated wickedness. let not the ornaments and magnificence of mere outward life divert your attention from those hidden principles which prompt to action. in the choice of companions for your children in the parlor, look to the ornaments of the heart rather than to those of the body. be not allured by the parade of circumstance and position in life: be not carried away by that which may intoxicate for a moment, and then leave the heart in more wretchedness than before. ever remember that the future condition of your children, their domestic character and happiness, will depend upon the kind of company you admit in your parlor. this leads us to the consideration of the part christian parents should take in the marriage of their children. this we shall investigate in our next chapter under the head of "match-making." chapter xxiii. match-making. section i. the relation of parents to the marriage choice of their children. "youth longeth for a kindred spirit, and yet yearneth for a heart that can commune with his own; take heed that what charmeth thee is real, nor springeth of thine own imagination; and suffer not trifles to win thy love; for a wife is thine unto death!" one of the most affecting scenes of home-life is that of the bridal hour! though in one sense it is a scene of joy and festivity; yet in another, it is one of deep sadness. when all is adorned with flowers and smiles, and the parlor becomes the theater of conviviality and parade, even then hearts are oppressed with sorrow at the thought of that separation which is soon to take place. the bridal is a home-crisis. it is the breaking up of home-ties and communion, a separation from home scenes, a lopping off from the parent vine, an engrafting into a strange vine, and alas! too often, into a degenerate vine. as the youthful bride stands beside her affianced husband, to be wedded to him for life, and reflects that the short ceremonial of that occasion will tear her forever from the loved, objects and scenes of her childhood-home, what tears of bitter sorrow adorn the bridal cheek, and what pungent feelings are awakened by her last farewell! "'i leave thee, sister! we have played through many a joyous hour, where the silvery gleam of the olive shade hung dim o'er fount and bower.' "yes! i leave thee, sister, with all that we have enjoyed together; i leave thee in the memory of our childhood-haunts and song and prayer. we cannot be as we have been. i leave thee now, and all that has bound us together as one; and hereafter memory alone can hail thee, and will do so with her burning tear; therefore, kind sister, let me weep! "i leave thee, father! eve's bright moon, must now light other feet, with the gathered grapes, and the lyre in tune, thy homeward steps to greet." "yes, i leave thee, father! i receive thy last blessing; no longer shall thy protecting hand guide me; no longer shall thy smile be music to my ear. i leave thee, oh, therefore, let me weep! "'mother! i leave thee! on thy breast, pouring out joy and woe; i have found that holy place of rest still changeless--yet i go!" "yes, i go from thee, mother! though you have watched over me in helpless infancy with all a mother's love and care, and 'lulled me with your strain;' and though earth may not afford me a love like yours; yet i go! oh, therefore, sweet mother, let me weep!" "'oh, friends regretted, scenes forever dear remembrance hails you with her burning tear; drooping she bends o'er pensive fancy's urn, to trace the hours which ne'er can return.'" if momentous interests' are involved in marriage, then, we think that parents should take an important part in the matrimonial alliances of their children. when they grow up, they naturally seek a companion for life. the making choice of that companion is a crisis in their history, and will determine their future interest and happiness. if separation from home is a great sacrifice, then we should look well to the grounds of our justification in making that sacrifice. we propose, under the head of "match-making," to consider the part which parents should take in the marriage of their children; and also the false and true standards of judgment both for parents and their children, in making the marriage choice and alliance. have parents a right to take any part in the marriage choice and alliance of their children? have they a right to interfere in any respect with the marriage of their children? that they do possess such a right, and are justified in the exercise of it within just and reasonable limits, is, we think, undisputed by any one acquainted with the word of god. it is one of the cardinal prerogatives and duties of the christian parent. his relation to his children invests him with it. the age and inexperience of the child, on the one hand; and the seductions of the world, on the other; imply it. children need counsel and admonition; and this is a needs be for the interposition of the parent's superior wisdom and greater experience. this right is plainly exemplified in sacred history. abraham interfered in isaac's selection of a companion. isaac and rebecca aided in the choice of a wife for jacob. and indeed throughout the patriarchal age, you find this right recognized and practiced. it was also acknowledged and exercised in all the subsequent ages of judaism, in the age of primitive christianity, and even down to the present time, in every true christian household. the right still exists, and receives the sanction of the church. the great dereliction of parents now is, that they do not exercise it; and of children, that they do not recognize it. "a wise son heareth his father's instructions." "the eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pluck it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." what now is the extent, and what are the duties of that right to interfere? this is a difficult question, and can receive but an imperfect answer. in infancy the authority of the parent is exercised without any reference to the will of the child, because reason is not yet developed. but when he reaches the age of personal accountability, the control of the parent is exercised on more liberal principles; and when, by age, he becomes a responsible citizen, the legal authority of the parent ceases. still he possesses moral authority, and has a right to exert a restraining influence over the child. this does not, of course, involve a right to compel him to yield to the parent's arbitrary will. he can exert but a moral control over him; and it is the child's duty to yield to this, so long as it is consistent with scripture and the maxims of sound reason and conscience. he should consult his parents, receive them into his confidence, and give priority to their judgment and counsels. parents have the right to use coercive measures to prevent an imprudent marriage by their children before they have arrived at age; for until they are of age they are both legally and morally under the authority and government of their parents, who are responsible for them. hence the child should recognize and submit to their authority. but this right to the use of coercive measures extends only to the prevention of unhappy marriages,--not to the forming of what the parents may regard happy alliances, against the will of the child. no parent has the right to compel a child under age to marry, because the marriage alliance implies the age and free choice of the child. but when the child reaches legal maturity, the coercive authority of the parent ceases. his interposition then should not involve coercive, but persuasive measures. then a mere mechanical prevention of an unhappy marriage would have no good moral effect, but would be productive of great evil, inasmuch as it not only involves parental despotism, but the restriction of a manifest and conceded right of the child. it would destroy the sense of personal dignity and responsibility. persuasive measures will then accomplish more than all the efforts of the parent to prevent an unhappy union, by threats of disinheritance and expulsion from home. in this way parents often extend their interference to most unreasonable extremes, and to the great detriment of the interests and happiness of their children; while at the same time they often bring disgrace and misery upon their own heads and home. they set themselves up as the choosers of companions for their children, presuming that they should passively submit to their selection whatever it may be. this is taking away the free moral agency of the child, making no account of his taste, judgment, or affections; and forming between him and the object thus chosen a mere outward union, with no inward affinity. in such cases it most generally happens that parents are prompted by sinister motives and a false pride, as that of wealth, honor, and social position. they do not consult the law of suitability, but that of availability. they think that wealth and family distinction will compensate for the absence of all moral and amiable qualities, that if outward circumstances are favorable, there need not be inward adaptation of character. hence they will dictate to their children, make their marriage alliance a mere business matter, and demand implicit obedience on the penalty of expulsion from the parental home, and disinheritance forever. they are thus willing to prostitute the domestic peace and happiness of their offspring to the gratification of their own sordid and inordinate lust for gain and empty distinction. who does not perceive and acknowledge the evil of such a course? it involves unfeeling despotism on the one hand, and a servile obedience on the other. the affections are abused; the idea and sacredness of marriage are left out of view; the conditions of domestic felicity are not met. all is supremely selfish; the power exercised is arbitrary; the submission is slavish and demoralizing; the obedience involuntary and degrading; and the result of it all is, an outrage against nature, against marriage, and against god. on the other hand, the interference of the parent should be persuasive, and the obedience of the child, voluntary. the parent should reason with and counsel the child; and seek by mild and affectionate means to secure obedience to his advice. and if the child then persist in his own course, the parent, we think, has discharged his duty, and the responsibility will rest upon the child. he should not expel and disinherit him, and thus add the hard-heartedness of the parent to the folly and perversity of the child. he should love him still, and seek by parental tenderness to alleviate the sad fruits of filial recklessness. parents should so train their children in the nursery and parlor, by instilling in them correct principles of judgment in the choice of a companion, as to secure them ever after from an imprudent choice. here is the place to begin. parents too often omit this duty, until alas, it is too late. we have now seen that the parent has no right to destroy the domestic happiness of a child by uniting him forcibly in wedlock to one for whom he has no true affection. on the other hand, the child should pay due deference to the parent's moral suasion, and seek, if possible, to follow his counsels. "a child," says paley, "who respects his parent's judgment, and is, as he ought to be, tender of their happiness, owes, at least, so much deference to their will, as to try fairly and faithfully, in one case, whether time and absence will not cool an affection which they disapprove. after a sincere but ineffectual endeavor by the child, to accommodate his inclination to his parent's pleasure, he ought not to suffer in his parent's affections, or in his fortunes. the parent, when he has reasonable proof of this, should acquiesce; at all events, the child is then at liberty to provide, for his own happiness." section ii. false tests in the selection of a companion for life. before we advert to some of those biblical principles upon which parents and children should proceed in the marriage choice, we shall take a negative view of the subject, and mention some of those false principles and considerations which have in the present day gained a fearful ascendancy over the better judgment of many professed christians. in the matter of marriage, too many are influenced by the pomp and parade of the mere outward. the glitter of gold, the smile of beauty, and the array of titled distinction and circumstance, act like a charm upon the feelings and sentiments of many well-meaning parents and children. but it is not all gold that glitters. we must not think that those are happy in their marriage union, because they are obsequious in their attentions to each other, and live together in splendor, overloaded with fashionable congratulations. we cannot determine the character of a marriage from its pomp and pageantry. we rather determine the many unhappy matches from the false principles upon which the parties acted in making choice of each other. what are some of these? we answer-- . the manner of paying addresses involves a false principle of procedure. these are either too long or too short, and paid in an improper spirit and manner. there are too much flirtation and romance connected with them. the religious element is not taken up and considered. they do not involve the true idea of preparation, but have an air of mere sentimentalism about them. the object in view is not fully seen. the most reprehensible motives and the most shocking thoughtlessness pervade them throughout. these addresses carry with them an air of trifling, a want of seriousness and frankness, which betrays the absence of all sense of responsibility, and of all proper views of the sacredness of marriage and of its momentous consequences both for time and for eternity. . the habit of match-making involves a false principle. this we see more fully among the higher classes of society. it is the work of designing and interested persons, who, for self-interest, intrude their unwelcome interposition. its whole procedure implies that marriage is simply a legal matter, a piece of business policy, a domestic speculation. it strikes out the great law of mutual, moral love, and personal adaptation. it makes marriage artificial, and apprehends it as only a mechanical copartnership of interest and life. it is sinister in spirit, and selfish in the end. many are prompted from motives of novelty to make matches among their friends. all their schemes tend to wrest from the parties interested all true judgment and dispassionate consideration. they are deceived by base misrepresentation, allured by over-wrought pictures of conjugal felicity, so that when the marriage is consummated, they soon find their golden dreams vanish away, and with them, their hopes and their happiness forever. but there are not only personal match-makers, in the form of tyrannical fathers, sentimental mothers, amorous grandmothers, and obsequious friends; but also book match-makers, in the form of love-sick tales and poetry, containing eugene-aram adventures, and scrapes of languishing girls with titled swains running off, calculated to heat the youthful imagination, distort the pictures of fancy, giving to marriage the air of a romantic adventure, and throwing over it a gaudy drapery, leading the young into a world of dreams and nonentities, where all is but a bubble of variegated colors and fantastic forms, which explodes before them as soon as it is touched by the finger of reality and experience. these are the most dangerous match-makers. their sister companions in this evil are, the ball-room, the giddy dance and masquerade, the fashionable wine-cup and the costly apparel. let me affectionately exhort the members of the christian home to keep all these at a distance. touch not, taste not, handle not! they will poison the spirit and the affections, and encircle you with a viper's coil from which there is no hope of escape. here parents have a right, and it is their duty, to interfere. they can do so effectually by not allowing such filthy match-making intruders to pass the threshold of their homes. what can you expect out an unhappy marriage, if you permit your sons and daughters to spend their time in converse with love-sick tales and languishing swains? they will become love-sick, too, and long for marriage with one who is like the hero of their last-read romance. perhaps they will not think their matrimonial debut sufficiently flavored with romantic essence, unless they run off with some self-constituted count, or at least with their papa's irish groom! . we might advert, finally, to some of those false influences which are frequently brought to bear upon the children's choice of a companion for life. the term smitten is here significant and deserves our serious consideration. it carries in its pregnant meaning the evidence of a spurious feeling, and a false foundation of love and union. be it remembered that there must always be something to smite one. we may be smitten by a scoundrel, or by something unworthy our affections. empty titles and mustaches often smite the susceptible young. sometimes the heart is smitten by a pretty face and form; and sometimes by a rod of gold. the simple fact that we are smitten is not enough; we should know who or what it is that smites us. when we are drawn to each other, it should be by a true cord, and by an influence which binds and cements for life. the influence of mere outward beauty is a false one. those who are smitten by it, and drawn thus into a matrimonial union by an interest which is but skin-deep, and which may fade like the morning flower, are allured by a dazzling meteor, by a mere bubble, beautifully formed and colored, but empty within. it may dazzle the eye, but it blinds us to all its blemishes and inward infirmities. it is deceptive. often beneath its gaudy veil there lies the viper, ready to poison all the sweets of home-life, and cause its victim to lament over his folly with bitter tears and heart-burning remorse. how soon may beauty fade; and what then, if it was the only basis of your marriage choice? the union which rested upon it must then be at least morally dissolved; and that which once flitted like an impersonated charm before your admiring eye, now becomes an object of disgust and a source of misery. to fall in love, therefore, with mere outward beauty is, to dandle with a doll, to fawn upon a picture, to rest your hopes upon a plaything, to pursue a phantom which, as soon as you embrace it, may vanish into nothing. look not to external beauty alone; but also to the ornaments of an inward spirit, of a noble mind, and an amiable and pious heart. "if," says the rev. h. harbaugh, "you will be foolish, follow the gilded butterfly of beauty, drive it a long chase; it will land you at last at some stagnant mud-pond of the highway." neither is impulsive passion a true basis of marriage. this is falling in love at first sight, which often proves to be a very dangerous and degrading fall,--a fall from the clouds to the clods, producing both humiliation and misery. it is indeed a fearful leap,--a leap without judgment or forethought; and, therefore, a leap in the dark. it is too precipitate, and shows the infatuation of the victim. falling in love is not always falling in the embraces of domestic felicity. such leaping is an act of intoxication. the drunkard, falling in the mire, often thinks that he is embracing his best friend, whereas it is but descending to fellowship with the swine. it is blind love, which is no love, but passion without reason. it is crazy, fitful, stormy, raising the feelings up to boiling point, and bringing the affections under the influence of the high-pressure system. consequently it is raving, frothy, of a mushroom growth, making mere bubbles, and completing its work in an evaporation of all that it operated upon, passing away like the morning cloud and the early dew. true love is very different. it is substantial, reasonable, moral, acting according to law, temperate in all things, keeping the heart from extremes, permanent, and based upon principle. passion, without love, may keep you in a state of pleasurable intoxication until the knot is tied, when you will soon get sober again, only to see, however, your folly and to contemplate the height from which you have fallen, and then, with the recklessness of sullen despair, to pass over into the opposite extreme of stoical indifference and misery. all emotions are transient, and hence no proper standard of judgment in the serious matter of a marriage choice. the heart, unguided by the head, is, in its emotions, like the flaming meteor that passes in its rapid, fiery train across the heavens. it flames only for a time, and soon passes away, leaving the heavens in greater darkness than before. neither is wealth a true basis for the marriage choice. "the love of money is the root of all evil;" and when it is the primary desideratum in marriage, it acts like a canker-worm upon domestic peace and happiness. with too many in this day of money-making, marriage is but a pecuniary speculation, a mere gold and silver affair; and their match-making is but a money-making, that is, money makes the match. many parents (but we don't call such christians,) sacrifice their children upon the altar of mammon, and prostitute their earthly and eternal happiness to their love of filthy lucre. fatal mistake! will money make your children happy? is it for money you have them led to the bridal altar? ah! that sordid dust may cover the grave of their fondest hopes and connubial felicity. wed not your children to mere dollars and cents. the hand that holds a purse and shakes it before you for your child, may hold also a dagger for both the child and the parent. "look not only for riches, lest thou be mated with misery." wealth is good in its place, and we should not object to it, other things being equal. but it never was nor can be good as an inducement to marry. what a miserable policy it is, to make it the test of a proper match! "do not make the metals of earth the cord of the marriage tie." they are too brittle in their nature to do so. they take to themselves wings and fly away. the fine gold becomes dim; their cords are like ropes of glass-sand,-- "like the spider's most attenuated thread, they break at every breeze." rank also is a false standard of judgment in the forming of a marriage alliance. many look only to position in society, make it everything, and think that acknowledged social distinction will compensate for the want of all other interests. while there should be a social adaptation of character, and while you should-- "be joined to thy equal in rank, or the foot of pride will kick at thee," yet there is nothing to justify marrying a person because of his or her social position. the evils of this may be seen in the first classes of english society, where rank is mechanical, and where law forbids a trespass upon its bastard prerogatives; and as a consequence, relatives intermarry, until their descendants have degenerated into complete physical and mental imbecility. such nepotism as this is replete with untold disaster both in the family and in the state. too many in our democratic country ape this, look to rank, and are blind to all things else. the fruits of this are seen in that codfish aristocracy which floats with self-inflated importance upon the troubled waters of society, causing too many of the little fish to float after them, until they land themselves in the deep and muddy waters of domestic ruin. section iii. true tests in the selection of a companion for life. having considered some of the false standards of judgment in the choice of a companion for life, we now revert to those true tests which are given us in the word of god. there we have the institution and true idea of marriage, and the principles upon which we should proceed in making the marriage choice. we are taught in the holy scriptures, the primary importance of judicious views of the nature and responsibilities of the marriage institution itself. we should apprehend it, not from its mere worldly standpoint, not as a simple legal alliance, not only as a scheme for temporal welfare and happiness, but as a divine institute, a religious alliance, involving moral responsibilities, and momentous consequences for eternity as well as for time, for soul as well as for body. we are commanded to look to its religious elements and duties; and to regard it with that solemnity of feeling which it truly demands. when the light of the bridal day throws upon the cheek its brightest colors, even then we should rejoice with trembling, and our joy and festivity should be only in the lord. "joy, serious and sublime, such as doth nerve the energies of prayer, should swell the bosom, when a maiden's hand, filled with life's dewy flowerets, girdeth on that harness which the ministry of death alone unlooseth, but whose fearful power may stamp the sentence of eternity." in the days of our forefathers, marriage was thus held sacred, as a divine institution, involving moral and religious duties and responsibilities; and their celebration of it was, therefore, a religious one. they realized its momentous import, and its bearing upon their future welfare. it was not, therefore, without heavings of deep moral emotion and the flow of tears as well as of joyful spirits, that they put the wedding garment on. "there are smiles and tears in that gathering band, where the heart is pledged with the trembling hand what trying thoughts in the bosom swell, as the bride bids parents and home farewell! kneel down by the side of the tearful fair, and strengthen the perilous hour with prayer!" true love in each, and reciprocated by each, must determine the marriage choice. the marriage of children should not be forced. mutual love is the basis of a proper union, because marriage is a voluntary compact. when parents, therefore, force their children into an alliance, they usurp their undoubted natural and religious rights. hence there should be no _must_, where there is no _will_, on the part of the child. that choice which is made upon any other than reciprocated affection, is an unreasonable and irreligious one. "parents have no right," says paley, "to urge their children upon marriage to which they are averse;" "add to this," says he, "that compulsion in marriage necessarily leads to prevarication; as the reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is expected to take place." to proceed to marriage, therefore in the face of absolute dislike and revulsion, is irrational and sinful. as true, mutual love is the basis of marriage, so also should it be a standard of our judgment in the marriage choice. without it, neither beauty, wealth, nor rank will make home happy. true love should be such as is upheld in scripture. it is above mere passion. it never faileth. it is life-like and never dies out. it is an evergreen in the bosom of home. it has moral stamina, is regulated by moral law, has a moral end, contains moral principle, and rises superior to mere prudential considerations. it is more than mere feeling or emotion; it is not blind, but rational, and above deception, having its ground in our moral and religious nature. it extends to the whole person, to body, mind, and spirit, to the character as well as to the face and form. it is tempered with respect, yea, vitalized, purified, directed and elevated by true piety. such love alone will survive the charms and allurements of novelty, the fascinations of sense, the ravages of disease and time, and will receive the sanction of heaven. mutual adaption of character and position is another scripture standard of judgment. is that person suited for me? will that character make my home happy? could i be happy with such an one? are we congenial in spirit, sentiment, principle, cultivation, education, morals and religion? can we sympathize and work harmoniously together in mind and heart and will and taste? are we complemental to each other? these are questions of far greater importance than the question of wealth, of beauty, or of rank. fitness of circumstances, means, and age should be also considered. am i able to support a family? can i discharge the duties of a household? where there is ignorance of household duties, indolence, the want of any visible means of supporting a family, no trade, no education, no energy, and no prospects, there is no reason to think there can be a proper marriage. thus, then, mutual love, adaptation of character, of means, of circumstances, of position, and of age, should be considered, in the formation of a marriage alliance. but the standard of judgment to which the scriptures especially direct our attention is, that of religions equality, or spiritual adaptation. "be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." the positive command here is, that christians should marry only in the lord. here is a test in the selection of a companion for life, from which neither parents nor children should ever depart. it evidently forbids a matrimonial union with those who have no sympathy with religion. we should make more account of religious equality than of equality of rank and wealth. is not true piety of more importance than education, affluence or social distinction? when husband and wife are unequally yoked together in soul and grace, their home must suffer spiritually as well as temporally. the performance of religious duties and the enjoyment of religious privileges, will be impossible. the unbeliever will discourage, oppose, and often ridicule, the pious efforts of the believer. partiality will be produced, and godliness will decline; for, says peter, unless we dwell as heirs together of the grace of life, our prayers will be hindered. the pious one cannot rule in such a home. thus divided and striving with each other, their house must fall. where one draws heavenward and the other hellward, opposite attractions will be presented, and the believer will find constant obstructions to growth in grace, to the discharge of parental duty, and to the cultivation of christian graces in the heart. how can the unbeliever return, like david, to bless his household? how can he bring up his children in the nurture and admonition of the lord? can he be the head of a christian home? and, tell me, does the true christian desire any other than a christian home? "how can two walk together, except they be agreed?" and are you, then, in your marriage, agreed to walk with the unbeliever in the broad road of sin and death? you are not, if you are a true christian! we see, therefore, the importance of a rigid adherence to the scripture standard, "be not unequally yoked, together with unbelievers." it is even desirable that husband and wife belong to the same branch of the church, that they may walk together on the sabbath to the house of god. there is indeed something repugnant to the feelings of a christian to see the husband go in one direction to worship, and the wife in another. they cannot be thus divided, without serious injury to the religious interests of their family, as well as of their own souls. it is impossible for them to train up their children successfully when they are separated by denominational differences. it is a matter of very common observation that when persons thus divided, marry, the one or the other suffers in religious interest. from these and other considerations, we think it is expedient to marry, if possible, within the pales of our own branch of the church. then, being agreed, they can walk together with one mind and one purpose. but how much more important that they be united in their pilgrim walk to eternity,--united in the lord jesus christ, by a common life and faith and hope! we believe that christians commit a sin when they violate this law of religious equality, and unite themselves in matrimony with those who pay no regard to religion. who can estimate the peril of that home in which one of its members is walking in the narrow way to heaven, while the other one is traveling in the broad road to perdition! whom, think you, will the children follow? let the sad experience of a thousand homes respond. let the blighted hopes and the unrequited affections of the pious wife, reply. let those children whose infamy and wretchedness have broken the devout mother's heart, or brought the gray hairs of the pious father down with sorrow to the grave, speak forth the answer. it will show the importance of the scripture rule before us, and will declare the sin of violating that rule. and does not, therefore, a terrible judgment accompany that indiscriminate matrimonial union with the unbelieving world, of which so many christians, in the present day, are guilty? parents encourage their pious children to marry unbelievers, though they are well aware that such unholy mixtures are expressly forbidden, and that spiritual harmony is essential to their happiness. "she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the lord!" those who violate this cardinal law of marriage, must expect to suffer the penalties attached to it. history is the record of these. the disappointed hopes, and the miseries of unnumbered homes speak forth their execution. this great scripture law has its foundation in the very nature of marriage itself. if marriage involves the law of spiritual harmony; if, in the language of the roman law, it is "the union of a man and woman, constituting an united habitual course of life, never to be separated;" if it is a partnership of the whole life,--a mutual sharing in all rights, human and divine; if they are one flesh,--one in all the elements of their moral being, as christ and his church are one; if it is a mystery of man's being, antecedent to all human law; if, in a word, man and woman in marriage, are no more twain, but one flesh; and if the oneness of our nature is framed of the body, the soul, and the spirit, then is it not plain that when two persons marry, who possess no spiritual fitness for, or harmony with, each other, they violate the fundamental law of wedlock; and their marriage cannot meet the scripture conception of matrimonial union or oneness. there will be no adaptation of the whole nature for each other; they will not appreciate the sacred mysteriousness of marriage; instead of the moral and religious development of the spiritual nature, there will be the evolution of selfishness and sensuality as the leading motives of domestic life. we see, then, that the christian cannot with impunity, violate the scripture law, "be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." shall the christian parent and child disregard this prohibition of god? will you ridicule this fundamental principle of christian marriage? will the children of god not hesitate to marry the children of the devil? can these walk together, in domestic union and harmony? can saint and sinner be of one mind, one spirit, one life, one hope, one interest? can the children of the light and the children of darkness, opposite in character and in their apprehension of things, become flesh of each other's flesh, and by the force of their blended light and darkness shed, around their home-fireside the cheerfulness of a mutual love, of a common life and hope, and of a progressive spiritual work? parents! it is your right and duty to interfere when your children violate this law. bring them up from infancy to respect it. in the parlor, train them to appreciate its religious importance. show them that god will visit the iniquity of their departure from it, unto the third and fourth generation. you are stimulated to do so by the divine promise that when they grow old, they will not depart from it. such unequal matches are not made in heaven. "god's hand is over such matches, not in them." "what fellowship hath light with darkness?" if love, in christian marriages, is holy and includes the religious element, then it is evident that the christian alliance with, one between whom and himself there is no religious affinity whatever, is not only an outrage against the marriage institution, but also exposes his home to the curse of god, making it a babel of confusion and of moral antipathies. both the old and the new testaments give explicit testimony to the law of spiritual harmony in marriage. thus the law of moses forbid the children of israel to intermarry among heathen nations. "neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son."--deut. vii., . abraham obeyed this law in the part he took in the marriage of his son isaac, as recorded in the twenty-fourth, chapter of genesis. his obedience was reproduced in isaac and rebecca, who manifested the same desire, and took the same care that jacob should take a wife from among the covenant people of god. see twenty-eighth chapter of genesis. the evil consequences of the violation of this law may be seen in the history of solomon,--i. kings, chap. ; also in the case mentioned in the th chap.; and in nehemiah, chap. . paul upholds this law when he exhorts the corinthians to marry "only in the lord." reason itself advocates this law. the true christian labors for heaven and walks in the path of the just; the unbelieving labor for earth, mind only the things of this world, and walk in the broad road to ruin. can these now walk together, live in harmony, when so widely different in spirit, in their aims and pursuits? "what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of god with idols? for ye are the temple of the living god; as god hath said, i will dwell in them; and i will be their god, and they shall be my people. wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and i will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters." the primitive christians developed this law in their families. they forbade marriage with jews, pagans, mohammedans, and ungodly persons. with them, piety was the first desideratum in marriage. the sense of the christian church has ever been against religious inequality in marriage. it has always been felt to be detrimental to personal piety and to the general interests of christianity. it limits and neutralizes the influence of the church, brings overwhelming temptations to lukewarmness in family religion, and is, in a word, in almost every instance, the fruitful cause of spiritual declension wherever it is practiced. let me, then, exhort you to marry only in the lord. such an union will be blessed. daughter of zion! marry such a man as will, like david, return to bless his household. son of the christian home! marry no woman who has not in her heart the casket of piety. make this your standard; and your home shall be a happy, as well as a holy home, and "in the blissful vision, each shall share as much of glory as his soul can bear!" chapter xxiv. the children's patrimony. "give me enough, saith wisdom; for he feareth to ask for more; and that by the sweat of my brow, addeth stout-hearted independence; give me enough, and not less; for want is leagued with the tempter; poverty shall make a man desperate, and hurry him ruthless into crime; give me enough, and not more, saving for the children of distress; wealth oftentimes killeth, where want but hindereth the budding." the children's patrimony is a vital subject. it involves the great question, what should christian parents leave to their children as a true inheritance from the christian home? we shall return but a very brief and general answer. the idea of the home-inheritance is generally confined to the amount of wealth which descends from the parent to the child. and this is indeed too often the only inheritance of which children can boast. many parents, who even claim to be christians, enslave both themselves and their families, to secure for their offspring a large pecuniary patrimony. they prostitute every thing else to this. and hence it often happens that the greatest money-inheritance becomes the children's greatest curse, running them into all the wild and immoral excesses of prodigality; and ending in abject poverty, licentiousness, and disgrace; or perhaps making them like their deluded parents, penurious, covetous, and contracted in all their views and sentiments. we think, therefore, that the children's patrimony should be more than gold and silver. this may pamper the body, but will afford no food for the mind and spirit. we do not mean by these remarks, that their patrimony should not include wealth. on the other hand, we believe that parents should make pecuniary provision for them, that they may not begin life totally destitute. but we mean, that when this is the only patrimony they receive, it often proves a curse, because it tends to destroy their sympathy with higher interests, exposes them to the uncertainties of wealth, and makes them dependent upon that alone. if it should elude their grasp, all is gone, and they become poor and helpless indeed. what, therefore, besides wealth, should be the children's patrimony from the christian home? we briefly answer. . a good character. this is more valuable than wealth; for a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. this character should be physical, intellectual, and moral. give your children the boon of good health by a proper training to exercise and industry. transmit to them the patrimony of good physical habits by educating their bodies, and developing their material existence according to the principles of natural law. develop their intellectual faculties, and enrich them with, the treasures of knowledge. give character to their minds as well as to their bodies; and they will be blessed with an intellectual dowry which cannot be taken from them, and which will bring them an adequate recompense. give to your children the patrimony of good and just principles. train the heart to good morals; fill it with the treasures of virtue, of truth, of justice and of honor. give it moral stamina. educate the moral sense of your children. direct the unfolding powers of their conscience; in a word, develop their moral faculties, and supply them with appropriate nutriment; mould their will; cultivate their emotions; rule their desires and passions; and thus unfold their moral nature according to the rules of god's revealed law. such a character, involving a true and vigorous evolution of body, mind and spirit, is an effectual safeguard against the evils of prodigality, the disgrace of penuriousness, and the woes of vice and crime. their property may burn down, and they may he robbed of their gold; but neither the flame nor the robber can deprive them of their character; their intellectual and moral worth, is beyond the power of man to destroy; no enemy can rob them of those virtues which a well-developed mind and heart afford; they will be to them a standing capital to enrich them in all that is essential to human happiness. . a good occupation is another patrimony which should descend to the children of a christian home. bring up your children to some useful employment by which they may be able to make a comfortable living; and you thereby give them hundreds, and, perhaps, thousands of dollars per year; you give them a boon which cannot he taken from them. many parents, hoping to secure for their children a large pecuniary patrimony, will not permit them to learn either a trade or a profession; but let them grow up in indolence and ignorance, unable as well as unwilling, to be useful either to themselves or to others, living for no purpose, and unfit even to take care of what they leave. and when their wealth descends to them, they soon spend it all in a life of dissipation; so that in a few years they find themselves poor, and friendless, and ignorant of all means of a livelihood, without character, without home, without hope, a nuisance to society, a disgrace to their parents, a curse to themselves! but as we have already dwelt upon this subject in the chapter on the choice of pursuits, we shall not enlarge upon it here. . true religion is another inheritance which should descend to the children of the christian home. this is an undefiled and imperishable treasure, which does not become worthless at the grave, but which will continue to increase in preciousness as long as the ages of eternity shall roll on. if through the parent's pious agency, the child comes into possession of this invaluable blessing, there is given to him more than earthly treasure, more than pecuniary competency, more than a good name, or a fair reputation, or a high social position in this life; he receives a title to and personal meetness for, the undefiled and imperishable inheritance of heaven, composed of glittering crowns of glory, of unspeakable joys, and sweet communion with all the loved and cherished there. thus the fruits of a parent's labor for the salvation of his children constitute an infinitely more valuable patrimony than all the accumulated fruits of his industry in behalf of wealth. all the wealth, and rank, and reputation which may descend from parent to child, can not supersede the necessity of a spiritual patrimony. it is only, as we have seen in a former chapter, when you minister to the spiritual wants of your children and tinge all their thoughts and feelings with a sense of eternity; when your home is made a spiritual nursery; and you work for their eternal benefit, and thereby secure for them the fulfillment of those blessed promises which god has given concerning the children of believing parents, that you leave them a patrimony worthy the christian home. such a spiritual patrimony it is within the power of all christian parents to bestow. and without its enjoyment by your children, you fail to minister unto them as a faithful steward of god. you may minister to their bodies and minds; you may amass for them a fortune; you may give them an education; you may establish them in the most lucrative business; you may fit them for an honorable and responsible position; you may leave them the heritage of social and political influence; and you may caress them with all the passionate fondness of the parental heart and hand; yet, without the heritage of true piety,--of the true piety of the parent reproduced, in the heart and character of the child, all will be worse than vain, yea, a curse to both the parent and the children. having thus briefly pointed out some of the essential features of the children's patrimony, as physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, we shall now advert to the principles upon which parents should proceed in the distribution of their property to their children. they should not give them more than a competency. that they should lay by something for them is conceded by all. this is both a right and a duty. it is included in the obligation to provide for them; and he who does it not "hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." natural affection, as well as supernatural faith, stimulates the parent to provide thus for his offspring. but this does not demand a great fortune; but a simple competency, that is, just enough to meet their immediate wants and emergencies when they enter the world and begin business-life. this competence should correspond with the social position they occupied under the parental roof. it should not go beyond this; it should be just enough to meet the social and financial exigencies of the child. it should be measured also by the peculiar necessities of the child, by his health, abilities and circumstances. "a parent is justified," says paley in his moral and political philosophy, "in making a difference between his children according as they stand in greater or less need of the assistance of his fortune, in consequence of the difference of their age or sex, or of the situations in which they are placed, or the various success which they have met with." now the law of competence does not demand, yea, it forbids, more than a sufficiency to meet these peculiar exigencies of the child. those parents who seek for more, become parsimonious, unfaithful to the moral interests of their household, and indifferent to all legitimate objects of charity and benevolence. these are indeed but the necessary fruits of unfaithfulness to this law; for the course of god's providence indicates the impossibility of our faithfulness to the duty of christian beneficence, and at the same time lay up for our children more than a sufficiency. we find indeed, that in almost every instance in which parents have transcended the limits of competence, and thus raised their children above the necessity of doing anything themselves for a subsistence, god has cursed the act, and the canker of his displeasure has consumed this ill-saved property. that curse we see often in the prodigality and dissipation of the children. they walk in the slippery paths of sin, kneel at the altar of mammon, fare sumptuously every day, as prodigal in spending their fortune as their parents were penurious in amassing it, until at last they come to want, rush into crime, and end their unhappy life in the state's prison, or upon the gibbet. we see, therefore, that when parents give their children more than what they actually need, they place in their possession the instruments with which, they ruin themselves. history shows that the most wealthy men started out in the world with barely enough, and some, with, nothing; and that generally those who started with an independent fortune ended with less than they started, and many closed their earthly career in abject poverty and misery. besides, the man who made his fortune knows how to keep and expend it; and in point of happiness derived from property, "there is no comparison between a fortune which, a man acquires by well applied industry, or by a series of success in his business, and one found in his possession or received from another." let, therefore, the property you leave your children be just enough to meet the exigencies of their situations, and no more; for "wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness; enough is less than thy thought, o pampered creature of society, and he that hath more than enough, is a thief of the rights of his brother!" parents should be impartial in the distribution of their patrimony among their children. they should never give one more than another unless for very plausible and christian reasons, such as bad health, peculiar circumstances, of want, &c. they should have no pets, no favorites among them; and care more for one than for another, or indulge one more than another. neither should they withhold a dowry, from a child as a punishment, unless his crime and character are of such an execrable nature as to warrant the assurance that its bestowment would but enhance his misery. then indeed, it would be a blessing to withhold it. "a child's vices may be of that sort," says paley in his philosophy, "and his vicious habits so incorrigible, as to afford much the same reason for believing that he will waste or misemploy the fortune put into his power, as if he were mad or idiotish, in which, case a parent may treat him as a madman, or an idiot; that is, may deem it sufficient to provide for his support by an annuity equal to his wants and innocent enjoyments, and which he may be restrained from alienating. this seems to be the only case in which a disinherison, nearly absolute, is justifiable." neither should parents be capricious in the distribution of their property among their children. they have no right to withhold a dowry from children because they have married against their will, no more than they have a right, for this reason, to disown, them. this would be distributing their property upon the principle of revenge or reward. no parent has a right to indulge a preference founded on such an unreasonable and criminal feeling as revenge. neither has he a right to distribute his property from considerations of age, sex, merit, or situation. the idea of giving all to the eldest son to perpetuate family wealth, and distinction; or of giving; all to the sons, and withholding from the daughters; or of giving to those children only who were more obsequious in their adherence to their parent's tyrannical requisitions,--is unreasonable, unchristian, and against the generous dictates of natural affection. from this whole subject we may infer the infatuation of those parents who toil as the slave in the galley, to amass a large fortune for their children. to accomplish this object they become drudges all their life. they rise early and retire late, deny themselves even the ordinary comforts of life, expend all the time and strength of their manhood, make slaves of their wives and children, and live retired from all society, in order to lay up a fortune for their offspring. to this end they make all things subordinate and subservient; and, indeed, they so greatly neglect their children as to deprive them of even the capacity of enjoying intellectually or morally the patrimony they thus secure for them. they bring them up in gross ignorance of every thing save work: and money. they teach them close-fisted parsimony, and prepare them to lead a life as servile and infatuated as their own. miserable delusion! "what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" "o cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake the fool throws up his interest in both worlds; first starved in this, then damned in that to come!" chapter xxv. the promises of the christian home. "the promise is unto you, and to your children." acts ii., . "parent who plantedst in the joy of love, yet hast not gather'd fruit,--save rankling thorns, or sodom's bitter apples,--hast thou read heaven's promise to the seeker? thou may'st bring those o'er whose cradle thou didst watch with pride, and lay them at thy savior's feet, for lo! his shadow falling on the wayward soul, may give it holy health. and when thou kneel'st low at the pavement of sweet mercy's gate, beseeching for thine erring ones, unfold the passport of the king,--'ask, and receive! knock,--and it shall be opened!"' the promises of the christian home may be divided into two kinds, viz.: those which god has given to the family; and those which christian parents have made to god. god has not only laid his requisitions upon the christian home, but given his promises. every command is accompanied with a promise. these promises give color to all the hopes of home. when the dark cloud of tribulation overhangs the parent's heart; when the overwhelming storm of misfortune rages around his habitation, uprooting his hopes and demolishing his interests; when the ruthless hand of death tears from his embrace the wife of his bosom and the children of his love;--even in hours of bereavement like these, the promises of god dispel the gloom, and surround his home and his heart with the sunshine of peace and joy. his promises extend to both the parents and their offspring. "unto you, and unto your children," "i will pour my spirit on thy seed, and my blessing on thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses. one shall say, i am the lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the lord, and surname himself by the name of israel." his promises extend to children's children; and whatever they may be for the parent, they are "visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." now these divine promises are of two kinds,--the promise of punishment, and the promise of reward. he promises to punish the unfaithful parent, and to reward the faithful parent. he also promises to visit both the evil and the good of the parents upon their children. such is the constitution of the family, and such are the vital relations which the members sustain to each other, that by the law of natural and moral reproduction, the child is either blessed or cursed in the parent. what the parent does will run out in its legitimate consequences to the child, either as a malediction or as a benediction. we have divine promises to punish the unfaithful members of the christian home. if the parent becomes guilty of iniquity, it will be visited upon the children from generation to generation. there is no consideration which should more effectually restrain parents from unfaithfulness than this. let them become selfish, sensual, indolent, and dissipated, and soon these elements of iniquity will be transmitted to their offspring. what the parent sows, the child will reap. if the former sow to the flesh, the latter shall of the flesh reap corruption. thus, whatsoever the parent sows in the child he shall reap from the child. the promised curse of the parent's wickedness is deposited in the child so far as that wickedness affected the child's character. this is all based upon the great principle that the promises are unto you, and to your children. but while this great principle is ominous of terror to the ungodly, it is a pleasing theme to the pious and faithful. home is a stewardship; and if faithful to its high and holy vocation, it has a good reward for its labor of love. "if ye sow to the spirit ye shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." this promise of reward is "to you and to your children." "many souls shall be given for its hire." their children shall reap the reward of the faithfulness of the parents. of them it shall be said, "this is the seed which the lord hath blessed." faithful parents have thus a glorious recompense of reward. god shall reward thee openly. make your household a true nursery for the soul; and he will give thee thy wages. the blessing of the most high will descend like dew upon you and your children. and when they grow up to manhood, he will make them his agents in rewarding you. they will honor and comfort you in your declining years. they will not depart from the ways of the lord in which you trained them. though they may be in a distant land,--far from you and the cherished home of their childhood, yet they will obey your admonitions, gratefully remember your kindness; and their grateful obedience and remembrance will be your great reward from them. they will rise up and call you blessed. "though we dwell apart, thy loving words are with me evermore,-- thy precious loving words. thy hand, and heart. and earnest soul of love, are here impressed, for me, a dear memorial through all time. mother! i cannot recompense thy love, but thy reward is sure, for thou hast done thy duty perfectly, and we rise up and call thee blessed; and the lord shall give thy pious cares and labors rich reward." and when you descend to the grave and are gathered to your fathers, the assurance of fidelity to your home-trust, the prospect of meeting your children in heaven, and all the brilliant hopes that loom up before you, full of the light and glory of the eternal world, will furnish you a great recompense of reward. parents can rely upon these promises of god with the full assurance of faith; for his promises are yea and amen. let them but lay hold upon the promises, and act upon the conditions of their fulfillment, and then leave the rest to god. abraham and joshua, and david, acted upon this principle in their families. let the members of the christian home do the same, and the blessing of god will rest upon them. god promises to reward parents in this life. we find their fulfillment in the peace, the hopes, the interests, and the pleasures of the faithful household. the members are happy in each other's love, in each other's virtue, in each other's worth, in each other's hopes, in each other's interests, in each other's confidence, in each other's piety, in each other's fidelity, in each other's happiness. thus god shall reward thee openly. he has never said to the seed of jacob seek ye me in vain. "verily there is a reward for the righteous." "this is the seed which the lord hath blessed." the promised reward of faithful parents may be seen in their children. they are in the true christian home a precious heritage from the lord. thus a parent's faithfulness was rewarded in the piety of baxter, and doddridge, and watts. what a rich reward did elkanah and hannah receive by their training up samuel! and were not lois and eunice rewarded for their faithfulness to young timothy? what a glorious reward the mother of john q. adams received from god, in that great and good man! god blessed her fidelity, by making him worthy of such a mother. he himself was conscious that he was his mother's reward, as may be seen from the following anecdote of him. governor briggs of massachusetts, after reading with great interest the letters of john q. adam's mother, one day went over to his seat in congress, and said to him: "mr. adams, i have found out who made you!" "what do you mean?" said he. "i have been reading the letters of your mother," was the reply. with a flashing eye and glowing face, he started, and in his peculiar manner, said: "yes, briggs, all that is good in me, i owe to my mother!" but god promises to reward faithful parents in the life to come. their great reward is in heaven. the departure of every pious member of their home but increases the heavenly reward. the little child that dies in its mother's arms, and is borne up to the god who gave it, but increases by its sainted presence there, her joyful anticipations of the eternal reward. "and when, by father's lonely bed, you place me in the ground, and his green turf, with daisies spread, has also wrapt me round; rejoice to think, to you 'tis given, to have a ransomed child in heaven!" and oh, how glorious will be this reward when all the members shall meet again in heaven, recognize each other there, and unite their harps and voices in ascriptions of praise to god. there in that better home, where no separations take place, no trials are endured, no sorrows felt, no tears shed, they shall enjoy the complete fulfillment of divine promises. heaven, with its unfading treasures, with its golden streets, with its crowns of glory, with its unspeakable joys, with its river of life, and with its anthems of praise, will be their great recompense of the reward. how the anticipation of this should stimulate christian parents to increased fidelity; oh, what a happy meeting will that be, when husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, after many long years of separation, shall great each other in that glorious world, and feel that parting grief shall weep no more! "oh! when a mother meets on high, the child she lost in infancy; hath she not then for pains and fears, the day of woe, the watchful night, for all her sorrows, all her tears, an over-payment of delight?" with these gracious promises of reward sounding in their ears, christian parents should never despair; neither should they doubt for a moment the fidelity of god to all his promises. it is true that his promises are conditional, and their fulfillment depends upon the parent's performance of his part as the condition, yet to every duty he has attached a promise; and wherever he has made a promise for us, he has given us the ability to use the means of securing its fulfillment; and as soon as their conditions are thus met, they become absolute. "train up a child in the way he should go." here is the duty. "and when he grows old he will not depart from it." here is the promise. the condition is, that you discharge the duty. if you do so, the promise becomes absolute, and shall with certainty be divinely fulfilled in your child, though the time and manner of this fulfillment may not meet your expectations. but some may object to this position, and remind us that pious parents are known to have ungodly children who died in their sins. they may refer us to the case of absalom, and to the sons of eli. in reply we would state that this is begging the question. it is here taken for granted that these pious parents did fulfill the conditions attached to the above promises. this is a mere assumption; for absalom was not properly trained; and both he and the sons of levi, were ruined by the misguided fondness and extreme indulgence of their parents. and thus also does the foolish partiality of many pious parents prevent their fidelity to their children. we must not think that all pious parents are faithful to their duty to their children. the above objection, however, assumes this ground; and, therefore, it is not valid. it is often said that the children of ministers and pious parents are usually more wicked than other children. this is false. the opposite is true. we admit, some have bad children; but it is the fault of the parents; not because god does not fulfill his covenant promises to his people. his people, in these instances, do not meet the conditions upon which his promises are made absolute. we must not suppose that because a divine promise exists detached from expressed conditions, it will be fulfilled without the use of means. there is a manifest compatibility between the absolute promises of god and the use of the means in our power for their fulfillment. the promise to paul in the ship in which he was conveyed to rome, that none of the passengers should perish, was not incompatible with paul's declaration, "except these persons abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." neither were the efforts of the mother of moses to save him, incompatible with the absolute promise of god that "this babe shall be saved, and be the deliverer of israel." what she did to preserve his life was accompanied with an active, confiding faith in the divine promise concerning him. and thus should faith in god's promises stimulate christian parents to zealous activity in the use of all those means which secure their fulfillment. the christian home should ever keep in lively remembrance the solemn promises made by her to god. in marriage, in holy baptism, she has made vows unto god, and he says to her, pay thy vows. "when thou shalt vow a vow unto the lord thy god, thou shalt not slack to pay it; for the lord thy god will surely require it of thee." these parental promises made to god regard themselves and their children; and their faithful fulfillment brings them within the glorious promise which god gave to abraham; for, says paul, "if ye be christ's, then are ye abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise:" gal. iii., . christian parents: the promises of god shine forth as brilliantly now as over they did upon the pages of sacred history. they are as bright for you as they were for abraham and joshua, when they trembled in sublime eloquence upon the lips of god. let them, therefore, be not in vain. the promises are unto you, and to your children. and you in turn have promised god that you would bless your household, and be faithful to your children. hold, fast to these promises without wavering. hang all your hopes upon them. cling to them with the wrestling spirit of jacob. and remember that you cannot shake off your vows and promises made to god. he will sorely require it of thee. therefore pay thy vows unto the lord. god will reward you for so doing. "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the lord that hath mercy on thee:" isaiah liv., . [illustration: rural landscape.] chapter xxvi. the bereavements of the christian home.[a] [footnote a: in this chapter we have made free use of poetical quotations for the benefit of the afflicted.] "on, long ago those blessed days departed, we are reft, and scattered like the leaves of some fair rose, that fall off one by one upon the breeze, which bears them where it listeth. never more can they be gathered and become a rose. and we can be united never more a family on earth!" bereavement involves the providential discipline of home. in almost every household there have been sorrows and tears as well as joys and hopes. as the christian home is the depository of the highest interests and the purest pleasures, so it is the scene of sad bereavements and of the darkest trials. it may become as desolate as the home of job. the christian may, like the aged tree, be stripped of his clusters, his branches, all his summer glory, and sink down into a lonely and dreary existence. his home, which once rang with glad voices, may become silent and sad and hopeless. those hearts which once beat with life and love, may become still and cold; and all the earthly interests which clustered around his fireside may pass away like the dream of an hour! the members of home must separate. theirs is but a probationary state. their household is but a tent,--a tabernacle in the flesh, and all that it contains will pass away. the fondest ties will be broken; the brightest hopes will fade; all its joys are transient; its interests meteoric, and the fireside of cheerfulness will ere long become the scene of despondency. every swing of the pendulum of the clock tells that the time of its probation is becoming shorter and shorter, and that its members are approaching nearer and nearer the period of their separation. "there is no union here of hearts, that finds not here an end." alas! how soon this takes place! the joy of home would be perfect did not the thought of a speedy separation intrude. no sooner than the voice of childhood is changed, than separation begins to take place. some separate for another world; some are borne by the winds and waves to distant lands; others enter the deep forests of the west, and are heard of no more;-- "alas! the brother knows not now where fall the sister's tears! one haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone; for broken is the household chain,--the bright fire quenched and gone!" what melancholy feelings are awakened within at the sight of a deserted home, in which loved ones once met and lived and loved; but from which they have now wandered, each in the path pointed out by the guiding hand of providence. how beautifully does mrs. hemans portray this separation in the following admirable lines!-- "they grew in beauty side by side, they filled one home with glee; their graves are severed, far and wide, by mount, and stream, and sea. "the same fond mother bent at night o'er each fair sleeping brow; she had each folded flower in sight-- where are those dreamers now? "one midst the forests of the west by a dark stream is laid; the indian knows his place of rest far in the cedar shade. "the sea, the blue lone sea, hath one, he lies where pearls lie deep; he was the loved of all, yet none o'er his low bed may weep. "one sleeps where southern vines are dress'd, above the noble slain; he wrapped his colors round his breast, on a blood-red field of spain. "and one--o'er her the myrtle showers, its leaves by soft winds fanned; she faded midst italian flowers-- the last of that fair band. "and parted thus, they rest, who played beneath the same green tree; whose voices mingled as they prayed around one parent knee!" it is thus in almost every household. the members may be divided into two classes,--the present and the absent ones. who may not say of his family-- "we are not all here! some are away--the dead ones dear, who thronged with us this ancient hearth, and gave the hour of guiltless mirth. fate, with a stern, relentless hand, looked in and thinned our little band. some like a night-flash passed away, and some sank lingering day by day, the quiet graveyard--some lie there,-- we're not all here!" the bereavements of home are diversified. the reverses of fortune constitute an important class of family afflictions, causing the habits, customs, social privileges and advantages of home to be broken up and changed. many a family, which, in former days, enjoyed all the pleasures and privileges of wealth and social distinction, have now to struggle with cruel poverty, and receive from the world, scorn and ridicule and dishonor. but the greatest bereavement of home is, generally, death. they only, who have lived in the house of mourning, know what the sad bereavements are which death produces, and what deep and dark vacancies this last enemy leaves in the stricken heart of home. "the lips that used to bless you there, are silent with the dead." to-day we may visit the family. what a lovely scene it presents! the members are happy in each other's love, and each one resting his hopes upon all the rest. no cares perplex them; no sorrows corrode them; no trials distress them; no darkness overshadows them! what tender bonds unite them; what hopes cluster around each heart; what a depth of reciprocated affection we find in each bosom; and by what tender sympathy they are drawn to each other! but alas! in an hour of supposed security, that loving group is broken up by the intrusion of death, and some one or more carried from the bosom of love to the cold and cheerless grave. the curfew-bell speaks the solemn truth, and warns the members that "in the midst of life they are in death." where is the home that has not some memorial of departed ones,--a chair empty, a vacant seat at the table,--garments laid by,--ashes of the dead treasured up in the urn of memory! what sudden ravages does this ruthless foe of life, often make in the family! the members are often taken away, one by one in quick succession, until all of them are laid, side by side beneath the green sod. what a memorable epoch in the history of home is that, in which death finds his first entrance within its sacred enclosures, and with ruthless hand breaks the first link of a golden chain that creates its identity! we can never forget that event. it may he the first-born in the radiant beauty of youth, or the babe in the first bursting of life's budding loveliness, or a father in the midst of his anxious cares, or the mother who gave light and happiness to all around her. whoever it is, the first death makes a breach there which no subsequent bereavement can equal; new feelings are then awakened; a new order of associations is then commenced; hopes and fears are then aroused that never subside; and the mysterious web of family life receives the hue of a new and darker thread. what a sad bereavement is the death of the husband and father! children! there is the grave of your father! you have recently heard the clods of the valley groan upon his coffin. the parent stem from which, you grew and to which, you fondly clung, has been shattered by the lightning-stroke of death, and its terrible shock is now felt in every fiber of the wrenched and torn branches. yours is now a widowed and an orphaned home. the disconsolate members are left helpless and hopeless in the world; the widowed mother sits by the dying embers of her lonely cottage, overwhelmed with grief, and poor in everything but her children and her god. these orphans are turned out upon the cold charities of an unfriendly world, neglected and forlorn, having no one to care for them but a poor, broken-hearted mother, whose deathless faith points them to the bright spirit-world to which their sainted father has gone, where parting grief shall weep no more. but a greater bereavement even than this, is, the death of a wife and mother. ah! here is a bereavement which the child alone can fully feel. when the mother is laid upon the cold bier, and sleeps among the dead, the center of home-love and attraction is gone. what children are more desolate and more to be pitied than the motherless ones? she, who fed them from her gentle breast and sung sweet lullaby to soothe them into sleep,--she, who taught them to kneel in prayer at her side, and ministered to all their little wants, and sympathized with them in all their little troubles,--she has now been torn from them, leaving them a smitten flock indeed, and the light of her smile will never again be round their beds and paths. as the shades of night close in upon that smitten home, and the chime of the bell tells the hour in which the mother used to gather them around her for prayer, and sing them to their rosy rest, with what a stricken heart does the bereaved husband seek to perform this office of love in her stead; and as he gathers them for the first time around him, how fully does he feel that none can take a mother's place! "my sheltering arms can clasp you all, my poor deserted throng; cling as you used to cling to her who sings the angel's song. begin, sweet ones, the accustomed strain, come, warble loud and clear; alas, alas! you're weeping all, you're sobbing in my ear; good night; go, say the prayer she taught, beside your little bed. the lips that used to bless you there, are silent with the dead. a father's hand your course may guide amid the storms of life, his care protect those shrinking plants that dread the storm of strife; but who, upon your infant hearts, shall like that mother write? who touch the strings that rule the soul? dear smitten flock, good night!" who can forget a mother, or lose those impressions which her death made upon our deeply stricken hearts? none,--not even the wretch who has brutalized all the feelings of natural affection. the memory of a mother's death is as fadeless as the deep impress of a mother's love upon our hearts. as often as we resort to her grave we must leave behind the tribute of our tears. who can read the following beautiful lines of cowper, and--if the memory of a sainted mother is awakened by them,--not weep? "my mother! when i learned that thou wast dead, say, wast thou conscious of the tears i shed? hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, wretch even then, life's journey just begun! perhaps thou gay'st me, though unfelt, a kiss; perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss-- ah, that maternal smile! it answers--yes! i heard the bell toll on the burial day, i saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, and, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew a long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! but was it such? it was. where thou art gone. adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. may i but meet thee on that peaceful shore, the parting word shall pass my lips no more!" the death of children is a great bereavement of home. behold that little blossom withered in its mother's arms! see those tears which flood her eyes as she bends in her deep grief over the grave of her cherished babe! go, fond parents, to that little mound, and weep! it is well to do so; it is well for thee in the twilight hour to steal around that hallowed spot, and pay the tribute of memory to your little one, in flooding tears. there beneath those blooming flowers which the hand of affection planted, it sweetly sleeps. it bids adieu to all the scenes and cares of life. it just began to taste the cup of life, and turned from its ingredients of commingled joy and sorrow, to a more peaceful clime. cold now is that little heart which once beat its warm pulses so near to thine; hushed is now that sweet voice that once breathed music to your soul. like the folding up of the rose, it passed away; that beautiful bud which bloomed and cheered your heart, was transplanted ere the storm beat upon it:-- "death found strange beauty on that polished brow, and dashed it out-- there was a tint of rose on cheek and lip. he touched the veins with ice, and the rose faded. forth from those blue eyes there spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence alone may wear. with ruthless haste he bound the silken fringes of those curtained lids forever. there had been a murmuring sound, with which the babe would claim its mother's ear, charming her even to tears. the spoiler set his seal of silence. but there beamed a smile so fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow, death gazed--and left it there. he dared not steal the signet-ring of heaven!" the death of such an infant is indeed a sore affliction, and causes the bleeding heart of the parent to cry out, "whose sorrow is like unto my sorrow!" unfeeling death! that thou shouldst thus blight the fair flowers and nip the unfolding buds of promise in the christian home! "death! thou dread looser of the dearest tie, was there no aged and no sick one nigh? no languid wretch who long'd, but long'd in vain, for thy cold hand to cool his fiery pain? and was the only victim thou couldst find, an infant in its mother's arms reclined?" thus it is that death often turns from the sickly to the healthy, from the decrepitude of age to the strong man in his prime, from the miserable wretch who longs for the grave to the smiling babe upon its mother's breast, and there in those "azure veins which steal like streams along a field of snow," he pours his putrefying breath, and leaves within that mother's arms nothing but loathsomeness and ruin! it was thus, bereaved parents, that he came within your peaceful home, and threw a cruel mockery over all your visions of delight, over all the joys and hopes and interests of your fireside, personifying their wreck in the cold and ghastly corpse of your child. all that is now left to you is, the memorials around you that once the pride of your heart was there;-- "the nursery shows thy pictured wall, thy bat, thy bow, thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball, but where art thou? a corner holds thine empty chair, thy playthings idly scattered there, but speak to us of our despair!" how sad and lonely especially is the mother who is called thus to weep the loss of her departed infant. oh, it is hard for her to give up that loved one whose smile and childish glee were the light and the hope of her heart. as she lays it in the cold, damp earth, and returns to her house of mourning, and there contemplates its empty cradle, and that silent nursery, once gladsome with its mirth, she feels the sinking weight of her desolation. no light, no luxury, no friend, can fill the place of her lost one. and especially if this lost one be the first-born,--the first bud of promise and of hope, how doubly painful is the bereavement. it makes our home as dark and desolate as was the hour when abraham with uplifted knife, was about to send death to the throbbing heart of his beloved isaac. nothing can supply the place of a first-born child; and home can never be what it was when the sweet voice of that first-born child was heard. the first green leaf of that household has faded; and though leaves may put forth, and other buds of promise may unfold, and bright faces may light up the home-hearth, and the sunshine of hope may play around the heart; but-- "they never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst, they may be lovely and beloved, but not like thee--the first!" your heart continues lonely and desolate; its strings are broken; its tenderest fibers wrenched; you continue to steal "beneath, the church-yard tree, where the grass grows green and wild," and there weep over the grave of your first maternal love; and like rachael, refuse to be comforted because he is not. your grief is natural, and only those who have lost their first-born can fully realize it:-- "young mother! what can feeble friendship say, to soothe the anguish of this mournful day? they, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled, know how the living sorrow for the dead; i've felt it all,--alas! too well i know how vain all earthly power to hush thy woe! god cheer thee, childless mother! 'tis not given for man to ward the blow that falls from heaven. i've felt it all--as thou art feeling now; like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow, i've sat and watched by dying beauty's bed, and burning tears of hopeless anguish shed; i've gazed upon the sweet, but pallid face, and vainly tried some comfort there to trace; i've listened to the short and struggling breath; i've seen the cherub eye grow dim in death; like thee, i've veiled my head in speechless gloom, and laid my first-born in the silent tomb!" now in all these bereavements of the christian home we have developed the wisdom and goodness of god; and the consideration of this we commend to the bereaved as a great comfort. they are but the execution of god's merciful design concerning the family. pious parents can, therefore, bless the lord for these afflictions. it is often well for both you and your children that bereavements come. they come often as the ministers of grace. the tendency of home is to confine its supreme affections within itself, and not yield them unto god. parents often bestow upon their children all their love, and live for them alone. then god lays his rod upon them, takes their loved ones to his own arms, to show them the folly of using them as abusing them. if home had no such bereavements, eternity would be lost sight of; god would not be obeyed; souls would be neglected; natural affection would crush the higher incentives and restraints of faith; earthly interests would push from our hearts all spiritual concerns; and our tent-home in this vale of tears would be substituted for our heavenly home. we see, therefore, the benevolent wisdom of god in ordaining bereavements to arrest us from the control of unsanctified natural affection. when we see the flowers of our household withered and strewn around us; when that which we most tenderly loved and clung to, is taken from us in an unexpected hour, we begin to see the futility of living for earthly interests alone; and we turn from the lamented dead to be more faithful to the cherished and dependent living. let us, therefore, remember that in all our afflictions god has some merciful design, the execution of which will contribute to the temporal and eternal welfare of our home. he designs either to correct us if we do wrong, or to prevent us from doing wrong, or to test our christian fidelity, or to instruct us in the deep mysteries and meandering ways of human life, and keep before us the true idea of our homes and lives as a pilgrimage. nothing, save supernatural agencies, so effectually removes the moral film from our intellectual eye as the hand of bereavement. death is a great teacher. sources of pensive reflection and spiritual communion are opened, which none but death could unseal. a proper sense of the spirit-world is developed; life appears in its naked reality; heaven gains new attractions; eternity becomes a holier theme,--a more cheerful object of thought; the true relation of this to the life to come, is realized; and the presence of the world of the unseen enters more deeply into our moral consciousness. though our loved ones are gone, they are still with us in spirit; yea, they are ours still, in the best sense of possession; our relationship with them is not destroyed, but hallowed. though absent, they still live and love; and they come thronging as ministering spirits to our hearts; they hover near us, and commune with us. though death may separate us from them, it does not disunite us. your departed children, though separated from you in body, are still yours, are with you in spirit, and are members of your family. they represent your household in heaven, and are a promise that you will be there also. you are still their parents; you are still one family,--one in spirit, in faith, in hope, in promise, in christ. you still dwell together in the fond memories of home, and in the bright anticipation of a coming reunion in heaven. oh, with this view of death and with this hope of joining love's buried ones again, you can gather those that yet remain, and talk to them of those you put, cold and speechless, in their bed of clay; and while their bodies lie exposed to the winter's storm or to the summer's heat, you can point the living to that cheering promise which spans, as with an areole of glory, the graves of buried love; you can tell them they shall meet their departed kindred in a better home. oh, clasp this promise to your aching heart; treasure it up as a pearl of great price. your departed children are not lost to you; and their death to them is great gain. they are not lost, but only sent before. "the lord, has taken them away." with these views of death before you, and with the moral instructions they afford, you cannot but feel that your children, though absent from you in body, are with you in spirit,--are still living with you in your household, and are among that spirit-throng which ever press around you, to bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. such were the feelings of the christian father, as expressed in the following touching lines:-- "i cannot make him dead! when passing by his bed, so long watched over with parental care, my spirit and my eye seek it inquiringly, before the thought comes that--he is not there! "when at the day's calm close before we seek repose, i'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, whate'er i may be saying, i am, in spirit, praying for our boy's spirit, though--he is not there! "not there? where, then, is he? the form i used to see was but the raiment that he used to wear. the grave, that now doth press upon that cast-off dress, is but his wardrobe locked;--he is not there! "he lives! in all the past he lives; nor, to the last, of seeing him again will i despair; in dreams i see him now, and on his angel brow, i see it written, 'thou shalt see me there!' "yes, we all live to god! father, thy chastening rod so help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, that in the spirit-land, meeting at thy right hand, 'twill he our heaven to find that--he is there!" from this view of the educational principle involved in all our bereavements, we may easily infer that god designs to benefit us by them. there is an actual usefulness in all the bereavements of the christian home. they are but the discipline of a father's hand and the ministration of a father's love. though his face may wear a dark frown, or be hid behind the tempest-cloud, and his rod may be laid heavily upon you, yet you are not warranted to believe that no sweet is in the bitter cup you drink, that no light shines behind the cloud, or that no good dwells in the bursting storm around you. the present may indeed he dark; but the future will be bright and laden with a father's blessing. the smile will succeed the frown; the balm will follow the rod. the good seed will be sown after the deep furrows are made. "no chastening for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous, yet it worketh out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory to them that are exercised thereby." the memory that lingers around the grave of our loved ones, is sad and tearful. the stricken heart heaves with emotions too big for utterance, when we hear no more the sound of their accustomed footsteps upon the threshold of our door. oh, the cup of bereavement is then bitter, its hour dark, and the pall of desolation hangs heavily around our hearts and homes. but this is only the dark side of bereavement. the eye which then weeps may fail at the time to behold through its tears, the quickening, softening, subduing and resuscitating power which dwells in the clouds of darkness and of storm; and the heart, wounded and bleeding, too often fails to realize the light and glory which loom up from the grave. but when we look upon the cold, pale face of the dead, in the light of a hopeful resurrection; when their silent forms move in the light of those saving influences which have been exerted upon us, we learn the necessity of bereavement; the mournful cypress will become more beautiful than the palm tree, and in view of its saving power over us, we can say, "it is good for us that we have been afflicted!" "the path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. no traveler e'er reached that blest abode, who found not thorns and briers in his road. for he who knew what human hearts would prove, how slow to learn the dictates of his love; that, hard by nature and of stubborn will, a life of ease would make them, harder still; called for a cloud to darken all their years, and said, 'go, spend them in the vale of tears!'" who will not admit that it is an act of real kindness for god to remove little children from this world, and at once take them as his own in heaven? this is surely an act of his mercy, and for their benefit. it arrests them from the perils and tribulations of mature life; it makes their pilgrimage through this vale of tears, of short duration; they escape thereby the bitter cup of actual sin, and the mental and moral agonies of death. it is well with them. how true are the following beautiful verses on the death of children, from the pen of john. q. adams:-- "sure, to the mansions of the blest when infant innocence ascends, some angel brighter than the rest the spotless spirit's flight attends. on wings of ecstasy they rise, beyond where worlds material roll, till some fair sister of the skies, receives the unpolluted soul. there at the almighty father's hand, nearest the throne of living light, the choirs of infant seraphs stand, and dazzling shine, where all are bright!" christ became a little child, that little children might receive the crown of their age and be eternally saved. he took them in his arms, blessed them, and said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." and we are told that "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings he has ordained strength." the sweetest hosannas before his throne, doubtless proceed from cherub-lips, and they glow nearest to the bright vision of the face of unveiled glory. "calm on the bosom of thy god, young spirits! rest thee now! even while with us thy footsteps trod, his seal was on thy brow." they stand before the throne in white robes, with palms in their hands, and crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, "salvation to our god, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the lamb!" tell me, does not this view dilate the parent's heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted child in heaven? weep for those you have with you, who live under the shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and are exposed to the ravages of sin; oh, weep for them!-- "but never be a tear-drop given to those that rest in yon blue heaven." the sainted dead of your home are more blessed than the pilgrim living. weep not, then, that they are gone. their early departure was to them great gain. had they been spared to grow up to manhood, you then might have to take up the lamentation of david, "would to god i had died for thee!" while they, in the culprit's cell, or on the dying couch of the hopeless impenitent, would respond to you in tones of deepening woe,-- "would i had died when young! how many burning tears, and wasted hopes and severed ties, had spared my after years!" would you, then, to gratify a parent's heart, awake that little slumberer from its peaceful repose, and recall its happy spirit from its realms of glory? there the light of heaven irradiates it; its visions are unclouded there; and from those battlements of uncreated glory it comes to thee on errands of love and mercy. would you, now, that this inhabitant of heaven should be degraded to earth again? would you remove him from those rivers of delight to this dry and thirsty land? would not this be cruel? when, therefore, your babe is taken from you, regard it as a kind deed of your heavenly father, and say, "even so it seemeth good in thy sight:" "pour not the voice of woe! shed not a burning tear when spirits from the cold earth go, too bright to linger here! unsullied let them pass into oblivion's tomb-- like snow-flakes melting in the sea when ripe with vestal bloom. then strew fresh flowers above the grave, and let the tall grass o'er it wave." but the death of little children is a great mercy, not only to themselves, but also to the living. those that remain behind are greatly benefited thereby. it exerts a sanctifying, elevating and alluring influence over them. as they pass in their bright pathway to heaven, they leave a blessing behind. god takes them in goodness to us. the interests of the parents are not different from, or opposed to, those of their offspring. the happiness of the latter is that of the former. if, therefore, their death is their blessing, it must be the parent's blessing also. "if love," says baxter, "teaches us to mourn with them that mourn, and rejoice with them that rejoice, then can we mourn for those of our children that are possessed of the highest everlasting happiness?" it is true, their sweet faces, unfurrowed by guilt or shame, we shall never more gaze upon; the sound of their happy lullaby we shall never again hear. they are gone now to the spirit-land. but a parent's care and solicitude are also gone. all alarm for their safety is gone; and you now rejoice in the assurance that they have gone to a higher and happier home; and can joyfully exclaim now with leigh richmond, "my child is a saint in glory!" his infant powers, so speedily paralyzed by the ruthless hand of death, are now expanding themselves amidst the untold glories of the heavenly world, and are enlisted now in ministering to his pilgrim kindred on earth. it is true, your children were a source of great joy to you here. insensibly did they entwine themselves around your heart, and with all the wild ecstasy of maternal love, you embraced them, as they attached themselves, like the slender vine, to you. they were indeed, the life and light of your home, and the deepest joy of your heart. but if they had lived, might they not also have been a source of the deepest sorrow and misery? might they not have drawn your souls from god and heaven, causing you to live alone for them, and bringing eventually your gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave? but you have watched at their dying couch, and seen them die; and in that death you have also seen the departure of all such fears and dangers. they are now transplanted to a more congenial clime, where they will bloom forever in unfading loveliness, and from which they will come on errands of ministering love to your household:-- "they come, on the wings of the morning they come, impatient to lead some poor wanderer home; some pilgrim to snatch from his stormy abode, and lay him to rest in the arms of his god!" one of the greatest blessings which the death of our pious kindred confers upon their bereaved friends is, that they hold a saving communion with them, and are ministering spirits sent to minister salvation and consolation unto them. "the saints on earth, and all the dead, but one communion make." they constitute our guardian angels; they witness our christian race; they commune with our spirits; they link us to the spirit-world; they impress us with its deep mysteries; they stimulate our religious life, and bear us up lest we dash our feet against the pebble which lies in our pathway to the mansions of the blest. the mother who bends in the deep anguish of her soul, over the little grave in which her infant slumbers, has in heaven a cherub spirit to minister to her. and oh, could the veil which wraps the spirit-world from our view, be now removed, and we permitted to catch a glimpse of the heavenly scene there displayed, we should doubtless behold on the threshold of that better home, an innumerable host witnessing with, intensity of interest, the scenes of human life; and no doubt to you, bereaved friend, the most conspicuous among that celestial throng, would be the sainted form of that dear one whose grave you often adorn with the warm tribute of memory's gushing tears. and oh, could you understand the relation in which that sainted one stands to you, you would doubtless be conscious that over and about you it hovers from day to day as your guardian spirit, watching all the details of your life, soothing the anguish of your troubled heart, and ministering unto you in holy things! "the spirits of the loved and departed are with us; and they tell us of the sky, a rest for the bereaved and broken-hearted, a house not made with hands, a home on high! they have gone from us, and the grave is strong! yet in night's silent watches they are near; their voices linger round us, as the song of the sweet skylark lingers on the ear." the whole dispensation of grace is like the ladder set up on earth, whose top reached heaven, and upon which jacob saw the angels ascending; and descending. as the christian pilgrim in his spiritual progression mounts each round of this ladder, he finds himself in the midst of a spirit-throng ascending and descending on errands of love and mercy to him; yea, the canopy of the sky seems lined with so great a cloud, of witnesses and ministering spirits; and among them we behold our sainted friends bidding us climb on to their lofty abodes; they beckon us to themselves; their voices animate us, as they steal down upon our spirits in solemn and beautiful cadence. "hark! heard ye not a sound sweeter than wild-bird's note, or minstrel's lay! i know that music well, for night and day i hear it echoing round. "it is the tuneful chime of spirit-voices!--'tis my infant band calling the mourner from this darkened land to joy's unclouded clime. "my beautiful, my blest! i see them there, by the great spirit's throne; with winning words, and fond beseeching tone, they woo me to my rest!" weeping mother! that little babe, whose spirit has been borne by angels to heaven, where it now glows in visions of loveliness around god's throne, comes often as a ministering spirit to thee, whispers peace and hope to thy disconsolate heart, and with its tiny hands bears thee up in thy dark and troubled path! and my dear bereaved young friend! that mother, who nursed you on her knee, who taught your infant lips to lisp the name of jesus, and amid whose prayers you have grown up to maturity,--that sainted mother over whose grave you have often wept in bitter anguish, hovers over you now with all the passionate fondness of a mother's love, guides and impresses you, attends you in all your walks, takes charge of you in all your steps; soothes you in your sorrows; and when burning with fever on the sick bed, fans you with angel wing and breath, and warms your chilled nerves with an angel's heart! now when we regard the departed of our homes in this light, shall we not admit that the death of those who go to heaven is a blessing, not only to them, but to those they leave behind! and especially when we remember that they return to us in spirit to minister to our wants even unto the smallest details of life, that they are our guardian angels, are with, us wherever we go, to warn and deliver us from temptation and clanger, to urge us in the path of duty, to smooth our pillow when thrown upon beds of languishing, and then, when the vital spark has fled, to convey us to the paradise of god,--oh, when we remember this, we say, shall we not rather bless god that he has afflicted us? though our hearts may be lonely, yet with this view of the departed ones of our home, we can feel that we are, nevertheless, not alone. "i am not quite alone. around me glide unnumbered beings of the unseen world;-- and one dear spirit hovering by my side, hath o'er my form its snow-white wings unfurled, it is a token that when death is nigh, it then will wait to hear my soul on high!" what afflicted heart will not respond with deep and grateful emotion, to the following beautiful address of a bereaved pilgrim to his sainted loved ones in heaven:-- "gone!--have ye all then gone,-- the good, the beautiful, the kind, the dear? passed to your glorious rest so swiftly on, and left me weeping here? "i gaze on your bright track; i hear your lessening voices as they go; have ye no sign, no solace to fling back to those who toil below? "oh! from that land of love, look ye not sometimes on this world of wo? think ye not, dear ones, in brighter bowers above, of those you left below? "surely ye note us here, though not as we appear to mortal view, and can we still, with all our stains, be dear to spirits pure as you? "is it a fair, fond thought, that you may still our friends and guardians be; and heaven's high ministry by you be wrought with objects low as we? "may we not secretly hope, that you around our path and bed may dwell? and shall not all, our blessings brighter drop from hands we loved so well? "shall we not feel you near in hours of danger, solitude, and pain, cheering the darkness, drying off the tear and turning loss to gain? "shall not your gentle voice break on temptation's dark and sullen mood, subdue our erring will, o'errule our choice, and win from ill to good? "oh, yes! to us, to us, a portion of your converse still be given! struggling affection still would hold us thus, nor yield you all to heaven! "lead our faint steps to god; be with us while the desert here we roam; teach us to tread the path which you have trod, to find with you our home!" what a comfort does this view of the pious dead afford the pious living. we commend it now to you. what consolation to the bereaved parents is the assurance that all infants are saved! this gives them "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." your infant has gone to heaven; for "of such is the kingdom of heaven." zuinlius was perhaps the first who proclaimed salvation for all who died in infancy. he based this doctrine, so comforting to the afflicted parent, upon the atonement of christ for all; and he believed that christ made provision for infants in this general atonement or redemption of human nature. this is the general belief now. calvin declared that "god adopts infants and washes them in the blood of his son," and that "they are regarded by christ as among his flock." dr. junkin says, "it is not inconsistent with any doctrine of the bible, that the souls of deceased infants go to heaven." newton says, "i hope you are both well reconciled to the death of your child. indeed, i cannot be sorry for the death of infants. how many storms do they escape! nor can i doubt, in my private judgment, that they are included in the election of grace." this is the opinion, too, of all evangelical branches of the christian church. if so, you have here a source of great consolation. "though it he hard to bid thy heart divide, and lay the gem of all thy love aside-- faith tells thee, and it tells thee not in vain, that thou shalt meet thy infant yet again." what, oh, what, if you had not the assurance of the salvation of all infants? what if your faith would tell you that all children who die before they can exercise faith would he lost or annihilated! then indeed you might well refuse to be comforted because they are not. but your child is not lost,--but only removed to a better home:-- "a treasure but removed, a bright bird parted for a clearer day-- yours still in heaven!" and yours to meet there! the hope of a glorious reunion with, departed friends in heaven, lifts the afflicted christian into regions of happiness never before enjoyed. and as he contemplates their better state, and, muses over the trials and sorrows of his pilgrim land, he longs to pass over the stream which divides that happy home from this. he is grateful to god that heaven has thus become doubly attractive by his bereavement, and that he can look forward with fond anticipation, to the time when he shall there become reunited with those who have gone before. "oh! i could weep with very gratitude that thou art saved-- thy soul forever saved. what though my heart should bleed at every pore--still thou art blessed. there is an hour, my precious innocent, when we shall meet again! oh! may we meet to separate no more. yes! i can smile, and sing with gratitude, and weep with joy, even while my heart is breaking!" we infer from the whole subject, that we should not murmur against god when afflicted, however great our bereavements may he. this does not, of course, forbid godly sorrow and tears. it is not inconsistent to weep; neither does sorrow for the dead, as such, imply a murmuring spirit. christ himself invited to tears when he wept over the grave of his friend lazarus. it is meet that we pay our tribute to departed kindred, in falling tears. these are not selfish; neither is the sorrow they express, a sin, nor an evidence of filial distrust, or of reluctant submission to the will of god. the unfeeling stoic may regard it such; but he outrages the generous impulses of humanity. undefiled religion does not aim to cancel natural affection. our piety, if genuine, will not make us guilty of crimes against nature, and prompt us to bend with apathy over the grave of buried, love. the mother of jesus wept her pungent woes beneath the cross; and the marys dropt the tear of sorrowing love and memory at the mouth of his sepulchre. and shall we refuse the tribute of sorrow to the memory of those dear ones who sleep beneath the sod? to do so would, but unchristianize the deep grief which bereavement awakens, and which true piety sanctifies; it would unhumanize the very constitution of home itself. to be christians, must the unnumbered memories of life be all without a tear? when we walk in the family grave-yard, and think of the loved who slumber there; when we open the family bible, and read, there the names of those who have gone before us, say, shall this awaken no slumbering grief, invite no warm, gushing tears, and not bear us back to scenes of tenderness and love? ah, no! the gospel encourages godly sorrow over the dead. we are permitted to sorrow, only not as those who have no hope, as not being cast down, and as not being disquieted within us. such godly sorrow is refreshing, and the tears it sheds are a balm to the wounded spirit. they refine our sentiments, and beget longings after a better country. the memory of bereaved affection is grief. in traversing the past, our thoughts glide along a procession of dear events arrested by the tomb; and we become sad and weep. but this is not inconsistent with a confiding faith in god, nor with a meek: resignation to his afflicting providence. faith was not designed to overpower a visible privation. when death enters our home we should feel pungently, though we have the faith of an angel, and weep before the smile of god. the evidences of faith, and the brilliant idealities of hope will hush the voice of murmur, and incite us to kiss the rod that is laid upon us. it is, therefore, a christian privilege to weep over the death of our departed kindred, yea, who can stifle the anguish of the heart when the tender flowers of home sink into the waxen form of death? when the flickering flame of infant life burns lower and weaker; when the death-glazed eye is closed, and the little bosom heaves no more, and that lovely form becomes cold as the grave, what parental heart can then remain unmoved, and what eye can then forbid a tear? not even the assurance of infant salvation and the hope of reunion in heaven, can prevent sorrow for the dead. "to think his child is blest above, to pray their parting grief, these, these may soothe, but death alone, can heal a father's grief." but this grief should never amount to dissatisfaction with god. though it is right to weep, it is wrong to murmur. many parents murmuringly mourn the loss of their children, and in wrestling with god to spare them, betray the want of a true submission to his will. it is sinful to murmur at the decrees of god. we have seen that they are wise, and all designed for our good. methinks if your dying babe could respond to your murmuring sighs and tears around its crib, it would thus reprove you:-- "nay, mother, fix not thus on me that streaming eye, and clasp not thus my freezing hand; for i must die. to him ye gave the opening bud, the early bloom; then grieve not that the ripened fruit he gathers home." but we should not only refrain from murmuring, but meekly submit to the providential afflictions of our home. we should remember that all the adversities of life are from the lord, and that when death invades our household, and crushes the fond hopes of our hearts, it is for some wise and good purpose. though we may not understand it here, where we look through a glass darkly; but eternity will reveal it. though the dying of a child is like tearing a limb from us; but remember god demands it. surrender it to him, therefore, with christian resignation. he does not demand it without a cause. it may offend thee, though it be a right hand or a right eye. let the branch be cut off. at the resurrection you shall see it again. give it up willingly; for it is the lord's will that you should. have the meek submission, to exclaim, "not my will, but thine be done!" whatever may be your pleas to the contrary, they are all selfish; when, you come to look at your bereavement, with the candid, discerning eye of faith, you cannot murmur; but will bend under the stroke with silent tears and with grateful submission. faith in god, the hope of reunion in heaven, and true christian love for the object taken from us, will effectually quell every uprising of complaint in our hearts:-- "my stricken heart to jesus yields love's deep devotion now, adores and blesses--while it bleeds-- his hand that strikes the blow. then fare thee well--a little while life's troubled dream is past; and i shall meet with thee, my child, in life--in bliss, at last!" chapter xxvii. the memories of home.[a] [footnote a: in this, as in the preceding chapter, we have introduced poetry, for the same reason.] "the home of my youth stands in silence and sadness: none that tasted its simple enjoyments are there, no longer its walls ring with glee and with gladness no strain of blithe melody breaks on the ear. * * * * * "why, memory, cling thus to life's jocund morning? why point to its treasures exhausted too soon? or tell that the buds of the heart at the dawning, were destined to wither and perish at noon? "on the past sadly musing, oh pause not a moment; could we live o'er again but one bright sunny day; 'twere better than ages of present enjoyment, in the memory of scenes that have long passed away. "but time ne'er retraces the footsteps he measures; in fancy alone with the past we can dwell; then take my last blessing, loved scene of young pleasures; dear home of my childhood--forever farewell!" chief justice gibson. the bereavements of home fill up the urn of memory with its most hallowed treasures. though these memories of the household have an alloy of sorrow and are the product of its adversities, yet there is no pleasure so delicate, so pure, so painful, so much longed after, as that which they afford. they bring to our hearts the purest essence of the past, and cause us to live it over again. they come over us like the "breath of the sweet south breathing over a bed of violets." when we revert to the happy scenes of our childhood, we live amid them in spirit again, and remembrance swells with many a proof of recollected love; sweet ideals of all that lived under the parental roof spring up within us, and pass before us in visions of delight; the home of the past becomes the home of the present. the things of that home are spiritualized and changed into the thoughts of home; we enjoy them again; and we live our life over again with those we loved the most. "why in age do we revert so fondly to the walks of childhood, but that there the soul discerns the dear memorial footsteps, unimpaired, of her own native vigor; thence can hear reverberations, and a choral song commingling with the incense that ascends, undaunted, towards the imperishable heavens, from her own lonely altar?" the memories of home are both pleasing and painful. when we leave the parental home for some distant land, how many pleasing recollections sweep over our spirits then. even when tossed to and fro upon the angry wave, far from our native land. "there comes a fond memory of home o'er the deep." the memory of departed worth is a kind of compensation for the loss we sustain. the pious mother's recollection of her sainted husband or child becomes the soother of her grief, and casts a pleasing light along her pathway, and awakens a new joy in her widowed heart. pious memories, when they reflect the hope of reunion in heaven, are like the radiant sky studded with brilliant stars, each shining through the clouds which move along the verge of the horizon. they sweep as gently over the troubled heart as the summer zephyr over the blushing rose, touching all the chords of holy feeling, making them vibrate sadly sweet, in blended tones, too sweet to last. "here a deeper and serener charm to all is given, and blessed memories of the faithful dead o'er wood and vale, and meadow-stream have shed the holy hues of heaven." how indelibly does memory paint the image of a departed child upon the mother's heart! no flight of years; no distance from the grave in which he slumbers, can erase the image. it will be ever fresh, and, with awakening power, mingle with her tears and glow in her fondest hopes. though time and distance and vicissitudes may calm her troubled heart, and cause her to settle down into tranquility of feeling; but these can never destroy the tenacity and vividness of her memory. even then those objects to which it fondly clings, become the theme of her holiest and her happiest thoughts; and she retains them with a passionate ardor, exceeded only by that with which she clung to the living child. her greatest pleasure is, to retire from the busy cares of the world, to some solitude where she may sit among flowers that remind her of the one that withered in her arms, and meditate upon him who slumbers beneath the clods of the valley. oh, these are sweet and precious moments to her; and the tears which are then drawn from the deep well-springs of reminiscence, are sacred to him with whom she in spirit there communes. there with, rapture she remembers "all his winning ways, his pretty, playful smiles, his joy, his ecstasy, his tricks, his mimicry, and all his little wiles; oh! these are recollections round mothers' hearts that cling-- that mingle with the tears and smiles of after years, with oft awakening!" memory links together the loved, ones of home though they be widely separated from each other, some on earth, and some in eternity. there is a mystic chain which binds them together, and brings them in spirit near to each other and infuses, as it were, with electric power, a realizing sense of each other, while their past life under the same roof, "like shadows o'er them sweep." in the light of memory their faded forms are vividly brought back to view; they see each other as when they rambled over their childhood haunts; and the echo of their playful mirth comes booming back in deep reverberations through their souls. in this respect the memory of the dead is a pleasure so deep and delicate, and withal so melancholy, yea, so painful, that the heart shrinks from its intensity. this we experience when we ramble through the family graveyard, and bring within the sweep of recollection our past communion with the loved who slumber there. there is a mysterious feeling awakened in our hearts,--a feeling of peculiar melancholy, which, combines two opposite emotions,--that of pleasure and that of pain. these seem to embrace each other, and their union in our hearts affords us a strange enjoyment. we enjoy the pain; the agony awakened by the remembrance of those who lie beneath the sod is pleasing to us. it is a bitter cup we love to drink; we love to keep open the wounds there inflicted. the sadness we then feel we dearly cherish; and we linger around these tombs as if bound to them by some mystic chord we could not break; we are loth to leave a spot in which are accumulated the fondest associations of early life. would the mother, if she could, forget the child that slumbers beneath the flower-crowned sod of the family cemetery? "where," in the beautiful language of irving, "is the child, that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved and he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portals, would accept consolation that was to be bought by forgetfulness? and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud even over the bright hour of gayety, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry? no; there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song; there is a recollection of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living!" how passionately we cling to those memories of a sainted mother, which crowd in rapid succession upon our minds! "weep not for her! her memory is the shrine of pleasing thoughts, soft as the scent of flowers, calm as on windless eve the sun's decline, sweet as the song of birds among the bowers." what a purifying and restraining influence does the memory of a pious parent's love, exert upon the wayward child! when he bends in mournful recollection over the grave of a sainted mother, how must every heart-string break, and with what remorse he reviews his past life of wickedness and filial disobedience. the memory of that mother's love and kindness to him, haunts him in all his revels, and draws him back, as if by magnetic force, from scenes of riot and of ruin. can he think of that mother's prayers and teachings and tears of solicitude, and not feel deeply, and often savingly, his own guilt and ingratitude? if there is a memory of home-life which allures him to heaven, it is the recollection of her love and pious efforts to save him. the child who lives in exile from his country and his home, is soothed in the midst of his cares and disappointments, by the stirring imagery of his far-distant friends and home. and oh, if he has been unfaithful to the ministrations of that home; if he has trodden under foot the proffered love of his parents, and repulsed all the overtures of their pious solicitude, will not the memory of their anguish haunt his soul, and plough deep furrows of remorse in his conscience? the sense of past filial ingratitude, and the recollection of a parent's injured love and disappointed hope, constitute one of the most powerful incentives to repentance and reformation. it was thus with the prodigal son. as soon as he came to himself, he remembered the dear home of his youth, the kind love of his father, and his own unworthiness and ingratitude; and this brought him to repentance and to the resolution to return to his father, confess his sin, and seek pardon. how many now, in thus looking back upon the home of their childhood, do not remember their abuse of parental love and kindness! "oh! in our stern manhood, when no ray of earlier sunshine glimmers on our way; when girt with sin and sorrow, and the toil of cares, which tear the bosom that they soil; oh! if there be in retrospection's chain one link that knits us with young dreams again-- one thought so sweet we scarcely dare to muse on all the hoarded raptures it reviews; which seems each instant, in its backward range, the heart to soften, and its ties to change, and every spring untouched for years to move, it is--the memory of a mother's love!" we see, therefore, that there are painful, as well as pleasant, memories of home. when the absent disobedient child remembers how he abused the privileges of the parental home, and brought the gray hairs of his parents down with sorrow to the grave, and turned that household into a desolation; when "pensive memory lingers o'er those scenes to be enjoyed no more, those scenes regretted ever," how dark and painful must be the shadows which then sweep over his penitent spirit! "if thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and penitent on the grave!" if we would avoid the agony of declining age, let us be faithful to our childhood-home. what must be the anguish of that wretch who has brought infamy upon it; how painful must be every recollection of it, when in the distance of years and of space, from its scenes and its loved ones, his remembrance hails them with its burning tear. "i am far from the home that gave me birth, a blight is on my name; it only brings to my father's hearth the memory of shame; yet, oh! do they think of me to-day, the loved ones lingering there; do they think of the outcast far away, and breathe for me a prayer? that early home i shall see no more, and i wish not there to go, for the happy past may nought restore-- the future is but woe. but 'twould be a balm to my heavy heart upon its dreary way, if i could think i have a part in the prayers of home to-day!" every thing within the memory of home will question our hearts whether we have been faithful to her parental ministry. every cherished association; every remembered object, and even the old scenes and objects around the homestead, will challenge our faithfulness. the trees under whose shade we frolicked and of whose fruit we ate; the streams that meandered through the meadow; the hills and groves over which we gamboled in the sunny days of childhood; the old oaken bucket and the old ancestral walls that yet stand as monuments of the past,--these will all question your fidelity to the training you received in their midst; and oh, if they assume, in the courts of memory, the attitude of witnesses against you; if nursery recollections speak of forgotten prayers and abandoned habits, what a deep and painful sense of guilt and ingratitude will this testimony develop in your bosom, and "darken'd and troubled you'll come at last, to the home of your boyish glee." how precious are the mementoes of home! memory needs such auxiliaries. that lock of silken hair which the mother holds with tearful contemplation, and wears as a precious relic, near her heart, what recollections of the buried one it awakens within her! "thou bringest fond memories of a gentle girl, like passing spirits in a summer night! oh, precious curl!" and that picture of a departed mother which the orphan child presses with holy reverence to her bosom! as she gazes upon those familiar features, and reads in them a mother's love and kindness, what scenes of home-life rise upon the troubled thought, and what echoes of love come through the lapse of years from the old homestead, touching all the fires of her soul, and causing them to thrill with plaintive sadness and with painful joy. what mementoes of a sad, yet pleasing memory are found in the chamber of bereavement, where death has done his work; the empty chair; the garments laid by; playthings idly scattered there;--these are pictures upon which the eye of memory rests with pensive meditation. and our letters from home! what sweet recollections they awaken as we read line after line; and what volumes of love they contain from those dear ones who now moulder in the narrow vaults of death! oh, how miserable must he be who has no recollections of home, who is not able to revert to the scenes of childhood, and amid whose cherished memories of life, the image of a mother does not glow! let us lay the foundation of a joyful, grateful memory. let us be faithful to home, that when we leave it, and when the members of it leave us, we may delight in all the memories which loom up from the scenes of home-life: "oh, friends regretted, scenes forever dear, remembrance hails you with her burning tear! drooping she bends o'er pensive fancy's urn, to trace the hours which never can return; yet with retrospection loves to dwell, and soothe the sorrows of her last farewell!" chapter xxviii. the antitype of the christian home. "oh, talk to me of heaven! i love to hear about my home above; for there doth many a loved one dwell in light and joy ineffable. "o! tell me how they shine and sing, while every harp rings echoing, and every glad and tearless eye beams like the bright sun gloriously. "tell me of that victorious palm, each hand in glory beareth; tell me of that celestial calm, each face in glory weareth!" the christian home on earth is but a type of his better home in heaven. the pious members feel the force of this. every thing within their earthly homes reminds them of that happy country which lies beyond the jordan. besides, they behold the impress of change upon every aspect of their home. all that is near and dear to them there is passing away. it is but the shadow of better things to come. and as the type bears some resemblance to that which it typifies, we may understand both by considering the relation they sustain to each other. we may gain a new view of the christian home by looking at it in the light of its typical relation to heaven; and we have a transporting view of our heavenly home when we contemplate it as the antitype of our home on earth. the christian home on earth is a tent-home, a tabernacle adapted to the pilgrim-life of god's people, set up in a dreary wilderness, designed to subserve the purposes of a few years, as a preparation for a better home. the christian, amid all his domestic enjoyments, does not realize that his home is his rest, but that it is only a probationary state, the foretaste and anticipation of the rest that remaineth for the people of god. it is but the emblem,--the shadow of his eternal home; and it is, therefore, unsatisfying; it does not meet all the wants of our nature; there is a yearning after a better state; the purest happiness it affords proceeds from the hopes and longings it begets, and the interests it is transferring to eternity, laying up, as it were, treasures in a better home. our home here, develops our wants, inflames our desires, excites our expectations, educates, and points us to the realities of which it is an emblem; but it does not fully satisfy our desires, it only increases their intensity. the pilgrim soul of the child of god pines and frets amid all "her sylvan scenes, and hill and dale and liquid lapse of murmuring streams." these afford him no satisfaction; they only develop in him the saving sense of earth's insufficiency; all the scenes of this wilderness state are but those of thorns, and desert heath, and barren sands; and he cries out in the midst of his happy home,--"this is not your rest!" our tent-home may include every earthly cup, and all the riches and honors of the world, yet it satisfies not, and the christian turns from it all to rest and expatiate in a life to come. every home here is baptized with tears and scarred with graves. its poverty is a burden, its riches are snares, its friends are taken from us; broken hearts agonized there; restlessness is tossed to and fro there; and disappointment reigns in every member there. hence in our wilderness-home we hunger and thirst, and pine for something more satisfying. we turn from the shadow to the reality; and realizing the insufficiency of home as a mere type, we turn with anxious hope to that which it typifies--our heavenly home. heaven is the antitype of the christian home. there the latter reaches its consummation, and reaps the rich harvest of its great reward. the father; the mother of us all; our brethren; our inheritance; our all sufficiency are there. yea, all that is included in the dear name of home, is treasured up there, for the child of god. in that better land he finds the reality of his home on earth; the latter is but the prophecy of the former:-- "there is my house and portion fair, my treasure and my heart are there, and my abiding home." that better home is radiant with light and love. there you shall not see through a glass darkly, but shall behold all things face to face. you shall not merely know in part, but even as you are known. there you shall realize in all its fulness what you dimly taste here. we have a hunger here which is not fully satisfied till in heaven we pluck the fruits of the tree of life. we have a thirst here which is not fully quenched till in heaven we drink of the waters of the river of life which flows fast by the throne of god. in our tent-home here, we eat and drink, but hunger and thirst again; we are healed, but we sicken again; we live in the light of truth, but darkness and clouds intervene; we are comforted by the spirit and by friends; but we sorrow and weep again. but in heaven "sighing grief shall weep no more;" and we "shall hunger no more, neither shall we thirst any more; and we shall not say i am sick; and there shall be no night, nor sorrow, nor tears, nor sighing, nor death; for the former things are passed away." love will then be perfect; there will be no heart-burnings and disappointments there. there you shall enjoy the honey without the sting, and the rose without the thorn. "earth hath no sorrows that heaven cannot heal." all care and toil, and tears, and orphanage, and widowhood, shall drop and disappear at the threshold of heaven. if our tent-home stirs up within us imperishable joys, by the power of anticipation and foretaste, what joy will not that better land afford? if the promise is so cheering, what must the fulfillment be! if the pursuit is so inspiring, what must the possession be! if our home on tabor, where we have but a distant view of home-life, affords us so much happiness, what must our home on the eternal throne of god be? there your intercourse with the loved ones of earth will not be clogged by pain and infirmities. your society there will be the most endearing, and with "a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." you shall there hold fellowship with the fathers of a thousand generations, with the patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and reformers, and the "innumerable company of angels." with these you shall engage in the most delightful avocation. there will be no indolence there, as we often find in earthly homes; but all will be continually engaged. "they serve him day and night in his temple." there will be one unbroken worship, which will afford you rapturous delight. you shall be presented, before god's glory, with exceeding joy; for "in his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore." these joys will be eternal,--forever and ever. that better home will never be dissolved, cannot be shaken, and your crown of glory there is a crown which fadeth not away. but this happiness and glory of heaven are not only eternal but progressive,--ever increasing. there is nothing stationary there with the saints; but their powers will ever expand and their glory increase. new songs will be ever bursting in new strains from the celestial choir; new discoveries and fresh exclamations of praise and gratitude will he continually made. here on earth they were "by nature the children of wrath, even as others;" they had their tribulations and often murmured at god's dealings with them. but there in that heavenly home they will understand the reason for all this. the deep mysteries of the christian life are now revealed, and they see that a father's chastisements are the work of a father's love, and worketh out for them that are exercised thereby, an "exceeding and eternal weight of glory." they now see that while in their tent-home they lived in the center of a grand system of natural, providential and spiritual things, all of which were working in beautiful harmony together for "the good of them that loved god and were the called according to his purpose;" and with rapturous gratitude they cry out, "marvelous are thy works, lord god almighty; just and true are all thy ways, o thou king of saints!" here, too, they will fully realize the wisdom of the christian home and life; they will now see how wise it was for them as a family, to serve the lord. in their earthly home, they "knew whom they believed, and were persuaded that he was able to keep that which they committed unto him against that day." they did this in the midst of fiery trials. they were unknown. the world, hated and despised them as she did their divine master. but they persevered unto the end; and now they "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father." we shall not there, as we do here, eat the bread of care and drink the waters of bitterness. here thunders spend their echoes and lightnings gleam in fierce wrath around our homes. there such sounds and storms never come. "no sickness there, no weary wasting of the frame away; no fearful shrinking from the midnight air; no dread of summer's bright and fervid ray. "no hidden grief, no wild and cheerless vision of despair; no vain petition for a swift relief, no tearful eye, no broken hearts are there "care has no home within that realm of ceaseless praise and song; its tossing billows break and melt in foam, far from the mansions of the spirit-throng. "the storm's black wing is never spread athwart celestial skies; its wailings blend not with the voice of spring, as some too tender floweret fades and dies." christ is the great center of heaven's glory and attraction. "whom have i in heaven but thee?" it would not be heaven if he were absent. its harps would become unstrung, and its voices would lose their tune. when eternity dawns upon our disembodied spirits, and the heavenly home appears in view, with its golden streets, and living temples, and crowns, and thrones, and joys, bursting on our sight; while seraphim and cherubim, and angels, and the sainted spirits of departed friends--our parents and children, and kindred, bend over its threshold to hail our entrance with songs and shouts of everlasting joy,--oh, what a glorious heritage will this be! but all this will fade into insignificance before the lamb on the throne. he will absorb all interest; and will be all and in all to its unfading treasures. oh, there is much in that celestial home to allure us there. its "fields arrayed in living green, and rivers of delight." its blood-washed throng, its crowns and peace, the angelic choir, our friends and relations,--perhaps a father and a mother, perhaps a husband or wife, perhaps a brother or a sister, or a child,--a lovely babe;--all these make heaven dear, and draw us there. they beckon us to themselves; they are waiting for us now, and on the glowing pinions of love they come thronging as ministering spirits, to our hearts. but what are all these attractions of that spirit-home, compared with jesus there as the crowning glory of them all! other things are stars and streamlets. he is the central sun,--the source of all. take him away, and all the brightness and the glory of that heavenly world would become shrouded in darkness and desolation. there is a living union between the christian's home on earth, and his home in heaven. christ represents our nature and advocates our cause there. the saints on earth and the inhabitants of heaven "but one communion make." the latter minister to the former. "are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister unto them who shall be the heirs of salvation?" "oh! a mother's spirit hung o'er her last pledge of earthly love, and, while attending angel's sung, welcom'd her dear one home above. "gentle babe, i come for thee: i did come to bear thee home, far from mortal agony; come, then, gentle infant, come. "yes; while o'er thy mouldering dust falls the tear of earthly love, thou shalt live amidst the just, brighter life in heaven above." every thing good in our earthly home has its echo in heaven, and sweeps like the breath of god over the harps of the blessed. when the pious mother kneels with her child in prayer to god, it sends a thrill of new ecstasy into the bosom of the redeemed around his throne. when the child gives its heart to christ, each harp bursts forth with a new anthem of joy at the prospect of that accession to their happy band. and oh, what unspeakable joy must thrill the bosom of a sainted mother when the news of her child's conversion reaches her there!-- ... "a new harp is strung, and a new song is given to the breezes that float o'er the gardens of heaven." and there, too, sainted relations continually warn the impenitent members of the tent-home. "though dead they yet speak." "turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?" "the spirit and the bride say, come!" oh, regard those solemn admonitions which come to you from the spirit-world! with unearthly eloquence they urge you to "lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset you, and run the race set before you, looking unto jesus, the author and finisher of your faith." and oh, if you, in obedience to these angelic persuasives to piety, yield yourself unto the lord, all the arches of that eternal home will reverberate with the sound of jubilee over your salvation, until its echo from harp to harp shall be borne up to the throne of god. and as there is a living union of the christian's home on earth and in heaven, so also will there be a conscious union and recognition of the members of the christian home, when they enter that better land. when the tent-home is broken up, and its members take their place and enter upon their joys in the heavenly home, they will recognize each other, and exchange congratulations. the bonds of natural affection which bound them together here will bind them also there. they will possess the same home-feeling and sympathy; they will love each other as members of the same household; the parents will know and love their children as parents; and the children will feel towards their parents as children. thus in the clear light of that blessed land we shall see and know our kindred, and shall be recognized, and known by them. all family ties will be re-knit; all home-relationships will be restored; all the links of affection will be renewed. the babe that withered in your arms like a frost-stricken flower in winter, will come forth clad in redemption robes, to embrace you there; and one of your joys will be a conscious reunion with him:-- "we shall go home to our father's house: to our father's house in the skies, where the hope of our souls shall have no blight, our love no broken ties; we shall roam on the banks of the river of peace, and bathe in its blissful tide; and one of the joys of our heaven shall be, the little boy that died!" and that sainted mother of yours shall greet you there. in your earth-home, you and she were united in faith and love and hope; and in the morning of the resurrection you shall ascend together from the family grave-yard; and together bow in grateful adoration before the throne of god. and oh, what a glorious meeting in heaven that will be, when all the members of the christian household shall unitedly surround the marriage supper of the lamb! it will be joyful beyond conception. there they "shall meet at jesus' feet,--shall meet to part no more!" no one is absent. bright faces will meet there; bounding hearts will meet there; and on the banks of the river of life they will walk hand in hand, as they did unitedly in this vale of tears. "there is hereafter to be no separation in that family. no one is to lie down on a bed of pain. no one to wander away into temptation. no one to sink into the arms of death. never in heaven is that family to move along the slow procession, clad in the habiliments of woe, to consign one of its members to the tomb!"--rev. a. barnes. if heaven is our better home, where the members of christian families meet to part no more; if dreams cannot picture a world so fair; and if eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart conceived, the felicity of its peaceful inhabitants, then we should greatly rejoice that our pious kindred have been taken there, and that we are blessed with the hope of reunion with them in that heavenly home:-- ... "if to christ, with faith sincere, your babe at death was given, the kindred tie that bound you here, though rent apart with many a tear, shall be renewed in heaven!" in our tent-home, we should cultivate spiritual longings after heaven, and live in the true hope and assurance of entering there. the soul of the christian, conscious of the emptiness of all things here, rests and expatiates in a life to come. in proportion to his preparation for it, and his nearness to it, will be the depth of his aspirations and the assurance of his hope. the widowed mother, who feels that part of her household is in heaven and that soon she will join them there, yearns with all the pining of home-sickness, for departure to the promised land, which is far better. "when shall my labors have an end, in joy and peace and thee!" even these hopes and longings after reunion with the departed in heaven, afford her joy, and open in her panting spirit a foretaste of unearthly bliss. to her aspiring faith all things look heavenward. the stars of the sky, and the flowers of the field smile their blessings upon her; and she welcomes death to break off her chains, to draw the bolts and bars, and open the prison doors of her house of clay, that her home-sick spirit may go up to that happier land where her possessions lie:-- "let me go! my heart is fainting 'neath its weight of sin and fears, and my wakeful eyes are failing with these ever-falling tears! for the morning i am sighing, while i earth's long vigils keep; here the loved are ever dying, and the loving live to weep! "let me go! i fain would follow, where i know their steps have passed-- far beyond life's heaving billows, finding home and heaven at last! while my exiled heart is pining to behold my father's face, they, in his own brightness shining, beckon me to that blest place! "let me go! i hear them calling, 'ho! thou weary one,--come home!' words which on mine ears are falling, wheresoever my footsteps roam, i can catch the far-off murmurs of life's river, sweet and low, calling, from earth's bitter waters, unto me--o let me go!" gentle reader! seek that better land. let your home be a preparation for, and a pilgrimage to, a home in heaven. you are now in the wilderness beset on every side by enemies. go forward! you are now in the deep vale,--in the low retreats of pilgrim life. "friend, go up higher!" "be thou faithful unto death, and you shall receive a crown of life." be patient in tribulation. the storms that swell around your pilgrim home will soon subside, and a cloudless sky will burst upon you; the winter gloom and desolation will soon pass away; and "sweet fields arrayed in living green and rivers of delight," will spread out themselves before your enraptured vision. remember that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." in a few years at most the conflict shall end, and sighing grief shall weep no more; the wormwood and the gall will be exchanged for the cup of salvation; the armor and the battle-field will be exchanged for the white garment, the crown and the throne. soon your typical homestead shall be exchanged for your antitypical home; and we shall unite in the home-song of everlasting joy,--the song of, "unto him that loved us and washed us in his own blood, to him be praise and glory and dominion forever!" let the hope of soon entering that happy home, stimulate you to increased ardor in the cause of your master. methinks, some who will read these pages, have snow-white locks and wrinkled brows and faded cheeks; and these tell you that soon your pilgrim journey will be ended, your tent-home dissolved, and your staff laid aside; and oh, if you have made god the strength of your heart and your portion forever, you shall welcome death with joy; yea, you will now be anxious to lay aside these garments of toil and conflict, and soar away to that better country, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. with holy pantings after god you will say, "come, lord jesus, come quickly!" "let me go! my feet are weary, in the desert where i roam. let me go! the way is dreary-- let the wanderer go home! i am weary of the darkness of these lonely, failing streams-- let me go where founts are flashing in the light of heaven's beams! "let me go! my soul is thirsting for those waters, bright, and clear, from the fount of glory bursting-- ah! why keep the pilgrim here? let me go! o, who would linger, fainting, fearing, and athirst, when before us lies a region where undying pleasures burst?" we have now enumerated some of the elements of the christian home--its constitution, its ministry, its trials, its joys, and its relation to a better home in heaven. but we have not exhausted this interesting subject; we have given but a very general and imperfect sketch. if this our first effort will contribute to the salvation of one soul, we shall be compensated; and should our encouragement justify it, we may continue the effort, in the preparation of a work on the historical development of the christian home. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) left at home; or, the heart's resting-place. by mary l. code, author of "wandering may;" "clarie's little charge;" "lonely lily;" etc. [illustration: "they walked on for some distance without saying much."--_page ._] kilmarnock: john ritchie, publisher of christian literature. and through all booksellers. contents. chapter i. page little mildred chapter ii. going to india chapter iii. arthur's mother chapter iv. last days at ashton grange chapter v. the parting chapter vi. myrtle hill chapter vii. left alone chapter viii. edgar north chapter ix. midsummer holidays among the mountains chapter x. at rest now chapter xi. conclusion [illustration: ashton grange.] left at home. chapter i. little mildred, or the gathered lamb. "stop, mr. arthur, if you please. you are not to go upstairs. mistress left orders for you to stay in the library until she came down." so spoke the younger servant at ashton grange, as arthur rushed upstairs three steps at a time. "why, what's the matter? why shouldn't i go upstairs? is anything the matter?" "i don't know, mr. arthur, whether there is much the matter; but i am afraid miss mildred is ill. the doctor is upstairs, and mistress said there is not to be a sound of noise." these words quite sobered arthur, as he turned from the stairs and went into the library. it was a pleasant room at all times, but especially so on a winter's evening, when the frosty night was shining clear and cold without. a bright fire was blazing, lighting up the crimson carpet and curtains, and sparkling on the snowy table-cover, where preparations for such a tea were made as arthur was usually at this time prepared to appreciate. but as he sat down on the rug, and, holding his face in his two hands, gazed earnestly into the fire, he was not thinking of his hunger. a very grave expression was on his boyish face. he was thinking of what the housemaid had told him, and wishing very much to know more. "why, what can be the matter with baby?" he thought. "she was all right when i went out. she can't be so very bad, i should think, all in a minute. no; i don't believe she is. i'm hungry." and arthur started up, and came nearer the table, intending to help himself to something. but then he stopped, and thought again-- "i suppose she is though, or else the doctor wouldn't be here, and every one wouldn't have to be so quiet. oh, dear, i wish mother would come. i wish she would come. i do wish very much she would come." then he thought of creeping quietly upstairs, and listening outside the nursery door; and the temptation to do so was very strong; but he remembered his mother's injunction, and sat down again on the rug. but it was very hard to wait. it would have been a great deal easier to arthur to do almost anything else just then. one half hour and then another passed, and no sound came to break the stillness which was in the house, till arthur's head dropped on his hand for weariness, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. how long he remained so he hardly knew; but he did not wake until a gentle step came on the stairs. the door was softly opened, and arthur's mother entered the room. she was very pale, and had a sad, sad look on her face, and just sank wearily down in an easy-chair, on the opposite side of the fireplace to her little boy, who was wide awake now. "oh, mother, is it true what anna says about mildred, that she is so very ill?" asked arthur breathlessly. he had come nearer to his mother, and, leaning his chin on her knee, he looked eagerly up in her face. "yes, arthur;" and the hand that was pressed on his forehead to stroke back his brown hair was hot and trembling. "_very_ ill?" asked arthur again. "why, she was a right just after dinner. she will get better, won't she, mamma?" "mildred is very, very ill, dear arthur," his mother said gently. "i came to tell you myself, darling, because i knew you would be wanting to know. she has been attacked with croup very violently indeed, and the doctor does not give me any hope that she will live. i cannot stay with you, my darling boy." she did not say any more, and before arthur had scarcely understood what he had heard, his mother was gone. there was only one thought in his mind now. mildred dying! his darling baby sister, who a little while ago had laughed, and crowed, and kicked her pretty feet as he played with her. how could it all have happened? and how soon a dark cloud had fallen over everything that had seemed so bright! and then a little picture of her fresh baby face came before him, and he could see the little rosy mouth, and bright blue eyes, and the soft cheek that he had so often kissed. would her sweet face _never_ laugh again? and would he never hear her clear, soft voice calling "artie, artie"? arthur did not know he had loved his baby sister so deeply until now that the dark, sad news had come that perhaps she was going to be taken away from them all for ever. so he sat in the pleasant firelight on the hearth-rug; but there was no brightness on his face now. a very grave cloud had fallen on it, as the words were in his heart that his mother had told him. and then, as he thought about what they really meant, his lip quivered, and the tears fell on the floor, till at length his head bowed down on the armchair where his mother had been sitting, and arthur sobbed bitterly all alone. it was a very hopeless, heart-sick feeling, as he wept with the vehemence of his strong, loving nature; and he had never felt in this way before; for all his life hitherto he had known what it was to be loved and to love, and had never had cause to mourn over the loss of what his heart had wound itself around. "i wish some one would come and tell me how mildred is," said arthur presently to himself, after half an hour had passed when he had been crying on the rug. "i wonder is the doctor going to stay there all night?" poor little arthur! it was very hard work waiting there all alone with no one to speak to, not even hector the house-dog, his friend and confidant; for a servant had gone into the town and taken him with him. presently the door opened, and he started up eagerly. it was the housemaid, and the candle that she held in her hand showed a grave, tear-stained face. "mr. arthur, will you come upstairs?" she said. "mistress sent me to tell you. will you come up to the nursery?" "why--what--may i really? what, is she better then?" asked arthur joyfully, and yet with a certain trembling at his heart, as he saw the expression on anna's face. "oh, no, mr. arthur," she said, bursting into tears. "poor, dear little darling, she can't scarce breathe; its dreadful to hear her, and she such a sweet little pet. oh, dear, dear, dear, and whatever will mistress do, and master?" but arthur was not crying now as he went slowly up the stairs, feeling as if it was all a dream, and not at all as if these were the same stairs that he generally mounted, or that this was the nursery door where he had generally bounded in with a laughing shout to the bright little sister who now lay very near the shore of the other land. she was a very little girl; not two years ago she had first come; and arthur, who had been half-afraid of the tiny baby that lay in the nurse's arms so still and quiet, had by degrees learnt to love her with all his heart. he knew just the best ways to please her, and to make her voice ring out the merry crow he so liked to hear; and always, when she saw her brother coming up the avenue that led to the house, she would stretch out her tiny arms, and try to jump from her nurse's arms to meet him. it was only a few hours ago that arthur had waved his hand to her, and made hector jump and roll along the ground, that she might see him. she had looked so bright and rosy then, and now it was all so different! the room felt warm as he entered, and there seemed to be a great many people around the little white bed where mildred lay. arthur never, never forgot that scene; it lay on his heart like a strange, sad picture all his life. he could not see his little sister's face, only a stray golden curl was peeping from the white sheet, and lay on the pillow; he could hear her breathing, and it made his heart quiver to listen to the sounds. the nurse was standing a little aside; for there was nothing more for her to do. she had been placing hot flannels, and trying favourite remedies; but these were all of no avail. the doctor was standing at the post of the bed; for he knew that mildred's little life was ebbing fast. and then arthur looked at his father and mother. his mother was sitting by the pillow, and she almost lay upon the bed as she leant over her little dying child. his father was standing close by, and arthur looked again at the expression that was on his face. he was in general a little afraid of his father; in fact, for the last two or three years he had not seen him at all, and it was only by the kind letters and messages from india, that he had known him of late, and he had thought him rather grave and stern, he was so different from his sweet, gentle mother; and though arthur loved him at a distance, he had quite different feelings for her. but now, as he looked again, he saw that a softness was on his father's face, and that the hand that was laid on his wife's shoulder was trembling; and the thought that was in arthur's mind just then was, "father really looks as if he was going to cry." presently his mother went a little closer to her baby, and arthur just heard her whisper, "let her die in my arms." his father looked as if he thought it would be better not. but she looked up again: "give her, i must." so very gently she took the covering from the child, and drew her to her arms. little mildred did not lie there very long. it was terrible to see her, and arthur could hardly bear to look; but he did look as the convulsions made her struggle and gasp for breath. at length he heard his father's voice in a low whisper say, "she's gone; thank god." and then he saw him take a little helpless form from his mother's arms and lay it back on the white bed, and arthur saw that his tiny sister was dead. she was lying still, her breath was gone for ever; her eyes were closed, and her curls lay soft and golden on the pillow. she would never open her blue eyes again, and her voice would never more call "artie, artie." he just saw that his mother sunk down on the floor by the bedside. he could not see her face, but he heard a deep, deep groan, and then she said, "my baby, my darling." she did not cry, she only knelt there still and silent; and then suddenly a great rush of feeling came over arthur's heart as the thought of sweet little mildred lying dead came over his mind, and he threw himself by his mother's side, burying his face on her shoulder, and burst into a passion of crying. "oh, mamma, mamma!" was all he said. "don't, arthur; you had better go down stairs, my boy," said his father gently. but his mother whispered, "let him stay;" and she threw her arms round him, and clasped him so tightly that he could hardly breathe. perhaps it was good for her to hear her child's sobs; they seemed to enter into her heart and melt it, for it was icy in its mourning before. "god has taken our little mildred," said arthur's father presently, in a very choked, quivering voice. "he has taken her to be very happy with himself. he will take care of her for ever." "i know it," said arthur's mother; "better than we could." presently arthur got up, and before he went away from the room he threw his arms once more around his little dead sister, and the tears fell over her golden curls and her round fair cheeks, which were still round and red. he cried himself to sleep that night, and when he awoke in the morning it was with a dreary feeling that a great deal was gone. he was the only child now, and as he stood by the little open grave where mildred's tiny coffin had been lowered, and as he felt the soft, tight clasp of his mother's hand in his, arthur felt he would be a loving boy to her. chapter ii. going to india. the home seemed very sad and silent indeed without the little child who had been laid in the low green-covered grave, and a sadness seemed to have fallen upon it. at first arthur went about the house silently and slowly, and it was some time before his boyish spirits came back to him; but he was only a boy after all, and a very young boy, and by and by, when the green leaves came budding on the trees and the spring voice was waking in the valleys and the fields, when the young lambs answered with their bleating and the young birds sung a chorus of bursting joy, arthur's face brightened, and his step was bounding again. and his mother was glad to see him with the weary cloud gone, only her heart ached with a deep throb as she thought of the new care that was hanging over him, and of which he knew nothing as yet. one day, when arthur was passing the door of his mother's morning-room, he heard his father's voice within, saying, "i think you had better tell him, louisa." the door was partly open, and if he listened he would easily be able to hear what they were saying. the temptation was very strong, and arthur yielded to it. it was very wrong, and he knew it. "oh, no!" he heard his mother say, "i could not tell him; i don't think i could. it almost breaks my heart to think of it myself." "louisa," said his father--and arthur thought his voice sounded rather sad--"you know it is your own choice, and even now you can change if you like." "oh, no, no, dear ronald!" said his mother--and he could hear that her voice was quivering and trembling--"you know very well i could not. forgive me, i ought to be very thankful i have you still; and so i am. but tell him yourself, ronald; you know i am so foolish." "very well," said mr. vivyan, rising and stirring the fire with great energy, as if he were then acting what he had made up his mind to do. and then arthur stole away, feeling very strange with various mingled feelings. something seemed to say that the conversation concerned him, but what it was all about he could not imagine. something terrible seemed to be going to happen; something that his mother could not make up her mind to tell. and then he remembered how very wrong it had been for him to listen to this conversation. he had always been taught never to do such a thing, and the consciousness of his fault weighed heavily on his mind. he wished very much that he had not waited at the door, when he had seen it stand so temptingly open. indeed, so much did he think about what he had done, that the strange things he had heard hardly troubled him. but by and by, when he was walking through the lanes, where the primroses were dotting the hedgerows with green and yellow tufts, he began to think again of what he had heard, and his step was slow and steady as he thought. he was not the same arthur who generally bounded along, startling the little lambs who were feeding on the other side of the hedge; and hector seemed puzzled by the unusual quiet as he ran on first, inviting his master to follow. altogether it was a very grave and thoughtful walk, and when arthur came in, the quiet look was on his face still, and a very troubled expression could be seen there. "arthur dear, is anything the matter?" asked his mother in the evening, as he sat on his low stool before the fire doing nothing, and thinking again of what he had heard and what he had done. arthur started, and blushed a very deep red. "why should you think there was anything the matter, mother?" "because i see there is," she said quietly. he did not answer, and mr. vivyan looked out keenly at him, from behind the book he was reading. but still arthur had nothing to say, and the troubled look came deeper on his face. he came nearer to his mother's chair, and presently when he found himself there he laid his head on her lap. "what is it, my darling?" she asked, laying her hand on his brown hair. then the tears came into his eyes, and it was not directly that he was able to say, "mother, i know it was very wrong of me; but i heard what you and papa were saying this morning when you were in the boudoir." "it was very wrong indeed," said mr. vivyan; "i did not think you would have done such a thing, arthur." "oh, arthur, arthur!" said his mother very gently and sadly, "why did you, why did you not remember?" he was crying now, and he did not need to be told that he had done very wrong. "well, then, you know all about it, i suppose?" said arthur's father. "no, i don't, papa. i only heard that something dreadful was going to happen; and you told mother to tell some one, and she said she couldn't; and then you said you would, and i don't remember the rest." mr. vivyan smiled rather sadly, and arthur felt his mother's arm more closely clasped around him. "was it about me?" asked arthur presently. mr. vivyan looked up at his wife, and then he said, "arthur, my boy, when i was in india before, why did your mother stay in england?" "i don't know," said arthur, somewhat surprised at the question. "to take care of me, i suppose. oh no, it wasn't, though; it was because she was ill, and she couldn't live in india, the doctor said." "yes; and now, is she as ill as she was then?" "oh no, i should think not!" said arthur brightly. "she is ever so much better, aren't you, mother?" "yes, dear," she said gently. "well," said mr. vivyan, speaking very slowly, and laying his hand kindly on arthur's curls, "did you know, arthur, that my time for being in england is very nearly over? there are only six weeks more left." "yes, father," said arthur, and feeling his father's hand laid so tenderly on his head, he felt more sorry at the thought that he was going than he had ever done before. "i'm very sorry." "but then, don't you see, my boy," mr. vivyan said, looking anxious and as if he had great difficulty in expressing himself, "your mother need not stay at home this time?" "no," said arthur, after a pause, "i suppose not. and am i going to india too?" "why no, my dear child. you know how glad we should be to take you with us; and very likely you do not know, arthur, what it costs us to leave you at home. but you know you could not go; children of your age would very likely not live." arthur turned quickly round, and gazed with an incredulous, questioning look at his father and mother. he could not see his mother's face, for it was hidden by her hand; but if he had looked closely he might have seen that her whole form was trembling, though she did not speak a word. "papa," said arthur presently, "what can you mean? do you really mean that you and mother are going out to india, and that you are going to leave me in england by myself?" "dear arthur, you know we must." arthur turned away, and for a little while he said nothing. presently he spoke--it seemed as if half to himself--"no, i don't believe that," he said. "i don't believe that could be true." "arthur, my darling, darling boy, come here," said his mother, after some time when nobody had spoken. arthur came nearer to his mother, and laid his head upon her knee. he was feeling almost stunned, and as if he had not understood yet what he had heard. then a sudden thought came over him, that it meant he would soon not be able to do this any more. "mamma," he said in a low voice, which was very touchingly sad in its hopelessness, "need you go? wouldn't you rather stay at home with me?" "oh, arthur," said mrs. vivyan, "you must not say those things, dear." "won't you take me with you, then? i don't believe i could stay at home without you. won't you take me? oh, do! please, do!" all this was said in a very low, mournful voice; for arthur felt almost as if he had not strength to cry about it. "arthur," said mr. vivyan, speaking gravely but kindly, "i tell you we would if we could; but you must be contented to believe that it cannot be." "but i am sure it would do me no harm, father; you don't know how much heat i can bear. i believe i am better sometimes in hot weather. and oh! i don't believe i _could_ live in england by myself." he gave a very weary sigh, and leant his head heavily on his mother. presently he felt a tear on his forehead, and he knew that she must be crying. "my own darling little mamma," said arthur, "i love you with my whole heart. oh, you don't know how very much i love you!" and he gave a deep, weary sigh. she put her arm round him, and pressed him very closely to her heart; and he felt as if he were a tired little baby, and that it was very nice to have his mother's arm around him. by and by he began crying; not with a hard, passionate feeling, but in a weak, weary way, the tears flowing down one after another over his mother's hands. "my dear child," said mr. vivyan, as the time came nearer for arthur to go to bed, "you don't know what it is to your mother and to me to leave you; but we hope you will be happy by and by, for your aunt will be very kind to you, and will love you very much. she lives in a very nice part of the country. you may be sure, arthur, we should be quite certain that every one would be kind to you." "do you mean that i am to live with some other person?" asked arthur listlessly. "yes, with my sister; that is, your aunt." it did not seem to matter very much to arthur just then where he was going, or what was to become of him. he knew his father and mother were going away, and that he was to be left all alone, quite alone it seemed to him, and a very desolate, forlorn feeling fell over his heart, and seemed to make him feel numbed and heavy. "good night, my own dear mother," said arthur, as he took his candle. he was not crying, and there was almost a little wan smile on his face as he said it, making him look very different from the bright, joyous boy who generally threw his arms around her neck with an embrace, which was most emphatic as well as affectionate. he did not know how her heart was aching for him, and he knew still less of the pain his father felt, but could not show. as arthur sunk on his knees that night by the side of his little bed where the firelight was brightening and glowing, a deep sob came up from the very depths of his heart; and when he tried to pray, all he could say was, "o god, take care of me; for there is nobody else." arthur knew what it was to have put his trust in the saviour of the world, but hitherto everything had been so bright, and things had come and gone so smoothly, that he had not thought much about him. he stayed awake a very long time, waiting to see if his mother would come and talk to him, as she very often did when there was anything to say. he did not know what had passed when he had left the library, that his mother's head had sunk low, and her heart had shed the tears that he had not seen, and that now came flowing from her eyes. and he did not know that she was utterly unfit to speak to any one, so that when she stopped at his door, and seemed to be going in, his father had said-- "no, louisa, you must not; i will go and tell him that you would come, but that you can't." so that was how it was when arthur heard his bedroom door open, and looked round with an eager longing in his eye. he sunk back again on his pillow when he saw that it was his father that was coming towards him, and he lay there quite quietly without moving, so that mr. vivyan almost thought he was asleep. "arthur," he said, "your mother wished me to tell you that she would have come to see you herself, only she was not able. you know, my dear little boy, she is quite ill with the thought of your trouble; and won't you try and be cheerful, for i am sure you would not like to make her ill, would you, arthur?" "no, father," said arthur, in a very quiet voice, without lifting his head or looking up. "good night, my child," said his father, stooping down and kissing him; and then as he took his candle and went away from the room he said to himself, "he is a very strange boy--very strange indeed. after all, i don't think he takes it so very much to heart as louisa imagines." but he did not know. when arthur heard his door shut, and when he knew that no one would come in again, the storm began, and it was a storm of passion when sorrow, and anger, and affection all raged together. arthur had always been a passionate child, and now the wild tempest that nobody saw showed plainly his uncontrolled feelings. "oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall i do?" moaned the poor child to himself, tossing on his bed. "and am i making mamma ill too? but how can i help it? how _can_ i help it? i can't help being most frightfully miserable; yes, and angry too. i am angry. why did he come back from india to take mother away? i don't believe she wants to go. yes, i suppose she does though. oh, i wish, i wish he had never come back from india! everything has gone wrong since. i don't love him one bit. i wish, oh, i wish it was as it used to be once!" poor arthur, he sobbed and moaned until he was tired, and the knowledge that he was very wicked did not certainly make him happier. he sobbed himself to sleep that night, and when the morning sunbeams stole into the room and lighted on the white curtains of his bed, he awoke with a dull, desolate feeling of a great pain in his heart. chapter iii. arthur's mother; or, "safe in the arms of jesus." mrs. vivyan's morning-room was on the pleasant sunny side of the house, and was a very favourite retreat of her little boy. indeed there was one corner of it which he considered as especially his own. it was a little sofa near the window, rather hidden in a recess, so that any one might be lying there and not be seen. perhaps this idea of privacy was one thing which made arthur like it; and then it was near the window, from which he could see the garden and the birds; and he liked to watch the sun sparkling on the pond, and making diamond showers of the fountain, which sometimes he would persuade the gardener to do for him. and now, with his new deep trouble weighing on his heart, he sought his usual refuge. nobody was in the room as arthur and his companion, hector, came in, arthur throwing himself wearily on the sofa, and hector making himself comfortable on the rug. "oh, dear!" groaned arthur, after a while; "i don't think mother cares very much. come here, sir; do you care?" hector came, and obediently lay down near the sofa. "father doesn't care much, that i'm pretty sure of," continued arthur; "but i don't mind that so much. i wonder will mother miss me in india. i wonder will you miss me, hector, old boy. you ought, and you will too, i expect. do you think you will, hector? speak to me, do!" but hector only gravely wagged his tail. "oh, dear! i wish a great deal," said arthur. just then there was a rustling noise at the door, and arthur lay very still and quiet as he saw that it was his mother who was coming in. he was hidden on his sofa, so she did not see that he was there. presently she took her work from the table, and sat down in a low chair by the fire; and arthur watched her as she sat there, and gazed at her sweet, gentle face. he could not understand all that was there; but he could see enough to make him very sorry that he had said "mother doesn't care much." there was such a look of patient sweetness there, and the eyes that she now and then lifted up were deep with an expression of pain, only over it all peace was shedding a softness and beauty that he could feel. he watched her for a long time in silence, until at last a look of intense pain seemed to furrow her brow, and suddenly she buried her face in her hands, and he could just hear her say, "my darling, my darling!" arthur started up, and as she heard the sound she looked over to where he was. "my dear little arthur, i did not know any one was in the room." "mamma, i did not mean to hide--to look--i mean, to listen. i forgot i ought to have said i was here. mother, may i say what i was thinking before you came in?" "yes, darling. i always like to hear your thoughts." "i was just thinking that you didn't seem to care so very much." "what about?" asked his mother. "oh, about all those dreadful things--about dear little mildred having died, and about my being left all by myself." it was not just directly that mrs. vivyan was able to answer, and then she said: "when you are older, darling, you will find out that it is not always the people who talk and cry most, who feel things most; and that there is such a thing as saying 'thy will be done,' and of not giving way to all our feelings for the sake of others." "ah, yes; that is what i ought to do," said arthur with a deep sigh. "arthur, dear," said mrs. vivyan presently, looking straight into the fire, and closing her hands very tightly, "don't ever think i do not care or feel. oh, you never can know how much i have felt! you know nothing about the hungry feeling in my heart when i think of my darling, darling little baby, whom god is taking care of now; and how, when i see the little bed she used to lie on, and her little frocks and shoes, i feel something biting in my heart, and as if i _must_ have her in my arms again. and about you, my own precious boy, god knows how i feel, as i never could express to you; but i can tell him, and i do." and arthur's mother buried her face again in her hands, and burst into an agony of weeping. he had never seen her cry like that before, and it was something quite new to him to see his sweet, gentle mother so moved. he hardly knew what to say to her; so he rose from his sofa, and coming close up to her chair, he threw his arms with a fervent embrace around her, and said softly: "never mind, my own dear mother; i will try and bear it." and then arthur cried too; for the bitterness of what it would be to bear it came over him. "god will bless us both in it, my darling," said his mother; "and he will take care of us while we are separated, and bring us back to each other again some day, i trust. but arthur, my own, am i leaving you in a loving saviour's arms? are you there, folded in his everlasting arms?" "mother," said arthur in a faltering voice, "i do really believe in the lord jesus christ. i am nearly sure i do. but i don't feel happy. i don't think much about him, and it makes me feel frightened when i think about dying." "but he says, 'trust, and not be afraid,' and he says, 'i will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' oh, arthur, i do leave you in his arms! for i am sure you are there if you trust in him; and perhaps he is taking me away so that you may feel his arms, and that it is a very sweet thing to be there, and to be loved and taken care of for ever. as i do," she added, "in the midst of all my sorrows." chapter iv. last days at ashton grange. mrs. estcourt, mr. vivyan's only sister, was a widow lady living by herself. her home was in the neighbourhood of a large town, and here, in a comfortable, moderately-sized house, she had lived for many years. she had no children of her own, and when her husband had died she had seemed to wish to avoid much intercourse with any one, so that arthur knew very little of his aunt. once or twice he had seen her when she had paid very short visits at ashton grange. he remembered a very sad-looking lady, with a sweet face, who had held his hand as he stood by her chair, and that he had half liked it, and felt half awkward as she spoke to him. he remembered that as he had stood there, he had felt afraid to move or fidget in the least bit, and that every now and then, as he had stolen a glance at her, he had seen that her large dark eyes had been fixed upon him. he had been very glad when the nursery dinner-bell rang and he was obliged to go, without seeming to wish to run away. "nurse," said arthur that day at dinner, "there's a black lady down stairs." "a black lady!" said nurse; "there's a way to speak of your aunt, master arthur. mrs. estcourt is your papa's own sister." "well, she looked all black, i know," said arthur. "i think i won't go down stairs much while she is there." nurse remarked that if he were going to stay she hoped he would be quiet and well-behaved; but as he had to keep all his quiet behaviour for the drawing-room, it is to be feared nurse's temper was tried a little during the few days that mrs. estcourt passed at ashton grange. consequently arthur's memories of his aunt were not such as to make him very happy at the prospect of living with her always. "mother," said arthur, on the evening of the day after he had heard about these strange things that were going to happen, "is the aunt that i am going to live with, that one that came here once?" "yes," said mrs. vivyan; "she is very kind, arthur, and i know she will love you very much, if----" "yes, if i am good, i know," said arthur; "and that's just the difference. you know, mamma, you always love me, whatever i am." "of course," said his mother, smiling; "but you could not expect any one to love you in the way your mother does. you would not like her to be your mother, would you?" "no, of course not. now, mother, tell me something about what her place is like, and where it is, and what sort of things i shall do when i am there. i have loads of questions to ask, only i forget them now." "well, begin then," said his mother; "perhaps one will remind you of another." "first of all, then, what is the name of her place?" "myrtle hill, near stanton." "myrtle hill! what a funny name. is it at all like this, mother?" "no, dear, not much. i am afraid it is a much more orderly kind of place. but i will try to describe it to you. it is a good many years since i was there, and i did not notice things so very much. it is a white house with myrtle trained over the lower parts, and a great many myrtle trees growing in the avenue; that is why it is called myrtle hill. i know there is a large garden with a good many shady places under the trees, that i remember thinking would be delightful in the summer. there is a front garden too." "that's nice," said arthur. "oh, but i don't expect your aunt will like little boys to have the run of her garden!" "i daresay she will," said arthur. "she is going to be very fond of me, you know." "well, that is question number one. now, what is the second?" "yes; where does she live?" "it is a good way from this; about six hours by the train, and five miles from stanton." "oh, yes! and that reminds me of another question. how am i to learn? will she teach me? i hope not." "no," said mrs. vivyan; "we have thought you are old enough to go to school now. there is a very good school between your aunt's house and the town. it is about two miles from myrtle hill, and you would go there every morning and come back early in the evening." "ah, i like that very much," said arthur joyfully; "that really is jolly, mother. who keeps the school?" "a very nice gentleman. your father has known him for a long time." "he is tremendously strict, i suppose?" "well, i daresay he likes to be obeyed," said mrs. vivyan; "but that is quite right, isn't it?" "yes, of course," arthur answered. "what is his name, mother?" "mr. carey." "well, i don't like that name," said arthur emphatically; "but i suppose he can't help that. does he wear spectacles?" "no, i should think not," said mrs. vivyan, smiling; "he is not old enough. i think he is not quite so old as your father." "i suppose he is rather young then. i am glad of that. i should never be so much afraid of youngish people as of old ones." "any more questions?" asked mrs. vivyan presently. "there is one question you have not asked, arthur, darling, that i was expecting, and it is the one question that my heart is paining to have to answer." "what can it be, mother?" said arthur wonderingly. "i think i have asked a great many. what can it be?" and then he thought for a little while very earnestly. at length a troubled look came into his eyes, and he looked at his mother, and said softly-- "i know, mother, i know, and i am rather afraid to ask; but i must, for i want to know. when am i going?" the question came out very slowly. "arthur, my own darling little boy," said his mother, pressing her arm very closely around him, and he could hear the quiver in her voice as she spoke, "it is very soon. we did not tell you until just at the end, when we were obliged to do it; because what was the use of making you unhappy before we need?" "well, when is it?" said arthur. "it is the day after to-morrow." "oh, mother, mother!" was all arthur said; and he became very still indeed. by and by he said, in a very troubled voice, "i wish i had known it before." "why, dear?" "because then--oh, mother!" said arthur, bursting into tears, "i would have stayed with you all the day, and i would not have done anything you don't like." and then the tears came into his mother's eyes, and she said tenderly-- "but i knew it, arthur dear, and i kept you with me as much as i could. and, my darling, you do not often do things i don't like." "oh, yes i do, mother, very often!" said arthur, sobbing still. "well, dear, if you do, i know that with it all you really do love me." arthur gave her hand a passionate squeeze, and said, "indeed, indeed i do, mother." and then arthur said no more, but fell into a grave fit of musing. presently he roused himself, and said, "but, mamma, how can i go in two days? are there not things to be done? mustn't i have a lot of new clothes, and ever so many things?" "but, don't you see," said mrs. vivyan with a smile, half amused and half sad, "i have known it for a long time, and i have been making arrangements that my little boy knew nothing about." "oh, well," said arthur with a deep sigh. "would you like to see some of the things that you are going to take away with you?" asked his mother. "yes, i think i should," said arthur; but he spoke so hesitatingly; for dearly as he liked preparations for a journey, he remembered with a bitter pang what the preparations were for, and what the cause of the journey was. mrs. vivyan opened the door of a small room adjoining her own, which was generally kept locked, and where, arthur knew, he was not expected to go without being allowed. there was a large table near the window; it was covered with various things; there was a leather writing-case, a new paint-box, and a polyglot bible; there were several new books too, and a very large pile of new clothes, but they did not take up much of arthur's attention. his quick eyes soon detected a fishing rod and cricket bat, that stood in the corner of the room near by; indeed there seemed to be nothing that his kind father and mother had not provided. he noticed something else that was there, and that was a russia-leather purse; and when he took it to examine the inside he found that it was not empty--the first thing he saw was a five pound note! "oh, mamma!" said arthur breathlessly; "who is all that money for?" "who do you think?" she asked, smiling. "well, i suppose for me," said arthur; "but, mother, is all that really for me? it will last until you come back." "do you think so?" said mrs. vivyan. "well, i hope you will use it well, and show that you can be trusted with so much." "is it to buy new clothes with, when i want any?" asked arthur. "no; i don't think you could quite manage that," said his mother, laughing; "besides, look at all the new clothes you have; don't you think they will last until i come back?" "i don't know; i do use a great many clothes, certainly," said arthur thoughtfully, as he remembered various rents in more than one of his little coats; "and boots, oh, yes, my boots must cost a great deal." the next day arthur devoted to taking a farewell ramble through the grounds; and in roaming through all the places in the country around, that he knew so well. he visited every little hiding-place, to which he and his companion had given names of their own, and then he sat down on the top of a high mound near the house, where on one of his birthdays a flagstaff had been planted. the gay-coloured flag was floating in the breeze now, and arthur wondered whether if any one else came to live at ashton grange they would take down the flagstaff; "at any rate," he thought, "i will take down the flag. i think it is nicer that it should be folded up while we are all away. oh, yes, and then it will be all ready to put up again, when we all come back, if we ever do come back again to this place. let me see, i shall be almost a man then. fancy me a man. i wonder what kind of a man i shall be. like papa, i daresay; and yet they say i am like mother. i should think a man like mother would be very queer." and arthur began painting fancy pictures of the time when his father's term in india should be over; and though it was very pleasant to do it, and the things that he intended to happen then, were very much to his fancy, yet it was with a little sigh of regret that he said to himself, "but any way, i shall never be mother's little boy any more." then arthur took out his new pocket knife and carved his name upon the flagstaff. "how odd if anybody sees it while we are away," he thought; "they will wonder whose name it is. shall i put arthur t. vivyan? no, i think not, that might be thomas. i should not like any one to think my name was thomas." so, after an hour's diligent labour, the name appeared, "arthur trevor vivyan." and then he sat down to take a last long look at everything. it was late in the afternoon, and the sun was shining with its soft spring gilding, sparkling through the ivy, and making the shadows of the woods look deeper. it was shining with a ruddy glow on the windows of the house, every window that he knew so well. there was his mother's room. arthur always thought hers was the nicest window, and he used to be very glad that the roses climbed up there, and clustered lovingly around it. there was the little window on the landing over the hall door; where he remembered, on more than one occasion, he had made nurse very angry, by wishing to try if he could not climb out there, and plant himself on the top of the porch, so as to look like a statue. then there was the drawing-room window, with the green venetian blinds half drawn up, and the bright colours appearing from inside. lastly, he looked to the nursery, where, oh, so often! he had watched for little mildred's white-robed figure to appear. how pleased she used to be, when he stood where he was now! it was a sad, sad sever to arthur's heart; only everything seemed so dark and sad just now, that he had not thought much about mildred lately; but his eyes followed the sunlight on, far away, until they rested on one fair green spot amongst the trees, where he knew that a little green mound was covering his baby sister's form; and as all the sad things that had happened so lately came into arthur's mind, and he thought of how different it had been a little while ago, he covered his face with his hands, and the sobs came thick and fast. so that when after a little while he came indoors, and wandered into the room where he expected to find his mother, she saw that his eyes were red with crying, and she knew that his heart was as sad as her own. but she said brightly, "arthur, i want you to help me. see, here are piles of your things, and i want you to help me to count them over, and to put down how many there are of each; that is what we call an inventory, and you must have an inventory, of course." arthur was quite pleased with this idea, and presently he was very busy helping his mother. when it was all done, when the last little garment was laid neatly in the box, and the nice presents that had been given to him were stored away underneath, and arthur's mother was resting in her armchair in the firelight, he drew his stool to her feet, and laid his head lovingly on her lap; and his mother felt the hot tears fall on her hands, and she saw that the brown curls were trembling with his crying, and she knew that the same thought was in his mind that had just been aching in hers--"for the last time!" but arthur did not cry long, for he was trying hard not to make her more unhappy than she was, and presently he stopped, and became very still, and after a little while he said softly-- "talk to me, mamma." "what shall i say, dear?" "oh, you know, mother! you always know the right things to say." "and yet, arthur," said his mother, after a very long pause, and speaking in a soft, low voice, as if she was afraid to speak louder, "i do not know what to say now, dear; for i never could say all that is in my heart. i can only say it to god about you, my own child." "do you often pray for me, mother? i don't think i ever miss praying for you any day." "you are always in my heart, arthur; and so when my heart rises to god, it bears you with it." "how nice it is to have a mother," said arthur in a restful voice, "even although--" and then he stopped; for he thought it was better to say no more. "after all, it is not so very, very far to india," said arthur. "how long would a telegram take getting there?" "about two or three hours." "oh, dear, i wish i could be turned into a telegram!" sighed arthur. "oh, but," said mrs. vivyan, laughing, "that would be only doing one little bit of good, and i want my arthur to be of some use all the day long." "how can i," asked arthur, "without you?" "do you know who you belong to before me?" said his mother. "you know, arthur, you have told me, and i believe it is true, that you have put your trust in the lord jesus christ, and that his blood has washed all your sins away. then, if that is true of you, you are your own no longer. you belong to him; for he has bought you with a price. is it not sweet, my darling, to feel that he says to you now, while you are being left at home, 'thou art mine'? you know i love to take care of you, because you are mine; and don't you think he does much more? you know the bible says that a mother may forget, but god _never_." "oh, mother, it is so nice to hear you talk," said arthur. "go on, please." "well, i was going to say, the lord jesus is always the best friend; and now that you are going to leave me, perhaps you will think of him, and look to him, more than you have ever done before. oh, arthur, my child, get to know him better; talk to him as you have talked to me; tell him about your little troubles, and joys, and sorrows; tell him when you feel lonely and weary, and sit at his feet, just as you are now sitting at mine. do you think he would turn you away? just pour out your heart before him, whatever is in it, because he loves you as only he can love." "but, mamma, i can't see him as i see you." "no, my child; but that is where faith comes in. you must believe when you do not see; and remember that he said, 'blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.'" "mother, i think you were going to say something else," said arthur, after a little while. "yes; i was talking about the first half of the text i had in my mind, and that i give you to keep from me--'whose i am, and whom i serve,' i want you to know the sweetness of the first, my darling, and then i think you will want the last to be true of you, and he will show you the way." "yes, i know," said arthur meditatively, "i ought to be patient, and gentle, and thoughtful; and, you know, mamma, it is just my nature to be the opposite, and i don't know how on earth i can be all that to that aunt." "oh, hush, dear! of course you could not be expected to love her much at first; but that ought not to make any difference; for it is to please the lord jesus that you are to be all this, and the harder it is for you the more he will know that you really do try to please him. then, are there not other ways? i mean things that you could do to bring honour to him. think of your being the means of bringing god's salvation to anybody, or of making the heart of any of his people glad." "yes," arthur said, "and i think i could try. i could give away tracts, or i could visit sick old women." "yes, and you might speak for him." "if he will help me," said arthur reverently; "but that is a great deal more difficult, mother." they did not talk much more that night, for it was getting late, and arthur sat looking at the lights and shadows in the burning coals. out of doors the fair spring evening had darkened into a gusty night; and the wind was sighing in the trees, and blowing the rose-bushes against the windows. it was very comfortable sitting there on the hearth-rug with his head on his mother's lap. arthur felt so very safe, and it seemed to him that he could not be very unhappy, whatever happened to him, so long as he could be there. and he did not dare think of what it would be, when miles and miles of land and sea would stretch between him and this sweet, well-known resting-place. he would enjoy it for this last time without thinking of the dark, dreary to-morrow that was coming. chapter v. the parting. it had to come at length. arthur awoke that morning with a great, dreary burden pressing on his heart, and a feeling of half horror, and half unbelieving, that it could really be true. he hardly knew how he dressed, and he did not notice that the daylight had not changed the dreariness of last night's weather; for a chill mist was falling outside, and if he had looked for the fields and hills near he would have found them all hidden in the damp fog. mrs. vivyan was waiting for him in the breakfast-room, and presently, as she stood there, the door opened, and a very solemn-looking face appeared. arthur had been nerving himself for this time; he had been trying very hard not to cry; and he had succeeded pretty well until now, although on the way down stairs he had to bite his lips very hard as he felt the tears in his eyes. but now, as he came into the warm, comfortable room, and noticed everything there, it was no use trying to keep it in any longer. his mother had provided that morning everything he liked best, he could see that. "come, dear," she said, "you must make a good breakfast to please me, you know, arthur." her own face was very, very pale, and arthur little knew the intense effort it was to her to speak at all. so he sat down in his own little chair, and was very still and silent for some moments; but presently mrs. vivyan saw him moving his cup of coffee away, and when there was a clear space before him he threw his arms on the table and buried his head there. it was only just in time; for a very bitter cry broke from his heart and his lips: "oh, mamma, mamma, i can't go! oh, do stay with me! don't you think you ought to stay?" what could she say? what could she do, but lift up her heart to her refuge and strength? while she was doing this, arthur's sobs gradually ceased, and presently he said, in a little broken voice, "i did not mean to do it, mother; i did try not." but he could not eat much breakfast, and after a little while he came nearer to her side, and said, "just let me stay until papa comes for me. i don't want you to talk. i only want to stay here." for mr. vivyan had gone into the town, not intending to come back until just before the time, when he would come to fetch arthur away to the new home, where his heart certainly was not. so they did not speak at all during that hour; only arthur sat with his head pressed very closely on his mother's shoulder, and holding her hands in both his, as if he would never loosen his hold. by and by there was a brisk step in the hall, and out of doors carriage wheels could be heard on the road; and then mrs. vivyan lifted the curly head, that was leaning on her shoulder. arthur knew what it meant--the bitterest moment that had ever come to him was now at hand--and it was only a few minutes, before the good-bye would begin the five long years of separation. everything was ready, and he had only to put on his coat and comforter. he was in a kind of maze, as he felt the warm coat put on him, and as his mother's white hands tied the scarf round his neck. then her arms were pressed very closely around him, and as he lay there like a helpless little baby, he could just hear her whispered farewell, "good-bye, my own child; may god take care of you." then arthur felt that his father's hand was holding his, and that he was leading him away. suddenly he remembered something that he had forgotten. "oh, father!" he said, "please stop a moment; i must do something i forgot." this was a tiny white paper parcel, which he had been keeping for this last moment, in a hidden corner upstairs. arthur ran up to the place, and bringing it down he put it in his mother's hands, and said, "that's what i made for you, mother." she did not open it until he was gone; and perhaps it was well that arthur did not see the passion of tears that were shed over that little parcel. it was only a piece of ivory carved in the shape of a horseshoe, or rather there was an attempt at carving it in that shape; and on a slip of paper was written, in arthur's round hand, "for my own dear mother to wear while i am away. this is to be made into a brooch." chapter vi. myrtle hill; or, the new home. when arthur vivyan was looking forward, with such feelings of dread, he did not know that his aunt was hardly less anxiously expecting his arrival; and that, much as he feared what living with her would be, her thoughts had been very troubled ones on the same subject. she had lived alone for so many years now, and as she said, she was so little accustomed to children, she was afraid that her young nephew would find her home deary and sad; that she might not understand him herself, or that she might be foolishly indulgent and blind to the faults, which might make him grow useless and miserable. she had spent many anxious hours thinking of all this, and laying plans about the care she would take of him, and all the ways in which she would try to make him happy and contented. arthur and his father had left ashton by an afternoon train, which did not bring them into the town, near mrs. estcourt's house, until it was quite dark. it was a very cheerless journey to arthur. generally he liked travelling by the railway, and when he took his seat by his father's side, his spirits rose very high as they passed quickly along, and the new scenes and sights, that he watched from the carriage window, occupied his attention pretty fully. but this time it was quite different. his mother's sweet, sad farewell was still sounding in his ears; and as the train rushed along on its way, he knew that it was bearing him farther and farther away from her, and from the home where he had lived so long. he could hardly have explained his own feelings; only a very dreary aching was in his heart; and as he thought of the strange new place, where he was going, and then of the miles and miles of land and sea, that would soon lie between himself and his father and mother, he felt very strange and desolate, and you would hardly have recognized the grave, serious-looking face as arthur vivyan's. perhaps it was that expression that drew the attention of an old gentleman, who was sitting opposite to him. at any other time, arthur would have been inclined to be amused at this old gentleman; for he came into the carriage, bringing so many parcels and wraps, that for some little time he was stowing them away, talking all the while to nobody in particular, and finishing every sentence with "eh?" "going to school, my boy--eh?" he asked at length, after he had looked at arthur's mournful face for some little time. arthur did not feel much inclined to talk just then, so he only said "no;" and then remembering that, in fact, he was to go to school while he was living at his aunt's, he was obliged to say, "at least, yes." "'no' and 'yes' both; not quite sure--eh?" asked the old gentleman. then mr. vivyan turned round, and explained that his son was going to live with his aunt, and that he would go to school from her house. "oh, that's it--eh? fine times for you then, young man. when i was a boy things were different with me, i can tell you. hundred boys where i was; and i was one of the little fellows, who had to make it easy for the big ones. up at six in the morning--coldest winter mornings. never had a chance of getting near the fire; never went home for the winter holidays. how would you like that--eh?" "i don't suppose i should like it at all," said arthur. but he thought in his own mind, that his case was not much better. after a few more remarks from his old friend opposite, when he saw him pull his cap over his face and settle himself to sleep, he was more pleased than otherwise. poor little arthur! he thought he was feeling desolate enough; and as he sat by his father's side, and thought that even he would soon be far away, it made him feel inclined to cling more closely to him than he had ever done before; so that, when the jolting of the train made his head knock against his father's shoulder, he let it stay there, and presently he found his father's strong arm was around him, and arthur felt that he loved him more than he had ever done before. "cheer up, arthur, my boy," he heard him say presently, and his voice had a softer sound, than it sometimes had, he thought. "we may all be very happy yet some day together, and not very long, you know. five years soon pass, you know, arthur." but five years had a very long, dreary sound to him just then. in fact, he could not bear to think of it at all; and he was afraid that if he thought or spoke on the subject, that he should cry, which he did not wish to do just then; so he gave a very deep, long sigh. by and by he went to sleep. perhaps it was because he had spent several waking hours the night before, and that this day had been a dinnerless one for him; but so it was, and when he awoke it was to a scene of confusion and bustle, for they had arrived at their journey's end, and the guard was calling aloud, "oldbridge." arthur rubbed his sleepy eyes, as the station lights flashed brightly, and the train came to a sudden stop. "come, arthur, my boy, here we are. make haste and open your eyes. we have a drive before us, so you will have time to wake up on the way to your aunt's," said mr. vivyan, as they threaded their way along the crowded platform. it was a very dark night; there was no moon, and thick clouds shut out the starlight. oldbridge station stood at the extreme end of the town, and in order to reach myrtle hill, they must drive along a country road of two or three miles. in summer time this was a very pleasant way, for the trees sheltered it on one side, while the other was bordered with a hedgerow and wide-spreading fields; but now on this dark night, nothing of all this was seen, and arthur wondered what kind of a place they were passing through. when he had made little pictures in his mind of their arrival at oldbridge, they had not been at all what the reality was. he had imagined a drive through a busy town, where they would pass through street after street, and that the bright gas would light the way, and show him the place and the things that they passed. "what kind of a place are we in, father?" asked arthur. "there seem to be no houses--i hope the man knows the way--and they have no light at all." "well, i think certainly a little light would be desirable; but the people here don't seem to think so. well, never mind, we shall have light enough by and by. it will be pleasant to see aunt's snug, warm house, won't it, arthur?" "yes," said arthur; but his answer was a very faint one; for he thought of another warm, bright home that he knew very well; and that there was some one there, sitting in the old chair, and that the rug at her feet was empty, and he had to smother a bitter sob that arose, and hold himself very still, as a shivering feeling passed over him. but presently arthur's quick eye caught a bright gleam, shining through the darkness, and soon he found that it was a lamp over a gateway, and that they were nearing their destination. the lamp showed just enough for him to see, that inside the gateway a broad gravel walk led up to the house between thick laurel bushes; and soon the sound of the wheels grating over the gravel, told him that they were driving up the avenue, and would soon be there. his father began to collect their rugs and packages, and seemed to be very contented that they had arrived. as for arthur himself he hardly knew what he felt; not particularly glad, certainly; for there was far too dreary and heavy a feeling at his heart just then, to leave room for much gladness; still, he was very tired and cold, and perhaps even hungry, so that it was with some feeling of satisfaction that he felt the carriage stop, and looking out he saw the warm firelight from within, dancing on the curtained windows, and shining through the windows in the hall. it was not very long before they were standing inside the hall door; and arthur had just one minute to look about him while his father was taking off his great coat. any one who took notice of things could see that no children belonged to myrtle hill. everything was in the most perfect order. the hair mats were white and unruffled, the chairs were placed in an orderly manner against the wall, and no dust lay upon them. just as arthur was looking round with an admiring eye, one of the doors opened; and a lady appeared, that he knew was his aunt. it was almost like a new introduction to him, for he had not seen her for a very long time, and then only for a day or two. she greeted her brother very warmly, and then she turned to him. "and so this is arthur," she said; and it was almost timidly that she spoke, for she was almost as much afraid of her little nephew, as he was of her. "ronald, he is a great deal more like louisa than you. his eyes are like hers." "yes, i believe he is generally considered to be so," said mr. vivyan, smiling. "a great compliment; don't you think so yourself, arthur?" arthur always had a very peculiar feeling when people looked at him, and said who he was like. he did not very much approve of it on the whole; and once he had confidentially asked his mother why the ladies and gentlemen who came to ashton grange did not make remarks about her face, and say who they thought she was like. at present he was making use of his blue eyes in taking an accurate account of his aunt. well, she was nice. yes, he thought he should love her. she had a sweet sound in her voice, and a gentle expression about her mouth, that made him think she could not be unkind. she was not like his own mother in the least; she was not nearly so pretty, arthur thought. his mother had pink on her cheeks, and a smile on her lips; but _her_ face was very pale and colourless, her eyes were very deep and sad ones, and when she looked at him they seemed so large and dark, and as if they were saying what she did not speak with her lips. he felt he would love his aunt; but he was not quite sure that he would not be a little afraid of her, at first at any rate. "you must be quite ready for something to eat," said mrs. estcourt, as she led the way to the drawing-room. "you dined before you came away, ronald, of course." "yes, i did; but arthur did not. i don't think he has had much to eat all day, poor boy." mrs. estcourt looked very much surprised as she said, "why, how could that be, arthur? i thought boys were always hungry." "well, i think i am generally," said arthur, "only i was not to-day." "why not?" said his aunt. "don't ask me why, please," said arthur in a low voice, "or else perhaps i might cry, and i don't want to do that." she seemed to understand him, for she asked no more questions; only she took his hand as they went into the drawing-room, and as arthur looked in her face, he thought there was something in her deep eyes, that reminded him of his mother. if the hall at myrtle hill was neat and orderly, the drawing-room surely was equally so. there seemed to be everything in the room, that one could possibly want; and a great many that seemed to arthur to be of no particular use. he could not help thinking of the difference there would be in that room, if he and hector were to have a round in it. but it was very bright and comfortable, he thought; and this opinion seemed to be shared by a large white dog that lay in front of the fire. "great, sleepy thing," thought arthur; "i would not give old hector for ten cats like that." the tea-table itself was a very attractive object to his eyes just then; and he turned his attention to it now. arthur thought it looked rather in keeping with the rest of the room. the silver teapot and cream-jug were bright and shining, but they were rather small; and he could not help thinking that it would take a great many of those daintily-cut slices of bread and butter, to satisfy his appetite; so he was glad to see a good-sized loaf on a table near, and other more substantial things which had been added for the travellers. indeed he need not have been afraid of not having enough to eat, for his aunt, in her ignorance of boyish appetites, would not have been surprised, if he had consumed all that was before him. so that arthur had to be quite distressed, that he could not please her by eating everything. "i wonder what she lives on herself," he thought, as he noticed the one tiny slice lying almost undiminished on her plate; "and i wonder how i should feel if i did not eat more than that." by and by they drew their chairs to the fire, and mrs. estcourt gave arthur a beautifully-ornamented hand-screen to shade the heat from his face; as he sat with his feet on the fender, listening to his father's and aunt's conversation. "well, you have a snug little place here," said mr. vivyan. "yes, i suppose so," mrs. estcourt said; but she sighed as she spoke. "it seems like old times, eh, daisy?" a light shone on her face for a minute and then was gone, as she said, "'tis very odd to hear any one call me that, ronald. i have not heard it since----," and then that deep look of pain came again. but as she looked at arthur almost a merry smile curled the corners of her mouth, and she said, "arthur thinks so too, i know." this was true; for he had just been thinking that if his aunt was like a flower at all, she was more like a lily or a snowdrop, or a very white violet. but he only said, "is that what i shall have to call you, then? aunt daisy! that sounds rather funny, i think." mrs. estcourt laughed and said, "well, i think perhaps it does; so if you like you can say aunt margaret." "oh, i don't like that at all!" said arthur in a very decided tone. "no, please; i would rather say the other; and i think perhaps you are like a daisy when you can't see the red." "well, you are a funny little boy," mrs. estcourt said; and she laughed quite merrily. "arthur," said his father, "you are forgetting your good manners, i am afraid;" but he seemed rather amused himself. "do you often say those funny things, arthur?" asked his aunt. "i believe he is rather given to speaking his mind freely," said mr. vivyan. "did i say anything rude?" asked arthur, looking up earnestly into his aunt's face. "no, dear, nothing at all; only, you know, i am not accustomed to little boys; and so perhaps that is why the things they say sound odd to me." "well, aunt," said arthur, "mind, if i seem to say rude things i don't mean them; i don't really; and i should be very sorry to say rude things to you, because i think i like you." "you don't say so," said mr. vivyan, laughing. but mrs. estcourt did not laugh; she stooped down and kissed arthur; and then she held his hand in hers for a little while, so that it almost felt to him as if it was some one else's hand, and, though it was very pleasant to have such a kind aunt, that he felt he would love, it brought a strange, choking feeling into his throat, and his eyes felt as if they would like to cry; so he suddenly jumped up, and said-- "i think i should like to go to bed." mrs. estcourt took him up herself into the room that was to be his own. it was a pretty, pleasant room, and a bright fire was burning in the grate. there seemed to have been a great deal of thought, spent on the comfort of the person who was to sleep there; and arthur almost smiled, if he could have smiled at anything then, as his aunt hoped he would not want anything, and said she would send him a night-light presently. "no, thank you," he said; "i always sleep in the dark." "you are a brave boy, i suppose," said mrs. estcourt. "i don't know," arthur said; "but mother always says it is wrong to be afraid." "wrong?" asked his aunt. "yes; because don't you know, aunt, we ought to trust in god, mother says." "then are you never afraid, dear arthur?" his aunt was just going to say; but as she looked at him she saw that his lips were trembling, and that the tears were filling his eyes; for the mention of his mother's name was bringing memories to arthur, and he was thinking of the times in the old nursery at ashton grange, when he used to be frightened sometimes in the dark; and she had sat with him then, and told him about the angels of the lord encamping round about them that fear him, and about the kind, tender lord jesus, who takes care of all who put their trust in him. so she only put her arms around him, and kissed him very tenderly; and then she went away. it was only just in time; for as arthur heard the door shut behind her, and knew that nobody would see or hear him, the tears that had been burning under his eyes all the evening came at last, and arthur threw himself sobbing upon his bed. but his grief did not last long that night, for he was very tired and sleepy. he was excited too with the strange scenes and places, through which he had passed, and on which he was just entering; so it was not very long before he was sleeping as soundly in the white curtained bed, that his aunt had taken such pains to prepare for him, as he had ever done in the old room at ashton grange. that room was empty now. the little bed was there with the coverlet undisturbed, but no curly head lay on the pillow; and as arthur's mother stood there thinking of her little boy, and of the miles that lay between them, and that soon the broad ocean sweep would separate her from her child, her heart sank very low, and she thought that she was like rachael, weeping for her children. but she was comforted, for she knew the comfort of having a friend, who had borne her griefs and carried her sorrows; and when her heart was overwhelmed within her she said, "lead me to the rock that is higher than i;" and he said to her, "none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." she listened to his word that says, "trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him. god is a refuge for us." is it not a happy thing, when a heart is full and bursting--so full that it cannot contain--to know that there is one, whose name is love, before whom that heart can be poured out? is it not the place where the master would have his disciples, sitting at his feet, hearing his word? and is not that the cure for being careful and troubled about many things? and if our hearts have chosen that good part, we know that he has promised that it shall not be taken away. and as arthur's mother thought of this, she said, "hide me under the shadow of thy wings." chapter vii. left alone. arthur had been very tired the night before; so that the spring sun was shining quite brightly, when he found himself lying awake in his new room. indeed, he did not know whether he would have awaked even then, if he had not heard a knocking at his door, and then a voice saying-- "if you please shall i light your fire?" "no, thank you," said arthur; and then to himself he added, "i'm not quite such a muff as that!" then he began to examine his room. "i wonder is this going to be my room always!" thought arthur. "'tis much nicer than my room at home, only i don't like it half so well; indeed, i don't." it was a very pretty room certainly. the paper on the wall was bright and soft-looking, with a pattern of bunches of spring flowers, tied with silver ribbon. the carpet was something of the same sort, and it reminded him of primroses hidden in the grass. the window-curtains were spotlessly white, with green cords, and the chair-coverings were a soft green. "yes; it certainly is a very nice room," said arthur to himself, after looking round and examining everything; "but i think it is a great deal more like a girl's room than a boy's. what can she think i want with such a lot of looking-glasses? and i suppose she thinks i like reading and writing very much;" for he saw that the book-shelves were well filled, and that in the corner of the room there was a small table, where a writing-case and inkstand stood. "well, she may think so. i expect she will soon find out her mistake." arthur was more cheerful this morning, than he had been the evening before. it was natural to him to feel hopeful in the morning. he liked the feeling of awaking in a strange place. at least he had always liked it hitherto; though with the pleasant feeling of excitement and interest it brought, there came a dreamy heart-sinking too; for he could not forget, that this was to be no visit, but that he was to live on here for years and years without his mother. but the sun was shining very brightly into his room, and as he stood waiting for some call downstairs; he thought he would like to see what kind of surroundings belonged to his new home. very different was the view he now saw from the country that lay around ashton grange. from the highest window there, the view extended over only a few miles, and the green wooded hills that arose, not so very far off, marked the horizon to the pretty country scene that arthur knew so well; but here a wide stretch of country lay beneath him, undulating here and there, but spreading far on, covered with fields and trees, and dotted with hamlets, until it faded away into grey distance. the sun had risen not long before, and the rosy beams were falling on the country, lighting with a ruddy radiance the windows of the cottages, and sparkling on the little river that was winding peacefully through the pasture land. it was a very sweet scene, and arthur felt its beauty. he could not see the town, where they arrived the night before; for a stretch of woodland near by shut it out from his sight. having looked at the distant hills, he now turned his attention to the objects nearer home. how very neatly the gravel walks were rolled. the grass was smooth and evenly cut; not even the little daisies were allowed to peep their modest heads from the lawn. "well, i wonder aunt cuts off all the heads of her namesakes," said arthur to himself. his window was at the side of the house, and he could see that the garden surrounded it on all sides, and that the low trees that led down to the arbour gave their name to myrtle hill. it was early spring-time yet, and not very many flowers were blooming; only here and there bright-coloured tufts of crocuses and primroses were shining on the brown earth, and the snowdrops were shaking their bended heads, in the morning breeze. arthur looked at it all, and wondered whether he should ever be as familiar with this place, as he was with the home far away. this thought led him into a reverie, and he began to wonder what every one was doing at this time there--who was feeding hector; and would the gardener's boy remember to water the seeds; though he remembered with a deep sigh that it did not matter very much, as long before they would be in bloom, ashton grange would be empty and deserted; and this thought was a very dreary one. arthur was beginning to feel very dismal again. the changing spring sky, too, had become overclouded; the morning sun was hidden, and it seemed as if a shower was going to fall. there was a prospect of a shower indoors, too; for arthur dashed the tear-drops from his eyes, and said, "i won't cry; no, i won't; i'm always crying now. i wonder how mother can keep from it so well. well, perhaps when i am as old as she is i shall be able; or, perhaps i shall be like papa, and not want to cry. i wonder if he does ever; it would be queer to see father cry. perhaps he did when he was in india by himself." and arthur almost laughed to himself at the idea. presently a bell sounded through the house. "i suppose," thought arthur, "that is the breakfast-bell; it ought to be by this time. but then, suppose it should not be; suppose it should be some bell that i have nothing to do with; it would not be at all pleasant to go down. i think i will wait for a little, and see; but then, if it should be the breakfast-bell, aunt will think i am a lazy thing. so what shall i do? i will go." and so saying, arthur opened his door in a determined manner, walking along the corridor; where some canaries were hung in a cage, making his ears quite aware of their presence. notwithstanding the courage with which he had left his room, it was with a cautious step he came near the dining-room, and opening the door very gently he was quite relieved to see that his father and his aunt were both there. as he came into the room mrs. estcourt was talking to his father, and she seemed in rather an anxious state of mind, as he listened to her with an amused expression on his face. "you know, ronald, you--you really must begin breakfast, the carriage will be coming round in no time. and you are not nearly ready, dear arthur," she said, giving him a hurried kiss. "where are the railway rugs and the shawls? your father will want them; for it is a cold morning." "now, my dear sister," said arthur's father, putting his hand on her shoulder, "don't be putting yourself into a fuss about nothing; i always take my time, and i think i generally manage to come in all right in the end. i want some breakfast, please, when you are ready, daisy. good morning, my darling little boy," and mr. vivyan put his arm very tightly round arthur's neck, and gave him such a kiss, as he had never remembered having had from him before. "now, don't cry, arthur," he said; for this loving embrace from his father was bringing the tears into his eyes again. "do you know what i was thinking about, when i was looking out of my window this morning? i was thinking of you; and i came to the conclusion that you ought to think yourself very well off. here you are with an aunt who is going to make ever so much of you, i can see; going to live in a most beautiful country, with a school near, where, of course, the boys will be pleasant companions if you are pleasant to them; a half-holiday every saturday; a father and mother gone away for a little while, thinking of you all the day; and a letter from india--i won't say how often. ah, it was very different when you and i were young! eh, daisy?" "no. i think i was very happy then," said mrs. estcourt. "i am sure our grandfather and grandmother were just as good as any one could be." "yes; for you, my dear, i daresay they were; but i was not you, you know. well, i'm very glad some times have not to come over again. i suppose arthur is feeling that just now." mr. vivyan himself seemed very well contented with his present position, and arthur thought so. "father," he said presently, "as i have to stay in england, of course i would rather be with aunt daisy than with any one else, and i think this is a very pretty place indeed. but you don't know how frightfully i wish i was going to india with you. don't you wish you could take me, father?" asked arthur a little wistfully. "my dear little boy, i wish it so much, that it is one of the things it is better not to think about. and then, you know, you must always look on the bright side of things, and there are plenty of bright sides for you. just think of all the bright sides i have been showing you. now, let us have some breakfast, or really, auntie, i shall be late." but before mrs. estcourt moved, she said in a very low voice, and as if she did not think any one else heard her-- "there is not always a bright side to look at." for she was thinking that all the brightness had been taken away from her life's story. would not arthur's mother have said, "if there is none anywhere else, look to where the lord jesus waits to bless you, saying, 'your heart shall rejoice;' and then the light of his love would make the shadiest life shine with a summer gleaming?" arthur's appetite seemed really gone this morning, and his aunt's attention was too much occupied with anxiety about his father's comfort for the journey, to notice that he was eating hardly anything; and in the midst of his trouble the thought came across arthur's mind that it was a very good thing he was not hungry, as he felt a great deal too shy to help himself. presently there was the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel outside. "now," said mrs. estcourt, starting up, "there is the carriage, ronald; i knew it would be here before you were ready." "well," said mr. vivyan quietly, "you know one of us would have to be ready first, and i would rather the carriage waited for me than i for it. besides, i am quite ready. now, my dear sister, expend your energies in seeing if my luggage is all right." then arthur and his father were left alone. "now, my darling boy," mr. vivyan said, "come here. i want to speak to you, and to say good-bye." so arthur came closer to his chair, and his father put his arms around him, and took his hand in his. "arthur," he said, "perhaps you don't know how much i love you, and how deeply anxious i am about you, that you should grow up to be a man that your mother need not be ashamed of. you know, arthur, i cannot talk to you as she does; but i pray for you every day, and now especially that i am leaving you. but we shall have another home on earth some day, i trust; and, better than that, you know about the home where the lord jesus is waiting for those who are washed in his blood. you are going to that home, my precious boy?" "yes, father," said arthur in a low voice. "well, then, you know you always have that to think about; and now i will give you this text to keep from me while i am away, 'goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and i shall dwell in the house of the lord for ever.' and won't it be nice to get a letter from india!" "yes, oh yes, father," said arthur, bursting into a flood of tears; "but it would be so much nicer to be going." "hush, hush," said mr. vivyan kindly; "you know there are some things that god has forbidden, and it is wrong to think of how nice they would be. i suppose you cannot think of how pleasant a great many things you have are just now, but by and by you will find it out." this was just what arthur was thinking. it was very strange to him to hear his father talking in this way to him; he had never done so before; and it made him love him as he did not know he ever could. it was quite true that everything was looking black and gloomy, and that to try and see brightness in his life at myrtle hill seemed to make the dreary feeling more intense at his heart. but still he could lie down at the feet of the master who is so kind, and rest there while earthly things were so dark, and trust him, waiting while the violence of the storm was passing. arthur had answered the shepherd's call--"follow thou me," and the one who has said that "he gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom." "and now, my boy," said mr. vivyan, "god bless you and keep you; good-bye, my own dear little boy." then he put his arm around arthur's neck, and kissed him. a minute after, arthur was standing by himself before the drawing-room fire; and when presently he heard the carriage roll away, and the sounds became gradually fainter and fainter in the distance, he felt that he was all alone. indeed, he hardy knew what he felt. there seemed to be a sudden quiet hush within him, and as he looked outside the window where the carriage had just stood, and the bustle of going away had just ceased, the quiet of every thing seemed very still and deep. only the little birds were just the same, singing gaily as if nothing had happened, and the morning breeze was brushing the myrtle trees as they did every spring morning when the sun was making the country look glad. presently he heard steps outside the door, and as they came nearer and nearer, arthur felt as if he would like to run away; for he was afraid his aunt might talk about his father and mother, and he felt as if he could not talk of anything just then. but he need not have been afraid, mrs. estcourt was wiser than that, and she only said kindly-- "would you like to go out and look about you a little, arthur dear? it will not rain just yet, i think; and you may go where you like; at least, that is, if you are accustomed to go by yourself." "i should think i am, indeed," said arthur; "why i have done that ever since i was eight." "you won't lose your way?" asked his aunt anxiously. "if i do, i shall have to find it again, you know, aunt," said arthur. "you are a funny little fellow," said mrs. estcourt. "well, if you get hungry before luncheon-time, you must come and tell me." arthur thought of hector, and how pleasant it would be if his old friend would come bounding in answer to his whistle; then he looked at the sleepy white-haired creature lying on the hearth-rug. "aunt daisy," he said, "would you like me to take out that white fellow?" "what, dear?" said mrs. estcourt. "oh, i don't know, arthur; i think, perhaps, not just yet; not until you are more accustomed to it." "very well," said arthur, as he went away; and he said to himself, "i would quite as soon not." arthur felt, as he stood outside the hall door, as if all the world was before him, to choose where he would go. he thought he would first examine the garden, which encircled the house on all sides. a gap in the myrtle bushes led him down a narrow path into a large space, which the fruit trees and vegetables showed was the kitchen garden. he walked round, and noticed how neatly the beds were kept, and that the walks even here were stripped of weeds. two boys who were working there, rather older than himself, eyed him curiously. arthur wondered whether they knew who he was; but he felt inclined to be where there was no one else just then. so he left the garden, and passing out through the iron gate, he found himself on the high road, turning to walk down in the direction which they had come the night before. presently a sign-post stood before him, one hand pointing to stratton, and the other to harford. arthur followed the last name along a green, flowery lane, where the wild roses were mantling their green, and here and there an early bud was making its appearance. he walked on for some distance, until the high road was hidden by a bend in the lane, and the green trees began to arch overhead; and on each side, the road was bordered with grass and green, velvety moss; the birds were warbling soft songs in the branches, and from the wood hard by the sweet cooing of the pigeons could be heard. it was a very pleasant spot, so much so, that when arthur threw himself down on the grass to rest, he said with a deep sigh, "well, it might be worse; and aunt daisy is certainly very kind." "yes, it might be worse," he continued to himself; "and it is nice to think of by and by, when they come back. suppose they were dead!" he shuddered at the thought. "i can quite fancy what mother will look like when she sees me again. no; i don't believe i can, though. how will she feel, and how shall i feel? i suppose very different from what i do now; for i shall be really a man then. oh, dear! i had better not think of that time yet. i must try and think about all the things god gives. father said something like that. father was very kind to me to-day. i did not know he could be so kind." arthur did not know then much about the true, deep, persistent tenderness of a father's love; but we know that when god spoke a word that expresses his heart to his people, he called himself his children's father. "let me see!" continued arthur. "five years, and in every year three hundred and sixty-five days. if i multiply three hundred and sixty-five by five, i shall know how many days i have to wait, and then i could mark off one every day; but, oh, dear! that makes a great, great many." so he sprang up from the grass, and walked briskly on the shady road, where the sunlight was falling softly; for arthur meant never to cry, unless he could not possibly help it, and certainly not out of doors. he wandered over a good distance--for it was pleasant exploring in the new country--until he suddenly remembered his aunt at home, and that she would be thinking he had lost his way. "and i must not begin by frightening her," said arthur to himself. up till this time arthur's first day had passed more brightly than he had expected. it would be hard for him to be very unhappy on that spring day, with everything rejoicing around him, and the free country breathing in soft breezes. but it was different when he came in. the house seemed very dark and gloomy after the cheerful sunlight, and it seemed to him as if there was no sound of any sort indoors, except now and then a faint noise from the servants' regions far away; for even the canary-birds were silent, and the fat dog was sleeping its life away upon the hearth-rug. indeed, arthur thought he could almost imagine, that the hairy creature and the soft hearth-rug were one and the same. there seemed to be nothing at all to do within doors, and he could not be out always. besides, the bright morning was fast changing, and grey, gloomy clouds were gathering over the country. the myrtle trees were beginning to shake with a rainy wind, and he could see that the fine weather was gone for that day. altogether, arthur felt very dismal as he stood at the drawing-room window, near to where his aunt was sitting at her writing-table. "have you had a nice walk?" she asked presently. "yes, aunt," said arthur, tapping very forcibly on the window. "and what did you see?" "oh, nothing particular!" said arthur. mrs. estcourt saw that she must try some other subject to talk about. "have you anything you would like to do, dear, until dinner-time?" "no, i don't think so, aunt." "what do you generally do at home when you are not walking?" "i don't know, really aunt," arthur answered. "i suppose i do lessons." "oh, but i don't want you to begin lessons just yet. well, then, what do you do when it is neither lessons nor walking?" "sometimes i go for messages, and sometimes i make things with my tools." "make things! how do you mean, dear?" "oh, i make boats and things! and i used to make wedges for a window in mamma's room that rattled with the wind. have you any windows that don't shut quite tightly, aunt?" asked arthur. "i could make you some by and by, if you have." mrs. estcourt smiled; but she was not able to remember any window that needed arthur's arrangements. so he was left to himself and the rain again; for the drops were falling thickly against the window now. at first he employed himself in tracing their course down the glass, but very soon he was tired of that, and presently mrs. estcourt heard a heavy sigh. "that was a very deep sigh," she said cheerily. "what did it mean?" "well," said arthur, "partly, i think, it meant that i wish i had something to do." his aunt thought that boys were very curious things, and wondered what they could do. she felt almost inclined to echo arthur's sigh; but she thought a moment, and then she said-- "would you like to have a skein of wool to wind into a ball?" "yes," said arthur. he was quite glad to have even this to do. at home it was not the occupation he generally chose; but now, as he stood with the blue wool encircling two chairs, steadily unwinding it into a ball, it seemed quite pleasant work. mrs. estcourt had quite made up her mind, that the skein would be spoiled, and so when her little nephew brought it to her, wound and unbroken, it was an agreeable surprise, and she began to have a higher opinion of boys in general. the day seemed to wear very slowly on, and with the waning light arthur's heart seemed to sink very low. so quiet was he, that his aunt could hardly understand him, and any one who had seen the boisterous, lively boy at ashton grange, would hardly have known him as the same one who was sitting so quietly before the drawing-room fire in the lamplight. he was sitting there in dreamy fashion with a very sad, heavy heart, when his aunt asked him what was his bedtime. a fortnight ago, if this question had been put to arthur, he would not have given the same answer that he did now. then he had considered it one of the greatest hardships of his life, that a quarter before nine was the time when he was expected to disappear. but now he said, "oh, i don't much mind, aunt; i think i should like to go now!" for the weary, lonely feeling was making his heart so sick, that he wanted to be all alone for a while. "well, good night, darling," said his aunt, and she put her arms very tenderly round his neck; for she knew that his poor little heart must be aching, and that his thoughts must be seeing things that were very far away. she kissed him so lovingly that it was just too much for him. the tears came into his eyes, and arthur went sobbing up the stairs, not noticing that he was holding the candle on one side, and that his way could be traced along the carpet by large white spots. somebody else noticed it the next morning; and the housemaid thought that her mistress had done a very foolish thing when she brought that young gentleman into her orderly household. arthur's little room looked very snug as he opened the door and went in. the firelight was dancing on the white curtains and on all the pretty things around. but arthur did not see any of it for the blinding tears that were in his eyes, and fast falling down. his whole heart was longing with one deep aching to be back again at home, and all the more that he had been trying all the evening to keep back the tears. it seemed as if he would cry his heart out, as he lay on the rug, sobbing so bitterly all alone. "oh, mamma, mamma," he sobbed "come, come!" and this was all he said, this was what he repeated again and again; and it was very dreary that there was no answer--it seemed as if no one heard him. but one could hear him. jesus wept when he was on the earth, and he does not despise a child's first bitter grief. he knows what trouble is, and he knows just how much each particular trouble is to each one; for he himself has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. by and by arthur remembered the text, "come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest." he knew that when the lord jesus christ said "all" that he meant all, so he lifted up his heart to the one who alone can read hearts; and this is what he said, with the sobs coming thick and fast--what he prayed; for real prayer is a heart speaking to god, and calling to him in need-- "oh, lord jesus christ, i do come to thee! for i remember the text that says 'come,' and i don't know what to say except that thou knowest, lord jesus, how lonely and miserable i am. my mother is far away, and papa too, and i do so want to feel her arms round me now; but i can't, oh, i can't! lord jesus, if thou wert here on the earth, and in this room, i would come to thee, and sit at thy feet; and thou wouldst put thine arms round me. oh, do it now, lord jesus! for i feel as if i must have somebody taking care of me. the bible says that thou healest the broken-hearted, and i feel broken-hearted to-night, lord jesus, so heal me. lord jesus christ, i belong to thee, i am thy lamb; gather me in thine arms, and carry me in thy bosom." it was in this way that little, lonely arthur vivyan poured his heart out before the lord. he went and told him exactly what was in it, and then he lay at his feet; and he felt as he had not felt before, what it was to be in his keeping, and to hear his voice saying, "thou art mine," to feel the everlasting arms enfolding him, and to know that one so strong, and kind, and true, loved him with an everlasting love. the lord jesus christ was a real person to arthur vivyan. he had known him before as his saviour; he was knowing him now as the lover of his soul. and that night, as he lay in his white-curtained bed, he felt the sweet rest that the lord gives when "he giveth his beloved sleep." the stars shone in their melting blue depths, and their trembling light fell on two who loved each other, and who were both loved by the blessed god, who neither slumbers nor sleeps; and though such time and space were separating them, they were both in his hand who "measures the water in the hollow of his hand." is it not a happy thing to belong to the lord jesus christ? chapter viii. edgar north; or, a heart without a resting-place. about two weeks after his arrival in his new home, when arthur came down one morning to breakfast, something in his aunt's face made him think of pleasant things; so that his "good morning, auntie," seemed rather like a question. "i think you had better have breakfast," said mrs. estcourt, smiling, but holding something in her hand towards him, at the same time. "a letter!" arthur exclaimed, or rather shouted, as he seized the envelope. "a letter for me! it could be only from one person. but, oh, surely they are not in india yet! mamma said they would be weeks and weeks going." "they must have passed some vessel returning to england. you see what a mother you have, to write to you the very first opportunity." "i should think i knew that, auntie. i don't believe there ever was, or will be, any one like my mother in the whole world." then he began to read his mother's letter: "my own child,--for this is the sweetest name i can call you. you are my own, my arthur, my darling little child--just as much mine now, as when we used to sit together by the fireside in the old home, and your head was on my lap, and my arms were around you. and although miles and miles of deep blue sea are lying between us, and the stars that look down on you in your peaceful english home may see me here on the broad, wide ocean, you are here safe in my heart, just the same as ever, and my watchful love, that cannot take care of you as i once did, pours itself out in prayers to the god who loves us both; for he is my father and yours, arthur. we are both in his hands. he will take care of us now, as we walk on this changing world, and he will take care of us for ever, in that land where there are no partings, or sighs, or tears--where the blessed god will joy to bless us for ever. "and now i must tell you something about ourselves, about your father and me. for a little while after we started we had very rough weather; and as the steamer tossed up and down, and rolled with great heaving swells on the waves, i was glad that my little boy had a bed to lie on, that did not heave from side to side. i was glad that the sounds he heard, were the sweet summer winds rustling, and the birds that sang in the trees, instead of the creaking and straining noises that i now hear, and that he was safe, and comfortable, and well; instead of sighing out his poor little heart with trouble; for sea-sickness is a reality, my little arthur, as you would soon find out, if, like me, you had spent some days on the sea, when the winds had made the waves rough. "now the water is calm, and all around us it lies blue and bright, and the sun makes pleasant sparkles on it, which i look at now and again, as i sit here on the deck; writing the letter that you will read, and think of me on my way to the land where you were born. "i only came on deck yesterday; for, as i told you, the weather was so rough, and i was so ill, that i had to stay all the time in my cabin. your father was as well as ever, indeed he said that he was never better in his life; and as i lay there for several weary days, i could hear his voice, now and then talking with the other passengers, and sometimes he would come in and tell me where we were, and what was the state of the weather, until at length he was able to tell me that the wind was going down, and that probably we should have some bright, calm weather; and i was very glad to think that i should be able to leave my dark cabin, and sit out where the sun was shining, and where the sea was stretching beneath it, until it met the spreading sky far away. "there are a great many ladies and gentlemen on board; some of them, as we are doing, leaving their dear little children in english homes, and hoping to see them again some day. some of them have one or two of their youngest children with them, and my only one is far away from me; but i know that god is taking care of my darling child, and from my heart i can say, 'thy will be done;' for though i would have chosen another way, he who chose for me, loves me so tenderly, that i can sit at his feet and submit myself to what he has said. "and that is what i want you to do, my own dear child; that is what i pray for you when my heart rises up to my father's heart and says, 'god bless my child.' i want you to remember that the lord jesus christ is your lord; for you told me that you trust in him, and that he is your hope, and so i want you to remember that if you submit yourself to him, you are owning him as lord, whom the god of all the world has made lord and christ; and so if you are meek and gentle, when something wrong tempts you to be passionate and proud, if you are kind and helpful to others, when selfishness tempts you to please yourself, you are acknowledging this blessed master as yours. is not this a happy thought, my arthur? and do you not like to give pleasure to the one who loves you so, and who did for you what can never be told? "and now, good-bye, my child. i need not give you your father's love, for you have it already, and he joins his prayers for you with mine every day, that our god will bless you and keep you; and he will; for 'he that keepeth thee will not slumber.' "your loving mother." great big tears were running down arthur's face as he finished the letter; but there was a bright look there too, as he folded it up with an air of great content. "auntie," he said, "would there be any use in my writing a letter now? when would she get it?" "i think it would be a very good plan if you write now; your mother would find the letter awaiting her in madras. it would not take nearly so long going as they do." "poor mamma," said arthur, "i don't believe the sea is good for her, after all; you see how ill she is." "oh, yes! but she would very soon get over that; and then, depend upon it, the voyage will be very good indeed for her. perhaps," said mrs. estcourt softly, "that is the way with people in other things and ways." "i know what you mean, aunt," said arthur suddenly, "and i expect you are right." but his aunt heaved a very deep sigh, and said no more. mrs. estcourt was very glad to see her little nephew busily occupied, for that day at least. for several days she had been trying to bring herself to the point of telling arthur, that she thought he had better attend mr. carey's school; and day after day she had put it off, thinking it would make him unhappy. arthur's letter to his mother could not be called a very well written one; there were several mistakes in the spelling, and here and there, a great blot could tell that a good deal of his heart had gone into it; but whatever it was, it was a loving little letter. "my own dear mother,--aunt says there is time for a letter to get to you; so this is an answer to the one you sent me. i think it was a most beautiful letter; and it was very odd that it made me cry. "i like aunt daisy very much; i like her much better than any other lady in the world--except you, of course. "myrtle hill is much grander than the grange. i do try to be careful about the things, dear mamma. oh, mother! i do want to see you so very much sometimes. i could never tell you how much; only i do not want you to think i am unhappy. "mamma, i thought of a text the second evening i came here that made me not so unhappy. i did not think so much of how kind and good the lord jesus was until i came here. tell papa i give him my love. i have made a lot of mistakes, and i could not help these blots. "good-bye, my own dear mother. "ever your loving "arthur." "now, aunt daisy, will you direct this, please?" asked arthur. "oh, but you are such a great boy! i think you had better do it yourself," said his aunt. "shall i? can i? i never did before; but i daresay i could," arthur said, and he was half pleased and half afraid. "will that do?" he asked, after a long time had been spent, very carefully trying to write his best on the thin envelope. "why, arthur, you are getting out of practice with your writing, i should think," said his aunt. and she thought this might lead on to her proposal, about the school. "no; i don't write well, i know," said arthur; "but i try; and i heard some one once say, that it is not always the most stupid people who write the worst." mrs. estcourt laughed. "no, my dear little boy, i did not say it was. but, dear arthur, seriously, i think you ought to write better, and i am afraid you will be getting bad habits. don't you think it would be a good thing for you to begin school?" "what, the boys' school that mother told me about? oh, i was hoping you were going to say something about that! shall i soon be able to go?" "do you want to go?" asked his aunt, astonished. "oh, yes! i should think so." "then, my dear boy, you shall begin to-morrow, if you like. i have spoken to mr. carey about your coming; so i can send over a note this evening to let him know." the remainder of that day arthur could scarcely think of anything else than the prospect that was before him on the morrow--his first entering on school-life. many were the wonderings and conjectures that went on in his mind, as to what kind of a person the master would be--whether he would like the boys, if he would be strict and cross, and if the lessons would be very difficult. but he was quite decided on one point, that he would much rather be going to school every day, and have something to do, than loiter away his time in the house and garden at home. so the next morning, after arthur had finished his breakfast, it required little persuasion from his aunt to make him start for mr. carey's school. the house was about an hour's walk from myrtle hill, and it must be confessed that on his way arthur's heart began to fail him a little, when he thought of encountering so many strange faces. just as he approached the house the clock struck nine; and as arthur entered the large iron gate, he caught sight of some thirty or forty boys rushing across the play-ground, some tumbling over the others, to be in their seats by the time the last stroke of the clock sounded. arthur thought the best thing he could do would be to follow them; so keeping in sight two or three boys who had loitered after the others, he walked behind them, up a long passage; till he reached a door leading into the school-room. he pushed it open so quietly that he was not heard, and had time to take a good view of the room and its occupants. it was large and spacious. all down one side there was a long desk fixed against the wall, where numbers of boys were sitting, engaged in writing or doing their sums. then there were several tables, round which the different classes were seated on forms. the walls were hung with maps, and there were two large globes in a corner of the room. all this arthur took in, in a very short time; and his eyes quickly travelled to the top of the room, where mr. carey was standing at his desk. he was rather thin and tall, with a very grave face, which made arthur feel rather awed; but it was not a cross face. presently he looked up, and saw arthur standing at the door. he had already been prepared for his appearance by a note from mrs. estcourt; so he knew at once who he was. "so you have come, vivyan," he said. "step up here, my boy." arthur advanced to the desk with rather a trembling step, and then had to submit to a number of questions from mr. carey to test his knowledge; after which he was put into one of the lower divisions of the school. it was all new to him to-day; so the hours passed quickly away, and arthur was quite ready again for afternoon school when the time came. so the days went on--one very like the other--and things were seeming less strange as arthur was getting to know the boys better, and to feel more at home with them. there was one boy in mr. carey's school who seemed different from all the rest. his name was edgar north, and he was about arthur's own age. some of the boys said he was delicate, and others told arthur that he was a muff. whatever it was, he seemed to stay outside the rest. he was very often in disgrace; not for lessons badly done, although it might have been so, but mr. carey was very indulgent to him, on account of his weakness, but for rules broken through, for quarrels with the other boys, or disrespect to the teachers. he did not seem happy; there was generally a cloud on his brow, and a weariness and discontent in his manner. arthur sometimes wondered why. might it be on account of his delicacy and his cough, that very often he was obliged to stay at home, when the others joined in some country expedition, and that sometimes, when the game was at its height of interest, his quick, short breathing obliged him to leave off and sit down away from the rest? it would be very trying, certainly; arthur was quite sure of that. he thought a good deal about edgar north, and he could see that the other boys did not like him; to tell the truth, arthur did not himself, but he was very sorry for him when he saw him sometimes all alone, when the others were at play. one fine, sunny half-holiday, when school had been closed for the day, and both boarders and day-scholars were deep in the interest of cricket, arthur had lingered behind the others to put his books together in readiness for going home, and a message from mr. carey to his aunt had detained him still longer, so that by the time he reached the cricket-ground the game had begun. one of the older boys called to him to make haste; but arthur seemed in no haste, and, unlike his usual way at this time, he seemed to be in deep meditation. "come, make haste," said his companion. "why don't you come on?" but still arthur stood; for something had made him pause. it was edgar north's listless figure, half sitting and half lying under a large tree in a field a little distance off, with a very discontented, unhappy face. "i think i won't play to-day, i've got something else to do; i'm going for a walk." "what on earth is that for?" said the older boy; "i thought you were wild for this game to-day." he was not so very sorry, however; for arthur was playing on the opposite side, and he knew by experience, that his vigorous little arms made a great difference sometimes. "well, please yourself. what shall i say when the others ask about you?" "say i have gone out for a walk." "all right," said the other, and he walked away. it was not without a very great struggle that arthur had been able to say this. it was not without more than one earnest prayer, that he had been able to resist the strong temptation. he had been feeling very happy that morning in thinking of his mother's text: "whose i am." and his heart had risen in gladness and thankfulness to the lord who had bought him; and now there was a golden opportunity before him of doing something to prove his love, and of letting it be true of him "whom i serve." edgar north was not happy, and the others had left him all by himself. it must be very bitter to him to see from a distance the wild enjoyment of their game, without being able to take any part in it. arthur knew how he would feel it himself, and a thought came across his mind that he could make it less sad for edgar; that he could offer to go for a walk with him; and that this kindness to another would be pleasing to his master. but then glowing thoughts of the game's enjoyments came across his mind; his hands and feet were burning to run to the cricket-ground, and take part there, with all the energy of his young spirits, while the picture of a solitary walk with edgar north came before his mind in very gloomy contrast. then a voice seemed to speak in his heart: "i love you, my own. i gave myself for you. follow me." the tears came into arthur's eyes, and he looked up to where the blue was covered with little white clouds, and the sun's light was shining; and his heart whispered the words which only one could hear: "lord jesus, i will." arthur had to go over some little distance, before he reached edgar north. he found him sitting on the soft grass, underneath a large tree. he seemed to have been trying to carve his name; for a large e and half of an n were there. but he was tired of that; and a book he had brought with him seemed to have proved equally unsatisfying; for it was lying closed at his feet. he seemed very much surprised at seeing arthur; but all he said, when he came near was: "well?" arthur did not quite know what to say himself, but he asked him after a moment-- "would you like to go for a walk?" "not particularly," said edgar, not very graciously. "why, i thought you liked walking. i heard you saying so last week." "i liked it last week; but i couldn't have it then. people can't always like the same things. i thought you liked cricket." "oh, so i do! i should think i did just!" said arthur emphatically; and he could not help thinking of how much more he liked it, than talking to such a disagreeable companion as edgar was now. it needed another remembrance of the voice in his heart. "well, why don't you play then? the others are playing." "why, i thought you might like to go for a walk." edgar pulled bits of bark off the tree, and threw them on the ground. then he looked up in arthur's face with a half laugh. "well, you are queer. perhaps i should like a walk. where shall we go?" he said, rising suddenly. "i don't mind," arthur said, "except that dusty old road." "the woods then," said edgar, "and then we should be less likely to meet that carey. i hate having to speak to him." they walked on for some distance, without saying very much. arthur found conversation with his companion rather difficult to keep up; most of his questions were answered by "yes" or "no;" and to anything that he said, not requiring an answer, edgar gave a short laugh. "there'll be lots of wild strawberries here soon," he said; "don't you like them?" "pretty well," said edgar listlessly, "when i can't get others." arthur was beginning to think he had better say nothing, when suddenly the other boy turned to him, and said curiously-- "i suppose it was because you are converted that you came?" "yes," arthur answered. "how did you know i was?" he asked, after some little time, when they had walked on in silence. "why, i don't know; some of the others said things about you; and, besides, you know you are." he would not say that he had noticed arthur vivyan's ways, and that he had seen there, what showed him there was a difference between him and the other boys; still less would he tell him just then, that there was an aching wish in his heart that he could say the same for himself. "yes," arthur said, "i am, edgar; and do you know i wish you were." "how do you know i am not?" "well, i don't _know_," said arthur; "but i don't much think you are. are you?" "no," said edgar, pulling violently at the leaves that grew on the bushes near. "shouldn't you like to be?" "what is the use of liking?" asked edgar north. "i shall be if it is god's will, and i shan't if it is not." "oh," said arthur, "that is a dreadful way to talk. i'm quite sure it is not the right way." "well, i know i have thought a great deal about it, especially when i have been ill, and it always makes me miserable, so i try not to think, and i can't think what made me begin it now. do let us talk about something else." and suddenly edgar became very much interested in the subject of the next local examination, in which several of his schoolfellows expected to take part, and was much more lively for the rest of the walk than he had been before. but he did not seem to avoid arthur; on the contrary, after that day, he often seemed to try to be near him; and at length he surprised him very much, by asking if he would come out for another walk. arthur remembered the last one that they had had, and he wondered why! it was not for any pleasure to himself that he agreed, but at any rate this time it was not a cricket-day. "you did not want to come, did you?" asked edgar, after some little time, when they had been walking along through the fields, and had now reached a distant one, where the hawthorn hedge was throwing a sheltering shade. "and i expect you would just as soon sit down, as walk on further. shall we stop here?" "what a queer fellow you are, edgar," said arthur; "i can't make you out at all." "how am i queer?" asked edgar. "why, you _are_ queer; you are different from all the others. perhaps it is because you are not strong." "no, i know i am not," edgar said; "the doctor at my grandmother's used to say i should not live." arthur looked very earnestly at edgar's pale, passionless face. "did he really? are you sorry?" "oh, i dare say he did not know! and if he did, i cannot help it; so what is the use of being sorry or glad? perhaps you may not, just as likely." "but," said arthur, "if i had heard any one say that about me, i should think more about it than you seem to do." "why, it would be all right for you, because you are converted, you know." "but, edgar," and arthur looked very earnestly into his dark, sad eyes, "don't you wish you were?" edgar's eyes fell before his gaze. he looked away, and seemed to be dreamily watching the glistening sunbeams, darting through the trees; but presently the tears gathered, and he said, with a weary sigh, "oh, arthur, if you only knew how much i wish it! if you only knew what i would give, to know i was converted!" "didn't your mother ever talk to you about it?" asked arthur, remembering the sweet words that had fallen into his own heart; "or your father?" "i don't remember my mother," said edgar, "and papa died two years ago; but it was two years before that, when i saw him last." "poor edgar," said arthur softly; for, though he did not say this had been a bitter grief to him, there was something in his tone so hopelessly sad and sorrowful, that the tears came into arthur's eyes to hear it. edgar saw the tears in arthur's eyes, and a little faint smile came in his own. "you are very different from the others, arthur," he said. "i haven't had any one kind to me, since papa went to india." "did your father go to india?" arthur asked brightly. "so did mine. so we are alike, then." "ah, but yours will come back some day, and your mother too; but mine will never, never come back any more!" "tell me about them," said arthur. "well, you know i told you mamma died ever so long ago, so i don't remember her at all; but papa used to tell me how nice she was, and he used to show me her picture." "what kind of a face had she?" asked arthur. "i wonder whether she was like my mother." "well, she had very nice eyes, brown ones." "mamma's eyes were blue, i think," said arthur. "and brown hair; and she looked very kind." "oh, then they are alike in one thing!" "papa used to keep it in his pocket," edgar continued, "and he used to show it to me often when grandmamma was not in the room. i don't think she liked it, because i remember once when we were looking at it she came into the room, and papa put it back into his pocket directly." "who used you to live with then?" "oh, i have always lived at my grandmother's, only now she is dead. that's who i am in mourning for," said edgar, pointing to his black dress. "but father used often to come and see us. it was his home too when he had leave, other times he was with his regiment. then, four years ago, they were ordered to india, and he died of cholera, when he had been there two years; and i never saw him since, four years ago." "poor edgar," said arthur again. he knew enough of loneliness and sorrow himself, to feel what a sad, empty life edgar north's must be, without anything in heaven or earth to make him glad. "did you love your father very much?" asked arthur presently. "oh, arthur, i did love him so!" said edgar very sadly. "you see, i had no one else. i remember it was so very nice, when grandmamma had the letter to say he was coming; and he never let me have much lessons, when he was at home." "was it in the town you lived, or the country?" "it was near the town. we lived in rather a small house, that had a garden. i suppose i shall never see it again. well, i don't much mind." "where shall you spend the holidays?" "at my uncle's in london; he has ever so many children, and i dare say they will not want me." "i think that is so strange of you, edgar," said arthur. "you seem always to think nobody wants you, and that makes you disagreeable, and then they do not. now, i don't see why they should not want you, as well as any one else." "well, i can't help thinking what is true," said edgar. "go on telling me about your father," said arthur; "i like hearing of him." "i don't think i have much to tell," said edgar, "except that it was very happy when he was at home; and, oh, so miserable ever since! and i think he might have stayed." "that is what i thought about mamma. but i am quite sure they knew best; indeed i'm certain, edgar, they would only do it for the best." they stopped talking for a little while, and sat still and silent--very still it was, and very long it lasted for two boys of their age; but edgar's short breathing and weakness had often enforced these times of rest, and arthur's grave, earnest face showed him to be deeply thinking. they made a great contrast as they sat together in the woody shade, where the woodbine-scented breeze was fanning softly, and the quivering light fell scatteringly. there was a weary, restless look brooding over edgar's dark eyes, and his face was pale and worn-looking. arthur's cheeks were ruddy and round, and his thick brown hair clustering on his sunburnt forehead; but with all the energy and liveliness that could be seen on his face, a peaceful, restful look could be noticed there too. "this walk to-day reminds me of long ago," said edgar, after a while. "we used to walk, papa and i. sometimes we set off directly after breakfast, and took some luncheon with us, and then father used to fish, and it was such fun when he caught some; and then we had luncheon, and sometimes father went to sleep for a little, and sometimes he would tell me stories; and talk, oh, so nicely!" "what did he talk about?" asked arthur. "well, i can't tell you exactly, or at any rate i don't want to tell you." "i wish you would," arthur said. presently arthur spoke again. "yes, it is very nice; that is, it is _half_ nice to think of those times." "it must be quite nice for you," said edgar, "because, you see, you may think that it will all come again some day, and that you will be with your father and mother again; but i never shall. oh, arthur, i do want to see him sometimes! i think if i knew for certain he was alive in india, i could wait any time. it would be so nice to know he was coming back again, and that i was going to live with him." and then it struck arthur, how very much more he had to be thankful for, than he had thought. he looked at edgar's sad life, and then he thought of how very much brighter his own was. but he knew enough of dreariness, to be able to enter into edgar's sadness. "well, edgar, i'll tell you what. when my father and mother come home, i will get them to ask you to come to ashton grange, and you may be quite sure the people there will want you. i know i shall. i think, although you are such a queer fellow, that i like you very much, and i am so sorry you are so unhappy." something like a happy smile came into edgar's face, as he said, "i think i should like that." arthur had not known it, but in edgar's heart there had always been a great liking for him. he was so different from himself. perhaps that was one reason, and edgar's was one of those deep, intense natures that cling very closely to their heart's objects. by and by they began their homeward way, and as they walked along the lane, arthur said: "tell me what it was your father used to talk about. i believe i know partly." "well, if you know, what is the use of my telling?" "because i don't quite know. and, edgar, was it not about heaven, and the way to get there?" "yes," said edgar in a low voice; "but i don't think grandmamma agreed with him. any way, i know that when she talked, it made me miserable." "you seem to have had a great many troubles, edgar," said arthur, "even more than i have." "oh, arthur," said edgar, "i don't think any one knows how unhappy i have been! look here," and edgar spoke in a lower voice; "i don't mind telling you, because you are different from the rest; but, do you know, i have always been in a fright about something or other. sometimes, in the winter nights, all by myself at home, i have had such horrid thoughts, and i have fancied all sorts of things; and even in the summer evenings, when the sky had that red look, it always made me think about the moon being turned into blood, and about judgment and punishment; and i used to think about the great white throne, and myself standing before it, and god judging me, and that papa and mamma would be on one side, and i should be on the other." "well, i have had thoughts like that, i think; but then i always thought of the lord jesus christ; and how could i be afraid then?" "but he will judge people, won't he?" "oh, edgar, he is our saviour!" said arthur earnestly. "it is only when people will not have him for their saviour that he is their judge. why, i am not afraid of the lord jesus. how could i be?" "ah," said edgar sadly, "that is because you are converted, and i am not! i have tried so hard. oh, so many times, after i have heard sermons, i have felt so frightened, and i have made up my mind i would be a christian; and then in bed i have cried so, and i have thought, that surely this time i must really go on right, and the next day, it has all been different again, and i did not care a bit about it!" "but, edgar, the lord jesus wants you to come to him, a great deal more than you want it. i know he does, because he says, 'ye _will not_ come to me that ye might have life.'" "but what is coming?" said edgar in a dreary voice. "well, i'll tell you the way, my mother once explained it to me. don't you know, if the lord jesus were here on the earth, you would go to the place where he was, and say, 'i am here, lord jesus; i come;' and so now you can say that while you are sitting here, because he is here, and everywhere; so you need not move. and, edgar, don't you think he knows that you say it? i am certain he does, because he has been wanting you to answer, ever since he called." "but," said edgar, "you make it out, as if it was not to try a bit." "well, and that is it," said arthur, with a bright, happy smile. "that is just what mother says. i can tell you another thing she said. you remember about the lord jesus feeding the people in the wilderness?" "yes, with the loaves and the fishes." "yes; that was it. well, all he wanted them to do, was to rest on the grass, and be fed; and that was just the thing, that pleased him best. you see they had not to try and do anything hard--had they? and mother said, that this is what the lord jesus wants us to do--to stop trying, and let him do what he likes with us; and, you know, the lord jesus could not do anything unkind, could he?" "you don't seem one bit afraid of him, arthur." "why, no. how could i be afraid?" asked arthur, with such a happy smile. "don't you know "'how our hearts delight to hear him bid us dwell in safety near him! why should we distrust or fear him? oh, how he loves!'" they neither of them spoke for several minutes. it was getting late, and the sun was falling in slanting golden rays on the green slopes; the shadows were deepening in the woods, and other sights and sounds told, that evening was coming on; so the two boys rose from their grassy seat. "i wish, oh, how i wish," said edgar, after a long pause, "that i could feel the same as you do, arthur!" "well, but you must not be wanting to feel first; you have to believe what the lord jesus says, and he says, 'him that cometh to me i will in no wise cast out;' so if you would only come, you must be safe, for he cannot break his word. and i will tell you what i do, edgar, whenever i think of how bad i have been, and when i feel frightened. i just say, 'jesus died,' and god hears me, and satan hears me too; and of course when i remember why jesus died, i feel glad. and then, there is a text i like to remember--a very short one it is--where the lord jesus is called 'the saviour of the world;' and, you know, if he is the saviour of the world, he must be my saviour, and yours too." they had reached the school-gates now; the shadows were deep and long, and arthur's two-mile walk lay before him. but his aunt had long since found, that she could trust him alone; so even when the moon had begun to tell, that the day had gone; and the stars were speaking sparkling joy above, she was not uneasy about him. "well, good-bye," said arthur. "good-bye," edgar said; but he did not go, and he stood, looking wistfully at arthur. presently he spoke-- "arthur, i wish----" "well, what?" "i wish you would be my friend." "why, so i am," said arthur. "yes; but i mean, i have not any brother, and you have not either. i wish you would be the same to me as if we were. will you?" "yes," said arthur, with a half smile, for he felt a little shy; but he wanted to say something kind, so he said, "very well then, we can; and when my father and mother come home from india, you can come to us, you know." and then arthur turned away, and began his walk to myrtle hill at a running pace. but he was thinking all the way very much of his talk with edgar north, so that when he reached his aunt's house, the earnest look was on his face still. the darkness had not yet fallen, but the evening shades were gathering. mrs. estcourt was in the garden, looking out for her little nephew. she was very fond of arthur; of course there were times when things did not run altogether smoothly between them, because, although he was a follower of the lord jesus christ, and really tried to please him, he had a strong will and a hot temper. but if mrs. estcourt saw his faults, she saw his struggles too; and she noticed when he gave up, what was a great matter to a boy, such as he was; and she knew that this was not natural. she knew that it was god's love that made arthur glad; and often in her heart's secret depths she would wish to be a child like him once more, that she might believe as simply; for thoughts and questions made her very unhappy at times, and the reasonings of her natural mind prevented her enjoying the promises that god gives. but was she not making a mistake? could she not become a little child, as god has told us all to do? could she not cease to think, and begin to believe, and take the portion of joy and life from the one, who has said, "it is more blessed to give than to receive"? arthur went to look at one particular corner of the grounds, which his aunt had given him for his very own; it was hidden by a bend in the trees, and he had expended a great deal of care and skill on this garden-plot. first of all arthur had intended, that his estate should have a river flowing through it; but when he had dug a deep trench, and filled it, he was much disappointed to find that the water sunk into the earth; and even when he had lined it with stones and oyster-shells, there was only a very faint trickling stream, and not the brimming river, that he had fancied to himself; so then, in disgust, arthur levelled the banks of his river, and determined to plan his garden anew. at present it was really a pretty one, though perhaps a little too bright, with hollyhocks and geraniums. two very large roses stood at the entrance, and the scarlet geraniums were blooming there. there was a gravel walk through the middle, that led up to a grotto, and the ferns that were growing there were well watered. arthur would have help from no one, in the care of his garden; and considering this, its neatness did him great credit. mrs. estcourt thought so too, as they stood together inside the enclosure, which was all his own. "why, arthur, i think you had better turn gardener, when you choose a profession," she said. "a gardener, aunt! well, i shouldn't mind. but i am not quite sure i shall not be something else." "what would that be?" asked his aunt. "well, i think i might be a missionary." then he seemed to be thinking; and after some little time, he said, "i wish he would not talk like that, i wish i could make him see." "who, dear?" "edgar north, auntie. i always thought he was very cross and disagreeable, but it is not that, at all. it is because he is so unhappy. i do wish i had thought of one other thing to say to him." "what was it, arthur?" asked his aunt. "why, you know, he is so frightened. fancy," and arthur's voice was soft and low, "he is afraid of the lord jesus christ. that must be, because he does not know him, must it not, auntie? and i wish i had said to him, 'if the lord jesus were to come walking towards us now, and sit down here, would you be afraid to see him?'" "and would not you, dear arthur?" asked his aunt. "why, no, aunt daisy! how could i? the little children that he took up in his arms were not. i am sure i should not be afraid." mrs. estcourt did not say anything, but she was thinking of what arthur had said. it seemed to her then, that it must be very sweet to be one of the little children, that the lord jesus had blessed; for she often felt very lonely and weary. some people--those who only care for the things that gold can bring--might say she had everything that she wanted; but her heart craved a great deal more than this, and when her husband went away from her sight for ever, she had felt as if he had taken her heart with him. there was one, who had said to her long before, "give me thine heart;" but she had not listened to his voice, and she had not thought about his love; greater than which, there is none. she was trusting in him for salvation, but she was not looking to him, to feed her heart with his love. she was following him afar off, too far to be able to say, "i sat down under his shadow with great delight; and his fruit was sweet to my taste." chapter ix. midsummer holidays among the mountains. the summer holidays were coming very near, and most of the boys at mr. carey's school were looking forward to them with great joy; for they had pleasant homes, where they knew that their fathers and mothers would welcome them, and their young sisters and brothers would be glad to see them again. arthur vivyan, too, was expecting to enjoy his time; for mrs. estcourt generally spent some of the summer weeks in the swiss mountains, and this year it was a pleasure to her to think of showing the places, that she knew so well, to her nephew; and the thought of his wonder and surprise, when he should see the snowy mountains, and the deep blue lakes, that the sun would glow with a deeper colour, gave her more pleasure than she had known for a long time. arthur had been very busy with his examination, and other things had hindered another walk with his new friend; but they both expected, when the holidays were over, and they should meet again, that there would be more time for walks and talks. it was the last day of school. arthur was hurrying in to his class, which was in a different room from the one in which edgar studied, when in the corridor they met. arthur was passing him quickly, with a nod and smile, when edgar stopped him, and said breathlessly-- "oh, arthur, i have been looking everywhere for you! i must speak to you." "i can't stop one minute," said arthur. "i'm late as it is." "yes; but i must!" said edgar eagerly. "you don't know, i am going away to stay." "well!" and arthur thought. "let me see. i will try and be ready, five minutes beforehand; and i dare say, the other boys will be longer going to-day." "oh, yes!" said edgar. "i forgot; there will be plenty of time, of course, this last day." so arthur hurried in to his class, forgetting, after he had given it a moment's thought, what edgar had said. he thought of it again, when he was waiting under the trees; where groups of boys were standing, talking eagerly, with bright, busy faces. edgar's was very different, and his pale, earnest face was even deeper than usual. "well," said arthur, "what have you to tell me?" edgar had a letter in his hand. "why, look here," he said. "i told you, i had to go and live at my uncle's in london. i did not mind that; it did not make much difference; but see here, what he says in this letter i had to-day. he is my guardian now, you know, and he says he thinks it will be better for me on every account, to give up school." "and what are you to do? not going to have any more lessons?" "he says, i am to study with his boys. they have a tutor, and he hopes we shall all find it very pleasant." edgar's face did not look as if he expected to do so. "well," said arthur. "do you think it is well, arthur?" said edgar, a little reproachfully. "i hate it, and i hate him, and i hate them all. i thought it was bad enough before." "oh, edgar, that's wicked!" "well, i can't help it. wait until you get bothered, and perhaps you will be wicked too. and, of course, they will hate me, all of them. he has a wife and a lot of daughters, as well as sons." "they would be your cousins, would they not?" "i suppose so," said edgar hopelessly. "well, do you know, i think it need not be so very bad. you know, edgar, they would be next best to brothers and sisters. and there might be a little one," said arthur, with a soft, tender feeling; as he thought of the little sunny sister, that still lived in his heart. "why do you hate it so very much?" "every reason," said edgar bitterly. "and, arthur, you know i love you, more than any one else in the world; and i wanted to talk to you sometimes." "and i am sorry, edgar," said arthur; "only then, you know, you are coming to stay with us at ashton grange, when my father and mother come back." "ah, but that is such a very long time; and, you know, i may die before that. perhaps i shall; and if i were certain of going to heaven, i should like to die." "i thought you would be certain by this time, edgar; you know you ought to be certain. why can't you stop bothering about yourself? oh, edgar, i wish you would!" "i do get so frightened," said edgar, his lip trembling. "but mamma says, that is all the more reason, why you should let the lord jesus take care of you. that's all, you know, edgar. but i have told you so often, i think the best thing i can do, is to pray for you." "will you, arthur? will you really?" said edgar, turning round a very anxious, eager face; and he said it again. "oh, do please, every day, arthur! i don't believe any one else does. father used to pray for me; oh, i know he did!" and edgar's words ended in smothered sobs. arthur's arms were round his neck now. "dear edgar, don't cry. you know i do love you just as if you were my brother; and i will pray for you every day. i do sometimes already. and then we can write to each other, you know, can't we?" looking through the trees they could see that the other boys were fast dispersing, and that only one or two of the day boys were left; so arthur knew that he must go, and that it must be a very long good-bye to edgar. they walked together to the gate, and then they stopped. edgar seemed to be searching in his pocket for something. presently he found it, and placed it in arthur's hand. "what is this?" said arthur. "well, it is a present for you. i have nothing else to give you, and i did want to give you something." "but what is it?" said arthur; for he seemed puzzled by the appearance of edgar's gift, although it was open in his hand. "well, i'll tell you," said edgar. "i have two medals that my grandfather got at college, and father gave them to me when he went away; and, you know, if you were my brother you would have one; so i want you to take it. i have one just like it." "very well," said arthur; "thank you, edgar, and i don't like saying good-bye at all, you know; but we must; and, edgar, won't you do it, what we talked about?" "and you remember what you promised about praying. mind you do, arthur. good-bye." then arthur went away; and as he was walking homewards, there was more than one tear brushed away by his little hot, ink-stained hand, though it was not a heart-grief to him, and he did not know what a lonely, desolate feeling was in edgar's heart, as he watched him walking slowly away until the distance hid him from his eyes; for arthur was the chief object in his heart just then. the next day the play-ground at mr. carey's school was quiet and empty, and the broad shadows fell softly on the silent grass. the sheep in the fields must have wondered at the stillness. and mr. carey was enjoying the half-yearly silence that reigned there. arthur had been looking forward to the holiday journey on the continent with glowing expectation; he could hardly believe at first that he was really going to see the towns and countries of which he had learnt in his geography lessons. he tried to imagine the journey, and to see pictures of the places where they were going; but that was not very easy, as he had never been so far before as this last journey he had taken, and he knew nothing at all of travelling by sea; this he found out to be a very unpleasant reality; and he wished very much that, while he remained abroad with his aunt, the tunnel under the sea would be finished between dover and calais. they had a very pleasant time in switzerland. then arthur saw the deep blue lake with its solemn projecting mountains that swelled in great mounds around, and far down where the gleaming peaks of white made the blue look deeper; and in the evening, when the sun was hiding behind, and was throwing a flame-coloured glow on the grandeur around, he would stand on the terrace and feel the solemn hush that told the night was coming. several weeks were passed among the mountains, and it was not until just before the opening of the school that he found himself back at myrtle hill. chapter x. at rest now. "i wonder why edgar north does not write to me. i can't think what can have happened to him. just think, auntie; i know that when his last letter came, the leaves had not all gone from the trees, and now look at the snow." several months had passed away since arthur and his aunt had come home, and the winter chill and shadows were gathering around. many letters had found their way to myrtle hill from the far-away mother in india, and sometimes, though not so often, answers went back to tell her things about her child that made her glad. at first arthur had often had tidings of his absent friend, beginning, "my dear arthur, i hope you are quite well;" and there was a sadness that spoke in his short notes that arthur could scarcely understand. but in one of his letters edgar had said, "i have to be indoors by myself a great deal, and then i think of the things we used to talk about". that was the last letter that had come from him, and now it was several months ago, and arthur was wondering at the long silence, as he had written twice in answer to this letter. but many things had taken up his thoughts and his time, and the winter holidays had begun, before he had thought much of his absent friend. "aunt daisy," said arthur one morning, about two days after he had seen his lesson books put away for the present, "i really wish i knew what has become of edgar; i think it is the strangest thing that he never writes to me. people do not generally stop caring about their friends suddenly, do they?" "no, dear, not generally. perhaps little boys may be peculiar kinds of creatures, you know," she said, smiling. "i am sure, aunt," said arthur, looking aggrieved, "you think boys are much nicer than you did once. and, besides, edgar and i are not little." "no, dear," said his aunt, laughing and kissing him. "i do think they are very nice sometimes; and you are getting a great big fellow, whatever edgar is." "i wish he would write to me," said arthur, pausing before he began his breakfast. "perhaps he may be ill," his aunt suggested. "perhaps he may be, auntie," said arthur thoughtfully. "i wish i knew. poor edgar! fancy his being ill all alone." "alone, dear! why, is he not with his uncle and his aunt?" "yes; but then, you know, _all_ aunts are not nice. and there are a lot of cousins. perhaps you might not want to have me, if you had ever so many children, aunt daisy." mrs. estcourt smiled, and perhaps she thought that arthur was not so very far from right. arthur still wondered why no letter came, and at last he had almost made up his mind to write again; but this would be a task not at all to his taste, and one which he would very much rather avoid. one morning when he came down to breakfast, he saw that there was something on his plate. it really was a letter at last! and, of course, arthur concluded that it could be from no one but his friend in london. "a letter for me at last! well, it is quite time. now i shall have to answer it, i suppose. oh! i forgot. good morning, auntie!" but when arthur had gone back to his place, and had examined his letter more closely, he saw that it was not edgar's round, plain hand that had directed the envelope. "why, aunt," he said, "i don't believe it is from edgar at all. who can it be from? edgar does not write that way. that is a lady's writing. what lady could be writing to me? mamma is the only one, and her letter could not be from london." "suppose you were to open it," said his aunt. "nobody else has any right to do it but you." "well!" said arthur, drawing a long breath of expectation. presently he was deep in the interest of his letter, and it was not for several minutes that he spoke again. "well, this is a very queer letter, and i cannot understand it at all. i can make out that edgar is very, very ill. and, auntie, do you know he seems to think perhaps he is never going to get well at all," arthur said very gravely and sadly. "has edgar written to you himself?" asked his aunt. "yes. at least, that is, he said it, and one of his cousins wrote it down. would you like to read his letter, auntie?" this was edgar's letter to arthur: "my dear arthur,--my aunt is writing to your aunt, and my cousin minnie is writing this for me. i am in bed, so i am not able. you see, arthur, i am very ill, and the doctor says i shall not get better; but i am not afraid now, dear arthur. cousin minnie is very nice. i like her so much; but she has to go away soon. arthur, i hope you will be able to come. i have prayed that you may; and i think your aunt will let you, because, you see, i am going to die, most likely, and i want to see you again. "your affectionate friend, "edgar north." "what can he mean, aunt daisy? what can he mean by saying, 'i hope you will be able to come'? it is so strange not to explain." "do you think that will help you to understand?" asked his aunt, giving him one of her own letters to read. "what! do you mean me to read your letter, auntie? well!" said arthur, wondering at this unusual occurrence, and not connecting it at all with his own letter. mrs. estcourt's letter began 'dear madam,' and it was some little time before arthur could understand who it was from, or what it meant. by and by he found that it was from edgar's aunt, and that she was wishing him to stay at her house in london, so that he might see her little nephew again. this letter told that edgar was very ill indeed; that his illness was consumption, and that the doctor expected him to live only a very short time. it was several minutes before arthur spoke, after he had read this letter. breakfast was quite forgotten, and he could hardly understand at first the strange things he had read. "now, arthur dear, you must eat some breakfast before we talk," said his aunt. "aunt daisy," he said, when he had finished, "what shall you say, when you answer edgar north's aunt's letter?" "well, what shall i say?" "auntie," said arthur presently, "i am so sorry about edgar. i never thought he was so very ill. do you think he is really going to die?" "yes, dear. i should think he will not get well. but you need not be sorry, arthur. don't you see, he says he is not afraid; and the world is not such a very bright place that he should be sorry to go, when he knows he has such a home. don't you think so, darling?" "yes," said arthur; but the tears had dimmed his blue eyes, and a sudden feeling in his throat made him stop speaking. when mrs. estcourt was sitting with her work by the drawing-room fire, with arthur by her side, much more quietly and gravely than was usual with him, he said suddenly: "but, aunt, when are you going to answer that letter?" "that is just the question i was asking myself, and the answer was, 'now.' what shall i say, arthur?" "well, don't you think i had better go?" "yes, surely, dear. but how are you going to get there? you cannot travel by yourself." "oh, aunt!" said arthur, almost in an alarmed tone of voice, "i should hope i am old enough. why, of course i could. the idea of anybody taking care of me!" "well, but," said mrs. estcourt, smiling, "that is just what i have been thinking about all this time. i have been thinking that i should feel very unhappy, if i let you go alone. it may be foolish, arthur; but, you know, your father and mother gave you to me to take care of for them." "i know," said arthur impatiently, "they would let me go by myself. i could not bear to have any old man or woman looking after me." "they need not be old, you know," said his aunt. "now, arthur," she added very decidedly, "there is no use saying anything more about it. if you go at all, i must know that some one is in the carriage with you. i need not tell them to take care of you, but i must know that some one will be there; and i know mrs. maitland is going to london to-morrow, so i shall find out what train she is going by." arthur made an impatient movement; he did not say any more, but a look was on his face that showed what he was feeling. as it happened, he need not have been so disgusted. when the time for starting came, and he was taking his seat in the carriage, he found that the lady had already taken her place there; and it was not so very trying to his feelings as he expected, for mrs. estcourt only said, "this is my little nephew, mrs. maitland; he is going to london, and i am glad to think he is in your company." "she never asked her to take care of me," said arthur to himself, "and i am sure she could not think of such a thing herself when she sees me." but mrs. maitland had sons of her own at home about arthur's age, and she knew something about boys and their ways, so that by the time they reached the paddington station they were very good friends. arthur did not at all object to her helping him to get a cab that was to take him to leicester lodge, in kensington. indeed, he was obliged to confess to himself, when he found himself alone in the hansom cab that his friend had found for him, that it was very well she had been with him, for when he was standing on the platform, with the din and bustle around him, and the many people stirring in the vast station, he had felt quite bewildered. he had never been in london before, and this was the longest journey he had taken. it was a very curious feeling that he had when he found himself alone in the cab: at first he could not get quite over the feeling that it was not safe; it seemed to him that it would be so very easy for the driver to go away and leave the horse to take him wherever he liked amongst the crowds of people, and cabs, and omnibuses. you may be sure that he looked about him well, as they whirled along through street after street, skirting the park and the palace-like houses. he had to guess the names of the places they were passing through, and i dare say some of his guesses would have amused you very much indeed. he was quite sure a hotel that he passed was somebody's palace, perhaps the lord chancellor's. he did not think it could be her majesty's, because there were no soldiers. it was quite dark by the time the cab drove up outside leicester lodge, and lights were shining above the shutters of the dining and drawing-room windows. the dim light enabled arthur to see that it was a large house with a small piece of garden-ground in front, and one or two leafless trees, which gave it rather a dreary look. it was not very long before he found himself standing inside the hall door with his portmanteau. the servant showed him into a small ante-room, and said he would tell the young ladies. arthur had a curious feeling of not being expected, although he knew he must be, as his aunt had written to mrs. north the day before. this was not a very quiet and orderly household evidently; there were traces of that in the room where he was sitting, and he could hear noises on the stairs and in the room overhead that might say the same. presently there was a scuffling noise in the hall, and after a little while the door was burst quickly open, and more than one curly head peeped in, and was as quickly drawn back, and arthur could hear a little girl's voice say, "oh, gerald, it was you made me do it; you know it was!" arthur felt rather inclined to run out, and see who was there; but he thought it would be better to wait until some older person came. by and by the door opened again, more quietly this time, and a young lady came into the room. she had a kind look on her face, as she held out her hand to arthur, and said-- "i am so sorry you have been left here alone; but i could not leave the baby, my youngest brother. won't you come upstairs to your room?" arthur was feeling just a little shy, so he only shook hands with the young lady, and followed her upstairs. on the way, he asked, "will you tell me how edgar is?" "not very well, to-day; but just now he is asleep, i think. were you and he great friends?" "yes," said arthur. "are you his cousin?" "one of his cousins. i dare say he told you there were ever so many." "yes; i don't think he knew how many," said arthur. "no; i should think not," said maude, laughing. "i hardly do, sometimes. but i believe altogether we number ten." "oh," said arthur, "what, ten brothers and sisters at home?" "oh, no; we are very seldom all at home together. two of my brothers are abroad, and some of the girls are at school. it is a very good thing they are sometimes." "there, that is edgar's room," said miss north, as they passed one of the doors. "we try to keep the noise away from this passage as much as we can; but it is not very easy with so many boys and girls." this was very true, as just then two boys about arthur's own age came bursting through one of the doors, and were stopped by their sister at the entrance of the passage. "now, boys, don't come this way. you know edgar is asleep. just tumble down the other stairs, if you must tumble." "i suppose you never tear about in that way," said maude, with a faint smile. "oh, yes, i think i do sometimes," arthur answered; "but, of course, it is not so much fun doing it by one's self." they were in arthur's room now, which was a small one not very far from edgar's; and a locked door, which opened into another room, showed that it was a dressing-room. "you see, as the children and edgar are at home, we have only this little room. will you be able to sleep here, do you think?" edgar's cousin smiled as she spoke, and arthur thought how very nice it made her look. "oh, yes; i should think so," he said. "well, presently you will hear the tea bell. oh, no; but i forgot! we don't ring the tea bell now that edgar is ill. one of the children shall let you know, if you are not down first." but after a little while, when no one had come to call him, arthur opened his door and came down stairs. it did not need any one to tell him which was the room where the young people were, as the sounds that came through the shut door would let any one know that. arthur paused outside the school-room door, and then he opened it and went in. it was such a strange new scene that he saw, so different from anything he had been accustomed to, and he was almost bewildered by so many boys and girls, most of whom seemed to be laughing and talking together. there was a long tea-table. the eldest sister was at the head, five younger ones were seated around, and a tall boy was lying on a sofa near the fire reading. indeed, he did not call himself a boy at all; for he had just left school, and was preparing for some difficult examination. all the faces round the table were turned towards arthur as he opened the door; but none of them spoke until maude, noticing the silence, saw arthur standing. then she said, "gerald, why don't you speak? or harold, this is arthur vivyan, edgar's friend." the two boys shook hands, and then arthur spoke to the three little girls, who were looking as if they would like to speak. arnold, the eldest, seemed to be half asleep over his book; so they sat down to tea. arthur was wondering where the father and mother were. it seemed so strange altogether, and he could not help thinking that it was rather a disorderly party. all the children seemed to do very much as they liked, and yet it appeared as if their eldest sister took a great deal of trouble to make them behave properly. she seemed to be constantly putting them right without much effect. arthur wondered whether this was what gave her face such a tired look. "harold, i wish you would let clara alone. do take tea properly. gerald, you know you would not do that if papa were here." and maude gave a sigh, as she saw her words had no effect. "i do wish you would behave properly; what must edgar's friend think of you?" "i dare say he thinks we are something like himself," said gerald, "don't you?" arthur laughed, because he did not know what else to do. and then maude gave a faint laugh. "what's the use of keeping on wishing, maude?" said arnold, rousing himself. "why can't you make them?" "well, how would you?" asked maude. "oh, that is quite another thing," said arnold, yawning. "i dare say you could not do it as well as maude," said harold. "no; very likely not," said arnold, laughing, and he returned to his book. "well, i wish you would all make haste and finish tea," said maude, taking out her watch, "whatever way you do it. oh, dear, i must make haste, or i shall not be ready in time for dinner. arnold, you must go. what will papa say if we are not ready when the bell rings?" arnold got up as if with an immense effort. "i dare say i shall be ready quite as soon as you are, maudie. you always get into such a fluster about every thing." when the two eldest were gone, the younger ones became still more lively. one of the little girls was more quiet than the rest, and she seemed to think it would be nice and polite to talk to their visitor. "do you always have your meals by yourselves?" asked arthur. "all except breakfast," said minnie. "you see, mamma hardly ever comes out of her dressing-room; she is ill, and papa is away all the day, and he only comes home to dinner at seven." "does he have dinner alone?" "oh, no; you know that was the reason maude was in such a hurry. she and arnold dine with papa." then they were both silent for a little while. presently arthur said, "i wonder when i shall be able to see edgar." minnie hesitated, and then said, "i was just thinking about that. you see, edgar does not know you have come; and, besides, i think he is asleep; he was just now, and i cannot go and ask maude." "why not?" said arthur. "oh, because dinner is going on. papa would not like it." "you do what your sister tells you more than the others," said arthur, "don't you?" "oh, we all do sometimes," said minnie. after a little while she spoke again: "i don't think maude would mind. perhaps she forgot, and i can tell her about it afterwards. i'll tell you what we will do; we will go up to edgar's door, and then i can go in, and you can stay outside while i see whether he is asleep, and whether i can tell him that you are here. i don't think maude will mind. shall we?" "yes," said arthur. "i don't see why she should, because i came on purpose to see edgar." as soon as the other children saw minnie and arthur going away, there was a general cry, "minnie, where are you going?" "never mind," said minnie resolutely. "we wanted to have 'post'. there won't be enough without you. come now, stop," said harold, putting his hand on the door handle. "oh, harold, do let us go!" said minnie pitifully. "well, tell us where you are going then?" minnie saw that this was the only chance. "we are going to edgar's room, i shall be back soon, harold." "yes; but we wanted arthur vivyan to play. boys are twice the fun of girls." "but, you know, he came on purpose to see edgar; and don't you remember how very, very ill, edgar is, harold?" said his sister gravely. harold let go his grasp of the door, and arthur and his new little friend found themselves safely outside. "now," said minnie, as they stood on the landing at the top of the stairs, "you stop here, and then i will come back in a minute." she opened the door very cautiously, and looked in for a moment; then arthur saw her go inside and shut the door. it was several minutes before she came back. "i told him," she said. "oh, i hope i did not do him any harm. he was so very glad." "why," said arthur, "i should think that would be a good thing." "but he is so ill, you know. i think you had better go in now. oh," she said, just as she was turning away, "if you think him looking very different from what he was last summer, don't you think you had better not seem surprised? i know my mother never likes people to say anything about her looks." "very well," said arthur. it was only the firelight that brightened edgar's room, and it danced and sparkled around, and gave quite light enough for arthur to see every thing distinctly. the room felt very warm and comfortable as he went in, and the sound of edgar's quick, hard breathing was very plain. arthur drew very quietly near the bedside. little minnie's caution was well given; for it needed an effort on his part to be quiet and composed, as he saw the change in his friend; and he had to try very hard to keep the tears from coming to his eyes. edgar was lying so very still and quiet; his cheeks were white and sunken, and his eyes looked large, and dark, and shining; but there was a much happier look in them than in the old times when they used to talk together. "oh, arthur," said edgar, trying to stretch out his hand, "i am so glad you have come. i did so pray that i might see you again." arthur came and sat down as near him as he could. "of course i came when you wanted me, and my aunt said i might." "hold my hand, arthur," said edgar, "while i talk to you. you are my brother, you know." arthur took edgar's thin, hot hand, and held it in his own sturdy one; and as he looked at him, he could not help it, the tears came into his eyes. "i know what you are thinking about, arthur," said edgar, "and i know you are trying to seem as if you do not think me very ill; but you need not mind, i know i am, and i know i am going to be with the lord jesus very soon." "dear edgar," said arthur, burying his face in the bed-clothes to hide his tears, "i never knew you really were so very ill." "didn't you?" said edgar. "no, i suppose not. i did not know it either, until lately, for certain. but it will be so nice in heaven, arthur, with the lord jesus. i shall never be tired, or cross, or have those pains. and the lord jesus wants to have me there; that is so nice to think of. you know i have always had a feeling that people would as soon i was away; but i know he really wants to have me in heaven with himself very much. it makes me love him so much to think of that. that is one of the things cousin amy told me." "who is she? does she live here?" "oh, no; she is not one of these norths; she is one of my other uncle's daughters; and she was staying here in the autumn. she taught me more about the lord jesus than any one else, except you." "did i?" asked arthur. "why, you know you did. don't you remember those walks? i have never forgotten those things, arthur." "but you used to be very miserable then." "yes; but i thought about it all afterwards; and then cousin amy was so nice." "tell me some of the things she said," asked arthur; "that is, if you can; but perhaps you have talked enough for to-night, edgar. perhaps i had better go now." "oh, no," said edgar; "do stay; it is so nice having you; and i can talk much better in the evenings. i will tell you some of the nice thoughts i had, if you like. you know i have had so much time to think, arthur. i have had so many hours by myself, lying here." "have you been here long, then, and by yourself? oh, edgar, why couldn't you have let me know?" asked arthur reproachfully. "oh, because i could not write myself. i became worse so suddenly, you know. it seems such a long, strange time since i came, and since last holidays when i saw you, arthur. at first it was so horrid; and then i got ill, and then cousin amy came, and then louisa and minnie came home for the holidays, and now you are here." "how was it horrid?" asked arthur. "well, i know they did not much want me. i don't mean they were unkind; but just think of all the children here. it does not make much difference to uncle north, because he is away all the day at his office, nor to poor aunt north either, because she is always ill; but i know maude has enough to do already; and arnold says he thinks boys are a great bother. then the others used to be making such a noise, and taking long walks, and i could not; and they all said i was not happy; but i was just as happy as anywhere else, only i could not be the same as they were." "that little girl seems nice," said arthur, "the one that told you i was here." "minnie? oh, yes, she is a dear little thing. but she has only been at home about a fortnight. it was she who got aunt north to ask you to come. i love her; she has been more kind to me than any of the rest." "i expect my little sister mildred would have been something like her if she had lived," said arthur. "you cannot think how i used to wish for you, arthur. while cousin amy was here i never thought of asking her to write to you for me; besides, it would not have been very much use, when i could not have asked you to come. maude used sometimes to come up and sit in my room. but i don't know how it is, i feel rather afraid of maude; and she has so much to do, and altogether i did not like her to do it. then when the holidays began she could not come up. but the day after minnie came home, she came up and talked; and i did not mind asking her anything." "did you ask her to write to me?" asked arthur. "not exactly. one day she asked me, when we were talking about my not going to live, whether there was any one i would like to see; and i said there was one person, and that was you, you know. then the next time she came she said, 'i've asked mamma, edgar, and she says we may, if maude can manage.' i could not think what she meant at first. was she not a dear little thing?" "yes; and then," said arthur, very much interested. "oh, then she coaxed maude in some way, and i said the letter, and minnie wrote it." just then the door opened, and some one appeared with a tray, whom arthur had not yet seen. this was the nurse, who was a kind person, and came to edgar's bedside when she could leave her own charge. "oh," she said, "so you have your friend, mr. edgar, i see." "yes, nurse," said edgar, "isn't it nice?" "but you must not talk too much, you know, sir." "i expect he has been talking quite enough," said arthur, jumping up; "and i am going now, edgar, i can come again to-morrow, you know." "that's a good young gentleman," said nurse. so edgar's thoughts could not be told until the next day. on the way down stairs, arthur met maude; and he began to wonder now whether she would like his having been all this time in edgar's room, and whether she would know. perhaps his thoughts were in his face, for maude smiled, and said: "oh, i know. you have been in edgar's room. minnie told me all about it. what did you think of him?" "i think he is very, very ill, miss north." "yes; poor child. it is easy to see he cannot live long. he is very peaceful though." maude sighed as she spoke. perhaps she was wishing that she was the same herself, and that there was a peace in her heart which the lord gives, "not as the world giveth." "miss north," said arthur, "you did not mind your sister having taken me up stairs, did you?" "oh, dear, no. i dare say she knows quite as well as i do what is good for edgar. she is a very sensible little woman." arthur did not find that the north family were much more subdued and orderly the next day than they had been the evening before. this was holiday time, and with no lessons to do, it could hardly be expected but that there should be a commotion all the day. happily the school-room was some distance from the room where the sick boy lay, so very little noise found its way there. mrs. north wished to see arthur the next day. he felt rather shy of going; but as it had to be done, he made up his mind to do it. he thought her something like her daughter maude, only more quiet and gentle, and there was a sweeter look on her face than maude usually wore. when the evening came, a message was sent that edgar wanted to have arthur with him again. he was always better at that time; and he would sit up with the pillows around him, and the crimson curtains looking so dark and red behind his pale white face; but the firelight that glowed around, and showed arthur how thin and sunken his face was, showed him, too, that a calm, happy peace was spreading there, and making it very beautiful. "arthur," said edgar, "i want you to have my bible and my watch; will you? and keep them always for my sake." "but, edgar, you don't _know_ you are going to die; you don't know it for certain," said arthur, his voice trembling a little. "oh, yes, i do; i know i am dying; but, you know, arthur, i am only going to the lord jesus, and he wants me so much; for he has died instead of me, and all my sins are washed away in his precious blood. cousin amy used to sing something so nice; i cannot remember it all, but some of it was this-- "'like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest, i wad fain be ganging noo unto my saviour's breast; for he gathers in his bosom witless, worthless lambs like me, and carries them himsel' to his ain countree.' "and that is just the way i feel, arthur. i feel just going to my home; and i shall never be tired or cross there." "i'm sure you are not cross here," said arthur. "edgar, do tell me about your getting so happy." "oh, yes; and i want to tell you about cousin amy too. well, you know, it was rather miserable when first i came, and i had to be up here all alone; and i used to cry so, arthur, thinking about you--i dare say it was like a baby; but i could not help it--and about papa. oh, i did so want to see papa! and it did not make me happy to think about the lord jesus and heaven. but cousin amy came; and she used to sit here and read me little bits, and hymns; one was that one i said a bit of, and others. and she was so kind; she used to get me nice cool things to take; and sometimes she would fan me, and put her hand on my head when it was so hot; and, oh, i was so sorry when she was gone. one evening i was crying, and then i began thinking about the last verses she had read to me. you know, it was that part about the lord feeding the multitude; and then he sent the disciples away in a boat, and went by himself to pray; and i thought if i had been alive then, and that i had known he was away in that mountain by himself, i would have got out of bed, and would have found my way to him; and it would have been so nice with nobody there but himself and me on the great lonely mountain! i should have felt so safe with him anywhere. and then i began to think what he would have said to me; and i thought it would be, 'him that cometh to me i will in no wise cast out.' then i would have stayed, you know, because he would not send me away. and i thought he would have put his arms round me; and how safe i would have felt! and then i began thinking that i could do just the same in bed where i was, because he could see and hear just the same; so i said to him, 'lord jesus christ, i am here at thy feet;' and i said to him that hymn, 'just as i am.' it was so happy. and now to think of all the things he has given me--everlasting life, and the forgiveness of my sins, and so much! and, arthur, i am just keeping there now until i go to sleep, and i shall be with him for ever." "oh, edgar," said arthur, "i am glad you are so happy." edgar had talked so much that he was exhausted; and he had to lie back on the pillows, breathing very quickly. so they stayed quiet for a little while; and the firelight glowed and danced on arthur's brown curls, and lighted his ruddy cheeks that seemed to make the paleness of edgar's greater. "edgar," said arthur, "you will not be able to come to ashton grange now. don't you remember when we said you would? i did think it would have been so nice." "yes; i remember," a little shade passing over edgar's face. "i used to think it would be so nice. but, arthur, it is better to go to the lord jesus; it is the father's house, you know, and my father and mother are there; and it is my own home." edgar's voice had been getting weaker while he was speaking the last time; and as arthur looked at him, it seemed even to him, who knew so little about illness, that edgar must be worse. "edgar," he said, "i am going now, because i know you are tired; and nurse told me you would want something to eat when i went, so i shall send her to you. good-night, edgar, dear edgar." he did not try to keep arthur that night; and the "good-night" he said to him was faintly spoken; but there was a loving look in his dark eye as he watched his friend to the door. they neither of them knew how very near edgar was to "his own home," and that very soon his weary spirit would rest for ever, where no heart can breathe a sigh, and no sound can enter to say it is not joy. that night a ransomed one went away from the earth, and god took him. he would never be weary any more, and no pain or trouble would make the lonely child sorrowful. he would never know what it was to be anxious or unhappy; he would have the sweetness of perfect rest, for "so he giveth his beloved sleep." and edgar knew that the lord who loved him had a welcome for him in the bright home of everlasting joy; for he has said, "father, i will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where i am." chapter xi. conclusion. we will now pass over the next four years. after edgar north was taken home, to be for ever with his saviour, arthur returned to myrtle hill with a sad, sad heart; for he loved edgar very much, and he was the only boy-friend he ever had. but then his sorrow was sweetened by the knowledge that edgar was not gone into a dim, unknown region; but had left this world to be with that gracious saviour who loved him far more, and cared for him better than any earthly friend could, however willing; and then arthur knew that by-and-by they would be together; and meanwhile he was under the same good shepherd's care, and just as safe as his little friend; for the lord jesus has promised that his sheep shall "never perish." is it not happy to be a lamb of that flock which has jesus for its shepherd? so the years passed on. arthur was still studying very hard at his lessons, and trying to work for his master in the little ways he could. and did he all this time forget his dear father and mother in the far-off land? no, indeed. often and often his fancy would wander far over the deep blue sea, to that country which contained those who were nearest and dearest to him, and the yearning to see them was just as strong as ever. seven long years had passed since that sad day of parting, which arthur remembered so well; and these years had made a great difference in him. he was not the same little boy as when we first saw him; indeed _he_ quite thought his sixteen years entitled him to drop the appellation of "boy;" and he had grown to be very tall, so that he looked older than he really was. i think few people but his mother would have recognized him, and she would have known him by the same bright, open look on his face, and his merry blue eyes, for they were unchanged. arthur had not been left alone all these years for nothing. in his loneliness and sorrow he had been learning slowly, but surely, more and more to cast all his care on another, to confide in him as a child in its father; he knew more of the rest of lying in those "everlasting arms," and had proved what a refuge god is; and this was well worth all the sorrow through which he had learnt the lesson. one morning in may, when arthur came down to breakfast, he found on the table something that was always welcome to him--a letter from india. he tore it open eagerly enough, but how little he knew what it contained! it was from his mother, and she wrote to tell her boy that mr. vivyan's time had now ended, so nothing hindered their return to england, and even now, by the time this letter arrived, they would be on their way home. it was hurriedly written, as she was busy preparing for the voyage, so there was little more said in it than was necessary; but arthur's heart gave a quick response as he read the words: "and god only knows the great joy he has in store for me in giving me back my darling arthur." was it _really_ true? arthur could scarcely believe it, that the long thought of and yearned for time was indeed so near. how often in his fancy he had tried to picture to himself that meeting, and to imagine what his feelings would be, and now it was coming so soon. he felt almost a little stunned at first, it was so sudden; but he was very, very happy, and very thankful to his father in heaven for giving him this joy. it was not long before mrs. estcourt came down. her face showed that she already knew the good news, for she had a letter that morning too, and she met arthur, who came eagerly to greet her, with a fond, sympathising embrace. "oh, arthur," she said, "i am _so_ glad for you." his aunt then told him, during the course of breakfast, that they expected the ship would probably reach england in about a week from this time, and they would come direct to myrtle hill, where they would stay a little while. it was some days after this, when arthur had hardly got over the first excitement, that another letter arrived. this time the post-mark was southampton. they were in england, and hoped to be at mrs. estcourt's house the following day. what a long and wearisome morning the next was! for, as i dare say every one knows, time always passes slowly when we are expecting or waiting for anything. mrs. vivyan had said in her letter, that the train by which they intended to come arrived at about five o'clock. the day could not have been more lovely; it was a soft, bright, early summer's evening, and the country around myrtle hill looked very beautiful in the mellow sunlight; the trees which surrounded the house cast long, dark shadows on the green sloping lawn, and rustled gently as the breeze stirred amongst them. arthur was out there watching and listening for the sound of carriage wheels, and though the time seemed to him to be creeping instead of flying, it was not really so very long before he heard it. in another minute a tall, fair lady was stepping out of the carriage. arthur only said "mother!" and rushed into her arms, and then to his father: it would be hard to say which was the happiest in that meeting-moment, only arthur felt rather as if he were in a dream. may not such earthly joys show us a little what it will be to see the one whom, having not seen, we love? and as arthur thus rejoiced in the fulfilment of his long-cherished hope, what will it be to have our one great hope at last realized? "and his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face." it was not until late in the evening that arthur and his mother were quite alone, when all the first bustle and talking were over; and then what a happy, quiet talk it was! and how their hearts were overflowing with happiness! then they both knelt down together again before the throne of grace, and mrs. vivyan offered up heartfelt thanks and praise to god for past protection, and for now bringing herself and her son together. arthur left myrtle hill to live with his father and mother; and his mother rejoiced to see that her fondest hopes and wishes for him were fulfilled; and when he had left his childhood behind him, it was still his joy to deliver to others the glad message of salvation with which his master had entrusted him. finis. kilmarnock: john ritchie, publisher. the secret of a happy home by marion harland published by the christian herald, louis klopsch, proprietor, bible house, new york. copyright, , by louis klopsch. dedication. to my children, "the blessed three," whose love and loyalty have made mine a happy home and my life worth living, the volume is gratefully dedicated. marion harland. the secret of a happy home. introductory. an open secret, chapter i. sisterly discourse with john's wife concerning john, chapter ii. the family purse, chapter iii. the parable of the rich woman and the farmer's wife, chapter iv. little things that are trifles, chapter v. a mistake on john's part, chapter vi. "chink-fillers," chapter vii. must-haves and may-bes, chapter viii. what good will it do? chapter ix. shall i pass it on? chapter x. "only her nerves," chapter xi. the rule of two, chapter xii the perfect work of patience, chapter xiii. according to his folly, chapter xiv. "buttered parsnips," chapter xv. is marriage reformatory? chapter xvi. "john's" mother, chapter xvii. and other relations-in-law, chapter xviii. a timid word for the step-mother, chapter xix. children as helpers, chapter xx. children as burden-bearers, chapter xxi. our young person, chapter xxii. our boy, chapter xxiii. that spoiled child, chapter xxiv. getting along in years, chapter xxv. truth-telling, chapter xxvi. the gospel of conventionalities, chapter xxvii. familiar, or intimate? chapter xxviii. our stomachs, chapter xxix. cheerfulness as a christian duty, chapter xxx. the family invalid, chapter xxxi. a temperance talk, chapter xxxii. family music, chapter xxxiii. family religion, chapter xxxiv. a parting word for boy, chapter xxxv. homely, but important, chapter xxxvi. four-feet-upon-a-fender, introductory. an open secret. some one asked me the other day, if i were not "weary of being so often put forward to talk of 'how to make home happy,' a subject upon which nothing new could be said." my answer was then what it is now: were i to undertake to utter one-thousandth part that the importance of the theme demands, the contest would be between me and time. i should need "all the time there is." henry ward beecher once prefaced a lecture delivered during the civil war by saying: "the copperhead species chancing to abound in this locality, i have been requested to select as my subject this evening something that will not be likely to lead to the mention of slavery." "i confess myself to be somewhat perplexed by this petition," the orator went on to say, with the twinkle in his eye we all recollect--"for i have yet to learn of any subject that could not easily lead me up to the discussion of a sin against god and man which i could not exaggerate were every letter a mt. sinai--i mean, american slavery." likening the lesser to the greater, allow me to say that i cannot imagine any topic worthy the attention of god-fearing, humanity-loving men and women that would not be connected in some degree, near or remote, with "home, and how to make home happy." the general principles underlying home-making of the right kind are as well-known as the fact that what is named gravitation draws falling bodies to the earth. these principles may be set down roughly as order, kindness and mutual forbearance. upon one or another of these pegs hangs everything which enters into the comfort and pleasure of the household, taken collectively and individually. they are the beams, the uprights and the roofing of the building. the chats, more or less confidential and altogether unconventional, which i propose to hold with the readers of this modest volume have to do with certain sub-laws which are so often overlooked that--to return to the figure of the building--the wind finds its way through chinks; the floors creak and the general impression is that of bare homeliness. house and home go together upon tongue and upon pen as naturally as hook-and-eye, shovel-and-tongs, knife-and-fork,--yet the coupling is rather a trick learned through habit than an act of reason. the words are not synonyms of necessity or in fact. upon these, the first pages of my unconventional book, i avow my knowledge of what, so far from humiliating, stimulates me--to wit, that nine-tenths of those who will look beyond the title-page will be women. this is well, and as i would have it to be, for without feminine agency no house, however well appointed, can be anything higher than an official residence. man's first possession in a world then unmarred by sin was a dwelling-place--but eden was not a home until the woman joined him there. throughout the ages and all over the world, as mother, wife, sister, daughter (often, let me observe in passing, as old-maid aunt) she has stood with him as the representative of the rest, sympathy and love to be found nowhere except under his own roof-tree, and beside his own fireside. it is not the house that makes the home, any more than it is the jeweled case that makes the watch, or the body that makes the human being. it is the presence, the nameless influence which is the earliest acknowledged by the child, and the latest to be forgotten by man or woman. the establishment of this power is essentially woman's prerogative. in this one respect--i dare not say in any other--we outrank our brothers. they can build palaces and the furniture that fits them up in regal state; they can, even better than we, prepare for the royal tables food convenient for them, and fashion the attire of the revelers, and make the music and sing the songs and write the books and paint the pictures of the world. they may make and execute our laws and sail our seas, and fight our battles, and--after dutiful consultation with us--cast our votes. there is no magnanimity in admitting all this. it is the due of that noblest work of god, a strong, good, gentle man to receive the concession and to know how frankly we make it. to them as theologians, logicians, impartial historians, as priests, prophets, and kings--we do cheerful obeisance, yet with the look of one who but half hides a happy secret in her heart that compensates for all she resigns. there is not a true-hearted woman alive who would give up her birthright to become--we will say christopher columbus himself. it must be a fine thing, though, to be a man on some accounts;--to be emancipated forever-and-a-day from the thraldom of skirts for instance, and to push through a crowd to read the interjectional headlines upon a bulletin board, instead of going meekly and unenlightened home, to be told by john three hours later that "a woman's curiosity passes masculine comprehension, and that he is too tired and hungry to talk." it must be a satisfaction to be able to hit another nail with a hammer than that attached to one's own thumb, and to hurl a stone from the shoulder instead of tossing it from the wrist; there must be sublimity in the thrill with which the stroke-oar of the 'varsity's crew bends to his work, and the ecstasy of the successful crack pitcher of a baseball team passes the descriptive power of a woman's tongue. nevertheless, the greatest architectural genius who ever astonished the world with a pyramid, a cathedral, or a triumphal street-arch, could never create and keep a home. the meanest hut in the jersey meadows, the doorway of which frames in the dusk of evening the figure of a woman with a baby in her arms, silhouetted upon the red background of fire and lamp kindled to welcome the returning husband and father, harbors as guest a viewless but "incomparable sweet" angel that never visits the superb club-house where men go from spirit to spirit in the vain attempt to make home of that which is no home. "you write--do you?" snarled napoleon i, insolently to the wittiest woman of the paris salons. "what, for instance, have been some of your works since you have been in this country?" "three children, sire!" retorted the mother of madame emile de girardin. it was this same ready witted mother whom another woman pronounced the happiest of mortals. "she does everything well--children, books and preserves." her range was wide. comparatively few of her sex can grasp that octave. upon the simplest, as upon the wisest, heaven has bestowed the talent of home-making, precious and incommunicable. woman's work in the home! taking up, without irreverence, the magnificent hyperbole of the beloved disciple, i may truly say, "that if they should be written, every one, i suppose the world itself would not contain the books that would be written." let us touch one or two points very briefly. i have said that men can furnish houses more artistically than we, and that as professional cooks they surpass us. it should follow naturally that men, to whose hearts the stomach is the shortest thoroughfare, would, in a body, resort to hotels for daily food. there is but one satisfactory explanation of the unphilosophical fact that the substantial citizen who, during a domestic interregnum, makes the experiment of three meals a day for one month at the best restaurant in new york city (and there are no better anywhere) returns with gladness and singleness of heart to his own extension-table--and that were i to put the question "contract cookery or home cookery?" to the few johns who deign to peruse these lines, the acclaim would be--"better, as everyday fare, is a broiled beefsteak and a mealy potato at home, than a palatial hotel and ten courses." there is individuality in the steak broiled for john's very self, and sentiment in the pains taken to keep the starch in his potato, and solid satisfaction in putting one's knees under his own mahogany. the least romantic of gourmands objects to stirring his appetite into a common vat with five hundred others. but there is something back of all this that makes home-fare delicious, when the house mother smiles across the dish she has sweetened with love and spiced with good-will, and thus transformed it into a message from her heart to the hearts of the dear ones to whom she ministers. john--being of the masculine gender according to a decree of nature, and, therefore, irresponsible for the slow pace at which his wits move--may not be able at once to analyze the odd heartache he feels in surveying the apartments fitted up by the upholsterer--or to tell you why they become no longer a tri-syllabled word, but "our rooms," within a day after wife and daughters have taken possession of them. the honest fellow cannot see but that the furniture is the same, and each article standing in the same place--but the new atmosphere "which is the old," greets him upon the threshold, and steals into his heart before he has fairly entered. anybody could have shaken the stiffness out of that portière, and put a low, shaded lamp under the picture he likes best, and broken up the formal symmetry of the bric-a-brac that reminded him, although he did not dare confess it, of a china shop, and set a slender vaselet with one big ragged golden globe of a chrysanthemum in it here, and over there a bowl of long-stemmed roses--(his favorite bon silenes, too). but what hireling, o blind and dear john! would have left a bit of fancy work with the needle sticking in it, and scissors lying upon it, on the table in library or smoking room, and put the song you always ask for at twilight upon the open piano, and, just where you would choose to cast yourself down to listen, your especial sleepy hollow of chair or lounge with the slumber robe worked last christmas by loving fingers thrown invitingly across it? what professional art could make the vestibule of your house--a rented cottage, maybe--the gateway to another, and a purer, higher, happier sphere than the world you shut out with the closing of the front door? you would never get upon so much as bowing terms with your better self but for that front door and the latch key which lets you into the hall brightened by loving smiles, made merry by welcoming voices. talk of the prose of everyday life! when poetry is hounded from every other nook of the earth which the maker of it meant should be one vast, sublime epic, she will find an inviolable retreat under the lares and penates guarding the ingleside, and crown as priestess forever the wife and mother who makes and keeps the home. it could hardly be otherwise. to no other of his co-workers does the lord of life grant such opportunities as to woman. her baby is laid in the mother's arms to have, and to hold, and to fashion, without let or hindrance. his mind and heart are unwritten paper, and nature and providence unite in waving aside all who would interfere with what she chooses to inscribe thereupon. her growing boys and girls believe in her with absoluteness no other friend will ever inspire--not in her love alone, but in her infallibility and her omnipotence. it is a moment of terror and often the turning point in a child's life, when first he comprehends that there are hurts his mother cannot heal, knowledge which he needs and she cannot impart. if the boundaries of home seem sometimes to circumscribe a woman's sphere, they are also a safe barricade within which husband, and the children who have come to man's estate, find retreat from the outer storm and stress, a sanctuary where love feeds the flame upon the domestic altar. there, the atmosphere, like that of st. peter's church, never changes. it refreshes when the breath of the world is a simoon, withering heart and strength. when the winds of adversity are bleak, the shivering wanderer returns to the fold, "curtained and closed and warm--" to gather force for to-morrow's strain. "love, rest and home!" we sing with moistened eyes. the blessed three are put in trust with woman. other stations of honor and usefulness may be opened to her, but this is the realm of which nothing can dispossess her. the leaven that leavens the nations is wrought by her hands. hers is the seedtime that determines what harvest the master shall reap. to her is committed the holy task of preserving all that we can know of a lost paradise until we see the light flash out for our eager eyes from the wide doors of what--when we would draw it nearest and make it dearest to our hearts--we call our changeless home. chapter i. sisterly discourse with john's wife concerning john. john is not john until he is married. he assumes the sobriquet at the altar as truly as his bride takes the title of "mistress" or "madame." once taken, the name is generic, inalienable and untransferable. yet, as few men marry until they have attained legal majority, it follows that your john--my john--every wife's john--must have been in making for a term of years before he fell into our hands. sometimes he is marred in the making. the most loyal wife admits to her inmost self in the most confidential season of self-communion, that she could have brought up her husband better than his mother or whatever feminine relative had the training of him succeeded in doing. an opinion which, i remark, is not shared by the relative in question. the mother of a growing son will know how to sympathize with her mamma-in-law, when her own son-- "--will a-wooing go, whether his mother will or no." i am john's advocate and best friend, but i cannot withhold the admission that he has some grave faults, and one or two incurable disabilities. grappling, forthwith, with the most obstinate of these last--i name it boldly. john is not--he never can be--and would not be if he could--a woman. taking into consideration the incontrovertible truth that nobody but a woman ever understood another woman--the situation is serious enough. so desperate in fact, that every mother's daughter of the missionary sex is fired with zealous desire to mend it, and chooses for a subject her own special john--_in esse_ or _in posse_. this may sound like badinage, but it is uttered in sad earnest. the wife's irrational longing to extract absolute sympathy of taste, opinion and feeling, from her wedded lord, is a baneful growth which is as sure to spring up about the domestic hearth as pursley--named by the indian, "the white man's foot"--to show itself about the squatter's door. once rooted it is as hard to eradicate as plantain and red sorrel. i brand it as "irrational," because common sense shows the extreme improbability that two people--born of different stocks, and brought up in different households--the man, sometimes, in no household at all--should each be the exact counterpart of the other; should come together provided respectively, with the very qualities, likes and dislikes, that the partner needs and prefers. add to the improbability aforesaid the inevitable variance of views upon divers important subjects consequent upon the standpoint masculine and the standpoint feminine, and the wonder grows--not that some marriages are unhappy, but that a large percentage of wedded couples jog on comfortably, and, if not without jar, without open scandal. that they do speaks volumes for the wisdom of him who ordained marriage as man's best estate--and something--not volumes--perhaps, but a pamphlet or two--in behalf of human powers of philosophical endurance. before going farther it would be well to look our subject in the face--inspect it fairly and without prejudice pro or con. stand forth, honest john! and let us behold you, as god made and your mother--in blood, or in heart--trained you. let the imagination of my readers survey him, as he plants himself before us. albeit a trifle more conscious than a woman would be in like circumstances, of the leading fact that he has the full complement of hands and feet usually prescribed by nature, he bears scrutiny bravely. he is what he would denominate in another, "a white man;" square in his dealings with his fellow-men and with a soft place, on the sunny side of his heart, for the women. he would add--"god bless them!" did we allow him to speak. men of his sort rarely think of their own womenkind or of pure, gentle womanhood in the abstract, without a benediction, mental or audible. our specimen, you will note, as he begins to feel at ease in the honorable pillory to which we have called him--puts his hands into his pockets. the gesture supplies us with the first clause of our illustrated lecture. without his pockets john would be a cipher, and a decimal cipher at that. if some men were not all pocket they would never be johns, for no jill would be so demented as to "come tumbling after" them. i have seen a pocket marry off a hump-back, a twisted foot and sixty winters' fall of snow upon the head, while a pocketless adonis sighed in vain for beauty's glance. a full pocket balances an empty skull as a good heart cannot; a plethoric pocket overshadows monstrous vices. but at his cleanly best, john's pockets are an integral part of his personality. he feels after his pocket instinctively while yet in what corresponds in the _genus homo_ with the polywog state in batrachia. the incipient man begins to strut as soon as mamma puts pockets into his kilted skirt--a stride as prophetic as the strangled crow of the cockerel upon the lowest bar of the fence. the direst penance johnny can know is to have his pockets stitched up because he will keep his hands in them. to deny him the right is to do violence to natural laws. he is the born money-maker, bread-winner, provider--the _hüsbonda_ of our anglo-saxon ancestry--and the pocket is his heraldic symbol, his birthright. the pocket question obtrudes itself at an alarmingly early period of married life--whoever may be the moneyed member of the new firm. when, as most frequently happens, this is john, the ultra-conscientious may think that he ought, prior to the wedding-day, to have hinted to his highland or lowland mary, that he did not intend to throw unlimited gold into her apron every day. if he had touched this verity however remotely, she would not have married him. the man who speaks the straight-forward truth in such circumstances might as well put a knife to his throat, if love and life are synonyms. honest john, thrusting his hands well towards the bottom of his pockets, smiles sheepishly, yet knowingly, in listening to this "discourse." courtship is one thing and marriage is another in his code. mary's primal mistake is in assuming--(upon john's authority, i regret as his advocate to say), that the two states are one and the same. moonlight vows and noonday action should, according to her theory, be in exact harmony. john does not deceive consciously. wemmick's office tenets differed diametrically from those he held at walworth where his aged parent toasted the muffins, and miss. skiffins made the tea. the mellow fervency of john's "with all my worldly goods i thee endow"--must be taken in a pickwickian and cupidian sense. reason and experience sustain him in the belief that a tyro should learn a business before being put in charge of important interests. mary is a tyro whose abilities and discretion he must test before--in the words of the old song--he "gives her the key of his chest, to get the gold at her request." most women take to married and home-life easily, because naturally. the shadow of the roof-tree, the wholesome restraint of household routine and the peaceful monotony of household tasks accord well with preconceived ideas and early education. john's liking for domesticity is usually an acquired taste, like that for olives and caviare, and to gain aptitude for the duties it involves, requires patience. he needs filing down and chinking, and rounding off, and sand-papering before he fits decorously into the chimney-corner. and when there, he sometimes does not "season straight." he was hewed across the grain, or the native grain ran awry, or there is a knot in the wood. "why were those newel posts oiled before they were set up?" i asked of a carpenter. "t' keep'em from checkin', to be sure." "checking?" "yes, ma'am. goin' in shaller cracks all over, 's wood's apt to do without it's properly treated beforehand. sometimes 'twould crack clean through ef 'twarnt for the ile." in his new position john is apt "to go in shaller cracks all over," unless his feminine trainer has been judicious in the use of lubricants--assuasive and dissuasive. if handled aright by the owner he, to do him justice, rarely "cracks clean through." "checking" in this case signifies the lack of the small, sweet courtesies which are the peaceable fruits of the gospel of conventionality. breeding, good or bad, environs the growing lad, as wordsworth tells us heaven lies about us in our infancy. the boy whose mother allows him to lounge into her presence with his cap upon his head, whose sisters wink indulgently at his shirt sleeves in parlor and at table--will don his hat and doff his coat in his wife's sitting-room. politeness, like gingerbread, is only excellent when home-made, and is not to be bought for money. i wonder if john--disposed by nature and too often by education to hold such niceties of custom as trifles and cheap--suspects what a blow is dealt to his wife's ideals when he begins to show, either that he respects her less than of old, or that he is less truly a gentleman than his careful conservation of elegant proprieties during their courtship led her to imagine. it costs him but a second's thought and slight muscular exertion to lift his hat in kissing her on leaving home in the morning, and in returning at evening. it ought not to be an effort for him to rise to his feet when she enters the room, and to comport himself at her table and in her drawing-room as he would at the board and in the parlor of his neighbor's wife. each of these slight civilities elevates her in her own and in others' eyes, and tends to give her her rightful place as queen of the home and of his heart. she may be maid-of-all-work in a modest establishment, worn and depressed by over-much drudgery, but in her husband's eyes she is the equal of any lady in the land. her stove-burned face and print gown do not delude him as to her real position. furthermore--and this hint is directed sidewise at our "model"--a sense of the incongruity between the fine courtesy of her husband's manner, and of slovenly attire upon the object of his attentions--would incite her to neatness and becomingness in dress. it is worth while to look well in the eyes of one who never for a moment forgets that he is a gentleman, and his wife a lady. when john finds himself excusing this and that lapse from perfect breeding in his home life with the plea--"it is only my wife!" he needs to look narrowly at his grain and his seasoning. he is in danger of "checking." being a man--or i would better say--not being a woman--john is probably made up without domestic tact, and his wife must be on her guard to cover the deficiency. for example, if by some mortifying combination of mischances, a dish is scantily supplied, he helps it out lavishly, scrapes the bottom officiously, and with innocent barbarity calls your attention to the fact that it needs replenishing. "i tried once to hold my husband back from the brink of social disaster," said one wife. "we sat opposite to one another at a dinner party where the conversation neared a topic that would be, i knew, extremely painful and embarrassing to our hostess. my john led the talk--all unaware of the peril--and when the next sentence would, i felt, be fatal, i pressed his foot under the table. what do you think that blessed innocent did? winced visibly and sharply--stopped short in the middle of a word, and stared at me with pendulous jaw, and--while everybody looked at him for the next breath--said, resonantly--'_jane! did you touch my foot?_'" the incident is essentially john-esque. i am as positive as if i had called for a comparison of experience, that every wife who reads this could furnish a parallel sketch from life. the average john is impervious to glance or gesture. i know one who is a model husband in most respects, who, when a danger-signal is hung out from the other end of the table, draws general attention in diplomatic fashion thus-- "halloo! i have no idea what i have done or said, now! but when madame gives her three-cornered frown, i know there are reefs ahead, on the starboard or the larboard side, and i'd better take my soundings." women are experts in this sort of telegraphy. from one of them, such an _exposé_ would mean downright malice, or mischief, and be understood as such. john's voiced bewilderment may be harmful, but it is as guileless as a baby's. it may be true that men are deceivers ever, in money or love affairs. in everyday home life, there is about the most sophisticated, a simplicity of thought and word, a transparency of motive, and, when vanity is played upon cunningly, a naive gullibility--that move us to wondering admiration. it, furthermore, i grieve to admit, furnishes manoeuvring wives with a ready instrument for the accomplishment of their designs. for another fixed fact in the natural history of john is that, however kindly and intelligent and reasonable he may be--he needs, in double harness, to be cleverly managed, to be coaxed and petted up to what else would make him shy. if driven straight at it, the chances are forty-eight out of fifty that he will balk or bolt. a stock story of my girlish days was of a careless, happy-go-lucky housewife, who, upon the arrival of unexpected guests, told her maid "not to bother about changing the cloth, but to set plates and dishes so as to humor the spots." she is a thrifty, not a slovenly manager, who accommodates the trend of daily affairs to humor her john's peculiarities and foibles; who ploughs around stumps, and, instead of breaking the share in tough roots, _eases up_, and goes over them until they decay of themselves. in really good ground they leave the soil the richer for having suffered natural decomposition. if john is prone to savagery when hungry (and he usually is), our wise wife will wait until he has dined before broaching matters that may ruffle his spirit. it is more than likely that he has the masculine bias toward wet-blanketism that tries sanguine women's souls more sorely than open opposition. some johns make it a point of manly duty to discourage at first hearing any plan that has originated with a woman. i am fond of john, but this idiosyncrasy cannot be ignored. nor is it entirely explicable upon any principle known in feminine ethics, unless it be intended by providence as a counterweight to the womanly proclivity to see but one side of a question when we are interested in carrying it to a vote. john is as positive that there are two sides to everything, as columbus was that the eastern hemisphere must have something to balance it. when mary looks to him for instant assent and earnest sympathy, he casts about for objections, and sets them in calm array. she may have demonstrated in a thousand instances her ability to judge and act for herself, and may preface her exposition of the case in hand by saying that she has given it mature deliberation. it never occurred to him until she mentioned it; he may have sincerest respect for her sense and prudence--the chances are, nevertheless, a thousand to one that he will begin his reply with-- "that is all very well, my dear--but you must reflect, that, etc., etc., et cetera"--each et cetera a dab of wet wool, taking out more and more stiffening and color, until the beautiful project hangs, a limp rag, on her hands, a forlorn wreck over which she could weep in self-pity. this is one of the "spots" to be "humored." wives there are, and not a few of them, sagacious and tender, who have learned the knack of insinuating a scheme upon husbandly attention until the logical spouses find themselves proposing--they believe of their own free will--the very designs born of their partner's brains. this is genius, and the practical application thereof is an art in itself. it may also be classified for john's admonition, as the natural reaction of ingenious wits against wet-blanketism. the funniest part of the transaction is that john never suspects the ruse, even at the hundredth repetition, and esteems himself, in dogged complacency, the author of his spouse's goodliest ideas. such a one dreads nothing more than the reputation of being ruled by his wife. the more hen-pecked he is, the less he knows it--and vice versâ. "he jests at scars who never felt a wound." she who has her john well in hand has broken him in too thoroughly to allow him to resent the curb, or to play with the bit. his intentions--so far as he knows them--are so good, he tries so steadfastly to please his wife--he is so often piteously perplexed--this big, burly, blundering, blind-folded, _blesséd_ john of ours--that our knowledge of his disabilities enwraps him in a mantle of affectionate charity. his efforts to master the delicate intricacy of his darling's mental and spiritual organization may be like the would-be careful hold of thumb and finger upon a butterfly's wing, but the pain he causes is inconceivable by him. the suspicion of hurt to the beautiful thing would break his heart. he could more easily lie down and die for her than sympathize intelligently in her vague, delicious dreams, the aspirations, half agony, half rapture, which she cannot convey to his comprehension--yet which she feels that he ought to share. ah! the pathos and the pity--sometimes the godlike patience of that silent side of our dear john! mrs. whitney, writing of richard hathaway, tells us enough of it to beget in us infinite tolerance. "everything takes hold away down where i can't reach or help," says the poor fellow of his sensitive, poetical wife. "she is all the time holding up her soul to me with a thorn in it." "he did not know that that was poetry and pathos. it was a natural illustration out of his homely, gentle, compassionate life. he knew how to help dumb things in their hurts. his wife he could not help." it reminds us of ham peggotty's tender adjustment upon his palm of the purse committed to him by emily for fallen martha. "'such a toy as it is!' apostrophized ham, thoughtfully, looking on it. 'with, such a little money in it, em'ly, my dear.'" we are reminded more strongly of rough, gray boulders holding in their hearts the warmth of the sunshine for the comfortable growth of mosses that creep over and cling to and beautify them. john is neither saint nor hero, except in mary's fancy sketch of the coming man. he remonstrates against canonization strenuously--dissent that passes with the idealist for modesty, and enhances her admiration. she is oftener to blame for the disillusion than he. with the perverseness of feminine nature she construes strength into coarseness of fibre, slowness into brutal indifference. until women get at the truth in this matter of self-deception, disappointment surely awaits upon awakening from love's young dream. the surest guard against the shock of broken ideals is to keep ever before the mind that men are not to be measured by feminine standards of perfection. mary has as little perception of perspective as a chinese landscape painter; she colors floridly and her drawing is out of line. put john in his proper place as regards distances, shadow and environment, and survey him in the cool white light of common sense. unless he is a _poseur_ of uncommon skill, he will appear best thus. conjugal quarrels are so constantly the theme of ridicule and the text of warnings to the unwedded that we lose sight of the plain truth that husbands and wives bicker no more than parents and children, brothers and sisters. in every community there are more blood-relations who do not speak to one another than divorced couples. wars and fightings come upon us, not through matrimony so much as through the manifold infirmities of mortal nature. john, albeit not a woman, is a vertebrate human being, "with hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions. if you prick him he will bleed, if you tickle him he will laugh, if you poison him he will die." in the true marriage, he is the wife's other self--one lobe of her brain--one ventricle of her heart--the right hand to her left. this is the marriage the lord hath made. the occasional clash of opinions, the passing heat of temper, are but surface-gusts that do not stir the brooding love of hearts at rest in one another. while john remains loyal to his wedded wife, forsaking all others and cleaving to her alone, the inventory of his faults should be a sealed book to her closest confidante, the carping discussion of his failings be prohibited by pride, affection and right taste. this leads me to offer one last tribute to our patient (and maybe bored) subject. he has as a rule, a nicer sense of honor in the matter of comment upon his wife's shortcomings and foibles than she exhibits with regard to his. set it down to gallantry, chivalry, pride--custom--what you will--but the truth sheds a lustre upon our john of which i mean he shall have the full advantage. perhaps the noblest reticence belongs to the silent side of him. i hardly think it is because he has no yearning for sympathy, no need of counsel, when he reluctantly admits to himself that that upon which he has ventured most is, in some measure, a disappointment. be this as it may, mary may learn discretion from him--and the lesson conned should be forbearance with offensive peculiarities, and, what she names to her sore spirit, lack of appreciation. given the conditions of his fidelity and devotion--and she may well "down on her knees and thank god fasting for a good man's love." chapter ii. the family purse. in the last chapter i touched, firmly, as became the importance of the subject, upon the pocket question in its bearing upon the happiness of home-life. the matter is too grave to be disposed of in half-a-dozen paragraphs. it shall have a chapter of its very own. there are certain subjects upon which each of us is afraid to speak for fear of losing temper, and becoming vehement. this matter of "the family purse" is one of the few topics in all the range of theory and practice, concerning which i feel the necessity of putting on curb and bridle when i have to deal with it, and conscience urges just dealing with all parties. i have set down elsewhere what i crave leave to repeat here and with deliberate emphasis. if i were asked, "what, to the best of your belief, is the most prolific and general source of heart-burnings, contentions, harsh judgment, and secret unhappiness among respectable married people who keep up the show, even to themselves, of reciprocal affection?" my answer would not halt for an instant. "_the crying need of a mutual understanding with respect to the right ownership of the family income_." the example of the good old friend, who, in giving his daughters in marriage, stipulated that each should be paid weekly, without asking for it, a certain share of her husband's income, is refreshing as indicating what one husband had learned by his own experience. it goes no further in the absence of proof that the sons-in-law kept the pledge imposed upon them as suitors, or that in keeping it, they did not cause their respective wives to wish themselves dead, and out of the way of gibe and grudge, every time the prescribed tax was doled out to them. nor do i admit the force of the implication made by a certain writer upon this topic, that the crookedness in the matter of family finances is "separation and hostility between the sexes, brought about by the advancement and equality of women." wives in all ages and in all countries, have felt the painful injustice of virtual pauperism, and struggled vainly for freedom. the growth toward emancipation in the case of most of them amounts merely to the liberty to groan in print and to cry aloud in women's convocations. if the yoke is easier upon the wifely neck in than it was in , it is because women know more of business methods, and are more competent to the management of money than they knew fifty years ago, and some husbands, appreciating the change for the better, are willing to commit funds to their keeping. the disposition of fathers, brothers and husbands to regard the feminine portion of their families as lovely dead weights, was justified in a degree by the lauras and matildas, who clung like wet cotton-wool to the limbs of their natural protectors. dependence was reckoned among womanly graces, and insisted upon as such in _letters to young ladies, the young wife's manual, a father's legacy to his daughters_, and other valuable contributions to the family library of half a century ago. julia, as betrothed, assured wooing adolphus that absolute dependence, even for the bread she should eat, and breath she should draw, would be delight and privilege. julia, as wife, fretted and plained and shook her "golden chains inlaid with down," when married adolphus took her at her word. it is surprising that both parties were so slow in finding out how false is the theory and how injurious the practice of the cling-and-twine-and-hang-upon school. from my window as i write i see an object lesson that pertinently illustrates the actual state of affairs in many a home. at the root of a stately cedar, sprang up, twenty years ago, a shoot of that most hardy and beautiful of native creepers, the wild woodbine or american ivy. it crept steadily upward, laying hold of branch and twig, casting out, first, tendrils, then ropes, to make sure its hold--a thing of beauty all summer, a coat of many colors in autumn, until it reached the top of the tree. to-day, the only vestige of cedar-individuality that remains to sight, is in the trunk, the bare branches, stripped of all slight twigs, and at the extremity of one of these, a few tufts of evergreen verdure, that proclaim "this was a tree." in the novels and poems that set forth the eternal fitness of the cling-twine-and-depend school, the vine is always feminine, the oak (or cedar?) masculine. not one that i know of depicts the gradual strangling of the independent tree by the depending parasite. leaving the object-lesson to do its part, let us reason together calmly upon this vexed subject. when a man solemnly, in the sight of heaven and human witnesses, endows his wife at the altar with his worldly goods, it is either a deed of gift, or an engagement to allow her to earn her living as honestly as he earns his, a pledge of an equal partnership in whatever he has or may acquire. that it is not an absolute gift is proved by his continued possession of his property and uncontrolled management of the same; furthermore, by his custom of bestowing upon his wife such sums, and at such periods as best suit his convenience and pleasure--and by his expectation that she will be properly grateful for lodging, board and raiment. if he be liberal, her gratitude rises proportionably. if he be a churl, she must submit with christian resignation. the gossips at a noted watering-place where i once spent a summer, found infinite amusement in the ways of a married heiress, whose fortune was settled so securely upon herself by her father that her husband could not touch the bulk of it with, or without her consent. her spouse was an ease-loving man of fashion, and accommodated himself gracefully to this order of things. she loved him better than she loved her money, for she "kept" him well and grudged him nothing. it was in accordance with her wishes that he made no pretence of business or profession. "why should he when she had enough for both?" she urged, amiably. his handsome allowance was paid on the first of every month, and she exacted no account of expenditures. yet she contrived to make him and herself the laughing stock of the place by her _naïve_ ignorance of the truth that the situation was peculiar. she sportively rated her lord in the hearing of others, for extravagance in dress, horses and other entertainments; affected to rail at the expense of "keeping a husband," and, now and then, playfully threatened to "cut off supplies" if he did not do this or that. in short, with unintentional satire, she copied to the letter the speech and tone of the average husband to his dependent wife. "only that and nothing more." her purse-pride was obvious, but as inoffensive as purse-pride can be. she lacked refinement, but she did not lack heart. she would have resented the imputation that she reduced her good-looking, well-clothed, well-fed, well-mounted "charley" to a state of vassalage against which any man of spirit would have rebelled. he knew that he could have whatever it was within her power to bestow, to the half of her kingdom. her complaints of his prodigality meant as little as her menace of retrenchment, and nobody comprehended this better than he. the owner of the money-bags is entitled by popular verdict to his or her jest. her pretended railing was "clear fun." the deeper and juster significance of the much derided clause of the marriage vow is the second i have offered. "live and let live" is a motto that should begin, continue and be best exemplified at home. the wife either earns an honorable livelihood, or she is a licensed mendicant. the man who, after a careful estimate of the services rendered by her who keeps the house, manages his servants, or does the work of the servants he does not hire; who bears and brings up his children in comfort, respectability and happiness; who looks after his clothing and theirs; nurses him and them in illness, and makes the world lovely for him in health--does not consider that his wife has paid her way thus far, and is richly entitled to all he has given or will ever give her--is not fit to conduct any business upon business principles. if he be sensible and candid, let him decide what salary he can afford to pay this most useful of his employés--and pay it as a debt, and not a gratuity. the probability is that he will find that the sum justifies her in regarding herself as a partner in his craft or profession, with a fair amount of working-capital. there is but one equitable and comfortable way of relieving the husband from the charge and the fact of injustice, and the wife from the sorer burden of conscious pauperism. she ought to have a stated allowance for household expenses, to be disbursed by herself and, if he will it, to be accounted for to the master of the house, and a smaller, but sure sum which is paid to her as her very own, which she may appropriate as she likes. he should no more "give" her money, than he makes a present of his weekly wages to the porter who sweeps his store, or to the superintendent of his factory. the feeling that their gloves, gowns, underclothing--everything that they wear, and the very bread that keeps life in their bodies, are gifts of grace from the husbands they serve in love and honor, has worn hundreds of spirited women into their graves, and made venal hypocrites of thousands. the double-eagle laid in the palm of the woman whose home duties leave her no time for money-making, burns sometimes more hotly than the penny given to her who, for the first time, begs at the street-corner to keep herself from starving. the strangest of anomalies that have birth in a condition of affairs which everybody has come to regard as altogether right and becoming, is that the wife whose handsome wedding portion has been absorbed by her husband's business is as dependent upon his favor for her "keep" as she who brought no dot. she does not even draw interest upon the money invested. is it to be wondered at that caustic critics of human nature and inconsistencies catalogue marriage for the wife under the head of mendicancy? would it not be phenomenal if women with eyes, and with brains behind the eyes, did not gird at the necessity of suing humbly for really what belongs to them? i have known two, or at most three women, who averred that they "did not mind asking their husbands for money." out of simple charity i preferred to believe that they were untruthful, to discounting their disrespect and delicacy to the extent implied by the assertion. yet the street beggar gets used to plying his trade, and i may have been mistaken. let us not overlook another side of the question under perplexed debate. the woman who considers herself defrauded by present privations and what seem to her needless economies, loses sight, sometimes, of what john keeps before him as the load-star of his existence and endeavor; to wit, that toil and economy are for the common weal. he is not a miser for his individual enrichment, nor does he plan with deliberate design for the shadowy second wife. it is not to be denied that no. often lives like a queen upon the wealth which no. helped to accumulate, and killed herself in so doing. but john does not look so far as this. much scrimping and hoarding may engender a baser love of money for money's self. in the outset of the task, and usually for all time, he means that wife and children shall have the full benefit of what he has heaped up in the confident belief that he knows who will gather with him. men take longer views in these matters than women. to "draw money out of the business" is a form of speech to a majority of wives. to him whose household expenses overrun what he considers the bounds of reason, this "drawing" means harder work and to less purpose for months to come; clipped wings of enterprise, and occasionally loss of credit. he who has married a reasonably intelligent woman cannot make her comprehend this too soon. if he can enlist her sympathies in his plans for earning independence and wealth, he has secured a valuable coadjutor. if he can show her that he is investing certain moneys which are due to her in ways approved by her, which will augment her private fortune, he will retain her confidence with her respect. each of us likes to own something in his or her own right. the custom and prejudice that, since the abolition of slavery, make wives the solitary exception to the rule that the "laborer is worthy of his hire," are unworthy of a progressive age. the idea that such having and holding will alienate a good woman from the husband who permits it, degrades the sex. he whose manliness suffers by comparison with a level-headed, clear-eyed wife capable of keeping her own bank account, makes apparent what a mistake she made when she married _him_. chapter iii. the parable of the rich woman and the farmer's wife. the rich woman was born and brought up in new york city; the farmer's wife in indiana. they were as far apart in education and social station as if they had belonged to different races and had lived in different hemispheres. they were as near akin in circumstances and in suffering as if they had been twin sisters, and brought up under the same roof. the husband of one wrote "honorable" before his name, and reckoned his dollars by the million. he was, moreover, a man of imposing deportment, bland in manner and ornate in language. as riches increased he set his heart upon them and upon the good things that riches buy. he had four children, and he erected ("built" was too small a word) a palatial house in a fashionable street. each child had a suite of three rooms. each apartment was elaborately decorated and furnished. the drawing-rooms were crowded with bric-a-brac and monuments of the upholsterer's ingenuity. it was a work of art and peril to dust them every day. he developed a taste for entertaining as time went on and honors thickened upon him, and he mistook, like most of his guild, ostentation for hospitality. every dish at the banquets for which he became famous was a show piece. he swelled with honest pride in the perusal of a popular personal paragraph estimating the value of his silver and cut glass at $ , . the superintendent, part owner, and the slave of all this magnificence was his wife. she was her own housekeeper, and employed, besides the coachman, whose business was in the stables and upon his box, five servants. there were twenty-five rooms in the palatial house, giving to each servant five to be kept in the spick-and-span array demanded by the master's position and taste. as a matter of course something was neglected in every department, the instinct of self-preservation being innate and cultivated in abigail, phyllis and gretchen, "jeems" and "chawls." even more as a matter of course, the nominal mistress supplemented the deficiencies of her aids. the house was as present and forceful a consciousness with her as his dulcinea with david copperfield at the period when the "sun shone dora, and the birds sang dora, and the south wind blew dora, and the wild flowers were all doras to a bud." no snail ever carried her abode upon her back more constantly than our poor rich woman the satin-lined, hot-aired and plate-windowed stone pile, with her. the lines that criss-crossed her forehead, and channeled her cheeks, and ran downward from the corners of her mouth, were hieroglyphics standing in the eyes of the initiated for the baleful legend-- "house and housekeeping." when she drove abroad in her luxurious chariot, behind high-stepping bays, jingling with plated harness, or repaired in the season to seashore or mountain, she was striving feebly to push away the tons of splendid responsibility from her brain. one day she gave over the futile attempt. something crashed down upon and all around her, and everything except inconceivable misery of soul was a blank. expensive doctors diagnosed her case as nervous prostration. when she vanished from the eyes of her public, and a high-salaried housekeeper, a butler, a nursery governess and an extra abigail took her place and did half her work in the satin-lined shell out of which she had crept, maimed and well-nigh murdered, it was announced that she was "under the care of a specialist at a retreat." a retreat! heaven save and pardon us for making such homes part and parcel and a necessity of our century and our land! our rich man's wife never left it until she was borne forth into the securer refuge of the narrow house that needed none of her care-taking. upon the low green thatch lies heavily the shadow of a mighty monument that, to the satirist's eye, has a family likeness to the stone pile which killed her. the farmer's wife was born and bred among the prairies, out of sight of which she had traveled but once, and that on her wedding journey. she came back from the brief outing to take possession of "her own house"--prideful phrase to every young matron. it was an eight-roomed farmstead, with no modern conveniences. that meant, that all the water used in the kitchen and dwelling had to be fetched from a well twenty feet away; that there was no drain or sink or furnace; that stationary tubs had not been heard of, and the washing was wrung by hand. the stalwart farmer "calculated to hire" in haying, harvesting, planting, plowing, threshing and killing times. whatever might have been the wife's calculations, she toiled unaided, cooking, washing, ironing, scrubbing, sewing, churning, butter-making and "bringing up a family," single-handed, with never a creature to lift an ounce or do a stroke for her while she could stand upon her feet. when she was laid upon her bed--an unusual occurrence, except when there was a fresh baby--a neighbor looked in twice a day to lend a hand, or mrs. gamp was engaged for a fortnight. it was not an unusual occurrence for the nominally convalescent mother to get dinner for six "men folks" with a three-weeks old baby upon her left arm. her husband was energetic and "forehanded," and without the slightest approach to intentional cruelty, looked to his wife to "keep up her end of the log." he tolerated no wastefulness, and expected to be well fed and comfortable; and comfort with this yankee mother's son implied tidiness. to meet his view, as well as to satisfy her own conscience, his partner became a model manager, a woman of "faculty." i saw her last year in the incurable ward of a madhouse. from sunrise until dark, except when forced to take her meals, she stood at one window and polished one pane with her apron, a plait like a trench between her puckered brows, her mouth pursed into an anguished knot, her hollow eyes drearily anxious--the saddest picture i ever beheld, most awfully sad because she was a type of a class. some men--and they are not all ignorant men--are beginning to be alarmed at the press of women into other--i had almost said any other--avenues of labor than that of housewifery. eagerness to break up housekeeping and try boarding for a while, in order "to get rested out," is not confined to the incompetent and the indolent. nor is it altogether the result of the national discontent with "the greatest plague of life"--servants. american women, from high to low, keep house too hard because too ambitiously. it is, furthermore, ambition without knowledge; hence, misdirected. we have the most indifferent domestic service in the world, but we employ, as a rule, too few servants, such as they are. it is considered altogether sensible and becoming for the mechanic's wife to do her own housework as a bride and as a matron of years. unless her husband prospers rapidly she is accounted "shiftless" should she hire a washerwoman, while to "keep a girl" is extravagance, or a significant stride toward gentility. the wife of the english joiner or mason or small farmer, if brisk, notable and healthy, may dispense with the stated service of a maid of all work, but she calls in a charwoman on certain days, and is content to live as becomes the station of a housewife who must be her own domestic staff. here is the root of the difference. in a climate that keeps the pulses in full leap and the nerves tense, we call upon pride to lash on the quivering body and spirit to run the unrighteous race, the goal of which is to seem richer than we are, and make "smartness" (american smartness) cover the want of capital. having created false standards of respectability, we crowd insane asylums and cemeteries in trying to live up to them. the tradesman who begins to acknowledge the probability that he will become a rich citizen, and whose wife has "feelings" on the subject of living as her neighbors do, takes the conventional step toward asserting himself and gratifying her aspirations by moving into a bigger house than that which has satisfied him up to now, and furnishing it well--that is, smartly, according to the english acceptance of the word. silks and moquette harmonize as well as calico and ingrain once did. a three-story-and-a-half-with-a-high-stoop house, without a piano in the back parlor, and a long mirror between the front parlor windows, would be a forlorn contradiction of the genius of american progress. as flat a denial would be the endeavor to live without what an old lady once described to me as, a "pair of parlors." the stereotyped brace is senseless and ugly, but one of the necessaries of life to our ambitious housewife. she would scout as vulgar the homely cheerfulness of the middle-class englishman's single "parlor" where the table is spread and the family receives visitors. having saddled himself with a house too big for his family, and stocked the showrooms with plenishings so fine that the family are afraid to use them unless when there is company, the prudent citizen satisfies the economic side of him by making menials of wife and daughters without thought of the opposing circumstance that he has practically endorsed their intention to make fine ladies of themselves. neither he nor the chief slave of her own gentility, the wife, who will maintain her reputation for "faculty" or perish in the attempt, has a suspicion that the strain to make meet the ends of frugality and pretension, is palpably and criminally absurd. by keeping up a certain appearance of affluence and fashion, they assume the obligation to employ servants enough to carry out the design, yet in nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of every thousand, they ignore the duty. i admit without demur that, as american domestics go, they are a burden, an expense and a vexation. notwithstanding all these drawbacks, she who will not risk them should not live in such a way that she must make use of such instruments or overwork herself physically and mentally. the entire social and domestic system of american communities calls loudly for the reform of simplicity and congruity. we begin to build and are not able to finish. our economics are false and mischievous, our aims are petty and low. the web of our daily living is not round and even-threaded. the homes which are constructed upon the foundations of deranged, dying and dead women, are a mockery of the holy name. our houses should be planned and kept for those who are to live in them, not for those who tarry within the doors for a night or an hour. when housekeeping becomes an intolerable care there is sin somewhere and danger everywhere. chapter iv. little things that are trifles. i feel that in writing a chapter upon ways and means i may seem to many readers to be going over an oft-traversed road. of articles and treatises on the ever-vexing subject there is no end. the whole human creation or, at all events, a vast majority of it, groaneth and travaileth together in the agony of trying to spread a little substance over a vast surface,--in the desperate endeavor to make a little money go a very long way. every few months we notice in a daily newspaper the offer of a money-prize for the best bill of fare for a company-dinner for six people, to be prepared upon a ludicrously-small allowance. the number of contestants for this prize proves, not only the general interest felt in the subject, but also testifies to the urgent need of the reward on the part of the various would-be winners. the probabilities are that few of these writers have the means to set forth such a dinner as they describe. books portraying the feasibility of "comfortable living on seven hundred a year," or "how to keep house on a restricted income," are both helpful and pernicious. the prospective housewife buys them eagerly and devours them with avidity. she and john are boarding now, but are soon to have a home of their own, and after perusing their newly purchased volumes, they decide that their limited income will amply enable them to live in comfort although, perhaps, not in luxury. the tiny house or flat is rented, and they settle down, as mrs. whitney's emery anne would say, "to realize their geography," or, more properly speaking, to live their recently acquired knowledge, which is, in many points, very useful. but--and here comes the mischief wrought by over-sanguine literature--the authors of these books leave too many things out of the question. the expenses of moving and the purchase of necessary furniture are, of course, omitted, but mary finds to her chagrin that fuel--no slight item in any family,--and light,--also absolutely essential,--have not been taken into account. these make a big hole in the income which had seemed all-sufficient. it is expedient, also, occasionally, to have a woman in to do a day's cleaning, and the weekly wash is a bugbear which makes our young people shudder. the poor little housewife has many an anxious, tearful hour in striving to make both ends meet, while the most amiable husband cannot help wondering audibly "how it is they cannot live as cheaply as other people do." in housekeeping, as in all else, one must learn the lesson for one's self. all the rules and theories in all the books and periodicals in the country are worth little compared with three months of personal experience. happy is the young wife who has had some practice in housekeeping in her father's house before the heavier responsibility of a home of her own rests on her shoulders. let me remind our mary, first of all, of the truth that there is no meanness in economy, and that--as i cannot repeat too often or too strongly--waste is vulgar. it is not the lady who scorns to save scraps of butter, who throws the few cold boiled potatoes left from dinner into the ash-barrel, and empties the teaspoonful of cream from the bottom of the pitcher into the kitchen sink. your servant will not have the brains and foresight to detect in these seemingly useless articles factors which may aid materially in the construction of a delicacy, or "help out" to-morrow's breakfast or lunch. it is amazing to the mistress who is her own cook how long things last and how far they go. all the interest which a hired cook may take in her work does not impart the peculiar care which one feels for that which is one's own. in this point the woman without a domestic has the advantage over the woman with a servant, and she with one maid-of-all-work is better off than she who keeps two. every extra mouth counts, and the waste caused by each added bridget or gretchen is incalculable. the only redress which the housekeeper with a servant has, is constant vigilance and personal supervision, and even then she is the loser. at the south the servants are used to having provisions kept under lock and key. each day the mistress deals out the requisite flour, butter, eggs, etc., and the cook is perfectly satisfied. were a northern housekeeper to adopt this system she would soon have the misery of engaging new servants. the irish and germans among us are not accustomed to such restrictions, and will not tolerate them. to utilize the little "left-overs," then, mary must make up her mind to do much of her own cooking. if she has a servant in the kitchen, she may frequently so exchange work with her that the preparation of dainty dishes will fall to her share. norah may sweep the parlor, wipe up the hall floor, or wash the windows while her mistress is attending to cooking too delicate for the domestic's fingers. the servant may do what i call the heavy kitchen-work, such as preparing vegetables for cooking, chopping meat, peeling potatoes, etc., and she should always be allowed to wash pots, pans and kettles, after the cooking is done. but if the mistress will spend half an hour in the kitchen before each meal, john will soon discover that his food has a delicacy of flavor and is served with a daintiness imparted only by a professional french cook,--or a lady. another of the petty economies which is not belittling is the washing of one's own dining-room dishes. the money saved by this process is easily understood by the housewife whose cut-glass and egg-shell china are continually smashed to fragments by the hirelings whose own the fragiles are not. the china bill for one year of the woman with many servants assumes proportions so huge that she is actually afraid to let herself consider its enormity. and there are still more things broken of which she is never told until the day comes when this or that article is needed, and the answer to inquiry is: "an' sure ma'am, such a thing aint niver been in this house sence iver i come into it." and as there is no way of proving the falsity of this statement, one must submit. as i have said before, dish-washing, as done by a lady, takes little time and labor, and may be a pleasant occupation. the laborer, not the labor, makes a thing common or refined. with an abundance of scalding hot water, a soap-shaker, mop, gloves with the tips cut off, clean and soft dish-towels, and delicate glass and china, dish-washing is in every sense of the word a lady's work. the mistress will do it in one-third of the time, with five times the thoroughness, and one-tenth as many breakages as will the average servant. and when the dishes are washed and the table is spread for the next meal with pure linen, glistening glass and shining silver--who dares say that the glow of housewifely pride and satisfaction does not more than compensate for the little time and trouble expended to produce the agreeable result? i have said that every additional mouth counts in the sum of family expenses, and for this reason many housekeepers of moderate means neglect the duty of hospitality. pardon me if i say that i think this is one of the economies which, if carried too far, is more honored in the breach than in the observance. i do not advocate, indeed i reprehend, pretentious entertaining, such as dances, parties, etc. but it impresses me that it is, to a certain extent, a mean spirit that counts the cost in asking a friend to stay to a repast, to spend a night or a week. it is your duty to have things so nice every day, and always, that you cannot be too much "put out" by an occasional guest. when you invite your friend to make you a visit, explain that you live quietly, and that he will find a warm welcome. then give him just what you give john, and make no apologies. above all, do not let him feel that any additional labor caused by his presence throws the whole course of the household machinery out of gear. do not invite to your home those for whom you have to make so great a change in your daily life. if you keep house as a lady should, you need not fear to entertain anyone who is worthy to be your friend. it is no disgrace if your circumstances are such that you cannot afford to keep a staff of servants at your beck and call. these suggestions are but hints as to daily management. first and foremost, mary must learn to systematize her work. method and management do wonders toward saving time and money. some housewives are always in a hurry and their work is never done, while others with twice as much to do never seem flurried, and have time for writing, sewing and reading. the secret of the success of the latter class lies in that one golden word--method. i hope the young housekeepers to whom this talk is addressed will not consider such trifles as i have mentioned, degrading. it is the work laid before them and consequently cannot be mean. such labor, when sweetened by the thought of what it all means, is ennobling. i know that keats tells us that: "love in a hut with water and a crust, is--love forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust!" if love were really there, "cinders, ashes, dust" could not be, and the water and crust may, by our mary's skillful treatment, be transformed into a refreshing beverage and an appetizing _entrée_. my faith in the powers of john's wife is great, and if john be satisfied, and tells her that he has the best little love-mate and housekeeper in the world, can she complain? chapter v. a mistake on john's part. it is not discreditable to the sex to assert that a man is first attracted marriage-ward by the desire of the eye. he falls in love, as a rule, because she who presently becomes the only woman in the universe to him is goodly to view, if not actually beautiful. goodliness being largely contingent upon apparel, it follows that mary dresses for john--up to the marriage-day. he who descries signs of slatternliness in his beloved prior to that date, may well be shocked to disillusionment. as a girl in a home where the mother takes upon herself the heaviest work, and spares her pretty daughter's hands and clothes all the soil and wear she can avert, mary must be indolent or phenomenally indifferent to what occupies so much of other women's thoughts, if she do not always appear in her lover's presence neatly and--to the best of her ability--becomingly attired. she quickly acquaints herself with his taste in the matter of women's costumes, and adapts hers to it, wearing his favorite colors, giving preference to the gowns he has praised, and arranging her hair in the fashion he has chanced to admire in her hearing. in the work-a-day world of matrimonial life, much of all this undergoes a change. washington irving lived and died a fastidious, unpractical bachelor, or he might have modified the sketch of "the wife," the mary who, after unpacking trunks, washing china, pots and kettles, putting closets to rights, laying carpets, hanging pictures, clearing away straw, sawdust, and what in that day corresponded with jute--dusting and shelving books--and performing the hundred other duties contingent upon sitting down in the modest cottage hired by her bankrupt husband,--got tea ready (presumably preparing potatoes for the same) picked a big mess of strawberries from a bed opportunely discovered in the garden, donned a white muslin robe and sat down to the piano to while away a lagging hour while awaiting her leslie's return. the john of our common-sensible age knows in his sober mind that his bride, in the effort to accomplish one-fourth as much, would equip herself in a brown gingham, tie a big apron before her, draw a pair of his discarded gloves with truncated fingers upon her hands, and be too tired at night to do more than boil the kettle for the cup of tea which he is more than likely to drink at the kitchen table, spread with a newspaper--the linen not having been yet dug out of the case in which "mother and the girls" packed it. as the months wear on, mary learns, if her spouse does not, that white muslin comes to grief so speedily in the course of even light housework, as to swell the laundry bills inordinately. the embroidered tea-gowns in which she used to array herself upon the rare occasions of her betrothed's morning calls, gather dust streaks upon skirts and the under sides of the sleeves, and, watch as she may, catch spots in the kitchen. she considers,--being lovingly determined to help, not hinder her mate,--that his purse must purchase new garments when her trousseau is worn out, and she saves her best clothes for "occasions." john, being her husband, is no longer an occasion. dark prints and ginghams, simply made, and freshened up at meal-times by full white aprons, are serviceable, sensible, economical and significant of our dear mary's practical wisdom. they are by so many degrees less becoming to her than the dainty apparel of loverly memory, that we do not wonder at the surprised discontent of the young husband. marriage has made no distinct change in his apparel. in his business a man must be decent, or he loses credit. in masculine ignorance of the immutable law that in dislodging dirt some must cling to the garments and person of the toiler, he sets down his wife's altered appearance to indifference to his happiness. she may have labored from an early breakfast to a late dinner to make his home comfortable and tasteful; into each of the dishes served up with secret pride for his consumption, may have gone a wealth of love and earnest desire that would have set up ten poets in sonnets and madrigals. because her hands are roughened and her complexion muddied by her work, and--in the knowledge that dishes are to be washed and the table re-set for breakfast, and the kitchen cleared up after he has been regaled--she has slipped on a dark frock in which she was wont to receive him on rainy evenings--he falls into a brown and cynical study, which dishonors his wife only a little more than it disgraces himself and human nature. "time was"--so runs his musing--"when she thought it worth her while to take pains to look pretty. that was when there was still a chance of a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. she has me fast now, and anything is good enough for a husband." not one syllable of this chapter is penned for the woman who deserves an iota of censure like the above. it is a wife's duty to study to look well in her husband's eyes, always and in all circumstances. her person should be scrupulously clean, her hair becomingly arranged, her working-gown as neat as she can keep it, and relieved before john comes in by clean collar or ruching and a smooth white apron. it is altogether possible for the woman who "does her own work" to be as "well set-up"--to borrow a sporting phrase from john--as her rich neighbor who can drag a train over oriental rugs from the moment she rises to a late breakfast until she sweeps yards of brocade and velvet up the polished stairs after ball, dinner or theatre-party. what i have to do with now is john's unreasonable desire that his wife should--as the help-meet of a man who has his own way to make in the world--dress as well as when she was the unmarried daughter of an elderly gentleman whose way was made. every sensible girl married to a poor man comprehends, as one trait of wifely duty, that she must make her trousseau last and look well as long as she can. in the honorable dread of suggesting to him whose fortune she has elected to share, that when her handsome gowns are no longer wearable she must replace lace with cotton lawns, and silk with all-wool merino or serge, she devises excuses for sparing the costly fabrics--pretexts which, to his shame it is said, he is prone to misunderstand. if men such as he could guess at the repressed longings for the brave array of other times that assail the wearers of well-saved--therefore _passee_--finery, at sight of other women less conscientious, or with richer husbands than themselves, reveling in the latest and most enticing modes--if eyes scornful of plain attire could penetrate to the jealously locked closet where feminine vanity and native extravagance are kept under watch and ward by the love the critic is ready to doubt,--print, gingham and stuff gowns would be fairer than ermine and velvet in john's esteem. chapter vi. chink-fillers. at a recent conference of practical housewives and mothers held in a western city, one of the leaders told, as illustrative of the topic under discussion, an incident of her childhood. when a little girl of seven years, she stood by her father, looking at a new log-cabin. "papa," she observed, "it is all finished, isn't it?" "no, my daughter, look again!" the child studied the structure before her. the neatly hewed logs were in their proper places. the roof, and the rough chimney, were complete, but, on close scrutiny, one could see the daylight filtering through the interstices of the logs. it had yet to be "chinked." when this anecdote was ended, a bright little woman arose and returned her thanks for the story, for, she said, she had come to the conclusion that she was one of the persons who had been put in the world to "fill up the chinks." the chink-fillers are among the most useful members of society. the fact is patent of the founder of one of our great educational systems, that he grasped large plans and theories, but had no talent for minutiæ. what would his majestic outlines be without the army of workers who, with a just comprehension of the importance of detail, fill in the chinks in the vast enterprise? putty may be a mean, cheap article, far inferior to the clear, transparent crystal pane, but what would become of the costly plate-glass were there no putty to fill in the grooves in which it rests, and to secure it against shocks? the universal cry of the woman of the present to the effect that the sex has a mighty mission to accomplish, sounds a note of woe to her who, try as she may, can find no one occupation in which she excels and who feels that her only sphere in life is to go through the world doing the little things left undone by people with missions. does it ever occur to the self-named commonplace woman that her heaven-appointed task is as high a "mission" as any that may be taken up by her more gifted sisters? it requires vast patience and much love for one's fellow-man to be a chink-filler. she it is who, as wife, mother, sister, or, perhaps, maiden-aunt, picks up the hat or gloves mamie has carelessly left on the drawing-room table, wipes the tiny finger smears from the window-panes at which baby stood to wave his hand to papa this morning, dusts the rungs of the chair neglected by the parlor-maid, and mends the ripped coat which johnny forgot to mention until it was nearly time to start for school. it is she who thinks to pull the basting-threads out of the newly finished gown, tacks ruching in neck and sleeves against the time when daughter or sister may want it in a hurry, remembers to prepare some dainty for that member of the household who is "not quite up to the mark" in appetite--in fact, undertakes those tasks, so many of which show for little when done, but which are painfully conspicuous when neglected. does she bewail herself that her sphere is small--limited? let her pause and consider how it would affect the family were the hat and gloves to be out of place, the chair undusted, the blurred window-glass overlooked, the coat unmended, the bastings allowed to stand in all their hideous white prominence, the invalid's appetite untempted. like a good spirit, our chink-filler glides in and out among the fallen threads in the tangled web of life, picking up dropped stitches, fastening loose strands, and weaving the tissue into a harmonious whole, and yet doing it all so unobtrusively that the great weavers, looking only at the vast pattern they are forming, are unconscious that, but for the unselfish thought and deft fingers of the commonplace woman, their work would be a grand failure. sometime the children whose shortcomings she has supplemented and thus saved from harsh reproof, the servants whose tasks she has made lighter, the husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, for whom she has made life smoother, and brighter, will arise and call her blessed. it may not be in this life, but it will surely come to pass in "the world that sets this right." "she doth little kindnesses which most leave undone or despise; for naught that sets one heart at ease, or giveth happiness or peace, is low-esteeméd in her eyes." few people appreciate the dignity of detail, although, from the days of our childhood, we have heard rhymes, verses and proverbs innumerable which aim to impress mankind with the importance of the horse-shoe nail, of the rift in the lute, and the tiny worm-hole in the vessel through which the "watery tide" entered. the wife and mother, more than any other, knows what a great part of life is made up of the little things, such as:-- "sewing on the buttons, overseeing rations; soothing with a kind word guiding clumsy bridgets, coaxing sullen cooks, entertaining company, and reading recent books; woman's work!" strange as it may seem, the mind of the hireling cannot grasp the importance of the lesser tasks that go to make up the sum of existence. if you allow bridget to prepare your guest chamber for an unexpected friend, you will observe that she glories in rembrandt-like effects,--which, when viewed at a distance, assume a respectable appearance. you, with brains back of your hands, will notice that there is a tiny hole in the counterpane, dust under the table, and--above all--that the soap-dish is not clean. your servant may do the rough work; the dainty, lady-like touch must be given by you. you have an experienced waitress, and a jewel, if the dining-room and table are perfect without your supervision. it may be only that a teacup or plate is sticky or rough to the touch, a fork or a knife needed, the steel or one of the carvers forgotten. but when the family is assembled at the board, these trifles cause awkward pauses and interruptions. other little cares are to ascertain that the water with which the tea is made is boiling, that the alcohol lamp is filled, the flies brushed from the room, the plates warmed, and the sugar-dishes and salt-cellars filled. one housekeeper says that attention to these duties always reminds her of the task of washing one's face. nobody notices if you keep your face clean, and you get no credit for doing it, but if you did not wash it, all the world would remark upon the dirt. often the work which "doesn't show" takes most time, and tries the temper. and the hardest part of it all is that it is so frequently caused by others' laziness or delinquencies. if john would only use an ash-receiver, instead of strewing the veranda-floor with ashes and burnt matches; if he would "just think" to close the library blinds when he has finished looking for a missing book, instead of allowing the hot sunshine and flies to enter at their own sweet will, until, two hours after his departure for the office, you descend to the apartment which you had already dusted and darkened, and find it filled with heat and buzz! if that big boy of yours _could_ remember to strip the covers from his bed when he arises and if your pretty daughter could cultivate her bump of order sufficiently to refrain from leaving a hat of some description in every room on the first floor, and her jacket on the banisters! nobody but yourself knows how many precious minutes you expend in righting these wrongs caused by others' carelessness. john would advise grandly that you "let bridget attend to these matters. why keep a dog and do your own barking?" if he is particularly sympathetic and generous, he will inform you seriously that your time is too precious to spend on beggarly trifles, and that if one servant cannot do the work of the establishment, he wants you to hire another. perhaps you ungratefully retort that "it will only make one more for you to follow up and supplement." it would be an excellent plan for each member of the household to resolve to put in its proper place everything which he or she observed out of order. by the time this rule had been established for twenty-four hours, the house would be immaculate, and the mother find ample time for her mission,--if she has any beside general chink-filler for the family. if not, she will have an opportunity to rest. a well-known author, who is at the same time an exemplary housewife, tells of how she retired one rainy spring morning to her study in just the mood for writing. husband and sons had gone to their various occupations. she had a splendid day for work ahead of her. she sat down to her desk and took up her pen. the plot of a story was forming itself in her brain. she dipped her pen in the ink and wrote: "he was--" a knock at the door. enter anne. "please, mem, a mouse has eat a hole in one of your handsome napkins,--them as i was to wash agin the company you're expectin' to-morrow night. by rights it should be mended before it's washed." "bring it to the sewing-room." when the neat piece of darning was ended, the housekeeper repaired to the closet to put on a loose writing-sack. on the nail next to the jacket hung her winter coat. on the edge of the sleeve was a tiny hole. the housewifely spirit was filled with dread. there were actually _moths_ in that closet! she must attend to it immediately. the woolens ought to be put up if moths had already appeared. john's clothes and the boys' winter coats were in great danger of being ruined. by lunch time the necessary brushing and doing up were ended. but in stowing away the winter garments in the attic, our heroine was appalled at the confusion among the trunks. the garret needed attention, and received it as soon as the noonday meal was dispatched. at four o'clock, with the waitress' assistance, the task was completed. about the same time a note arrived from john saying he would be obliged to bring two of his old friends--"swell bachelors"--who were spending the day in town, to dine with him that night. she "must not put herself to any trouble about dinner, and he would take them to the theatre in the evening." to the dinner already ordered were added oyster-pâtés, salad, with mayonnaise dressing, salted almonds, and, instead of the plain pudding that john liked, was a pie of which he was still more fond, capped by black coffee, all of which articles, except the last-named, were prepared by the hostess, who, in faultless toilette, with remarkably brilliant color, smilingly welcomed her husband and his guests to the half-past six dinner. when they had gone to the theatre, and the mother had talked to her two sons of the day's school experiences, before they settled down to their evening of study, she returned to the dining-room, and, as mary had a headache and had had a busy day, she assisted in washing and wiping the unusual number of soiled dishes, and in setting the breakfast table. at nine o'clock she dragged her weary self upstairs. as she passed the door of her sanctum on the way to her bed-chamber, she paused, then entered, and lighted the gas-jet over her desk. on it lay the page of foolscap, blank but for the words: "he was--" the day had gone and the plot with it. with a half-sob she sat down and wrote with tired and trembling fingers: _"he was--this morning. he isn't now!"_ but will not my readers agree with me that she was a genuine wife, mother, housekeeper,--in short, a "chink-filler?" chapter vii. must-haves and may-bes. "a summer in leslie goldthwaite's life," one of the most charming, as well as one of the most helpful of adeline d.t. whitney's books, was sent into the world over a quarter-century ago. but age cannot wither nor custom stale, nor render old-fashioned the delightful volume with its many quaint and original ideas. others besides girls have learned the practical truth of one sentence which, for the good it has done, deserves to be written in letters of gold: "_something must be crowded out._" more than one perplexed and conscientious worker has, like myself, written it out in large text and tacked it up in sewing-room, kitchen, or over a desk. in the beginning, i want to guard what may seem to be a weak point by stating, first and above all, that this is not an excuse for slighting or "slurring over" our legitimate work. one easygoing housekeeper used to say that, in her opinion, there was a genius in slighting. her home attested the fact that she had reduced the habit of leaving things undone to a science, but it is doubtful if the so-called genius differed largely from that which forms a prominent characteristic of the porcine mother, and enables her to enjoy her home and little ones with apparent indifference to the fact that outsiders denominate one a sty, and her offspring small pigs. not very long ago i was frequently brought into contact with a woman who has, as all her friends acknowledge, a faculty for "turning off work." she has a jaunty knack of pinning trimming on a hat, which, although bare and stiff in the start, evolves into a toque or capote that a french milliner need not blush to confess as her handiwork. she can run up the seams in a dress-skirt with speed that fills the slower sisters working at her side with sad envy. she puts up preserves with marvelous dexterity, and can toss together eggs, butter, sugar and flour, and turn out a cake in less time than an ordinary woman would consume in creaming the butter and sugar. but it is an obvious fact that the work of this remarkable woman lacks "staying power." her too rapid and long stitches often give way, allowing between them mortifying glimpses of white under-waist or skirt to obtrude themselves; in a high wind the trimmings or feathers are likely to blow loose from the dainty bonnets; her preserves ferment, and have to be "boiled down," while the cutting of her cake reveals the truth that under the top-crust are heavy streaks, like a stratum of igneous formation shot athwart the aqueous. the maker of gown, hat, preserves, and cake lacks thoroughness. as one irreverent young man once said after dancing with her--"she is all the time tumbling to pieces." since something must be crowded out, the first and great point is to determine what this something must be. certain duties are of prime importance, others only secondary. one writer says of a woman who had cultivated the sense of proportion with regard to her work: "we felt all the while the cheer and gladness and brightness of her presence, just because she had learned to make this great distinction,--to put some things first and others second. she had mastered the great secret of life." this talk of mine reminds me of a prosy preacher who chose one sunday as the text of his sermon, "it is good to be here," and began his discourse with the announcement, "i shall employ all the time this morning in telling of the places in which it is _not_ good to be. if you come to hear me to-night i will tell you where it is good to be." so we will consider the things which must not be put aside. some duties are plain, self-evident, and heaven-appointed. such is the care of children. to the young mother this is, or should be, the first and great object in life. her baby must have enough clothes, and these clothes must be kept clean, fresh and dainty, for his pure, sweet babyship. his many little wants must be attended to, even if calls are not returned and correspondence is neglected. but it is not absolutely necessary to load down the tiny frocks with laces and embroidery that are time consumers from the moment they are stitched on till the article they serve to adorn is ready for the rag-bag. the starching, the fluting, the ironing, all take precious hours that might be employed upon some of the must-haves. home duties take the precedence of social engagements. a busy mother cannot serve john, babies and society with all her heart, soul and strength. either she will neglect the one and cleave unto the other, or neither will receive proper attention. even a wealthy woman who can make work easy (?) by having a nurse for each child in the household, cannot afford to leave the tender oversight of the clothes, food, and general health of one of her babies to those hired to do the "nursing." there is no genuine nurse but the mother; and although others may do well under her eye and directed by her, she can never shift the mother-responsibility to other shoulders; and if she be worthy of the dignity of motherhood, she will never wish to have it otherwise. a few days ago i heard a clever woman say that a friend of hers had chosen as her epitaph--not, "she hath done what she could," but "she tried to do what she couldn't," and that her motto in life seemed to be, "what's worth doing at all is worth doing _swell_." this speech applies to too many american women, and so general is the habit of overcrowding, that she who would really determine what is worth doing at all must hold herself calmly and quietly in hand, and stand still with closed eyes for one minute, until her senses, dazed by the wild rush about her, have become sufficiently clear, and her hand steady enough, to pick out the diamonds of duty from the glass chips which pass with the superficial observer for first-water gems. it is well for our housewife to have some test-stone duty by which she may rate the importance of other tasks. such a test-stone may be john's or baby's needs or requirements. of course she must not expect to make as much show to the outside world by keeping the children well and happy, entertaining her husband each evening until he forgets the trials and vexations of his business-day, preparing toothsome and wholesome dainties for the loved ones, and making home sweet and attractive, as does the society woman who attends twenty teas a week, gives large lunches and dinners, and "takes in" every play and opera. "the little bird sits at his door in the sun, atilt like a blossom among the leaves, and lets his illumined being o'errun with the deluge of summer it receives. his mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, and the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; he sings to the wide world, and she to her nest; in the nice ear of nature which song is the best?" if my reader is a mother it will not take very long for her to justly determine the values. recently i heard a busy woman and an excellent housewife say: "if i am pressed with important work, and my parlors are not very dusty, i unblushingly wipe off the polished furniture, on which every speck shows, and leave the upholstered articles until another time." this was not untidiness. it was only putting time and work to the best advantage, that there might be enough to go around. i read the other day in the woman's department of a prominent paper a letter from a subscriber who said that she was so driven with work that it was all she could do to get her washing done, much less her ironing. so she had determined to use her bed-linen and underclothing rough-dry. would it not have been wiser as well as neater, for her to have plain, untrimmed underwear, and iron it without starching? for here comfort is also to be considered. is not smooth, neat linen to take the precedence of trimming and starch? another thing which must not be crowded out is rest, and the care of the health,--and the one includes the other. a day in which no breathing-space has been found is a wicked day. not only is it our duty to the bodies which god has given to care properly for them, but it is, moreover, a positive duty to our fellow-man. an overworked person is likely to be cross and disagreeable, for the mind is affected by the state of the body, and it is an absolute sin to put ourselves into a condition that makes others miserable. it is also wretched economy to burn the candle at both ends every day. when it is needed to aid us in some large piece of work the wick will be consumed, and the light will faintly flicker, or splutter feebly and die. among the things which may be easily and advantageously crowded out, we may rank unnecessary talking. the housekeeper would be surprised were she to take note of the time spent by her servants, and, perhaps, even by herself, in saying a few words here, and telling a story there in the time which rightfully belongs to other tasks. could she look, herself unseen, into her kitchen, she would find bridget and norah, arms akimbo, comparing notes as to past "places" or present beaux. gossip is their meat and drink, and it does not occur to them, or they do not care, that they are paid the same wages for time thus spent as for the hours at the tubs and ironing-board. "when you work, work; and when you play, play," is an excellent motto for both mistress and maid. to many workers there is a lack of courage and a sinking of heart at the thought of a large piece of work ahead of them, and such persons lose a vast amount of time in looking at a duty before they attack it. this habit of dallying over a task is something which may certainly be crowded out. the two great points in the successful management of time are concentration and system. at the beginning of each day set duties in array before your mind's eye, and attack them, one at a time. this may at first sight sound like ridiculously unnecessary advice. but unless my readers are exceptional women, they all know what it is to be so pressed with things that must be done that they do not know what to begin first. having chosen the most important task, attack that, and when you have once laid hold of the plough, drive straight ahead, not allowing the sight of another furrow, which is not just straight, to induce you to stop midway to straighten it before you have finished the one upon which your energies should now be bent. too many women are mere potterers, not earnest laborers. they begin to make a bed, and stop to brush up some dust that has collected under the bureau. before the dust-pan is emptied, the thought occurs of a tear in one of the children's aprons, and by the time that is mended, something else appears that needs attention, and all day long tasks are half completed and nothing is entirely finished, until at night the poor toiler is weary and discouraged, with nothing to show for her pains, except an anxious face and a semi-straight household. woman's work is quite as dignified as man's, and why should it not be arranged as carefully and systematically? if some thing must be crowded out, let it be, with forethought and reason, set to one side,--not shoved or huddled amid mess and confusion. chapter viii. what good will it do? thus i translate the latin _cui bono_. in whatever language the query is put, it is the most valuable balance-wheel ever attached to human action and speech. the principle is old. the pithy phrase in the shrewd roman's mouth was two-edged, and had a sharp point. the enterprise that led to no good was not worth beginning. a friend of mine who has written long, much, and, so far as i can judge, always profitably, told me that in she wrought out what was, to her apprehension, the most powerful book she ever composed,--a story of the civil war. she was a unionist in every thought and sentiment, and this she proclaimed; she had had unusual opportunities of seeing behind the scenes of political intrigue, and she had improved them. when the last chapter was written she carried the ms. into her husband's study at dusk one evening, and began to read it aloud to him. she finished it at two o'clock a.m. her auditor would not let her pause until then. hoarse, but with a heart beating high with excitement, she waited for the verdict. the husband walked up and down the floor for some minutes, head bent and hands clasped behind him, deep in thought. finally he stopped in front of her. "that is a marvelous book, my dear,--strong, true, dramatic. it will sell well. it will make a noise in the world. but--_cui bono?_" chagrined, mortified, angry, the author took the words with her to her room, and her brain tossed upon them as upon thorns all night. at dawn she arose and put the ms. into the fire. "i shudder to this day in thinking what would have been had i acted differently," she says. "what i had written in a semi-frenzy of patriotism would have been hot pincers, tearing open wounds which humanity and religion would have taught me to heal." into many lives comes some such crisis, when the text i would bind upon my reader's mind would act as a breakwater, and save more than one soul from sorrow, perhaps from destruction. in the everyday life of everybody, crises of less moment accentuate experience, and tend to make the nature richer or poorer. i incline to the belief that nine-tenths of the remorseful heartaches which most of us know only too well, might be spared us did we pause to repeat to ourselves the latin or english sentence. it may be a relic of barbarism, but it is an undeniable trait of human nature that all of us feel the longing to "answer back," or, as the children put it, to "get even with" the man or woman whose speech offends us. the apostle showed marvelous knowledge of the weakness of sinful mortals when he affirmed that the tongue was an unruly member, for it is easier to perform a herculean feat, to strain physical strength and muscle to the utmost, than to bite back the sharp retort, or repress the acrid reply. and there is such a hopelessness in the sentence once uttered! it is gone from us forever. we may regret it and show our repentance in speech and action, but we cannot blot the memory of the cruel words from our minds, or from the mind of the person,--perhaps a mere acquaintance, oftener bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,--in whose heart the barbed arrows of our eloquence rankle for months and years. the dear friend may forgive freely and fully the bitter censure or unjust reproof, but a scar is left which, if touched in a moment of inadvertence, will pulse and throb with the remembrance of pain. "leave the bitter word unspoken; so shalt thou be strongly glad, if there lies no backward shadow on dead faces, wan and sad." "to repress a harsh answer, to confess a fault, to stop, right or wrong, in the midst of self-defence, in gentle submission, sometimes requires a struggle like life and death, but these three efforts are the golden threads with which domestic happiness is woven." how frequently we exclaim,--"if i ever get the opportunity, i will give that woman a piece of my mind!" or, "i shall some time have the satisfaction of telling that man what i think of his behavior." it is a very melancholy and most _un_satisfactory satisfaction to know that you have made a person uncomfortable. it is folly for you to suppose for a moment that an angry speech of yours will turn a man from a course of which you do not approve. it will make him hate you, perhaps, but it will not change him. it is not only foolish, but un-christian to triumph in another's discomfiture. then why "give the piece of your mind," which you can never take back? what good will it do? the same question may be asked with regard to the uncharitable remarks which nearly all of us make daily. once in a great while, we meet a human being, still permitted to dwell on this sinful earth, who rarely says anything unkind of anybody, whose rule is, "if you cannot say a kind thing say nothing." in the course of a long and varied experience i may have known half-a-dozen such. but what man has done, man may do again. what is the baneful spirit which tempts the gentlest of us to take more pleasure in calling attention to a fault than to a virtue? if a woman is a tender mother, a model wife, and an excellent housekeeper, why, when her virtues are discussed, is it necessary for some one to "think it is such a pity that she does not read more?" or what good comes from the remark that she is "sprightly, but not very deep?" there is no habit more easily contracted than that of wholesale criticism, and it is a habit that grows with fungus-like rapidity. washington irving says "that a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use," and with many people the unruly member has acquired a razor-like edge which contains in itself the faculty of keeping sharp, and never needs "honing" or "setting." i have in mind one man to whom i hesitate to name a friend, unless it chances to be one over whom he has cast the mantle of his approval. those who are fortunate enough to live up to his standard are very few, and all others he criticises unmercifully, employing in his condemnation a ready wit and fluent speech that might be used in a nobler purpose. such a reputation as he holds for all uncharitableness is not an enviable one, and one wonders what would be his answer to our _cui bono_. when there are so many truthful and pleasant things that may be said of everybody, why call attention to disagreeable points, which after all, are fewer than the agreeable ones? the office of the gossip is so thankless that it is a marvel any one accepts it. to certain natures there is positive delight in being the first to relate a choice bit of scandal. it never occurs to them that the old maxim with regard to a dog who fetches a bone can possibly be applied to them. but it is as true as the stars that if a person brings you an unsavory tale of a friend, she will carry away as ugly a story of you, if she can find the faintest suggestion upon which to found it. the gossip acquires a detective-like faculty for following out a clue, but unfortunately, the clue is oftener purely imaginary than real. a little discrepancy like this does not disturb the professional scandal-monger. so tenacious is the habit of making much of nothing, that, deprived of this, her sustenance, she would find life colorless and void. so, if material does not present itself, she manufactures it. one must live. there is also a habit, which, while comparatively innocent, is likely to bring trouble upon the perpetrator. it is that of making many confidantes. here comes a very serious _cui bono_. undoubtedly there is a momentary satisfaction in telling one's woes and sorrows to an interested listener. when the auditor is a friend, and a trusted friend, whose sympathy is genuine and whose discretion is vast, there is a comfort beyond description in unburdening one's soul. but there is a line to be drawn even here. it is not deceit to keep your private affairs to yourself when you are sure that you are guilty of nothing dishonorable or hypocritical in so doing. you are often your own best and safest counselor. i know one woman who long ago said a thing which should be a motto to those susceptible persons who in a sudden expansion of the heart tell all they know and which they would most wish to keep to themselves. "my dear," she said, "in the course of a somewhat checkered life i have discovered that while i have often been sorry for things which i have told, i have never had cause to regret what i have kept to myself." if you have a secret and wish to keep it, guard it jealously. it ceases to be yours alone when you impart it to another. your confidante may be discretion personified, and, yet again, she may have some nearer and dearer one to whom she "tells everything," even the secrets of her friends. or, you may in time learn to be ashamed of the confidence which you have reposed in this person, and the knowledge that she knows and remembers the thing, and, it may be, knows that you feel a mortification at the thought of it, will gall you unspeakably. perhaps the hardest struggle that comes to the average human being is to let others be mistaken. yet what good will it do to point out to them their mistakes? if your husband or son tells several people that he met john smith last week in new york, and you know that he was in that city three weeks ago, why correct him? he is talking hastily and does not stop to measure his words or time. the mistake is unimportant. why antagonize a man by exclaiming: "my dear john! this is the third week in january, and you went to new york immediately after christmas." when you hear your friend tell your favorite story, and change some minor detail, she will love you not a whit the more if you correct her with-- "no, mary! the way it happened was this"--and then proceed with the tale in the manner which you consider best. there are so many things which we all do for which there is no honest reason, that i will mention only one more. that is the exceedingly uncomfortable trick of reminding a man of something he has once said, when he has since had occasion to change his mind. perhaps some years ago when you first met your now dear friend, you thought her manner affected, and did not hesitate to mention the fact to your family. since then you have become so well acquainted with her delightful points that you forget your early impression of her. how do you feel when you are enthusiastically enumerating her many lovable attributes, if the member of the household with the fiendish memory strikes in with-- "oh, then you have changed your mind about her? you remember you once said that you considered her the most affected mortal whom you had ever met." under such provocation does not murder assume the guise of justifiable homicide? there is no more bitter diet than to be forced to eat one's own words. never tell one of an opinion which he once held, if he has since had reason to alter his views. there is no sin or weakness in changing one's mind. it is a thing which all of us--if we except a few victims to pig-headed prejudice--do daily. and, as a rule, we hate to be reminded of the fact. then why call the attention of others to the circumstances that they are guilty of the same weakness, if such it be? again i ask, _cui bono?_ chapter ix. shall, i pass it on? "me refrunce, mum!" i look up, bewildered, from an essay to which i have just set the caption--"who is my neighbor?" "me carackter, mum! me stiffticket! you'll not be sending me away without one, peticklerly as 'twas meself as give warnin'?" she is ready for departure. dressed in decent black for the brother "who was drownded las' summer," she stands at the back of my desk, one hand on her hip, and makes her demand. it is not a petition, but a dispassionate statement of a case that has no other side. she has been in my kitchen for six months as my nominal servitor. she has drawn her wages punctually for that time. she "wants a change;" her month is up; she is going out of my house, out of my employ, out of my life. these things being true, katy wants to take with her all that pertains to her. one of these belongings is her "refrunce." from her standpoint, i owe it to her as truly as i owed the sixteen dollars i have just paid her. i engaged katy last may from a highly responsible intelligence office. for and in consideration of a fee of three dollars, a lady-like agent, with a smooth voice and demeanor, passed over "the girl" to me as she might a brown paper parcel of moist sugar. she supplied, gratis, a personal voucher for the woman i had engaged, having known her well for five years. katy had, moreover, a model "recommend," which she unwrapped from a bit of newspaper that had kept it clean. the chirography was the fashionable "long english;" the diction was good, and the orthography faultless. envelope and paper had evidently come from a lady's davenport. "this is to certify that katherine brady has lived in my family for eleven months as cook. i have found her industrious, sober, neat, honest and obliging. she also understands her business thoroughly. she leaves me in consequence of my removal from the city. (mrs.) ... no ... west th st., new york city." if the certificate had a fault, it was that the fit was too nearly perfect. i had heard of references written to order by venal scribes, and i consulted the city directory. mr. ...'s office was in wall street, his residence no ... west th street. i called to see him, found him in, and found him a gentleman. he had no doubt that all was right. he believed the name of their latest cook was katherine. they called her "katy." he knew that his wife was sorry to part with her, and inferred that she was a worthy woman. we, too, were leaving town, but only for the summer. katy "liked the country in hot weather. all the best fam'lies now-a-days had their country-places." it is not an easy matter to "change help" during a summer sojourn in a cottage distant an hour and a half from town. the act involves one or more railway journeys, much running about in hot streets, and much hopeless ringing at dumb and dusty doors. this is the explanation of katy's six months' stay in my kitchen. in town, she would have been dismissed at the end of the first week. she was a wretched cook, and a worse laundress. within an hour after she entered my door, the decent black gown was exchanged for a dingy calico which she wore, without a collar, and minus a majority of the buttons, all day long and every day. she was "a settled girl"--owning to twenty-eight summers, and having weathered forty winters. her hair, streaked with gray, tumbled down as persistently as patience riderhood's, and was uncomfortably easy of identification in _ragout_ and muffins. her slippers were down at heel; her kitchen was never in order; her tins were black; her pots were greasy; her range was dull; her floors unclean. like all her compeers, she "found the place harder nor she had been give to onderstand, but was willin' to do her best, seein' she had come." her best was sometimes sour bread, sometimes burned biscuits, generally weak, muddy coffee, always under-seasoned vegetables and over-seasoned soup. by july , she developed a genius for quarreling with the other servants that got up a domestic hurricane, and i told her she must leave. she promptly burst into tears, and reminded me that i "had engaged her for the sayson, an' what would a pore girl be doin' in the empty city in the middle of the summer? "an' whativer they may say o' me ways down-stairs, it's the timper of a babby i have, an' would niver throw a harrd wurrd at a dog, let alone a human. whin they think me cross, it's only that i'm a bit quoiet, an' who can wonder? thinkin' o' me pore brother as was drownded las' summer, an' him niver out o' me moind!" i weakly allowed her to stay upon promise of good and peaceable behavior, and tried to make the best of her, as she had of the place. one september day, just when the physician, called in to see a dear young guest, had expressed his fear that she was sickening for a serious illness, katy gave warning. "her feelin's would not allow her to stay in a house where there was sickness. it always reminded her of her pore, dear brother what was drownded las' summer, an' a sick pairson made a quare lot o' extra work, even when it was considered in the wages. she'd be lavin' that day week, her month bein' up then." happily, the threatening of illness was a false alarm, but katy is going. the city is filling up, and many "best families" must re-open their town-houses in time for the school terms. she looks as happy at the prospect of a return to area-gossip and sunday flirtation as i feel at getting rid of her. i have made with her a farewell round of pantries, refrigerator, and cellar. valuable articles are missing--notably two solid silver tablespoons and a dozen fine napkins. at the back of the barn a pile of brushwood masks a monte testaccio of china and cut-glass. dirt is in every corner; glass-towels have been degraded into dish and floor-cloths; saucepans are burned into holes; tops are lacking to pots and pails. for all this there is no redress. when i made a stand upon the "case of spoons," as being old family silver, the housemaid declared that katy had used them often to stir soup and porridge, and katy retorted with gusts of brine and brogue that she "wouldn't be accountable for things that didn't belong to her business." altogether, my amiable willingness that she should take her leave without shaking more dust from her feet upon an already burdened household, had become impatient desire by the time i counted out her wages. yet, here she stands, grim as the sphinx, fixed as fate, with the inexorable requisition, "me refrunce, mum!" "what could i say of you katy?" i ask, miserably. "what any leddy whatsomever, as _is_ a leddy, would say! what lots o' other leddies, as leddylike as enny leddy could wish to be, ridin' in their coaches an' livin' in houses tin times 's big as this, leddies as had none but leddylike ways, has said!" is the tautological response. "i've served yez, fair an' faithful, for six mont's, and it stan's to rayson as i wouldn't 'a' been let to stay that long onder yer ruff if so be i hadn't shuited yez." she has me there, and she knows it. inwardly, i retract some of the hard things i have thought and said of mrs. ... of no ... west fifty-seventh street. having let the creature abide under her roof for eleven months, she must justify herself for the act. she meant to leave town, as i mean to go back to town, and, like me, truckled weakly to expediency. nevertheless, her weakness did me a real wrong. _shall i pass it on?_ this is the moral question i would sift from what my readers may regard as trivial and commonplace details. the fact that my experience is so common as to seem trite, is the most startling feature in the case. our american domestic service is a loosely woven web, full of snarls and knots. it is time that the great national principle that government must depend upon the consent of the governed, should be studied and applied to the matter in hand. we, the wage-payers, are the governed, and without our consent. the recent attempt to enforce this retroverted law upon a grand scale, in calling a mighty railway corporation to account for the discharge of a dozen or so out of several thousand employes, is no stronger proof of this curious reversal of positions than the demand of my whilom cook that i should set my hand to a lie. i caught her once in a falsehood so flagrant that i commended the rule of truth-speaking to her moral sense, and asked how she reconciled the sin with her knowledge of what was right. her answer was ready: "oh, there's no sin in a lie that doesn't hurt yer neighbor!" judged even by this easygoing principle, i should sin in penning the reference without which katy intimates that she will not withdraw her foot from my house. she looms before me,--vulgar, determined, irrational and ignorant,--the impersonation of the system under which we cringe and groan. "what would you do?" i ask a friend, who is a successful housewife. she shrugs her shoulders. "oh, swim with the tide! not to give the certificate will be equivalent to boycotting yourself. the news of your contumacy will spread like prairie fires. you will be baited and banned beyond endurance." "but--my duty to my neighbor?" "thanks to the prevailing rule in these affairs, your neighbor knows how little a written reference is worth. she will satisfy the proprieties by reading it, and form her own opinion of the girl. when katy has worn out her saucepans and patience, your successor in misfortune will give her clean papers to the next place. it is a sort of endless chain of suffering. then, there is the humane side of the question. a recommendation of some sort is a form most housewives insist upon. you may be taking the bread out of a 'girl's' mouth by denying her a scrap of paper." nevertheless, i shall not give katy a reference. i have said to her in plain but temperate terms: "you are a poor cook. you are wasteful, dirty, ill-tempered and impertinent. you have been a grievous trial and a money loss to me. i am willing to write this down, together with the statement that you are sober, strong and quick to learn, and that you would probably work well under a stricter mistress than i have time to be." she has informed me in _in_temperate terms, that "it is aisy to see you are no leddy, an' fer the matter o' that, no christian, ayther, or you'd not put sech an insult on to an honest, harrd-wurkin' girrl as has her livin' to git." she pronounces furthermore, that she "was niver so put upon an' put about in all her life afore as since into this house she come;" that she "will have the law o' me for refusing her her rights." finally, and most intemperately, that "the lord will dale with me for grindin' the face of a pore, defenceless young cre'tur' as has had such a pile o' throuble already. if her pore, dear brother what was drownded las' summer was alive, i wouldn't dare trate her so cruel." i stand fast, between breaths, to my resolution. i relate the true history of the transaction to enforce my appeal to my fellow housekeepers, all over the land, to join hands in a measure which would, i am persuaded, go far toward rectifying a crooked system. let each housekeeper, in dismissing a servant, write out without prejudice for or against the late employée, her claims to the confidence of the next employer, and her faults,--in short, a veritable "character." let her pledge herself to her sister-housekeepers and to her conscience, not to receive into her family one who cannot produce satisfactory testimonials of her fitness for the place she seeks. in england, a mistress who engages a maid without such credentials is regarded as recreant to her order. in england, too, the former mistress is held partly responsible for the mischief done, if she turn loose upon other households a woman like katherine brady. the proposed remedy for a crying and a growing evil is so simple that some may doubt its practical efficacy. yet the most casual thinker must see the strength as well as the simplicity of a plan which would make skill and fidelity in service the only road to success. self-interest, if nothing else, would stimulate our katies and bridgets, our dinahs and our gretchens, to keep a place, if it were not so wickedly easy to "make a change." our kitchens are overrun and ravaged by arabs that become, every year, more despotic. "who would be free, herself must strike the blow." general liberty from this bondage can only be achieved by determined and united effort. the establishment in every community of a simple organization under the name of the housekeepers' protective union, that should have but one article in its constitution, and that one be the pledge i have indicated, would cover the whole ground, and effect within a year, permanent reform. shall not this appeal be the alexander to cut the gordian knot which has, thus far, defied the dexterity and strength of all who have wrestled with the problem? who will send me news of the formation of the first chapter of the h.p.u.? chapter x. "only her nerves." there is a slang expression current among the irreverent youth of the present day, when referring to a man wise in his own conceit, to the effect that "what that fellow does not know is torn out." so i, quoting my juniors, begin my talk with the sentence--for the raciness of which i apologize--"what american women do not know about nervousness is torn out!" only this week in a city horse-car i watched the faces of my fellow-passengers,--women, most of them--with a pain at my heart. oh, the tired, strained, impatient faces, and the eager, alert, and anxious expression that belong to the people of this new and free country! some of these wretched mortals had babies with them,--babies whose fretful wails seemed but to voice the mother's expression of countenance. in an uneasy way the little mites would be shifted from one shoulder to another, or trotted in nervousness that reminded me irresistibly of the nursery rhyme which might be the motto of the american mother: ", out of breath, they trot the baby, most to death, sick or well, or cold or hot, it's trottery, trottery, trottery, trot." of all these women there was not one who sat still for three consecutive minutes. heads were twisted to look at the name of the corner lamp-posts, glove fingers were smoothed, the folds of dress-skirts shaken out, hats straightened,--until i would fain have cried out in irreverent paraphrase, at sight of the unrest which i blush to confess made me conscious of my own nerves: "not one sitteth still--no, not one!" that men have any patience with what they term "feminine fidgetiness," is but an evidence that they are better christians than we of the gentler sex are willing to admit. for i think i am not making a sweeping assertion when i state that not one tolerably healthy man in five hundred knows what it is to have nerves such as are the birthright of his mother, sister, and wife. and yet how well the physician, poet, autocrat and professor, oliver wendell holmes, knows and sympathizes with this weakness in us! he touches the truth in a direct way that wrings a sigh of familiar pain from many a patient soul. "some people have a scale of your whole nervous system and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semi-tones, touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. i am satisfied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing as vieuxtemps or thalberg in their lines of performance. married life is the school in which the most accomplished artists in this department are found. a delicate woman is the best instrument; she has such a magnificent compass of sensibilities. from the deep inward moan which follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the filaments of taste are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range which no other instrument possesses." and again he speaks of the less serious affection of the nerves as: ... "not fear, but what i call nervousness,--unreasoning, but irresistible; as when, for instance, one, looking at the sun going down, says: 'i will count fifty before it disappears,' and as he goes on and it becomes doubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as the issues depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he is counting." if a man can describe it all so well, what could a woman do? i fear that her description would be too graphic to be read by us, her sisters. many people have a way of saying of a sufferer: "there is nothing the matter with her. she is only excessively nervous." this "only" is a very serious matter. there is no illness more difficult to treat and more trying to bear than nervous prostration. it is a slowly advancing malady which is scarcely recognized as serious by one's friends until the tired mind succumbs and mental aberration is the terrible finale of the seemingly slight indisposition. my readers may wonder why i dwell upon a subject that baffles even the most eminent physicians in the country. it is because i feel that each of us women has in herself the only check to the nervousness which we all dread. we, as americans, cannot afford to trifle with our unfortunate inheritance, but must use every means at our command to subjugate the evil instead of being subjugated by it. too many women, especially among the lower classes, think it "pretty" to be nervous. the country practitioner will tell you of the precious hours he loses every week in hearkening to the recital of personal discomforts as poured into his professional ears by farmers' wives. and the beginning, middle, and end of all their plaints is "my nerves." anything, from a sprained ankle to consumption, is attributed to or augmented by these necessary adjuncts to the human anatomy. not long ago i was talking to the ignorant mother of a jaundiced, colicky child of two years of age. "what does she eat?" i asked. "well, she takes fancies, and her latest notion is that she won't eat nothin' but ginger-nuts and bananas. so she mostly lives on them. sometimes she suffers awful." "from indigestion?" "oh, no!" patronizingly. "she inherits all my nervous weakness. her nerves get the upper hand of her, and she turns pale and shivers all over, and then she looks as if she would go into the spasms." "but," i suggested, "don't you think that is caused by acute indigestion?" "no, ma'am. you see i know what it is, havin' had it so bad myself. the nerves of her stomach all draw up, and cause the shakin' and tremblin'." suggestions as to the modification of the little one's diet were useless. indigestion was unromantic (in the mother's judgment), and "nerves" were highly aristocratic and refined. i am happy to note that the girl of the rising generation is learning that to succumb to weakness is not a sign of ladyhood. she does not jump on a chair at sight of a mouse, scream when she meets a cow in a country road, or cover her face and shudder at mention of a snake. she is proud of being afraid of nothing, of having a good appetite, and of the ability to sleep as soundly as a tired and healthy child. it is not then to her, but to ourselves, that we mothers have need to look. we are too often the ones who give way to hysterical tears or to sharp words, or perhaps to unjust criticism, all of which we attribute to nervousness. our more frank girl, if affected in the same way, would bluntly acknowledge that she was "as cross as a bear." let us quietly take hold of ourselves and ask ourselves the plain question, "are we nervous, or cross?" if the latter, we know how to remedy it. a well person has no right to be so abominably bad-tempered or moody that he cannot keep people from finding it out. if you are nervous, there is some reason for it. perhaps you did not sleep well last night; perhaps you are suffering from dyspepsia; but in any case will-power will do much towards lessening the trouble. if you are ill, it may cause a struggle greater than your nearest and dearest can imagine to repress the startled ejaculation at the slamming of a door, or the angry exclamation when your bed is jarred. but you will be better, not worse, physically, for this self-control. the woman, who, though tortured by nervousness sets her teeth and says, "i _will_ be strong!" stands a better chance of speedy recovery than does she who weakly gives way to hysterical sobs a dozen times a day. your nerves should be your servants, and, like all servants, may give you much trouble, but as long as you are mistress of yourself you need not fear them. once let them get the control over you, and you are gone. there is no tyrant more merciless than he who has hitherto been a slave. may i add one word to those whom we, in exasperation, are apt to call aggressively strong? if you, yourself, do not know what nervousness is, pity and help the poor sufferer in your family who never knows during day or night what it is to be without what you consider "the fussiness that sets you wild." if this mother, or aunt, or sister, does control herself, remember that she is stronger than you, as the man who successfully curbs the fiery steed is more to be commended for courage than he who holds the reins loosely over the back of the safe farm-horse who does not know how to shy, kick, or run. chapter xi. the rule of two. one character mentioned in the unique rhyme of mary and her little lamb, has never had due praise and consideration dealt out to him. the teacher who heartlessly expelled from the temple of learning the unoffending and guileless companion of the innocent maiden who is the heroine of the above-mentioned ditty, was, in spite of his cruelty, a philosopher. after the exit of the principal actors in the poem, we are told that the following conversation ensued: "what makes the lamb love mary so?" the eager children cry. "because she loves the lamb, you know," the teacher did reply. the teacher was wise in his generation. in his "reply," lies a world of meaning--one of the answers to the old question of the reason for personal antipathies and attractions, and may perhaps be said, in this case, to touch upon animal magnetism. there are exceptions to every rule, and to the maxim that "love begets love" there are many instances to be cited in which the contrary proves true. we all have been so unfortunate at some time during our lives as to be liked by people of whom we were not fond. but, if we look the matter thoughtfully and honestly in the face, we will acknowledge that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred we are attracted toward a person as soon as we learn that that person finds us agreeable. of course this knowledge must not be conveyed in a manner that disgusts by effusiveness a sensitive person. none of us like fulsome flattery, but a compliment so delicately hinted that it does not shock, and scarcely surprises the person for whom it is intended, seldom fails to produce an impression that is far from disagreeable. certainly no more graceful compliment can be paid a man or woman by us selfish mortals than the acknowledgment of an affinity between ourselves and the person whom we would honor by our friendship. said a well-known scholar to me: "the most laudatory public speech ever addressed to me failed to make my heart glow as warmly as did the remark of an old friend not long ago. we had been separated for years, and at our reunion spent the first hour in talking of old times, etc. suddenly, my friend turned to me, and grasping my hand exclaimed: "'old fellow! you always were, and still are, my affinity!' "the subtle flattery of that one exclamation makes me even now thrill with a delicious throb of self-conceit." not long ago, i asked of an acquaintance who is a wonderful reader of character: "why has mrs. s---- so many good friends?" "because she is such a good friend herself." "but why is she attractive to so many people?" queried i. "because she is first attracted by them," was the quick response. "she goes on the principle that there is some good in everybody, and sets herself to work to find it. each of us knows when she is thrown into contact with a person who likes her. it is as if each were surrounded with tinted atmospheres,--some green, some blue, some red, or yellow--in fact, there are more shades and colors than you can mention. when two reds meet, they mingle; when two harmonious tints touch, they may form a pleasing combination; but when such enemies as blue and green come together, they clash--fairly 'swear at one another,' and the persons enveloped in the opposing atmospheres are mutually disagreeable. the man who is surrounded by the color capable of most harmonious combinations is said to have personal magnetism." may not this explanation, while rather far-fetched, afford some clue to the causes of personal popularity? and the thought following swift upon this is: if this be true, how much may each of us have to do with softening and making capable of harmony his and her own individual atmosphere? while we cannot change our "colors" (to follow out my friend's figure) we may shade them down and make them less pronounced, so that in time they may become capable of a variety of combinations. does not faber touch upon this point, when he says: "the discord is within which jars so roughly in life's song; 'tis we ourselves who are at fault when others seem so wrong," we blame others for being uncongenial when the "discord is within," that makes all things go awry. a drunken man sees the whole world go around, and blames it, for its unsteadiness. one way to render less obtrusive an inharmonious color, if we possess such is to keep it out of a strong light that will attract all eyes to it. do not let us be proud of our personal defects and peculiarities. they are subjects for regret, not pride. when a woman boasts that she "knows she is often impatient, but she simply cannot help it, she is so peculiarly constituted!" she acknowledges a weakness of which she should be ashamed. if she is so undisciplined, so untrained, that she cannot avoid making life uncomfortable for those around her, she would better stay in a room by herself until she learns self-control. often the very eccentricities of character to which we cling so tenaciously are but forms of vanity. why should our preferences, our likes or dislikes be of more account than those of thousands of other people? another great mistake we make is that we try the effect of other colors with our own, and resent it hotly if they do not "go well together." we do not insist that they shall be like ours in tint, but they must act as good backgrounds, or form pleasing combinations with ours, or we will none of them. now it is quite possible for human beings to hold contrary views from those entertained by you and me, and still be excellent members of society and reputable christians. to many of us this seems incredible, but it is none the less true. not only are individual characters different, but environment and education make us what we are. very often a person who is uncongenial to us, will, in the surroundings to which she is fitted, be at ease, and perhaps even attractive. i do not say that we must like everybody. that is a physical, mental and moral impossibility. but we may do others the justice of seeing their good traits as well as the bad. and sometimes when we find a chance acquaintance drearily uninteresting, it is because we do not take the trouble to find out what is in her. some people are always bored. may it not be because they look at everything animate and inanimate from a selfish standpoint, with the query in their minds, "how does that affect me?" the old definition of a bore as "a person who talks so much of himself that he gives you no chance to talk of yourself," may apply not only to the bore, but to the bored. when you find yourself wearied and uninterested, be honest enough to examine yourself calmly, and see if the reason is not because your _vis-a-vis_ is not talking about anything which interests you especially. should he turn the conversation upon your favorite occupation or pastime, or even upon your personal likes and dislikes (which, by the way, might be an infinite bore to him), would he not at once become entertaining? viewed from a selfish and politic standpoint, it is to our interest to make the best of everybody. we cannot always pick and choose our associates in the school of life, and must frequently be thrown with people whom we do not "take to," and, worse still, who may not "take to" us. since this be true, would it not be better for us to look at their pleasantest side, and, by making ourselves agreeable to them, insure their friendly feeling for us? the old saying that the good-will of a dog is preferable to his ill-will, may still be quoted with regard to many specimens of the _genus homo_ which we daily meet. there is one case in which i make an exception to all that i have said--namely, when from the first, there is--not a feeling of dislike, but a strong, uncontrollable personal antipathy. if you are generally charitable and just, and have few actual dislikes, and meet a man against whom your whole nature revolts, who is as repulsive to you as a snake would be, avoid him. it is not necessary for you to tell others of the uncomfortable impression he has made upon you. he may not affect them in the same way. i acknowledge, not only from observation, but from personal experience, that there are certain people from whom one recoils with a feeling of physical as well as mental repugnance. i believe that every woman who reads this talk has an unerring feminine instinct which will thus prompt her when she meets her own particular "dr. fell." but i also believe that we seldom meet characters which repel us in this especial way. oftener some slight to ourselves, some one unfortunate speech, biases our judgment, and those against whom we are thus prejudiced are even sometimes connected to us by ties of consanguinity. we would do well to analyze the causes which lead to our feelings of dislike, and i fear we should often find that wounded self-esteem was the root of the evil. and, after all, what a great matter a little fire kindleth! let us quench the spark before it ignites. it is arrant folly, not to mention wickedness, to make enemies for the little while we are here. there is an incurable heartache which comes from such mistakes. owen meredith describes it in a poem, every verse of which throbs with hopeless love and regret, and one of which teaches a lesson so much needed by us all that we would do well to commit to memory the last two lines, and repeat them almost hourly: "i thought of our little quarrels and strife, and the letter that brought me back my ring; _and it all seemed then, in the waste of life, such a very little thing!_" chapter xii. the perfect work of patience. a slender little treble was singing it over and over again in childish sort, with so little appreciation of the meaning of the words that the oddity of the ditty was the first thing to attract my attention to it. "you'd better bide a wee, wee, wee! oh, you'd better bide a wee. la, la, la, la, la, _la_, you'd better bide a wee." the elf was singing her dolly to sleep, swinging back and forth in her little rocking-chair, the waxen face pressed against the warm pink cushion of her own cheek, the yellow silk of curls palpitating with the owner's vitality mingling with the lifeless floss of her darling's wig. the picture was none the less charming because so common, but it was not in admiring contemplation of it that i arrested my pen in the middle of a word, holding it thus an inch or two above the paper in position to resume the rapid rush along the sheet it had kept up for ten minutes and more. i mused a moment. then, with the involuntary shake one gives his cranium when he has a ringing in his ears, i finished the sentence:--"sideration, i cannot but think that patience has had her perfect work." "you'd better bide a wee!" lisped the baby's song. i smiled slightly and sourly at what i called mentally "the pat incongruity" of the admonition with mood and written words. a swift review of the situation confirmed the belief that i did well to be angry with the correspondent whose open letter lay upon the table beside the unfinished reply. the letter head was familiar. of late the frequent sight of it had bred annoyance waxing into irritation. the brisk interchange of epistles grew out of a business-matter in which, as i maintained, i had been first ungenerously, then unfairly, finally dishonestly dealt with. there was no doubt in my mind of the intention to mislead, if not to defraud me, and the communication now under advisement was in tone cavalier almost to the point of insult. aroused out of the enforced calm i had hitherto managed to preserve, i had seated myself and set my pen about the work of letting him who had now assumed the position of "that man," know how his conduct appeared in the light of reason and common sense. i had not even withheld an illusion to honesty and commercial morality. i had never done a better piece of literary work than that letter. warming to the task in recounting the several steps of the transaction, i had not scrupled to set off my moderation by a rembrandtish wash of shadow furnished by my correspondent's double-dealing, and to cast my civility into relief by adroit quotations from his impertinent pages. when i said that patience had had her perfect work, it was my intention to unfold in short, stinging sentences my plans as to future dealings with the delinquent. the singing on the other side of the room meant no more than the chirping of a grasshopper upon a mullein-stalk. i did not delude myself with the notion of providential use of the tongue that tripped at the consonants and lingered in liquid dalliance with favorite vowels. yet, after ten motionless minutes of severe thinking, the letter was deliberately torn into strips and these into dice, and all of these went into the waste-paper basket at my elbow. i had concluded to "abide a wee." if the sun went down that once upon my anger, he arose upon cold brands and gray ashes. i had not changed my intellectual belief as to my correspondent's behavior, but the impropriety of complicating an awkward business by placing myself in the wrong to the extent of losing my temper was so obvious that i blushed in recalling the bombastic periods of the torn composition. since that lesson, i have never sent off an angry or splenetic letter, although the temptation to "have it out" upon paper has sometimes got the better of my more sensible self. if the excitement is particularly great, and the epistle more than usually eloquent of the fact that, as the old-time exhorters used to say, i had "great liberty of speech," i have always left it to cool over night. the "sunset dews" our mothers sang of took the starch out of the bristling pages, and the "cool, soft evening-hours," and nightly utterance of--"as we forgive them that trespass against us,"--drew out the fire. "you'd better bide a wee!" i have sometimes thought of writing it down, as poor jo of "bleak house" begged to have his last message to esther summerson transcribed--"werry large,"--and pasting it upon the mirror that, day by day, reflects a soberer face than i like to see in its sincere depths--as one hot and hasty soul placarded upon her looking-glass the single word "patience." to people whose tempers are quick and whose actions too often match their tempers, one of the most difficult of daily duties is to reserve judgment upon that which appears ambiguous in the conduct of their associates. the dreary list of slain friendships that makes retrospect painful to those of mature years; the disappointments that to the young have the bitterness of death; the tale of trusts betrayed and promises broken--how would the story be shortened and brightened if conscientious and impartial trial of the accused preceded sentence and punishment!--if, in short, we would only "bide a wee" before assuming that our friend is false, or our love unworthily given. in a court of justice previous character counts for much. the number and respectability of the witnesses to a prisoner's excellent reputation and good behavior have almost as much weight with the jury as direct testimony in support of the claim that he did not commit the crime. to prove that he could not, without change of disposition and habit, violate the laws of his country, is the next best thing to an established alibi. i should be almost ashamed to set down a thing which everybody knows so well were it not that each one of us, when his best friend's fidelity to him is questioned, flies shamelessly in the face of reason and precedent by ignoring the record of years. he may have given ten thousand proofs of attachment to him whom he is now accused of wronging; have showed himself in a thousand ways to be absolutely incapable of deception or dishonorable behavior of any sort. a single equivocal circumstance, a word half-heard, a gesture misunderstood; the report to his prejudice of a tale-bearer who is his inferior in every respect,--any one of these outbalances the plea of memory, the appeal of reason, the consciousness of the right of the arraigned to be heard. were not the story one of to-day and of every day, the moral turpitude it displays would arouse the hearer to generous indignation. taking at random one of the multitude of illustrations crowding upon my mind, let me sketch a vexatious incident of personal history. some years ago--no matter how many, nor how long was my sojourn in the town which was the scene of the story--i accepted the invitation of an acquaintance to take a seat in her carriage while on my way to call upon a woman well known to us both. the owner of the equipage, mrs. d----, overtook me while i was trudging up the long street leading to the suburb in which our common acquaintance lived. the day was bleak and windy, and i was glad to be spared the walk. mrs. c----, to whom the visit was paid, came down to receive us with her hat and cloak on. she was going down town presently, she said, and would not keep us waiting while she laid aside her wraps. no! she would not have us shorten our call on her account; she could go half an hour later as well as now. a good deal was said of the disagreeable weather, and the bad sidewalks in that new section of the city--as i recollected afterward. at the time, i was more interested in her mention that her favorite brother, an editor of note from another town and state, was visiting her. she asked permission to bring him to call, and i consented with alacrity, thinking, as i spoke, that i would, after meeting him, arrange a little dinner-party of choice spirits in his honor. when we were ready to go, mrs. d----, to my surprise and embarrassment, did not propose that our hostess should drive down-town with us, although we were going directly back, and a cold "scotch mist" was beginning to fall. to this day, i do not know to what to attribute what i then felt--what i still consider--was gross incivility. the most charitable supposition is that it never occurred to her that it would be neighborly and humane to offer a luxurious seat in her swiftly rolling chariot to the woman who must otherwise walk a mile in the chill and wet. she had the reputation of absent-mindedness. let us hope that her wits were off upon an excursion when we got into the carriage and drove away, leaving mrs. c---- at the gate. glancing back, uneasily, i saw her raise an umbrella and set out upon her cheerless promenade directly in our wake, and i made a desperate essay at redressing the wrong. "it is a pity mrs. c---- must go out this afternoon," i said, shiveringly. "she will have a damp walk." "yes," assented my companion, readily. "that is the worst of being in this vicinity. there is no street railway within half a mile." she went no further. i could go no further. the carriage was hers--not mine. mrs. c---- 's brother did not call on me, nor did she ever again. the latter circumstance might not have excited surprise, had she not treated me with marked coldness when i met her casually at the house of a friend. in the busy whirl of an active life, i should have forgotten this circumstance, or set it down to my own imagination, had not her brother's paper contained, a month or so later, an attack upon myself that amazed me by what i thought was causeless acrimony. even when i found myself described as rich, haughty and heartless, "consorting with people who could pay visits to me in coaches with monograms upon the doors, and turning the cold shoulder to those who came on foot,"--i did not associate the diatribe with my visit to the writer's relative. five years afterward, the truth was made known to me by accident. mrs. c---- had judged from something said during our interview that the equipage belonged to me, and that i had brought mrs. d---- to see her instead of being the invited party. i was now a resident of another city. the story came to me by a circuitous route. explanation was impracticable. yet it is not six months since there fell under my eye a paragraph penned by the offended brother testifying that his opinion of my insignificant self remains unaltered. had he or his sister suspended judgment until the evidence against my ladyhood and humanity could be investigated, i should have had to look elsewhere for an incident with which to point the moral of my talk. rising above the pettiness of spiteful grudge-bearing against a fellow-mortal, let me say a word of the unholy restiveness with which we meet the disappointments which are the father's discipline of his own. "all these things are against me!" is a cry that has struck upon his loving heart until godlike patience is needed to bear with the fretful wail. nothing that he lets fall upon us can be "against" us! in his hottest fires we have but to "hold still" and bide his good time in order to see that all his purposes in us are mercy, as well as truth to his promises. in the hereafter deeded to us as a sure heritage, we shall see that each was a part of his design for our best and eternal good. chapter xiii. "according to his folly." the hardest task ever set for mortal endeavor is for us to allow other people to know less than we know. the failure to perform this task has kindled the fagots about the stake where heretics perished for obstinacy. it is not a week, by the way, since i heard a woman, gently nurtured and intellectual, lament that those "old pilgrim forefathers were so disagreeably obstinate." she "wondered that their generation did not send them to the scaffold instead of across the sea." inability to suffer the rest of the world to be mistaken has set a nation by the ears, broken hearts and fortunes, and separated more chief friends than all other alienating causes combined. many self-deluding souls set down their impatience with others' errors to a spirit of benevolence. they love their friends too dearly, they have too sincere a desire for the welfare of acquaintances, to let them hold mischievous tenets. the cause of variance may appear contemptible to an indifferent third party. to the average reasoner who has no personal concern in the debate, it may seem immaterial at what date mrs. jenkyns paid her last visit to boston. she is positive that it was in march, . mr. jenkyns is as certain that she accompanied him thither in april of that year. she establishes her position by the fact that she left her baby for the first time when the cherub was ten months old, and there is the family bible to prove that he was born may , . is she likely to be mistaken on such a point when she cried all night in boston and the bereft infant wailed all night in new york? what does charles take her for? hasn't he said, himself, dozens of times, that there is no use arguing as to times and seasons with a woman who verifies these by her children's ages? mr. jenkyns has said so--but with a difference. there is no use arguing with a woman in any circumstances, whatsoever. that emma tries to carry her point now by lugging in the poor little kid, who has nothing whatever to do with the case, is but another proof of the inconsequence of the sex. he has the stub of his check-book to show that he paid the hotel bill in boston, april , . figures cannot lie. mrs. charles jenkyns challenges the check-book on the spot--and the wrangle goes on until she seeks her chamber to have her cry out, and he storms off to office or club, irritated past forbearance by the pig-headed perversity of a creature he called "angel" with every third breath on their wedding journey to boston in . each of the combatants was confident, after the first exchange of shots, that the other was in error. half an hour's quarreling left both doubly confident of the truth which was self-evident from the outset. it is sadly probable that neither will ever confess, to himself or to herself, that the only wise course for either to pursue would have been to let ignorance have its perfect work, by abstaining from so much as a hint of contradiction. "i don't see how you held your temper and your tongue!" said one man to another, as a self-satisfied acquaintance strutted away from the pair after a monologue of ten minutes upon a matter of which both of his companions knew infinitely more than he. "i hadn't patience to listen to him, much less answer him good-humoredly--he is such a fool!" "i let him alone because he is a fool." "but he is puffed up by the fond impression that you agree with him!" "that doesn't hurt me,--and waste of cellular tissue in such a cause would!" "seest thou a man wise in his own conceit?" asks solomon. "there is more hope of a fool than of him." which i take to mean that self-conceit is the rankest form of folly, a sort of triple armor of defence against counter-statement and rebutting argument. so far as my experience goes to prove a disheartening proposition,--all fools are wise (to themselves) in their own conceit. the first evidence of true wisdom is humility. one may be ignorant without being foolish. lack of knowledge because the opportunity for acquiring it has been withheld, induces in the human mind such conditions as we find in a sponge that has been cleaned and dried. information fills and enlarges the pores. ignorance that is content with itself is turgid and saturated. it will take up no more, no matter what is offered. this is the form of folly which the preacher admonishes us to answer in kind. the effort to force the truth upon the charged sponge is an exercise of mental muscle akin to the beating of the air, deprecated by the apostle to the gentiles. "such stolid stupidity is incredible in a land where education is compulsory!" exclaimed a friend who, having talked himself out of breath in the effort to persuade a rich vulgarian into belief of one of the simplest of philosophical principles, had the mortification of seeing that his opponent actually flattered himself with the idea that _he_ had come off victorious in the wordy skirmish. "one would have thought that living where he does, and as he does, he would have taken in such knowledge through the pores." "not if the pores were already full," was a retort that shed new light into the educated mind. folly has a law and language of its own with which intelligence intermeddles not. the workings of an intellect at once untrained and self-sufficient are like the ways of infinite wisdom--past finding out. philosophy and politeness harmonize in the effort to meet such intellects upon what they shall not suspect is "made ground." to apply to them the rules of conversation and debate you would use in intercourse with equals would be absurd, and disagreeable alike to you and to themselves. they would never forgive a plain statement of the difference between you and their guild. as a matter of curious experiment, i made the attempt once, in a case of a handsome dolt, who was, nominally, a domestic in my employ for a few months. she had an affected pose and tread which she conceived to be majestic. she was stupid, awkward and slovenly about her work, and altogether so "impossible" that i disliked to send her adrift upon the world, and was still more averse to imposing her upon another household. in a weak moment i essayed to reason her out of her fatuous vanity, and stimulate in her a desire to make something better of herself. she seemed to hearken while i represented mildly the expediency of learning to do her part in life well and creditably; how conscience entered into the performance of duties some people considered mean; how, in this country, a washerwoman is as worthy as the president's wife, so long as she respects herself. norah's impassive face had not changed, but she interposed here: "beg pardon, ma'am! i've no thought of taking a hand with the washing." i was silly enough to go on with what i had tried to make so plain that the wayfaring "living-out girl" could not err in taking it in. i was willing to train her in the duties of her station. i set forth, and would have specified what these were, but for a second interruption that was evidently not intentionally disrespectful, and was uttered with the bovine stolidity that never forsook her. "excuse me, ma'am, but i've always understood that all that made a lady in ameriky was eddercation, an' shure i have that 's well 's you!" she could read, or so i suppose, although i never saw a book in her hand, and could probably write, after the fashion of her class. with a smile at my folly that struggled with a sigh over hers, i let her go. it was my fault not hers, that i had bruised my fists thumping against a stone wall. had i discoursed to her in bengalee she would have comprehended me no more imperfectly. the doom of hopelessness was upon her. she was not merely a fool, but had taken the full degree as a self-satisfied blockhead. i deserved what i got--and more of the same sort. of a different type--being only a moderately conceited ignoramus, was an otherwise well-educated woman whom i heard discourse volubly upon ceramics and a valuable collection of old china she had picked up in a foreign town. among other kinds she named some choice bits of "faience." "is not that used now as a general term for earthenware decorated with color?" asked a listener modestly. "oh, by no means! it is never applied except to a particular and exceedingly rare sort of pottery," went on the connoisseur. "but perhaps you are not familiar with ceramic terms?" "not as familiar as i should be, i confess," rejoined the other, gently regretful. a couple of years later, i met the enthusiastic collector in the house of the other party to the dialogue, and learned with her that our hostess was renowned for her treasures of old china, and actually the author of a book upon ceramics. "what must she have thought of me the day i made such a fool of myself!" moaned the humbled woman in a corner to me. "and you know--as i have learned since, as she knew all the time,--that 'faience' is used as a generic term! well! i have had my lesson in talking of what i do not understand. how could she have answered me so civilly and gravely!" i was too sorry for her to put into words the thought of the proverbial answer, "according to his folly." the incident had its moral and example for me too. the recollection has beaten back many a vehement protest against egregious absurdity, and helped me endure with apparent composure even the patronage of fools. after all, there are so many mistakes made by other people that affect nobody but themselves that don quixote might tire of tilting at them. the more asinine the speaker the louder is his bray, and the more surely do we encounter him in social and domestic haunts. to dispute with him is to strengthen the stakes, and twist harder the cords of his belief in himself. in recognizing the truth, so humiliating to human reason, one wonders what effect would be produced by a determined regime of letting alone. would what st. james graphically describes as "foaming out of their own shame," finally froth itself into silence? is not the opposition consequent upon the universal desire to set other people right, the breath that blows the flame? what would be the status of society, what the atmosphere of our homes, were each of us to curb the impulse to controvert doubtful, but important, statements:--to seem to acquiesce in--let us say, in tom's declaration that there are forty black cats in the back yard, and polly's opinion that susie jones is the prettiest girl in town, when we consider her positively homely, and so on to the end of the day's or week's or month's chapter? if, when we know that a man is a blatant vaporer, we simply let him vapor, and mind our own business; if, having gauged the measure of a woman's mind, and found it only an inch deep, we do not fret our souls by vain dredgings in a channel to-day that will fill up by to-morrow; if we give the fool the benefit of his license; and expend thought and care upon that which is hopeful and profitable--do we not prove ourselves prudent economists of time and labor? the subject is practical, and merits consideration. in this working-day world of ours there is so much unavoidable pain, and so much annoyance which we cannot overlook, that sensible people cushion corners and shrink aside from brier-pricks. we do ourselves actual physical harm when we lose temper; the tart speech takes virtue out of us. a woman would better fatigue herself by righting an untidy chamber than scold a servant for neglecting it. foreigners comment surprisedly upon the "anxious faces" of american women even of the better class. the inchoate condition of our domestic service has undoubtedly much to do with the premature seams that mar what would else be fair and sweet, but i incline to the belief that more is due to a certain irritableness which is a national characteristic,--a restless desire to set everything right. the zeal for reform is commendable, but not always according to knowledge. certain forms of folly cure themselves, if not flattered by grave rebuke, and others do not come within the province of her who has her hands full already. it is easier for us all to find fault than to overlook. it "just drives our woman-reformer wild to hear some people talk!" the least aggressive of us knows for herself the impotent vexation of attempting to convince one who is too dull, or too dogged, to see reason. why, then, yield to the disposition to attempt the impracticable? if we would live worthily and live long, we must school ourselves in the minor details of self-control and everyday philosophy that make up a useful and well-balanced life. chapter xiv. "buttered parsnips." i shall never forget the first time i heard the homely proverb, once better known than now, "fine words butter no parsnips." a bitter-tongued old lady, with an eye like a hawk's, and a certain suspicious turn of the head to this side and that which reminded one of the same bird of prey, was discussing a new neighbor. "i don't hold with meaching ways at any time and in anybody," said the thin croak, made more husky by snuff, a pinch of which she held between thumb and finger, the joined digits punctuating her strictures. "and she's one of the fair-and-softy sort. a pleasant word to this one, and a smile to that, and always recollecting who is sick, and who is away from home, and ready to talk about what pleases you, and not herself, and praising your biscuits and your bonnets and your babies, and listening to you while you are talking as if there was nobody else upon earth." like the octogenarian whose teeth gave out before his dry toast, she "hadn't finished, but she stopped" there, being clean out of breath. "but mrs. a.!" i raised my girlish voice to reach the deaf ears. "i think all that is beautiful. i only wish i could imitate her, and be as popular and as much beloved." "humph!" inhaling the snuff spitefully. "she's too sweet to be wholesome. fair words butter no parsnips. look out for a tongue that's smooth on both sides. what does the bible say of the hypocrite? 'the words of his mouth were smoother than butter.' i'd rather have honest vinegar!" i stood too much in dread of her frankness to ask if sugar is never honest, or to speculate audibly why she chose parsnips with their length of fibre and peculiar cloying sweet, as types of daily living. the adage seemed droll enough to me then, and it is odd even now that i have become familiar with it in the talk of old-fashioned people. interpreting it as they do, i dispute it stoutly. parsnips may be only passable to most palates even when buttered. they would be intolerable with vinegar. furthermore,--before we drop the figure,--if anything can butter them, it is fair words. this business which we call living is not easy at the best. our parsnips are sometimes tough and stringy; sometimes insipid; often withered by drought or frost-bitten. if served without sauce, they--to quote our old-fashioned people again--"go against the stomach." there is a pernicious fallacy to the effect that a rough tongue is an honest one. there are quite as many unpleasant untruths told as there are flattering falsehoods. because a speech is kind it is not of necessity a lie, nor does a remark gain in truth in direct ratio as it loses its politeness. often the blunt criticism is the outcome of a savage instinct on the part of the perpetrator. in america, men and women (always excepting italians) do not carry poniards concealed in their breasts, or swords at their sides. in lieu of these the tongue is used to revenge an evil. the psalmist exclaims: "let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil," but the average representative of the nineteenth century will not echo his sentiment. it may be that the "righteous" of that day had a more agreeable way of offering reproof than have the modern saints. however that may be, the "excellent oil" seems to have given place to corrosive sublimate and carbolic acid--neither of which, applied in an undiluted form, may be even remotely suspected of soothing an open wound. true, they are fatal to bacteria, but at the same time they madden the sufferer as would coals of living fire. even supposing one lays herself open to the charge of flattery, is it not less of a fault than to merit the reputation for brutal fault-finding? who would not rather be a healer than a scarifier? "faithful may be the wounds of a friend" (and on this word "friend" i lay special stress), but the converse is also true. faithful are his healings. have you never had a whole day brightened by some seemingly chance remark which warmed the cockles of your heart with a delicious glow? it may have been that you were disappointed in some cherished scheme--how much disappointed no one guessed and you were ashamed to confess. it may have been that you were struggling to be brave and cheerful under some trial, the weight of which you thought others could not appreciate. the cheering word may only have been--"my dear, how sweet you are looking to-day! you do my old eyes good." or perhaps an appreciative other-half has pressed your hand and whispered, "you are the bravest little woman in the world!" who does not remember how, at such a time, the unexpected sympathy or encouragement brought the quick tears to the eyes, and to the cheeks the flush which meant a bound of joy from the heavy heart? if we could but remember that we are told to "speak the truth in love!" in "love," recollect,--not in temper. do not be the accursed one by whom the offences come. they will come. the evil one will look out for that, but it is not worth while for you to make his work too easy. determine to train yourself strictly to see the many excellent qualities possessed by your associates, and you will be surprised to find that before long the disagreeable traits will only appear as foils for the good. cultivate an eye for pleasant characteristics, and do not encourage people who are prone to rough speech. frown down the blunt expression of opinion and it will cease to be considered praiseworthy frankness. the woman of whom the royal preacher speaks, "in whose tongue was the law of kindness," probably showed that kindness by being agreeable, or we may be sure no human being of the masculine gender would have considered her price far above rubies; nor add with such sublime confidence--"her husband also, and he praises her." one such woman never forgot to thank anyone for the slightest favor, and i have seen a burly and phlegmatically sombre policeman smile with unexpected pleasure at receiving the sweet-faced "thank you!" with which she always acknowledged his pilotage over a crowded street-crossing. it is time that people comprehended that it is not their duty to be disagreeably frank, when another's comfort is the price thereof. an unkind sentence has the power of lodgment in the mind. it is like the red "chigoe" which inserts his tiny head in the flesh and burrows until he causes a throbbing fester. for instance, i have never forgotten a speech which was addressed to me over twenty years ago. it was just after we had built an unpretending, but thoroughly cozy summer cottage, nestled in a grove of trees that threw long shadows into a silvery lake. the man in question told me he never saw our light at night from the other side of the pretty sheet of water that it did not "remind him of a charcoal-burner's hut in the heart of a wilderness." it would be of interest to ascertain why this needlessly unkind remark was made. since there were at least one or two pleasant features in the landscape, why could he not call attention to them? it is not necessary that we should flatter, but let us be lavishly generous with what french cooks call _sauce agreable_, since parsnips must be eaten. some efforts in this line remind me of a story i recently heard of a farmer who received at a new york restaurant the customary small pat of butter with his vienna roll. imperiously beckoning to a waiter, he commanded him to "wipe that grease spot off that plate, and bring him some butter!" let us give more than the grease spot. better go to the other extreme, and drown our friend's neglected parsnips in fresh, pure un-oleomargarined, and entirely sweet butter. chapter xv. is marriage reformatory? to no other estate are there so many varieties of phases as to that of matrimony. like the music of saint cæcilia and old timotheus combined, it is capable of raising "a mortal to the skies," or of bringing "an angel down" to the lowest depths of misery. at the best the betrothed couple can never say with absolute certainty--"after marriage we shall be happy." the experience of wedded life is alarmingly like that of dying--each man and woman must know it for himself and herself, and no other human being can share its trials or its joys. the mistake the prospective wife makes is in obstinately closing her eyes to the fact that married life has any trials which are not far outbalanced by its pleasures. marriage does not change man or woman. the impressive ceremony over, the bridal finery laid aside, the last strain of the wedding-march wafted into space, and the orange-flowers dead and scentless,--john becomes once more plain, everyday john, with the same good traits which first won his mary's heart, and the many disagreeable characteristics that exasperated his mother and sisters. and mary, being a woman, and no more of a saint than is her life-partner, will also be exasperated. if john is an honest gentleman who loves mary, the chances for her happiness depend upon her common-sense and her love for john. it is utterly impossible to have too much of the last-named commodity. it will be all needed, well-blended with the divine attribute of patience, and judiciously seasoned with woman's especial gift--tact, to enable man and wife to live together peaceably for one year. moreover, mary must understand that john the lover and john the husband have very different ways of showing affection. the lover would loiter evening after evening waiting for other guests to go home that he might have time for a few tender words with his sweetheart. woman's logic reasons,--"what more natural when he has hours of time than for him to keep on saying those same tender words, only very many more of them?" the fact remains that he does not. after the kiss of welcome on his arrival home at the close of day, he is unsentimental enough to want his dinner, and, that disposed of, he buries himself behind his newspaper, from which perhaps he does not emerge before nine o'clock when he is ready to talk to mary and to be entertained by her. and yet this john of whom i am talking is as good morally, as faithful and conscientious in his manly way as mary in her womanly. but--suppose he were not a good man, what then? could the mere fact of his union with her change his entire nature? a good man may be made better by association with a good woman; a man with repressed evil tendencies may have them held more firmly in check by his wife's restraining influence, but no woman should undertake to "make over" a man who has given way to the wicked passions of his being until they are beyond his control. he will not be made a reputable member of society and a bright and shining light to the community in which he dwells, by marrying. he does not go into the new life as a sort of keeley cure,--a reformatory institution. a woman's strongest and weakest point is her power of idealizing every cold fact with which she comes in contact. she loves a handsome roué. he tells her that if she will but take him in training she can make a new man of him; that her fair hand can wipe all the dark spots from his past life, smooth the rough places and elevate the depressions in his character until it will be once more goodly to contemplate. and over the stereopticon view of the man his fiancée throws the rosecolored light of her idealistic lantern, and believes all he says. of course during their engagement he frequently slips back into the old path, sometimes has a downfall that shocks and horrifies her who would reform him, but, once more trimming and turning up the wick, she bathes him in the pink light and remembers that he is not yet as entirely under her influence as he will be some day. she would think it cruel injustice were some unprejudiced observer to suggest that if he cannot change his life when the possibilities of winning her are at stake, he will hardly do so when the prize is his own. it is doubtful if a man whose whole nature has become stunted, warped and foul by sin, has in him the ability to love a true woman as she deserves to be loved. i do not mean to intimate that his devotion to her is feigned, but it is only such attachment as he is capable of, and is no more to be compared with the unselfish love that she freely lavishes upon him, than the mud-begrimed slush which settles in city gutters to the snowy blanket covering country fields. beauty and the beast may be a pretty fairy-tale, but in the realism of practical life it assumes the guise of a tragedy that makes the looker-on shudder with disgustful pity. my heart aches when i think of the women who began the work of reformation with hope and laid it down with despair at the end of a life that made them "turn weary arms to death" with a sigh of welcome. on the table before me stands the portrait of one such woman. when she was a merry-hearted girl, she fell in love with a handsome, brilliant young fellow, whose only failing was a dangerous fondness for liquor. he loved her deeply--better than anything else in the world--except drink. nevertheless, he promised to overcome even this passion for her sake. during the month immediately preceding their marriage, he came twice into her presence intoxicated. in vain did her family plead and protest. her only answer was: "harry cannot keep straight without some one to help him. i must marry him now. he needs me!" two years after her marriage she died of a broken heart, whispering at the last to a dear friend that she "was not sorry to go, but would be thankful life was over if she were only sure that her year-old baby would not be left to harry's care." yet he was in most respects tender and considerate. the trouble was that his devotion to her remained at the point at which it stood when he became her husband. the habit of intemperance grew. suppose that, added to this great fault, had been others still more vicious. had his been a coarse brutal nature, would not the idea of reformation have been still more hopeless? a woman, in tying herself for life to an unprincipled man who has yielded to the dictates of sin year after year, forgets that he has lost to a great extent his better nature and is now hardly responsible for his actions. the spirit may indeed be willing, but the flesh is lamentably weak. the appetites that have been long indulged do not relinquish their claims after only a few months' restraint, and when the girl for whose sake they have been repressed is won, they will return to the swept and garnished room, and the last end of their victim will be worse than the first. i often wonder what a good, pure woman promises herself when she proposes to entwine her clean life with one that is scarred, seamed and blackened. evade the truth as she may, there are but two courses for her to pursue. she must either live a lonely life apart from her husband's, frowning down, or silently showing disapproval of his habits, or she must, to preserve peace and the semblance of happiness, bring herself down to his level and become even less delicate and more degraded than he. for is not a coarse woman always more abhorrent than a coarse man? there are the instincts of her entire moral and physical nature to be cast aside before she can descend to vulgarity. in the one case her husband will hate her, while in the other she will lose his respect and will despise herself. an evil life so blunts the conscience that the wife of an unreformed man need hardly expect him to be faithful to her. if a man will sin against common decency, morality and social codes, he will sin against his wife. there is another aspect of the case to be considered. the american girl of to-day seldom takes the possibility of offspring into her matrimonial plans. they are not only a possibility, but a probability, and it behooves every woman to cast aside false modesty, and with a pure heart and honest soul seriously consider if she is not doing irreparable wrong to unborn children in giving them an unprincipled father. is she willing to see her children's blood tainted by his vices, their lives wrecked by evil temptations inherited from him? she must, indeed, be a reckless woman and a soulless, who, with this thought uppermost can still say, "i will marry this man--let the consequences be what they may!" that a man has some redeeming qualities does not make him a life-companion to be desired above all others. said a poor irish woman: "pat is always a good husband, savin' the toimes he's in liquor!" "when is he sober?" asked a bystander. "sure an' his money gin'rally gives out by friday mornin', and from that on to saturday night, he can't git a dhrop. faith, but he's koind and consid'rate at sich a time!" did the loyal soul find that marriage paid? one great mistake that many silly women make is to think that a dash of wickedness makes a man more attractive. years ago i heard a girl say: "i want to know jack s. he has been very wild, and a man is so much more interesting for being a little naughty, you know." i did not "know," nor do i now understand why pearls should plead to be thrown before swine, or fresh-blown roses upon the dung-hill. chapter xvi. "john's" mother. one of the oldest problems among the many seemingly contradictory "examples" set for the student of human nature has to do with the different positions assigned to mother and mother-in-law. painters, poets, divines, sages,--the inspired word itself,--rank the mother's office as the noblest assigned to creatures of mortal mould. mother-love and the love of the dear father of us all are compared, the one with the other. of all human affections, this, the first that takes root in the infant's heart, is the last to die out under the blighting influence of vice, the deadening blows of time. "my mother" is spoken by the world-hardened citizen with a gentler inflection,--a reverential cadence, as if the inner man stood with uncovered head before a shrine. mother-in-law! the words call a smile that is too often a sneer to lips in which dwells habitually the law of kindness, while lampoon, caricature, jest and song find in them theme and catchword for mockery and insult. i witnessed, not long ago, the skillful impersonation of a husband who held in his hand a letter just received from his wife. the first page informed him that after his departure from home his wife's mother had arrived; the second, that she intended to remain during the winter; the third, that she had been taken suddenly and violently ill; and the fourth, that she was dead. the reader spoke no word while perusing the epistle, but his facial play attested his emotions better than speech could have done. his countenance was grave on learning of the visit, desperate at the thought of its length, and expressed annoyance at the inconvenience of her illness while under his roof; when the final page was reached, his features became illumined with ecstatic joy. dropping the letter, he clasped his hands, and, raising his eyes, ejaculated with blissful fervor-- "thank heaven! she's dead!" of course we laughed. it was expected of us. nevertheless, this kind of jesting has its effect. it is dangerous playing with edged tools that would be better laid aside and allowed to rust instead of being brought forward where they may do mischief. the relation of mother-in-law and son-or daughter-in-law ought to be what i am glad to think it sometimes is, one of perfect harmony. the mother who has brought up a daughter to woman's estate, and made her fit to be the wife of a good man and the mother of his children, should be appreciated by the man who profits by the wife's mother's teachings. had this mother been careless and negligent, allowing the daughter to cultivate traits that make her husband wretched, how quick would he be to lay the blame where it belongs,--upon the mother who trained, or left untrained the daughter. why should he not give credit to the same source? there are many women who, to their shame be it said, openly sneer at their mothers-in-law, and ridicule their manners, habits, etc. yet, in the same breath, the woman of this class will freely state that she has "the best husband in all creation." whose influence made him the man he is, if not the mother's with whom, for so many years, he was the first and dearest care, until she uncomplainingly saw him leave her home with the girl he married? husband and wife do not look into the matter deeply enough to think what underlies this dislike for the other's mother. the man who truly loves his wife will do all in his power and make any self-sacrifice to further her happiness. if she is not an exceptional woman, she will be made happier by his affection for the mother to whom she is devoted, and miserable by a lack of this sentiment. let us argue the case according to rule. it makes mary happy if john is fond of her mother, and unhappy if he is not. if john loves mary he wishes to make her happy. _ergo_, when he shows his love for her mother he is likewise giving evidence of his love for mary. so, when i hear a so-called devoted wife cast unkind slurs upon her mother-in-law, i wonder how genuine is the affection for her husband which allows her to make him unhappy by awaking in his breast suspicions that his mother is distasteful to his wife. true love would hardly be so cruel. what if john's mother has disagreeable peculiarities? she is none the less his mother, and, as such, he is bound to love and respect her. if the love he bears her blinds him to her deficiencies, is it not the part of a true wife to keep his eyes closed to these foibles, since seeing them will make him uncomfortable? every man likes to feel that his dear mother and dearer wife are congenial friends. and it is their duty to be friendly, if not congenial. the mother-in-law, too, has her task. it would be folly to state that she is not often and grossly to blame for the uncomfortable state of this relationship. she is frequently a trifle jealous, sometimes fails to remember how she felt when young, resents her child's love for, and dependence on, another, feels bitterly that she no longer has it in her power to make her darling's happiness, and has such a high ideal of what should be the qualities of the partner her girl has chosen that she puts his faults under a magnifying glass of criticism until the molehills become mountains, and appreciation of the good is swallowed up in recognition of every evil trait. happily, this is not always the case, and the genuine mother is, as a rule, so grateful to see her child happy that for his or her sake she loves the one who causes this contentment, even if he or she be far from congenial to herself, and "not the man she would have picked out for her daughter to marry." i have serious doubts as to whether the existing antagonism would have been half so prevalent had not such a multitude of coarse jokes been perpetrated on the subject. the best way to perpetuate an evil is to take it for granted and to speak of it as a matter of course. i am glad to be able to name among my friends more than one man who is large-souled enough to tenderly love and respect his wife's mother, and several women who frankly acknowledge that their own special mothers-in-law are all goodness and kindness. it is natural that people brought up differently, and living separately for a long term of years, should, when thrown into close relationship, differ on many subjects, and clash in various opinions, and that occasional misunderstandings should arise. even with husband and wife this is true. but if man and woman can, for the affection they bear each other, forgive and forget these little differences, why may not each, for the same sweet love's sake, and in the thought of what maternal devotion is, pardon and overlook the foibles of the other's mother? one evil effect of pasquinade and sneer is to put the prospective daughter-in-law on the defensive, and prepare her mind, unconsciously to herself, to regard her future husband's mother as her natural enemy. many a girl marries with the preconceived notion that, to preserve her individual rights, and to rule in her own small household, she must carefully guard against the machinations of the much-decried mother-in-law. nine times out of ten, had not this thought become slowly but securely rooted in past years, the intercourse between the two women might be all peace and harmony. the young wife's mind is, insensibly to her, poisoned before she enters the dreaded relation (in law). she is on the alert, defensive, ready to impute motives to the mother-in-law she would never dream of attributing to her own parent, in like circumstances. yet, many a girl has never known what maternal love means until at her marriage she was welcomed by the open arms and large heart of her husband's mother. it is not only orphan girls who have this experience, for some parents never bestow upon their children the peculiar brooding tenderness which all young people need, even when they have almost attained man's and woman's estate. said one youthful matron to me--"my own mother has been an invalid for so many years that i have not felt that i could go to her with all my worries and perplexities, for my annoyances only added to her troubles. therefore, never until i was married did i know what real "mothering" meant. then my husband's mother seemed as much mine as his. i was her "daughter." when my first baby was coming, all the dainty little garments were furnished by this grandmamma, and her care and tenderness for me were such that the remembrance of them fills my heart to overflowing with gratitude." another woman told me with a moved smile that she was "so fortunate a woman as to have two mothers," while a man i know openly declares that his mother-in-law is "the best mother in the world,--next to his own mother." one elderly woman, who has been a mother-in-law five times, informed me the other day that in her heart she knew little difference between her own daughters and sons and their respective husbands and wives. "you see," she said, "they are all my dear children." i cite these instances merely to prove how happily harmonious this oft-abused state may be, and what a pity it is that it should ever be otherwise. if you, my reader, do not enjoy the relationship, allow me to suggest a cure for the trouble. put your own mother--or daughter--in the place of the offender, and act according to the light thrown upon the subject by this shifting of positions. say to yourself--"this woman means well, but she does not know me yet well enough to understand just how to put things in the way to which i have been accustomed. she loves john so well that she seems unjust or inconsiderate to me. she could not, in the eyes of john's wife, have a better excuse for hasty speech or harsh action." the love you both bear this same oft-perplexed john should be at once solvent and cement, melting hardness, and uniting seemingly antagonistic elements. above all things, as john's wife, never criticise his mother to him. if he sympathizes with you, he is disloyal to his mother; if not, you consider him unfeeling, and immediately accuse him of "taking sides" against you. think for one moment of your own boy, perhaps still a mere baby. does it not, even now, grieve you to the heart to think that the day will come when he will discuss and acknowledge your faults to anyone, albeit his listener is only his wife? if john is the man he should be, he fancies that his mother is "a creature all too bright and good" to be criticised, and, as you want your son to have the same opinion of his mother, uphold john in his fealty, and scorn to destroy such blessed love and faith. make the effort to see john's mother with his eyes, and by so doing make him love you better, and prove yourself worthy to be the wife of a true man and the mother of a son who will be as leal and steadfast as his father. chapter xvii. and other relations-in-law the other day i chanced to be a listener to the conversation of two young married women. they were making their plans for the coming week. one of them remarked, drearily: "henry's sister and her husband are to spend next sunday with me." "are they!" exclaimed the other. "and my husband's father and mother are to honor me by a visit on the same day." for a moment there was silence, then no. said in an awed voice: "my dear, you and i need the prayers of the congregation. we are both objects of pity. our relations-in-law are upon us!" within my secret self i pondered whether or not the visitors dreaded the expected ordeal as much as the visited did. the phrases, "my husband's relatives," "my wife's family," are seldom pronounced without an accompanying bitter thought. john tolerates mary's kin, and mary regards john's father and mother, sisters and brothers with an ill-concealed distrust and enmity. sometimes there is just cause for this antagonistic feeling; more frequently it is the outcome of custom. it is fashionable to regard connections by marriage as necessary evils. some families, resolved to make the best of that which is inevitable, put a smiling face upon the whole matter, and hide from the outside world the knowledge of their chagrin. no mother has ever seen the girl she thought quite good enough for her boy whom she considers the model of all that is noble and manly, while that sister is rare who feels that the wife chosen by her favorite brother is what "the dear boy really needs as a life-long companion." once in a great while, when the chosen bride by some remarkable chance happens to suit the family fancy, the whole world is informed of the fact, and the bride elect inwardly pronounces john's blood relations to be "awfully gushing" or "desperately hypocritical." the happy medium is difficult of attainment. of course there are some exceptions to the general rule of antagonism. and i am glad to believe that sometimes, even when this feeling exists, husband and wife are too considerate of one another's comforts to betray any sign of discontent. said a woman to me: "my dear, mrs. s. is john's mother, and it is my duty to conceal from him the fact that she is disagreeable to me. i could be a much happier woman for never seeing my mother-in-law again, but my husband must never suspect it. the dear fellow flatters himself that his wife and mother 'hit it off so well together.' to our credit be it said, that we have never enlightened him as to the true state of affairs." and for the sake of the man they both loved, these women refrained from outward evidence of the intense dislike each felt for the other. the trouble begins very far back. when the boy is laughingly warned against "the girl with a family," and the girl is reminded that this or that jolly fellow "has a dragon of a mother," the evil seed is sown. from that time until the pair are forever united at the altar, it grows, and with marriage it begins to bring forth the unpeaceable fruits of endless dissensions. i sometimes wonder if the new life could be begun with a predisposition towards amity, what the result would be. there is fault on both sides from the beginning. it is an accepted proverb that no house is large enough to hold two families, and certainly no family is large enough to contain two factions. as soon as the son of the household marries, an antagonistic element is introduced. mother and sisters immediately bring to bear upon the new bride opera-glasses of criticism,--viewing faults through the small end, and virtues through the large. it would be strange indeed if two women who have never met until the younger one was of a marriageable age, should have the same methods of housekeeping, etc. but the mother-in-law is inclined to believe that john's wife should do things her way, and that any other way is slovenly, new-fangled, or ridiculous. the son's wife--possessing her share of individuality--resents the interference, and shows that resentment. too often, alas! both make the dreary mistake of retailing their sorrows to john, and then the breach becomes too wide ever to be bridged over. unless john is an exceptionally independent man he will attempt in his clumsy way to bring both women to the same way of thinking, and the result would be ludicrous were it not also pitiful. the chances are nine hundred and ninety-nine to one thousand that he will succeed in making his mother feel that he is unduly influenced by his silly wife, while said wife thinks indignantly that john is, and always will be, "under his mother's thumb." i firmly believe that mary is often to blame for john's dislike for her family. when she marries, she revels in the new and delightful sensation of having some one to "take her part," and sympathize with her in all her petty annoyances and big troubles. her father, mother, sisters and brothers often vex her, and what more natural than that she should pour her tale of woe into the young husband's ears? he is delightfully indignant and full of pity for her and resentment towards those who have caused her discomfort. at all events he understands her! by the time the story is told and she is duly consoled she has forgotten her injuries. she loves her family, and while they are sometimes very trying, who could expect her to bear a grudge against the dear ones? the little burst of anger over, she feels towards them as she has always felt and banishes from her mind all thought of the little occurrence. not so, john! his wife (and the possessive pronoun casts about her an atmosphere of importance) has been made uncomfortable, and he is up in arms. his and no one's else is the right to criticise mary. what business have these people to interfere? he immediately becomes his wife's most ardent champion, and while he muses the fire burns, until he is ready to take the poor little woman away from all her inconsiderate relatives. what is his chagrin on discovering that the woman who, but a few hours ago sobbed out to him her wrongs, has seemingly overlooked all injuries, and is just as fond of sister and brother, and quite as dependent upon "papa and mamma" as she ever was. in vain he protests and calls to her mind their injustice. yes, she remembers it, now that he speaks of it, but the dear people meant nothing unkind, they love her dearly at heart. for her part she could not take to heart a little thing like that. and john remarks that if she is mean-spirited enough to pass by such an occurrence, he has nothing to say. it is her family, thank goodness, not his! after this, he is more quick than ever before to detect a fancied slight and to resent it. mary laments secretly that "john does not love her family." it is a genuine grief to her, and she does not appreciate the fact that she herself began the work that has now gone too far to check. were i to give a piece of advice to a bride, it would be--never complain to your husband of the actions of a single member of your family, and never find fault with _his_ nearest of kin. your liege lord may disapprove of the members of his own family, or perhaps of some of his mother's characteristics, and he may talk to you of them. but he will hotly resent your mention of them, and will exercise all his masculine ingenuity to prove that his relatives always mean to act for the best,--exactly what you would have him believe of your nearest and dearest. a woman who has never had a suspicion of difference with her relations-in-law, confides to me of the course she has pursued throughout her married life. she says: "i have never told charlie that i notice the faults of his family, nor have i ever called his attention to any of their foibles. in that way i have prevented him from feeling that he must side with them against me. he comes to me often with the story of some difference he has had with his mother, and he talks freely of his sister's failings and his brother's inconsistencies. he even sometimes gets righteously indignant, and fairly sputters. inwardly, i chuckle with amusement, and outwardly i appear sympathetic, but never a word do i say to commit myself. it is his family, and if there is a row, i, to quote young america, 'am not in it.'" i happen to know that this woman's husband's family think that "charlie has a none-such of a wife," and that they are all fond of her. if tact and diplomacy are ever exercised, it must be in the management of relations-in-law. the thought that so often the state is one of hatred, or, at best, tolerance, makes the position of all concerned strained and delicate. to many a mother the term "mother-in-law" is a much-dreaded appellation. a woman upon whom this doubtful honor has recently been laid, said to me: "i hope my boy will never set his wife against me by asking her to 'do things as his mother did.' i shudder to think of it. i want him to tell her that the mince and pumpkin pies, biscuits, muffins, and even gingerbread, made by his wife are vastly superior to any ever produced by his mother. i would rather take the second place in my son's affections than have my new daughter for one moment think of me as her 'mother-in-law.'" i believe that this is the sincere sentiment of more than one fond mother, as i am also sure that many a fond wife would rather have her husband loved by her own family than to receive so much affection herself. she is sure of her position, but john is a dreadful "relation-in-law," and it is hard to love such. it is sad to think such a mother or wife makes a fatal mistake from the very start, and herself brings about the state of affairs she dreads. the recognition of a fact often seems to make it doubly true. the knowledge that relations-in-law are frequently relations-at-war, predisposes both parties to unjust judgment. did each determine to see all the good possible in the other, connections-by-marriage might become kin-at-heart. chapter xviii. a timid word for the step-mother. at a luncheon party of a dozen women which i attended last winter, this very topic was introduced. strangely enough, there were present three women whose mothers had died while the children were still infants, and whose fathers had married again, and two women who were themselves step-mothers. each of the three who could not remember her own mother agreed that she who took her place had filled it so conscientiously that the child hardly felt the lack. the two step-mothers confessed that they loved their husbands' children as dearly as their own. said one woman: "when people speak to me of my step-daughter i have to stop and think which one of the children i did not bring into the world. she is as dear to me as my own flesh and blood." after we had gleaned all the evidence of truth from the chaff to which we are sometimes treated, a lively member of the company remarked ruefully: "i declare, all that i have just heard makes me positively ashamed that i did not have a step-mother, or that there is no prospect as far as i can see into the dim future, of my ever becoming one." there is something to be said on both sides, and we may as well face the facts without prejudice. no woman, however tender, can really take an own mother's place. her step-children may think that she does, and this is one of the instances where ignorance is such genuine bliss that it would be cruel folly to enlighten it. it would not be natural if actual mother-love could be felt by a woman toward any children save those for whom she has braved the danger of death and the mightiest pain mortal can know. with this suffering comes a love far greater than the anguish, a passionate devotion which, we are certain, must reach beyond the grave itself. that mother who, having young children, still wishes to die, is an anomaly rarely met with. no matter how much she may be forced to endure, she still prays to live for her sons' and daughters' sakes. a poor sufferer once said: "if i had no child i would beg the good lord to let me die. but while my baby lives, i beg him to spare this life which is too valuable to him to be lost." it is not possible that an outsider "whose own the sheep are not" should know this heaven-given feeling. still, every unselfish mother will acknowledge that were she dying, she would be comforted to know that her children would find some conscientious, true foster-mother who would bring them up just as faithfully and tenderly as she knew how to do. there is no more forlorn being on this wide earth than a widower with little children, and with no woman-relative to help him look after them. why then this rooted hatred and horror of step-mothers? you--my step-mother reader--are sadly unfortunate if anyone has been so cruel to you and your charges as to instil into their minds an aversion for you with whom they must live for years, perhaps all their lives. but, perhaps, after all, the case is not so bad as you fear. you may have a morbid sensitiveness on the subject which makes it look very dark to you. even if matters are as you think, if you try conscientiously to overcome the children's prejudice, and your husband aids you in your efforts, you are bound to live down their dislike. children are tender-hearted and clear-sighted. they will soon judge for themselves, and the one rule against which they will not rebel is that of love. the first thing for you to do is to begin with your own feelings. _make_ yourself love the little ones. unless they are unusually unattractive the task will not be a difficult one. perhaps you love them already. if so, half the battle is won. in driving a restless horse, it is absolutely essential that you should not be at all nervous yourself. every horseman will tell you that the animal knows instinctively the character of the person managing him. if a thrill of fear touches him who holds the reins, the horse responds to it as to an electric shock, and becomes almost beside himself with nervousness. if a firm, steady, yet gentle grasp is on the lines, the creature obeys in spite of himself. this same principle applies to children. if you cannot control yourself the children know it, and you may as well give up all idea of curbing them. the nervous twitching at the bit and the attempt to govern them by reason of your superior age or knowledge aggravates the evil. it is a mistake to forget that children are human beings, with sensitive feelings like our own, only not as hardened and used to the ways of this unsympathetic world as we are. their government must have love at its beginning, continuing and ending if it would be successful. you may as well recognize the fact first as last that you are laboring under a disadvantage in that the hyphenized "step" must precede your name of mother. this being the case, you have need to add to your love patience, and to that tact, and to that pity. if the children exasperate you, do not let them guess it. keep a rigid guard upon the harsh tongue. if the demon of impatience tempts you to utter the quick "stop that noise!" or "do be quiet!"--seal your lips as surely as if life and death depended upon your silence. your most severe critics will not be slow in discovering that you love them too much to "scold" or be cross. you make tremendous strides towards their love when they cannot point to a single unjust act that you commit against them. it may be well in passing to remind you that boys and girls remember an injustice for many years. they themselves are often fair enough to acknowledge after the first flush of anger is over, that they merited a punishment which they have received. as a rule, until they are old men and women, they do not forget the undeserved blow, the unprovoked sarcasm. we many times receive patiently, as grown men and women, reminders that we are doing wrong, but we find it hard to pardon the person who accuses us falsely. the most powerful auxiliary love can have in accomplishing its end is tact. some people have more than others, but at all times it may be cultivated. perhaps the best rule by which to learn it is the old one of "put yourself in his place." reverse the positions as in anstey's "vice versâ," and imagine yourself a hot-headed, sore-hearted, prejudiced child, with a step-mother against whom your mind has been poisoned by those older and presumably wiser than yourself. how would you receive this or that correction? acquire the habit of thus putting the matter before your mind's eye, and you will soon find that tactful patience becomes second nature. if you can possibly avoid it, do not correct the children in the presence of other people, or complain to their father of them. if he once reproves them with the prefix, "your mother tells me that you have done so-and-so," he has laid the foundations of a distrust difficult to remove. rather let them domineer over you than try to manage them by appealing to their father, and, thus making them feel sure that you are attempting to prejudice him against them. they are naturally suspicious, and it will take very little to make them positively certain that you are their natural enemy. never fail to remember the great and irreparable loss which these children have suffered in the death of the only person in the wide world who could thoroughly understand them. if you had a mother to help you in your childhood, you will know what they miss, or, if you, too, were a lonely little being, let the memory of that loneliness make you lovingly pitiful towards the children who suffer in the same way. such pity soon leads to an unconquerable love. bear in mind in justification of what may seem like unreasonable prejudice, that all children have heard many stories, some of which are true, of the cruelties of step-parents. doubtless, you in your own life, have known of more than one second wife who was jealous of her husband's love for the first wife's children. when women are heartless they are desperately cruel, and do not hesitate to vent their hatred upon the little ones whose look, mrs. browning tells us,-- "is dread to see, for they mind you of their angels in high places, with eyes turned on deity." she also reminds those whose consciences are so hardened by selfishness that they dare be cruel to the mere babies in their care that-- "the child's sob in the darkness curses deeper than the strong man in his wrath." we have not to do in this talk with this type of woman, but with beings of the mother-sex who would, if they were allowed, make life brighter for the bereaved little ones. one way to keep step-children's affection is to talk to them often and reverently of their own mother. this is due to them and to her who bare them. do not allow them to forget her, and guard against the entrance of any jealous feeling into this sacred duty of keeping her memory fresh. the children were hers, and in the eternal home will be hers again. they are only lent to you as a sacred trust. it is not sacrilegious to believe that their mother knows of your efforts to make them good men and women, and that she, as their guardian angel, will not forget to bless her who gives her life to the children who were once "the sweetest flowers" her own "bosom ever bore." chapter xix. children as helpers. a correspondent inquires whether or not children ought to be trained to do housework and to make themselves useful in the numerous ways in which the young hands and feet can save the older ones. unless you expect to be a millionaire many times over, and in perpetuity--emphatically yes! it is not necessary that your little daughter should become a drudge; that she should have imposed upon her tasks beyond her strength, or which interfere with out-door exercise and merry in-door play. but through all her childhood must be borne in mind the fact that she is now in training for womanhood, that should she ever marry and have a home of her own, the weight of unaccustomed household tasks will bend and bruise the shoulders totally unaccustomed to burdens of any kind. if you have a colt that in years to come you intend using as a carriage-horse, you will not let him stand idle in the stable eating and fattening until he is old enough for your purpose. he would then be, in horse-parlance, so "soft" that the lightest loads would weary and injure him. instead of that, while still young, he is frequently exercised, and broken in, judiciously, first to the harness, then to draw a light vehicle, and so on, until he himself does not know when the training ceases and the actual work begins. the college-boy, looking forward to "joining the crew," trains for months beforehand, walking, running, rowing, until the flaccid muscles become as firm and hard as steel. in america, where fortunes are made, lost, and made and lost again in a day, we can never say confidently that our children will inherit so much money that it will always be unnecessary for them to work. and, even could we be sure that our daughters will marry wealthy men, we should, for their own happiness and comfort, teach them that there is work for everyone in this world, and certain duties which every man and woman should perform in order to preserve his or her self-respect. by the time your child can walk, he may begin to make himself useful. one little boy, three years old, finds his chief delight in "helping mamma." he has his own "baby duster" with which he assiduously rubs the rungs of the parlor chairs until his little face beams with the proud certainty that he is of some use to humanity, and that "dear mamma" could not possibly have dusted that room without her little helper. he brings her boots and gloves when she is preparing for a walk, and begs to be allowed to put her slippers on her feet when she returns home. often when she is writing and he has grown weary of play, the tender treble asks,-- "dear mamma, you are vewy busy. can't i help you?" of course it is an interruption, and he cannot be of the least assistance; but is not that request better than the fretful whine of the child who is sated with play and still demands more? "she missed the little _hindering_ thing." says one line of a heart-breaking old poem descriptive of a bereaved mother's loneliness. eugene field strikes the same chord, until she who has laid a child under the sod thrills with remorseful pain: "no bairn let hold until her gown, nor played upon the floore,-- godde's was the joy; a lyttle boy _ben in the way no more_!" ah, impatient mother! as you put aside the affectionate officiousness of the would-be assistant, with frown or hasty word, bethink yourself for one moment of the possible time when, in the dreary calm of a well-ordered house, you will hearken vainly for shrilly-sweet prattle and pattering feet! there are ways in which even the toddlers can make work lighter for the mothers. when your small daughter has finished with her toys, she should be obliged to put them away in a box kept for that purpose. the mother and nurse will thus be spared the bending of the back and stooping of the knees to accomplish this light task, and the child will enjoy the occupation, and feel very important and "grown-up" in putting her doll to bed, and dolly's furniture, clothes, etc., in their proper place. when making the beds, allow the little girl to hand you the pillows; and, even should you stumble over her and them, sometimes, you will do well to maintain the pious pretence that she lightens your work by assisting in tucking in the covers, and in gathering up soiled articles of clothing and putting them in the clothes-bag or hamper. she will soon learn to dust chair-rungs and legs, and to wipe off the base-board,--and do it more conscientiously than hireling abigail. she may pick bits of thread, string and paper from the carpet, and clean door-handles and window-sills. one mother, when making pies, places her four-year old daughter in a chair at the far end of the kitchen table, and gives her a morsel of dough and a tiny pan. the little one watches the mother and attempts to handle her portion of pastry as mamma does. after it is kneaded, it is tenderly deposited, oftentimes a grayish lump, in spite of carefully washed hands (for little hands will somehow get dirty, try sedulously though you and their owner may to prevent it), in the small tin, and it is placed in the oven with the other pies. it serves admirably at a doll's tea-party, and the meddlesome fingers have been kept busy, the restless mind contented, while the housewife's work is accomplished. by the time your girl is ten years old, she should be equal to making her own bed, some older person turning the mattresses for her that the young back may not be strained by lifting, and to dust and keep her own little room in order. of course you will have to watch carefully, and teach her little by little, line upon line. a model housekeeper used to say that one should "cultivate an eye for dirt." bear this in mind, and cultivate your daughter's eye for dust, dirt and cobwebs. you will find, unless she is a phenomenal exception to the majority of young people, that she will not see when the soap-cup needs washing, or that there are finger-smears on the doors, and "fluff" in the corners. but with the blessed mother-gift of patience, point out to her, again and again, the seemingly small details, the "hall-marks" of housewifery, which, heeded, make the thrifty, neat housekeeper, and, when neglected, the slattern. as she grows older, let her straighten the parlors every morning, make the cake on saturdays, and show her that you regard her as your right-hand woman in all matters pertaining to domestic affairs. give her early to understand that it is to her interest to keep her father's house looking neat, that it is her home, and reflects credit, or the reverse, upon herself, and that it is her duty, and should be her pleasure, to help you, her mother, when you are overwearied and need rest. she will enjoy play as a child, society and recreation as a girl, all the more because she has some stated tasks. she may learn to manage the family mending by aiding you in sorting and repairing the clothes when they come up from the wash. when she is capable of entirely relieving you of this burden, pay her a stated amount each week for doing it. she will glory in the delightful feeling of independence imparted by the knowledge of her ability to earn her own pocket-money, and take the first lesson in that much-neglected branch of education,--knowledge of the value of dollars and cents, and how to take care of them. few children are born with a sensitive conscience regarding their work, so the mother will, at first, find it necessary to keep an eye on all the tasks performed by the willing, if often careless, girl. do not judge her too harshly. try to recall how you felt when you were a lazy, because a rapidly growing, girl; bear in mind that it is natural for kittens and all young creatures to be careless and giddy, and try to be gentle and forbearing while correcting and training her. if she is good for anything, your care will be rewarded in years to come by seeing her trying to do all her work in life "as mamma does." while it is especially expedient that the girls receive this domestic training, the boys of the family should not be exempt from their share of the responsibility. you need not dread that this kind of work will make your boy unmanly or effeminate. it will rather teach him to be more considerate of women, more appreciative of the amount that his mother and sisters have to do, and less careless in imposing needless labor upon them. some mothers go so far as to instruct their sons in the delicate tasks of darning stockings, and repairing rents in their own clothes. there is a vast difference in the skill manifested by different boys. some seem to have a natural aptitude for dainty work while others have fingers that are "all thumbs." one man, now a father, cherishes a tiny cushion of worsted cross-stitch made by himself when a child but five years of age. he is deft with his fingers, and, as the saying is, "can turn his hand to anything." may it not be that the manipulation then acquired still serves him? another man tells laughingly how, when a boy at college, he would tie up the hole, in his socks with a piece of string, and then hammer the hard lump flat with a stone. he could as easily make a gown as darn a stocking. tales such as this fill motherly souls with intense pity for the poor fellow so powerless to take care of his clothing, and so far from any woman-helper. if possible, teach your boy enough of the rudiments of plain sewing to help him in an emergency, so that he can put on a button, or stitch up a rip, when absent from you. as many men as women have a natural bias for cookery, and there are husbands not a few who insist on making all the salad eaten on their tables. one branch of work in which boys are sinfully deficient is "putting things to rights." the floor of your son's room may be littered with books, papers, cravats, soiled collars and cuffs, but he never thinks it his duty to pick them up and to keep his possessions in order. about one man in a thousand is an exception to this rule, and thrice blessed is she who weds him. it goes without saying in the household that by some occult principle of natural adaptation, there is always a "time" for a man to scatter abroad and for a woman to gather together. mother or sister attends to "the boy's things." why has the boy any more than the girl the right to leave his hat on the parlor table, his gloves on the mantel, his coat on the newel-post, and his over-shoes in the middle of the floor? they are left there, and there they remain until some long-suffering woman puts them away. from hut to palace, and through uncounted generations, by oral and written enactment, as well as by tacit consent, whatever other innovations are made, the custom holds that man can upset without fault, and his nearest of feminine kin is blamable if she do not "pick up after him." teach your son that it is his business to keep his own room in order, and that there is no more reason why his sister should follow him up, replacing what he has disarranged, than that he should perform the same office for her. inculcate in him habits of neatness. in acquiring an "eye" for the disorder he has caused, and deftness in rectifying it, he is taking lessons in tender consideration and growing in intelligent sympathy for mother, sister and the wife who-is-to-be. chapter xx. children as burden-bearers. those of us who are mothers would do well to read carefully and ponder deeply st. paul's assertion that when he was a child he spoke as a child, and felt as a child, and thought as a child; and that when he was a man, and not until then, he put away childish things. can the same be said of the child of to-day? in this "bit of talk," i want to enter my protest against thrusting upon children the care-taking thought that should not be theirs for years to come. when the responsibility that is inseparable from every life bears heavily upon us, we sigh for the carefree days of childhood, but we do not hesitate to inflict upon our babies the complaints and moans which teach them, all too soon, that life is a hard school for us. a child must either grieve with us or become so inured to our plaints that he pays no attention to them. in the latter case he may be hard-hearted but he is certainly happier than if he were exquisitely sensitive. "what a pretty suit of clothes you have!" said i to a four-year-old boy. the momentary expression of pride gave way to one of anxiety. "yes; but mamma says when these wear out she does not know how papa will ever buy me any more clothes. i am a great expense! oh!" with a long-drawn sigh of wretchedness, "isn't it _awful_ to be poor?" the poverty-stricken father was at this time managing to dress himself, wife and baby on an income of four thousand dollars per annum. in her desire to make her child take proper care of his clothes, the mother had struck terror to the little fellow's heart. such childish terror is genuine, and yet hard to express. the self-control of childhood is far greater than the average father or mother appreciates. some children seem to have an actual dread of communicating their fears and fancies to other people. a friend tells me that when she was but six years old she heard her father say impatiently, as his wife handed him a bill: "i can't pay this! at the rate at which bills come in nowadays, i soon will not have a cent left in the world. it is enough to bankrupt a man!" at bedtime that night the little daughter asked her mother, with the indifferent air children so soon learn to assume: "mamma, what becomes of people when all their money is gone, and they can't pay their bills?" "sometimes, dear," answered the unsuspicious mother, "their houses and belongings are sold to pay their bills." "and when people have no house, and no money, and nothing left, where do they go? do they starve to death?" "they generally go to the poorhouse, my daughter." "oh, mamma!" quavered the little voice, "don't you think that is dreadful?" "very dreadful, darling! now go to sleep." to sleep! how could she, with the grim doors of the home for the county paupers yawning blackly to receive her? all through the night was the horror upon her, and to this day she remembers the sickening thrill that swept over her while playing with a little friend, when the thought occurred: "if this girl's mother knew that we were going to the poorhouse, she would not let her play with me." little by little the impression wore off, aided in the dissipation by the sight of numerous rolls of bills which papa occasionally drew from his pocket. but not once in all that time did the child relax the strict guard set upon her lips, and sob out her fear to her mother. she does not now know why she did not do it, except that she could not. an otherwise judicious father talks over all his business difficulties with his seven-year-old son. the grown man does not know what a strain the anxiety and uncertainty of his father's ventures are to the embryo financier. not long ago the father announced to him: "well, harold, that man i was telling you of has failed--lost his money--and one thousand dollars of mine have gone with it." the boy's white, set face would have alarmed a more observant man. "oh, papa! what shall we do!" "get along somehow, my boy!" was the unsatisfactory answer. then, as the boy sadly and slowly left the room, the man to whom one thousand dollars were no more than one dime to this anxious child, explained, laughingly, to a friend, that "that little fellow was really wonderful; he understood business, and was as much interested in it as a man of forty could be." we fathers and mothers have no right to make our children old before their time. each age has its own trials, which are as great as any one person should bear. we know that the troubles that come to our babies are only baby troubles, but they are as large to them as our griefs are to us. a promised drive, which does not "materialize," proves as great a disappointment to your tiny girl as the unfulfilled promise of a week in the country would to you, her sensible mother. of course our children must learn to bear their trials. my plea is that they may not be forced to bear our anxieties also. if a thing is an annoyance to you, it will be an agony to your little child, who has not a tenth of your experience, philosophy and knowledge of life. there is something cowardly and weak in the man or woman who has so little self-control that he or she must press a child's tender shoulders into service in bearing burdens. teach your children to be careful, teach them prudence and economy, but let them be taught as children. the forcing of a child's sympathies sometimes produces a hardening effect, as in the case of a small boy whose mother was one of the sickly-sentimental sort. she had drawn too often upon her child's sensibilities. "charlie," she said, plaintively, to her youngest boy, "what would you do if poor mamma were to get very sick?" "send for the doctor." "but, charlie, suppose poor, dear mamma should die! then, what would you do?" "i'd go to the funeral!" was the cheerful response. to my mind this mother had the son ordained for her from the beginning of the world. many boys are all love and sympathy for their mothers. mamma appeals to all that is tender and chivalrous in the nature of the man that is to be. the maternal tenderness ought to be too strong to impose upon this sacred feeling. perhaps one of the prettiest of bunner's "airs from arcady" is that entitled, "in school hours," in which he thus describes the woe of the thirteen-year-old girl when she receives the cruel letter from the boy of her admiration. the poet tells us this sorrow "were tragic at thirty," and asks, "why is it trivial at thirteen!" "trivial! what shall eclipse the pain of our childish woes? the rose-bud pales its lips when a very small zephyr blows. you smile, o dian bland, if endymion's glance is cold: but despair seems close at hand to that hapless thirteen-year old!" chapter xxi. our young person. i well remember a girl's tearful appeal to me when she was stigmatized and reproved for her "giddy youth!" "it is not my fault that i was born young! and i am not responsible for the fact that i entered upon existence seventeen, instead of seventy, years ago. at all events, it was not a sin even if i was guilty of such a folly!" perhaps we older people are too prone to forget that youth is not a sin to be condemned, or even a folly to be sneered at. "wad some power the giftie gie us" to remember that we were not always cool-headed, clear-seeing and middle-aged! trouble and responsibility come so soon to all, that we err in forcing young heads to bow, and strong shoulders to bend, beneath a load which should not be laid upon them for many years. as we advance in age, our weaknesses and temptations change, and no longer take the form of heedlessness, intolerance, extravagance, and most trying of all to the critical and dignified observer,--freshness. we may describe this last-named quality somewhat after the fashion of the little boy who defined salt as "what makes potatoes taste bad when they don't put any on 'em!" so "freshness" is that which makes youth delightful by its absence. unfortunately, it is almost inseparable from this period, and while there are girls, and even boys, in whom the offending quality is nearly, if not entirely, lacking, they are almost as the red herring of the wood, and the strawberry of the sea, in nursery rhyme. freshness takes many and varied forms, the most common being that of self-conceit and the desire to appear original and eccentric in feelings, moods, likes and dislikes. like the fellows of the club of which bertie, in "the henrietta," was an illustrious member, the average boy winks, nods, looks wise and "makes the other fellows think that he is a harry of a fellow,--but he isn't!" the desire to be considered worldly-wise--"tough"--is rampant in the masculine mind between the ages of fifteen and twenty. the boy who has been to a strict preparatory boarding-school and is just entering upon his college course, whose theatre-goings have been limited to the "shows" to which his father has given him tickets, or to which he has escorted his mother or sisters, and whose wildest dissipations have consisted in a surreptitious cigarette and glass of beer, neither of which he enjoyed, but both of which he pretended to revel in for the sake of being "mannish,"--will talk knowingly of "the latest soubrette," "a jolly little ballet-dancer," "the wicked ways of this world," and "the dens of iniquity in our large cities." dickens tells us that "when mr. feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of london, and told mr. toots that he was going to observe it himself closely in all its ramifications in the approaching holidays, and for that purpose had made arrangements to board with two old maiden aunts at peckham, paul regarded him as if he were the hero of some book of travel or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of such a slashing person." why it is considered manly to be "tough" is one of the unsolved mysteries of the boyish mind. any uneducated, weak fool can go wrong. it takes a man to be strong enough to keep himself pure and good. another "fresh" characteristic of this age is the pretence of doubt. a fellow under twenty-one is likely to have doubts, to find articles in the creed of his church "to which he cannot agree. that kind of thing is well enough for women and children, but for a man of the world,"--and then follows an expressive pause, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders and lift of the brows. with a girl this trying age is often given over to sentimental musings and blues. she is convinced that nobody understands her, her mother least of all, that she is too sensitive for this harsh world, that she will never receive the love and consideration due her. cynicism becomes her main characteristic, and she bitterly sneers at friendship and gratitude, declaring that true, disinterested affection exists only in the imagination. is it any wonder that mothers sometimes become discouraged? poor mothers! whose combined comfort and distress is the knowledge that the time is fast approaching when their boys and girls will blush for shame at the remembrance of their "salad days, when they were green in judgment." parents have need of vast patience, and let them, before uttering condemnation, carefully consider if they themselves are not a little to blame for the state of their children's minds; if over-indulgence and unwise consideration have not had much to do with the trouble. one excellent woman has made of her son an insufferable boor by constantly deferring to him, no matter in what company, and by allowing him to see that she considers his very ordinary intellect far above the average. in a parlor full of educated men and women she went out of her way to tell what remarkable views "charlie" had upon certain religious subjects, and, after attracting the attention of the assembled company, called upon "charlie" to give vent to his sentiments that all present might observe how original they were. whereupon the hulk of a son, consequential and patronizing, discoursed bunglingly, and at length, on his opinions and beliefs, until he was inflated to speechlessness by conceit, and his hearers disgusted into responsive silence. if your girl is clever, do not tell her so, or repeat to others in her presence her bright observations. but, on the other hand, do not snub her, or allow her to feel that her intellect is of an inferior order. the best way to make a fool of the young person is to tell him that he is a fool. stimulate your child by all the love and appreciation at your command, but let it be intelligent appreciation, not blind admiration or prejudiced disapproval. do you recollect how you felt and dreamed and gushed when you were a girl, the pages of sentimental twaddle (as you now call it) which you confided to the diary which you burned in disgust at twenty-one? do you remember how genuine your distresses then seemed? you can smile at the girl you once were, but still you find it in your heart to pity her, poor, silly child, foolishly sobbing late into the night over some broken friendship or imaginary heart-trouble. perhaps she had no mother to whom to go, or perhaps her mother "did not understand." see that you do not make the same mistake, but, while you recognize the folly of the trouble, think of the heartache back of it all. when your girl was a tiny child, you petted and comforted her as she wailed over her broken dolly. was that grief so much more sensible than this, or do you love her less now? when your four-year-old boy came to you with his stories of what he would do when he was "a great big man," you drew him close to you and encouraged him to "talk it all out." now, when he is a head taller than you, and tells you of his hopes and aspirations, you sigh that "boys are so fresh and visionary!" it is not necessary to condone or to condemn all. what would you say to the gardener who let your choice young vines run in straggling lines all over the ground and in all directions,--or who ruthlessly cut off all the stalks within an inch of the roots? young people need training, encouragement and urging in some directions, repression and pruning in others. above all, they need tender forbearance. another trying feature of the young person is his wholesale intolerance of everything and everybody. only himself and perhaps one or two of his own friends escape his censure. these being covered with the mantle of his approbation, are beyond criticism. this habit of uncharitableness is such an odious one that our boy or girl should avoid it carefully. if you would acquire the custom of saying no evil, it is advisable to guard against thinking it. difficult as it may seem, it is quite possible to put such a guard upon the mind as to accustom it to look on the best side of persons and things. nobody is wholly bad, or, at least, few people are so entirely given over to disagreeable traits as the young person would lead us to think. only a few days ago a young man was speaking in my presence of another fellow, who was, as far as i know, a respectable, well-bred boy. "oh!" said the young person, when his name was mentioned, "he is no good." "why not?" queried i. "is he bad?" "he is too much of a fool to be bad." "is he such a fool? i thought he was considered rather bright?" "well, he thinks himself awfully bright. he is a regular donkey." "are his manners disagreeable?" "no-o-o, i don't know that they are. in fact, i believe he prides himself on the reputation he has acquired for gentlemanliness." "then, what is so disagreeable about him?" "perhaps," dryly suggested the father of the young person, "he is not particularly fond of you, and that it why you disapprove of him." "no, sir!" was the indignant rejoinder, "that is not it. to be sure, he never troubles himself to pay me any marked attention. nor do i care to have him do so. he is a low fellow." deny it as he might, the reason my young friend disliked the "low fellow" was because the tiny thorn of neglect had wounded his vanity and pricked and rankled into a fester. this is human nature, but as we advance in years, we appreciate that people may be really excellent in many respects, and yet have no great fondness for us. youth still has much to learn. ten girls whom i know formed a society for the repression of unkind criticism. the members pledged themselves to try, as far as in them lay, to speak kindly of people when it was possible for them to do so, and when impossible to say nothing. at first it was hard, for self-conceit would intrude, and it is hard for one girl to praise another who dislikes her. little by little the tiny seed of effort grew into a habit of kindly speech. what volumes it argues for a woman's gentle ladyhood and christianity when it can truthfully be said of her, "she never speaks uncharitably of anybody!" let us older people set an example of tolerance and charitable speech. too often our children are but reproductions, perhaps somewhat highly colored, of ourselves, our virtues, and our faults. and this is especially true of the mothers. john jarndyce gives us a word of encouragement when he says-- "i think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of the mothers shall occasionally be visited upon the children, as well as the sins of the father." such being the case, let us children of a larger growth show such tact, unselfishness and tender charity, that our children, seeing these virtues, may copy them, and thereby aid in removing the disagreeable traits of, at least, our young persons. chapter xxii. our boy. the following is a _bona fide_ letter. it is written in such genuine earnest, and so clearly voices the sentiments of many young men of the present day, that i am glad to have an opportunity to answer it. . why should i, a fast-growing, hard-working youth of eighteen, who go every morning, four miles by street-car, to my office, and the same back at night, often so weary and faint as to be hardly able to sit, not to say stand, be obliged to give up my seat to any flighty, flashy girl who has come down-town to shop, or frolic, or do nothing? isn't she as able to "swing corners" holding on to a strap as i? and to hold her own perpendicular in the aisle? . why isn't it as rude for her and her companions to giggle and whisper and stare, the objects of amusement being her fellow-passengers, as it would be for me and my fellows? yet we would be "roughs"--and she and her crew must be "treated with the deference due the gentler sex." and why am i a boor if i do not give her my seat, while she is considered a lady if she takes it without thanking me? . are girls, take them as a rule, as well-bred as boys? judging by appearances, it would seem that many men share in the feeling expressed in your first query. i am not a "flighty, flashy girl," but i crossed the city the other night in a horse-car in which there were twenty men and two women--one of them being myself. i stood, while the score of men sat and lounged comfortably behind their newspapers. they were tired after a hard day's work, and would have been wearied still more by standing. a well woman was worn out and a delicate woman would have been made ill, by this exertion. my dear boy! let me ask you one question. why should you, no matter how tired you are, spring eagerly forward to prevent your sister from lifting a piece of furniture, or carrying a trunk upstairs? why not let her do it? i can imagine your look of indignant surprise. "why? because she is a woman! it would nearly kill her!" exactly so; but you will swing the burden on your broad, strong shoulders, bear it to its destination, and the next minute run lightly down-stairs,--perhaps, as you would say, "a little winded," but not one whit strained in nerve or muscle. there lies the difference. the good lord who made us women had his own excellent reason for making us physically weaker than men. perhaps because, had we their strength, we would be too ambitious. however that may be, men, as the stronger sex, should help us in our weakness. standing in the horse-car that is jostling over a rough track, holding on with up-stretched arm to a strap and "swinging corners" during a two-mile ride, would do more harm to a girl of your own age than you would suffer were you to stand while making a twenty-mile trip. for humanity's sake, then, if your gallantry does not prompt you to make sacrifice, do not allow any woman, old or young, to "hold her perpendicular in the aisle" when you can offer her a seat and while you have a pair of capable legs upon which to depend for support. a true gentleman is always unselfish, be he old or young, rested or weary; and such being the case, the foreign day-laborer, in blue blouse and hob-nailed boots, who rises and gives a lady his place in car or omnibus, is the superior of the several-times-a-millionaire, in finest broadcloth, spotless linen, patent leathers and silk hat, who sits still, taking refuge behind his newspaper, in which he is seemingly so deeply absorbed as to be blind to the fact that a woman, old enough to be his mother, stands near him. with one gentlemanliness is instinctive, with the other it is, like his largest diamond stud, worn for show, and even then is a little "off color." i hope it is hardly necessary to remind you that true courtesy does not stay to distinguish between a rich or a poor woman, or to notice whether she is a pretty young girl, fashionably attired, or a decrepit laundress taking home the week's wash. she is a woman! that should be sufficient to arouse your manliness. this is the truthful reply to query no. . not a pleasant answer perhaps, but an honest one. to make the advice more palatable, take it with a plentiful seasoning of gratitude for the gift of physical strength which makes you a man. and now for no. . here you are right, and your suggestion has had my serious consideration. possibly, thoughtlessness may account for the foolish "whispering and giggling" you mention, but stares and amused comments upon fellow-passengers are nothing less than acts of rudeness, be they perpetrated by boy or girl. but two wrongs never yet made a right, and because a girl is discourteous is no reason why you should put yourself on the same footing with her, and fail to observe towards her "the deference due" all women. if you are in a car with a profane drunkard, you do not copy his actions, or, if obliged to address him, adopt his style of language. the glaring defect in the manners and voice of the american girl is that she is "loud." german gretchen or irish bridget is more likely to speak softly in public than her rich young mistress. it is often a shock to the observer when sweet sixteen seated opposite him in the horse-car, begins conversation with her companion. her face is gentle, her whole mien refined,--but, her voice! she talks loudly and laughs constantly. one beautiful woman whom i have met,--wealthy and well-educated, always reminds me of a peacock. you doubtless have seen and heard peafowls often enough to understand the comparison. the graceful motion and gorgeous plumage demand our admiration, until the creature, becoming accustomed to our presence, raises his voice in a piercing call, something between a hoot and a shriek, which causes us to cover our ears. after such an experience, we turn with relief to the sober hens who are contented to cluck peacefully through life, reserving their cackling until they have done something of which to boast, and wish to inform us that the egg they have laid is at our disposal. as a rule the girl who is _prononcée_ in a public conveyance is not well-bred, and she who laughs loudly and talks noisily, meanwhile passing comments on those persons who are so unfortunate as to be her traveling companions, has no claim to the much-abused title of "lady." but you can hardly compare your manners and those of your friends with the deportment of low-born, ill-bred girls. i fancy that you would find that everyone would pronounce sentence as severe upon them as upon you, were your actions the same. i have been amazed before this at what i have been told, and at what i have myself noticed, of the failure of women to thank men who rise and offer them seats. it would seem incredible that any person should so far neglect all semblance of civility as to accept a place thus offered as a matter of course. it is a kindness on the part of a man, and should always be met by some acknowledgment. if, when you rise, and lifting your hat, resign your place to a woman, and she, without a word, accepts it as her due, your only consolation will be to fall back on the comforting thought that you have behaved like a gentleman, and that any discourtesy of hers cannot detract from the merit of your action. you did not do it for the thanks you might receive, but because it is right. it is not pessimistic to assert that all through life, we are working on this principle--not that we may receive the credit for what we do, but doing good for the good's sake. do not be so rash as to say bitterly--"so much for sacrificing my own comfort!" "catch me giving a woman my seat again!" and those other foolish, because angry, things which a vexed boy is tempted to say under such circumstances. continue in the good way, hoping that "next time" you may have the pleasure of doing a favor to a lady who has the breeding to appreciate and be grateful for an act of courtesy. your third question is one difficult to answer. are girls as well bred as boys--yes--and no! their training lies along different lines. a few days ago i was talking with a young man who had a grievance. a girl of his acquaintance had, the night before, been at a reception which he had also attended. feeling a little weary she retired to a comfortable corner of the room, and sat there during the entire evening. she "did not feel like dancing," and told her hostess "she would rather sit still." my young friend had a severe headache, but, although suffering, his appreciation of _les convenances_ would not allow him to sit down in a secluded niche for fifteen minutes, during the entire evening. his "grievance" was that had he done this he would have been voted a boor, while the girl's action was condoned by hostess and guests. one thing must always be considered--namely, that a woman's part is, in many points of etiquette, passive. it is the man who takes the initiative, and who is made such a prominent figure that all eyes are drawn to him. have you ever noticed it? man proposes, woman accepts. man stands, woman remains seated. man lifts his hat, woman merely bows. man acts as escort, woman as the escorted. so, when a man is careless or thoughtless, it is all the more evident. for this reason, begin as a boy, to observe all the small, sweet courtesies of life. i often wish there were any one point in which a woman could show her genuine ladyhood as a man displays his gentlehood by the management of his hat,--raising it entirely from the head on meeting a woman, lifting it when the lady with whom he is walking bows to an acquaintance, or when his man-companion meets a friend, baring his head on meeting, parting from, or kissing mother, sister or wife. these, with other points, such as rising when a woman enters the room, and remaining standing until she is seated, giving her the precedence in passing in or out of a door, and picking up the handkerchief or glove she lets fall--are sure indices of the gentleman, or, by their absence, mark the boor. but our girl should not think that she can afford to overlook the acts of tactful courtesy which are her duty as well as her brother's. prominent among these she should place the deference due those who are older than herself. her temptation is often to exercise a patronizing toleration toward her elders, and, while she is not actually disrespectful, she still has the air of a very superior young being holding converse with a person who has the advantage merely in the accident of years. did she realize how ridiculous these very youthful, foolish manners are, she would blush for herself. she will--when she has attained the age of discretion. another of our girls' mistakes is that of imagining that brusqueness and pertness are wit. there is no other error more common with girls from fifteen to eighteen; they generally choose a boy as the butt of their sarcastic remarks--and, to their shame be it said, they frequently select a lad who is too courteous to retort in kind. but these faults in boy and girl alike are evidences of a "freshness" which wears off as the years roll on, as the green husk, when touched by the frost, falls away, leaving exposed the glossy brown shell enclosing the ripe, sweet kernel of the nut. if this answer to your letter reads like a sermon, pardon one who is interested in young people, and who, well remembering when she was young herself, would fain hold out a helping hand to those who are stumbling on in the path she trod in years gone by. chapter xxiii. that spoiled child. i was the other day one of many passengers in a railroad train in which a small girl of four or five years of age was making a journey, accompanied by her mother and an aunt. the child was beautiful, with a mass of golden curls. her velvet coat and the felt hat trimmed elaborately with ostrich plumes were faultless in their style; her behavior would compare unfavorably with the manners of a young comanche indian. she insisted upon standing in the centre of the aisle, where she effectually blocked all passage, and, as the train was going rapidly, ran a great risk of being thrown violently against the seats. when remonstrated with by her guardians, she slapped her aunt full in the face, pulled herself free from her mother's restraining grasp, and, in a frenzy of rage, threw herself down right across the aisle. there she lay for a full half hour. when her mother would have raised her to her feet she uttered shriek after shriek, until her fellow-travelers' ears rang. after this triumph of young america over the rule and command of tyrannizing mamma, the innocent babe was allowed to remain prostrate in her chosen resting-place, while brakemen, conductor and passengers stepped gingerly over the recumbent form. she varied the monotony of the situation by occasional wrathful kicks in the direction of her mother or at some would-be passer-by. "it is best to let sleeping dogs lie," sighed the mother of this prodigy to her sister. "when she gets one of these attacks (and she has them quite often) i just leave her alone until she becomes ashamed of it. she can't bear to be crossed in anything." when i stepped from the train at my destination the humiliation for which her attendants longed was still a stranger to the willful child. trouble-fearing persons have a belief to the effect that it is, in the long run, easier to let a child have his own sweet way until he has attained the age of discretion,--say at fourteen or fifteen years,--when his innate sense of propriety will convince him of the error of his ways. such a theorist was a dear old gentleman who, many years ago, remonstrated with me upon the pains and time i spent in training my first born. the children of this aged saint had been reared according to the old-fashioned notion, but when they had babies of their own they departed from it, and the rising generation had full and free sway. their grandparent, albeit frequently the victim of their pranks, loved them dearly. he now assured me that-- "while they are regular little barbarians, my dear, still they have all that freedom and wild liberty which should accompany childhood. they eat when and what they please, go to bed when they feel like it, rise early or late as the whim seizes them, and know no prescribed rules for diet and deportment. but they come of good stock and will turn out all right." they did come of good, honest parents, and this may have been what saved their moral, while their physical being has suffered from the course pursued during their infancy and early youth. there were six children; now there are four. one died when a mere baby from cold contracted from running about the house in winter weather in her bare feet. she was so fond of doing this that her mother could not bear to put shoes and stockings on the dear little tot. the other, a sweet, affectionate boy, suffered at regular intervals during the fifteen years of his life from acute indigestion. directly after one of these attacks, he, as was his habit, followed the cravings of an undisciplined appetite, and attended, late at night, a pea-nut-and-candy supper, almost immediately after which he was taken violently ill and died in three days. the four remaining children do not, all told, possess enough constitution to make one strong man. they are all delicate and constant sufferers. in this case judicious care might have averted the above-mentioned evils. would the game have been worth the candle? this is a question which parents cannot afford to disregard. it is expedient for them to consider seriously whether or not the stock on both sides of the family, of which their children come, is so good as to warrant neglect or to justify over-indulgence. our mother-tongue does not offer us a phrase by which we may express what we mean by _l'enfant terrible_. but our father-land produces many living examples which may serve as translations of the french words. such an one was the small boy who, while eagerly devouring grapes, threw the skins, one after another, into the lap of my new light silk gown. his mother entered a smilingly gentle protest in the form of-- "oh, frankie dear! do you think it is pretty to do that?" to which he paid as much attention as to my look of distress. the reader who believes in "lending a hand" in righting the minor evils of society must have more temerity and a larger share of what the boy of the period denominates "nerve" than i possess, if she interferes with a child while in the presence of the mother. it is as unsafe as the proverbial act of inserting the digits between the bark and the tree. it is, moreover, a liberty which i should never permit the dearest friend to take. in fact, so strong is my feeling on this subject, that i should have allowed "frankie dear" to make a fruit-plate and finger-bowl of the shimmering folds of my gown rather than utter a feeble objection before his doting mamma. the practice of spoiling a child is unjust to the little one and to the parent. the latter suffers tenfold more than if she, day by day, inculcated the line-upon-line, protest-upon-protest system. that she does not do this is sometimes due to mistaken kindness, but oftener to self-indulgence or dread of disagreeable scenes, that brings a harvest of misery as surely as he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. a spoiled child is an undutiful child. this must be true. the constant humoring and considering of one's whims will, in course of time, produce a stunted, warped and essentially selfish character, that considers the claims of gratitude and affection as _nil_ compared with the furtherance of personal aims and desires. never having learned self-control or obedience, parents and their timid remonstrances must go to the wall before the passions or longings which these same parents in days gone by have fostered. "only mother" or "nobody but father" are phrases that are so frequent as to become habitual, while the "you yourself used to let me do this or that" is the burden of many an excuse for misdemeanors. and after all the years of parental indulgence, what is your reward? the spring is gone from your own being, while your children will not let you live your life over again in theirs. we all recall Æsop's fable of the young man about to be executed, who begged on the scaffold for a last word with his mother, and when the wish was granted, stooped to her and bit off the tip of her ear, that the pain and disfigurement might serve as a constant reminder of the hatred he felt for the over-indulgence and lack of discipline which had brought him to this shameful death. the hurt which the mother's heart feels at the thought of causing her child's downfall is pain too great to be endured. the letting-alone principle is a short-sighted one. even in infancy a spoiled child may make such a nuisance of himself as to produce a disagreeable impression upon all who know him,--an impression which it takes many years of model behavior to eradicate. it is actual cruelty to throw upon the child the work the parent should have performed. it is easy to train the growing plant, but after the bark is tough and the fibre strong it is a terrible strain upon grain and vitality to bend it in a direction to which it is unaccustomed. much of the insubordination to be found in the children of the present day is due to the growing habit of entrusting the little ones to servants whose own wills and tempers are uncontrolled and untrained. a child knows that his nurse has no right to insist upon obedience, and he takes advantage of the knowledge until he is a small tyrant who is conscious of no law beyond that of his own inclinations. the prime rule in the training of children should be implicit obedience. the child is happier for knowing that when a command or prohibition is stated there is no appeal from the sentence, and that coaxing avails naught. uncertainty is as trying to small men and women as to us who are more advanced in the school of life. so much depends upon this great principle of obedience, that it is marvelous that parents ever disregard it. i have known in my own experience three cases in which it was impossible to make a child take medicine, and death has followed in consequence. one of the most painful recollections i have is of seeing a child six years old forced to swallow a febrifuge that was not unpalatable in itself. the mother, father, and nurse held the struggling boy, while the physician pried open the set teeth and poured the liquid down his throat. under these circumstances it is probable that the remedy proved worse than the disease. i have not space to do more than touch upon the great influence of early training on the future life. all my days i have been thankful for the gentle but firm hand that, as a child, taught me moral courage, self-denial and submission. the temptations of life have been more easily resisted, the trials more lightly borne, because of the years in which i was in training for the race set before me. we do not want to enter our children on the course as unbroken, "soft" and wild colts, whose spirits must be crushed before they will submit to the work assigned them. they may be young, yet strong; spirited, yet gentle; patient, yet resolute. chapter xxiv. getting along in years. "does your husband think a full beard becoming to him?" asked i of a young wife. her twenty-three-year-old lord, whose good-looking face had been adorned and made positively handsome by a sweeping brown moustache, had, since our last meeting, "raised" an uneven crop of reddish whiskers that shortened a face somewhat too round, and altogether vulgarized what had been refined. "no, indeed! he knows, as i do, that it disfigures him. it is a business necessity to which he sacrificed vanity. the appearance of maturity carries weight in the commercial world. his beard adds ten years to his real age." being in an audience collected to hear an eminent clergyman last summer, i heard an astonished gasp behind me, as the orator arose: "why he has shaved off his beard! how like a round oily man of god he looks!" "true," said another, "but fifteen years younger. he is getting along in years, you see, and wants to hide the fact." the last speaker sat opposite to me at the hotel table that day, and in discussing the leader of the morning service, repeated the phrase that had jarred upon my ear. "it is fatal to a clergyman's popularity and to a woman's hopes to be suspected of getting along in years." i told the story of my bearded youth and asked: "where then is the safe ground? when is it altogether reputable for one to declare his real age?" "oh, anywhere from thirty to forty-five! before and after that term life can hardly be said to be worth the living." i smiled, as the rattler meant i should. but the words have stayed by me, the more persistently that observation bears me out in the suspicion that the merry speaker only uttered the thought of many others. "the years of man's life are three-score-and-ten," says the word of him who made man and knew what was in man. the wearer of a body that, with tolerably good treatment ought to last for seventy years, must then, according to popular judgment, spend nearly half of that time in learning how to play his part in the world, barely a fifth in carrying out god's designs in and for him, and then remain for a quarter of a century a cumberer of the home and earth. such waste of strength, time and accumulated capital would be cried out upon as wretched mismanagement were the scheme of human devising. the french proverb that "a woman" (and presumably a man) "is just as old as she chooses to be," comes so much nearer what i believe was our creator's wise and merciful purpose in giving us life, that i turn thankfully and hopefully to this side of the subject. the best way to avoid growing old is not to be afraid of getting along in years. to come down to "hard pan"--whence originates this unwholesome dread of ripeness and maturity? it surely is not a fear of death that makes us blanch and shrink back at the oft-recurring mile-stones in the journey of life that brings all of us nearer the goal towards which we are bound. i once heard a young woman say, seriously: "i hope that when i am forty-five, i may quietly die. i do not dread death, but i do shudder at the idea of being laid on the shelf." i do not mean to be severe when i assert that, nine times out of ten, it is the victim's own fault that she is pushed out of the way, or, as our slangy youth of to-day put it, "is not in it." it is your business and mine to _be_ in it, heart, soul, and body, and to keep our places there by every effort in our power. a fear of that which is high, or mental or physical inertia, or, to be less euphemistic and more exact, laziness--should not deter us. this object is not to be accomplished by adopting juvenile dress and kittenish ways. we should beautify old age, not accentuate it by artificial means. when your roadster, advanced in years and woefully stiff in the joints, makes a lame attempt to imitate a gamboling colt, and feebly elevates his hind legs, and pretends to shy at a piece of paper in the road, you smile with contemptuous amusement and say: "the old fool is in his dotage!" but if he keeps on steadily to his work, doing the best he can, your comment is sure to be somewhat after this fashion: "this is truly a wonderful horse! he is just as good as on the day i bought him, fifteen years ago!" let us determine to face the situation, when it is necessary, calmly and sensibly. for, unlike the aforesaid horse, we do not expect to be knocked on the head with a club, or quietly chloroformed out of existence at a stated period. we would do well to follow our optimistic principles, and look at the many benefits which, in the words of the old catechism, "do accompany and flow from" this state. if you have lived well, fifty is better than thirty, as the sun-and-frost-kissed (not bitten) catawba grape is better than the tiny green sphere of june, and as maturity is nearer perfection than crude youth. the tedious routine of the life-school, the hours spent in acquiring knowledge for which you had no immediate use, are past. the wisdom that must come with time and experience is yours. another of the great advantages in being near the top of the mountain is that you can speak from superior knowledge words of comfort and encouragement to those beneath you, who are still toiling over the path you have trod. such help from you who have "been there," and have now successfully passed the most trying places, will do more to keep up others' hearts than many sermons preached by one who knows it all only in theory. since old age is inevitable, do not let us try to pretend that it is not, and let us never act as if there were any hope of shunning it. on the other hand, neither should we wish that it were possible for us to evade it. it is just as much of a god-ordained period as youth, and we ought to grow old in the manner in which god meant we should. he meant us to keep heart and soul young by constant occupation and by unselfish interest in the affairs of others. i know one woman, past the fifties, who is, the young people declare, "much more fun than any girl." their enjoyments are hers, and she laughs as heartily over their fun, sympathizes as sincerely in their disappointments, as if she were thirty years younger than she is. in fact, her sympathy is more genuine, for her age puts her completely beyond the faintest suspicion of rivalry, and it is easier to tell of one's defeats and triumphs when the listener is too far along in years to be jealous or envious. it should not be necessary for us to call courage into use to reconcile us to our lost youth. plain common sense is all that is requisite. we have gained much on life in the past century. as science has taught us how to ward off death, so has it instructed us in the art of preserving youth far beyond middle age. over my fireplace hangs a portrait of my grandmother, one of the loveliest women of her time. she died at the age of fifty, and in it she wears a mob-cap and an old woman's gown. for years before her death, she felt that she belonged to the past generation, did not join in the younger people's occupations, and claimed her place in the chimney-corner. in her day the "dead-line" in a man's life was drawn at fifty. now we know that to be out of all reason. if the years of a man's life are three-score-and-ten let us determine to move the dead-line on to seventy, and claim that we are not old until we have reached that point. and if, by reason of strength we can hold on to four-score, let us push it on the ten years farther, and, taking courage, thank god for this new lease of life. we do not belong to the past generation, but to the acting, working, living present. our juniors are the rising generation, and no one belongs to the past except those who have laid aside the burden of life--light to some, wearisome to others--forever. they are the only ones who have any excuse for stepping out of the ranks. they have done so by their captain's order. let us, who remain, stand bravely in our places, that we may be present or accounted for when the roll-call containing our names is read. chapter xxv. truth-telling. "conformity to fact or reality. exact accordance with that which is, has been, or shall be." i looked up webster's definition of truth yesterday, after overhearing a conversation between two girls in the horse-car. they spoke so loudly that not to hear would have been an impossibility. my attention was first attracted to them by the name of a friend. "did you know of mr. b.'s illness?" asked the younger and more pronounced colloquist. "yes," responded the other; "i know he has had pneumonia, but i understand that he is now convalescent." "oh, then, you haven't heard the latest!" the discovery of her companion's ignorance acted upon the girl like magic. she became vivacious, and beamed with the glow of satisfaction kindled by the privilege of being the first to relate a morsel of news. "well, my dear! mamma and i were calling there, and while i was talking to miss b., i heard mrs. b. tell my mother this awful thing. you know mr. b.'s sister is a trained nurse (i never did believe in trained nurses!) and when he was taken so ill they sent for her to come and take care of him. she got along tolerably well until a few days ago when the doctor prescribed quinine for mr. b. by mistake, she gave him ten grains of morphine." "what!" "yes, my dear, she did! it seems like an immense quantity, but, as i wanted to be accurate (i always say that accuracy is a christian duty), i asked miss b. how many grains her father took, and she said 'ten!' well! the poor victim slept thirty hours, and they were so frightened that they sent for the doctor. he said that, fortunately, no harm was done, but that it was an unpardonable piece of carelessness. they discharged the nurse forthwith. she ought to have been arrested and punished,--not turned loose upon a confiding community." "yet you say she is his own sister?" "yes, indeed! and the family have always been perfectly devoted to her! but they have sent her to the right-about now. it is too bad! a family row is such an unfortunate thing. they may be thankful not to have a murder-case to deal with!" strangely enough, i was _en route_ for the house of my friend, mrs. b., and as the car, at this juncture, crossed the street on which she lived, i motioned to the conductor to ring the bell, and alighted before hearing more of that remarkable tale. being acquainted with the whole matter as it actually occurred, i was amused and indignant, as well as curious, to learn how this girl had received the wretchedly garbled version of an affair, the facts of which were these: when mr. b. was suddenly prostrated by an alarming attack of pneumonia, his sister, a noble woman who had taken up as her life-work the duties of a trained nurse in a boston hospital, was telegraphed for. as she had a serious case in charge, it was impossible to obey the summons, and a new york nurse was engaged. mr. b.'s physician had, early in his illness, prepared some powders, each containing a minute portion of morphine, and several had been administered to the patient. of late, he had taken five grains of quinine each morning. a few days before the above mentioned harangue, the doctor ordered the nurse to double the usual dose of quinine. she, carelessly, or misunderstanding the directions, gave two of the morphine powders. the dose was not large enough to cause more serious injury than throwing the patient into a long and heavy sleep, and frightening his family. the doctor, who had engaged the nurse, discharged her, as mr. b. was so far improved as to need only such care as his wife and daughter could give him. my curiosity prompted me to inquire of mrs. b. and miss b., without divulging my motive, the particulars of the call they had received from the horse-car orator. i learned that mrs. b. had told the girl's mother the facts of the case while the two daughters were talking together. miss b. said that they, now and then, overheard a few words of the conversation between the older women, and that her companion had made several inquiries concerning it. among others was the query: "how many grains of the medicine does your father take every day?" miss b., supposing she referred to the quinine, answered: "five, generally; but on the day of which mamma speaks, ten grains were prescribed." and from this scanty amount of rapidly acquired information had grown the story to which i had been an amazed listener. "behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" yet this girl did not intend to lie. she gleaned scraps of a conversation, and allowed a vivid imagination to supply the portions she did not hear. add to this the love of producing a sensation, which is an inherent trait of many characters, and behold potent reasons for seven-tenths of the cases of exaggeration which come to our notice, romances constructed upon the "impressionist-picture" plan--a thing of splash and glare and abnormal perspective that vitiates the taste for symmetry and right coloring. we all like to be the first to tell a story, and are anxious to relate it so well that our listeners shall be entertained. that a tale loses nothing in the telling is an established fact, especially if the narrator thereof observes a lack of interest on the part of his listeners. then the temptation to arouse them to attention becomes almost irresistible and unconsciously one accepts the maxim at which we all sneer,--that it is folly to let the truth spoil a good story. every day we have occasion to hold our heads, reeling to aching with conflicting accounts of some one incident, and repeat the question asked almost nineteen hundred years ago: "what is truth?" we hear much of people who are "too frank." these destroyers of the peace of mind of friend and foe alike pride themselves on the fact that they are "nothing if not candid," and "always say just what they think." be it understood, this is not truthfulness. the utterance of unnecessary and unkind criticism, however honest, is impertinence, amounting to insolence. when your "frank friend(?)" tells you that your gown does not fit, that you dress your hair in such an unbecoming manner, that your management of your household is not what it should be, she takes an unwarrantable liberty. if traced back, the source of these remarks would be found in a large percentage of instances, in a disagreeable temper, captious humors, and a spirit that is anything but christian. one may be entirely truthful without bestowing gratuitous advice and admonition. people differ widely in their notions of veracity, and few would endorse the technical definition with which this talk begins. is it because there is so much intentional falsehood, so much that is not in "exact accordance with that which is, has been, or shall be," or that standards of veracity vary with individual disposition, and what may be classified as social climatic influences? is it true that in morals there is no stated, infallible and eternal gauge--"the measure of a man--that is, of an angel?" if a lie is something told "with the intention to deceive," as says the catechism, a nineteenth century diogenes would have need to search in a crowd with an electric light in quest of a perfectly truthful man. for our comfort and hope be it recorded that there are men and women who are uniformly veracious, and still courteous, who would not descend to falsehood or subterfuge, yet who are never guilty of the rudeness of making untactful speeches. were there more of such exceptions to the rule of inconsiderate, exaggerated and recklessly mendacious talk that wounds ear and heart, the "society lie" would be no more, and this flimsy excuse for falsehood would be voted an article too tenuous and threadbare for use. good people, so-called christians, seldom appreciate what immense responsibility is theirs in setting the example of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. said an amiable woman to me a few days ago: "mrs. smith, who is a strict sabbatarian, asked me yesterday if i had ever been to a sunday reception or tea. now, while i do not generally approve of them, i do, once in a great while, attend one. but, rather than shock her by acknowledging the offence i lied out of it. it is the only course left for the well-bred in such circumstances." an hour later i saw her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. the mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation for breeding to maintain. the love for drink is not more surely transmitted from father to son than is the habit of lying. once begun in a family, it rears itself, like a hooded snake, all along the line in generation after generation and appears to be an ineradicable evil. it spreads, too, as specks in a garnered fruit. we are startled by seeing it in children by the time they can lisp a lie, and we note in them, with a sickening at heart, the father's or grandfather's tendency to secretiveness or deceit, or the mother's _penchant_ for false excuses. we can scarcely bequeath a greater sorrow to our offspring than to curse them before their birth with this hereditary taint, which is, perhaps, one of the hardest of all evils to correct. it may take the form of exaggerated speech, of courteous or cowardly prevarication, or of downright falsehood, but, in whatever guise, it is a curse to the owner thereof as well as to his family. if you are so unfortunate as to have any symptom of it in your blood, watch your boy or girl from infancy, and try, by all the arts in your power, fighting against nature itself, even, to prevent what is bred in the bone from coming out in the flesh. we children of a larger growth can do much toward the correction of this blemish in others as in ourselves by close guard over our own speeches and assertions. there are no sharper, more intolerant critics than the little ones, and if they inherit the tendency to insincerity the only way in which you can avert the much-to-be dreaded sin is by being absolutely truthful yourself. cultivate veracity as a virtue, as a grace, as a vital necessity for the integrity of the soul. prune excrescences in the shape of loose statements; if you err in telling a wonderful story, let it be in cutting down rather than in magnifying. a couple of ciphers less are better than one too many. it is to be feared that for many of us this would be a hard, although a wholesome task. the trail of the serpent is over us all. we yield heedlessly to the temptation to break promises, and to the habit of giving false reasons to our children, little thinking that their grave, innocent eyes may read our souls more clearly than those of older persons who are not so easily deceived by our tongues. when your child, although a mere baby in years, once discovers in you exaggeration or untruthfulness, he remembers it always, and you, from that moment, lose one of the most precious joys and sacred opportunities of your life--that of inspiring his entire confidence and trust, and of leading the tiny feet in the seldom-trodden path of perfect truth. chapter xxvi. the gospel of conventionalities. young people are proverbially intolerant, so i listened patiently, a few days since, to the outburst of an impetuous girl-friend. "oh," she exclaimed, "we are all such shams!" "shams?" i repeated, interrogatively. "yes, just that, shams through and through! we, you and i are no exceptions to the universal rule of, to quote mark twain, 'pretending to be what we ain't.' we are polite and civil when we feel ugly and cross; while in company we assume a pleasant expression although inwardly we may be raging. all our appurtenances are make-believes. we wear our handsome clothes to church and concert, fancying that mankind may be deceived into the notion that we always look like that. food cooked in iron and tin vessels is served in french china and cut glass. when children sit down to table as ravenously hungry as small animals, their natural instincts are curbed, and they are compelled to eat slowly and 'properly.' you see it everywhere and in everything. the whole plan of modern society, with its manners and usages, is a system of shams!" in contradistinction to this unsparing denunciation, i place harriet beecher stowe's idea of this "system of shams." in "my wife and i" she says: "you see we don't propose to warm our house with a wood fire, but only to adorn it. it is an altar-fire that we will kindle every evening, just to light up our room, and show it to advantage. and that is what i call woman's genius. to make life beautiful; to keep down and out of sight the hard, dry, prosaic side--and keep up the poetry--that is my idea of our 'mission.' i think woman ought to be what hawthorne calls 'the artist of the beautiful.'" mrs. stowe is in the right. in this commonplace, fearfully real world, what would we do without the blessed gospel of conventionalities? in almost every family there is one member, frequently the father of the household, who, like my young friend, has no patience with "make-believes" and eyes all innovations with stern disapproval and distrust. it is pitiful to witness the harmless deceits practiced by mothers and daughters, the wiles many and varied, by which they strive to introduce some much-to-be-desired point of table etiquette to which "papa is opposed." sometimes his protest takes the form of a good-natured laugh and shrug accompanied by the time-battered observation that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." more frequently overtures of this kind are repulsed by the gruff excuse: "my father and mother never had any of these new-fangled notions and they got on all right. what was good enough for them is good enough for me!" and so paterfamilias continues to take his coffee with, instead of at the end of, his dinner, eats his vegetables out of little sauce plates with a spoon, insists that meat, potatoes and salad shall all be placed upon the table at once, and, if the father and mother than whom he does not care to rise higher were, in spite of their excellence, of the lower class, he carries his food to his mouth on the blade of his knife, and noisily sips tea from his saucer. evidently he does not believe in shams, those little conventionalities, nearly all of which have some excellent cause for existence, although we do not always pause to examine into their _raison d'etre_. they may be founded upon hygienic principles, or on the idea of the greatest good to the greatest number. many seemingly slight breaches of etiquette, if practiced by everyone, would create a state of affairs which even the most ardent hater of _les convenances_ would deplore. if, for instance, all men were so entirely a law unto themselves that they despised the rule which commands a man to resign his chair to a lady, what would become of us poor women? in crowded rooms we would have the pleasure of standing still or walking around the masculine members of the company, who would sit at ease. were the unmannerly habit of turning the leaves of a book with the moist thumb or finger indulged in by all readers, the probabilities are that numberless diseases would thus be transmitted from one person to another. it argues an enormous amount of self-conceit in man or woman when he or she calmly refuses to conform to rules of etiquette. in plain language, we are none of us in ourselves _pur et simple_ so agreeable as to be tolerable without the refinement and polish of manners upon which every "artist of the beautiful" should insist in her own house. too many mothers and housekeepers think that "anything will do for home people." it is our duty to keep ourselves and our children "up" in "the thing" in table and parlor manners, dress and the etiquette of visiting, letter-writing, etc. even among well-born people there are certain small tokens of good breeding which are too often neglected. one of these is what a college boy recently described in my hearing as the "bread-and-butter letter." at my inquiring look he explained that it was "the note of thanks a fellow writes to his hostess after having made a visit at her house--don't you know?" this note should be written as soon as possible after the guest returns to her home, even if she has been entertained for only a night. in it she informs her hostess of her safe arrival, and thanks her for her kind hospitality. a few lines are all that is necessary. it seems incredible that in decent society anyone should be so little acquainted with the requirements of the drawing-room as to enter a lady's parlor, and stop to speak to another person before first seeking his hostess and paying her his respects. and yet i have seen men come into a room and stop to chat first with one, then with another friend, before addressing the entertainer. if, while searching for the lady of the house in a parlor full of people, a man is addressed by some acquaintance, he should merely make an apology and pass on until he has found his hostess. after that he is free to talk with whom he pleases. it is to be hoped that when a man commits the rudeness of passing into a room before a lady instead of giving her the precedence, it is from forgetfulness. certainly i have frequently been the amazed witness of this proceeding. forgetfulness, too, may be the cause of a man's tilting back his chair until it sways backward and forward, meantime burying his hands in the depths of his trousers pockets. but such thoughtlessness is, in itself, discourtesy. no man or woman has a right to be absorbed in his or her affairs to the extent of forgetting what is due to other people. the tricks of manner and speech contracted by a boy or young man should be noticed and corrected by mother or sister before they become confirmed habits. such are touching a lady on arm or shoulder to attract her attention, inquiring "what say?" or "is that so?" to indicate surprise, glancing at the addresses on letters given him to mail, and consulting his watch in company. it would be difficult to find a better rule for courtesy with which to impress a boy or girl than the advice written by william wirt to his daughter: "the way to make yourself pleasing to others is to show that you care for them. the world is like the miller at mansfield 'who cared for nobody, no, not he, because nobody cared for him.' and the whole world will serve you so if you give it the same cause. let all, therefore, see that you do care for them, by showing what sterne so happily calls 'the small sweet, courtesies of life,' in which there is no parade, whose voice is to still, to ease; and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention, giving others the preference in every little enjoyment at the table, walking, sitting or standing." there is one gross breach of good breeding which can hardly be due to inattention. there is a homely proverb to the effect that one "should wash her dirty linen at home," and it is to the violation of this advice that i refer. discussing home matters, complaining of the actions of members of your family, or confiding their faults or shortcomings to an outsider, even though she be your dearest friend, is as great an act of discourtesy as it is contrary to all the instincts of family love and loyalty. your father may be a hypocrite, your mother a fool of the mrs. nickleby stamp, your brother a dissipated wretch, and your sister a professional shop-lifter, while your husband combines the worst characteristics of the entire family--but as long as you pretend to be on speaking terms with them, stand up for them against all the rest of the world; and if matters have come to such a pass that you have severed all connection with them, let a proper pride for yourself and consideration for the person to whom you are talking deter you from acknowledging their faults. these persons are members of your family--that should be enough to keep you forever silent as to their peccadilloes or sins. but, if you do not feel this, for politeness' sake refrain from making your listener supremely uncomfortable by your complaints. no true lady will so far forget her innate ladyhood as to be guilty of this rudeness. to fulfill what mrs. stowe calls our "mission," we women must insist on the observance of the conventionalities at home. husbands are sometimes, even when "taken young," too obstinate to change; although, to their credit be it said, if approached in the right way they will generally try to correct tricks of speech or manner. but with our children there should be no peradventure. upon us is laid the responsibility of making them what we choose, of developing them into gentlemen, or neglecting them until they become boors. it is never too early to begin. first impressions are lasting ones, and the child who, from the beginning, is trained to observe the "small, sweet courtesies," not only when in company, but in the nursery and with the members of his own family, will never forget them. we often observe "that man does as well as he can, but he is not the gentleman born." that should, of itself, be a lesson to us mothers, to teach our children, not only by precept but by example, to keep alive the "altar-fire" of conventionality, and thus to make life warm, beautiful, poetic. after all, may not what the impulsive girl whom i quoted at the beginning of this talk termed the "sham" of life, be the real, though hidden side? we read that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." chapter xxvii. familiar or intimate? "what makes the difference between those two carriages?" i asked a wagon builder, while examining two light vehicles of the same general build and design. one cost twice as much as the other, and looked as if it were worth four times as much. "some of it is in the material, but more in the finishing," was the response. "this is of pretty fair wood, but simply planed and painted, while this"--pointing to the more costly equipage--"is as hard as a rock, and has been rubbed smooth, then polished until the surface is as fine as silk. then it is flowed all over with the best varnish, left to dry ten days, and over-flowed again. that makes all the difference in the look of wagons. two of them may be built just alike, and one will look like a grocer's errand-cart, while the other is a regulation gentleman's turnout. it is all the effect of polish and finish." involuntarily my mind reverted to mr. turveydrop and his modest assurance that "we do our best to polish, polish, polish." the carriage builder struck the right chord when he affirmed that "finish made all the difference," and it applies as truly to flesh and blood as to insensate wood. only the wood has sometimes the advantage of taking more kindly to improvement than do human free agents. the rough places on which the effects of polish have not showed are too numerous for me to touch upon more than a few of them in this talk. we will acknowledge that the paint and varnish are not all that is necessary. the wood must be hard and prepared for the flowing process, if the wagon is to stand the scrutiny of critical eyes. too often the paint is laid on thickly--perhaps too thickly--over indifferent material, and the first shock or scratch makes it scale and flake off. as the test of the genuineness of the polish must be its durability, so intimacy is the standard by which we may judge of the finish of the so-called well-bred man or woman. if the refinement be ingrain, the familiarity which inevitably breeds contempt will never intrude itself. to come down to everyday particulars: one of the unwarrantable familiarities is to enter a friend's house without ringing her door-bell,--unless you have been especially requested to do so. no ground of intimacy on which you and your friend may stand justifies this liberty. the housekeepers are few and far between who, in their inmost souls, will not resent this invasion of their domain. it argues an enormous amount of self-conceit on your part when you fancy that you are considered so entirely one of the family that your unannounced presence will _never_ prove an unwelcome intrusion. in country places neighbors contract the habit of "running in" to see one another. were the truth known, many a housekeeper, deep in pie-making and bread-kneading, would gladly give her handsomest loaf for two minutes in which to smooth her rumpled hair and change her soiled apron. it is only in books that the heroine always looks so charming, no matter in what labor she may be engaged, that she would be glad to receive any acquaintance. of course our housewife's husband may see her when she is baking, and our domestic moralist would argue that what is good enough for him is good enough for callers. perhaps it does not occur to her that the husband has so often found his wife dressed "neatly and sweetly" that the cooking costume will not make upon him the disagreeable impression it might produce upon a caller who sees her hostess once in this guise where the husband has hundreds of opportunities of beholding her in company clothes. it may be remarked in this connection that the persons who are guilty of lapses like that of entering your front door unannounced are of the same class as those who enter your bed-chamber or sanctum without knocking. this is a rudeness which nothing warrants. there are times when we wish to be alone in our own rooms, and when we want to feel that we are safe from sudden interruption during the processes of bathing and dressing, even if the door of our apartment is not locked. one's own room should be so completely her own that her nearest and dearest will not feel at liberty to enter without permission. of course it is frequently the case that two persons, sisters, or husband and wife, or mother and daughter, occupy the same chamber. when this is the case, it is _theirs_ wholly and completely, and they are right to insist that other members of the household shall knock before entering. another evidence of lack of finish is offering gratuitous advice. if your opinion is asked, it is kind and right that you should give it; but a safe rule to go by is that unless your advice is requested it is not wanted. it is one of the strangest problems in human nature that one should of her own accord implicate herself in other people's affairs and take upon herself onerous responsibility by giving her unsolicited opinion in matters which do not concern her. it is a disagreeable task, and a very thankless one. viewed from this standpoint, i am hardly surprised at the price demanded by lawyers for their advice. perhaps the secret of their high fees may be that they decline to give a judgment unless asked for it. our "own familiar friends" might learn a lesson from them. it is a pity that any well-bred intimate should so far forget herself as to correct another person's child in the presence of the little one's father or mother. that this is frequently done will be certified to by hundreds of mothers who have been made irate by such untimely aids to their discipline. johnny's mother tells him to stop making that noise, and her visitor adds severely, "now, johnny, do not make that noise any more!" susie is saucy to her mamma, and her mamma's friend reprovingly remarks to the little girl that she is pained and surprised to hear her speak so naughtily to her dear mamma. children resent this, and are far more keen and observant of these matters than their elders think. little four-year-old and his mamma were spending the day at grandpapa's last week. the family was seated on the veranda when the small man announced his intention to his mamma of going out upon the grass to pick wild flowers. before the mother could reply, the grandfather stated his objection: "no, child, the grass is too wet. i am afraid you will get your feet damp." four-year-old was equal to the occasion, as young america generally is. "thank you, grandpa," was the calm response, "but my mamma is here. she can manage me." undoubtedly he was extremely impertinent; but did not the interference of the grandparent justify the rebuke? every one, even the lower classes, those who are considered under-bred, know that it is an atrocious impertinence to make inquiries of one's best friend as to the state of his finances. but like questions in the form of "feelers" are of such frequent occurrence that a reminder of this kind is scarcely out of place. there are few persons who deliberately ask you the amount of your income, but how often does one hear the queries: "how much did you pay for that horse of yours?" "was that gown very expensive?" "have you a mortgage on that place?" "how much is the mortgage?" "what rent do you pay?" "how much does your table cost you per week?" etc., etc., until the unfortunate being at whom this battery of inquiries is aimed feels tempted to forget _his_ "polish" and "finish," and retort as did the sobbing street boy when questioned by the elderly philanthropic woman as to the cause of his tears: "none of your blamed business." the etiquette of the table is supposed to be so thoroughly rooted and grounded into our children from infancy, and is, as a rule, so well understood by all ladies and gentlemen, that the visitor though a fool, could scarcely err therein. but this is not the case. at my own board, a man of the world, accustomed to excellent society, told me that he saw no mustard on the table, and as he always liked it with his meat he would trouble me to order some; while another man, a brilliant scholar, asked at a dinner party, "will you tell your butler to bring me a glass of milk?" with these men the sandpaper of parental admonition or the flowing varnish of early association had evidently been neglected. intimacy, and even tender friendship may, and do, exist between men and women who are bound to one another by no family tie. familiarity can never decently enter into such a relationship. if you, as a refined woman, have a man friend who slaps you on the back, squeezes your arm to attract your attention, holds your hand longer than friendship ought to dictate, and, without your permission, calls you in public or in private by your first name, you need not hesitate to drop him from your list of intimates. he is neither a gentleman nor does he respect you as you deserve. he may be, in his way, an estimable man, but it is not in _your_ way, and he belongs to the rank of very ordinary acquaintanceship. if a man asks you to call him by his first name, and your friendship with him justifies it, do not hesitate to do so; but if he is the "finished" article, he will not imagine that this concession on your part gives him the right to drop unbidden the "miss" or "mrs." from _your_ name. a true gentleman does not speak of a lady, even his betrothed, to strangers without what boys call "the handle" to her name. nor should a woman mention men by their last names only. when a young or elderly woman speaks of "smith," "brown" or "jones," you may make up your mind that the last coat of varnish was neglected when she was "finished." always be cautious in making advances toward familiarity. be certain that your friendship is desired before going more than halfway. not long ago i heard a woman say gravely of an uncongenial acquaintance whose friendship had been forced upon her: "she is certainly my _familiar_ friend. we can never be _intimate_." chapter xxviii. our stomachs. in the best grades of society it is not now considered a sign of refinement to be "delicate." when our grandmothers, and even our mothers, were girls, robust health was esteemed almost a vulgarity. now, the woman who is pale and "delicate" is not an interesting invalid, but sometimes an absolute bore. there are exceptions to this rule of pride in _in_delicate health,--notably among the lower classes. these people having neglected and set at defiance all hygienic rules, feel that a mark of special distinction is set upon them by their diseases. in fact, they "enjoy poor health," and take all occasions to discourse to the willing or disgusted listener upon their "symptoms," "disorders," their "nerves," and "complaints." the final word should be spelt with a huge c, so important a place does it occupy in their estimation. the three d's which should be rigidly excluded from polite conversation--domestics, dress and diseases--form the staple of their conversation. and the greatest of these is diseases. a farmer's daughter, whose rosy cheeks and plump figure elicited from me a gratulatory comment upon her robust appearance, indignantly informed me that she was "by no means strong, and had been doctorin' off and on for a year past for the malaria." "do you eat and sleep tolerably well?" "oh, yes," with the plaintive whine peculiar to the would-be invalid. "i sleep dreadful heavy. i take a nap each day for a couple of hours. and i must have a pound of beefsteak or mutton-chops for dinner. the fever makes me _that_ hungry! you see it devours all that i eat, and the strength of the food goes to that." had any one pointed out to the deluded girl the folly of her theory, and explained that the fever patient becomes almost crazed from the restlessness that will not allow him to sleep, and that he loathes the very thought of food with a disgust that makes the daintiest dishes prepared by loving hands as gritty cinders between his teeth, she would have smiled patronizing superiority, and explained at length that her complaint was a peculiar one,--no common, everyday illness. with this class, stomach disorders and their attendant sufferings, such as giddiness, shortness of breath and pain in the side, are always attributed to cardiac irregularity. there may be a lack of appetite and dull or acute pain following eating, and the fetid breath arising from a disordered condition of the stomach; but they resent the notion that their "heart disease" is dyspepsia, and would, in all probability, discharge the physician who recommended pepsin and judicious diet. perhaps the most discouraging feature of this class of persons is that they are ignorant and obstinate in this ignorance. the opinion of all the medical fraternity in the country would, in the farmer's daughter's estimation, be unworthy of consideration compared with the advice or suggestion advanced by one of her own kind. the practitioner among the unlearned has fearful odds to contend with in trying to bring an ignorant patient under his regimen. one word from sister, cousin or aunt, and the invalid will cast aside the physician's remedies, and take quarts of some patent medicine. if you should question your laundress or cook, or your farmer's wife, you would be appalled to discover what peculiar notions she has of her physical make-up. it would be interesting and astounding to allow one of these people to draw a chart of her interior machinery, as she supposes it to be. it would bear as little resemblance to the reality as did the charts of the ancients who antedated tycho brahe, pythagoras, and copernicus, to the celestial charts of the nineteenth century. one would note especially the prominence given to certain organs. the stomach is almost, if not entirely, ignored. it is a matter for speculation why this valuable factor of the human system should be regarded with some disfavor by the ignorant. they joyfully admit the existence of the heart, brain and kidneys, and even the liver, and discourse with zestful unction on their own peculiar and special diseases of these organs; but suggest not to them that the stomach is out of sorts. this is not, in their estimation, a romantic complaint. their specialty is nerves. to hear the frequency with which they attribute to these all uncomfortable sensations, one would imagine that the victims were made by a special pattern, like the tongue, of ends of nerves, all super-sensitive. the nerves are a mysterious portion of their being, to whose account everything is laid, from extreme irritability and vexation, to nausea and rheumatism. "my nerves are _that_ sensitive!" is a universal complaint. it is difficult for the average mind to grasp the reason why the stomach, man's best friend and worst enemy, should be made of no account, and repudiated with such indignant resentment. surely the giddiness occasioned by a tendency of blood to the head is no more romantic than the dizziness induced by gaseous fermentation of matter in the stomach. the digestive organs should and do receive vast consideration from the medical profession. how often do we hear it said of some man lying at the point of death that as long as his digestive functions are duly performed there is hope; and how often, after the crisis is past, do we learn from the jubilant doctor that the patient's stomach was his salvation! "if _that_ had failed, nothing could have saved him." let me recommend, as the pre-eminent duty of the sensible reader, care of the stomach and the alimentary apparatus. by care i do not mean dosing. with too many people the science of hygiene is confined in their imagination and practice to remedial measures. of the weightier matters of precaution they reck nothing. once in so often they "take a course of physic." this is done not so much because it is needed, as on principle, and because they have somewhere heard that it is a good thing to do. so, although all the digestive functions may be performing their part in a perfectly proper and regular manner, they must be weakened and irritated by draughts which do more harm than good. old proverbs are often the truest, and this may be affirmed of the adage that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." do not, if by care you can prevent it, allow your stomach to become disordered; but if, in spite of care, it is irritated, soothe instead of punishing it. manage it as you sometimes control a fretful child,--by letting it severely alone. a few hours' fasting is an excellent remedy, and may continue until a feeling of faintness warns you that nature needs your assistance. then eat _slowly_ a little light food, such as milk-toast or very hot beef-tea. quiet and diet work more wonders than quarts of medicine. if your digestive organs are susceptible to disorder, be reasonably careful about what you eat, even though you consider yourself quite well. what a stomach has once done in the line of misbehavior, a stomach may do again. if a pitcher has in it a tiny flaw, it may crack when filled with boiling liquid. if you know of some article of food which disagrees with you, _let it alone_. if you are inclined to dyspepsia, eschew hot breads, pastry, fried or greasy food, nuts and many sweets. avoid becoming dependent upon any medicine to ward off indigestion, if by care in your diet you can accomplish the same purpose. many dyspeptics take an inordinate amount of bicarbonate of soda, an excellent corrective to acidity of the stomach when partaken of occasionally, and in small portions. in some cases, large and frequent doses have produced a cancerous condition of the coating of the stomach, which has resulted in death. it sounds ridiculous to speak of dependence upon soda-mint and pepsin tablets degenerating into an incurable habit, but there are some people to whom they are as necessary after each meal as were snuff and quids of tobacco to the old people seventy years ago. nature has provided a wonderful system of drains for carrying away the effete matter of the body. the effect caused by the neglect of these is akin to that produced by the choking of the waste-pipes in a house. if they become stopped, you send in haste for a plumber, that he may correct the trouble before it causes illness. if this state of affairs is allowed to continue in the human body, the system takes up the poison which slowly but surely does its work. next to the special organs designed for this plan of sewerage, the skin takes the most active part in disposing of impurities in the blood. the tiny pores are so many little doors through which the mischief may pass harmlessly away. but these pores must be kept open, and the only way to accomplish this end is by the free use of soap and warm water. this is such a homely remedy that it is sometimes sneered at and often overlooked. certain portions of the body, such as the face and hands, are frequently washed, while other parts which are covered by the clothing are neglected. the entire body, especially in the creases where perspiration accumulates, should be sponged once a day, if one perspires freely. while sponging is excellent, a plunge bath should be frequently indulged in, as it opens the pores and thoroughly cleanses the entire surface. another desideratum is exercise, regular and abundant. housework and walking are all that a woman needs, although she may find great pleasure as well as benefit from horseback riding, rowing and tennis. but let her not allow herself to tax her strength to the point of over-weariness. the amount of sleep needed by a woman is a mooted point, but unless she is what slangy boys term "constitutionally tired," she should sleep enough at night to ensure her against drowsiness in the daytime. for the elderly and feeble, an occasional nap after the noonday meal, especially during the warm weather, will prove most refreshing. try to bear in mind that you are not the only one concerned in your health. higginson, in speaking of the duty of girls to observe all hygienic laws, tells us that, "unless our girls are healthy, the country is not safe. the fate of institutions may hang on the precise temperament which our next president shall have inherited from his mother." chapter xxix. cheerfulness as a christian duty. near me stands an anniversary present from a dear friend. it is a large "loving cup," and is just now full of my favorite nasturtiums--glowing as if they held in concentrated form all the sunshine which has brought them to their glory of orange, crimson, gold and scarlet. the ware of which the cup is made is a rich brownish-yellow in color, and between each of the three handles is a dainty design in white-and-cream, surrounded by an appropriate motto. the one turned toward me at present forms the text of my present talk and will, i hope, prove a happy hint to some of my readers: "be always as happy as ever you can, for no one delights in a sorrowful man." the rhyming couplet has set me to thinking, long and seriously, upon the duty of cheerfulness, a duty which we owe not only to our fellow-men, but to ourselves. it is such an uncomfortable thing to be miserable that i marvel that any sensible human being ever gives way to the inclination to look on the dark side of life. in writing this article, i wish to state in the beginning that the women to whom it is addressed are not those over whom bereavement has cast dark shadows. for genuine grief and affliction i have vast and unbounded sympathy. for imaginary woes i have none. there is a certain class of sentimentalists to whom it is positive joy to be made to weep, and the longer they can pump up the tears the more content they are. these are people who have never known a heart-sorrow. they revel in books that end in death, and they listen to the details of a dying-bed scene with ghoulish interest. had genuine bereavement ever been theirs, they would find only harrowing pain in such things. shallow brooks always gurgle most loudly in passing over the stones underlying them. the great and mighty river flows silently and calmly above the large boulders hidden far below the surface. the women of this sentimental class are those that read and write verses upon "tiny graves," "dainty coffins," and "baby shrouds." the other day a friend shuddered audibly over the poem, admired by many, entitled--"the little white hearse." "just listen," she exclaimed, "to this last verse! after describing the grief of the mother whose baby has just ridden to what she calls 'its long, lasting sleep,' she further harrows up the feelings by winding up with:-- "'i know not her name, but her sorrow i know-- while i paused on that crossing i lived it once more. and back to my heart surged that river of woe that but in the heart of a mother can flow-- for the little white hearse has been, too, at my door.' "how could she write it? how could she bring herself to put that down in black and white with the memory of the baby she has lost, in her mind?" "my dear," quietly answered a deep-natured, practical woman,--"either the author of that poem is incapable of such suffering as some mothers endure, or the little white hearse has never stopped at her door. if it had, she could not have written the poem." she who "talks out" her pain is not the one who is killed by it. a peculiarity of hopeless cases of cancer is that the sufferer therefrom has a dread of mentioning the horror that is eating away her life. since, then, imaginary woe is a species of self-indulgence, let us stamp that healthful person who gives way to it as either grossly selfish or foolishly affected. illness is the only excuse for such weakness, and even then will-power may do much toward chasing away the blue devils. some people find it harder than others to be uniformly cheerful. while one man is, as the saying is, "born happy," another inherits a tendency to look upon the sombre aspect of every matter presented to him. to the latter, the price of cheerfulness is eternal vigilance lest he lapse into morbidness. but after a while habit becomes second nature. i do not advocate the idea of taking life as a huge joke. the man or woman who does this, throws the care and responsibility that should be his or hers upon some other shoulders. my plea is for the brave and bright courage that makes labor light. when we work, let us work cheerfully; when we play, let us play with our whole hearts. in this simple rule lies the secret of the youth that endures long after the hair is white and the delectable mountains are in sight. there is no habit of more fungus-like growth than that of melancholy, yet many good people give way to it. some christians go through this life as if it were indeed a vale of tears, and they, having been put in it without their consent were determined to make the worst of a bad bargain, and to be as wretched as opportunity would allow. how much better to consider this very good world as a garden, whose beauty depends largely upon our individual exertions to make it fair. we may cultivate and enjoy the flowers, or let them become so overrun with underbrush that the blossoms are smothered and hidden under the dank growth of the evil-smelling and common weeds. said a clergyman to one of his depressed and downcast parishioners: "my friend, your religion does not seem to agree with you." only a few chapters back i quoted from the apostle of cheerfulness--dr. holmes--that most quotable of men. but he expresses what i would say so much more clearly than i can, that once more i refer my readers to him. i do not apologize for doing so. this last one of the noble company of america's great writers, who have passed away during the last ten years, cannot be read too much or loved too dearly. let us see, what he, as autocrat of the breakfast table, has to say on this subject. "oh, indeed, no! i am not ashamed to make you laugh occasionally. i think i could read you something which i have in my desk which would probably make you smile. perhaps i will read it one of these days if you are patient with me when i am sentimental and reflective; not just now. the ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long before aristophanes or shakespeare. how curious it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties, and then call blessed. there are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look forward by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all joyousness from their countenances. i meet one such in the street not infrequently--a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me (and all that he passes), such a rayless and chilling look of recognition--something as if he were one of heaven's assessors, come down to 'doom' every acquaintance he met--that, i have sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold dating from that instant. i don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off if he caught her playing with it. please tell me who taught her to play with it?" it is one of the unexplained mysteries of human nature that people receive their griefs as direct from the hand of god, but not their joys. why does not a kind father mean for us to profit by the one as much as by the other? and since into nearly every life falls more sunshine than shadow, why leave the sunny places and go out of our way to sit and mope in the darkest, dreariest shade we can find? i believe in the gospel of cheerfulness. it is your duty and mine to get every drop of cream off of our own especial pan of milk. and if we do have to drink skim milk, shall we throw away the cream on that account? if it were not to be used it would not be there. god does not make things to have them wasted. all of us have our worries--some small, some great--and the strength and depth of our characters are proved by the way in which we meet the trials. cheerfulness is god's own messenger to lighten our burdens and to make our times of joy even more bright and beautiful. have you noticed how, as soon as you can laugh over a vexation, the sting of it is gone? and the best of it all is that you cannot be happy yourself without casting a little light, even though it be but reflected sunshine, into some other life. william dunbar, in , said: "be merry, man, and take not sair to mind the wavering of this wretched world of sorrow: to god be humble, to thy friend be kind, and with thy neighbor gladly lend and borrow; his chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow! be blyth in heart for any aventure, how oft with wise men it has been said aforow, without gladness availes no treasure." chapter xxx. the family invalid. one of the most anomalous of the inconsistencies peculiar to human nature is that we who are flesh, and consequently liable to all the ills to which flesh is heir, should know so little about the manner in which to check or, at least, alleviate these miseries. in the average household the proper care of the sick is an unknown art, or one so little understood that illness would seem to be an impossible contingency. the chamber of illness is at best a sadly uncomfortable place, and it is the duty of the nurse, be she a hireling or the nearest and dearest of kin to the prostrate inhabitant thereof, to be cognizant of the methods of tending and easing the unfortunate being during the trying period of his enforced idleness. only those who have been confined to a sick couch can appreciate its many trying features. the looker-on sees a man or woman uncomfortable or in pain, lying in an easy bed, "the best place for sick folk," with nothing to trouble him beyond the bodily malease which holds him there. he is merely laid aside for repairs, and, if the observer be somewhat wearied and overworked, he is conscious of a pang of envy. but he does not think of the sleepless nights through which the monotonous ticking of the clock is varied only by the striking of the hours, each one of them seeming double its actual length; or of the aching head and limbs; the feverish restlessness which makes repose an impossibility; or--most trying of all--the dumb nausea and loathing of the food, which, as one poor woman complained of meals partaken in bed, "tastes of the mattress and covers!" the member of the family who is laid low by illness should receive the first consideration of the entire household. intelligent care and nursing will be of more benefit than medicines. an old poem, written over two hundred and fifty years ago, struck the right chord when it advised: "use three physicians: first, dr. quiet, then dr. merryman, and dr. diet." noise and disturbance of whatever description must be an unknown quantity in a sick room. there "dr. quiet" should hold undisputed and peaceful sway. felt or soft kid slippers, devoid of any offensive squeak, should be worn, and loud tones and exclamations prohibited. on the other hand, do not whisper to any person who chances to be in the room. whispering arouses the patient's curiosity and suspicions, and, if he be asleep, the sibilant sound will pierce his slumbers and awaken him. let all remarks be made in a low-pitched undertone. never, even at the risk of causing offence, allow discussion of any subject to occur in the presence of the invalid. you may imagine that he does not mind it, that his mind will be diverted; but the argument ended, there may be noticed a flush on the cheek and a rapidity of breathing that bodes ill. one admirable physician makes it a rule never to permit political or religious topics to be canvassed in the hearing of one of his "cases," as a wide experience has taught him that such matters cannot be talked of without causing some degree of excitement, and thus retarding the patient's progress on the road toward health. for the same reason, try, by every effort, to keep your charge from thinking of work which should be done, and of any possible inconvenience he may be causing. there never was, and never will be, a convenient time for a person to be ill, so, whenever it comes, resolve to make the best of it. there is no greater cruelty than that of allowing a sick person to imagine that, but for his ill-timed indisposition, you might be able to go here or there, or to do this or that. under such an idea the couch becomes a bed of clipped horse-hairs to the helpless sufferer, and he feels himself to be a useless hulk. this unkindness is oftentimes unintentional, and due more to thoughtlessness than to deliberate hard-heartedness. to avoid causing such discomfort do not look worried or distracted while ministering to your patient's wants, and do not fussily "fly around" in straightening and setting the room to rights. let everything be done decently and in order, rapidly and quietly. another desideratum of the chamber of illness is _cleanliness_ in the minutest particular. when the disease permits it, the sick person should be sponged all over daily, the teeth cleansed and the hair brushed. wash the face and hands often during the day, as this process rests and refreshes. the same gown should not be worn day and night, and the sheets must be changed frequently. if practicable, place a lounge at the side of the bed and lift or roll the patient off upon that, and turn mattresses and beat up pillows before re-making the bed. if this cannot be done with safety, the sheets may be removed, and others adjusted, simply by moving the invalid from one side to the other of the bed, rolling up the soiled sheet closely to the body, and spreading on the clean one in its place. then the patient may be moved back to his original place, and the fresh sheet spread on the other side of the couch. air the room often, covering the patient warmly for a moment while you let in a sluice of ozone. do not allow the chamber to become overheated, or to grow so cold as to chill the hands and face. the sick person may wear over the shoulders a flannel "nightingale" or jacket, to leave the arms at liberty. in preparing the tray of food, let everything be as dainty as possible. use for this purpose your choicest china and whitest linen. one important rule with regard to food is, give a very little at a time, and avoid vulgar abundance. the sight of the loaded plate will discourage a weak appetite, and the delicate stomach will revolt at the suggestion of accepting such a mass. a small bird, a neatly trimmed french chop, a bit of tenderloin steak, or tender broiled chicken, will be eaten, when, if two chops or half a steak were offered, not a mouthful would be swallowed. to the well and strong this may seem like folly, but let us, in our strength, pity and humor the weaknesses of those upon whom god has laid suffering. it takes all the ingenuity and tact which love can muster to make a sick-room tolerable, and food anything but distasteful. a poor consumptive girl had fancied that she could eat a few raw oysters, and the physician cheerfully prescribed them. at his next visit he was met by the mother, who informed him with dismay that her daughter would not touch the delicacy--"her stomach turned against it the instant the dish was brought in." "how many did you let her see?" he asked. "two dozen!" "which would have daunted a well man, madam!" said the wise man. "give her _one_ at a time--cold and crisp, upon your best china plate, and tell her that is all she can have for at least an hour. make her think that her appetite is under restraint. this is in itself a stimulant." the hint is valuable. in administering medicine, be careful to follow the physician's directions as to quantity and time of taking. do not prepare the dose in the presence of the patient, as it may make him exceedingly nervous to watch the dropping or pouring of the drug; and after it has been swallowed, put bottle and spoon out of sight. in too many families there exists sinful ignorance as to what should be done in case of illness before the doctor arrives. if a child comes in from play, hoarse and feverish, with nausea and pain in the head, he is often allowed to sit or lie about the house until the disagreeable symptoms become so pronounced as to cause alarm, and the physician is summoned. the sufferer should have his feet soaked in hot water, be put to bed, and some anti-febrine like aconite administered until a slight perspiration is induced. aconite is such deadly poison that the mother must be sure she knows just in what quantity to give it. the dose for a child from three to six years of age is half a drop in a teaspoonful of water, every hour until the feverishness disappears. unless serious illness is beginning, the chances are that, under this treatment, the little one will be almost well by the next day. mothers would do well to make a study of children's ailments and their proper treatment. above all, the matter of diet should be comprehended. it is appalling to see the conglomeration of indigestible substances which a sick person is allowed to eat. all children should be trained to take medicine, and to submit to any prescribed dietary without resistance. to keep up your patient's courage be, or at all events seem, cheerful. wise old solomon, in his day, knew that a merry heart did good like a medicine, and the morsel of wisdom is no less true now than then. such being the case, bring into the presence of the sufferer a bright face and undisturbed demeanor. much may be said on the other side of the question, _i.e._, from the nurse's standpoint. there are patients _and_ patients, and some of them are _im_patients. it is a pity for a sick person to allow himself to so far lose control over his temper and manners as to be disagreeable when all that tender care and nursing can do is his. but really ill people are seldom cross, and the tried nurse may take to heart the comforting thought that one rarely hears of a man dying in a bad humor. it is undoubtedly discouraging to have a patient turn away from a carefully prepared dainty with a shudder of disgust and revulsion. it may sound harsh to say it, but nobody, sick or well, has the right to do such an unkind and rude thing. any one in extreme bodily discomfort cannot be always smiling and uttering thanks, but he can be gentle and appreciative of the efforts that are made toward mitigating his distress. on his own account, as well as for the sake of his attendant, he should keep up a semblance of cheerfulness, the moral force of which is great. on the part of patient and nurse there must be self control and forbearance, which if closely practiced may bring sunshine into the most darkly shaded chamber of suffering. chapter xxxi. a temperance talk. (_frank and personal._) a correspondent sends me, under cover of a personal letter, this request: "will marion harland show her hand upon the temperance question? the occasional mention of wine, brandy, etc., in her cookery-books, and her silence upon a subject of such vital moment to humanity, may predispose many to doubt her soundness as to the apostle's injunction to be 'temperate in all things.'" to clear decks for action, i observe that the text quoted by my catechist contains no "injunction" but an impersonal statement of the truth that "every man that striveth for the mastery" (or in the games) "is temperate in all things." the apostle is likening the running and wrestling of the olympic games to the christian warfare, and throws in the pregnant reminder that he who is training for race or fight must, as he says elsewhere, "keep his body under." the same rules hold good with the athlete of to-day. while training, he neither drinks strong liquors nor smokes. the stringency of the regulation, i interject in passing, is a powerful argument laid ready to the hand of the advocates of total abstinence. a habit that so far injures the physical powers as to tell upon the action of heart, brains, lungs or muscles, must be an evil to any human being, however healthy. the chief apostle, in another place, admonishes his neophytes to let their "moderation" be known of all men. the revised version translates the word "forbearance" or "gentleness." we will try to keep both texts in mind during the informal homily that is the outcome of the question put to my surprised self. "surprised," because in the course of thirty-odd years of literary life i have had so many opportunities of "showing my hand" upon this and other great moral issues, and have improved them so diligently that my readers should by now be tolerably familiar with the platform on which i stand. not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, i am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor. if she means that i have kept aught back which that part of the reading public that does me the honor to be interested in my work has a right to know, i hope in the course of this paper to disabuse her mind of the impression. as a means to this end, i wish to put upon record disapproval that amounts to detestation of the practice of drinking anything that, in the words of the old temperance pledge i "took" when a child, "will make drunk come." that was the way it ran. the rev. thomas p. hunt, one of the best known temperance lecturers in america, used to make us stand up in a body and chant it, he keeping time with head and hand, and the boys imitating him. "we do not think we'll ever drink brandy or rum, or anything that makes drunk come" i have never changed my mind on that head. what i thought then, i _know_ now, that for half a century i have seen what desolation drunkenness has wrought in our land. i never see a boy toss off his "cocktail," or "cobbler", or "sling," or by whatever other name the devil's brew is disguised, with the mannish, knowing air that proves him to be as weak as water, when he would have you think him strong as--fusel oil!--that i do not recall the vehement outburst in mrs. mulock-craik's "a life for a life," of the old clergyman whose only son had filled a drunkard's grave: "if i had a son, and he liked wine, as a child does, perhaps--a pretty little boy, sitting at table and drinking healths at birthdays; or a schoolboy, proud to do what he sees his father doing--i would take his glass from him, and fill it with poison--deadly poison--that he might kill himself at once, rather than grow up to be his friends' curse and his own damnation--a _drunkard_!" i lack words in which to express my contempt for the petty ambition, rooted and grounded in vanity, that urges a young fellow to prove the steadiness of his brain by tippling what he does not want, or even like. for not one in fifty of those who take "nips" and "coolers," cared for the taste of the perilous stuff at the first or twentieth trial. he proved himself a man, one of the stronger parts of creation, by pouring liquid fire down his quailing throat until he could do so without winking. he swears and smokes cigarettes at street corners for the same reason. "i _love_ a dog!" exclaimed a lively young girl, patting a big st. bernard. "would i were a dog!" sighed an amorous dude. "oh, you'll grow!" retorted the fair one, consolingly. i feel like plagiarizing the saucy hit, in witnessing the desperate efforts aforementioned on the part of our mistaken boy. sometimes (let us thank a merciful heaven that this is so!) he does grow out of the folly, and into manly self-contempt at the recollection of it. often--ah!--the pity and the shame of it! if somebody were to make it fashionable to take belladonna, aconite or prussic acid in "safe" doses, three, or six, or a dozen times a day in defiance of all the medical science in the world, the would-be man would never be content until he had overcome natural repugnance to the "bitters," and rate himself as so much higher in the scale of being by the length of time his constitution could hold out against the deadly effect of the potation--plume himself upon his superiority to men who killed themselves by taking a like quantity. to drink one glass of wine or spirits a day is to venture upon thin ice; when the one glass has become the three that our boy _must_ have, it is but a question of time how soon the treacherous crust will give way. clearly, then--so clearly that it is difficult to see how anybody, however blinded by self-conceit, can fail to perceive it--the only safe thing is to let liquor as a beverage alone. the practice is, at the best, like kindling the kitchen fire every morning with kerosene. insurance agents are slow to take risks upon property where this is the rule. nobody is so besotted as to ask, "does dram-drinking pay?" there is not a sane man or woman in america who would hesitate in the reply, and the answers would all be the same. if he is a fool who tempts the approach of appetite that may--that does in seventy-five times out of one hundred--become deadly and incurable disease, what shall we say of the "strong head" that espies no sin in social convivialities with the weak brother? let me tell one or two stories of the score that rush upon my memory with the approach to this part of my subject. forty years ago i sat down to the dinner-table of a man who stood high in the community and church. he was a liberal liver, as his father had been before him. that father had taken his toddy tri-daily for seventy years, and died in the odor of sanctity. they could do such things in that day, and never transcend the three-glass limit. my godly grandfather did the same, and was never one whit the worse for liquor in his life. _their sons and grandsons cannot do it without ruining themselves, body and soul._ i italicize the sentence. i wish i could write it in letters of fire over the door of every liquor saloon. it may be the climate; it may be the high-pressure, fever-heated rate of modern living; it may as well be that those honest men who made their own apple whiskey and peach brandy, by their daily dram-drinking transmitted the taste which adulterated liquors, in the generation following, were to lash into uncontrollable appetite. but to my story. my father, one of the first in his day to set the example of total abstinence "for his brethren and companions' sake," had spoke repeatedly in my presence of the harm done by social drinking, and what influence women could exert for or against the custom. so i declined wine upon general principles when it was offered by the courtly host. no verbal comment was made upon my singular conduct, but the pert fifteen-year-old son of the house took occasion to drink my health with a dumb grimace, and beckoned the butler audaciously to fill up his glass, and a distinguished clergyman, whose parishioner the host was, looked polite astonishment across the table at the girl who dared. he took his wine gracefully--pointedly, it seemed to me--an example imitated by his curate, a much younger man. when we returned to the drawing-room, the master of the house sought me out, and began to rally me upon the attentions of a young man in the company to myself, in such a fashion that my cheeks flushed hotly with indignant astonishment. lifting my eyes to his, i saw that he was _drunk_! the horror and dismay of the discovery were inconceivable. the rest of the interview, which was ended by his wife's appearance upon the scene to coax him off to his room, left an indelible impression upon my mind. the spartans had a way of "drenching" a helot with liquor, then parading him in his drunken antics before the boys of the town to disgust them with dram-drinking. my object-lesson was the more striking because i had honored the inebriate. the eloquent rector read the burial service over him ten years ago. for over twenty years he had been a hopeless sot, beggared in fortune, wrecked in reputation--a by-word and a hissing in a town where he had once stood among the best and purest. he outlived his son, who drank himself to death before he was thirty. another and later experience was in a fine old farm-house in the middle states. there had been a birthday celebration, and neighbors and friends gathered about a board laden with country dainties, and congratulated the worthy couple who presided over the feast upon the four stalwart sons who, with their wives and children, were settled upon and about an estate that had been for six generations in the family. hale, merry fellows they were--a little more red of face and loud of talk than was quite seemly in a stranger's eyes, but industrious and "forehanded," and kind of heart to parents, wives and babies. after dinner we sat under the cherry trees upon the lawn, and one of the sons brought out a round table, another a tray of glasses, another a monster bowl of milk punch. everybody pledged the patriarch's health in the creamy potation except myself. again, i acted upon general principles. were i a wine-bibber i should never touch glasses with a young man, or offer him anything "that could make drunk come." disliking spirituous draughts of all kinds, and with the object-lesson of my girlhood branded upon memory, i refused to taste the brimming glass, even when the pastor of the household, a genial "dominie," rallied me upon my abstinence. he offered gallantly, when he found me obdurate, to drink my share, and had his glass replenished by the reddest-faced and loudest-mouthed of the farmer-sons. "_you're_ the right sort, dominie!" he said, with a roar of laughter, filling the tumbler until it ran over and into the pastor's cuffs. whereat the farmer laughed yet more uproariously. one of the four young men died a while ago of delirium tremens, and not one of the other three has drawn a sober breath in years. the parents are dead, the old farm is sold, and the brothers are all poor. rum has done it all. i do not imply that either of these scenes had any marked influence upon the destiny of the slaves of appetite, except as they were encouraged to pursue a course tacitly approved by the wise and good. but i am thankful that i did not lend the weight of a straw to the downward slide. "woe unto him that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips!" says the book of books. there might be subjoined, "or helps to hold it there when the neighbor's own hand has lifted it!" had i my way, not one drop of intoxicating liquors should be sold, except by druggists, and then only by a physician's prescription. for--and here comes the answer to the second part of my querist's appeal--i hold that pure brandy, wine and whiskey are of inestimable value as medicine. i know that the judicious use of them as restoratives has saved many lives. i know, too, how nearly worthless they are where the system of the patient is used to them as daily or frequent beverages. i hold, furthermore, that there is no sin or even danger--unless the taste be already enkindled--in the occasional use of them in the kitchen, as one would handle vanilla, lemon or bitter-almond flavoring extracts. i do not believe that a single drunkard was ever made by the tablespoonful of wine that goes into a half pint of pudding-sauce, or the wineglassful that "brightens" a quart of jelly. every house-mother knows for whom she is catering. if one of her family or guests already loves and craves the stimulant, it is prudent to omit it. the same man would be tempted by the wine of the consecrated cup. when the disease of inebriety has gone thus far she cannot save him, but she can look to it that her hand does not give the final touch, which is death. i have written frankly, and i think temperately. i am not a "crank" upon this--i hope not upon any subject. i am a temperance woman who does not scruple to avow what is her practice, as well as her belief. that thousands of better people than i will think my creed goes too far, and as many that it stops short of temporal and spiritual safety, ought not to trouble me. upon the individual conscience lies the responsibility of principle and action. yet holding as i do that each of us is his brother's keeper, i lift my hand in protest against the crying sin of the age, and the mistaken toleration of good people with that which leads to it. chapter xxxii. family music. our grandfathers and our grandmothers were drilled in vocal music in the church or neighboring singing-school. in that day--and for twenty-five years later--almost every household possessed and made frequent use of the boston academy, the carmina sacra, the shawm and other collections of vocal music adapted for the use of societies and churches. nearly everybody sang by note, and she was dull of ear or wits who could not bear her part at sight in any simple church tune. the pianoforte took the place of our grandmother's spinet and harpsichord, and every girl in every family was taught to play upon it after a fashion. she who had not taste or talent for music gave it up after her marriage. in this particular she was no more derelict than the "performer" of our times, whose florid flourish of classic music costs thousands where her grandmother's strumming cost hundreds. the musical education of the girl of that period hardly deserved the name. the national ear for music, like the national eye for painting and sculpture, has made marvelous progress in fifty years. the singing school has gone to the wall along with the volunteer choir and the notion that every boy and girl can and ought to sing. once in several whiles you find a "music-mad family," of which every member plays upon some instrument and studies music with expensive professors. or one child displays what relatives rate as musical genius, and is educated to the full extent of the parent's ability. this done, the proficient becomes, in his or her own opinion, a privileged prodigy. critical from the outset of his musical career, he grows intolerant of amateur work and disdainful of such compositions as the (musically) unlearned delight to honor. "don't you suppose," said the late mrs. barrow (the dearly-beloved "aunt fanny" of a host of little ones) to me at an evening _musicale_, "that seven out of ten professed disciples of the wagner cult here present would, if they dared be unfashionable and honest, ask for music that has a tune in it rather than that movement in something flat or sharp to which they have seemed to give breathless attention for the last fifteen minutes?" "a tune in it!" repeated a bystander in intense amusement. "dear mrs. barrow, tunes are musical tricks, not true art." this dogma, and others like unto it, are putting all our music-making into the hands of professional artists and hushing the voice of song and gladness in our homes. the one musician of the household is accredited with perfect taste and unerring judgment, and usually becomes a nuisance to his circle of acquaintances. he shudders at a false note; the woman who sings sharp is an agony, the man who flats is an anguish, and the mistakes of both are resented as personal affronts. i know one girl (i wish i could stop at the singular number) who cannot enjoy going to her own church because the choir does not come up to her standard of perfection. she never sings in church herself. to mingle her voice with the tide of thanksgiving and praise would be like the crystal flash of the arrowy rhone into the muddy arve. she sets her teeth while ignorant and unfeeling neighbors join in the service of song, and confides on her way out of church to anybody who will listen to her that she really thinks it a misfortune to have as fine and true an ear as her own so long as people who do not know the first principle of music _will_ persist in trying to sing. she has many companions in the persuasion that this part of the worship of the sanctuary should be left altogether to a trained and well-salaried choir. in the family honored by her residence there is no home music except of her making. there are, moreover, so many contingencies that may deprive her expected audience of the rich privilege of hearkening to the high emprise of her fingers and voice, that the chances are oftentimes perilously in favor of her dying with all her music in her. shall i ever forget, or rally from, the compassionate patronage with which she, a week agone, met my petition for "when sparrows build and the leaves break forth?" "i never sing ballad music," she said, loftily. "indeed i could not do myself justice in anything this evening. i make it a matter of conscience not to attempt a note unless i am in perfect tune throughout--mentally, spiritually and physically. i should consider it an offence against the noblest of arts were i to sing just because somebody wishes to hear me." this is not entirely affectation. the tendency of her art-education has been to make her disdainfully hypercritical. it has not awakened the spirit of the true artist, who is quick to detect whatever promises excellence and encourages the tyro to make the best of his little talent. with all our newly-born enthusiasm for german composers, we have not taken lessons from the german people in this matter of home music. we do not even ask ourselves what has made them a musical nation. at the risk of writing myself down a hopeless old fogy, i venture the opinion that we were more nearly upon this track when the much-ridiculed singing-school was in full swing and every child was taught the intervals and variations of the gamut, and ballads were popular and part-songs by amateurs a favorite entertainment for evenings at home, than we are in this year of our lord. the pews in that age united with a volunteer choir in singing with the spirit and with the understanding. the few may not have played their part as well as now, but the many did their part better. in the family, jane may have surpassed her sisters in musical talent and proficiency, but one and all knew something of that in which she excelled, enjoying her music the more for that degree of knowledge. this brings forward another argument for the musical education of the masses, large and small. it would make general and genuine appreciation of good music, and put an end to the specious pretences of which we spoke just now. the german artisan's ear and voice are cultivated from childhood; his love of music is intelligent, his enjoyment of it hearty, yet discriminating. our babies hear few cradle songs under the new _régime_, except such as are crooned, more or less tunelessly, by foreign nurses. girls no longer sing old ballads in the twilight to weary fathers and allure restless brothers to pass the evening at home in innocent participation in an impromptu concert, the boys bearing their part with voice and banjo or flute. we did not make perfect music when these domestic entertainments were in vogue, but we helped make happy homes and clean lives. we used to sing--all of us together--upon the country porch on summer nights, not disdaining "nelly was a lady" and the "old kentucky home," and sea songs and love songs and battle songs that had thundering choruses in which bassos told mightily. moore was in high repute, and dempster and bailey were in vogue. the words we sang were real poetry, and so distinctly enunciated as to leave no doubt in the listener's mind as to the language in which they were written. we had not learned that tunes were musical tricks. better still were the sunday evenings about the piano, everybody lending a helping (never hindering) voice, from grandpapa's cracked pipe down to the baby's tiny treble. every morning the lord of the home heard "our voices ascending high" from the family altar, and in the nursery feverish or wakefully-fretful children were lulled to health-giving slumber by the mother's hymns. these are some of the bits of home and church life we would do well to bring forward and add to the more intricate sum of to-day's living. granted, if you will, that we have outgrown what were to us the seemly garments of that past. before relegating them to the attic or ragpicker, would it not be prudent and pleasant to preserve the laces with which they were trimmed? chapter xxxiii. family religion. we are living in an age of surprising inventions and marvelous machinery. as a natural sequence, ours is an age of delegation. the habit of doing nothing by hand that can be as well done by a machine begets the desire to seek out new and presumably better methods of performing every duty appointed to each of us. fine penmanship is no longer a necessity for the clerk or business man; skill with her needle is not demanded of the wife and mother. our kitchens bristle with labor-saving implements warranted to reduce the scullion's and cook's work to a minimum of toil. an important problem of the day, involving grave results, is founded upon the fact that, with the countless multiplicity of teachers' helps and scholars' friends, international lesson papers, sunday-school weeklies and quarterlies and the banded leagues of associated youth whose watchword is "christ and the church," the children and young people of to-day are, as a rule, less familiar with the text of holy writ, with bible history and the cardinal doctrines which the protestant church holds are founded upon god's revealed word than were the children and youth of fifty years ago. let me say here that i am personally responsible for this statement and what is to follow it. having been a bible-class teacher and an active worker in religious and charitable societies for forty years, and numbering as i do between twenty-five and thirty clergymen among my near kinsmen, i do not speak idly or ignorantly upon this subject. my appeal for corroboration of my testimony is to my contemporaries and co-workers. the superficiality and glitter that are the bane of modern methods of education in our country have not spared sanctuary ordinances and family religion. "the church which is in thy house" is an empty form of speech when applied to a majority of so-called christian homes. early trains and late dinners, succeeded by evening engagements, have crowded out family prayers, and the pious custom, honored in all ages, of "grace before meat," is in many houses disregarded, except when a clergyman is at the table. then the deferential bend of the host's head in the direction of the reverend guest is rather a tribute to the cloth than an acknowledgment of the divine giver to whom thanks are due. in the olden days it was the pupil who studied the sunday-school lessons as needfully as he conned the tasks to be prepared for monday's schoolroom. the portion of the old union question book appointed for next sunday was gone over under the mother's eye, the references were looked up, the bible dictionary and concordance consulted. then a psalm or part of a chapter in the new testament was committed to memory, and four or five questions in the catechism were added to the sum of knowledge to be inspected by the sunday-school teacher and "audited" by the superintendent. in writing the foregoing paragraph a scene arises before me of my father's fine gray head and serious face as he sat at the head of the room, bible and reference books upon the stand before him; of the dusky faces of the servants in the background, intent upon the reading and exposition of the word as they came from the lips of the master of the household, who for the hour was also the priest. i hear much, nowadays, of the "hard lines" that fell to the children of that generation, in that they were drilled after the manner i have described, and compelled to attend church twice or three times on sunday. i affirm fearlessly that we did not know how badly off we were, and that the aforesaid "lines" seemed to our unsophisticated imaginations to be cast to us in pleasant places. the hour devoted each sunday evening to the study of next sunday's lesson was full of interest, the prayer that preceded it and the two or three hymns with which the simple service closed, gave it a solemnity that was delight, not boredom. "primitive methods" we call those studies now, and contemn, gravely or jeeringly, the obsolete practice of "going through" the bible yearly by reading a given number of chapters every day. we assume that those were mechanical contrivances which, at the best, filled the mind with an undigested mass of biblical matter and made sacred things trite. they who censure or sneer take no exception to the story that demosthenes translated the works of thucydides eight times, and also committed them to memory, that his style might be informed with the spirit and tone of his favorite exemplar. we cannot do away with the pregnant truth that the bible-reading child of so steeped imagination and memory in the holy word that the wash of years and the acids of doubt have never robbed him of it. the psalms and gospels then learned stay by us yet, responsive to the prick of temptation, the stroke of sorrow, the sunlight of joy. when strongly moved we unconsciously fall into scriptural phraseology. god's promises then learned are our song in the house of our pilgrimage. we do not confound patriarchs with prophets, or passages from the epistles with the psalms of david. i am continually confronted by illustrations of the truth that the "contract system" prevails in religious teaching as extensively as in the manufacture of garments and food and furniture, and that the results in all cases are the same. machine work cannot compare in neatness and durability with hand-made goods. the complaint, "i cannot get my bible class to study the lessons," is almost universal. i have known large classes of adults to be made up with the express proviso that none of the members should be expected to prepare the lesson. their appearance in the classroom at the stated hour fulfills their part of the compact. in thus presenting themselves they "press the button." the teacher does the rest. the mother, taking her afternoon siesta, or reading her sunday novel at home, rarely knows the subject of the bible lesson, much less what the teacher's treatment of it is. i do not mention the pastor purposely. except when he sees them in the sunday-school, the faces of the children belonging (by courtesy) to his cure of souls are seldom beheld by him. the sunday-school originally intended for the neglected children of the illiterate poor, has come to be the chief instrumentality upon which well-to-do church members depend for the spiritual upbuilding of those who are to form the church of the future. if one is tempted to challenge the assertion, let him compare the number of children (not infants) enrolled in our sunday-schools with those who habitually attend upon divine service. the absence of the sunny, restless polls from the rows of worshipers in the pews, the troops of boys and girls who wend their way homeward at the conclusion of the sunday-school exercises are accounted for by so-called humane apologists by the plea that two services in one day are burdensome to the little folk. and mothers "enjoy the service far more when they are not disturbed by fidgety or drowsy children." "then, too, much of the sermon is unintelligible to them. why torture them by a mere form?" an old-fashioned clergyman--a visitor to a city church which i chanced to attend last winter--prefaced his sermon, "as was his custom at home," he said, by "a five-minute talk to the lambs of the fold." in the congregation of at least souls there were exactly three "lambs" under fifteen years of age. it was impossible for the most reverent of his hearers to help thinking of the solitary parishioner who composed his pastor's congregation upon a stormy day, and objected to the sermon dutifully delivered by the minister "as good, but too personal." it is as impossible for the thoughtful student of the signs of the times to avoid the conclusion that the growing disposition of the young to deny the authority of the church and to supersede her stated ordinances by organizations established and run by themselves may be the legitimate fruit of the prominence given by their parents to what should be the nursery of the church over the church itself. it would be strange if, after witnessing for fourteen or fifteen years such open and systematic disrespect of the gates of zion, they were to develop veneration for her worship and devout appreciation of the mystic truth that this is the place where god's honor dwells. if--and the "if" is broad and deep and long--the little ones are faithfully trained by the parents in the nurture and admonition of the lord (dear, quaint old phraseology, fine, subtle and pervasive as lavender scent!), if sacred songs and bible stories and tender talk of the saviour's love and the beautiful life of which this may be made a type and a foretaste, keep in the minds of the little ones at home the sanctity and sweetness of the day of days, there is a shadow of excuse for the failure to make room for them in the family pew. even then the tree will grow as the twig is inclined. the mother whose knee is the baby's first altar, who gathers about her for confession, for counsel and for prayer sons and daughters who will, in older and sterner years, call her blessed for the holy teachings of their childhood, will teach them to find, with her, the tabernacles of the lord of hosts "amiable," _i.e._, worthy of all love and fidelity. the chrism of motherhood consecrates a woman as a priestess. neither convenience nor custom can release her from the office. let not another take her crown. chapter xxxiv. a parting word for boy. upon the satin seat of a chair in the corner of the drawing-room, lie six white lima beans, and three small red-spotted apples. wild fruit they are, cast by a superannuated crab, spared by the woodman's axe because it stands on the verge of the orchard. the apple-pickers never look under it for gleanings. the beans were pulled from a frost-bitten vine in the garden, and shelled with difficulty, the pods being tough, and boy's fingers tender. both trophies secured, they were brought into the house, deposited in the safest place boy's ingenuity could devise, and, alas! forgotten in the hurry of catching the "twain." there was no room for them in boy's long-suffering pockets. they bulged to the bursting point with chestnuts, also the spoil of the grasping little fingers. boy is city-born and city-bred, and a day in the country is better than a thousand in street and park. a day in the woods, when chestnuts and walnuts hustle down with every breath of air, and the hollows are knee-deep with painted leaves, has joys the eager tongue trips over itself in the endeavor to recount. boy and boy's mother took the six o'clock train to town last night. this morning, throwing open the parlor blinds, i espy the six flat, white beans and the three red-speckled crab-apples. they were so much to the owner; except for the value imparted by association with the dancing blue eyes and the tight clutch of fingers that had green stains on them when the wrestle with the pods was over, they are so much more than worthless to everybody else--that there is infinite pathos in the litter. it is picturesque and poetic. there will be no poetry, picturesqueness or pathos in the litter when boy is older by a year or two. his leavings in outlandish places will become "trash," and still later on "rubbish" and "hateful." at twelve years of age he will be a "hulking boy," and convicted of bringing more dirt into the house upon one pair of soles than three pairs of hands can clean up. eyes that fill now in surveying the tokens of his recent occupations and his lordly disregard of conventionalities, will flash petulantly upon books left, face downward, over night, on the piazza floor; muddy shoes kicked into the corner of the hall; the half-whittled cane and open knife on the sofa, and coats and caps everywhere except upon the hooks intended for them. i once heard a grown-up beauty declare in the presence and hearing of a half-grown brother, that, "every boy should be put under a barrel at fourteen, and kept there until he was twenty, out of the sight of his kindred and acquaintances." "up to twenty-one he is an unmitigable nuisance!" concluded the belle, with the vanity of one who has put the case smartly. the lad listened to the tirade without the twitch of a muscle--stolidity that proved him to be well used to such flaying. three out of four boys in that family "turned out badly," and were cried down by a scandalized community for disgracing a decent and godly ancestry. hearing this, i recollected the beauty and the barrel, and speculated sadly whether or not this were the key to the enigma. it generally happens that the grown-up sister has less patience with the growing brother than any other member of the household. from principle and from inclination, and, i am inclined to add, from nature, she "sits upon" boy habitually. ungrateful lady mary wortley montagu called her quondam lover, alexander pope-- "a sign-post likeness of the human race: that is, at once resemblance and disgrace." in her visions of the coming man, the sister resents the truth that boy belongs to the same species and sex, or persists in judging him by this standard. in the "freshness" of his age and kind, he is skeptical as to her good looks and other fascinations, and takes wicked satisfaction in giving her to understand that he, at least, "is not fooled by her tricks and manners." if her "nagging" is a thorn under his jacket, his cool disdain is a grain of sand inside of her slipper. what looks like natural antipathy between big sisters and little brothers is but one of several reasons why home is so often less like home to the boys than to the rest of the family. i have in my mind's eye a distinct picture of the quarters allotted to a promising college-lad in the mansion of a wealthy father, and which i saw by accident. each of the three accomplished sisters had her own bed-chamber, fitted up according to her taste. a spacious sitting-room on the second floor, with windows on the sunny front and at the side, was common to the trio. there were flowers, workstands, desks, easels, bookshelves, lounging and sewing chairs, pictures selected by each; _portiéres_ in the doorways and costly rugs upon the polished floor. up two flights of stairs, _on the same floor with the servants_, the brother was domiciled in a low-browed, sunless back-room, overlooking kitchen-yards and roofs. a dingy ingrain carpet was worn thin in numerous places; no two pieces of furniture were even remotely related to one another in style or age. the wall-paper hung here and there in strips; the windows were dim with dirt; dust lay thickly in every corner; a counterpane of dubious complexion had a dark, wide-spreading stain in the centre. it is true, i admit, that the place reeked with stale cigar smoke, and that the infirm table propped for security against the wall, groaned under a collection of juvenile "properties," the heterogeneity of which, defies my pen and memory. but, bestow a wild boy in such lodgings as he might find in a low tavern, and he will treat them accordingly. he is more observant than his mother imagines, and more sensitive than his sisters would believe. too proud to betray the sense of humiliation engendered by appointments unsuited to his station and education, he proceeds to be "comfortable" and "jolly" in his own way. to return to our own boy--who, my heart misgives me, lifted up his voice and wept sore last night upon discovering that the hard-won beans and scarlet-speckled apples were left behind--his loving mother has hung his nursery walls with good engravings and artistically-colored pictures, in the conviction that a child's taste for art is formed early and for long. heaven grant that she may keep true to this principle in all matters pertaining to his upbringing, and in judicious dependence upon the influence of external impressions upon the immature mind of her offspring! is our bigger boy, then, so rooted and grounded in right tastes and right feeling as to be proof against the atmosphere of the worst-located and worst-furnished room covered by his father's roof? how far will the mother's assertion that he is the apple of her eye and dearest earthly possession go, when balanced against the object-lesson of quarters which are the household hospital of incurables, in the line of beds, tables, stools and candlesticks? if his sister's room is adorned with exquisite etchings and choice paintings, while his is the refuge for chromos that have had their day--will he not draw his own inferences? if his mother never climbs to the sky-parlor to see that the careless housemaid does her duty in sweeping, dusting and picking-up, does not he divine why his chamber is systematically neglected? many a shrewd fellow has marked the progress of an ageing or shabby article of furniture, from the guest-chamber, through the family rooms upward, until it settles for life, or good behavior, in his apartment, and felt a dull pang at heart that he would not confess. many another fellow, as shrewd and more reckless, has flung out passionately at what he construed into an insult, and made it the ostensible excuse for resorting to places where the motto that "anything will do for the boys," is unknown in practice. an english woman once commented to me upon the difference between our manner of lodging and treating our sons and that which obtains in her native land. "we behave to our boys as if they were princes of the blood," she said, in her soft, sweet voice. "american girls are young princesses at home and in society, and grace the position rarely well. but--excuse me for speaking frankly--their brothers are sometimes lodged like grooms." she was so far from wrong that i could not be displeased at the blunt criticism. the just mean between the stations thus specified is equality, and the firm maintenance of the same by the parents. manners and environment are apt to harmonize. to teach a boy not to be slovenly and destructive in his own domain, give him a domain in which he can feel the pride of proprietorship. he would like to invite his comrades into his "den," as his sisters entertain intimate friends in their boudoir. he may not put into words the reasons why, instead of saying openly--"come in and up!" to his evening visitor, he whispers at the outer door, "let us go out!" which too often means, also, "down." perhaps he is so imbued with the popular ideas respecting the furnishment of his lodging-place as hardly to interpret to himself his unwillingness to let outsiders see how well his "den" deserves the name. nevertheless, fond mother, give him the trial of something better. send the "incurables" to the auction room, and fit him out anew with what should be the visible expression of your love and your desire for his welfare. why expect him to take these on trust any more than you expect the daughters to do this? yet their apartments are poems of good-will and maternal devotion. in all sincerity, let me notify you that the son will not keep his premises in such seemly array as the girls keep theirs. it is not in the genuine boy. i question if a three-year-and-a-half-old granddaughter would have chosen as a safe place of deposit for the white beans and red-freckled apples the handsomest chair i have. you will find your laddie's soiled collars in his waste-paper basket; his slippers will depend from the corner of the picture you had framed for him on his last birthday; his dress-suit will be crumpled upon his wardrobe shelf, and his _chiffonier_ be heaped with a conglomeration of foils, neckties, dead _boutonnières_, visiting-cards, base-balls, odd gloves, notebook, handkerchiefs, railway guides, emptied envelopes, caramel papers, button hooks, fugitive verses, blacking brushes, inkstand, hair brushes--the mother who reads this can complete the inventory, if she has abundant patience, and time is no object with her. nevertheless, i repeat it--let him have his "den," and one in which he can find more comfort and enjoyment than in any other haunt. we mistake--the most affectionate of us--in attributing to our sons' sensibilities the robustness or wiry insensitiveness that belongs to their physical conformation. timely gifts are not thrown away upon them; each tasteful contribution to their well-being and happiness is a seed set in good soil. a dear friend, in whose judgment i have put much faith, put it well when she gave her reason for rectifying only the glaring disorders of her boy's apartments while he was out of them, and letting the rest go. "they must be clean and bright," she remarked, with tender forbearance. "but i never meddle with his books and papers, or do anything that will, in his opinion, mar the individuality of his quarters. he likes to feel that they have the impress of himself, you see. rigid surveillance, or the appearance of it, would irk him. for a long time it annoyed me that he preferred his imprint to mine. a pile of pamphlets on the carpet within easy reach of his chair was a grievance; his boxing gloves were an eyesore when left upon his table, and he _might_ find some other place for his dumb-bells than the exact middle of the room. then, by degrees, i thought my way to the stable verity whereupon i now rest, that _the boy is worth more than the room_." chapter xxxv. homely, but important. the french woman dresses herself with a view to pleasing the cultivated eye. she consults her complexion, height, figure and carriage, in color, make and trimming. her apparel partakes of her individuality. the american woman wears her clothes, as clothing, and has them made up of certain materials and in various ways, because dressmakers and fashion-plates prescribe what are this season's "styles." dissimilarities as marked prevail in the cookery of the two nations. daintiness and flavor take the rank of other considerations with the french cook; with the american,--_fillingness_! i can use no substitute for the word that will convey the right idea. the human machine (of american manufacture) must be greased regularly and plied with fuel or it will not go. and "go" is the genius of american institutions. cookery with us is means to an end; therefore, as much a matter of economy of time and toil as building a road. almost every cottage has specimens of fine art on the walls in the shape of pictures "done" by jane or eliza, or embroidery upon lambrequin, _portière_, or tidy. it occurs to jane and eliza as seldom as to their fore-mothers, that cooking is an art in itself, that may be "fine" to exquisiteness. in their eyes, it is an ugly necessity, to be got over as expeditiously as "the men-folks" will allow, their coarser natures demanding more and richer filling than women's. it follows that dishes which require premeditation and deft manipulation are unpopular. the scorn with which our middle class woman regards soups, jellies, salads and _entrées_ is based upon prejudice that has become national. recipes marked--"time from three to four hours," are a feature of english cook-books. we american writers of household manuals are too conversant with jane's and eliza's principles to imperil their sale by what will be considered danger-signals. this same desire to dispatch a disagreeable task increases in said manuals the number of "quick biscuit," "minute muffins" and "hasty pudding" recipes. represent to the notable housewife who is scrupulous in saving minutes, candle-ends and soap grease, that a few pounds of cracked bones, a carrot, a turnip, an onion and a bunch of sweet herbs, covered deep with cold water, and set at one side of the range on washing-day, to simmer into soup stock, wastes neither time nor fuel and will be the base of more than one or two nourishing dinners; prove, by mathematical demonstration, that a mold of delicious blanc-mange or spanish cream or simpler junket costs less and can be made in one-tenth of the time required for the leathery-skinned, sour or faint-hearted pie, without which "father'n the boys wouldn't relish their dinner;" that an egg and lettuce salad, with mayonnaise dressing, is so much more toothsome and digestible than chipped beef as a "tea relish," as to repay her for the few additional minutes spent in preparing it--and her skeptical stare means disdain of your interference, and complacent determination to follow her own way. she has heard that "country people in furren parts a'most live upon slops and grass and eggs and frogs, and supposes that's the reason frenchmen are so small and dark-complected." she thanks goodness she was born in america, "where there's plenty to eat and to spare," she adds, piously, as she puts the chunk of salt pork on to boil with the white beans, or the brisket of salt beef over the fire with the cabbage, before mixing a batch of molasses-cake with buttermilk and plenty of soda. the corner-stone of her culinary operations might have been cut from the pillar into which another conservative woman with a will of her own, was changed. it is solid salt. salt pork, salt beef, salt fish, relieve one another in an endless chain upon her board. she averts scurvy by means of cabbage and potatoes. i know well-to-do farmers' wives who do not cook what they call "butcher's meat," three times a month, or poultry above twice a year. dried and salt meat and fish replenish what an irish cook once described to me as "the _meat corner_ of the stomach." "half-a-dozen eggs wouldn't half fill it, mem;" she protested, in defence of the quantity of steak and roast devoured daily below-stairs. our native housewife does not make the effort to crowd this cavity with the product of her poultry yard. eggs of all ages are marketable and her pride in the limited number she uses in filling up her household is comic, yet pathetic. cream is the chrysalis of butter at thirty cents a pound; to work so much as a tablespoonful into dishes for daily consumption would be akin to the sinful enormity of lighting a fire with dollar bills. she sends her freshly-churned, golden rolls to "the store" in exchange for groceries, including _cooking butter_ to be used in the manufacture of cake and pastry. these she _must_ have. appetites depraved by fats--liquid, solid and fried--crave the assuasives of sweets and acids. "hunky" bread-puddings and eggless, faintly-sweetened rice puddings, and pies of various kinds, represent dessert. huge pickles, still smacking of the brine that "firmed" them, are offered in lieu of fresher acids. yet she sneers at salads, and would not touch sorrel soup to save a frenchman's soul. for beverages she stews into rank herbiness cheap tea by the quart, and rio coffee, weak and turbid, with plenty of sugar in both. occasionally the coffee is cleared (!) with a bit of salt fish skin. i was told by one who always saved the outside skin of codfish, after soaking it for fish balls, for clearing her coffee, that, "it gives a kind of _bright_ taste to it; takes off the flatness-like, don't you know?" we raise more vegetables and in greater variety than any other people; have better and cheaper fruits than can be procured in any other market upon the globe; our waters teem with fish (unsalted) that may be had for the catching. yet our national _cuisine_--take it from east to west and from north to south--is the narrowest as to range, the worst as to preparation, and the least wholesome of any country that claims an enlightened civilization. properly fried food once in a while is not to be condemned, as the grease does not have a chance to "soak in." but when crullers or potatoes or fritters are dropped into warm (not hot) lard, and allowed to remain there until they are oily and soggy to the core, we may with accuracy count on at least fifteen minutes of heartburn to each half-inch of the fried abominations. perhaps there is nothing in which we slight the demands of nature more than in _what and how we eat_. chewing stimulates the salivary glands to give out secretions to aid in disposing of what we eat. we swallow half-chewed food, thus throwing undue labor on the stomach. it is impossible for the work of disgestion to be carried on in the stomach at a temperature of less than one hundred degrees. yet, just as that unfortunate organ begins its work we pour into it half-pints of iced water. we add acid to acid by inordinate quantities of sugar, and court dyspepsia by masses of grease. if we thus openly defy all her laws, can we wonder if the kind but just mother calls us to account for it? chapter xxxvi. four-feet-upon-a-fender. it is the sisterly heart rather than the author's fancy that gives me as a companion in this, the last of these "familiar talks," the typical american house-mother. whatever the alleged subject discussed in former chapters--and each has borne more or less directly upon the leading theme, old yet never trite,--the secret of a happy home,--i have had in heart and imagination this thin, nervous, intense creature whom i seat beside me. her own hands have made her neat; the same hands and far more care than ever goes to the care of herself make and keep her home neat and comfortable. the dying queen of england gasped that after her death there would be found stamped upon her heart the name of the calais lost to her kingdom in her reign. our housewife carries her household forever bound upon her heart of hearts. the word is the hall mark upon every endeavor and achievement. it would be a poor recompense for a life of patient toil to convince her that she has wrought needlessly; that the same energy devoted to other objects would have made a nobler woman of her and the world better and happier. nor am i sure that in a majority of instances this would be true. on the contrary, i hold religiously to the belief that god had wise reasons for setting each one of us in the socket in which she finds herself. "be more careful," says an old writer, "to please him perfectly than to serve him much." if there are tasks which you, my sister, cannot demit without inconveniencing those whose welfare is your especial care, take this as a sure proof that the father, in laying this work nearest to your hand--and not to that of another--has called you to it as distinctly as he called paul to preach and peter to glorify his lord by the death he was to die. in the talk we hold with our four feet upon the fender, the fire-glow making other light unnecessary, i do not propose to enter upon the favorite theme with some, of what you might have done had circumstances been propitious to the assumption of what are rated as more dignified duties. we will take your life as it is, and see what the practice of the inward grace i shall designate can make of it. you are inclined to be down-hearted upon anniversaries. you need not tell me what i know so well of myself. another year has gone, another year has dawned, and you are in the same old rut of ordering and cooking meals and clearing up after they have been eaten, sweeping, dusting, making and mending clothes, washing, dressing and training children, and the thousand and one nameless tasks that fritter away strength, leaving nothing to show for the waste. "god help us on the common days, the level stretches white with dust!" prays margaret sangster. you would cry out in the pain of retrospection and anticipation, that all the days of the years of your life are common days--"only that and nothing more." if this be so, you need the help none ever seek in vain more than those to whom varied and exciting scenes are alloted. the angel of death who had said upon entering the plague-stricken city that he meant to kill ten thousand people, was accused on the way out of having slain forty thousand. "i kept my word," he answered. "i killed but ten thousand. fear killed the rest!" if work slays thousands of american women, american worry slays her tens of thousands. work may bend the back and stiffen the joints. it ploughs no furrows in brow and cheek; it does not hollow the eyes and drag all the facial muscles downward. these are misdeeds of worry--your familiar demon, and the curse of our sex everywhere. a good man--who, by the way, had a pale, harassed-looking wife--once told me that on each birthday and new year's he retired to his study and spent some time behind the locked door in making good resolutions for the coming year. "i may not keep them all," he said, ingenuously, "but the exercise of forming them is edifying." with the thought of his wan and worried wife in mind, i shocked him by declining for my part to undertake such a big contract as resolutions for a year, a month or a week. if i live to a good old age, i shall owe the blessing in a great measure to the discovery, years ago, that i am hired not by the job, but by the day. if you, dear friend, will receive this truth into a good and honest heart, and believing, abide in and live by it, you will find it the very elixir of life to your spirit. come down from the pillar of observation. you might enact simeon stylites there for twenty years to come and be none the wiser or happier for the outlook. refuse obstinately to take the big contract. let each morning and evening be a new and complete day. in childlike simplicity live as if you were to have no to-morrow so far as worrying as to its possible outcome goes. make the best of to-day's _in_come. not one minute of to-morrow belongs to you. it is all god's. thank him that his hands hold it, and not your feeble, uncertain fingers. longfellow wrote nothing more elevating and helpful than his sonnet to "to-morrow, the mysterious guest," who whispers to the boding human soul: "'remember barmecide, and tremble to be happy with the rest.' and i make answer, 'i am satisfied. i know not, ask not, what is best; god hath already said what shall betide.'" the new version of the new testament, among other richly suggestive readings, tells us that martha was "_distracted_ with much serving," and that we are not to be "anxious for the morrow; for the morrow will be anxious for itself." that is, it will bring its own proper load of labor and of care, from which you have no right to borrow for to-day's uses; which you cannot diminish by the same process. george macdonald puts this great principle aptly: "you have a disagreeable duty to do at twelve o'clock. do not blacken nine, and ten and eleven with the color of twelve. do the work of each and reap your reward in peace." one woman makes it her boast that she never sets bread for the morning that she does not lie awake half the night wondering how it will "turn out." she is so besotted in her ignorance as to think that the useless folly proves her to be a person of exquisite sensibility, whereas it testifies to lack of self-control, common sense and economical instincts. it was old john newton who likened the appointed tasks and trials of men to so many logs of wood, each lettered with the name of the day of the week, and no single one of them too heavy to be borne by a mortal of ordinary strength. if we will persist; he went on to say, in adding tuesday's stick to monday's, and wednesday's and thursday's and friday's to that marked for tuesday, "it is small wonder that we sink beneath the burden." our heavenly father would have us carry one stick at a time, and for this task has regulated our systems--mental, moral and spiritual. we, like the presumptuous bunglers that we are, bind the sticks into faggots, and then whine because our strength gives out. the lesson of unlearning what we have practiced so long is not easy, but it may be acquired. in your character as day laborer, sift carefully each morning what belongs to to-day from that which may come to-morrow. be rigid with yourself in this adjustment. if you find the weight beginning to tell upon bodily or mental muscles, ask your reason, as well as your conscience, whether or not the strain may not be from to-morrow's log. for example: you have a servant who suits you, and whom you had hoped you suited. she is quiet to-day, with a pre-occupied look in her eye that may mean change. as a housekeeper you will sustain me in the assertion that the portent suffices to send the thermometer of your spirits down to "twenty above," if not "ten below." instead of brooding over the train of discomforts that would attend upon the threatened exodus, bethink yourself that since norah cannot go without a week's warning you have nothing to-day to do with possibilities of a morrow that is seven times removed, _and put the thing out of your mind_. in the italicized passage lies the secret of a tranquil soul. learn by degrees to acquire power over your own imagination. by-and-by you will be surprised to find that you have formed a habit of reining it when it would presage disaster. it is not getting ready for house-cleaning to-day that terrifies you so much as the fancy that with the morrow will begin the actual scrubbing and window-washing. you do not mind ripping up an old gown while john reads to you under the evening lamp, but you are positively cross in the reflection that you must sew all of to-morrow with the seamstress who is to put the gown together again. i may have told elsewhere the anecdote of the pious negro who was asked what he would do if the lord were to order him to jump through a stone wall. "i'd gird up my lines (loins) an' go at it!" said sam, stoutly. "goin' _at_ it is my business; puttin' me _troo_ is de lord's!" the story is good enough to be repeated and called to mind many times during the day, which is absolutely all of life with which we have to do. try the principle--and the practice--recommended in this simple heart-to-heart talk, dear sister. the habit of living by the day, rooted in faith in him who guarantees grace for that time, and pledges no more, is better than the philosopher's stone. the peace it brings is deep-seated and abides, for it is founded upon a sure mercy and a certain promise. farewell! making the house a home by edgar a. guest _here's our story, page by page, happy youth and middle-age, smile and tear-drop, weal and woe such as all who live must know-- here it is all written down, not for glory or renown, but the hope when we are gone those who bravely follow on meeting care and pain and grief will not falter in belief._ making the house a home we have been building a home for the last fifteen years, but it begins to look now as though it will not be finished for many years to come. this is not because the contractors are slow, or the materials scarce, or because we keep changing our minds. rather it is because it takes years to build a home, whereas a house can be builded in a few months. mother and i started this home-building job on june th, . i was twenty-five years of age; and she--well, it is sufficient for the purposes of this record to say that she was a few years younger. i was just closing my career as police reporter for the detroit "free press," when we were married. up to a few months before our wedding, my hours had been from three o'clock, in the afternoon, until three o'clock in the morning, every day of the week except friday. those are not fit hours for a married man--especially a young married man. so it was fortunate for me that my managing editor thought i might have possibilities as a special writer, and relieved me from night duty. it was then we began to plan the home we should build. it was to be a hall of contentment and the abiding place of joy and beauty. and it was all going to be done on the splendid salary of twenty-eight dollars a week. that sum doesn't sound like much now, but to us, in january, , it was independence. the foundation of our first home was something less than five hundred dollars, out of which was also to come the extravagance of a two-weeks' honeymoon trip. fortunately for all of us, life does not break its sad news in advance. dreams are free, and in their flights of fancy young folks may be as extravagant as they wish. there may be breakers ahead, and trials, days of discouragement and despair, but life tells us nothing of them to spoil our dreaming. we knew the sort of home we wanted, but we were willing to begin humbly. this was not because we were averse to starting at the top. both mother and i had then, and have now, a fondness for the best things of life. we should have liked a grand piano, and a self-making ice box, and a servant, and an automobile right off! but less than five hundred dollars capital and twenty-eight dollars a week salary do not provide those things. what we _could_ have would be a comfortable flat, and some nice furniture. we'd pay cash for all we could, and buy the remainder of the necessary things on time. we had found a wonderful, brand-new flat which we could rent for twenty-five dollars a month. it had hardwood floors, steam heat, two big bedrooms, a fine living room with a gas grate, a hot-water heater for the bath, and everything modern and convenient. to-day the landlord would ask ninety dollars a month for that place and tell you he was losing money at that. with the rent paid, we should have eighty-seven dollars a month left to live on. the grocery bill, at that time, would not run more than twenty dollars a month; telephone, gas, and electric light would not exceed ten dollars a month; the milkman and the paper boy would take but little, and in winter time a ton of coal per month would be sufficient. oh, we should have plenty of money, and could easily afford to pledge twenty dollars a month to pay for necessary furniture. it will be noticed that into our dreaming came no physician, no dentist, no expenses bobbing up from unexpected sources. not a single bill collector called at the front door of our dream castle to ask for money which we did not have. if older and wiser heads suggested the possibility of danger, we produced our plans on paper, and asked them from whence could trouble come? to-day we understand the depth of the kindly smile which our protests always evoked. they were letting the dreamers dream. at last the furniture was bought on the installment plan and the new flat was being put in order. it called for a few more pieces of furniture than we had figured on, and the debt, in consequence, was greater; but that meant merely a few months more to make payments. it was fine furniture, too! of course it has long since ceased to serve us; but never in this world shall that dining set be duplicated! for perfection of finish and loveliness of design, that first oak dining table will linger in our memories for life. the one we now have cost more than all the money we spent for all the furniture with which we began housekeeping; and yet, figuring according to the joy it has brought to us, it is poor in comparison. and so it was, too, with the mahogany settee, upholstered in green plush, and the beveled glass dresser, and the living-room chairs. we used to make evening trips over to that flat merely for the joy of admiring these things--our things; the first we had ever possessed. then came the night of june th. we had both looked forward to that wonderful honeymoon trip up the lakes to mackinac island, and tomorrow we were to start. but right then i am sure that both mother and i wished we might call it off. it seemed so foolish to go away from such a beautiful flat and such lovely furniture. the honeymoon trip lasted two weeks; and one day, at mackinac island, i found mother in tears. "what the matter?" i asked. "i want to go home!" she said. "i know i am silly and foolish, but i want to get back to our own house and our own furniture, and arrange our wedding presents, and hang the curtains, and put that set of haviland china in the cabinet!" so back we came to begin our home-building in earnest. the rent and the furniture installments came due regularly, just as we had expected. so did the gas and electric light and telephone bills. but, somehow or other, our dream figures and the actual realities did not balance. there never was a month when there was as much left of our eighty-seven dollars as we had figured there should have been. for one thing, i was taken ill. that brought the doctor into the house; and since then we have always had him to reckon with and to settle with. then there was an insurance policy to keep up. in our dream days, the possibility of my dying sometime had never entered our heads; but now it was an awful reality. and that quarterly premium developed a distressing habit of falling due at the most inopportune times. just when we thought we should have at least twenty dollars for ourselves, in would come the little yellow slip informing us that the thirty days' grace expired on the fifth. but the home-of-our-own was still in our dreams. we were happy, but we were going to be still happier. if ever we could get rid of those furniture installments we could start saving for the kind of home we wanted. then, one evening, mother whispered the happiest message a wife ever tells a husband. we were no longer to live merely for ourselves; there was to be another soon, who should bind us closer together and fill our lives with gladness. but--and many a night we sat for hours and planned and talked and wondered--_how_ were we to meet the expense? there was nothing in the savings bank, and much was needed there. mother had cherished for years her ideas for her baby's outfit. they would cost money; and i would be no miserly father, either! my child should have the best of everything, somehow. it was up to me to get it, somehow, to.... if only that furniture were paid for! then a curious event occurred. i owed little bills amounting to about twenty-one dollars. this sum included the gas, electric light, and telephone bills, on which an added sum was charged if unpaid before the tenth of the month. i had no money to meet them. i was worried and discouraged. to borrow that sum would have been easy, but to pay it back would have been difficult. that very morning, into the office came the press agent of a local theatre, accompanied by mr. henry dixey, the well-known actor. mr. dixey wanted two lyrics for songs. he had the ideas which he wished expressed in rhyme, and wondered whether or not i would attempt them. i promised him that i would, and on the spot he handed me twenty-five dollars in cash to bind the bargain. if those songs proved successful i should have more. the way out had been provided! from mr. dixey's point of view, those songs were not a success; but from mine they were, for they bridged me over a chasm i had thought i could not leap. i never heard from that pair of songs afterward; but neither mother nor i will ever forget the day they were written. it meant more than the mere paying of bills, too. it taught us to have faith--faith in ourselves and faith in the future. there is always a way out of the difficulties. even though we cannot see or guess what that way is to be, it will be provided. since then we have gone together through many dark days and cruel hurts and bitter disappointments, but always to come out stronger for the test. the next few months were devoted to preparations for the baby, and our financial reckonings had to be readjusted. i had to find ways of making a little more money. i was not after much money, but i must have more. all i had to sell was what i could write. where was a quick market for a poor newspaper man's wares? my experience with mr. dixey turned me to the vaudeville stage. i could write playlets, i thought. so while mother was busy sewing at nights i devoted myself to writing. and at last the first sketch was finished. at the temple theatre that week was the popular character actor, william h. thompson. to him i showed the manuscript of the sketch, which was called "the matchmaker." mr. thompson took it on tuesday; and on friday he sent word that he wished to see me. into his dressing-room i went, almost afraid to face him. "it's a bully little sketch," said he, as i sat on his trunk, "and i'd like to buy it from you. i can't pay as much as i should like; but if you care to let me have it i'll give you two hundred and fifty dollars--one hundred and fifty dollars now, and the remaining hundred next week." i tried to appear indifferent, but the heart of me was almost bursting with excitement. it meant that the furniture bill was as good as paid! and there would be money in the bank for the first time since we were married! the deal was made, and i left the theatre with the largest sum of money i had ever made all at once. later someone said to me that i was foolish to sell that sketch outright for so little money. "foolish!" said i. "that two hundred and fifty dollars looked bigger to me than the promise of a thousand some day in the future!" once more the way out had been provided. and then came the baby--a glorious little girl--and the home had begun to be worth-while. there was a new charm to the walls and halls. the oak table and the green plush settee took on a new glory. i was the usual proud father, with added variations of my own. one of my pet illusions was that none, save mother and me, was to be trusted to hold our little one. when others _would_ take her, i stood guard to catch her if in some careless moment they should let her fall. as she grew older, my collars became finger-marked where her little hands had touched them. we had pictures on our walls, of course, and trinkets on the mantelpiece, and a large glass mirror which had been one of our wedding gifts. these things had become commonplace to us--until the baby began to notice them! night after night, i would take her in my arms and show her the sheep in one of the pictures, and talk to her about them, and she would coo delightedly. the trinkets on the mantelpiece became dearer to us because she loved to handle them. the home was being sanctified by her presence. we had come into a new realm of happiness. but a home cannot be builded always on happiness. we were to learn that through bitter experience. we had seen white crepe on other doors, without ever thinking that some day it might flutter on our own. we had witnessed sorrow, but had never suffered it. our home had welcomed many a gay and smiling visitor; but there was a grim and sinister one to come, against whom no door can be barred. after thirteen months of perfect happiness, its planning and dreaming, the baby was taken from us. the blow fell without warning. i left home that morning, with mother and the baby waving their usual farewells to me from the window. early that afternoon, contrary to my usual custom, i decided to go home in advance of my regular time. i had no reason for doing this, aside from a strange unwillingness to continue at work. i recalled later that i cleaned up my desk and put away a number of things, as though i were going away for some time. i never before had done that, and nothing had occurred which might make me think i should not be back at my desk as usual. when i reached home the baby was suffering from a slight fever, and mother already had called the doctor in. he diagnosed it as only a slight disturbance. during dinner, i thought baby's breathing was not as regular as it should be, and i summoned the doctor immediately. her condition grew rapidly worse, and a second physician was called; but it was not in human skill to save her. at eleven o'clock that night she was taken from us. it is needless to dwell here upon the agony of that first dark time through which we passed. that such a blow could leave loveliness in its path, and add a touch of beauty to our dwelling place, seemed unbelievable at the time. yet to-day our first baby still lives with us, as wonderful as she was in those glad thirteen months. she has not grown older, as have we, but smiles that same sweet baby smile of hers upon us as of old. we can talk of her now bravely and proudly; and we have come to understand that it was a privilege to have had her, even for those brief thirteen months. to have joys in common is the dream of man and wife. we had supposed that love was based on mutual _happiness_. and mother and i had been happy together; we had been walking arm in arm under blue skies, and we knew how much we meant to each other. but just how much we _needed_ each other neither of us really knew--until we had to share a common sorrow. to be partners in a sacred memory is a divine bond. to be partners in a little mound, in one of god's silent gardens, is the closest relationship which man and woman can know on this earth. our lives had been happy before; now they had been made beautiful. so it was with the home. it began to mean more to us, as we began each to mean more to the other. the bedroom in which our baby fell asleep seemed glorified. of course there were the lonely days and weeks and months when everything we touched or saw brought back the memory of her. i came home many an evening to find on mother's face the mark of tears; and i knew she had been living over by herself the sorrow of it all. i learned how much braver the woman has to be than the man. i could go into town, where there was the contagion of good cheer; and where my work absorbed my thoughts and helped to shut out grief. but not so with mother! she must live day by day and hour by hour amid the scenes of her anguish. no matter where she turned, something reminded her of the joy we had known and lost. even the striking clock called back to her mind the hour when something should have been done for the baby. "i _must_ have another little girl," she sobbed night after night. "i _must_ have another little girl!" and once more the way out was provided. we heard of a little girl who was to be put out for adoption; she was of good but unfortunate parents. we proposed to adopt her. i have heard many arguments against adopting children, but i have never heard a good one. even the infant doomed to die could enrich, if only for a few weeks, the lives of a childless couple, and they would be happier for the rest of their days in the knowledge that they had tried to do something worthy in this world and had made comfortable the brief life of a little one. "what if the child should turn out wrong?" i hear often from the lips of men and women. "what of that?" i reply. "you can at least be happy in the thought that you have tried to do something for another." to childless couples everywhere i would say with all the force i can employ, _adopt a baby_! if you would make glorious the home you are building; if you would fill its rooms with laughter and contentment; if you would make your house more than a place in which to eat and sleep; if you would fill it with happy memories and come yourselves into a closer and more perfect union, adopt a baby! then, in a year or two, adopt another. he who spends money on a little child is investing it to real purpose; and the dividends it pays in pride and happiness and contentment are beyond computation. marjorie came to us when she was three years old. she bubbled over with mirth and laughter and soothed the ache in our hearts. she filled the little niches and comers of our lives with her sweetness, and became not only ours in name, but ours also in love and its actualities. there were those who suggested that we were too young to adopt a child. they told us that the other children would undoubtedly be sent to us as time went on. i have neither the space here nor the inclination to list the imaginary difficulties outlined to us as the possibilities of adoption. but mother and i talked it all over one evening. and we decided that we needed marjorie, and marjorie needed us. as to the financial side of the question, i smiled. "i never heard of anyone going to the poorhouse, or into bankruptcy," i said, "because of the money spent on a child. i fancy i can pay the bills." that settled it. the next evening when i came home, down the stairway leading to our flat came the cry, "hello, daddy!" from one of the sweetest little faces i have ever seen. and from that day, until god needed her more and called her home, that "hello, daddy" greeted me and made every care worth while. the little home had begun to grow in beauty once more. that first shopping tour for marjorie stands out as an epoch in our lives. i am not of the right sex to describe it. marjorie came to us with only such clothing as a poor mother could provide. she must be outfitted anew from head to toe, and she was. the next evening, when she greeted me, she was the proud possessor of more lovely things than she had ever known before. but, beautiful as the little face appeared to me then, more beautiful was the look in mother's face. there had come into her eyes a look of happiness which had been absent for many months. i learned then, and i state it now as a positive fact, that a woman's greatest happiness comes from dressing a little girl. mothers may like pretty clothes for themselves; but to put pretty things on a little girl is an infinitely greater pleasure. more than once mother went down-town for something for herself--only to return without it, but with something for marjorie! we pledged to ourselves at the very beginning that we would make marjorie ours; not only to ourselves but to others. our friends were asked never to refer in her presence to the fact that she was adopted. as far as we were concerned it was dismissed from our minds. she was three years old when she was born to us, and from then on we were her father and her mother. to many who knew her and loved her, this article will be the first intimation they ever have received that marjorie was not our own flesh and blood. it was her pride and boast that she was like her mother, but had her father's eyes. both her mother and i have smiled hundreds of times, as people meeting her for the first time would say, "anyone would know she belonged to you. she looks exactly like you!" marjorie made a difference in our way of living. a second-story flat, comfortable though it was, was not a good place to bring up a little girl. more than ever, we needed a home of our own. but to need and to provide are two different propositions. we needed a back yard; but back yards are expensive; and though newspapermen may make good husbands they seldom make "good money." one evening mother announced to me that she had seen the house we ought to have. it had just been completed, had everything in it her heart had wished for, and could be bought for forty-two hundred dollars. the price was just forty-two hundred dollars more than i had! all i did have was the wish to own a home of my own. but four years of our married life had gone, and i was no nearer the first payment on a house than when we began as man and wife. however, i investigated and found that i could get this particular house by paying five hundred dollars down and agreeing to pay thirty-five a month on the balance. i could swing thirty-five a month, but the five hundred was a high barrier. then i made my first wise business move. i went to julius haass, president of the wayne county and home savings bank, who always had been my friend, and explained to him my difficulties. he loaned me that five hundred dollars for the first payment--i to pay it back twenty-five dollars monthly--and the house was ours. we had become land owners overnight. my income had increased, of course; but so had my liabilities. the first few years of that new house taxed our ingenuity more than once. we spent now and then, not money which we had, but money which we were _going to get_; but it was buying happiness. if ever a couple have found real happiness in this world we found it under the roof of that leicester court home. there nearly all that has brought joy and peace and contentment into our lives was born to us. it was from there i began to progress; it was there my publishers found me; and it was there little bud was born to us. we are out of it now. we left it for a big reason; but we drive by it often just to see it; for it is still ours in the precious memory of the years we spent within its walls. still, in the beginning, it was just a house! it had no associations and no history. it had been built to sell. the people who paid for its construction saw in its growing walls and rooftree only the few hundred dollars they hoped to gain. it was left to us to change that _house_ into a _home. it sounds preachy, i know, to say that all buildings depend for their real beauty upon the spirit of the people who inhabit them. but it is true. as the weeks and months slipped by, the new house began to soften and mellow under mother's gentle touches. the living-room assumed an air of comfort; my books now had a real corner of their own; the guest-chamber--or, rather, the little spare-room--already had entertained its transient tenants; and as our friends came and went the walls caught something from them all, to remind us of their presence. i took to gardening. the grounds were small, but they were large enough to teach me the joy of an intimate friendship with growing things. to-day, in my somewhat larger garden, i have more than one hundred and fifty rosebushes, and twenty or thirty peony clumps, and i know their names and their habits. the garden has become a part of the home. it is not yet the garden i dream of, nor even the garden which i think it will be next year; but it is the place where play divides the ground with beauty. what bud doesn't require for a baseball diamond the roses possess. early one morning in july, bud came to us. immediately, the character of that front bedroom was changed. it was no longer just "our bedroom;" it was "the room where bud was born." of all the rooms in all the houses of all the world, there is none so gloriously treasured in the memories of man and woman as those wherein their children have come to birth. i have had many fine things happen to me: friends have borne me high on kindly shoulders; out of the depths of their generous hearts they have given me honors which i have not deserved; i have more than once come home proud in the possession of some new joy, or of some task accomplished; but i have never known, and never shall know, a thrill of happiness to equal that which followed good old doctor gordon's brief announcement: "it's a boy!" "it's a boy!" all that day and the next i fairly shouted it to friends and strangers. to marjorie's sweetness, and to the radiant loveliness of the little baby which was ours for so brief a time, had been added the strength and roguishness of a boy. the next five years saw the walls of our home change in character. finger marks and hammer marks began to appear. when bud had reached the stage where he could walk, calamity began to follow in his trail. once he tugged at a table cover and the open bottle of ink fell upon the rug. there was a great splotch of ink forever to be visible to all who entered that living-room! yet even that black stain became in time a part of us. we grew even to boast of it. we pointed it out to new acquaintances as the place where bud spilled the ink. it was an evidence of his health and his natural tendencies. it proved to all the world that in bud we had a real boy; an honest-to-goodness boy who could spill ink--and _would_, if you didn't keep a close watch on him. then came the toy period of our development. the once tidy house became a place where angels would have feared to tread in the dark. building blocks and trains of cars and fire engines and a rocking horse were everywhere, to trip the feet of the unwary. mother scolded about it, at times; and i fear i myself have muttered harsh things when, late at night, i have entered the house only to stumble against the tin sides of an express wagon. but i have come to see that toys in a house are its real adornments. there is no pleasanter sight within the front door of any man's castle than the strewn and disordered evidences that children there abide. the house seems unfurnished without them. this chaos still exists in our house to-day. mother says i encourage it. perhaps i do. i know that i dread the coming day when the home shall become neat and orderly and silent and precise. what is more, i live in horror of the day when i shall have to sit down to a meal and not send a certain little fellow away from the table to wash his hands. that has become a part of the ceremonial of my life. when the evening comes that he will appear for dinner, clean and immaculate, his shirt buttoned properly and his hair nicely brushed, perhaps mother will be proud of him; but as for me, there will be a lump in my throat--for i shall know that he has grown up. financially, we were progressing. we had a little more "to do with," as mother expressed it; but sorrow and grief and anxiety were not through with us. we were not to be one hundred per cent happy. no one ever is. marjorie was stricken with typhoid fever, and for fourteen weeks we fought that battle; saw her sink almost into the very arms of death; and watched her pale and wasted body day by day, until at last the fever broke and she was spared to us. another bedroom assumed a new meaning to us both. we knew it as it was in the dark hours of night; we saw the morning sun break through its windows. it was the first room i visited in the morning and the last i went to every night. coming home, i never stopped in hall or living-room, but hurried straight to her. all there was in that home then was marjorie's room! we lived our lives within it. and gradually, her strength returned and we were happy again. but only for a brief time.... early the following summer i was called home by doctor johnson. when i reached there, he met me at the front door, smiling as though to reassure me. "you and bud are going to get out," said he. "marjorie has scarlet fever." bud had already been sent to his aunt florence's. i was to gather what clothing i should need for six weeks, and depart. if i had been fond of that home before, i grew fonder of it as the days went by. i think i never knew how much i valued it until i was shut out from it. i could see mother and marjorie through the window, but i was not to enter. and i grew hungry for a sight of the walls with their finger marks, and of the ink spot on the rug. we had been six years in the building of that home. somehow, a part of us had been woven into every nook and corner of it. but marjorie was not thriving. her cheeks were pale and slightly flushed. the removal of tonsils didn't help. followed a visit to my dentist. perhaps a tooth was spreading poison through her system. he looked at her, and after a few minutes took me alone into his private office. "i'm sorry, eddie," he said. "i am afraid it isn't teeth. you have a long, hard fight to make--if it is what i think it is." tuberculosis had entered our home. it had come by way of typhoid and scarlet fevers. the specialist confirmed doctor oakman's suspicions, and our battle began. the little home could serve us no longer. it was not the place for such a fight for life as we were to make. marjorie must have a wide-open sleeping porch; and the house lacked that, nor could one be built upon it. and so we found our present home. it was for sale at a price i thought then i should never be able to pay. we could have it by making a down payment of seventy-five hundred dollars, the balance to be covered by a mortgage. but i neither had that much, nor owned securities for even a small fraction of it. but i did have a friend: a rich, but generous friend! i told him what i wanted; and he seemed more grieved at my burden than concerned with my request. he talked only of marjorie and her chances; he put his arm about my shoulders, and i knew he was with me. "what do you need?" he asked. "seventy-five hundred dollars in cash." he smiled. "have a lawyer examine the abstract to the property, and if it is all right come back to me." in two days i was back. the title to the house was clear. he smiled again, and handed me his check for the amount, with not a scratch of the paper between us. i suggested something of that sort to him. "the important thing is to get the house," he said. "when that is done and you have the deed to it and the papers all fixed up, you come back and we'll fix up our little matter." and that is how it was done. so into our present home we moved. we had a bigger and a better and a costlier dwelling place. we were climbing upward. but we were also beginning once more with just a house. just a house--but founded on a mighty purpose! it was to become home to us, even more dearly loved than the one we were leaving. for four years it has grown in our affections. hope has been ours. we have lived and laughed and sung and progressed.... but we have also wept and grieved. twice the doctor had said we were to conquer. then came last spring and the end of hope. week after week, marjorie saw the sunbeams filter through the windows of her open porch; near by, a pair of robins built their nest; she watched them and knew them and named them. we planned great things together and great journeys we should make. that they were not to be she never knew.... and then she fell asleep.... her little life had fulfilled its mission. she had brought joy and beauty and faith into our hearts; she had comforted us in our hours of loneliness and despair; she had been the little cheerful builder of our home--and perhaps god needed her. she continued to sleep for three days, only for those three days her sun porch was a bower of roses. on memorial day, mother and i stood once more together beside a little mound where god had led us. late that afternoon we returned to the home to which marjorie had taken us. it had grown more lovely with the beauty which has been ours, because of her. * * * * * the home is not yet completed. we still cherish our dreams of what it is to be. we would change this and that. but, after all, what the home is to be is not within our power to say. we hope to go forward together, building and changing and improving it. to-morrow shall see something that was not there yesterday. but through sun and shade, through trial and through days of ease and of peace, it is our hope that something of our best shall still remain. whatever happens, it is our hope that what may be "just a house" to many shall be to us the home we have been building for the last fifteen years. home by edgar a. guest it takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home, a heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam afore ye really 'preciate the things ye lef' behind, an' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind. it don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be, how much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury; it ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king, until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything. home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute; afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' livin' in it; within the walls there's got t' be some babies born, and then right there ye've got t' bring 'em up t' women good, an' men; and gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn't part with anything they ever used--they've grown into yer heart: the old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore ye hoard; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumbmarks on the door. ye've got t' weep t' make it home, ye've got t' sit an' sigh an' watch beside a loved one's bed, an' know that death is nigh; an' in the stillness o' the night t' see death's angel come, an' close the eyes o' her that smiled, an' leave her sweet voice dumb. fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an' when yer tears are dried, ye find the home is dearer than it was, an' sanctified; an' tuggin' at ye always are the pleasant memories o' her that was an' is no more--ye can't escape from these. ye've got t' sing an' dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play, an' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day; even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear who used t' love 'em long ago, an' trained 'em jes' t' run the way they do, so's they would get the early mornin' sun; ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from cellar up t' dome: it takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home. [_from "a heap o' livin'"_] bits about home matters. by h. h., author of "verses" and "bits of travel." contents. the inhumanities of parents--corporal punishment the inhumanities of parents--needless denials the inhumanities of parents--rudeness breaking the will the reign of archelaus the awkward age a day with a courteous mother children in nova scotia the republic of the family the ready-to-halts the descendants of nabal "boys not allowed" half an hour in a railway station a genius for affection rainy days friends of the prisoners a companion for the winter choice of colors the apostle of beauty english lodging-houses wet the clay the king's friend learning to speak private tyrants margin the fine art of smiling death-bed repentance the correlation of moral forces a simple bill of fare for a christmas dinner children's parties after-supper talk hysteria in literature jog trot the joyless american spiritual teething glass houses the old-clothes monger in journalism the country landlord's side the good staff of pleasure wanted--a home bits of talk. the inhumanities of parents--corporal punishment. not long ago a presbyterian minister in western new york whipped his three-year-old boy to death, for refusing to say his prayers. the little fingers were broken; the tender flesh was bruised and actually mangled; strong men wept when they looked on the body; and the reverend murderer, after having been set free on bail, was glad to return and take refuge within the walls of his prison, to escape summary punishment at the hands of an outraged community. at the bare mention of such cruelty, every heart grew sick and faint; men and women were dumb with horror: only tears and a hot demand for instant retaliation availed. the question whether, after all, that baby martyr were not fortunate among his fellows, would, no doubt, be met by resentful astonishment. but it is a question which may well be asked, may well be pondered. heart-rending as it is to think for an instant of the agonies which the poor child must have borne for some hours after his infant brain was too bewildered by terror and pain to understand what was required of him, it still cannot fail to occur to deeper reflection that the torture was short and small in comparison with what the next ten years might have held for him if he had lived. to earn entrance on the spiritual life by the briefest possible experience of the physical, is always "greater gain;" but how emphatically is it so when the conditions of life upon earth are sure to be unfavorable! if it were possible in any way to get a statistical summing-up and a tangible presentation of the amount of physical pain inflicted by parents on children under twelve years of age, the most callous-hearted would be surprised and shocked. if it were possible to add to this estimate an accurate and scientific demonstration of the extent to which such pain, by weakening the nervous system and exhausting its capacity to resist disease, diminishes children's chances for life, the world would stand aghast. too little has been said upon this point. the opponents of corporal punishment usually approach the subject either from the sentimental or the moral standpoint. the argument on either of these grounds can be made strong enough, one would suppose, to paralyze every hand lifted to strike a child. but the question of the direct and lasting physical effect of blows--even of one blow on the delicate tissues of a child's body, on the frail and trembling nerves, on the sensitive organization which is trying, under a thousand unfavoring conditions, to adjust itself to the hard work of both living and growing--has yet to be properly considered. every one knows the sudden sense of insupportable pain, sometimes producing even dizziness and nausea, which follows the accidental hitting of the ankle or elbow against a hard substance. it does not need that the blow be very hard to bring involuntary tears to adult eyes. but what is such a pain as this, in comparison with the pain of a dozen or more quick tingling blows from a heavy hand on flesh which is, which must be as much more sensitive than ours, as are the souls which dwell in it purer than ours. add to this physical pain the overwhelming terror which only utter helplessness can feel, and which is the most recognizable quality in the cry of a very young child under whipping; add the instinctive sense of disgrace, of outrage, which often keeps the older child stubborn and still through-out,--and you have an amount and an intensity of suffering from which even tried nerves might shrink. again, who does not know--at least, what woman does not know--that violent weeping, for even a very short time, is quite enough to cause a feeling of languor and depression, of nervous exhaustion for a whole day? yet it does not seem to occur to mothers that little children must feel this, in proportion to the length of time and violence of their crying, far more than grown people. who has not often seen a poor child receive, within an hour or two of the first whipping, a second one, for some small ebullition of nervous irritability, which was simply inevitable from its spent and worn condition? it is safe to say that in families where whipping is regularly recognized as a punishment, few children under ten years of age, and of average behavior, have less than one whipping a week. sometimes they have more, sometimes the whipping is very severe. thus you have in one short year sixty or seventy occasions on which for a greater or less time, say from one to three hours, the child's nervous system is subjected to a tremendous strain from the effect of terror and physical pain combined with long crying. will any physician tell us that this fact is not an element in that child's physical condition at the end of that year? will any physician dare to say that there may not be, in that child's life, crises when the issues of life and death will be so equally balanced that the tenth part of the nervous force lost in such fits of crying, and in the endurance of such pain, could turn the scale? nature's retributions, like her rewards, are cumulative. because her sentences against evil works are not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil. but the sentence always is executed, sooner or later, and that inexorably. your son, o unthinking mother! may fall by the way in the full prime of his manhood, for lack of that strength which his infancy spent in enduring your hasty and severe punishments. it is easy to say,--and universally is said,--by people who cling to the old and fight against the new, "all this outcry about corporal punishment is sentimental nonsense. the world is full of men and women, who have grown up strong and good, in spite of whippings; and as for me, i know i never had any more whipping than i deserved, or than was good for me." are you then so strong and clear and pure in your physical and spiritual nature and life, that you are sure no different training could have made either your body or your soul better? are these men and women, of whom the world is full, so able-bodied, whole-souled, strong-minded, that you think it needless to look about for any method of making the next generation better? above all, do you believe that it is a part of the legitimate outworking of god's plan and intent in creating human beings to have more than one-half of them die in childhood? if we are not to believe that this fearful mortality is a part of god's plan, is it wise to refuse to consider all possibilities, even those seemingly most remote, of diminishing it? no argument is so hard to meet (simply because it is not an argument) as the assumption of the good and propriety of "the thing that hath been." it is one of the devil's best sophistries, by which he keeps good people undisturbed in doing the things he likes. it has been in all ages the bulwark behind which evils have made stand, and have slain their thousands. it is the last enemy which shall be destroyed. it is the only real support of the cruel evil of corporal punishment. suppose that such punishment of children had been unheard of till now. suppose that the idea had yesterday been suggested for the first time that by inflicting physical pain on a child's body you might make him recollect certain truths; and suppose that instead of whipping, a very moderate and harmless degree of pricking with pins or cutting with knives or burning with fire had been suggested. would not fathers and mothers have cried out all over the land at the inhumanity of the idea? would they not still cry out at the inhumanity of one who, as things are to-day, should propose the substitution of pricking or cutting or burning for whipping? but i think it would not be easy to show in what wise small pricks or cuts are more inhuman than blows; or why lying may not be as legitimately cured by blisters made with a hot coal as by black and blue spots made with a ruler. the principle is the same; and if the principle be right, why not multiply methods? it seems as if this one suggestion, candidly considered, might be enough to open all parents' eyes to the enormity of whipping. how many a loving mother will, without any thought of cruelty, inflict half-a-dozen quick blows on the little hand of her child, when she could no more take a pin and make the same number of thrusts into the tender flesh, than she could bind the baby on a rack. yet the pin-thrusts would hurt far less, and would probably make a deeper impression on the child's mind. among the more ignorant classes, the frequency and severity of corporal punishment of children, are appalling. the facts only need to be held up closely and persistently before the community to be recognized as horrors of cruelty far greater than some which have been made subjects of legislation. it was my misfortune once to be forced to spend several of the hottest weeks of a hot summer in new york. in near neighborhood to my rooms were blocks of buildings which had shops on the first floor and tenements above. in these lived the families of small tradesmen, and mechanics of the better sort. during those scorching nights every window was thrown open, and all sounds were borne with distinctness through the hot still air. chief among them were the shrieks and cries of little children, and blows and angry words from tired, overworked mothers. at times it became almost unbearable: it was hard to refrain from an attempt at rescue. ten, twelve, twenty quick, hard blows, whose sound rang out plainly, i counted again and again; mingling with them came the convulsive screams of the poor children, and that most piteous thing of all, the reiteration of "oh, mamma! oh, mamma!" as if, through all, the helpless little creatures had an instinct that this word ought to be in itself the strongest appeal. these families were all of the better class of work people, comfortable and respectable. what sounds were to be heard in the more wretched haunts of the city, during those nights, the heart struggled away from fancying. but the shrieks of those children will never wholly die out of the air. i hear them to-day; and mingling with them, the question rings perpetually in my ears, "why does not the law protect children, before the point at which life is endangered?" a cartman may be arrested in the streets for the brutal beating of a horse which is his own, and which he has the right to kill if he so choose. should not a man be equally withheld from the brutal beating of a child who is not his own, but god's, and whom to kill is murder? the inhumanities of parents--needless denials. webster's dictionary, which cannot be accused of any leaning toward sentimentalism, defines "inhumanity" as "cruelty in action;" and "cruelty" as "an act of a human being which inflicts unnecessary pain." the word inhumanity has an ugly sound, and many inhuman people are utterly and honestly unconscious of their own inhumanities; it is necessary therefore to entrench one's self behind some such bulwark as the above definitions afford, before venturing the accusation that fathers and mothers are habitually guilty of inhuman conduct in inflicting "unnecessary pain" on their children, by needless denials of their innocent wishes and impulses. most men and a great many women would be astonished at being told that simple humanity requires them to gratify every wish, even the smallest, of their children, when the pain of having that wish denied is not made necessary, either for the child's own welfare, physical or mental, or by circumstances beyond the parent's control. the word "necessary" is a very authoritative one; conscience, if left free, soon narrows down its boundaries; inconvenience, hindrance, deprivation, self-denial, one or all, or even a great deal of all, to ourselves, cannot give us a shadow of right to say that the pain of the child's disappointment is "necessary." selfishness grasps at help from the hackneyed sayings, that it is "best for children to bear the yoke in their youth;" "the sooner they learn that they cannot have their own way the better;" "it is a good discipline for them to practise self-denial," &c. but the yoke that they _must_ bear, in spite of our lightening it all we can, is heavy enough; the instances in which it is, for good and sufficient reasons, impossible for them to have their own way are quite numerous enough to insure their learning the lesson very early; and as for the discipline of self-denial,--god bless their dear, patient souls!--if men and women brought to bear on the thwartings and vexations of their daily lives, and their relations with each other, one hundredth part of the sweet acquiescence and brave endurance which average children show, under the average management of average parents, this world would be a much pleasanter place to live in than it is. let any conscientious and tender mother, who perhaps reads these words with tears half of resentment, half of grief in her eyes, keep for three days an exact record of the little requests which she refuses, from the baby of five, who begged to stand on a chair and look out of the window, and was hastily told, "no, it would, hurt the chair," when one minute would have been enough time to lay a folded newspaper over the upholstery, and another minute enough to explain to him, with a kiss and a hug, "that that was to save his spoiling mamma's nice chair with his boots;" and the two minutes together would probably have made sure that another time the dear little fellow would look out for a paper himself, when he wished to climb up to the window,--from this baby up to the pretty girl of twelve, who, with as distinct a perception of the becoming as her mother had before her, went to school unhappy because she was compelled to wear the blue necktie instead of the scarlet one, and surely for no especial reason! at the end of the three days, an honest examination of the record would show that full half of these small denials, all of which had involved pain, and some of which had brought contest and punishment, had been needless, had been hastily made, and made usually on account of the slight interruption or inconvenience which would result from yielding to the request. i am very much mistaken if the honest keeping and honest study of such a three days' record would not wholly change the atmosphere in many a house to what it ought to be, and bring almost constant sunshine and bliss where now, too often, are storm and misery. with some parents, although they are neither harsh nor hard in manner, nor yet unloving in nature, the habitual first impulse seems to be to refuse: they appear to have a singular obtuseness to the fact that it is, or can be, of any consequence to a child whether it does or does not do the thing it desires. often the refusal is withdrawn on the first symptom of grief or disappointment on the child's part; a thing which is fatal to all real control of a child, and almost as unkind as the first unnecessary denial,--perhaps even more so, as it involves double and treble pains, in future instances, where there cannot and must not be any giving way to entreaties. it is doubtless this lack of perception,--akin, one would think, to color-blindness,--which is at the bottom of this great and common inhumanity among kind and intelligent fathers and mothers: an inhumanity so common that it may almost be said to be universal; so common that, while we are obliged to look on and see our dearest friends guilty of it, we find it next to impossible to make them understand what we mean when we make outcry over some of its glaring instances. you, my dearest of friends,--or, rather, you who would be, but for this one point of hopeless contention between us,--do you remember a certain warm morning, last august, of which i told you then you had not heard the last? here it is again: perhaps in print i can make it look blacker to you than i could then; part of it i saw, part of it you unwillingly confessed to me, and part of it little blue eyes told me herself. it was one of those ineffable mornings, when a thrill of delight and expectancy fills the air; one felt that every appointment of the day must be unlike those of other days,--must be festive, must help on the "white day" for which all things looked ready. i remember how like the morning itself you looked as you stood in the doorway, in a fresh white muslin dress, with lavender ribbons. i said, "oh, extravagance! for breakfast!" "i know," you said; "but the day was so enchanting, i could not make up my mind to wear any thing that had been worn before." here an uproar from the nursery broke out, and we both ran to the spot. there stood little blue eyes, in a storm of temper, with one small foot on a crumpled mass of pink cambric on the floor; and nurse, who was also very red and angry, explained that miss would not have on her pink frock because it was not quite clean. "it is all dirty, mamma, and i don't want to put it on! you've got on a nice white dress: why can't i?" you are in the main a kind mother, and you do not like to give little blue eyes pain; so you knelt down beside her, and told her that she must be a good girl, and have on the gown mary had said, but that she should have on a pretty white apron, which would hide the spots. and blue eyes, being only six years old, and of a loving, generous nature, dried her tears, accepted the very questionable expedient, tried to forget the spots, and in a few moments came out on the piazza, chirping like a little bird. by this time the rare quality of the morning had stolen like wine into our brains, and you exclaimed, "we will have breakfast out here, under the vines! how george will like it!" and in another instant you were flitting back and forth, helping the rather ungracious bridget move out the breakfast-table, with its tempting array. "oh, mamma, mamma," cried blue eyes, "can't i have my little tea-set on a little table beside your big table? oh, let me, let me!" and she fairly quivered with excitement. you hesitated. how i watched you! but it was a little late. bridget was already rather cross; the tea-set was packed in a box, and up on a high shelf. "no, dear. there is not time, and we must not make bridget any more trouble; but"--seeing the tears coming again--"you shall have some real tea in papa's big gilt cup, and another time you shall have your tea-set when we have breakfast out here again." as i said before, you are a kind mother, and you made the denial as easy to be borne as you could, and blue eyes was again pacified, not satisfied, only bravely making the best of it. and so we had our breakfast; a breakfast to be remembered, too. but as for the "other time" which you had promised to blue eyes; how well i knew that not many times a year did such mornings and breakfasts come, and that it was well she would forget all about it! after breakfast,--you remember how we lingered,--george suddenly started up, saying, "how hard it is to go to town! i say, girls, walk down to the station with me, both of you." "and me too, me too, papa!" said blue eyes. you did not hear her; but i did, and she had flown for her hat. at the door we found her, saying again, "me too, mamma!" then you remembered her boots: "oh, my darling," you said, kissing her, for you are a kind mother, "you cannot go in those nice boots: the dew will spoil them; and it is not worth while to change them, we shall be back in a few minutes." a storm of tears would have burst out in an instant at this the third disappointment, if i had not sat down on the door-step, and, taking her in my lap, whispered that auntie was going to stay too. "oh, put the child down, and come along," called the great, strong, uncomprehending man--blue eyes' dear papa. "pussy won't mind. be a good girl, pussy; i'll bring you a red balloon to-night." you are both very kind, you and george, and you both love little blue eyes dearly. "no, i won't come. i believe my boots are too thin," said i; and for the equivocation there was in my reply i am sure of being forgiven. you both turned back twice to look at the child, and kissed your hands to her; and i wondered if you did not see in her face, what i did, real grief and patient endurance. even "the king of the golden river" did not rouse her: she did not want a story; she did not want me; she did not want a red balloon at night; she wanted to walk between you, to the station, with her little hands in yours! god grant the day may not come when you will be heart-broken because you can never lead her any more! she asked me some questions, while you were gone, which you remember i repeated to you. she asked me if i did not hate nice new shoes; and why little girls could not put on the dresses they liked best; and if mamma did not look beautiful in that pretty white dress; and said that, if she could only have had her own tea-set, at breakfast, she would have let me have my coffee in one of her cups. gradually she grew happier, and began to tell me about her great wax-doll, which had eyes that could shut; which was kept in a trunk because she was too little, mamma said, to play very much with it now; but she guessed mamma would let her have it to-day; did i not think so? alas! i did, and i said so; in fact, i felt sure that it was the very thing you would be certain to do, to sweeten the day, which had begun so sadly for poor little blue eyes. it seemed very long to her before you came back, and she was on the point of asking for her dolly as soon as you appeared; but i whispered to her to wait till you were rested. after a few minutes i took her up to your room,--that lovely room with the bay window to the east; there you sat, in your white dress, surrounded with gay worsteds, all looking like a carnival of humming-birds. "oh, how beautiful!" i exclaimed, in involuntary admiration; "what are you doing?" you said that you were going to make an affghan, and that the morning was so enchanting you could not bear the thought of touching your mending, but were going to luxuriate in the worsteds. some time passed in sorting the colors, and deciding on the contrasts, and i forgot all about the doll. not so little blue eyes. i remembered afterward how patiently she stood still, waiting and waiting for a gap between our words, that she need not break the law against interrupting, with her eager-- "please, mamma, let me have my wax dolly to play with this morning! i'll sit right here on the floor, by you and auntie, and not hurt her one bit. oh, please do, mamma!" you mean always to be a very kind mother, and you spoke as gently and lovingly as it is possible to speak when you replied:-- "oh, pussy, mamma is too busy to get it; she can't get up now. you can play with your blocks, and with your other dollies, just as well; that's a good little girl." probably, if blue eyes had gone on imploring, you would have laid your worsteds down, and given her the dolly; for you love her dearly, and never mean to make her unhappy. but neither you nor i were prepared for what followed. "you're a naughty, ugly, hateful mamma! you never let me do _any_ thing, and i wish you were dead!" with such a burst of screaming and tears that we were both frightened. you looked, as well you might, heart-broken at such words from your only child. you took her away; and when you came back, you cried, and said you had whipped her severely, and you did not know what you should do with a child of such a frightful temper. "such an outburst as that, just because i told her, in the gentlest way possible, that she could not have a plaything! it is terrible!" then i said some words to you, which you thought were unjust. i asked you in what condition your own nerves would have been by ten o'clock that morning if your husband (who had, in one view, a much better right to thwart your harmless desires than you had to thwart your child's, since you, in the full understanding of maturity, gave yourself into his hands) had, instead of admiring your pretty white dress, told you to be more prudent, and not put it on; had told you it would be nonsense to have breakfast out on the piazza; and that he could not wait for you to walk to the station with him. you said that the cases were not at all parallel; and i replied hotly that that was very true, for those matters would have been to you only the comparative trifles of one short day, and would have made you only a little cross and uncomfortable; whereas to little blue eyes they were the all-absorbing desires of the hour, which, to a child in trouble, always looks as if it could never come to an end, and would never be followed by any thing better. blue eyes cried herself to sleep, and slept heavily till late in the afternoon. when her father came home, you said that she must not have the red balloon, because she had been such a naughty girl. i have wondered many times since why she did not cry again, or look grieved when you said that, and laid the balloon away. after eleven o'clock at night, i went to look at her, and found her sobbing in her sleep, and tossing about. i groaned as i thought, "this is only one day, and there are three hundred and sixty-five in a year!" but i never recall the distorted face of that poor child, as, in her fearful passion, she told you she wished you were dead, without also remembering that even the gentle christ said of him who should offend one of these little ones, "it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depths of the sea!" the inhumanities of parents--rudeness. /# "_inhumanity_--cruelty. _cruelty_--the disposition to give unnecessary pain."--_webster's dict_. #/ i had intended to put third on the list of inhumanities of parents "needless requisitions;" but my last summer's observations changed my estimate, and convinced me that children suffer more pain from the rudeness with which they are treated than from being forced to do needless things which they dislike. indeed, a positively and graciously courteous manner toward children is a thing so rarely seen in average daily life, the rudenesses which they receive are so innumerable, that it is hard to tell where to begin in setting forth the evil. children themselves often bring their sharp and unexpected logic to bear on some incident illustrating the difference in this matter of behavior between what is required from them and what is shown to them: as did a little boy i knew, whose father said crossly to him one morning, as he came into the breakfast-room, "will you ever learn to shut that door after you?" and a few seconds later, as the child was rather sulkily sitting down in his chair, "and do you mean to bid anybody 'good-morning,' or not?" "i don't think you gave _me_ a very nice 'good-morning,' anyhow," replied satirical justice, aged seven. then, of course, he was reproved for speaking disrespectfully; and so in the space of three minutes the beautiful opening of the new day, for both parents and children, was jarred and robbed of its fresh harmony by the father's thoughtless rudeness. was the breakfast-room door much more likely to be shut the next morning? no. the lesson was pushed aside by the pain, the motive to resolve was dulled by the antagonism. if that father had called his son, and, putting his arm round him, (oh! the blessed and magic virtue of putting your arm round a child's neck!) had said, "good-morning, my little man;" and then, in a confidential whisper in his ear, "what shall we do to make this forgetful little boy remember not to leave that door open, through which the cold wind blows in on all of us?"--can any words measure the difference between the first treatment and the second? between the success of the one and the failure of the other? scores of times in a day, a child is told, in a short, authoritative way, to do or not to do such little things as we ask at the hands of older people, as favors, graciously, and with deference to their choice. "would you be so very kind as to close that window?" "may i trouble you for that cricket?" "if you would be as comfortable in this chair as in that, i would like to change places with you." "oh, excuse me, but your head is between me and the light: could you see as well if you moved a little?" "would it hinder you too long to stop at the store for me? i would be very much obliged to you, if you would." "pray, do not let me crowd you," &c. in most people's speech to children, we find, as synonyms for these polite phrases: "shut that window down, this minute." "bring me that cricket." "i want that chair; get up. you can sit in this." "don't you see that you are right in my light? move along." "i want you to leave off playing, and go right down to the store for me." "don't crowd so. can't you see that there is not room enough for two people here?" and so on. as i write, i feel an instinctive consciousness that these sentences will come like home-thrusts to some surprised people. i hope so. that is what i want. i am sure that in more than half the cases where family life is marred in peace, and almost stripped of beauty, by just these little rudenesses, the parents are utterly unconscious of them. the truth is, it has become like an established custom, this different and less courteous way of speaking to children on small occasions and minor matters. people who are generally civil and of fair kindliness do it habitually, not only to their own children, but to all children. we see it in the cars, in the stages, in stores, in sunday schools, everywhere. on the other hand, let a child ask for any thing without saying "please," receive any thing without saying "thank you," sit still in the most comfortable seat without offering to give it up, or press its own preference for a particular book, chair, or apple, to the inconveniencing of an elder, and what an outcry we have: "such rudeness!" "such an ill-mannered child!" "his parents must have neglected him strangely." not at all: they have been steadily telling him a great many times every day not to do these precise things which you dislike. but they themselves have been all the while doing those very things to him; and there is no proverb which strikes a truer balance between two things than the old one which weighs example over against precept. however, that it is bad policy to be rude to children is the least of the things to be said against it. over this they will triumph, sooner or later. the average healthy child has a native bias towards gracious good behavior and kindly affections. he will win and be won in the long run, and, the chances are, have better manners than his father. but the pain that we give these blessed little ones when we wound their tenderness,--for that there is no atoning. over that they can never triumph, either now or hereafter. why do we dare to be so sure that they are not grieved by ungracious words and tones? that they can get used to being continually treated as if they were "in the way"? who has not heard this said? i have, until i have longed for an elijah and for fire, that the grown-up cumberers of the ground, who are the ones really in the way, might be burned up, to make room for the children. i believe that, if it were possible to count up in any one month, and show in the aggregate, all of this class of miseries borne by children, the world would cry out astonished. i know a little girl, ten years old, of nervous temperament, whose whole physical condition is disordered, and seriously, by her mother's habitual atmosphere of rude fault-finding. she is a sickly, fretful, unhappy, almost unbearable child. if she lives to grow up, she will be a sickly, fretful, unhappy, unlovely woman. but her mother is just as much responsible for the whole as if she had deranged her system by feeding her on poisonous drugs. yet she is a most conscientious, devoted, and anxious mother, and, in spite of this manner, a loving one. she does not know that there is any better way than hers. she does not see that her child is mortified and harmed when she says to her, in the presence of strangers, "how do you suppose you _look_ with your mouth open like that?" "do you want me to show you how you are sitting?"--and then a grotesque imitation of her stooping shoulders. "_will_ you sit still for one minute?" "_do_ take your hands off my dress." "was there ever such an awkward child?" when the child replies fretfully and disagreeably, she does not see that it is only an exact reflection of her own voice and manners. she does not understand any of the things that would make for her own peace, as well as for the child's. matters grow worse, instead of better, as the child grows older and has more will; and the chances are that the poor little soul will be worried into her grave. probably most parents, even very kindly ones, would be a little startled at the assertion that a child ought never to be reproved in the presence of others. this is so constant an occurrence that nobody thinks of noticing it; nobody thinks of considering whether it be right and best, or not. but it is a great rudeness to a child. i am entirely sure that it ought never to be done. mortification is a condition as unwholesome as it is uncomfortable. when the wound is inflicted by the hand of a parent, it is all the more certain to rankle and do harm. let a child see that his mother is so anxious that he should have the approbation and good-will of her friends that she will not call their attention to his faults; and that, while she never, under any circumstances, allows herself to forget to tell him afterward, alone, if he has behaved improperly, she will spare him the additional pain and mortification of public reproof; and, while that child will lay these secret reproofs to heart, he will still be happy. i know a mother who had the insight to see this, and the patience to make it a rule; for it takes far more patience, far more time, than the common method. she said sometimes to her little boy, after visitors had left the parlor, "now, dear, i am going to be your little girl, and you are to be my papa. and we will play that a gentleman has just come in to see you, and i will show you exactly how you have been behaving while this lady has been calling to see me. and you can see if you do not feel very sorry to have your little girl behave so." here is a dramatic representation at once which that boy does not need to see repeated many times before he is forever cured of interrupting, of pulling his mother's gown, of drumming on the piano, &c.,--of the thousand and one things which able-bodied children can do to make social visiting where they are a martyrdom and a penance. once i saw this same little boy behave so boisterously and rudely at the dinner-table, in the presence of guests, that i said to myself, "surely, this time she will have to break her rule, and reprove him publicly." i saw several telegraphic signals of rebuke, entreaty, and warning flash from her gentle eyes to his; but nothing did any good. nature was too much for him; he could not at that minute force himself to be quiet. presently she said, in a perfectly easy and natural tone, "oh, charley, come here a minute; i want to tell you something." no one at the table supposed that it had any thing to do with his bad behavior. she did not intend that they should. as she whispered to him, i alone saw his cheek flush, and that he looked quickly and imploringly into her face; i alone saw that tears were almost in her eyes. but she shook her head, and he went back to his seat with a manful but very red little face. in a few moments he laid down his knife and fork, and said, "mamma, will you please to excuse me?" "certainly, my dear," said she. nobody but i understood it, or observed that the little fellow had to run very fast to get out of the room without crying. afterward she told me that she never sent a child away from the table in any other way. "but what would you do," said i, "if he were to refuse to ask to be excused?" then the tears stood full in her eyes. "do you think he could," she replied, "when he sees that i am only trying to save him from pain?" in the evening, charley sat in my lap, and was very sober. at last he whispered to me, "i'll tell you an awful secret, if you won't tell. did you think i had done my dinner this afternoon when i got excused? well, i hadn't. mamma made me, because i acted so. that's the way she always does. but i haven't had to have it done to me before for ever so long,--not since i was a little fellow" (he was eight now); "and i don't believe i ever shall again till i'm a man." then he added, reflectively, "mary brought me all the rest of my dinner upstairs; but i wouldn't touch it, only a little bit of the ice-cream. i don't think i deserved any at all; do you?" i shall never, so long as i live, forget a lesson of this sort which my own mother once gave me. i was not more than seven years old; but i had a great susceptibility to color and shape in clothes, and an insatiable admiration for all people who came finely dressed. one day, my mother said to me, "now i will play 'house' with you." who does not remember when to "play house" was their chief of plays? and to whose later thought has it not occurred that in this mimic little show lay bound up the whole of life? my mother was the liveliest of playmates, she took the worst doll, the broken tea-set, the shabby furniture, and the least convenient corner of the room for her establishment. social life became a round of festivities when she kept house as my opposite neighbor. at last, after the washing-day, and the baking-day, and the day when she took dinner with me, and the day when we took our children and walked out together, came the day for me to take my oldest child and go across to make a call at her house. chill discomfort struck me on the very threshold of my visit. where was the genial, laughing, talking lady who had been my friend up to that moment? there she sat, stock-still, dumb, staring first at my bonnet, then at my shawl, then at my gown, then at my feet; up and down, down and up, she scanned me, barely replying in monosyllables to my attempts at conversation; finally getting up, and coming nearer, and examining my clothes, and my child's still more closely. a very few minutes of this were more than i could bear; and, almost crying, i said, "why, mamma, what makes you do so?" then the play was over; and she was once more the wise and tender mother, telling me playfully that it was precisely in such a way i had stared, the day before, at the clothes of two ladies who had come in to visit her. i never needed that lesson again. to this day, if i find myself departing from it for an instant, the old tingling shame burns in my cheeks. to this day, also, the old tingling pain burns my cheeks as i recall certain rude and contemptuous words which were said to me when i was very young, and stamped on my memory forever. i was once called a "stupid child" in the presence of strangers. i had brought the wrong book from my father's study. nothing could be said to me to-day which would give me a tenth part of the hopeless sense of degradation which came from those words. another time, on the arrival of an unexpected guest to dinner, i was sent, in a great hurry, away from the table, to make room, with the remark that "it was not of the least consequence about the child; she could just as well have her dinner afterward." "the child" would have been only too happy to help on the hospitality of the sudden emergency, if the thing had been differently put; but the sting of having it put in that way i never forgot. yet in both these instances the rudeness was so small, in comparison with what we habitually see, that it would be too trivial to mention, except for the bearing of the fact that the pain it gave has lasted till now. when we consider seriously what ought to be the nature of a reproof from a parent to a child, and what is its end, the answer is simple enough. it should be nothing but the superior wisdom and strength, explaining to inexperience and feebleness wherein they have made a mistake, to the end that they may avoid such mistakes in future. if personal annoyance, impatience, antagonism enter in, the relation is marred and the end endangered. most sacred and inalienable of all rights is the right of helplessness to protection from the strong, of ignorance to counsel from the wise. if we give our protection and counsel grudgingly, or in a churlish, unkind manner, even to the stranger that is in our gates, we are no christians, and deserve to be stripped of what little wisdom and strength we have hoarded. but there are no words to say what we are or what we deserve if we do thus to the little children whom we have dared, for our own pleasure, to bring into the perils of this life, and whose whole future may be blighted by the mistakes of our careless hands. breaking the will. this phrase is going out of use. it is high time it did. if the thing it represents would also cease, there would be stronger and freer men and women. but the phrase is still sometimes heard; and there are still conscientious fathers and mothers who believe they do god service in setting about the thing. i have more than once said to a parent who used these words, "will you tell me just what you mean by that? of course you do not mean exactly what you say." "yes, i do. i mean that the child's will is to be once for all broken!--that he is to learn that my will is to be his law. the sooner he learns this the better." "but is it to your will simply _as_ will that he is to yield? simply as the weaker yields to the stronger,--almost as matter yields to force? for what reason is he to do this?" "why, because i know what is best for him, and what is right; and he does not." "ah! that is a very different thing. he is, then, to do the thing that you tell him to do, because that thing is right and is needful for him; you are his guide on a road over which you have gone, and he has not; you are an interpreter, a helper; you know better than he does about all things, and your knowledge is to teach his ignorance." "certainly, that is what i mean. a pretty state of things it would be if children were to be allowed to think they know as much as their parents. there is no way except to break their wills in the beginning." "but you have just said that it is not to your will as will that he is to yield, but to your superior knowledge and experience. that surely is not 'breaking his will.' it is of all things furthest removed from it. it is educating his will. it is teaching him how to will." this sounds dangerous; but the logic is not easily turned aside, and there is little left for the advocate of will-breaking but to fall back on some texts in the bible, which have been so often misquoted in this connection that one can hardly hear them with patience. to "children, obey your parents," was added "in the lord," and "because it is right," not "because they are your parents." "spare the rod" has been quite gratuitously assumed to mean "spare blows." "rod" means here, as elsewhere, simply punishment. we are not told to "train up a child" to have no will but our own, but "in the way in which he should go," and to the end that "when he is old" he should not "depart from it,"--i.e., that his will should be so educated that he will choose to walk in the right way still. suppose a child's will to be actually "broken;" suppose him to be so trained that he has no will but to obey his parents. what is to become of this helpless machine, which has no central spring of independent action? can we stand by, each minute of each hour of each day, and say to the automata, go here, or go there? can we be sure of living as long as they live? can we wind them up like seventy-year clocks, and leave them? but this is idle. it is not, thank god, in the power of any man or any woman to "break" a child's "will." they may kill the child's body, in trying, like that still unhung clergyman in western new york, who whipped his three-year-old son to death for refusing to repeat a prayer to his step-mother. bodies are frail things; there are more child-martyrs than will be known until the bodies terrestrial are done with. but, by one escape or another, the will, the soul, goes free. sooner or later, every human being comes to know and prove in his own estate that freedom of will is the only freedom for which there are no chains possible, and that in nature's whole reign of law nothing is so largely provided for as liberty. sooner or later, all this must come. but, if it comes later, it comes through clouds of antagonism, and after days of fight, and is hard-bought. it should come sooner, like the kingdom of god, which it is,--"without observation," gracious as sunshine, sweet as dew; it should begin with the infant's first dawning of comprehension that there are two courses of action, two qualities of conduct: one wise, the other foolish; one right, the other wrong. i am sure; for i have seen, that a child's moral perceptions can be so made clear, and his will so made strong and upright, that before he is ten years old he will see and take his way through all common days rightly and bravely. will he always act up to his highest moral perceptions? no. do we? but one right decision that he makes voluntarily, unbiassed by the assertion of authority or the threat of punishment, is worth more to him in development of moral character than a thousand in which he simply does what he is compelled to do by some sort of outside pressure. i read once, in a book intended for the guidance of mothers, a story of a little child who, in repeating his letters one day, suddenly refused to say a. all the other letters he repeated again and again, unhesitatingly; but a he would not, and persisted in declaring that he could not say. he was severely whipped, but still persisted. it now became a contest of wills. he was whipped again and again and again. in the intervals between the whippings the primer was presented to him, and he was told that he would be whipped again if he did not mind his mother and say a. i forget how many times he was whipped; but it was almost too many times to be believed. the fight was a terrible one. at last, in a paroxysm of his crying under the blows, the mother thought she heard him sob out "a," and the victory was considered to be won. a little boy whom i know once had a similar contest over a letter of the alphabet; but the contest was with himself, and his mother was the faithful great heart who helped him through. the story is so remarkable that i have long wanted all mothers to know it. it is as perfect an illustration of what i mean by "educating" the will as the other one is of what is called "breaking" it. willy was about four years old. he had a large, active brain, sensitive temperament, and indomitable spirit. he was and is an uncommon child. common methods of what is commonly supposed to be "discipline" would, if he had survived them, have made a very bad boy of him. he had great difficulty in pronouncing the letter g,--so much that he had formed almost a habit of omitting it. one day his mother said, not dreaming of any special contest, "this time you must say g." "it is an ugly old letter, and i ain't ever going to try to say it again," said willy, repeating the alphabet very rapidly from beginning to end, without the g. like a wise mother, she did not open at once on a struggle; but said, pleasantly, "ah! you did not get it in that time. try again; go more slowly, and we will have it." it was all in vain; and it soon began to look more like real obstinacy on willy's part than any thing she had ever seen in him. she has often told me how she hesitated before entering on the campaign. "i always knew," she said, "that willy's first real fight with himself would be no matter of a few hours; and it was a particularly inconvenient time for me, just then, to give up a day to it. but it seemed, on the whole, best not to put it off." so she said, "now, willy, you can't get along without the letter g. the longer you put off saying it, the harder it will be for you to say it at last; and we will have it settled now, once for all. you are never going to let a little bit of a letter like that be stronger than willy. we will not go out of this room till you have said it." unfortunately, willy's will had already taken its stand. however, the mother made no authoritative demand that he should pronounce the letter as a matter of obedience to her. because it was a thing intrinsically necessary for him to do, she would see, at any cost to herself or to him, that he did it; but he must do it voluntarily, and she would wait till he did. the morning wore on. she busied herself with other matters, and left willy to himself; now and then asking, with a smile, "well, isn't my little boy stronger than that ugly old letter yet?" willy was sulky. he understood in that early stage all that was involved. dinner-time came. "aren't you going to dinner, mamma?" "oh! no, dear; not unless you say g, so that you can go too. mamma will stay by her little boy until he is out of this trouble." the dinner was brought up, and they ate it together. she was cheerful and kind, but so serious that he felt the constant pressure of her pain. the afternoon dragged slowly on to night. willy cried now and then, and she took him in her lap, and said, "dear, you will be happy as soon as you say that letter, and mamma will be happy too, and we can't either of us be happy until you do." "oh, mamma! why don't you _make_ me say it?" (this he said several times before the affair was over.) "because, dear, you must make yourself say it. i am helping you make yourself say it, for i shall not let you go out of this room, nor go out myself, till you do say it; but that is all i shall do to help you. i am listening, listening all the time, and if you say it, in ever so little a whisper, i shall hear you. that is all mamma can do for you." bed-time came. willy went to bed, unkissed and sad. the next morning, when willy's mother opened her eyes, she saw willy sitting up in his crib, and looking at her steadfastly. as soon as he saw that she was awake, he exclaimed, "mamma, i can't say it; and you know i can't say it. you're a naughty mamma, and you don't love me." her heart sank within her; but she patiently went again and again over yesterday's ground. willy cried. he ate very little breakfast. he stood at the window in a listless attitude of discouraged misery, which she said cut her to the heart. once in a while he would ask for some plaything which he did not usually have. she gave him whatever he asked for; but he could not play. she kept up an appearance of being busy with her sewing, but she was far more unhappy than willy. dinner was brought up to them. willy said, "mamma, this ain't a bit good dinner." she replied, "yes, it is, darling; just as good as we ever have. it is only because we are eating it alone. and poor papa is sad, too, taking his all alone downstairs." at this willy burst out into an hysterical fit of crying and sobbing. "i shall never see my papa again in this world." then his mother broke down, too, and cried as hard as he did; but she said, "oh! yes, you will, dear. i think you will say that letter before tea-time, and we will have a nice evening downstairs together." "i can't say it. i try all the time, and i can't say it; and, if you keep me here till i die, i shan't ever say it." the second night settled down dark and gloomy, and willy cried himself to sleep. his mother was ill from anxiety and confinement; but she never faltered. she told me she resolved that night that, if it were necessary, she would stay in that room with willy a month. the next morning she said to him, more seriously than before, "now, willy, you are not only a foolish little boy, you are unkind; you are making everybody unhappy. mamma is very sorry for you, but she is also very much displeased with you. mamma will stay here with you till you say that letter, if it is for the rest of your life; but mamma will not talk with you, as she did yesterday. she tried all day yesterday to help you, and you would not help yourself; to-day you must do it all alone." "mamma, are you sure i shall ever say it?" asked willy. "yes, dear; perfectly sure. you will say it some day or other." "do you think i shall say it to-day?" "i can't tell. you are not so strong a little boy as i thought. i believed you would say it yesterday. i am afraid you have some hard work before you." willy begged her to go down and leave him alone. then he begged her to shut him up in the closet, and "see if that wouldn't make him good." every few minutes he would come and stand before her, and say very earnestly, "are you sure i shall say it?" he looked very pale, almost as if he had had a fit of illness. no wonder. it was the whole battle of life fought at the age of four. it was late in the afternoon of this the third day. willy had been sitting in his little chair, looking steadily at the floor, for so long a time that his mother was almost frightened. but she hesitated to speak to him, for she felt that the crisis had come. suddenly he sprang up, and walked toward her with all the deliberate firmness of a man in his whole bearing. she says there was something in his face which she has never seen since, and does not expect to see till he is thirty years old. "mamma!" said he. "well, dear?" said his mother, trembling so that she could hardly speak. "mamma," he repeated, in a loud, sharp tone, "g! g! g! g!" and then he burst into a fit of crying, which she had hard work to stop. it was over. willy is now ten years old. from that day to this his mother has never had a contest with him; she has always been able to leave all practical questions affecting his behavior to his own decision, merely saying, "willy, i think this or that will be better." his self-control and gentleness are wonderful to see; and the blending in his face of childlike simplicity and purity with manly strength is something which i have only once seen equalled. for a few days he went about the house, shouting "g! g! g!" at the top of his voice. he was heard asking playmates if they could "say g," and "who showed them how." for several years he used often to allude to the affair, saying, "do you remember, mamma, that dreadful time when i wouldn't say g?" he always used the verb "wouldn't" in speaking of it. once, when he was sick, he said, "mamma, do you think i could have said g any sooner than i did?" "i have never felt certain about that, willy," she said. "what do _you_ think?" "i think i could have said it a few minutes sooner. i was saying it to _myself_ as long as that!" said willy. it was singular that, although up to that time he had never been able to pronounce the letter with any distinctness, when he first made up his mind in this instance to say it, he enunciated it with perfect clearness, and never again went back to the old, imperfect pronunciation. few mothers, perhaps, would be able to give up two whole days to such a battle as this; other children, other duties, would interfere. but the same principle could be carried out without the mother's remaining herself by the child's side all the time. moreover, not one child in a thousand would hold out as willy did. in all ordinary cases a few hours would suffice. and, after all, what would the sacrifice of even two days be, in comparison with the time saved in years to come? if there were no stronger motive than one of policy, of desire to take the course easiest to themselves, mothers might well resolve that their first aim should be to educate their children's wills and make them strong, instead of to conquer and "break" them. the reign of archelaus. herod's massacre had, after all, a certain mercy in it: there were no lingering tortures. the slayers of children went about with naked and bloody swords, which mothers could see, and might at least make effort to flee from. into rachel's refusal to be comforted there need enter no bitter agonies of remorse. but herod's death, it seems, did not make judea a safe place for babies. when joseph "heard that archelaus did reign in the room of his father, herod, he was afraid to return thither with the infant jesus," and only after repeated commands and warnings from god would he venture as far as nazareth. the reign of archelaus is not yet over; he has had many names, and ruled over more and more countries, but the spirit of his father, herod, is still in him. to-day his power is at its zenith. he is called education; and the safest place for the dear, holy children is still egypt, or some other of the fortunate countries called unenlightened. some years ago there were symptoms of a strong rebellion against his tyranny. horace mann lifted up his strong hands and voice against it; physicians and physiologists came out gravely and earnestly, and fortified their positions with statistics from which there was no appeal. thomas wentworth higginson, whose words have with the light, graceful beauty of the damascus blade its swift sureness in cleaving to the heart of things, wrote an article for the "atlantic monthly" called "the murder of the innocents," which we wish could be put into every house in the united states. some changes in school organizations resulted from these protests; in the matter of ventilation of school-rooms some real improvement was probably effected; though we shudder to think how much room remains for further improvement, when we read in the report of the superintendent of public schools in brooklyn that in the primary departments of the grammar schools "an average daily number of , pupils are crowded into one-half the space provided in the upper departments for an average daily attendance of , ; or compelled to occupy badly lighted, inconvenient, and ill-ventilated galleries, or rooms in the basement stories." but in regard to the number of hours of confinement, and amount of study required of children, it is hard to believe that schools have ever been much more murderously exacting than now. the substitution of the single session of five hours for the old arrangement of two sessions of three hours each, with a two-hours interval at noon, was regarded as a great gain. so it would be, if all the brain-work of the day were done in that time; but in most schools with the five-hours session, there is next to no provision for studying in school-hours, and the pupils are required to learn two, three, or four lessons at home. now, when is your boy to learn these lessons? not in the morning, before school; that is plain. school ends at two. few children live sufficiently near their schools to get home to dinner before half past two o'clock. we say nothing of the undesirableness of taking the hearty meal of the day immediately after five hours of mental fatigue; it is probably a less evil than the late dinner at six, and we are in a region where we are grateful for _less_ evils! dinner is over at quarter past three; we make close estimates. in winter there is left less than two hours before dark. this is all the time the child is to have for out-door play; two hours and a half (counting in his recess) out of twenty-four. ask any farmer, even the stupidest, how well his colt or his lamb would grow if it had but two hours a day of absolute freedom and exercise in the open air, and that in the dark and the chill of a late afternoon! in spite of the dark and the chill, however, your boy skates or slides on until he is called in by you, who, if you are an american mother, care a great deal more than he does for the bad marks which will stand on his week's report if those three lessons are not learned before bed-time. he is tired and cold; he does not want to study--who would? it is six o'clock before he is fairly at it. you work harder than he does, and in half an hour one lesson is learned; then comes tea. after tea half an hour, or perhaps an hour, remains before bed-time; in this time, which ought to be spent in light, cheerful talk or play, the rest of the lessons must be learned. he is sleepy and discouraged. words which in the freshness of the morning he would have learned in a very few moments with ease, it is now simply out of his power to commit to memory. you, if you are not superhuman, grow impatient. at eight o'clock he goes to bed, his brain excited and wearied, in no condition for healthful sleep; and his heart oppressed with the fear of "missing" in the next day's recitations. and this is one out of the school-year's two hundred and sixteen days--all of which will be like this, or worse. one of the most pitiful sights we have seen for months was a little group of four dear children, gathered round the library lamp, trying to learn the next day's lessons in time to have a story read to them before going to bed. they had taken the precaution to learn one lesson immediately after dinner, before going out, cutting their out-door play down by half an hour. the two elder were learning a long spelling-lesson; the third was grappling with geographical definitions of capes, promontories, and so forth; and the youngest was at work on his primer. in spite of all their efforts, bed-time came before the lessons were learned. the little geography student had been nodding over her book for some minutes, and she had the philosophy to say, "i don't care; i'm so sleepy. i had rather go to bed than hear any kind of a story." but the elder ones were grieved and unhappy, and said, "there won't _ever_ be any time; we shall have just as much more to learn to-morrow night." the next morning, however, there was a sight still more pitiful: the baby of seven, with a little bit of paper and a pencil, and three sums in addition to be done, and the father vainly endeavoring, to explain them to him in the hurried moments before breakfast. it would be easy to show how fatal to all real mental development, how false to all nature's laws of growth, such a system must be; but that belongs to another side of the question. we speak now simply of the effect of it on the body; and here we quote largely from the admirable article of col. higginson's, above referred to. no stronger, more direct, more conclusive words can be written:-- "sir walter scott, according to carlyle, was the only perfectly healthy literary man who ever lived. he gave it as his deliberate opinion, in conversation with basil hall, that five and a half hours form the limit of healthful mental labor for a mature person. 'this i reckon very good work for a man,' he said. 'i can very seldom work six hours a day.' supposing his estimate to be correct, and five and a half hours the reasonable limit for the day's work of a mature intellect, it is evident that even this must be altogether too much for an immature one. 'to suppose the youthful brain,' says the recent admirable report, by dr. ray, of the providence insane hospital, 'to be capable of an amount of work which is considered an ample allowance to an adult brain is simply absurd.' 'it would be wrong, therefore, to deduct less than a half-hour from scott's estimate, for even the oldest pupils in our highest schools, leaving five hours as the limit of real mental effort for them, and reducing this for all younger pupils very much further.' "but scott is not the only authority in the case; let us ask the physiologists. so said horace mann before us, in the days when the massachusetts school system was in process of formation. he asked the physicians in , and in his report printed the answers of three of the most eminent. the late dr. woodward, of worcester, promptly said that children under eight should never be confined more than one hour at a time, nor more than four hours a day. "dr. james jackson, of boston, allowed the children four hours schooling in winter and five in summer, but only one hour at a time; and heartily expressed his detestation of giving young children lessons to learn at home. "dr. s.g. howe, reasoning elaborately on the whole subject, said that children under eight years of age should never be confined more than half an hour at a time; by following which rule, with long recesses, they can study four hours daily. children between eight and fourteen should not be confined more than three-quarters of an hour at a time, having the last quarter of each hour for exercise on the play-ground. "indeed, the one thing about which doctors do _not_ disagree is the destructive effect of premature or excessive mental labor. i can quote you medical authority for and against every maxim of dietetics beyond the very simplest; but i defy you to find one man who ever begged, borrowed, or stole the title of m.d., and yet abused those two honorary letters by asserting under their cover that a child could safely study as much as a man, or that a man could safely study more than six hours a day." "the worst danger of it is that the moral is written at the end of the fable, not at the beginning. the organization in youth is so dangerously elastic that the result of these intellectual excesses is not seen until years after. when some young girl incurs spinal disease from some slight fall, which she ought not to have felt for an hour, or some business man breaks down in the prime of his years from some trifling over-anxiety, which should have left no trace behind, the popular verdict may be 'mysterious providence;' but the wiser observer sees the retribution for the folly of those misspent days which enfeebled the childish constitution instead of ripening it. one of the most striking passages in the report of dr. ray, before mentioned, is that in which he explains that, 'though study at school is rarely the immediate cause of insanity, it is the most frequent of its ulterior causes, except hereditary tendencies.' _it diminishes the conservative power of the animal economy to such a degree that attacks of disease which otherwise would have passed off safely destroy life almost before danger is anticipated_." it would be easy to multiply authorities on these points. it is hard to stop. but our limits forbid any thing like a full treatment of the subject. yet discussion on this question ought never to cease in the land until a reform is brought about. teachers are to blame only in part for the present wrong state of things. they are to blame for yielding, for acquiescing; but the real blame rests on parents. here and there, individual fathers and mothers, taught, perhaps, by heart-rending experience, try to make stand against the current of false ambitions and unhealthy standards. but these are rare exceptions. parents, as a class, not only help on, but create the pressure to which teachers yield, and children are sacrificed. the whole responsibility is really theirs. they have in their hands the power to regulate the whole school routine to which their children are to be subjected. this is plain, when we once consider what would be the immediate effect in any community, large or small, if a majority of parents took action together, and persistently refused to allow any child under fourteen to be confined in school more than four hours out of the twenty-four, more than one hour at a time, or to do more than five hours' brain-work in a day. the law of supply and demand is a first principle. in three months the schools in that community would be entirely reorganized, to accord with the parents' wishes; in three years the improved average health of the children in that community would bear its own witness in ruddy bloom along the streets; and perhaps even in one generation so great gain of vigor might be made that the melancholy statistics of burial would no longer have to record the death under twelve years of age of more than two-fifths of the children who are born. the awkward age. the expression defines itself. at the first sound of the words, we all think of some one unhappy soul we know just now, whom they suggest. nobody is ever without at least one brother, sister, cousin, or friend on hand, who is struggling through this social slough of despond; and nobody ever will be, so long as the world goes on taking it for granted that the slough is a necessity, and that the road must go through it. nature never meant any such thing. now and then she blunders or gets thwarted of her intent, and turns out a person who is awkward, hopelessly and forever awkward; body and soul are clumsy together, and it is hard to fancy them translated to the spiritual world without too much elbow and ankle. however, these are rare cases, and come in under the law of variation. but an awkward age,--a necessary crisis or stage of uncouthness, through which all human beings must pass,--nature was incapable of such a conception; law has no place for it; development does not know it; instinct revolts from it; and man is the only animal who has been silly and wrong-headed enough to stumble into it. the explanation and the remedy are so simple, so close at hand, that we have not seen them. the whole thing lies in a nutshell. where does this abnormal, uncomfortable period come in? between childhood, we say, and maturity; it is the transition from one to the other. when human beings, then, are neither boys nor men, girls nor women, they must be for a few years anomalous creatures, must they? we might, perhaps, find a name for the individual in this condition as well as for the condition. we must look to du chaillu for it, if we do; but it is too serious a distress to make light of, even for a moment. we have all felt it, and we know how it feels; we all see it every day, and we know how it looks. what is it which the child has and the adult loses, from the loss of which comes this total change of behavior? or is it something which the adult has and the child had not? it is both; and until the loss and the gain, the new and the old, are permanently separated and balanced, the awkward age lasts. the child was overlooked, contradicted, thwarted, snubbed, insulted, whipped; not constantly, not often,--in many cases, thank god, very seldom. but the liability was there, and he knew it; he never forgot it, if you did. one burn is enough to make fire dreaded. the adult, once fairly recognized as adult, is not overlooked, contradicted, thwarted, snubbed, insulted, whipped; at least, not with impunity. to this gratifying freedom, these comfortable exemptions, when they are once established in our belief, we adjust ourselves, and grow contentedly good-mannered. to the other _régime_, while we were yet children, we also somewhat adjusted ourselves, were tolerably well behaved, and made the best of it. but who could bear a mixture of both? what genius could rise superior to it, could be itself, surrounded by such uncertainties? no wonder that your son comes into the room with a confused expression of uncomfortable pain on every feature, when he does not in the least know whether he will be recognized as a gentleman, or overlooked as a little boy. no wonder he sits down in his chair with movements suggestive of nothing but rheumatism and jack-knives, when he is thinking that perhaps there may be some reason why he should not take that particular chair, and that, if there is, he will be ordered up. no wonder that your tall daughter turns red, stammers, and says foolish things on being courteously spoken to by strangers at dinner, when she is afraid that she may be sharply contradicted or interrupted, and remembers that day before yesterday she was told that children should be seen and not heard. i knew a very clever girl, who had the misfortune to look at fourteen as if she were twenty. at home, she was the shyest and most awkward of creatures; away from her mother and sisters, she was self-possessed and charming. she said to me, once, "oh! i have such a splendid time away from home. i'm so tall, everybody thinks i am grown up, and everybody is civil to me." i know, also, a man of superb physique, charming temperament, and uncommon talent, who is to this day--and he is twenty-five years old--nervous and ill at ease in talking with strangers, in the presence of his own family. he hesitates, stammers, and never does justice to his thoughts. he says that he believes he shall never be free from this distress; he cannot escape from the recollections of the years between fourteen and twenty, during which he was so systematically snubbed that his mother's parlor was to him worse than the chambers of the inquisition. he knows that he is now sure of courteous treatment; that his friends are all proud of him; but the old cloud will never entirely disappear. something has been lost which can never be regained. and the loss is not his alone, it is theirs too; they are all poorer for life, by reason of the unkind days which are gone. this, then, is the explanation of the awkward age. i am not afraid of any dissent from my definition of the source whence its misery springs. everybody's consciousness bears witness. everybody knows, in the bottom of his heart, that, however much may be said about the change of voice, the thinness of cheeks, the sharpness of arms, the sudden length in legs and lack of length in trousers and frocks,--all these had nothing to do with the real misery. the real misery was simply and solely the horrible feeling of not belonging anywhere; not knowing what a moment might bring forth in the way of treatment from others; never being sure which impulse it would be safer to follow, to retreat or to advance, to speak or to be silent, and often overwhelmed with unspeakable mortification at the rebuff of the one or the censure of the other. oh! how dreadful it all was! how dreadful it all is, even to remember! it would be malicious even to refer to it, except to point out the cure. the cure is plain. it needs no experiment to test it. merely to mention it ought to be enough. if human beings are so awkward at this unhappy age, and so unhappy at this awkward age, simply because they do not know whether they are to be treated as children or as adults, suppose we make a rule that children are always to be treated, in point of courtesy, as if they were adults? then this awkward age--this period of transition from an atmosphere of, to say the least, negative rudeness to one of gracious politeness--disappears. there cannot be a crisis of readjustment of social relations: there is no possibility of such a feeling; it would be hard to explain to a young person what it meant. now and then we see a young man or young woman who has never known it. they are usually only children, and are commonly spoken of as wonders. i know such a boy to-day. at seventeen he measures six feet in height; he has the feet and the hands of a still larger man; and he comes of a blood which had far more strength than grace. but his manner is, and always has been, sweet, gentle, composed,--the very ideal of grave, tender, frank young manhood. people say, "how strange! he never seemed to have any awkward age at all." it would have been stranger if he had. neither his father nor his mother ever departed for an instant, in their relations with him, from the laws of courtesy and kindliness of demeanor which governed their relations with others. he knew but one atmosphere, and that a genial one, from his babyhood up; and in and of this atmosphere has grown up a sweet, strong, pure soul, for which the quiet, self-possessed manner is but the fitting garb. this is part of the kingdom that cometh unobserved. in this kingdom we are all to be kings and priests, if we choose; and all its ways are pleasantness. but we are not ready for it till we have become peaceable and easy to be entreated, and have learned to understand why it was that one day, when jesus called his disciples together, he set a little child in their midst. a day with a courteous mother. during the whole of one of last summer's hottest days i had the good fortune to be seated in a railway car near a mother and four children, whose relations with each other were so beautiful that the pleasure of watching them was quite enough to make one forget the discomforts of the journey. it was plain that they were poor; their clothes were coarse and old, and had been made by inexperienced hands. the mother's bonnet alone would have been enough to have condemned the whole party on any of the world's thoroughfares. i remembered afterward, with shame, that i myself had smiled at the first sight of its antiquated ugliness; but her face was one which it gave you a sense of rest to look upon,--it was so earnest, tender, true, and strong. it had little comeliness of shape or color in it, it was thin, and pale; she was not young; she had worked hard; she had evidently been much ill; but i have seen few faces which gave me such pleasure. i think that she was the wife of a poor clergyman; and i think that clergyman must be one of the lord's best watchmen of souls. the children--two boys and two girls--were all under the age of twelve, and the youngest could not speak plainly. they had had a rare treat; they had been visiting the mountains, and they were talking over all the wonders they had seen with a glow of enthusiastic delight which was to be envied. only a word-for-word record would do justice to their conversation; no description could give any idea of it,--so free, so pleasant, so genial, no interruptions, no contradictions; and the mother's part borne all the while with such equal interest and eagerness that no one not seeing her face would dream that she was any other than an elder sister. in the course of the day there were many occasions when it was necessary for her to deny requests, and to ask services, especially from the eldest boy; but no young girl, anxious to please a lover, could have done either with a more tender courtesy. she had her reward; for no lover could have been more tender and manly than was this boy of twelve. their lunch was simple and scanty; but it had the grace of a royal banquet. at the last, the mother produced with much glee three apples and an orange, of which the children had not known. all eyes fastened on the orange. it was evidently a great rarity. i watched to see if this test would bring out selfishness. there was a little silence; just the shade of a cloud. the mother said, "how shall i divide this? there is one for each of you; and i shall be best off of all, for i expect big tastes from each of you." "oh, give annie the orange. annie loves oranges," spoke out the oldest boy, with a sudden air of a conqueror, and at the same time taking the smallest and worst apple himself. "oh, yes, let annie have the orange," echoed the second boy, nine years old. "yes, annie may have the orange, because that is nicer than the apple, and she is a lady, and her brothers are gentlemen," said the mother, quietly. then there was a merry contest as to who should feed the mother with largest and most frequent mouthfuls; and so the feast went on. then annie pretended to want apple, and exchanged thin golden strips of orange for bites out of the cheeks of baldwins; and, as i sat watching her intently, she suddenly fancied she saw longing in my face, and sprang over to me, holding out a quarter of her orange, and saying, "don't you want a taste, too?" the mother smiled, understandingly, when i said, "no, i thank you, you dear, generous little girl; i don't care about oranges." at noon we had a tedious interval of waiting at a dreary station. we sat for two hours on a narrow platform, which the sun had scorched till it smelt of heat. the oldest boy--the little lover--held the youngest child, and talked to her, while the tired mother closed her eyes and rested. now and then he looked over at her, and then back at the baby; and at last he said confidentially to me (for we had become fast friends by this time), "isn't it funny, to think that i was ever so small as this baby? and papa says that then mamma was almost a little girl herself." the two other children were toiling up and down the banks of the railroad-track, picking ox-eye daisies, buttercups, and sorrel. they worked like beavers, and soon the bunches were almost too big for their little hands. then they came running to give them to their mother. "oh dear," thought i, "how that poor, tired woman will hate to open her eyes! and she never can take those great bunches of common, fading flowers, in addition to all her bundles and bags." i was mistaken. "oh, thank you, my darlings! how kind you were! poor, hot, tired little flowers, how thirsty they look! if they will only try and keep alive till we get home, we will make them very happy in some water; won't we? and you shall put one bunch by papa's plate, and one by mine." sweet and happy, the weary and flushed little children stood looking up in her face while she talked, their hearts thrilling with compassion for the drooping flowers and with delight in the giving of their gift. then she took great trouble to get a string and tie up the flowers, and then the train came, and we were whirling along again. soon it grew dark, and little annie's head nodded. then i heard the mother say to the oldest boy, "dear, are you too tired to let little annie put her head on your shoulder and take a nap? we shall get her home in much better case to see papa if we can manage to give her a little sleep." how many boys of twelve hear such words as these from tired, overburdened mothers? soon came the city, the final station, with its bustle and noise. i lingered to watch my happy family, hoping to see the father. "why, papa isn't here!" exclaimed one disappointed little voice after another. "never mind," said the mother, with a still deeper disappointment in her own tone; "perhaps he had to go to see some poor body who is sick." in the hurry of picking up all the parcels, and the sleepy babies, the poor daisies and buttercups were left forgotten in a corner of the rack. i wondered if the mother had not intended this. may i be forgiven for the injustice! a few minutes after i passed the little group, standing still just outside the station, and heard the mother say, "oh, my darlings, i have forgotten your pretty bouquets. i am so sorry! i wonder if i could find them if i went back. will you all stand still and not stir from this spot if i go?" "oh, mamma, don't go, don't go. we will get you some more. don't go," cried all the children. "here are your flowers, madam," said i. "i saw that you had forgotten them, and i took them as mementoes of you and your sweet children." she blushed and looked disconcerted. she was evidently unused to people, and shy with all but her children. however, she thanked me sweetly, and said,-- "i was very sorry about them. the children took such trouble to get them; and i think they will revive in water. they cannot be quite dead." "they will _never_ die!" said i, with an emphasis which went from my heart to hers. then all her shyness fled. she knew me; and we shook hands, and smiled into each other's eyes with the smile of kindred as we parted. as i followed on, i heard the two children, who were walking behind, saying to each other, "wouldn't that have been too bad? mamma liked them so much, and we never could have got so many all at once again." "yes, we could, too, next summer," said the boy, sturdily. they are sure of their "next summers," i think, all six of those souls,--children, and mother, and father. they may never again gather so many ox-eye daisies and buttercups "all at once." perhaps some of the little hands have already picked their last flowers. nevertheless, their summers are certain. to such souls as these, all trees, either here or in god's larger country, are trees of life, with twelve manner of fruits and leaves for healing; and it is but little change from the summers here, whose suns burn and make weary, to the summers there, of which "the lamb is the light." heaven bless them all, wherever they are. children in nova scotia. nova scotia is a country of gracious surprises. instead of the stones which are what strangers chiefly expect at her hands, she gives us a wealth of fertile meadows; instead of stormy waves breaking on a frowning coast, she shows us smooth basins whose shores are soft and wooded to the water's edge, and into which empty wonderful tidal rivers, whose courses, where the tide-water has flowed out, lie like curving bands of bright brown satin among the green fields. she has no barrenness, no unsightliness, no poverty; everywhere beauty, everywhere riches. she is biding her time. but most beautiful among her beauties, most wonderful among her wonders, are her children. during two weeks' travel in the provinces, i have been constantly more and more impressed by their superiority in appearance, size, and health to the children of the new england and middle states. in the outset of our journey i was struck by it; along all the roadsides they looked up, boys and girls, fair, broad-cheeked, sturdy-legged, such as with us are seen only now and then. i did not, however, realize at first that this was the universal law of the land, and that it pointed to something more than climate as a cause. but the first school that i saw, _en masse_, gave a startling impetus to the train of observation and inference into which i was unconsciously falling. it was a sunday school in the little town of wolfville, which lies between the gaspcreau and cornwallis rivers, just beyond the meadows of the grand pré, where lived gabriel lajeunesse, and benedict bellefontaine, and the rest of the "simple acadian farmers." "mists from the mighty atlantic" more than "looked on the happy valley" that sunday morning. convicting longfellow of a mistake, they did descend "from their stations," on solemn blomidon, and fell in a slow, unpleasant drizzle in the streets of wolfville and horton. i arrived too early at one of the village churches, and while i was waiting for a sexton a door opened, and out poured the sunday school, whose services had just ended. on they came, dividing in the centre, and falling to the right and left about me, thirty or forty boys and girls, between the ages of seven and fifteen. i looked at them in astonishment. they all had fair skins, red cheeks, and clear eyes; they were all broad-shouldered, straight, and sturdy; the younger ones were more than sturdy,--they were fat, from the ankles up. but perhaps the most noticeable thing of all was the quiet, sturdy, unharassed expression which their faces wore; a look which is the greatest charm of a child's face, but which we rarely see in children over two or three years old. boys of eleven or twelve were there, with shoulders broader than the average of our boys at sixteen, and yet with the pure, childlike look on their faces. girls of ten or eleven were there who looked almost like women,--that is, like ideal women,--simply because they looked so calm and undisturbed. the saxon coloring prevailed; three-fourths of the eyes were blue, with hair of that pale ash-brown which the french call "_blonde cendrée_" out of them all there was but one child who looked sickly. he had evidently met with some accident, and was lame. afterward, as the congregation assembled, i watched the fathers and mothers of these children. they, too, were broad-shouldered, tall, and straight, especially the women. even old women were straight, like the negroes one sees at the south, walking with burdens on their heads. five days later i saw in halifax the celebration of the anniversary of the settlement of the province. the children of the city and of some of the neighboring towns marched in "bands of hope" and processions, such as we see in the cities of the states on the fourth of july. this was just the opportunity i wanted. it was the same here as in the country. i counted on that day just eleven sickly-looking children; no more! such brilliant cheeks, such merry eyes, such evident strength; it was a scene to kindle the dullest soul. there were scores of little ones there, whose droll, fat legs would have drawn a crowd in central park; and they all had that same, quiet, composed, well-balanced expression of countenance of which i spoke before, and of which it would be hard to find an instance in all central park. climate undoubtedly has something to do with this. the air is moist, and the mercury rarely rises above ° or falls below °. also the comparative quiet of their lives helps to make them so beautiful and strong. but the most significant fact to my mind is that, until the past year, there have been in nova scotia no public schools, comparatively few private ones; and in these there is no severe pressure brought to bear on the pupils. the private schools have been expensive, consequently it has been very unusual for children to be sent to school before they were _eight or nine_ years of age; i could not find a person who had ever known of a child's being sent to school _under seven!_ the school sessions are on the old plan of six hours per day,--from nine till twelve, and from one till four; but no learning of lessons out of school has been allowed. within the last year a system of free public schools has been introduced, "and the people are grumbling terribly about it," said my informant. "why?" i asked; "because they do not wish to have their children educated?" "oh, no," said he; "because they do not like to pay the taxes!" "alas!" i thought, "if it were only their silver which would be taxed!" i must not be understood to argue from the health of the children of nova scotia, as contrasted with the lack of health among our children, that it is best to have no public schools; only that it is better to have no public schools than to have such public schools as are now killing off our children. the registration system of nova scotia is as yet imperfectly carried out. it is almost impossible to obtain exact returns from all parts of so thinly settled a country. but such statistics as have been already established give sufficient food for reflection in this connection. in massachusetts more than two-fifths of all the children born die before they are twelve years old. in nova scotia the proportion is less than one-third. in nova scotia one out of every fifty-six lives to be over ninety years of age; and one-twelfth of the entire number of deaths is between the ages of eighty and ninety. in massachusetts one person out of one hundred and nine lives to be over ninety. in massachusetts the mortality from diseases of the brain and nervous system is eleven per cent. in nova scotia it is only eight per cent. the republic of the family. "he is lover and friend and son, all in one," said a friend, the other day, telling me of a dear boy who, out of his first earnings, had just sent to his mother a beautiful gift, costing much more than he could really afford for such a purpose. that mother is the wisest, sweetest, most triumphant mother i have ever known. i am restrained by feelings of deepest reverence for her from speaking, as i might speak, of the rare and tender methods by which her motherhood has worked, patiently and alone, for nearly twenty years, and made of her two sons "lovers and friends." i have always felt that she owed it to the world to impart to other mothers all that she could of her divine secret; to write out, even in detail, all the processes by which her boys have grown to be so strong, upright, loving, and manly. but one of her first principles has so direct a bearing on the subject that i wish to speak of here that i venture to attempt an explanation of it. she has told me that she never once, even in their childish days, took the ground that she had right to require any thing from them simply _because_ she was their mother. this is a position very startling to the average parent. it is exactly counter to traditions. "why must i?" or "why cannot i?" says the child. "because i say so, and i am your father," has been the stern, authoritative reply ever since we can any of us remember; and, i presume, ever since the christian era, since that good apostle paul saw enough in the ephesian families where he visited to lead him to write to them from rome, "fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." it seems to me that there are few questions of practical moment in every-day living on which a foregone and erroneous conclusion has been adopted so generally and so undoubtingly. how it first came about it is hard to see. or, rather, it is easy to see, when one reflects; and the very clearness of the surface explanation of it only makes its injustice more odious. it came about because the parent was strong and the child weak. helplessness in the hands of power,--that is the whole story. suppose for an instant (and, absurd as the supposition is practically, it is not logically absurd), that the child at six were strong enough to whip his father; let him have the intellect of an infant, the mistakes and the faults of an infant,--which the father would feel himself bound and _would be_ bound to correct,--but the body of a man; and then see in how different fashion the father would set himself to work to insure good behavior. i never see the heavy, impatient hand of a grown man or woman laid with its brute force, even for the smallest purpose, on a little child, without longing for a sudden miracle to give the baby an equal strength to resist. when we realize what it is for us to dare, for our own pleasure, even with solemnest purpose of the holiest of pleasures, parenthood, to bring into existence a soul, which must take for our sake its chance of joy or sorrow, how monstrous it seems to assume that the fact that we have done this thing gives us arbitrary right to control that soul; to set our will, as will, in place of its will; to be law unto its life; to try to make of it what it suits our fancy or our convenience to have it; to claim that it is under obligation to us! the truth is, all the obligation, in the outset, is the other way. we owe all to them. all that we can do to give them happiness, to spare them pain; all that we can do to make them wise and good and safe,--all is too little! all and more than all can never repay them for the sweetness, the blessedness, the development that it has been to us to call children ours. if we can also so win their love by our loving, so deserve their respect by our honorableness, so earn their gratitude by our helpfulness, that they come to be our "lovers and friends," then, ah! then we have had enough of heaven here to make us willing to postpone the more for which we hope beyond! but all this comes not of authority, not by command; all this is perilled always, always impaired, and often lost, by authoritative, arbitrary ruling, substitution of law and penalty for influence. it will be objected by parents who disagree with this theory that only authority can prevent license; that without command there will not be control. no one has a right to condemn methods he has not tried. i know, for i have seen, i know, for i have myself tested, that command and authority are short-lived; that they do not insure the results they aim at; that real and permanent control of a child's behavior, even in little things, is gained only by influence, by a slow, sure educating, enlightening, and strengthening of a child's will. i know, for i have seen, that it is possible in this way to make a child only ten years old quite as intelligent and trustworthy a free agent as his mother; to make him so sensible, so gentle, so considerate that to say "must" or "must not" to him would be as unnecessary and absurd as to say it to her. but, if it be wiser and better to surround even little children with this atmosphere of freedom, how much more essential is it for those who remain under the parental roof long after they have ceased to be children! just here seems to me to be the fatal rock upon which many households make utter shipwreck of their peace. fathers and mothers who have ruled by authority (let it be as loving as you please, it will still remain an arbitrary rule) in the beginning, never seem to know when their children are children no longer, but have become men and women. in any average family, the position of an unmarried daughter after she is twenty years old becomes less and less what it should be. in case of sons, the question is rarely a practical one; in those exceptional instances where invalidism or some other disability keeps a man helpless for years under his father's roof, his very helplessness is at once his vindication and his shield, and also prevents his feeling manly revolt against the position of unnatural childhood. but in the case of daughters it is very different. who does not number in his circle of acquaintance many unmarried women, between the ages of thirty and forty, perhaps even older, who have practically little more freedom in the ordering of their own lives than they had when they were eleven? the mother or the father continues just as much the autocratic centre of the family now as of the nursery, thirty years before. taking into account the chance--no, the certainty--of great differences between parents and children in matters of temperament and taste, it is easy to see that great suffering must result from this; suffering, too, which involves real loss and hindrance to growth. it is really a monstrous wrong; but it seems to be rarely observed by the world, and never suspected by those who are most responsible for it. it is perhaps a question whether the real tyrannies in this life are those that are accredited as such. there are certainly more than even tyrants know! every father and mother has it within easy reach to become the intimate friend of the child. closest, holiest, sweetest of all friendships is this one, which has the closest, holiest tie of blood to underlie the bond of soul. we see it in rare cases, proving itself divine by rising above even the passion of love between man and woman, and carrying men and women unwedded to their graves for sake of love of mother or father. when we realize what such friendship is, it seems incredible that parents can forego it, or can risk losing any shade of its perfectness, for the sake of any indulgence of the habit of command or of gratifying of selfish preference. in the ideal household of father and mother and adult children, the one great aim of the parents ought to be to supply, as far as possible to each child, that freedom and independence which they have missed the opportunity of securing in homes of their own. the loss of this one thing alone is a bitterer drop in the loneliness of many an unmarried woman than parents, especially fathers, are apt even to dream,--food and clothes and lodgings are so exalted in unthinking estimates. to be without them would be distressingly inconvenient, no doubt; but one can have luxurious provision of both and remain very wretched. even the body itself cannot thrive if it has no more than these three pottage messes! freedom to come, go, speak, work, play,--in short, to be one's self,--is to the body more than meat and gold, and to the soul the whole of life. just so far as any parent interferes with this freedom of adult children, even in the little things of a single day or a single hour, just so far it is tyranny, and the children are wronged. but just so far as parents help, strengthen, and bestow this freedom on their children, just so far it is justice and kindness, and their relation is cemented into a supreme and unalterable friendship, whose blessedness and whose comfort no words can measure. the ready-to-halts. mr. ready-to-halt must have been the most exasperating pilgrim that great heart ever dragged over the road to the celestial city. mr. feeble mind was bad enough; but genuine weakness and organic incapacity appeal all the while to charity and sympathy. if people really cannot walk, they must be carried. everybody sees that; and all strong people are, or ought to be, ready to lift babies and cripples. there are plenty of such in every parish. the feeble minds are unfortunately predisposed to intermarry; and our schools are overrun with the little masters and misses feeble mind. but, heavy as they are (and they are apt to be fat), they are precious and pleasant friends and neighbors in comparison with the ready-to-halts. the ready-to-halts are never ready for any thing else. they can walk as well as anybody else, if they only would; but they are never quite sure on which road they would better go. great hearts have to go back, and go back, to look them up. they are found standing still, helpless and bewildered, on all sorts of absurd side-paths, which lead nowhere; and they never will confess, either, that they need help. they always think they are doing what they call "making up their mind." but, whichever way they make it, they wish they had made it the other; so they unmake it directly. and by this time the crisis of the first hour which they lost has become complicated with that of the second hour, for which they are in no wise ready; and so the hours stumble on, one after another, and the day is only a tangle of ineffective cross purposes. hundreds of such days drift on, with their sad burden of wasted time. year after year their lives fail of growth, of delight, of blessing to others. opportunity's great golden doors, which never stay long open for any man, have always just closed when they reach the threshold of a deed; and it is hard, very hard, to see why it would not have been better for them if they had never been born. after all, it is not right to be impatient with them; for, in nine cases out of ten, they are no more responsible for their mental limp than the poor chinese woman is for her feeble feet. from their infancy up to what in our comic caricature of words we call "maturity," they have been bandaged. how should their muscles be good for any thing? from the day when we give, and take, and arrange the baby's playthings for him, hour by hour, without ever setting before him to choose one of two and give up the other, to the day when we take it upon ourselves to decide whether he shall be an engineer or a lawyer, we persist in doing for him the work which he should do for himself. this is because we love him more than we love our own lives. oh! if love could but have its eyes opened and see! if we were not blind, we should know that whenever a child decides for himself deliberately, and without bias from others, any question, however small, he has had just so many minutes of mental gymnastics,--just so much strengthening of the one faculty on whose health and firmness his success in life will depend more than upon any other thing. so many people do not know the difference between obstinacy and clear-headed firmness of will, that it is hardly safe to say much in praise or blame of either without expressly stating that you do not mean the other. they are as unlike as digestion and indigestion, and one would suppose could not be much more easily confounded; but it is constantly done. it has not yet ceased to be said among fathers and mothers that it is necessary to "break the will" of children; and it has not yet ceased to be seen in the land that men by virtue of simple obstinacy are called men of strong character. the truth is that the stronger, better-trained will a man has, the less obstinate he will be. will is of reason; obstinacy, of temper. what have they in common? for want of strong will kingdoms and souls have been lost. without it there is no kingdom for any man,--no, not even in his own soul. it is the one attribute of all we possess which is most god-like. by it, we say, under his laws, as he says, enacting those laws, "so far and no further." it is not enough that we do not "break" this grand power. it should be strengthened, developed, trained. and, as the good teacher of gymnastics gives his beginners light weights to lift and swing, so should we bring to the children small points to decide; to the very little children, very little points. "will you have the apple, or the orange? you cannot have both. choose; but after you have chosen you cannot change." "will you have the horseback ride to-day, or the opera to-morrow night? you can have but one." every day, many times a day, a child should decide for himself points involving pros and cons,--substantial ones too. let him even decide unwisely, and take the consequences; that too is good for him. no amount of blackstone can give such an idea of law as a month of prison. tell him as much as you please of what you know on both sides; but compel him to decide, and also compel him not to be too long about it. "choose ye this day whom ye will serve" is a text good for every morning. if men and women had in their childhood such training of their wills as this, we should not see so many putting their hands to the plough and looking back, and "not fit for the kingdom of heaven." nor for any kingdom of earth, either, unless it be for the wicked little kingdom of the prince of monaco, where there are but two things to be done,--gamble, or drown yourself. the descendants of nabal. the line has never been broken, and they have married into respectable families, right and left, until to-day there can hardly be found a household which has not at least one to worry it. they are not men and women of great passionate natures, who flame out now and then in an outbreak like a volcano, from which everybody runs. this, though terrible while it lasts, is soon over, and there are great compensations in such souls. their love is worth having. their tenderness is great. one can forgive them "seventy times seven," for the hasty words and actions of which they repent immediately with tears. but the nabals are sullen; they are grumblers; they are never done. such sons of belial are they to this day that no man can speak peaceably unto them. they are as much worse than passionate people as a slow drizzle of rain is than a thunder-storm. for the thunder-storm, you stay in-doors, and you cannot help having pleasure in its sharp lights and darks and echoes; and when it is over, what clear air, what a rainbow! but in the drizzle, you go out; you think that with a waterproof, an umbrella, and overshoes, you can manage to get about in spite of it, and attend to your business. what a state you come home in,--muddy, limp, chilled, disheartened! the house greets you, looking also muddy and cold,--for the best of front halls gives up in despair and cannot look any thing but forlorn in a long, drizzling rain; all the windows are bleared with trickling, foggy wet on the outside, which there is no wiping off nor seeing through, and if one could see through there is no gain. the street is more gloomy than the house; black, slimy mud, inches deep on crossings; the same black, slimy mud in footprints on side-walks; hopeless-looking people hurrying by, so unhappy by reason of the drizzle that a weird sort of family likeness is to be seen in all their faces. this is all that can be seen outside. it is better not to look. for the inside is no redemption except a wood-fire,--a good, generous wood-fire,--not in any of the modern compromises called open stoves, but on a broad stone hearth, with a big background of chimney, up which the sparks can go skipping and creeping. this can redeem a drizzle; but this cannot redeem a grumbler. plump he sits down in the warmth of its very blaze, and complains that it snaps, perhaps, or that it is oak and maple, when he paid for all hickory. you can trust him to put out your wood-fire for you as effectually as a water-spout. and, if even a wood-fire, bless it! cannot outshine the gloom of his presence, what is to happen in the places where there is no wood-fire, on the days when real miseries, big and little, are on hand, to be made into mountains of torture by his grumbling? oh, who can describe him? there is no language which can do justice to him; no supernatural foresight which can predict where his next thrust will fall, from what unsuspected corner he will send his next arrow. like death, he has all seasons for his own; his ingenuity is infernal. whoever tries to forestall or appease him might better be at work in augean stables; because, after all, we must admit that the facts of life are on his side. it is not intended that we shall be very comfortable. there is a terrible amount of total depravity in animate and inanimate things. from morning till night there is not an hour without its cross to carry. the weather thwarts us; servants, landlords, drivers, washerwomen, and bosom friends misbehave; clothes don't fit; teeth ache; stomachs get out of order; newspapers are stupid; and children make too much noise. if there are not big troubles, there are little ones. if they are not in sight, they are hiding. i have wondered whether the happiest mortal could point to one single moment and say, "at that moment there was nothing in my life which i would have had changed." i think not. in argument, therefore, the grumbler has the best of it. it is more than probable that things are as he says. but why say it? why make four miseries out of three? if the three be already unbearable, so much the worse. if he is uncomfortable, it is a pity; we are sorry, but we cannot change the course of nature. we shall soon have our own little turn of torments, and we do not want to be worn out before it comes by having listened to his; probably, too, the very things of which he complains are pressing just as heavily on us as on him,--are just as unpleasant to everybody as to him. suppose everybody did as he does. imagine, for instance, a chorus of grumble from ten people at a breakfast-table, all saying at once, or immediately after each other, "this coffee is not fit to drink." "really, the attendance in this house is insufferably poor." i have sometimes wished to try this homoeopathic treatment in a bad case of grumble. it sounds as if it might work a cure. if you lose your temper with the grumbler, and turn upon him suddenly, saying, "oh, do not spoil all our pleasure. do make the best of things: or, at least, keep quiet!" then how aggrieved he is! how unjust he thinks you are to "make a personal matter of it"! "you do not, surely, suppose i think you are responsible for it, do you?" he says, with a lofty air of astonishment at your unreasonable sensitiveness. of course, we do not suppose he thinks we are to blame; we do not take him to be a fool as well as a grumbler. but he speaks to us, at us, before us, about the cause of his discomfort, whatever it may be, precisely as he would if we were to blame; and that is one thing which makes his grumbling so insufferable. but this he can never be made to see. and the worst of it is that grumbling is contagious. if we live with him, we shall, sooner or later, in spite of our dislike of his ways, fall into them; even sinking so low, perhaps, before the end of a single summer, as to be heard complaining of butter at boarding-house tables, which is the lowest deep of vulgarity of grumbling. there is no help for this; i have seen it again and again. i have caught it myself. one grumbler in a family is as pestilent a thing as a diseased animal in a herd: if he be not shut up or killed, the herd is lost. but the grumbler cannot be shut up or killed, since grumbling is not held to be a proof of insanity, nor a capital offence,--more's the pity. what, then, is to be done? keep out of his way, at all costs, if he be grown up. if it be a child, labor day and night, as you would with a tendency to paralysis, or distortion of limb, to prevent this blight on its life. it sounds extreme to say that a child should never be allowed to express a dislike of any thing which cannot be helped; but i think it is true. i do not mean that it should be positively forbidden or punished, but that it should never pass unnoticed; his attention should be invariably called to its uselessness, and to the annoyance it gives to other people. children begin by being good-natured little grumblers at every thing which goes wrong, simply from the outspokenness of their natures. all they think they say and act. the rudiments of good behavior have to be chiefly negative at the outset, like punch's advice to those about to marry,--"don't." the race of grumblers would soon die out if all children were so trained that never, between the ages of five and twelve, did they utter a needless complaint without being gently reminded that it was foolish and disagreeable. how easy for a good-natured and watchful mother to do this! it takes but a word. "oh, dear! i wish it had not rained to-day. it is too bad!" "you do not really mean what you say, my darling. it is of much more consequence that the grass should grow than that you should go out to play. and it is so silly to complain, when we cannot stop its raining." "mamma, i hate this pie." "oh! hush, dear! don't say so, if you do. you can leave it. you need not eat it. but think how disagreeable it sounds to hear you say such a thing." "oh, dear! oh, dear! i am too cold." "yes, dear, i know you are. so is mamma. but we shall not feel any warmer for saying so. we must wait till the fire burns better; and the time will seem twice as long if we grumble." "oh, mamma! mamma! my steam-engine is all spoiled. it won't run. i hate things that wind up!" "but, my dear little boy, don't grumble so! what would you think if mamma were to say, 'oh, dear! oh, dear! my little boy's stockings are full of holes. how i hate to mend stockings!' and, 'oh, dear! oh, dear! my little boy has upset my work-box! i hate little boys'?" how they look steadily into your eyes for a minute,--the honest, reasonable little souls!--when you say such things to them; and then run off with a laugh, lifted up, for that time, by your fitly spoken words of help. oh! if the world could only stop long enough for one generation of mothers to be made all right, what a millennium could be begun in thirty years! "but, mamma, you are grumbling yourself at me because i grumbled!" says a quick-witted darling not ten years old. ah! never shall any weak spot in our armor escape the keen eyes of these little ones. "yes, dear! and i shall grumble at you till i cure you of grumbling. grumblers are the only thing in this world that it is right to grumble at." "boys not allowed." it was a conspicuous signboard, at least four feet long, with large black letters on a white ground: "boys not allowed." i looked at it for some moments in a sort of bewildered surprise: i did not quite comprehend the meaning of the words. at last i understood it. i was waiting in a large railway station, where many trains connect; and most of the passengers from the train in which i was were eating dinner in a hotel near by. i was entirely alone in the car, with the exception of one boy, who was perhaps eleven years old. i made an involuntary ejaculation as i read the words on the sign, and the boy looked around at me. "little boy," said i, solemnly, "do you see that sign?" he turned his head, and, reading the ominous warning, nodded sullenly, but said nothing. "boy, what does it mean?" said i. "boys must be allowed to come into this railway station. there are two now standing in the doorway directly under the sign." the latent sympathy in my tone touched his heart. he left his seat, and, coming to mine, edged in past me; and, putting his head out of the window, read the sentence aloud in a contemptuous tone. then he offered me a peanut, which i took; and he proceeded to tell me what he thought of the sign. "boys not allowed!" said he. "that's just the way 'tis everywhere; but i never saw the sign up before. it don't make any difference, though, whether they put the sign up or not. why, in new york (you live in new york, don't you?) they won't even stop the horse-cars for a boy to get on. nobody thinks any thing'll hurt a boy; but they're glad enough to 'allow' us when there's any errands to be done, and"-- "do you live in new york?" interrupted i; for i did not wish to hear the poor little fellow's list of miseries, which i knew by heart beforehand without his telling me, having been hopeless knight-errant of oppressed boyhood all my life. yes, he "lived in new york," and he "went to a grammar school," and he had "two sisters." and so we talked on in that sweet, ready, trustful talk which comes naturally only from children's lips, until the "twenty minutes for refreshments" were over, and the choked and crammed passengers, who had eaten big dinners in that breath of time, came hurrying back to their seats. among them came the father and mother of my little friend. in angry surprise at not finding him in the seat where they left him, they exclaimed,-- "now, where _is_ that boy? just like him! we might have lost every one of these bags." "here i am, mamma," he called out, pleasantly. "i could see the bags all the time. nobody came into the car." "i told you not to leave the seat, sir. what do you mean by such conduct?" said the father. "oh, no, papa," said poor boy, "you only told me to take care of the bags." and an anxious look of terror came into his face, which told only too well under how severe a _régime_ he lived. i interposed hastily with-- "i am afraid i am the cause of your little son's leaving his seat. he had sat very still till i spoke to him; and i believe i ought to take all the blame." the parents were evidently uncultured, shallow people. their irritation with him was merely a surface vexation, which had no real foundation in a deep principle. they became complaisant and smiling at my first word, and boy escaped with a look of great relief to another seat, where they gave him a simple luncheon of saleratus gingerbread. "boys not allowed" to go in to dinner at the massasoit, thought i to myself; and upon that text i sat sadly meditating all the way from springfield to boston. how true it was, as the little fellow had said, that "it don't make any difference whether they put the sign up or not!" no one can watch carefully any average household where there are boys, and not see that there are a thousand little ways in which the boys' comfort, freedom, preference will be disregarded, when the girls' will be considered. this is partly intentional, partly unconscious. something is to be said undoubtedly on the advantage of making the boy realize early and keenly that manhood is to bear and to work, and womanhood is to be helped and sheltered. but this should be inculcated, not inflicted; asked, not seized; shown and explained, not commanded. nothing can be surer than the growth in a boy of tender, chivalrous regard for his sisters and for all women, if the seeds of it be rightly sown and gently nurtured. but the common method is quite other than this. it begins too harshly and at once with assertion or assumption. "mother never thinks i am of any consequence," said a dear boy to me, the other day. "she's all for the girls." this was not true; but there was truth in it. and i am very sure that the selfishness, the lack of real courtesy, which we see so plainly and pitiably in the behavior of the average young man to-day is the slow, certain result of years of just such feelings as this child expressed. the boy has to scramble for his rights. naturally he is too busy to think much about the rights of others. the man keeps up the habit, and is negatively selfish without knowing it. take, for instance, the one point of the minor courtesies (if we can dare to call any courtesies minor) of daily intercourse. how many people are there who habitually speak to a boy of ten, twelve, or fourteen with the same civility as to his sister, a little younger or older? "i like miss----," said this same dear boy to me, one day; "for she always bids me good-morning." ah! never is one such word thrown away on a loving, open-hearted boy. men know that safe through all the wear and tear of life they keep far greener the memory of some woman or some man who was kind to them in their boyhood than of the friend who helped or cheered them yesterday. dear, blessed, noisy, rollicking, tormenting, comforting boy! what should we do without him? how much we like, without suspecting it, his breezy presence in the house! except for him, how would errands be done, chairs brought, nails driven, cows stoned out of our way, letters carried, twine and knives kept ready, lost things found, luncheon carried to picnics, three-year-olds that cry led out of meeting, butterflies and birds' nests and birch-bark got, the horse taken round to the stable, borrowed things sent home,--and all with no charge for time? dear, patient, busy boy! shall we not sometimes answer his questions? give him a comfortable seat? wait and not reprove him till after the company has gone? let him wear his best jacket, and buy him half as many neckties as his sister has? give him some honey, even if there is not enough to go round? listen tolerantly to his little bragging, and help him "do" his sums? with a sudden shrill scream the engine slipped off on a side-track, and the cars glided into the great, grim city-station, looking all the grimmer for its twinkling lights. the masses of people who were waiting and the masses of people who had come surged toward each other like two great waves, and mingled in a moment. i caught sight of my poor little friend, boy, following his father, struggling along in the crowd, carrying two heavy carpet-bags, a strapped bundle, and two umbrellas, and being sharply told to "keep up close there." "ha!" said i, savagely, to myself, "doing porters' work is not one of the things which 'boys' are 'not allowed.'" half an hour in a railway station. it was one of those bleak and rainy days which mark the coming of spring on new england sea-shores. the rain felt and looked as if it might at any minute become hail or snow; the air pricked like needles when it blew against flesh. yet the huge railway station was as full of people as ever. one could see no difference between this dreariest of days and the sunniest, so far as the crowd was concerned, except that fewer of the people wore fine clothes; perhaps, also, that their faces looked a little more sombre and weary than usual. there is no place in the world where human nature shows to such sad disadvantage as in waiting-rooms at railway stations, especially in the "ladies' room." in the "gentlemen's room" there is less of that ghastly, apathetic silence which seems only explainable as an interval between two terrible catastrophes. shall we go so far as to confess that even the unsightly spittoons, and the uncleanly and loquacious fellowship resulting from their common use, seem here, for the moment, redeemed from a little of their abominableness,--simply because almost any action is better than utter inaction, and any thing which makes the joyless, taciturn american speak to his fellow whom he does not know, is for the time being a blessing. but in the "ladies' room" there is not even a community of interest in a single bad habit, to break the monotone of weary stillness. who has not felt the very soul writhe within her as she has first crossed the threshold of one of these dismal antechambers of journey? carpetless, dingy, dusty; two or three low sarcophagi of greenish-gray iron in open spaces, surrounded by blue-lipped women, in different angles and attitudes of awkwardness, trying to keep the soles of their feet in a perpendicular position, to be warmed at what they have been led to believe is a steam-heating apparatus; a few more women, equally listless and weary-looking, standing in equally difficult and awkward positions before a counter, holding pie in one hand, and tea in a cup and saucer in the other, taking alternate mouthfuls of each, and spilling both; the rest wedged bolt upright against the wall in narrow partitioned seats, which only need a length of perforated foot-board in front to make them fit to be patented as the best method of putting whole communities of citizens into the stocks at once. all, feet warmers, pie-eaters, and those who sit in the red-velvet stocks, wear so exactly the same expression of vacuity and fatigue that they might almost be taken for one gigantic and unhappy family connection, on its way to what is called in newspapers "a sad event." the only wonder is that this stiffened, desiccated crowd retains vitality enough to remember the hours at which its several trains depart, and to rise up and shake itself alive and go on board. one is haunted sometimes by the fancy that some day, when the air in the room is unusually bad and the trains are delayed, a curious phenomenon will be seen. the petrifaction will be carried a little farther than usual, and, when the bell rings and the official calls out, "train made up for babel, hinnom, and way stations?" no women will come forth from the "ladies' room," no eye will move, no muscle will stir. husbands and brothers will wait and search vainly for those who should have met them at the station, with bundles of the day's shopping to be carried out; homes will be desolate; and the history of rare fossils and petrifactions will have a novel addition. or, again, that, if some sudden convulsion of nature, like those which before now have buried wicked cities and the dwellers in them, were to-day to swallow up the great city of new sodom in america, and keep it under ground for a few thousand years, nothing in all its circuit would so puzzle the learned archaeologists of a.d. as the position of the skeletons in these same waiting-rooms of railway stations. thinking such thoughts as these, sinking slowly and surely to the level of the place, i waited, on this bleak, rainy day, in just such a "ladies' room" as i have described. i sat in the red-velvet stocks, with my eyes fixed on the floor. "please, ma'am, won't you buy a basket?" said a cheery little voice. so near me, without my knowing it, had the little tradesman come that i was as startled as if the voice had spoken out of the air just above my head. he was a sturdy little fellow, ten years old, irish, dirty, ragged; but he had honest, kind gray eyes, and a smile which ought to have sold more baskets than he could carry. a few kind words unsealed the fountain of his childish confidences. there were four children younger than he; the mother took in washing, and the father, who was a cripple from rheumatism, made these baskets, which he carried about to sell. "where do you sell the most?" "round the depots. that's the best place." "but the baskets are rather clumsy to carry. almost everybody has his hands full, when he sets out on a journey." "yis'm; but mostly they doesn't take the baskets. but they gives me a little change," said he, with a smile; half roguish, half sad. i watched him on in his pathetic pilgrimage round that dreary room, seeking help from that dreary circle of women. my heart aches to write down here the true record that out of those scores of women only three even smiled or spoke to the little fellow. only one gave him money. my own sympathies had been so won by his face and manner that i found myself growing hot with resentment as i watched woman after woman wave him off with indifferent or impatient gesture. his face was a face which no mother ought to have been able to see without a thrill of pity and affection. god forgive me! as if any mother ought to be able to see any child, ragged, dirty, poor, seeking help and finding none! but his face was so honest, and brave, and responsive that it added much to the appeal of his poverty. one woman, young and pretty, came into the room, bringing in her arms a large toy horse, and a little violin. "oh," i said to myself, "she has a boy of her own, for whom she can buy gifts freely. she will surely give this poor child a penny." he thought so, too; for he went toward her with a more confident manner than he had shown to some of the others. no! she brushed by him impatiently, without a word, and walked to the ticket-office. he stood looking at the violin and the toy horse till she came back to her seat. then he lifted his eyes to her face again; but she apparently did not see him, and he went away. ah, she is only half mother who does not see her own child in every child!--her own child's grief in every pain which makes another child weep! presently the little basket-boy went out into the great hall. i watched him threading his way in and out among the groups of men. i saw one man--bless him!--pat the little fellow on the head; then i lost sight of him. after ten minutes he came back into the ladies' room, with only one basket in his hand, and a very happy little face. the "sterner sex" had been kinder to him than we. the smile which he gave me in answer to my glad recognition of his good luck was the sunniest sunbeam i have seen on a human face for many a day. he sank down into the red-velvet stocks, and twirled his remaining basket, and swung his shabby little feet, as idle and unconcerned as if he were some rich man's son, waiting for the train to take him home. so much does a little lift help the heart of a child, even of a beggar child. it is a comfort to remember him, with that look on his face, instead of the wistful, pleading one which i saw at first. i left him lying back on the dusty velvet, which no doubt seemed to him unquestionable splendor. in the cars i sat just behind the woman with the toy-horse and the violin. i saw her glance rest lovingly on them many times, as she thought of her boy at home; and i wondered if the little basket-seller had really produced no impression whatever on her heart. i shall remember him long after (if he lives) he is a man! a genius for affection. the other day, speaking superficially and uncharitably, i said of a woman, whom i knew but slightly, "she disappoints me utterly. how could her husband have married her? she is commonplace and stupid." "yes," said my friend, reflectively; "it is strange. she is not a brilliant woman; she is not even an intellectual one; but there is such a thing as a genius for affection, and she has it. it has been good for her husband that he married her." the words sank into my heart like a great spiritual plummet they dropped down to depths not often stirred. and from those depths came up some shining sands of truth, worth keeping among treasures; having a phosphorescent light in them, which can shine in dark places, and, making them light as day, reveal their beauty. "a genius for affection." yes; there is such a thing, and no other genius is so great. the phrase means something more than a capacity, or even a talent for loving. that is common to all human beings, more or less. a man or woman without it would be a monster, such as has probably never been on the earth. all men and women, whatever be their shortcomings in other directions, have this impulse, this faculty, in a degree. it takes shape in family ties: makes clumsy and unfortunate work of them in perhaps two cases out of three,--wives tormenting husbands, husbands neglecting and humiliating wives, parents maltreating and ruining children, children disobeying and grieving parents, and brothers and sisters quarrelling to the point of proverbial mention; but under all this, in spite of all this, the love is there. a great trouble or a sudden emergency will bring it out. in any common danger, hands clasp closely and quarrels are forgotten; over a sick-bed hard ways soften into yearning tenderness; and by a grave, alas! what hot tears fall! the poor, imperfect love which had let itself be wearied and harassed by the frictions of life, or hindered and warped by a body full of diseased nerves, comes running, too late, with its effort to make up lost opportunities. it has been all the while alive, but in a sort of trance; little good has come of it, but it is something that it was there. it is the divine germ of a flower and fruit too precious to mature in the first years after grafting; in other soils, by other waters, when the healing of the nations is fulfilled, we shall see its perfection. oh! what atonement will be there! what allowances we shall make for each other, then! with what love we shall love! but the souls who have what my friend meant by a "genius for affection" are in another atmosphere than that which common men breathe. their "upper air" is clearer, more rarefied than any to which mere intellectual genius can soar. because, to this last, always remain higher heights which it cannot grasp, see, nor comprehend. michel angelo may build his dome of marble, and human intellect may see as clearly as if god had said it that no other dome can ever be built so grand, so beautiful. but above st. peter's hangs the blue tent-dome of the sky, vaster, rounder, elastic, unfathomable, making st. peter's look small as a drinking-cup, shutting it soon out of sight to north, east, south, and west, by the mysterious horizon-fold which no man can lift. and beyond this horizon-fold of our sky shut down again other domes, which the wisest astronomer may not measure, in whose distances our little ball and we, with all our spinning, can hardly show like a star. if st. peter's were swallowed up to-morrow, it would make no real odds to anybody but the pope. the probabilities are that michel angelo himself has forgotten all about it. titian and raphael, and all the great brotherhood of painters, may kneel reverently as priests before nature's face, and paint pictures at sight of which all men's eyes shall fill with grateful tears; and yet all men shall go away, and find that the green shade of a tree, the light on a young girl's face, the sleep of a child, the flowering of a flower, are to their pictures as living life to beautiful death. coming to art's two highest spheres,--music of sound and music of speech,--we find that beethoven and mozart, and milton and shakespeare, have written. but the symphony is sacred only because, and only so far as, it renders the joy or the sorrow which we have felt. surely, the interpretation is less than the thing interpreted. face to face with a joy, a sorrow, would a symphony avail us? and, as for words, who shall express their feebleness in midst of strength? the fettered helplessness in spite of which they soar to such heights? the most perfect sentence ever written bears to the thing it meant to say the relation which the chemist's formula does to the thing he handles, names, analyzes, can destroy, perhaps, but cannot make. every element in the crystal, the liquid, can be weighed, assigned, and rightly called; nothing in all science is more wonderful than an exact chemical formula; but, after all is done, will remain for ever unknown the one subtle secret, the vital centre of the whole. but the souls who have a "genius for affection" have no outer dome, no higher and more vital beauty; no subtle secret of creative motive force to elude their grasp, mock their endeavor, overshadow their lives. the subtlest essence of the thing they worship and desire, they have in their own nature,--they are. no schools, no standards, no laws can help or hinder them. to them the world is as if it were not. work and pain and loss are as if they were not. these are they to whom it is easy to die any death, if good can come that way to one they love. these are they who do die daily unnoted on our right hand and on our left,--fathers and mothers for children, husbands and wives for each other. these are they, also, who live,--which is often far harder than it is to die,--long lives, into whose being never enters one thought of self from the rising to the going down of the sun. year builds on year with unvarying steadfastness the divine temple of their beauty and their sacrifice. they create, like god. the universe which science sees, studies, and explains, is small, is petty, beside the one which grows under their spiritual touch; for love begets love. the waves of eternity itself ripple out in immortal circles under the ceaseless dropping of their crystal deeds. angels desire to look, but cannot, into the mystery of holiness and beauty which such human lives reveal. only god can see them clearly. god is their nearest of kin; for he is love. rainy days. with what subtle and assured tyranny they take possession of the world! stoutest hearts are made subject, plans of conquerors set aside,--the heavens and the earth and man,--all alike at the mercy of the rain. come when they may, wait long as they will, give what warnings they can, rainy days are always interruptions. no human being has planned for them then and there. "if it had been but yesterday," "if it were only to-morrow," is the cry from all lips. ah! a lucky tyranny for us is theirs. were the clouds subject to mortal call or prohibition, the seasons would fail and death get upper hand of all things before men agreed on an hour of common convenience. what tests they are of people's souls! show me a dozen men and women in the early morning of a rainy day, and i will tell by their words and their faces who among them is rich and who is poor,--who has much goods laid up for just such times of want, and who has been spend-thrift and foolish. that curious, shrewd, underlying instinct, common to all ages, which takes shape in proverbs recognized this long ago. who knows when it was first said of a man laying up money, "he lays by for a rainy day"? how close the parallel is between the man who, having spent on each day's living the whole of each day's income, finds himself helpless in an emergency of sickness whose expenses he has no money to meet, and the man who, having no intellectual resources, no self-reliant habit of occupation, finds himself shut up in the house idle and wretched for a rainy day. i confess that on rainy mornings in country houses, among well-dressed and so-called intelligent and christian people, i have been seized with stronger disgusts and despairs about the capacity and worth of the average human creature, than i have ever felt in the worst haunts of ignorant wickedness. "what is there to do to-day?" is the question they ask. i know they are about to ask it before they speak. i have seen it in their listless and disconcerted eyes at breakfast. it is worse to me than the tolling of a bell; for saddest dead of all are they who have only a "name to live." the truth is, there is more to do on a rainy day than on any other. in addition to all the sweet, needful, possible business of living and working, and learning and helping, which is for all days, there is the beauty of the rainy day to see, the music of the rainy day to hear. it drums on the window-panes, chuckles and gurgles at corners of houses, tinkles in spouts, makes mysterious crescendoes and arpeggio chords through the air; and all the while drops from the eaves and upper window-ledges are beating time as rhythmical and measured as that of a metronome,--time to which our own souls furnish tune, sweet or sorrowful, inspiriting or saddening, as we will. it is a curious experiment to try repeating or chanting lines in time and cadence following the patter of raindrops on windows. it will sometimes be startling in its effect: no metre, no accent fails of its response in the low, liquid stroke of the tender drops,--there seems an uncanny _rapport_ between them at once. and the beauty of the rain, not even love can find words to tell it. if it left but one trace, the exquisite shifting sheen of pearls on the outer side of the window glass, that alone one might watch for a day. in all times it has been thought worthy of kings, of them who are royally rich, to have garments sown thick in dainty lines and shapes with fine seed pearls. who ever saw any such embroidery which could compare with the beauty of one pane of glass wrought on a single side with the shining white transparent globulets of rain? they are millions; they crowd; they blend; they become a silver stream; they glide slowly down, leaving tiniest silver threads behind; they make of themselves a silver bank of miniature sea at the bottom of the pane; and, while they do this, other millions are set pearl-wise at the top, to crowd, blend, glide down in their turn, and overflow the miniature sea. this is one pane, a few inches square; and rooms have many windows of many panes. and looking past this spectacle, out of our windows, how is it that we do not each rainy day weep with pleasure at sight of the glistening show? every green thing, from tiniest grass-blade lying lowest, to highest waving tips of elms, also set thick with the water-pearls; all tossing and catching, and tossing and catching, in fairy game with the wind, and with the rain itself, always losing, always gaining, changing shape and place and number every moment, till the twinkling and shifting dazzle all eyes. then at the end comes the sun, like a magician for whom all had been made ready; at sunset, perhaps, or at sunrise, if the storm has lasted all night. in one instant the silver balls begin to disappear. by countless thousands at a time he tosses them back whence they came; but as they go, he changes them, under our eyes, into prismatic globes, holding very light of very light in their tiny circles, shredding and sorting it into blazing lines of rainbow color. all the little children shout with delight, seeing these things; and call dull, grown-up people to behold. they reply, "yes, the storm is over;" and this is all it means to most of them. this kingdom of heaven they cannot enter, not being "as a little child." it would be worth while to know, if we only could, just what our betters--the birds and insects and beasts--do on rainy days. but we cannot find out much. it would be a great thing to look inside of an ant-hill in a long rain. all we know is that the doors are shut tight, and a few sentinels, who look as if india-rubber coats would be welcome, stand outside. the stillness and look of intermission in the woods on a really rainy day is something worth getting wet to observe. it is like sunday in london, or fourth of july in a country town which has gone bodily to a picnic in the next village. the strays who are out seem like accidentally arrived people, who have lost their way. one cannot fancy a caterpillar's being otherwise than very uncomfortable in wet hair; and what can there be for butterflies and dragon-flies to do, in the close corners into which they creep, with wings shut up as tight as an umbrella? the beasts fare better, being clothed in hides. those whom we oftenest see out in rains (cows and oxen and horses) keep straight on with their perpetual munching, as content wet as dry, though occasionally we see them accept the partial shelter of a tree from a particularly hard shower. hens are the forlornest of all created animals when it rains. who can help laughing at sight of a flock of them huddled up under lee of a barn, limp, draggled, spiritless, shifting from one leg to the other, with their silly heads hanging inert to right or left, looking as if they would die for want of a yawn? one sees just such groups of other two-legged creatures in parlors, under similar circumstances. the truth is, a hen's life at best seems poorer than that of any other known animal. except when she is setting, i cannot help having a contempt for her. this also has been recognized by that common instinct of people which goes to the making of proverbs; for "hen's time ain't worth much" is a common saying among farmers' wives. how she dawdles about all day, with her eyes not an inch from the ground, forever scratching and feeding in dirtiest places,--a sort of animated muck-rake, with a mouth and an alimentary canal! no wonder such an inane creature is wretched when it rains, and her soulless business is interrupted. she is, i think, likest of all to the human beings, men or women, who do not know what to do with themselves on rainy days. friends of the prisoners. in many of the paris prisons is to be seen a long, dreary room, through the middle of which are built two high walls of iron grating, enclosing a space of some three feet in width. a stranger visiting the prison for the first time would find it hard to divine for what purpose these walls of grating had been built. but on the appointed days when the friends of the prisoners are allowed to enter the prison, their use is sadly evident. it would not be safe to permit wives and husbands, and mothers and sons, to clasp hands in unrestrained freedom. a tiny file, a skein of silk, can open prison-doors and set captives free; love's ingenuity will circumvent tyranny and fetters, in spite of all possible precautions. therefore the vigilant authority says, "you may see, but not touch; there shall be no possible opportunity for an instrument of escape to be given; at more than arm's length the wife, the mother must be held." the prisoners are led in and seated on a bench upon one side of these gratings; the friends are led in and seated on a similar bench on the other side; jailers are in attendance in both rooms; no words can be spoken which the jailers do not hear. yearningly eyes meet eyes; faces are pressed against the hard wires; loving words are exchanged; the poor prisoned souls ask eagerly for news from the outer world,--the world from which they are as much hidden as if they were dead. fathers hear how the little ones have grown; sometimes, alas! how the little ones have died. small gifts of fruit or clothing are brought; but must be given first into the hands of the jailers. even flowers cannot be given from loving hand to hand; for in the tiniest flower might be hidden the secret poison which would give to the weary prisoner surest escape of all. all day comes and goes the sad train of friends; lingering and turning back after there is no more to be said; weeping when they meant and tried to smile; more hungry for closer sight and voice, and for touch, with every moment that they gaze through the bars; and going away, at last, with a new sense of loss and separation, which time, with its merciful healing, will hardly soften before the visiting-day will come again, and the same heart-rending experience of mingled torture and joy will again be borne. but to the prisoners these glimpses of friends' faces are like manna from heaven. their whole life, physical and mental, receives a new impetus from them. their blood flows more quickly, their eyes light up, they live from one day to the next on a memory and a hope. no punishment can be invented so terrible as the deprivation of the sight of their friends on the visiting-day. men who are obstinate and immovable before any sort or amount of physical torture are subdued by mere threat of this. a friend who told me of a visit he paid to the prison mazas, on one of the days, said, with tears in his eyes, "it was almost more than i could bear to see these poor souls reaching out toward each other from either side of the iron railings. here a poor, old woman, tottering and weak, bringing a little fruit in a basket for her son; here a wife, holding up a baby to look through the gratings at its father, and the father trying in an agony of earnestness to be sure that the baby knew him; here a little girl, looking half reproachfully at her brother, terror struggling with tenderness in her young face; on the side of the friends, love and yearning and pity beyond all words to describe; on the side of the prisoners, love and yearning just as great, but with a misery of shame added, which gave to many faces a look of attempt at dogged indifference on the surface, constantly betrayed and contradicted, however, by the flashing of the eyes and the red of the cheeks." the story so impressed me that i could not for days lose sight of the picture it raised; the double walls of iron grating; the cruel, inexorable, empty space between them,--empty, yet crowded with words and looks; the lines of anxious, yearning faces on either side. but presently i said to myself, it is, after all, not so unlike the life we all live. who of us is not in prison? who of us is not living out his time of punishment? law holds us all in its merciless fulfilment of penalty for sin; disease, danger, work separate us, wall us, bury us. that we are not numbered with the number of a cell, clothed in the uniform of a prison, locked up at night, and counted in the morning, is only an apparent difference, and not so real a one. our jailers do not know us; but we know them. there is no fixed day gleaming for us in the future when our term of sentence will expire and we shall regain freedom. it may be to-morrow; but it may be threescore years away. meantime, we bear ourselves as if we were not in prison. we profess that we choose, we keep our fetters out of sight, we smile, we sing, we contrive to be glad of being alive, and we take great interest in the changing of our jails. but no man knows where his neighbor's prison lies. how bravely and cheerily most eyes look up! this is one of the sweetest mercies of life, that "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and, knowing it, can hide it. hence, we can all be friends for other prisoners, standing separated from them by the impassable iron gratings and the fixed gulf of space, which are not inappropriate emblems of the unseen barriers between all human souls. we can show kindly faces, speak kindly words, bear to them fruits and food, and moral help, greater than fruit or food. we need not aim at philanthropies; we need not have a visiting-day, nor seek a prison-house built of stone. on every road each man we meet is a prisoner; he is dying at heart, however sound he looks; he is only waiting, however well he works. if we stop to ask whether he be our brother, he is gone. our one smile would have lit up his prison-day. alas for us if we smiled not as we passed by! alas for us if, face to face, at last, with our elder brother, we find ourselves saying, "lord, when saw we thee sick and in prison!" a companion for the winter. i have engaged a companion for the winter. it would be simply a superfluous egotism to say this to the public, except that i have a philanthropic motive for doing so. there are many lonely people who are in need of a companion possessing just such qualities as his; and he has brothers singularly like himself, whose services can be secured. i despair of doing justice to him by any description. in fact, thus far, i discover new perfections in him daily, and believe that i am yet only on the threshold of our friendship. in conversation he is more suggestive than any person i have ever known. after two or three hours alone with him, i am sometimes almost startled to look back and see through what a marvellous train of fancy and reflection he has led me. yet he is never wordy, and often conveys his subtlest meaning by a look. he is an artist, too, of the rarest sort. you watch the process under which his pictures grow with incredulous wonder. the eastern magic which drops the seed in the mould, and bids it shoot up before your eyes, blossom, and bear its fruit in an hour, is tardy and clumsy by side of the creative genius of my companion. his touch is swift as air; his coloring is vivid as light; he has learned, i know not how, the secrets of hidden places in all lands; and he paints, now a tufted clump of soft cocoa palms; now the spires and walls of an iceberg, glittering in yellow sunlight; now a desolate, sandy waste, where black rocks and a few crumbling ruins are lit up by a lurid glow; then a cathedral front, with carvings like lace; then the skeleton of a wrecked ship, with bare ribs and broken masts,--and all so exact, so minute, so life-like, that you believe no man could paint thus any thing which he had not seen. he has a special love for mosaics, and a marvellous faculty for making drawings of curious old patterns. nothing is too complicated for his memory, and he revels in the most fantastic and intricate shapes. i have known him in a single evening throw off a score of designs, all beautiful, and many of them rare: fiery scorpions on a black ground; pale lavender filagrees over scarlet; white and black squares blocked out as for tiles of a pavement, and crimson and yellow threads interlaced over them; odd chinese patterns in brilliant colors, all angles and surprises, with no likeness to any thing in nature; and exquisite little bits of landscape in soft grays and whites. last night was one of his nights of reminiscences of the mosaic-workers. a furious snow-storm was raging, and, as the flaky crystals piled up in drifts on the window-ledges, he seemed to catch the inspiration of their law of structure, and drew sheet after sheet of crystalline shapes; some so delicate and filmy that it seemed as if a jar might obliterate them; some massive and strong, like those in which the earth keeps her mineral treasures; then, at last, on a round charcoal disk, he traced out a perfect rose, in a fragrant white powder, which piled up under his fingers, petal after petal, circle after circle, till the feathery stamens were buried out of sight. then, as we held our breath for fear of disturbing it, with a good-natured little chuckle, he shook it off into the fire, and by a few quick strokes of red turned the black charcoal disk into a shield gay enough for a tournament. he has talent for modelling, but this he exercises more rarely. usually, his figures are grotesque rather than beautiful, and he never allows them to remain longer than for a few moments, often changing them so rapidly under your eye that it seems like jugglery. he is fondest of doing this at twilight, and loves the darkest corner of the room. from the half-light he will suddenly thrust out before you a grinning gargoyle head, to which he will give in an instant more a pair of spider legs, and then, with one roll, stretch it out into a crocodile, whose jaws seem so near snapping that you involuntarily draw your chair further back. next, in a freak of ventriloquism, he startles you still more by bringing from the crocodile's mouth a sigh, so long drawn, so human, that you really shudder, and are ready to implore him to play no more tricks. he knows when he has reached this limit, and soothes you at once by a tender, far-off whisper, like the wind through pines, sometimes almost like an aeolian harp; then he rouses you from your dreams by what you are sure is a tap at the door. you turn, speak, listen; no one enters; the tap again. ah! it is only a little more of the ventriloquism of this wonderful creature. you are alone with him, and there was no tap at the door. but when there is, and the friend comes in, then my companion's genius shines out. almost always in life the third person is a discord, or at least a burden; but he is so genial, so diffusive, so sympathetic, that, like some tints by which painters know how to bring out all the other colors in a picture, he forces every one to do his best. i am indebted to him already for a better knowledge of some men and women with whom i had talked for years before to little purpose. it is most wonderful that he produces this effect, because he himself is so silent; but there is some secret charm in his very smile which puts people _en rapport_ with each other, and with him at once. i am almost afraid to go on with the list of the things my companion can do. i have not yet told the half, nor the most wonderful; and i believe i have already overtaxed credulity. i will mention only one more,--but that is to me far more inexplicable than all the rest. i am sure that it belongs, with mesmerism and clairvoyance, to the domain of the higher psychological mysteries. he has in rare hours the power of producing the portraits of persons whom you have loved, but whom he has never seen. for this it is necessary that you should concentrate your whole attention on him, as is always needful to secure the best results of mesmeric power. it must also be late and still. in the day, or in a storm, i have never known him to succeed in this. for these portraits he uses only shadowy gray tints. he begins with a hesitating outline. if you are not tenderly and closely in attention, he throws it aside; he can do nothing. but if you are with him, heart and soul, and do not take your eyes from his, he will presently fill out the dear faces, full, life-like, and wearing a smile, which makes you sure that they too must have been summoned from the other side, as you from this, to meet on the shadowy boundary between flesh and spirit. he must see them as clearly as he sees you; and it would be little more for his magic to do if he were at the same moment showing to their longing eyes your face and answering smile. but i delay too long the telling of his name. a strange hesitancy seizes me. i shall never be believed by any one who has not sat as i have by his side. but, if i can only give to one soul the good-cheer and strength of such a presence, i shall be rewarded. his name is maple wood-fire, and his terms are from eight to twelve dollars a month, according to the amount of time he gives. this price is ridiculously low, but it is all that any member of the family asks; in fact, in some parts of the country, they can be hired for much less. they have connections by the name of hickory, whose terms are higher; but i cannot find out that they are any more satisfactory. there are also some distant relations, named chestnut and pine, who can be employed in the same way, at a much lower rate; but they are all snappish and uncertain in temper. to the whole world i commend the good brotherhood of maple, and pass on the emphatic indorsement of a blessed old black woman who came to my room the other day, and, standing before the rollicking blaze on my hearth, said, "bless yer, honey, yer's got a wood-fire. i'se allers said that, if yer's got a wood-fire, yer's got meat, an' drink, an' clo'es." choice of colors. the other day, as i was walking on one of the oldest and most picturesque streets of the old and picturesque town of newport, r.i., i saw a little girl standing before the window of a milliner's shop. it was a very rainy day. the pavement of the side-walks on this street is so sunken and irregular that in wet weather, unless one walks with very great care, he steps continually into small wells of water. up to her ankles in one of these wells stood the little girl, apparently as unconscious as if she were high and dry before a fire. it was a very cold day too. i was hurrying along, wrapped in furs, and not quite warm enough even so. the child was but thinly clothed. she wore an old plaid shawl and a ragged knit hood of scarlet worsted. one little red ear stood out unprotected by the hood, and drops of water trickled down over it from her hair. she seemed to be pointing with her finger at articles in the window, and talking to some one inside. i watched her for several moments, and then crossed the street to see what it all meant. i stole noiselessly up behind her, and she did not hear me. the window was full of artificial flowers, of the cheapest sort, but of very gay colors. here and there a knot of ribbon or a bit of lace had been tastefully added, and the whole effect was really remarkably gay and pretty. tap, tap, tap, went the small hand against the window-pane; and with every tap the unconscious little creature murmured, in a half-whispering, half-singing voice, "i choose _that_ color." "i choose _that_ color." "i choose _that_ color." i stood motionless. i could not see her face; but there was in her whole attitude and tone the heartiest content and delight. i moved a little to the right, hoping to see her face, without her seeing me; but the slight movement caught her ear, and in a second she had sprung aside and turned toward me. the spell was broken. she was no longer the queen of an air-castle, decking herself in all the rainbow hues which pleased her eye. she was a poor beggar child, out in the rain, and a little frightened at the approach of a stranger. she did not move away, however; but stood eying me irresolutely, with that pathetic mixture of interrogation and defiance in her face which is so often seen in the prematurely developed faces of poverty-stricken children. "aren't the colors pretty?" i said. she brightened instantly. "yes'm. i'd like a goon av thit blue." "but you will take cold standing in the wet," said i. "won't you come under my umbrella?" she looked down at her wet dress suddenly, as if it had not occurred to her before that it was raining. then she drew first one little foot and then the other out of the muddy puddle in which she had been standing, and, moving a little closer to the window, said, "i'm not jist goin' home, mem. i'd like to stop here a bit." so i left her. but, after i had gone a few blocks, the impulse seized me to return by a cross street, and see if she were still there. tears sprang to my eyes as i first caught sight of the upright little figure, standing in the same spot, still pointing with the rhythmic finger to the blues and reds and yellows, and half chanting under her breath, as before, "i choose _that_ color." "i choose _that_ color." "i choose _that_ color." i went quietly on my way, without disturbing her again. but i said in my heart, "little messenger, interpreter, teacher! i will remember you all my life." why should days ever be dark, life ever be colorless? there is always sun; there are always blue and scarlet and yellow and purple. we cannot reach them, perhaps, but we can see them, if it is only "through a glass," and "darkly,"--still we can see them. we can "choose" our colors. it rains, perhaps; and we are standing in the cold. never mind. if we look earnestly enough at the brightness which is on the other side of the glass, we shall forget the wet and not feel the cold. and now and then a passer-by, who has rolled himself up in furs to keep out the cold, but shivers nevertheless,--who has money in his purse to buy many colors, if he likes, but, nevertheless, goes grumbling because some colors are too dear for him,--such a passer-by, chancing to hear our voice, and see the atmosphere of our content, may learn a wondrous secret,--that pennilessness is not poverty, and ownership is not possession; that to be without is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain; that sunlight is for all eyes that look up, and color for those who "choose." the apostle of beauty. he is not of the twelve, any more than the golden rule is of the ten. "a greater commandment i give unto you," was said of that. also it was called the "new commandment." yet it was really older than the rest, and greater only because it included them all. there were those who kept it ages before moses went up sinai: joseph, for instance, his ancestor; and the king's daughter, by whose goodness he lived. so stands the apostle of beauty, greater than the twelve, newer and older; setting gospel over against law, having known law before its beginning; living triumphantly free and unconscious of penalty. he has had martyrdom, and will have. his church is never established; the world does not follow him; only of wisdom is he known, and of her children, who are children of light. he never speaks by their mouths who say "shalt not." he knows that "shalt not" is illegitimate, puny, trying always to usurp the throne of the true king, "thou shalt." "this is delight," "this is good to see," he says of a purity, of a fair thing. it needs not to speak of the impurity, of the ugliness. left unmentioned, unforbidden, who knows how soon they might die out of men's lives, perhaps even from the earth's surface? men hedging gardens have for centuries set plants under that "letter of law" which "killeth," until the very word hedge has become a pain and an offence; and all the while there have been standing in every wild country graceful walls of unhindered brier and berry, to which the apostles of beauty have been silently pointing. by degrees gardeners have learned something. the best of them now call themselves "landscape gardeners;" and that is a concession, if it means, as i suppose it does, that they will try to copy nature's landscapes in their enclosures. i have seen also of late that on rich men's estates tangled growths of native bushes are being more let alone, and hedges seem to have had some of the weights and harness taken off of them. this is but one little matter among millions with which the apostle of beauty has to do; but it serves for instance of the first requisite he demands, which is freedom. "let use take care of itself." "it will," he says. "there is no beauty without freedom." nothing is too high for him, nothing too low or small. to speak more truly, in his eyes there is no small, no low. from a philanthropy down to a gown, one catholic necessity, one catholic principle; gowns can be benefactions or injuries; philanthropies can be well or ill clad. he has a ministry of co-workers,--men, women, and guileless little children. many of them serve him without knowing him by name. some who serve him best, who spread his creeds most widely, who teach them most eloquently, die without dreaming that they have been missionaries to gentiles. others there are who call him "lord, lord," build temples to him and teach in them, who never know him. these are they who give their goods to the poor, their bodies to be burned; but are each day ungracious, unloving, hard, cruel to men and women about them. these are they also who make bad statues, bad pictures, invent frightful fashions of things to be worn, and make the houses and the rooms in which they live hideous with unsightly adornments. the centuries fight such,--now with a titian, a michel angelo; now with a great philanthropist, who is also peaceable and easy to be entreated; now with a florence nightingale, knowing no sect; now with a little child by a roadside, holding up a marigold in the sun; now with a sweet-faced old woman, dying gracefully in some almshouse. who has not heard voice from such apostles? to-day my nearest, most eloquent apostle of beauty is a poor shoemaker, who lives in the house where i lodge. how poor he must be i dare not even try to understand. he has six children: the oldest not more than thirteen, the third a deaf-mute, the baby puny and ill,--sure, i think (and hope), to die soon. they live in two rooms, on the ground-floor. his shop is the right-hand corner of the front room; the rest is bedroom and sitting-room; behind are the bedroom and kitchen. i have never seen so much as i might of their way of living; for i stand before his window with more reverent fear of intruding by a look than i should have at the door of a king's chamber. a narrow rough ledge added to the window-sill is his bench. behind this he sits from six in the morning till seven at night, bent over, sewing slowly and painfully on the coarsest shoes. his face looks old enough for sixty years; but he cannot be so old. yet he wears glasses and walks feebly; he has probably never had in any one day of his life enough to eat. but i do not know any man, and i know only one woman, who has such a look of radiant good-cheer and content as has this poor shoemaker, anton grasl. in his window are coarse wooden boxes, in which are growing the common mallows. they are just now in full bloom,--row upon row of gay-striped purple and white bells. the window looks to the east, and is never shut. when i go out to my breakfast the sun is streaming in on the flowers and anton's face. he looks up, smiles, bows low, and says, "good-day, good my lady," sometimes holding the mallow-stalks back with one hand, to see me more plainly. i feel as if the day and i had had benediction. it is always a better day because anton has said it is good; and i am a better woman for sight of his godly contentment. almost every day he has beside the mallows in the boxes a white mug with flowers in it,--nasturtiums, perhaps, or a few pinks. this he sets carefully in shade of the thickest mallows; and this i have often seen him hold down tenderly, for the little ones to see and to smell. when i come home in the evenings, between eight and nine o'clock, anton is always sifting in front of the door, resting his head against the wall. this is his recreation, his one blessed hour of out-door air and rest. he stands with his cap in his hand while i pass, and his face shines as if all the concentrated enjoyment of my walk in the woods had descended upon him in my first look. if i give him a bunch of ferns to add to his nasturtiums and pinks, he is so grateful and delighted that i have to go into the house quickly for fear i shall cry. whenever i am coming back from a drive, i begin to think, long before i reach the house, how glad anton will look when he sees the carriage stop. i am as sure as if i had omniscient sight into the depths of his good heart that he has distinct and unenvious joy in every pleasure that he sees other people taking. never have i, heard one angry or hasty word, one petulant or weary cry from the rooms in which this father and mother and six children are struggling to live. all day long the barefooted and ragged little ones play under my south windows, and do not quarrel. i amuse myself by dropping grapes or plums on their heads, and then watching them at their feast; never have i seen them dispute or struggle in the division. once i purposely threw a large bunch of grapes to the poor little mute, and only a few plums to the others. i am sorry to say that voiceless carl ate all his grapes himself; but not a selfish or discontented look could i see on the faces of the others,--they all smiled and beamed up at me like suns. it is anton who creates and sustains this rare atmosphere. the wife is only a common and stupid woman; he is educating her, as he is the children. she is very thin and worn and hungry-looking, but always smiles. being anton's wife, she could not do otherwise. sometimes i see people passing the house, who give a careless glance of contemptuous pity at anton's window of mallows and nasturtiums. then i remember that an apostle wrote:-- "there are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. "therefore, if i know not the meaning of the voice, i shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me." and i long to call after them, as they go groping their way down the beautiful street,-- "oh, ye barbarians, blind and deaf! how dare you think you can pity anton? his soul would melt in compassion for you, if he were able to comprehend that lives could be so poor as yours. he is the rich man, and you are poor. eating only the husks on which you feed, he would starve to death." english lodging-houses. somebody who has written stories (is it dickens?) has given us very wrong ideas of the english lodging-house. what good american does not go into london with the distinct impression that, whatever else he does or does not do, he will upon no account live in lodgings? that he will even be content with the comfortless coffee-room of a second-rate hotel, and fraternize with commercial travellers from all quarters of the globe, rather than come into relations with that mixture of vulgarity and dishonesty, the lodging-house keeper? it was with more than such misgiving that i first crossed the threshold of mrs. ----'s house in bedford place, bloomsbury. at this distance i smile to remember how welcome would have been any alternative rather than the remaining under her roof for a month; how persistently for several days i doubted and resisted the evidence of all my senses, and set myself at work to find the discomforts and shortcomings which i believed must belong to that mode of life. to confess the stupidity and obstinacy of my ignorance is small reparation, and would be little worth while, except for the hope that my account of the comfort and economy in living on the english lodging-house system may be a seed dropped in due season, which shall spring up sooner or later in the introduction of a similar system in america. the gain which it would be to great numbers of our men and women who must live on small incomes cannot be estimated. it seems hardly too much to say that in the course of one generation it might work in the average public health a change which would be shown in statistics, and rid us of the stigma of a "national disease" of dyspepsia. for the men and women whose sufferings and ill-health have made of our name a by-word among the nations are not, as many suppose, the rich men and women, tempted by their riches to over-indulgence of their stomachs, and paying in their dyspepsia simply the fair price of their folly; they are the moderately poor men and women, who are paying cruel penalty for not having been richer,--not having been rich enough to avoid the poisons which are cooked and served in american restaurants and in the poorer class of american homes. mrs. ----'s lodging-house was not, so far as i know, any better than the average lodging-houses of its grade. it was well situated, well furnished, well kept, and its scale of prices was moderate. for instance, the rent of a pleasant parlor and bedroom on the second floor was thirty-four shillings a week, including fire and gas,--$ . , gold. then there was a charge of two shillings a week for the use of the kitchen-fire, and three shillings a week for service; and these were the only charges in addition to the rent. thus for $ . a week one had all the comforts that can be had in housekeeping, so far as room and service are concerned. there were four good servants,--cook, scullery maid, and two housemaids. oh, the pleasant voices and gentle fashions of behavior of those housemaids! they were slow, it must be owned; but their results were admirable. in spite of london smoke and grime, mrs. ----'s floors and windows were clean; the grates shone every morning like mirrors, and the glass and silver were bright. each morning the smiling cook came up to take our orders for the meals of the day; each day the grocer and the baker and the butcher stopped at the door and left the sugar for the "first floor front," the beef for the "drawing-room," and so on. the smallest article which could be required in housekeeping was not overlooked. the groceries of the different floors never got mixed, though how this separateness of stores was accomplished will for ever remain a mystery to me; but that it was successfully accomplished the smallness of our bill was the best of proof,--unless, indeed, as we were sometimes almost afraid, we did now and then eat up dr. a----'s cheese, or drink the milk belonging to the b's below us. we were a party of four; our fare was of the plain, substantial sort, but of sufficient variety and abundance; and yet our living never cost us, including rent, service, fires, and food, over $ a week. if we had chosen to practise closer economies, we might have lived on less. compare for one instant the comfort of such an arrangement as this, which really gave us every possible advantage to be secured by housekeeping, and with almost none of the trouble, with any boarding or lodging possible in new york. we had two parlors and two bedrooms; our meals served promptly and neatly, in our own parlor. the same amount of room, and service, and such a table, for four people, cannot be had in new york for less than $ or $ a week; in fact, they cannot be had in new york for any sum of money. the quiet respectfulness of behavior and faithful interest in work of english servants on english soil are not to be found elsewhere. we afterward lived for some weeks in another lodging-house in great malvern, worcestershire, at about the same price per week. this house was even better than the london one in some respects. the system was precisely the same; but the cooking was almost faultless, and the table appointments were more than satisfactory,--they were tasteful. the china was a pleasure, and there were silver and linen and glass which one would be glad to have in one's own home. it may be asked, and not unnaturally, how does this lodging-house system work for those who keep the houses? can it be possible that all this comfort and economy for lodgers are compatible with profits for landlords? i can judge only from the results in these two cases which came under my own observation. in each of these cases the family who kept the house lived comfortably and pleasantly in their own apartment, which was, in the london house, almost as good a suite of rooms as any which they rented. they certainly had far more apparent quiet, comfort, and privacy than is commonly seen in the arrangements of the keepers of average boarding-houses. in the malvern house, one whole floor, which was less pleasant than the others, but still comfortable and well furnished, was occupied by the family. there were three little boys, under ten years of age, who had their nursery governess, said lessons to her regularly, and were led out decorously to walk by her at appointed seasons, like all the rest of good little english boys in well-regulated families; and yet the mother of these children came to the door of our parlor each morning, with the respectful air of an old family housekeeper, to ask what we would have for dinner, and was careful and exact in buying "three penn'orth" of herbs at a time for us, to season our soup. i ought to mention that in both these places we made the greater part of our purchases ourselves, having weekly bills sent in from the shops, and in our names, exactly as if we were living in our own house. all honest lodging-house keepers, we were told, preferred this method, as leaving no opening for any unjust suspicions of their fairness in providing. but, if one chooses to be as absolutely free from trouble as in boarding, the marketing can all be done by the family, and the bills still made out in the lodgers' names. i have been thus minute in my details because i think there may be many to whom this system of living is as unknown as it was to me; and i cannot but hope that it may yet be introduced in america. wet the clay. once i stood in miss hosmer's studio, looking at a statue which she was modelling of the ex-queen of naples. face to face with the clay model, i always feel the artist's creative power far more than when i am looking at the immovable marble. a touch here--there--and all is changed. perhaps, under my eyes, in the twinkling of an eye, one trait springs into life and another disappears. the queen, who is a very beautiful woman, was represented in miss hosmer's statue as standing, wearing the picturesque cloak that she wore during those hard days of garrison life at gaeta, when she showed herself so brave and strong that the world said if she, instead of that very stupid young man her husband, had been king, the throne need not have been lost. the very cloak, made of light cloth showily faced with scarlet, was draped over a lay figure in one corner of the room. in the statue the folds of drapery over the right arm were entirely disarranged, simply rough clay. the day before they had been apparently finished; but that morning miss hosmer had, as she laughingly told us, "pulled it all to pieces again." as she said this, she took up a large syringe and showered the statue from head to foot with water, till it dripped and shone as if it had been just plunged into a bath. now it was in condition to be moulded. many times a day this process must be repeated, or the clay becomes so dry and hard that it cannot be worked. i had known this before; but never did i so realize the significant symbolism of the act as when i looked at this lifeless yet lifelike thing, to be made into the beauty of a woman, called by her name, and cherished after her death,--and saw that only through this chrysalis of the clay, so cared for, moistened, and moulded, could the marble obtain its soul. and, as all things i see in life seem to me to have a voice either for or of children, so did this instantly suggest to me that most of the failures of mothers come from their not keeping the clay wet. the slightest touch tells on the clay when it is soft and moist, and can produce just the effect which is desired; but when the clay is too dry it will not yield, and often it breaks and crumbles beneath the unskilful hand. how perfect the analogy between these two results, and the two atmospheres which one often sees in the space of one half-hour in the management of the same child! one person can win from it instantly a gentle obedience: that person's smile is a reward, that person's displeasure is a grief it cannot bear, that person's opinions have utmost weight with it, that person's presence is a controlling and subduing influence. another, alas! the mother, produces such an opposite effect that it is hard to believe the child can be the same child. her simplest command is met by antagonism or sullen compliance; her pleasure and displeasure are plainly of no account to the child, and its great desire is to get out of her presence. what shape will she make of that child's soul? she does not wet the clay. she does not stop to consider before each command whether it be wholly just, whether it be the best time to make it, and whether she can explain its necessity. oh! the sweet reasonableness of children when disagreeable necessities are explained to them, instead of being enforced as arbitrary tyrannies! she does not make them so feel that she shares all their sorrows and pleasures that they cannot help being in turn glad when she is glad, and sorry when she is sorry. she does not so take them into constant companionship in her interests, each day,--the books, the papers she reads, the things she sees,--that they learn to hold her as the representative of much more than nursery discipline, clothes, and bread and butter. she does not kiss them often enough, put her arms around them, warm, soften, bathe them in the ineffable sunshine of loving ways. "i can't imagine why children are so much better with you than with me," exclaims such a mother. no, she cannot imagine; and that is the trouble. if she could, all would be righted. it is quite probable that she is a far more anxious, self-sacrificing, hard-working mother than the neighbor, whose children are rosy and frolicking and affectionate and obedient; while hers are pale and fretful and selfish and sullen. she is all the time working, working, with endless activity, on hard, dry clay; and the neighbor, who, perhaps half-unconsciously, keeps the clay wet, is with one-half the labor modelling sweet creatures of nature's own loveliest shapes. then she says, this poor, tired mother, discouraged because her children tell lies, and irritated because they seem to her thankless, "after all, children are pretty much alike, i suppose. i believe most children tell lies when they are little; and they never realize until they are grown up what parents do for them." here again i find a similitude among the artists who paint or model. studios are full of such caricatures, and the hard-working, honest souls who have made them believe that they are true reproductions of nature and life. "see my cherub. are not all cherubs such as he?" and "behold these trees and this water; and how the sun glowed on the day when i walked there!" and all the while the cherub is like a paper doll, and the trees and the water never had any likeness to any thing that is in this beautiful earth. but, after all, this similitude is short and paltry, for it is of comparatively small moment that so many men and women spend their lives in making bad cherubs in marble, and hideous landscapes in oil. it is industry, and it keeps them in bread; in butter, too, if their cherubs and trees are very bad. but, when it is a human being that is to be moulded, how do we dare, even with all the help which we can ask and find in earth and in heaven, to shape it by our touch! clay in the hands of the potter is not more plastic than is the little child's soul in the hands of those who tend it. alas! how many shapeless, how many ill-formed, how many broken do we see! who does not believe that the image of god could have been beautiful on all? sooner or later it will be, thank christ! but what a pity, what a loss, not to have had the sweet blessedness of being even here fellow-workers with him in this glorious modelling for eternity! the king's friend. we are a gay party, summering among the hills. new-comers into the little boarding-house where we, by reason of prior possession, hold a kind of sway are apt to fare hardly at our hands unless they come up to our standard. we are not exacting in the matter of clothes; we are liberal on creeds; but we have our shibboleths. and, though we do not drown unlucky ephraimites, whose tongues make bad work with s's, i fear we are not quite kind to them; they never stay long, and so we go on having it much our own way. week before last a man appeared at dinner, of whom our good little landlady said, deprecatingly, that he would stay only a few days. she knew by instinct that his presence would not be agreeable to us. he was not in the least an intrusive person,--on the contrary, there was a sort of mute appeal to our humanity in the very extent of his quiet inoffensiveness; but his whole atmosphere was utterly uninteresting. he was untrained in manner, awkwardly ill at ease in the table routine; and, altogether, it was so uncomfortable to make any attempt to include him in our circle that in a few days he was ignored by every one, to a degree which was neither courteous nor christian. in all families there is a leader. ours is a charming and brilliant married woman, whose ready wit and never-failing spirits make her the best of centres for a country party of pleasure-seekers. her keen sense of humor had not been able entirely to spare this unfortunate man, whose attitudes and movements were certainly at times almost irresistible. but one morning such a change was apparent in her manner toward him that we all looked up in surprise. no more gracious and gentle greeting could she have given him if he had been a prince of royal line. our astonishment almost passed bounds when we heard her continue with a kindly inquiry after his health, and, undeterred by his evident readiness to launch into detailed symptoms, listen to him with the most respectful attention. under the influence of this new and sweet recognition his plain and common face kindled into something almost manly and individual. he had never before been so spoken to by a well-bred and beautiful woman. we were sobered, in spite of ourselves, by an indefinable something in her manner; and it was with subdued whispers that we crowded around her on the piazza, and begged to know what it all meant. it was a rare thing to see mrs. ---- hesitate for a reply. the color rose in her face, and, with a half-nervous attempt at a smile, she finally said, "well, girls, i suppose you will all laugh at me; but the truth is, i heard that man say his prayers this morning. you know his room is next to mine, and there is a great crack in the door. i heard him praying, this morning, for ten minutes, just before breakfast; and i never heard such tones in my life. i don't pretend to be religious; but i must own it was a wonderful thing to hear a man talking with god as he did. and when i saw him at table, i felt as if i were looking in the face of some one who had just come out of the presence of the king of kings, and had the very air of heaven about him. i can't help what the rest of you do or say; _i_ shall always have the same feeling whenever i see him." there was a magnetic earnestness in her tone and look, which we all felt, and which some of us will never forget. during the few remaining days of his stay with us, that untutored, uninteresting, stupid man knew no lack of friendly courtesy at our hands. we were the better for his homely presence; unawares, he ministered unto us. when we knew that he came directly from speaking to the master to speak to us, we felt that he was greater than we, and we remembered that it is written, "if any man serve me, him will my father honor." learning to speak. with what breathless interest we listen for the baby's first word! what a new bond is at once and for ever established between its soul and ours by this mysterious, inexplicable, almost incredible fact! that is the use of the word. that is its only use, so far as mere gratification of the ear goes. many other sounds are more pleasurable,--the baby's laugh, for instance, or its inarticulate murmurs of content or sleepiness. but the word is a revelation, a sacred sign. now we shall know what our beloved one wants; now we shall know when and why the dear heart sorrows or is glad. how reassured we feel, how confident! now we cannot make mistakes; we shall do all for the best; we can give happiness; we can communicate wisdom; relation is established; the perplexing gulf of silence is bridged. the baby speaks! but it is not of the baby's learning to speak that we propose to write here. all babies learn to speak; or, if they do not, we know that it means a terrible visitation,--a calamity rare, thank god! but bitter almost beyond parents' strength to bear. but why, having once learned to speak, does the baby leave off speaking when it becomes a man or a woman? many of our men and women to-day need, almost as much as when they were twenty-four months old, to learn to speak. we do not mean learning to speak in public. we do not mean even learning to speak well,--to pronounce words clearly and accurately; though there is need enough of that in this land! but that is not the need at which we are aiming now. we mean something so much simpler, so much further back, that we hardly know how to say it in words which shall be simple enough and also sufficiently strong. we mean learning to speak at all! in spite of all which satirical writers have said and say of the loquacious egotism, the questioning curiosity of our people, it is true to-day that the average american is a reticent, taciturn, speechless creature, who, for his own sake, and still more for the sake of all who love him, needs, more than he needs any thing else under heaven, to learn to speak. look at our silent railway and horse-cars, steamboat-cabins, hotel-tables, in short, all our public places where people are thrown together incidentally, and where good-will and the habit of speaking combined would create an atmosphere of human vitality, quite unlike what we see now. but it is not of so much consequence, after all, whether people speak in these public places or not. if they did, one very unpleasant phase of our national life would be greatly changed for the better. but it is in our homes that this speechlessness tells most fearfully,--on the breakfast and dinner and tea-tables, at which a silent father and mother sit down in haste and gloom to feed their depressed children. this is especially true of men and women in the rural districts. they are tired; they have more work to do in a year than it is easy to do. their lives are monotonous,--too much so for the best health of either mind or body. if they dreamed how much this monotony could be broken and cheered by the constant habit of talking with each other, they would grasp at the slightest chance of a conversation. sometimes it almost seems as if complaints and antagonism were better than such stagnant quiet. but there need not be complaint and antagonism; there is no home so poor, so remote from affairs, that each day does not bring and set ready, for family welcome and discussion, beautiful sights and sounds, occasions for helpfulness and gratitude, questions for decision, hopes, fears, regrets! the elements of human life are the same for ever; any one heart holds in itself the whole, can give all things to another, can bear all things for another; but no giving, no bearing, no, not even if it is the giving up of a life, if it is done without free, full, loving interchange of speech, is half the blessing it might be. many a wife goes down to her grave a dulled and dispirited woman simply because her good and faithful husband has lived by her side without talking to her! there have been days when one word of praise, or one word even of simple good cheer, would have girded her up with new strength. she did not know, very likely, what she needed, or that she needed any thing; but she drooped. many a child grows up a hard, unimpressionable, unloving man or woman simply from the uncheered silence in which the first ten years of life were passed. very few fathers and mothers, even those who are fluent, perhaps, in society, habitually _talk_ with their children. it is certain that this is one of the worst shortcomings of our homes. perhaps no other single change would do so much to make them happier, and, therefore, to make our communities better, as for men and women to learn to speak. private tyrants. we recognize tyranny when it wears a crown and sits on an hereditary throne. we sympathize with nations that overthrow the thrones, and in our secret hearts we almost canonize individuals who slay the tyrants. from the days of ehud and eglon down to those of charlotte corday and marat, the world has dealt tenderly with their names whose hands have been red with the blood of oppressors. on moral grounds it would be hard to justify this sentiment, murder being murder all the same, however great gain it may be to this world to have the murdered man put out of it; but that there is such a sentiment, instinctive and strong in the human soul, there is no denying. it is so instinctive and so strong that, if we watch ourselves closely, we shall find it giving alarming shape sometimes to our secret thoughts about our neighbors. how many communities, how many households even, are without a tyrant? if we could "move for returns of suffering," as that tender and thoughtful man, arthur helps, says, we should find a far heavier aggregate of misery inflicted by unsuspected, unresisted tyrannies than by those which are patent to everybody, and sure to be overthrown sooner or later. an exhaustive sermon on this subject should be set off in three divisions, as follows:-- private tyrants. _ st._ number of-- _ d._ nature of-- _ d._ longevity of-- _first_. their number. they are not enumerated in any census. not even the most painstaking statistician has meddled with the topic. fancy takes bold leaps at the very suggestion of such an estimate, and begins to think at once of all things in the universe which are usually mentioned as beyond numbering. probably one good way of getting at a certain sort of result would be to ask each person of one's acquaintance, "do you happen to know a private tyrant?" how well we know beforehand the replies we should get from _some_ beloved men and women,--that is, if they spoke the truth! but they would not. that is the saddest thing about these private tyrannies. they are in many cases borne in such divine and uncomplaining silence by their victims, perhaps for long years, the world never dreams that they exist. but at last the fine, subtle writing, which no control, no patience, no will can thwart, becomes set on the man's or the woman's face, and tells the whole record. who does not know such faces? cheerful usually, even gay, brave, and ready with lines of smile; but in repose so marked, so scarred with unutterable weariness and disappointment, that tears spring in the eyes and love in the hearts of all finely organized persons who meet them. _secondly_. nature of private tyrants. here also the statistician has not entered. the field is vast; the analysis difficult. selfishness is, of course, their leading characteristic; in fact, the very sum and substance of their natures. but selfishness is protean. it has as many shapes as there are minutes, and as many excuses and wraps of sheep's clothing as ever ravening wolf possessed. one of its commonest pleas is that of weakness. here it often is so inextricably mixed with genuine need and legitimate claim that one grows bewildered between sympathy and resentment. in this shape, however, it gets its cruelest dominion over strong and generous and tender people. this kind of tyranny builds up and fortifies its bulwarks on and out of the very virtues of its victims; it gains strength hourly from the very strength of the strength to which it appeals; each slow and fatal encroachment never seems at first so much a thing required as a thing offered; but, like the slow sinking inch by inch of that great, beautiful city of stone into the relentless adriatic, so is the slow, sure going down and loss of the freedom of a strong, beautiful soul, helpless in the omnipresent circumference of the selfish nature to which it is or believes itself bound. that the exactions never or rarely take shape in words is, to the unbiassed looker-on, only an exasperating feature in their tyranny. while it saves the conscience of the tyrant,--if such tyrants have any,--it makes doubly sure the success of their tyranny. and probably nothing short of revelation from heaven, in shape of blinding light, would ever open their eyes to the fact that it is even more selfish to hold a generous spirit fettered hour by hour by a constant fear of giving pain than to coerce or threaten or scold them into the desired behavior. invalids, all invalids, stand in deadly peril of becoming tyrants of this order. a chronic invalid who entirely escapes it must be so nearly saint or angel that one instinctively feels as if their invalidism would soon end in the health of heaven. we know of one invalid woman, chained to her bed for long years by an incurable disease, who has had the insight and strength to rise triumphant above this danger. her constant wish and entreaty is that her husband should go freely into all the work and the pleasure of life. whenever he leaves her, her farewell is not, "how soon do you think you shall come back? at what hour, or day, may i look for you?" but, "now, pray stay just as long as you enjoy it. if you hurry home one hour sooner for the thought of me, i shall be wretched." it really seems almost as if the longer he stayed away,--hours, days, weeks even,--the happier she were. by this sweet and wise unselfishness she has succeeded in realizing the whole blessedness of wifehood far more than most women who have health. but we doubt if any century sees more than one such woman as she is. another large class, next to that of invalids the most difficult to deal with, is made up of people who are by nature or by habit uncomfortably sensitive or irritable. who has not lived at one time or other in his life in daily contact with people of this sort,--persons whose outbreaks of temper, or of wounded feeling still worse than temper, were as incalculable as meteoric showers? the suppressed atmosphere, the chronic state of alarm and misgiving, in which the victims of this species of tyranny live are withering and exhausting to the stoutest hearts. they are also hardening; perpetually having to wonder and watch how people will "take" things is apt sooner or later to result in indifference as to whether they take them well or ill. but to define all the shapes of private tyranny would require whole histories; it is safe, however, to say that so far as any human being attempts to set up his own individual need or preference as law to determine the action of any other human being, in small matters or great, so far forth he is a tyrant. the limit of his tyranny may be narrowed by lack of power on his part, or of response on the part of his fellows; but its essence is as purely tyrannous as if he sat on a throne with an executioner within call. _thirdly._ longevity of private tyrants. we have not room under this head to do more--nor, if we had all room, could we do better--than to quote a short paragraph from george eliot's immortal mrs. poyser: "it seems as if them as aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted i' th' other world." margin. wide-margined pages please us at first sight. we do not stop to ask why. it has passed into an accepted rule that all elegant books must have broad, clear margins to their pages. we as much recognize such margins among the indications of promise in a book, as we do fineness of paper, clearness of type, and beauty of binding. all three of these last, even in perfection, could not make any book beautiful, or sightly, whose pages had been left narrow-margined and crowded. this is no arbitrary decree of custom, no chance preference of an accredited authority. it would be dangerous to set limit to the power of fashion in any thing; and yet it seems almost safe to say that not even fashion itself can ever make a narrow-margined page look other than shabby and mean. this inalienable right of the broad margin to our esteem is significant. it lies deep. the broad margin means something which is not measured by inches, has nothing to do with fashions of shape. it means room for notes, queries, added by any man's hand who reads. meaning this, it means also much more than this,--far more than the mere letter of "right of way." it is a fine courtesy of recognition that no one page shall ever say the whole of its own message; be exhaustive, or ultimate, even of its own topic; determine or enforce its own opinion, to the shutting out of others. no matter if the book live and grow old, without so much as an interrogation point or a line of enthusiastic admiration drawn in it by human hand, still the gracious import and suggestion of its broad white spaces are the same. each thought invites its neighbor, stands fairly to right or left of its opponent, and wooes its friend. thinking on this, we presently discover that margin means a species of freedom. no wonder the word, and the thing it represents, wherever we find them, delight us. we use the word constantly in senses which, speaking carelessly, we should have called secondary and borrowed. now we see that its application to pages, or pictures, or decorations, and so forth, was the borrowed and secondary use; and that primarily its meaning is spiritual. we must have margin, or be uncomfortable in every thing in life. our plan for a day, for a week, for our lifetime, must have it,--margin for change of purpose, margin for interruption, margin for accident. making no allowance for these, we are fettered, we are disturbed, we are thwarted. is there a greater misery than to be hurried? if we leave ourselves proper margin, we never need to be hurried. we always shall be, if we crowd our plan. people pant, groan, and complain as if hurry were a thing outside of themselves,--an enemy, a monster, a disease which overtook them, and against which they had no shelter. it is hard to be patient with such nonsense. hurry is almost the only known misery which it is impossible to have brought upon one by other people's fault. if our plan of action for an hour or a day be so fatally spoiled by lack of margin, what shall we say of the mistake of the man who leaves himself no margin in matters of belief? no room for a wholesome, healthy doubt? no provision for an added enlightenment? no calculation for the inevitable progress of human knowledge? this is, in our eyes, the crying sin and danger of elaborate creeds, rigid formulas of exact statement on difficult and hidden mysteries. the man who is ready to give pledge that the opinion he will hold to-morrow will be precisely the opinion he holds to-day has either thought very little, or to little purpose, or has resolved to quit thinking altogether. the fine art of smiling. some theatrical experiments are being made at this time to show that all possible emotions and all shades and gradations of emotion can be expressed by facial action, and that the method of so expressing them can be reduced to a system, and taught in a given number of lessons. it seems a matter of question whether one would be likely to make love or evince sorrow any more successfully by keeping in mind all the while the detailed catalogue of his flexors and extensors, and contracting and relaxing no. , , or , according to rule. the human memory is a treacherous thing, and what an enormous disaster would result from a very slight forgetfulness in such a nicely adjusted system! the fatal effect of dropping the superior maxillary when one intended to drop the inferior, or of applying nervous stimuli to the up track, instead of the down, can easily be conceived. art is art, after all, be it ever so skilful and triumphant, and science is only a slow reading of hieroglyphs. nature sits high and serene above both, and smiles compassionately on their efforts to imitate and understand. and this brings us to what we have to say about smiling. do many people feel what a wonderful thing it is that each human being is born into the world with his own smile? eyes, nose, mouth, may be merely average commonplace features; may look, taken singly, very much like anybody's else eyes, nose, or mouth. let whoever doubts this try the simple but endlessly amusing experiment of setting half a dozen people behind a perforated curtain, and making them put their eyes at the holes. not one eye in a hundred can be recognized, even by most familiar and loving friends. but study smiles; observe, even in the most casual way, the variety one sees in a day, and it will soon be felt what subtle revelation they make, what infinite individuality they possess. the purely natural smile, however, is seldom seen in adults; and it is on this point that we wish to dwell. very early in life people find out that a smile is a weapon, mighty to avail in all sorts of crises. hence, we see the treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous; the obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist. very few of these have heard of delsarte; but they outdo him on his own grounds. their smile is four-fifths of their social stock in trade. all such smiles are hideous. the gloomiest, blankest look which a human face can wear is welcomer than a trained smile or a smile which, if it is not actually and consciously methodized by its perpetrator, has become, by long repetition, so associated with tricks and falsities that it partakes of their quality. what, then, is the fine art of smiling? if smiles may not be used for weapons or masks, of what use are they? that is the shape one would think the question took in most men's minds, if we may judge by their behavior! there are but two legitimate purposes of the smile; but two honest smiles. on all little children's faces such smiles are seen. woe to us that we so soon waste and lose them! the first use of the smile is to express affectionate good-will; the second, to express mirth. why do we not always smile whenever we meet the eye of a fellow-being? that is the true, intended recognition which ought to pass from soul to soul constantly. little children, in simple communities, do this involuntarily, unconsciously. the honest-hearted german peasant does it. it is like magical sunlight all through that simple land, the perpetual greeting on the right hand and on the left, between strangers, as they pass by each other, never without a smile. this, then, is "the fine art of smiling;" like all fine art, true art, perfection of art, the simplest following of nature. now and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled. it is a woman's face usually; often a face which has trace of great sorrow all over it, till the smile breaks. such a smile transfigures; such a smile, if the artful but knew it, is the greatest weapon a face can have. sickness and age cannot turn its edge; hostility and distrust cannot withstand its spell; little children know it, and smile back; even dumb animals come closer, and look up for another. if one were asked to sum up in one single rule what would most conduce to beauty in the human face, one might say therefore, "never tamper with your smile; never once use it for a purpose. let it be on your face like the reflection of the sunlight on a lake. affectionate good-will to all men must be the sunlight, and your face is the lake. but, unlike the sunlight, your good-will must be perpetual, and your face must never be overcast." "what! smile perpetually?" says the realist. "how silly!" yes, smile perpetually! go to delsarte here, and learn even from the mechanician of smiles that a smile can be indicated by a movement of muscles so slight that neither instruments nor terms exist to measure or state it; in fact, that the subtlest smile is little more than an added brightness to the eye and a tremulousness of the mouth. one second of time is more than long enough for it; but eternity does not outlast it. in that wonderfully wise and tender and poetic book, the "layman's breviary," leopold schefer says,-- "a smile suffices to smile death away; and love defends thee e'en from wrath divine! then let what may befall thee,--still smile on! and howe'er death may rob thee,--still smile on! love never has to meet a bitter thing; a paradise blooms around him who smiles." death-bed repentance. not long since, a congregationalist clergyman, who had been for forty-one years in the ministry, said in my hearing, "i have never, in all my experience as a pastor, known of a single instance in which a repentance on what was supposed to be a death-bed proved to be of any value whatever after the person recovered." this was strong language. i involuntarily exclaimed, "have you known many such cases?" "more than i dare to remember." "and as many more, perhaps, where the person died." "yes, fully as many more." "then did not the bitter failure of these death-bed repentances to bear the tests of time shake your confidence in their value under the tests of eternity?" "it did,--it does," said the clergyman, with tears in his eyes. the conversation made a deep impression on my mind. it was strong evidence, from a quarter in which i least looked for it, of the utter paltriness and insufficiency of fear as a motive when brought to bear upon decisions in spiritual things. there seem to be no words strong enough to stigmatize it in all other affairs except spiritual. all ages, all races, hold cowardice chief among vices; noble barbarians punished it with death. even civilization the most cautiously legislated for, does the same thing when a soldier shows it "in face of the enemy." language, gathering itself up and concentrating its force to describe base behavior, can do no more than call it "cowardly." no instinct of all the blessed body-guard of instincts born with us seems in the outset a stronger one than the instinct that to be noble, one must be brave. almost in the cradle the baby taunts or is taunted by the accusation of being "afraid." and the sting of the taunt lies in the probability of its truth. for in all men, alas! is born a certain selfish weakness, to which fear can address itself. but how strange does it appear that they who wish to inculcate noblest action, raise to most exalted spiritual conditions, should appeal to this lowest of motives to help them! we believe that there are many "death-bed repentances" among hale, hearty sinners, who are approached by the same methods, stimulated by the same considerations, frightened by the same conceptions of possible future suffering, which so often make the chambers of dying men dark with terrors. fear is fear all the same whether its dread be for the next hour or the next century. the closer the enemy, the swifter it runs. that is all the difference. let the enemy be surely and plainly removed, and in one instance it is no more,--is as if it had never been. every thought, word, and action based upon it has come to end. i was forcibly reminded of the conversation above quoted by some observations i once had opportunity of making at a methodist camp-meeting. much of the preaching and exhortation consisted simply and solely of urgent, impassioned appeals to the people to repent,--not because repentance is right; not because god is love, and it is base not to love and obey him; not even because godliness is in itself great gain, and sinfulness is, even temporarily, loss and ruin; but because there is a wrath to come, which will inflict terrible and unending suffering on the sinner. he is to "flee" for his life from torments indescribable and eternal; he is to call on jesus, not to make him holy, but to save him from woe, to rescue him from frightful danger; all and every thing else is subordinate to the one selfish idea of escaping future misery. the effect of these appeals, of these harrowing pictures, on some of the young men and women and children was almost too painful to be borne. they were in an hysterical condition,--weeping from sheer nervous terror. when the excitement had reached its highest pitch, an elder rose and told the story of a wicked and impenitent man whom he had visited a few weeks before. the man had assented to all that he told him of the necessity of repentance; but said that he was not at leisure that day to attend the class meeting. he resolved and promised, however, to do so the next week. that very night he was taken ill with a disease of the brain, and, after three days of unconsciousness, died. i would not like to quote here the emphasis of application which was made of this story to the terrors of the weeping young people. under its influence several were led, almost carried by force, into the anxious seats. it was hard not to fancy the gentle christ looking down upon the scene with a pain as great as that with which he yearned over jerusalem. i longed for some instant miracle to be wrought on the spot, by which there should come floating down from the peaceful blue sky, through the sweet tree-tops, some of the loving and serene words of balm from his gospel. theologians may theorize, and good christians may differ (they always will) as to the existence, extent, and nature of future punishment; but the fact remains indisputably clear that, whether there be less or more of it, whether it be of this sort or of that, fear of it is a base motive to appeal to, a false motive to act from, and a worthless motive to trust in. perfect love does not know it; spiritual courage resents it; the true kingdom of heaven is never taken by its "violence." somewhere (i wish i knew where, and i wish i knew from whose lips) i once found this immortal sentence: "a woman went through the streets of alexandria, bearing a jar of water and a lighted torch, and crying aloud, 'with this torch i will burn up heaven, and with this water i will put out hell, that god may be loved for himself alone.'" the correlation of moral forces. science has dealt and delved patiently with the laws of matter. from cuvier to huxley, we have a long line of clear-eyed workers. the gravitating force between all molecules; the law of continuity; the inertial force of matter; the sublime facts of organic co-ordination and adaptation,--all these are recognized, analyzed, recorded, taught. we have learned that the true meaning of the word law, as applied to nature, is not decree, but formula of invariable order, immutable as the constitution of ultimate units of matter. order is not imposed upon nature. order is result. physical science does not confuse these; it never mistakes nor denies specific function, organic progression, cyclical growth. it knows that there is no such thing as evasion, interruption, substitution. when shall we have a cuvier, a huxley, a tyndall for the immaterial world,--the realm of spiritual existence, moral growth? nature is one. the things which we have clumsily and impertinently dared to set off by themselves, and label as "immaterial," are no less truly component parts or members of the real frame of natural existence than are molecules of oxygen or crystals of diamond. we believe in the existence of one as much as in the existence of the other. in fact, if there be balance of proof in favor of either, it is not in favor of the existence of what we call matter. all the known sensible qualities of matter are ultimately referable to immaterial forces,--"forces acting from points or volumes;" and whether these points are occupied by positive substance, or "matter" as it is usually conceived, cannot to-day be proved. yet many men have less absolute belief in a soul than in nitric acid; many men achieve lifetimes of triumph by the faithful use and application of nature's law--that is, formula of uniform occurrence--in light, sound, motion, while they all the while outrage and violate and hinder every one of those sweet forces equally hers, equally immutable, called by such names as truth, sobriety, chastity, courage, and good-will. the suggestions of this train of thought are too numerous to be followed out in the limits of a single article. take, for instance, the fact of the identity of molecules, and look for its correlative truth in the spiritual universe. shall we not thence learn charity, and the better understand the full meaning of some who have said that vices were virtues in excess or restraint? taking the lists of each, and faithfully comparing them from beginning to end, not one shall be found which will not confirm this seemingly paradoxical statement. take the great fact of continuous progressive development which applies to all organisms, vegetable or animal, and see how it is one with the law that "the holy shall be holy still, the wicked shall be wicked still." dare we think what would be the formula in statement of spiritual life which would be correlative to the "law of continuity"? having dared to think, then shall we use the expression "little sins," or doubt the terrible absoluteness of exactitude with which "every idle word which men speak" shall enter upon eternity of reckoning. on the other hand, looking at all existences as organisms, shall we be disturbed at seeming failure?--long periods of apparent inactivity? shall we believe, for instance, that christ's great church can be really hindered in its appropriate cycle of progressive change and adaptation? that any true membership of this organic body can be formed or annulled by mere human interference? that the lopping or burning of branches of the tree, even the uprooting and burning of the tree itself, this year, next year, nay, for hundreds of years, shall have power to annihilate or even defer the ultimate organic result? the soul of man is not outcast from this glory, this freedom, this safety of law. we speak as if we might break it, evade it; we forget it; we deny it: but it never forgets us, it never refuses us a morsel of our estate. in spite of us, it protects our growth, makes sure of our development. in spite of us, it takes us whithersoever we tend, and not whithersoever we like; in spite of us, it sometimes saves what we have carelessly perilled, and always destroys what we wilfully throw away. a simple bill of fare for a christmas dinner. all good recipe-books give bills of fare for different occasions, bills of fare for grand dinners, bills of fare for little dinners; dinners to cost so much per head; dinners "which can be easily prepared with one servant," and so on. they give bills of fare for one week; bills of fare for each day in a month, to avoid too great monotony in diet. there are bills of fare for dyspeptics; bills of fare for consumptives; bills of fare for fat people, and bills of fare for thin; and bills of fare for hospitals, asylums, and prisons, as well as for gentlemen's houses. but among them all, we never saw the one which we give below. it has never been printed in any book; but it has been used in families. we are not drawing on our imagination for its items. we have sat at such dinners; we have helped prepare such dinners; we believe in such dinners; they are within everybody's means. in fact, the most marvellous thing about this bill of fare is that the dinner does not cost a cent. ho! all ye that are hungry and thirsty, and would like so cheap a christmas dinner, listen to this bill of fare for a christmas dinner. _first course._.--gladness. this must be served hot. no two housekeepers make it alike; no fixed rule can be given for it. it depends, like so many of the best things, chiefly on memory; but, strangely enough, it depends quite as much on proper forgetting as on proper remembering. worries must be forgotten. troubles must be forgotten. yes, even sorrow itself must be denied and shut out. perhaps this is not quite possible. ah! we all have seen christmas days on which sorrow would not leave our hearts nor our houses. but even sorrow can be compelled to look away from its sorrowing for a festival hour which is so solemnly joyous as christ's birthday. memory can be filled full of other things to be remembered. no soul is entirely destitute of blessings, absolutely without comfort. perhaps we have but one. very well; we can think steadily of that one, if we try. but the probability is that we have more than we can count. no man has yet numbered the blessings, the mercies, the joys of god. we are all richer than we think; and if we once set ourselves to reckoning up the things of which we are glad, we shall be astonished at their number. gladness, then, is the first item, the first course on our bill of fare for a christmas dinner. _entrées_.--love garnished with smiles. gentleness, with sweet-wine sauce of laughter. gracious speech, cooked with any fine, savory herbs, such as drollery, which is always in season, or pleasant reminiscence, which no one need be without, as it keeps for years, sealed or unsealed. _second course_.--hospitality. the precise form of this also depends on individual preferences. we are not undertaking here to give exact recipes, only a bill of fare. in some houses hospitality is brought on surrounded with relatives. this is very well. in others, it is dished up with dignitaries of all sorts; men and women of position and estate for whom the host has special likings or uses. this gives a fine effect to the eye, but cools quickly, and is not in the long-run satisfying. in a third class, best of all, it is served in simple shapes, but with a great variety of unfortunate persons,--such as lonely people from lodging-houses, poor people of all grades, widows and childless in their affliction. this is the kind most preferred; in fact, never abandoned by those who have tried it. _for dessert_.--mirth, in glasses. gratitude and faith beaten together and piled up in snowy shapes. these will look light if run over night in the moulds of solid trust and patience. a dish of the bonbons good cheer and kindliness with every-day mottoes; knots and reasons in shape of puzzles and answers; the whole ornamented with apples of gold in pictures of silver, of the kind mentioned in the book of proverbs. this is a short and simple bill of fare. there is not a costly thing in it; not a thing which cannot be procured without difficulty. if meat is desired, it can be added. that is another excellence about our bill of fare. it has nothing in it which makes it incongruous with the richest or the plainest tables. it is not overcrowded by the addition of roast goose and plum-pudding; it is not harmed by the addition of herring and potatoes. nay, it can give flavor and richness to broken bits of stale bread served on a doorstep and eaten by beggars. we might say much more about this bill of fare. we might, perhaps, confess that it has an element of the supernatural; that its origin is lost in obscurity; that, although, as we said, it has never been printed before, it has been known in all ages; that the martyrs feasted upon it; that generations of the poor, called blessed by christ, have laid out banquets by it; that exiles and prisoners have lived on it; and the despised and forsaken and rejected in all countries have tasted it. it is also true that when any great king ate well and throve on his dinner, it was by the same magic food. the young and the free and the glad, and all rich men in costly houses, even they have not been well fed without it. and though we have called it a bill of fare for a christmas dinner, that is only that men's eyes may be caught by its name, and that they, thinking it a specialty for festival, may learn and understand its secret, and henceforth, laying all their dinners according to its magic order, may "eat unto the lord." children's parties. "from six till half-past eleven." "german at seven, precisely." these were the terms of an invitation which we saw last week. it was sent to forty children, between the ages of ten and sixteen. "will you allow your children to stay at this party until half-past eleven?" we said to a mother whose children were invited. "what can i do?" she replied. "if i send the carriage for them at half-past ten, the chances are that they will not be allowed to come away. it is impossible to break up a set. and as for that matter, half-past ten is two hours and a half past their bed-time; they might as well stay an hour longer. i wish nobody would ever ask my children to a party. i cannot keep them at home, if they are asked. of course, i _might_; but i have not the moral courage to see them so unhappy. all the other children go; and what can i do?" this is a tender, loving mother, whose sweet, gentle, natural methods with her children have made them sweet, gentle, natural little girls, whom it is a delight to know. but "what can she do?" the question is by no means one which can be readily answered. it is very easy for off-hand severity, sweeping condemnation, to say, "do! why, nothing is plainer. keep her children away from such places. never let them go to any parties which will last later than nine o'clock." this is the same thing as saying, "never let them go to parties at all." there are no parties which break up at nine o'clock; that is, there are not in our cities. we hope there are such parties still in country towns and villages,--such parties as we remember to this day with a vividness which no social enjoyments since then have dimmed; saturday-afternoon parties,--_matinées_ they would have been called if the village people had known enough; parties which began at three in the afternoon and ended in the early dusk, while little ones could see their way home; parties at which there was no "german," only the simplest of dancing, if any, and much more of blind-man's-buff; parties at which "mottoes" in sugar horns were the luxurious novelty, caraway cookies the staple, and lemonade the only drink besides pure water. fancy offering to the creature called child in cities to-day, lemonade and a caraway cooky and a few pink sugar horns and some walnuts and raisins to carry home in its pocket! one blushes at thought of the scornful contempt with which such simples would be received,--we mean rejected! from the party whose invitation we have quoted above the little girls came home at midnight, radiant, flushed, joyous, looking in their floating white muslin dresses like fairies, their hands loaded with bouquets of hot-house flowers and dainty little "favors" from the german. at eleven they had had for supper champagne and chicken salad, and all the other unwholesome abominations which are set out and eaten in american evening entertainments. next morning there were no languid eyes, pale cheeks. each little face was eager, bright, rosy, though the excited brain had had only five or six hours of sleep. "if they only would feel tired the next day, that would be something of an argument to bring up with them," said the poor mother. "but they always declare that they feel better than ever." and so they do. but the "better" is only a deceitful sham, kept up by excited and overwrought nerves,--the same thing that we see over and over and over again in all lives which are temporarily kindled and stimulated by excitement of any kind. this is the worst thing, this is the most fatal thing in all our mismanagements and perversions of the physical life of our children. their beautiful elasticity and strength rebound instantly to an apparently uninjured fulness; and so we go on, undermining, undermining at point after point, until suddenly some day there comes a tragedy, a catastrophe, for which we are as unprepared as if we had been working to avert, instead of to hasten it. who shall say when our boys die at eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, our girls either in their girlhood or in the first strain of their womanhood,--who shall say that they might not have passed safely through the dangers, had no vital force been unnecessarily wasted in their childhood, their infancy? every hour that a child sleeps is just so much investment of physical capital for years to come. every hour after dark that a child is awake is just so much capital withdrawn. every hour that a child lives a quiet, tranquil, joyous life of such sort as kittens live on hearths, squirrels in sunshine, is just so much investment in strength and steadiness and growth of the nervous system. every hour that a child lives a life of excited brain-working, either in a school-room or in a ball-room, is just so much taken away from the reserved force which enables nerves to triumph through the sorrows, through the labors, through the diseases of later life. every mouthful of wholesome food that a child eats, at seasonable hours, may be said to tell on every moment of his whole life, no matter how long it may be. victor hugo, the benevolent exile, has found out that to be well fed once in seven days at one meal has been enough to transform the apparent health of all the poor children in guernsey. who shall say that to take once in seven days, or even once in thirty days, an unwholesome supper of chicken salad and champagne may not leave as lasting effects on the constitution of a child? if nature would only "execute" her "sentences against evil works" more "speedily," evil works would not so thrive. the law of continuity is the hardest one for average men and women to comprehend,--or, at any rate, to obey. seed-time and harvest in gardens and fields they have learned to understand and profit by. when we learn, also, that in the precious lives of these little ones we cannot reap what we do not sow, and we must reap all which we do sow, and that the emptiness or the richness of the harvest is not so much for us as for them, one of the first among the many things which we shall reform will be "children's parties." after-supper talk. "after-dinner talk" has been thought of great importance. the expression has passed into literature, with many records of the good sayings it included. kings and ministers condescend to make efforts at it; poets and philosophers--greater than kings and ministers--do not disdain to attempt to shine in it. but nobody has yet shown what "after-supper talk" ought to be. we are not speaking now of the formal entertainment known as "a supper;" we mean the every-day evening meal in the every-day home,--the meal known heartily and commonly as "supper," among people who are neither so fashionable nor so foolish as to take still a fourth meal at hours when they ought to be asleep in bed. this ought to be the sweetest and most precious hour of the day. it is too often neglected and lost in families. it ought to be the mother's hour; the mother's opportunity to undo any mischief the day may have done, to forestall any mischief the morrow may threaten. there is an instinctive disposition in most families to linger about the supper-table, quite unlike the eager haste which is seen at breakfast and at dinner. work is over for the day; everybody is tired, even the little ones who have done nothing but play. the father is ready for slippers and a comfortable chair; the children are ready and eager to recount the incidents of the day. this is the time when all should be cheered, rested, and also stimulated by just the right sort of conversation, just the right sort of amusement. the wife and mother must supply this need, must create this atmosphere. we do not mean that the father does not share the responsibility of this, as of every other hour. but this particular duty is one requiring qualities which are more essentially feminine than masculine. it wants a light touch and an _undertone_ to bring out the full harmony of the ideal home evening. it must not be a bore. it must not be empty; it must not be too much like preaching; it must not be wholly like play; more than all things, it must not be always--no, not if it could be helped, not even twice--the same! it must be that most indefinable, most recognizable thing, "a good time." bless the children for inventing the phrase! it has, like all their phrases, an unconscious touch of sacred inspiration in it, in the selection of the good word "good," which lays peculiar benediction on all things to which it is set. if there were no other reason against children's having lessons assigned them to study at home, we should consider this a sufficient one, that it robs them of the after-supper hour with their parents. even if their brains could bear without injury the sixth, seventh, or eighth hour, as it may be, of study, their hearts cannot bear the being starved. in the average family, this is the one only hour of the day when father, mother, and children can be together, free of cares and unhurried. even to the poorest laborer's family comes now something like peace and rest forerunning the intermission of the night. everybody who has any artistic sense recognizes this instinctively when they see through the open doors of humble houses the father and mother and children gathered around their simple supper. its mention has already passed into triteness in verse, so inevitably have poets felt the sacred charm of the hour. perhaps there is something deeper than on first thoughts would appear in the instant sense of pleasure one has in this sight; also, in the universal feeling that the evening gathering of the family is the most sacred one. perhaps there is unconscious recognition that dangers are near at hand when night falls, and that in this hour lies, or should lie, the spell to drive them all away. there is something almost terrible in the mingling of danger and protection, of harm and help, of good and bad, in that one thing, darkness. god "giveth his beloved sleep" in it; and in it the devil sets his worst lures, by help of it gaining many a soul which he could never get possession of in sunlight. mothers, fathers! cultivate "after-supper talk;" play "after-supper games;" keep "after-supper books;" take all the good newspapers and magazines you can afford, and read them aloud "after supper." let boys and girls bring their friends home with them at twilight, sure of a pleasant and hospitable welcome and of a good time "after supper," and parents may laugh to scorn all the temptations which town or village can set before them to draw them away from home for their evenings. these are but hasty hints, bare suggestions. but if they rouse one heart to a new realization of what evenings at home _ought_ to be, and what evenings at home too often are, they have not been spoken in vain nor out of season. hysteria in literature. physicians tell us that there is no known disease, no known symptom of disease, which hysteria cannot and does not counterfeit. most skilful surgeons are misled by its cunning into believing and pronouncing able-bodied young women to be victims of spinal disease, "stricture of the oesophagus," "gastrodynia," "paraplegia," "hemiplegia," and hundreds of other affections, with longer or shorter names. families are thrown into disorder and distress; friends suffer untold pains of anxiety and sympathy; doctors are summoned from far and near; and all this while the vertebra, or the membrane, or the muscle, as it may be, which is so honestly believed to be diseased, and which shows every symptom of diseased action or inaction, is sound and strong, and as well able as ever it was to perform its function. the common symptoms of hysteria everybody is familiar with,--the crying and laughing in inappropriate places, the fancied impossibility of breathing, and so forth,--which make such trouble and mortification for the embarrassed companions of hysterical persons; and which, moreover, can be very easily suppressed by a little wholesome severity, accompanied by judicious threats or sudden use of cold water. but few people know or suspect the number of diseases and conditions, supposed to be real, serious, often incurable, which are simply and solely, or in a great part, undetected hysteria. this very ignorance on the part of friends and relatives makes it almost impossible for surgeons and physicians to treat such cases properly. the probabilities are, in nine cases out of ten, that the indignant family will dismiss, as ignorant or hard-hearted, any practitioner who tells them the unvarnished truth, and proposes to treat the sufferer in accordance with it. in the field of literature we find a hysteria as widespread, as undetected, as unmanageable as the hysteria which skulks and conquers in the field of disease. its commoner outbreaks everybody knows by sight and sound, and everybody except the miserably ignorant and silly despises. yet there are to be found circles which thrill and weep in sympathetic unison with the ridiculous joys and sorrows, grotesque sentiments, and preposterous adventures of the heroes and heroines of the "dime novels" and novelettes, and the "flags" and "blades" and "gazettes" among the lowest newspapers. but in well-regulated and intelligent households, this sort of writing is not tolerated, any more than the correlative sort of physical phenomenon would be,--the gasping, shrieking, sobbing, giggling kind of behavior in a man or woman. but there is another and more dangerous working of the same thing; deep, unsuspected, clothing itself with symptoms of the most defiant genuineness, it lurks and does its business in every known field of composition. men and women are alike prone to it, though its shape is somewhat affected by sex. among men it breaks out often, perhaps oftenest, in violent illusions on the subject of love. they assert, declare, shout, sing, scream that they love, have loved, are loved, do and for ever will love, after methods and in manners which no decent love ever thought of mentioning. and yet, so does their weak violence ape the bearing of strength, so much does their cheat look like truth, that scores, nay, shoals of human beings go about repeating and echoing their noise, and saying, gratefully, "yes, this is love; this is, indeed, what all true lovers must know." these are they who proclaim names of beloved on house-tops; who strip off veils from sacred secrets and secret sacrednesses, and set them up naked for the multitude to weigh and compare. what punishment is for such beloved, love himself only knows. it must be in store for them somewhere. dimly one can suspect what it might be; but it will be like all love's true secrets,--secret for ever. these men of hysteria also take up specialties of art or science; and in their behoof rant, and exaggerate, and fabricate, and twist, and lie in such stentorian voices that reasonable people are deafened and bewildered. they also tell common tales in such enormous phrases, with such gigantic structure of rhetorical flourish, that the mere disproportion amounts to false-hood; and, the diseased appetite in listeners growing more and more diseased, feeding on such diseased food, it is impossible to predict what it will not be necessary for story-mongers to invent at the end of a century or so more of this. but the worst manifestations of this disease are found in so-called religious writing. theology, biography, especially autobiography, didactic essays, tales with a moral,--under every one of these titles it lifts up its hateful head. it takes so successfully the guise of genuine religious emotion, religious experience, religious zeal, that good people on all hands weep grateful tears as they read its morbid and unwholesome utterances. of these are many of the long and short stories setting forth in melodramatic pictures exceptionally good or exceptionally bad children; or exceptionally pathetic and romantic careers of sweet and refined magdalens; minute and prolonged dissections of the processes of spiritual growth; equally minute and authoritative formulas for spiritual exercises of all sorts,--"manuals of drill," so to speak, or "field tactics" for souls. of these sorts of books, the good and the bad are almost indistinguishable from each other, except by the carefulest attention and the finest insight; overwrought, unnatural atmosphere and meaningless, shallow routine so nearly counterfeit the sound and shape of warm, true enthusiasm and wise precepts. where may be the remedy for this widespread and widely spreading disease among writers we do not know. it is not easy to keep up courageous faith that there is any remedy. still nature abhors noise and haste, and shams of all sorts. quiet and patience are the great secrets of her force, whether it be a mountain or a soul that she would fashion. we must believe that sooner or later there will come a time in which silence shall have its dues, moderation be crowned king of speech, and melodramatic, spectacular, hysterical language be considered as disreputable as it is silly. but the most discouraging feature of the disease is its extreme contagiousness. all physicians know what a disastrous effect one hysterical patient will produce upon a whole ward in a hospital. we remember hearing a young physician once give a most amusing account of a woman who was taken to bellevue hospital for a hysterical cough. her lungs, bronchia, throat, were all in perfect condition; but she coughed almost incessantly, especially on the approach of the hour for the doctor's visit to the ward. in less than one week half the women in the ward had similar coughs. a single--though it must be confessed rather terrific--application of cold water to the original offender worked a simultaneous cure upon her and all of her imitators. not long ago a very parallel thing was to be observed in the field of story-writing. a clever, though morbid and melodramatic writer published a novel, whose heroine, having once been an inmate of a house of ill-fame, escaped, and, finding shelter and christian training in the home of a benevolent woman, became a model of womanly delicacy, and led a life of exquisite and artistic refinement. as to the animus and intent of this story there could be no doubt; both were good, but in atmosphere and execution it was essentially unreal, overwrought, and melodramatic. for three or four months after its publication there was a perfect outburst and overflow in newspapers and magazines of the lower order of stories, all more or less bad, some simply outrageous, and all treating, or rather pretending to treat, the same problem which had furnished theme for that novel. probably a close observation and collecting of the dreary statistics would bring to light a curious proof of the extent and certainty of this sort of contagion. reflecting on it, having it thrust in one's face at every book-counter, railway-stand, sunday-school library, and parlor centre-table, it is hard not to wish for some supernatural authority to come sweeping through the wards, and prescribe sharp cold-water treatment all around to half drown all such writers and quite drown all their books! jog trot. there is etymological uncertainty about the phrase. but there is no doubt about its meaning; no doubt that it represents a good, comfortable gait, at which nobody goes nowadays. a hundred years ago it was the fashion: in the days when railroads were not, nor telegraphs; when citizens journeyed in stages, putting up prayers in church if their journey were to be so long as from massachusetts into connecticut; when evil news travelled slowly by letter, and good news was carried about by men on horses; when maidens spun and wove for long, quiet, silent years at their wedding _trousseaux_, and mothers spun and wove all which sons and husbands wore; when newspapers were small and infrequent, dingy-typed and wholesomely stupid, so that no man could or would learn from them more about other men's opinions, affairs, or occupations than it concerned his practical convenience to know; when even wars were waged at slow pace,--armies sailing great distances by chance winds, or plodding on foot for thousands of miles, and fighting doggedly hand to hand at sight; when fortunes also were slowly made by simple, honest growths,--no men excepting freebooters and pirates becoming rich in a day. it would seem treason or idiocy to sigh for these old days,--treason to ideas of progress, stupid idiocy unaware that it is well off. is not to-day brilliant, marvellous, beautiful? has not living become subject to a magician's "presto"? are we not decked in the whole of color, feasted on all that shape and sound and flavor can give? are we not wiser each moment than we were the moment before? do not the blind see, the deaf hear, and the crippled dance? has not nature surrendered to us? art and science, are they not our slaves,--coining money and running mills? have we not built and multiplied religions, till each man, even the most irreligious, can have his own? is not what is called the "movement of the age" going on at the highest rate of speed and of sound? shall we complain that we are maddened by the racket, out of breath with the spinning and whirling, and dying of the strain of it all? what is a man, more or less? what are one hundred and twenty millions of men, more or less? what is quiet in comparison with riches? or digestion and long life in comparison with knowledge? when we are added up in the universal reckoning of races, there will be small mention of individuals. let us be disinterested. let us sacrifice ourselves, and, above all, our children, to raise the general average of human invention and attainment to the highest possible mark. to be sure, we are working in the dark. we do not know, not even if we are huxley do we know, at what point in the grand, universal scale we shall ultimately come in. we know, or think we know, about how far below us stand the gorilla and the seal. we patronize them kindly for learning to turn hand-organs or eat from porringers. let us hope that, if we have brethren of higher races on other planets, they will be as generously appreciative of our little all when we have done it; but, meanwhile, let us never be deterred from our utmost endeavor by any base and envious misgivings that possibly we may not be the last and highest work of the creator, and in a fair way to reach very soon the final climax of all which created intelligences can be or become. let us make the best of dyspepsia, paralysis, insanity, and the death of our children. perhaps we can do as much in forty years, working night and day, as we could in seventy, working only by day; and the five out of twelve children that live to grow up can perpetuate the names and the methods of their fathers. it is a comfort to believe, as we are told, that the world can never lose an iota that it has gained; that progress is the great law of the universe. it is consoling to verify this truth by looking backward, and seeing how each age has made use of the wrecks of the preceding one as material for new structures on different plans. what are we that we should mention our preference for being put to some other use, more immediately remunerative to ourselves! we must be all wrong if we are not in sympathy with the age in which we live. we might as well be dead as not keep up with it. but which of us does not sometimes wish in his heart of hearts, that he had been born long enough ago to have been boon companion of his great-grandfather, and have gone respectably and in due season to his grave at a good jog trot? the joyless american. it is easy to fancy that a european, on first reaching these shores, might suppose that he had chanced to arrive upon a day when some great public calamity had saddened the heart of the nation. it would be quite safe to assume that out of the first five hundred faces which he sees there will not be ten wearing a smile, and not fifty, all told, looking as if they ever could smile. if this statement sounds extravagant to any man, let him try the experiment, for one week, of noting down, in his walks about town, every face he sees which has a radiantly cheerful expression. the chances are that at the end of his seven days he will not have entered seven faces in his note-book without being aware at the moment of some conscientious difficulty in permitting himself to call them positively and unmistakably cheerful. the truth is, this wretched and joyless expression on the american face is so common that we are hardened to seeing it, and look for nothing better. only when by chance some blessed, rollicking, sunshiny boy or girl or man or woman flashes the beam of a laughing countenance into the level gloom do we even know that we are in the dark. witness the instant effect of the entrance of such a person into an omnibus or a car. who has not observed it? even the most stolid and apathetic soul relaxes a little. the unconscious intruder, simply by smiling, has set the blood moving more quickly in the veins of every human being who sees him. he is, for the moment, the personal benefactor of every one; if he had handed about money or bread, it would have been a philanthropy of less value. what is to be done to prevent this acrid look of misery from becoming an organic characteristic of our people? "make them play more," says one philosophy. no doubt they need to "play more;" but, when one looks at the average expression of a fourth of july crowd, one doubts if ever so much multiplication of that kind of holiday would mend the matter. no doubt we work for too many days in the year, and play for too few; but, after all, it is the heart and the spirit and the expression that we bring to our work, and not those that we bring to our play, by which our real vitality must be tested and by which our faces will be stamped. if we do not work healthfully, reasoningly, moderately, thankfully, joyously, we shall have neither moderation nor gratitude nor joy in our play. and here is the hopelessness, here is the root of the trouble, of the joyless american face. the worst of all demons, the demon of unrest and overwork, broods in the very sky of this land. blue and clear and crisp and sparkling as our atmosphere is, it cannot or does not exorcise the spell. any old man can count on the fingers of one hand the persons he has known who led lives of serene, unhurried content, made for themselves occupations and not tasks, and died at last what might be called natural deaths. "what, then?" says the congressional candidate from mettibemps; the "new contributor" to the oceanic magazine; mrs. potiphar, from behind her liveries; and poor dives, senior, from wall street; "are we to give up all ambition?" god forbid. but, because one has a goal, must one be torn by poisoned spurs? we see on the corso, in the days of the carnival, what speed can be made by horses under torture. shall we try those methods and that pace on our journeys? so long as the american is resolved to do in one day the work of two, to make in one year the fortune of his whole life and his children's, to earn before he is forty the reputation which belongs to threescore and ten, so long he will go about the streets wearing his present abject, pitiable, overwrought, joyless look. but, even without a change of heart or a reform of habits, he might better his countenance a little, if he would. even if he does not feel like smiling, he might smile, if he tried; and that would be something. the muscles are all there; they count the same in the american as in the french or the irish face; they relax easily in youth; the trick can be learned. and even a trick of it is better than none of it. laughing masters might be as well paid as dancing masters to help on society! "smiling made easy" or the "complete art of looking good-natured" would be as taking titles on book-sellers' shelves as "the complete letter-writer" or "handbook of behavior." and nobody can calculate what might be the moral and spiritual results if it could only become the fashion to pursue this branch of the fine arts. surliness of heart must melt a little under the simple effort to smile. a man will inevitably be a little less of a bear for trying to wear the face of a christian. "he who laughs can commit no deadly sin," said the wise and sweet-hearted woman who was mother of goethe. spiritual teething milk for babes; but, when they come to the age for meat of doctrine, teeth must be cut. it is harder work for souls than for bodies; but the processes are wonderfully parallel,--the results too, alas! if clergymen knew the symptoms of spiritual disease and death, as well as doctors do of disease and death of the flesh, and if the lists were published at end of each year and month and week, what a record would be shown! "mortality in brooklyn, or new york, or philadelphia for the week ending july th." we are so used to the curt heading of the little paragraph that our eye glances idly away from it, and we do not realize its sadness. by tens and by scores they have gone,--the men, the women, the babies; in hundreds new mourners are going about the streets, week by week. we are as familiar with black as with scarlet, with the hearse as with the pleasure-carriage; and yet "so dies in human hearts the thought of death" that we can be merry. but, if we knew as well the record of sick and dying and dead souls, our hearts would break. the air would be dark and stifling. we should be afraid to move,--lest we might hasten the last hour of some neighbor's spiritual breath. ah, how often have we unconsciously spoken the one word which was poison to his fever! of the spiritual deaths, as of the physical, more than half take place in the period of teething. the more one thinks of the parallelism, the closer it looks, until the likeness seems as droll as dismal. oh, the sweet, unquestioning infancy which takes its food from the nearest breast; which knows but three things,--hunger and food and sleep! there is only a little space for this delight. in our seventh month we begin to be wretched. we drink our milk, but we are aware of a constant desire to bite; doubts which we do not know by name, needs for which there is no ready supply, make us restless. now comes the old-school doctor, and thrusts in his lancet too soon. we suffer, we bleed; we are supposed to be relieved. the tooth is said to be "through." through! oh, yes; through before its time. through to no purpose. in a week, or a year, the wounded flesh, or soul, has reasserted its right, shut down on the tooth, making a harder surface than ever, a cicatrized crust, out of which it will take double time and double strength for the tooth to break. the gentle doctor gives us a rubber ring, it has a bad taste; or an ivory one, it is too hard and hurts us. but we gnaw and gnaw, and fancy the new pain a little easier to bear than the old. probably it is; probably the tooth gets through a little quicker for the days and nights of gnawing. but what a picture of patient misery is a baby with its rubber ring! really one sees sometimes in the little puckered, twisting face such grotesque prophecy of future conflicts, such likeness to the soul's processes of grappling with problems, that it is uncanny. when we come to the analysis of the diseases incident to the teething period, and the treatment of them, the similitude is as close. we have sharp, sudden inflammations; we have subtle and more deadly things, which men do not detect till it is, in nine cases out of ten, too late to cure them,--like water on the brain; and we have slow wastings away; atrophies, which are worse than death, leaving life enough to prolong death indefinitely, being as it were living deaths. who does not know poor souls in all stages of all these,--outbreaks of rebellion against all forms, all creeds, all proprieties; secret adoptions of perilous delusions, fatal errors; and slow settling down into indifferentism or narrow dogmatism, the two worst living deaths? these are they who live. shall we say any thing of those of us who die between our seventh and eighteenth spiritual month? they never put on babies' tombstones "died of teething." there is always a special name for the special symptom or set of symptoms which characterized the last days. but the mother believes and the doctor knows that, if it had not been for the teeth that were coming just at that time, the fever or the croup would not have killed the child. now we come to the treatments; and here again the parallelism is so close as to be ludicrous. the lancet and the rubber ring fail. we are still restless, and scream and cry. then our self-sacrificing nurses walk with us; they rock us, they swing us, they toss us up and down, they jounce us from top to bottom, till the wonder is that every organ in our bodies is not displaced. they beat on glass and tin and iron to distract our attention and drown out our noise by a bigger one; they shake back and forth before our eyes all things that glitter and blaze; they shout and sing songs; the house and the neighborhood are searched and racked for something which will "amuse" the baby. then, when we will no longer be "amused," and when all this restlessness outside and around us, added to the restlessness inside us, has driven us more than frantic, and the day or the night of their well-meant clamor is nearly over, their strength worn out, and their wits at end,--then comes the "soothing syrup," deadliest weapon of all. this we cannot resist. if there be they who are mighty enough to pour it down our throats, physically or spiritually, to sleep we must go, and asleep we must stay so long as the effect of the dose lasts. it is of this, we oftenest die,--not in a day or a year, but after many days and many years; when in some sharp crisis we need for our salvation the force which should have been developing in our infancy, the muscle or the nerve which should have been steadily growing strong till that moment. but the force is not there; the muscle is weak; the nerve paralyzed; and we die at twenty of a light fever, we fall down at twenty, under sudden grief or temptation, because of our long sleeps under soothing syrups when we were babies. oh, good nurses and doctors of souls, let them cut their own teeth, in the natural ways. let them scream if they must, but keep you still on one side; give them no false helps; let them alone so far as it is possible for love and sympathy to do so. man is the only animal that has trouble from the growing of the teeth in his body. it must be his own fault somehow that he has that; and he has evidently been always conscious of a likeness between this difficulty and perversion of a process natural to his body, and the difficulty and perversion of his getting sensible and just opinions; for it has passed into the immortality of a proverb that a shrewd man is a man who has "cut his eye-teeth;" and the four last teeth, which we get late in life, and which cost many people days of real illness, are called in all tongues, all countries, "wisdom teeth!" glass houses. who would live in one, if he could help it? and who wants to throw stones? but who lives in any thing else, nowadays? and how much better off are they who never threw a stone in their lives than the rude mob who throw them all the time? really, the proverb might as well be blotted out from our books and dropped from our speech. it has no longer use or meaning. it is becoming a serious question what shall be done, or rather what can be done, to secure to fastidious people some show and shadow of privacy in their homes. the silly and vulgar passion of people for knowing all about their neighbors' affairs, which is bad enough while it takes shape merely in idle gossip of mouth, is something terrible when it is exalted into a regular market demand of the community, and fed by a regular market supply from all who wish to print what the community will read. we do not know which is worse in this traffic, the buyer or the seller; we think, on the whole, the buyer. but then he is again a seller; and so there it is,--wheel within wheel, cog upon cog. and, since all these sellers must earn their bread and butter, the more one searches for a fair point of attacking the evil, the more he is perplexed. the man who writes must, if he needs pay for his work, write what the man who prints will buy. the man who prints must print what the people who read will buy. upon whom, then, shall we lay earnest hands? clearly, upon the last buyer,--upon him who reads. but things have come to such a pass already that to point out to the average american that it is vulgar and also unwholesome to devour with greedy delight all sorts of details about his neighbors' business seems as hopeless and useless as to point out to the currie-eater or the whiskey-drinker the bad effects of fire and strychnine upon mucous membranes. the diseased palate craves what has made it diseased,--craves it more, and more, and more. in case of stomachs, nature has a few simple inventions of her own for bringing reckless abuses to a stand-still,--dyspepsia, and delirium-tremens, and so on. but she takes no account, apparently, of the diseased conditions of brains incident to the long use of unwholesome or poisonous intellectual food. perhaps she never anticipated this class of excesses. and, if there were to be a precisely correlative punishment, it is to be feared it would fall more heavily on the least guilty offender. it is not hard to fancy a poor soul who, having been condemned to do reporters' duty for some years, and having been forced to dwell and dilate upon scenes and details which his very soul revolted from mentioning,--it is not hard to fancy such a soul visited at last by a species of delirium-tremens, in which the speeches of men who had spoken, the gowns of women who had danced, the faces, the figures, the furniture of celebrities, should all be mixed up in a grotesque phantasmagoria of torture, before which he should writhe as helplessly and agonizingly as the poor whiskey-drinker before his snakes. but it would be a cruel misplacement of punishment. all the while the true guilty would be placidly sitting down at still further unsavory banquets, which equally helpless providers were driven to furnish! the evil is all the harder to deal with, also, because it is like so many evils,--all, perhaps,--only a diseased outgrowth, from a legitimate and justifiable thing. it is our duty to sympathize; it is our privilege and pleasure to admire. no man lives to himself alone; no man can; no man ought. it is right that we should know about our neighbors all which will help us to help them, to be just to them, to avoid them, if need be; in short, all which we need to know for their or our reasonable and fair advantage. it is right, also, that we should know about men who are or have been great all which can enable us to understand their greatness; to profit, to imitate, to revere; all that will help us to remember whatever is worth remembering. there is education in this; it is experience, it is history. but how much of what is written, printed, and read to-day about the men and women of to-day comes under these heads? it is unnecessary to do more than ask the question. it is still more unnecessary to do more than ask how many of the men and women of to-day, whose names have become almost as stereotyped a part of public journals as the very titles of the journals themselves, have any claim to such prominence. but all these considerations seem insignificant by side of the intrinsic one of the vulgarity of the thing, and its impudent ignoring of the most sacred rights of individuals. that there are here and there weak fools who like to see their names and most trivial movements chronicled in newspapers cannot be denied. but they are few. and their silly pleasure is very small in the aggregate compared with the annoyance and pain suffered by sensitive and refined people from these merciless invasions of their privacy. no precautions can forestall them, no reticence prevent; nothing, apparently, short of dying outright, can set one free. and even then it is merely leaving the torture behind, a harrowing legacy to one's friends; for tombs are even less sacred than houses. memory, friendship, obligation,--all are lost sight of in the greed of desire to make an effective sketch, a surprising revelation, a neat analysis, or perhaps an adroit implication of honor to one's self by reason of an old association with greatness. private letters and private conversations, which may touch living hearts in a thousand sore spots, are hawked about as coolly as if they had been old clothes, left too long unredeemed in the hands of the pawn-broker! "dead men tell no tales," says the proverb. one wishes they could! we should miss some spicy contributions to magazine and newspaper literature; and a sudden silence would fall upon some loud-mouthed living. but we despair of any cure for this evil. no ridicule, no indignation seems to touch it. people must make the best they can of their glass houses; and, if the stones come too fast, take refuge in the cellars. the old-clothes monger in journalism. the old-clothes business has never been considered respectable. it is supposed to begin and to end with cheating; it deals with very dirty things. it would be hard to mention a calling of lower repute. from the men who come to your door with trays of abominable china vases on their heads, and are ready to take any sort of rags in payment for them, down--or up?--to the bigger wretches who advertise that "ladies and gentlemen can obtain the highest price for their cast-off clothing by calling at no. so and so, on such a street," they are all alike odious and despicable. we wonder when we find anybody who is not an abject jew, engaged in the business. we think we can recognize the stamp of the disgusting traffic on their very faces. it is by no means uncommon to hear it said of a sorry sneak, "he looks like an old-clothes dealer." but what shall we say of the old-clothes mongers in journalism? by the very name we have defined, described them, and pointed them out. if only we could make the name such a badge of disgrace that every member of the fraternity should forthwith betake him or herself to some sort of honest labor! these are they who crowd the columns of our daily newspapers with the dreary, monotonous, worthless, scandalous tales of what other men and women did, are doing, or will do, said, say, or will say, wore, wear, or will wear, thought, think, or will think, ate, eat, or will eat, drank, drink, or will drink: and if there be any other verb coming under the head of "to do, to be, to suffer," add that to the list, and the old-clothes monger will furnish you with something to fill out the phrase. these are they who patch out their miserable, little, sham "properties" for mock representations of life, by scraps from private letters, bits of conversation overheard on piazzas, in parlors, in bedrooms, by odds and ends of untrustworthy statements picked up at railway-stations, church-doors, and offices of all sorts, by impudent inferences and suppositions, and guesses about other people's affairs, by garblings and partial quotings, and, if need be, by wholesale lyings. the trade is on the increase,--rapidly, fearfully on the increase. every large city, every summer watering-place, is more or less infested with this class of dealers. the goods they have to furnish are more and more in demand. there is hardly a journal in the country but has column after column full of their tattered wares; there is hardly a man or woman in the country but buys them. there is, perhaps, no remedy. human nature has not yet shed all the monkey. a lingering and grovelling baseness in the average heart delights in this sort of cast-off clothes of fellow-worms. but if the trade must continue, can we not insist that the profits be shared? if a is to receive ten dollars for quoting b's remarks at a private dinner yesterday, shall not b have a small percentage on the sale? clearly, this is only justice. and in cases where the wares are simply stolen, shall there be no redress? here is an opening for a new bureau. how well its advertisements would read:-- "ladies and gentlemen wishing to dispose of their old opinions, sentiments, feelings, and so forth, and also of the more interesting facts in their personal history, can obtain good prices for the same at no.-- tittle-tattle street. inquire at the door marked 'regular and special correspondence.' "n. b.--persons willing to be reported _verbatim_ will receive especial consideration." we commend this brief suggestion of a new business to all who are anxious to make a living and not particular how they make it. perhaps the class of whom we have been speaking would find it profitable to set it up as a branch of their own calling. it is quite possible that nobody else in the country would like to meddle with it. the country landlord's side. it is only one side, to be sure. but it is the side of which we hear least. the quarrel is like all quarrels,--it takes two to make it; but as, of those two, one is only one, and the other is from ten to a hundred, it is easy to see which side will do most talking in setting forth its grievances. "it is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; and when he is gone his way then he boasteth." we are oftener reminded of this text of scripture than of any other when we listen to conversations in regard to boarders in country houses. "oh, let me tell you of such a nice place we have found to board in the country. it is only--miles from mt.--or--lake; the drives are delightful, and board is only $ a week." "is the table a good one?" "oh, yes; very good for the country. we had good butter and milk, and eggs in abundance. meats, of course, are never very good in the country. but everybody gained a pound a week; and we are going again this year, if they have not raised their prices." then this model of a city woman, in search of country lodgings, sits down and writes to the landlord:-- "dear sir,--we would like to secure our old rooms in your house for the whole of july and august. as we shall remain so long a time, we hope you may be willing to count all the children at half-price. last year, you may remember, we paid full price for the two eldest, the twins, who are not yet quite fourteen. i hope, also, that mrs. ---- has better arrangements for washing this summer, and will allow us to have our own servant to do the washing for the whole family. if these terms suit you, the price for my family--eight children, myself, and servant--would be $ . a week. perhaps, if the servant takes the entire charge of my rooms, you would call it $ ; as, of course, that would save the time of your own servants." then the country landlord hesitates. he is not positively sure of filling all his rooms for the season. thirty-seven dollars a week would be, he thinks, better than nothing. in his simplicity, he supposes that, if he confers, as he certainly does, a favor on mrs.----, by receiving her great family on such low terms, she will be thoroughly well disposed toward him and his house, and will certainly not be over-exacting in matter of accommodations. in an evil hour, he consents; they come, and he begins to reap his reward. the twins are stout boys, as large as men, and much hungrier. the baby is a sickly child of eighteen months, and requires especial diet, which must be prepared at especial and inconvenient hours, in the crowded little kitchen. the other five children are average boys and girls, between the ages of three and twelve, eat certainly as much as five grown people, and make twice as much trouble. the servant is a slow, inefficient, impudent irish girl, who spends the greater part of four days in doing the family washing, and makes the other servants uncomfortable and cross. if this were all; but this is not. mrs.----, who writes to all her friends boastingly of the cheap summer quarters that she has found, and who gains by the village shop-keeper's scales a pound of flesh a week, habitually finds fault with the food, with the mattresses, with the chairs, with the rag-carpets, with every thing, in short, down to the dust and the flies, for neither of which last the poor landlord could be legitimately held responsible. this is not an exaggerated picture. everybody who has boarded in country places in the summer has known dozens of such women. every country landlord can produce dozens of such letters, and of letters still more exacting and unreasonable. the average city man or woman who goes to a country house to board, goes expecting what it is in the nature of things impossible that they should have. the man expects to have boots blacked and hot water ready, and a bell to ring for both. what experienced country boarder has not laughed in his sleeve to see such an one, newly arrived, putting his head out snappingly, like a turtle, from his doorway, and calling to chance passers, "how d'ye get at anybody in this house?" if it is a woman, she expects that the tea will be of the finest flavor, and never boiled; that steaks will be porter-house steaks; that green peas will be in plenty; and that the american girl, who is chambermaid for the summer, and school-teacher in the winter, and who, ten to one, could put her to the blush in five minutes by superior knowledge on many subjects, will enter and leave her room and wait upon her at the table with the silent respectfulness of a trained city servant. this is all very silly. but it happens. at the end of every summer hundreds of disappointed city people go back to their homes grumbling about country food and country ways. hundreds of tired and discouraged wives of country landlords sit down in their houses, at last emptied, and vow a vow that never again will they take "city folks to board." but the great law of supply and demand is too strong for them. the city must come out of itself for a few weeks, and get oxygen for its lungs, sunlight for its eyes, and rest for its overworked brain. the country must open its arms, whether it will or not, and share its blessings. and so the summers and the summerings go on, and there are always to be heard in the land the voices of murmuring boarders, and of landlords deprecating, vindicating. we confess that our sympathies are with the landlords. the average country landlord is an honest, well-meaning man, whose idea of the profit to be made "off boarders" is so moderate and simple that the keepers of city boarding-houses would laugh it and him to scorn. if this were not so, would he be found undertaking to lodge and feed people for one dollar or a dollar and a half a day? neither does he dream of asking them, even at this low price, to fare as he fares. the "excelsior" mattresses, at which they cry out in disgust, are beds of down in comparison with the straw "tick" on which he and his wife sleep soundly and contentedly. he has paid $ . for each mattress, as a special concession to what he understands city prejudice to require. the cheap painted chamber-sets are holiday adorning by the side of the cherry and pine in the bedrooms of his family. he buys fresh meat every day for dinner; and nobody can understand the importance of this fact who is not familiar with the habit of salt-pork and codfish in our rural districts. that the meat is tough, pale, stringy is not his fault; no other is to be bought. stetson, himself, if he dealt with this country butcher, could do no better. vegetables? yes, he has planted them. if we look out of our windows, we can see them on their winding way. they will be ripe by and by. he never tasted peas in his life before the fourth of july, or cucumbers before the middle of august. he hears that there are such things; but he thinks they must be "dreadful unhealthy, them things forced out of season,"--and, whether healthy or not, he can't get them. we couldn't ourselves, if we were keeping house in the same township. to be sure, we might send to the cities for them, and be served with such as were wilted to begin with, and would arrive utterly unfit to be eaten at end of their day's journey, costing double their market price in the added express charge. we should not do any such thing. we should do just as he does, make the best of "plum sauce," or even dried apples. we should not make our sauce with molasses, probably; but he does not know that sugar is better; he honestly likes molasses best. as for saleratus in the bread, as for fried meat, and fried doughnuts, and ubiquitous pickles,--all those things have he, and his fathers before him, eaten, and, he thinks, thriven on from time immemorial. he will listen incredulously to all we say about the effects of alkalies, the change of fats to injurious oils by frying, the indigestibility of pickles, &c.; for, after all, the unanswerable fact remains on his side, though he may be too polite or too slow to make use of it in the argument, that, having fed on these poisons all his life, he can easily thrash us to-day, and his wife and daughters can and do work from morning till night, while ours must lie down and rest by noon. in spite of all this, he will do what he can to humor our whims. never yet have we seen the country boarding-house where kindly and persistent remonstrance would not introduce the gridiron and banish the frying-pan, and obtain at least an attempt at yeast-bread. good, patient, long-suffering country people! the only wonder to us is that they tolerate so pleasantly, make such effort to gratify, the preferences and prejudices of city men and women, who come and who remain strangers among them; and who, in so many instances, behave from first to last as if they were of a different race, and knew nothing of any common bonds of humanity and christianity. the good staff of pleasure. in an inn in berchtesgaden, bavaria, where i dined every day for three weeks, one summer, i made the acquaintance of a little maid called gretchen. she stood all day long washing dishes, in a dark passageway which communicated in some mysterious fashion with cellar, kitchen, dining-room, and main hall of the inn. from one or other of these quarters gretchen was sharply called so often that it was a puzzle to know how she contrived to wash so much as a cup or a plate in the course of the day. poor child! i am afraid she did most of her work after dark; for i sometimes left her standing there at ten o'clock at night. she was blanched and shrunken from fatigue and lack of sunlight. i doubt if ever, unless perhaps on some exceptional sunday, she knew the sensation of a full breath of pure air or a warm sunbeam on her face. but whenever i passed her she smiled, and there was never-failing good-cheer in her voice when she said "good-morning." her uniform atmosphere of contentedness so impressed and surprised me that, at last, i said to franz, the head waiter,-- "what makes gretchen so happy? she has a hard life, always standing in that narrow dark place, washing dishes." franz was phlegmatic, and spoke very little english. he shrugged his shoulders, in sign of assent that gretchen's life was a hard one, and added,-- "ja, ja. she likes because all must come at her door. there will be no one which will say not nothing if they go by." that was it. almost every hour some human voice said pleasantly to her, "good-morning, gretchen," or "it is a fine day;" or, if no word were spoken, there would be a friendly nod and smile. for nowhere in kind-hearted, simple germany do human beings pass by other human beings, as we do in america, without so much as a turn of the head to show recognition of humanity in common. this one little pleasure kept gretchen not only alive, but comparatively glad. her body suffered for want of sun and air. there was no helping that, by any amount of spiritual compensation, so long as she must stand, year in and year out, in a close, dark corner, and do hard drudgery. but, if she had stood in that close, dark corner, doing that hard drudgery, and had had no pleasure to comfort her, she would have been dead in three months. if all men and women could realize the power, the might of even a small pleasure, how much happier the world would be! and how much longer bodies and souls both would bear up under living! sensitive people realize it to the very core of their being. they know that often and often it happens to them to be revived, kindled, strengthened, to a degree which they could not describe, and which they hardly comprehend, by some little thing,--some word of praise, some token of remembrance, some proof of affection or recognition. they know, too, that strength goes out of them, just as inexplicably, just as fatally, when for a space, perhaps even a short space, all these are wanting. people who are not sensitive also come to find this out, if they are tender. they are by no means inseparable,--tenderness and sensitiveness; if they were, human nature would be both more comfortable and more agreeable. but tender people alone can be just to sensitive ones; living in close relations with them, they learn what they need, and, so far as they can, supply it, even when they wonder a little, and perhaps grow a little weary. we see a tender and just mother sometimes sighing because one over-sensitive child must be so much more gently restrained or admonished than the rest. but she has her reward for every effort to adjust her methods to the instrument she does not quite understand. if she doubts this, she has only to look on the right hand and the left, and see the effect of careless, brutal dealing with finely strung, sensitive natures. we see, also, many men,--good, generous, kindly, but not sensitive-souled,--who have learned that the sunshine of their homes all depends on little things, which it would never have entered into their busy and composed hearts to think of doing, or saying, or providing, if they had not discovered that without them their wives droop, and with them they keep well. people who are neither tender nor sensitive can neither comprehend nor meet these needs. alas! that there are so many such people; or that, if there must be just so many, as i suppose there must, they are not distinguishable at first sight, by some mark of color, or shape, or sound, so that one might avoid them, or at least know what to expect in entering into relation with them. woe be to any sensitive soul whose life must, in spite of itself, take tone and tint from daily and intimate intercourse with such! no bravery, no philosophy, no patience can save it from a slow death. but, while the subtlest and most stimulating pleasures which the soul knows come to it through its affections, and are, therefore, so to speak, at every man's mercy, there is still left a world of possibility of enjoyment, to which we can help ourselves, and which no man can hinder. and just here it is, i think, that many persons, especially those who are hard-worked, and those who have some special trouble to bear, make great mistake. they might, perhaps, say at hasty first sight that it would be selfish to aim at providing themselves with pleasures. not at all. not one whit more than it is for them to buy a bottle of ayer's sarsaparilla (if they do not know better) to "cleanse their blood" in the spring! probably a dollar's worth of almost any thing out of any other shop than a druggist's would "cleanse their blood" better,--a geranium, for instance, or a photograph, or a concert, or a book, or even fried oysters,--any thing, no matter what, so it is innocent, which gives them a little pleasure, breaks in on the monotony of their work or their trouble, and makes them have for one half-hour a "good time." those who have near and dear ones to remember these things for them need no such words as i am writing here. heaven forgive them if, being thus blessed, they do not thank god daily and take courage. but lonely people, and people whose kin are not kind or wise in these things, must learn to minister even in such ways to themselves. it is not selfish. it is not foolish. it is wise. it is generous. each contented look on a human face is reflected in every other human face which sees it; each growth in a human soul is a blessing to every other human soul which comes in contact with it. here will come in, for many people, the bitter restrictions of poverty. there are so many men and women to whom it would seem simply a taunt to advise them to spend, now and then, a dollar for a pleasure. that the poor must go cold and hungry has never seemed to me the hardest feature in their lot; there are worse deprivations than that of food or raiment, and this very thing is one of them. this is a point for charitable people to remember, even more than they do. we appreciate this when we give some plum-pudding and turkey at christmas, instead of all coal and flannel. but, any day in the year, a picture on the wall might perhaps be as comforting as a blanket on the bed; and, at any rate, would be good for twelve months, while the blanket would help but six. i have seen an irish mother, in a mud hovel, turn red with delight at a rattle for her baby, when i am quite sure she would have been indifferently grateful for a pair of socks. food and physicians and money are and always will be on the earth. but a "merry heart" is a "continual feast," and "doeth good like-a medicine;" and "loving favor" is "chosen," "rather than gold and silver." wanted.--a home. nothing can be meaner than that "misery should love company." but the proverb is founded on an original principle in human nature, which it is no use to deny and hard work to conquer. i have been uneasily conscious of this sneaking sin in my own soul, as i have read article after article in the english newspapers and magazines on the "decadence of the home spirit in english family life, as seen in the large towns and the metropolis." it seems that the english are as badly off as we. there, also, men are wide-awake and gay at clubs and races, and sleepy and morose in their own houses; "sons lead lives independent of their fathers and apart from their sisters and mothers;" "girls run about as they please, without care or guidance." this state of things is "a spreading social evil," and men are at their wit's end to know what is to be done about it. they are ransacking "national character and customs, religion, and the particular tendency of the present literary and scientific thought, and the teaching and preaching of the public press," to find out the root of the trouble. one writer ascribes it to the "exceeding restlessness and the desire to be doing something which are predominant and indomitable in the anglo-saxon race;" another to the passion which almost all families have for seeming richer and more fashionable than their means will allow. in these, and in most of their other theories, they are only working round and round, as doctors so often do, in the dreary circle of symptomatic results, without so much as touching or perhaps suspecting their real centre. how many people are blistered for spinal disease, or blanketed for rheumatism, when the real trouble is a little fiery spot of inflammation in the lining of the stomach! and all these difficulties in the outworks are merely the creaking of the machinery, because the central engine does not work properly. blisters and blankets may go on for seventy years coddling the poor victim; but he will stay ill to the last if his stomach be not set right. there is a close likeness between the doctor's high-sounding list of remote symptoms, which he is treating as primary diseases, and the hue and outcry about the decadence of the home spirit, the prevalence of excessive and improper amusements, club-houses, billiard-rooms, theatres, and so forth, which are "the banes of homes." the trouble is in the homes. homes are stupid, homes are dreary, homes are insufferable. if one can be pardoned for the irishism of such a saying, homes are their own worst "banes." if homes were what they should be, nothing under heaven could be invented which could be bane to them, which would do more than serve as useful foil to set off their better cheer, their pleasanter ways, their wholesomer joys. whose fault is it that they are not so? fault is a heavy word. it includes generations in its pitiless entail. sufficient for the day is the evil thereof is but one side of the truth. no day is sufficient unto the evil thereof is the other. each day has to bear burdens passed down from so many other days; each person has to bear burdens so complicated, so interwoven with the burdens of others; each person's fault is so fevered and swollen by faults of others, that there is no disentangling the question of responsibility. every thing is everybody's fault is the simplest and fairest way of putting it. it is everybody's fault that the average home is stupid, dreary, insufferable,--a place from which fathers fly to clubs, boys and girls to streets. but when we ask who can do most to remedy this,--in whose hands it most lies to fight the fight against the tendencies to monotony, stupidity, and instability which are inherent in human nature,--then the answer is clear and loud. it is the work of women; this is the true mission of women, their "right" divine and unquestionable, and including most emphatically the "right to labor." to create and sustain the atmosphere of a home,--it is easily said in a very few words; but how many women have done it? how many women can say to themselves or others that this is their aim? to keep house well women often say they desire. but keeping house well is another affair,--i had almost said it has nothing to do with creating a home. that is not true, of course; comfortable living, as regards food and fire and clothes, can do much to help on a home. nevertheless, with one exception, the best homes i have ever seen were in houses which were not especially well kept; and the very worst i have ever known were presided (i mean tyrannized) over by "perfect housekeepers." all creators are single-aimed. never will the painter, sculptor, writer lose sight of his art. even in the intervals of rest and diversion which are necessary to his health and growth, every thing he sees ministers to his passion. consciously or unconsciously, he makes each shape, color, incident his own; sooner or later it will enter into his work. so it must be with the woman who will create a home. there is an evil fashion of speech which says it is a narrowing and narrow life that a woman leads who cares only, works only for her husband and children; that a higher, more imperative thing is that she herself be developed to her utmost. even so clear and strong a writer as frances cobbe, in her otherwise admirable essay on the "final cause of woman," falls into this shallowness of words, and speaks of women who live solely for their families as "adjectives." in the family relation so many women are nothing more, so many women become even less, that human conception may perhaps be forgiven for losing sight of the truth, the ideal. yet in women it is hard to forgive it. thinking clearly, she should see that a creator can never be an adjective; and that a woman who creates and sustains a home, and under whose hands children grow up to be strong and pure men and women, is a creator, second only to god. before she can do this, she must have development; in and by the doing of this comes constant development; the higher her development, the more perfect her work; the instant her own development is arrested, her creative power stops. all science, all art, all religion, all experience of life, all knowledge of men--will help her; the stars in their courses can be won to fight for her. could she attain the utmost of knowledge, could she have all possible human genius, it would be none too much. reverence holds its breath and goes softly, perceiving what it is in this woman's power to do; with what divine patience, steadfastness, and inspiration she must work. into the home she will create, monotony, stupidity, antagonisms cannot come. her foresight will provide occupations and amusements; her loving and alert diplomacy will fend off disputes. unconsciously, every member of her family will be as clay in her hands. more anxiously than any statesman will she meditate on the wisdom of each measure, the bearing of each word. the least possible governing which is compatible with order will be her first principle; her second, the greatest possible influence which is compatible with the growth of individuality. will the woman whose brain and heart are working these problems, as applied to a household, be an adjective? be idle? she will be no more an adjective than the sun is an adjective in the solar system; no more idle than nature is idle. she will be perplexed; she will be weary; she will be disheartened, sometimes. all creators, save one, have known these pains and grown strong by them. but she will never withdraw her hand for one instant. delays and failures will only set her to casting about for new instrumentalities. she will press all things into her service. she will master sciences, that her boys' evenings need not be dull. she will be worldly wise, and render to caesar his dues, that her husband and daughters may have her by their side in all their pleasures. she will invent, she will surprise, she will forestall, she will remember, she will laugh, she will listen, she will be young, she will be old, and she will be three times loving, loving, loving. this is too hard? there is the house to be kept? and there are poverty and sickness, and there is not time? yes, it is hard. and there is the house to be kept; and there are poverty and sickness; but, god be praised, there is time. a minute is time. in one minute may live the essence of all. i have seen a beggar-woman make half an hour of home on a doorstep, with a basket of broken meat! and the most perfect home i ever saw was in a little house into the sweet incense of whose fires went no costly things. a thousand dollars served for a year's living of father, mother, and three children. but the mother was a creator of a home; her relation with her children was the most beautiful i have ever seen; even a dull and commonplace man was lifted up and enabled to do good work for souls, by the atmosphere which this woman created; every inmate of her house involuntarily looked into her face for the key-note of the day; and it always rang clear. from the rose-bud or clover-leaf which, in spite of her hard housework, she always found time to put by our plates at breakfast, down to the essay or story she had on hand to be read or discussed in the evening, there was no intermission of her influence. she has always been and always will be my ideal of a mother, wife, home-maker. if to her quick brain, loving heart, and exquisite tact had been added the appliances of wealth and the enlargements of a wider culture, hers would have been absolutely the ideal home. as it was, it was the best i have ever seen. it is more than twenty years since i crossed its threshold. i do not know whether she is living or not. but, as i see house after house in which fathers and mothers and children are dragging out their lives in a hap-hazard alternation of listless routine and unpleasant collision, i always think with a sigh of that poor little cottage by the seashore, and of the woman who was "the light thereof;" and i find in the faces of many men and children, as plainly written and as sad to see as in the newspaper columns of "personals," "wanted,--a home." scanned images of public domain material from the google print archive. [illustration: book cover] the house that grew mrs molesworth the house that grew [illustration: rolf carefully deposited the little creature.--p. .] the house that grew by mrs. molesworth author of 'carrots,' 'cuckoo clock,' etc. [illustration] illustrated by alice b. woodward. london macmillan and co limited new york: the macmillan company contents chap. page i. 'it's dreadful, isn't it?' ii. 'muffins, for one thing, i hope' iii. 'it's a wonderful idea, ida' iv. 'geordie stood up and waved his cap' v. 'what _can_ she mean?' vi. 'you do understand so well, mamma' vii. 'no,' said mamma, 'that isn't all' viii. 'i've brought my house with me, like a snail' ix. 'the kind sea, too, auntie dear' x. 'it's another snail' xi. 'i made sure of that,' said rolf xii. 'well--all is well that ends well!' illustrations rolf carefully deposited the little creature _front._ (_p._ ) we were walking on slowly _to face page_ no--there was nothing for it but to lie still ordering denzil about as usual we were out on the terrace, and mrs. trevor coming to meet us 'i can't very well get out,' she said she fastened the one end of the string round his poor little body chapter i 'it's dreadful, isn't it?' mamma sat quite quietly in her favourite corner, on the sofa in the drawing-room, all the time papa was speaking. i think, or i thought afterwards, that she was crying a little, though that isn't her way at all. dods didn't think so, for i asked him, when we were by ourselves. she did not speak any way, except just to whisper to me when i ran up to kiss her before we went out, 'we will have a good talk about it all afterwards, darling. run out now with geordie.' i was very glad to get out of the room, i was so dreadfully afraid of beginning to cry myself. i didn't know which i was the sorriest for--papa or mamma--mamma, i think, though i don't know, either! papa tried to be so cheerful about it; it was almost worse than if he had spoken very sadly. it reminded me of dods when he was a very little boy and broke his arm, and when they let me peep into the room just after the doctor had set it, he smiled and whistled to make out it didn't hurt much, though he was as white as white. poor old doddie! and poor papa! 'it'll be worse for us and for mamma than for papa, won't it, dods?' i said, as soon as we were outside and quite out of hearing. 'they always say that it's the worst for those that are left behind--the going-away ones have the change and bustle, you see.' 'how can i tell?' said dods; 'you ask such stupid things, ida. it's about as bad as it can be for everybody, and i don't see that it makes it any better to go on counting which it's the worst for.' he gave himself a sort of wriggle, and began switching the hedge with the little cane he was carrying; by that and the gruff tone of his voice, i could tell he was feeling very bad, so i didn't mind his being rather cross, and we walked on for a minute or two without speaking. then suddenly dods--i call him dods, but his real name is george, and mamma calls him geordie--stopped short. 'where are you going, ida?' he said. 'i hear those children hallooing over there in the little planting. they'll be down upon us in another moment, tiresome things, if we don't get out of the way, and i certainly don't want them just now.' i didn't either, though i'm very fond of them. but they're _so_ much younger, only seven and eight then, and dods and i were thirteen and fourteen. and we have always gone in pairs. dods and i, and denzil and esmé. besides, of course, the poor little things were not to be told just yet of the strange troubles and sorrows that had come, or were coming, to us. so i agreed with dods that we had better get out of the way. 'esmé is so quick,' i said; 'she'd very likely see there was something the matter, and papa did so warn us not to let them know.' 'humph,' said dods. 'i don't think we need worry about _them_. denzil is as dense as a hedgehog, and as comfortable as a fat dormouse. _he'd_ never worry as long as he has plenty to eat and a jolly warm bed to sleep in. and esmé's just a----' 'a what?' i said, rather vexed, for esmé _is_ a sweet. she's not fat or lazy, and i don't think denzil is--not extra, for such a little boy. 'she's just a sort of a butterfly,' said geordie. '_she'd_ never mind anything for long. she'd just settle down for half a moment and then fly up again as merry as a sandboy.' i could not help bursting out laughing. it was partly, i daresay, that i felt as if i must either laugh or cry. but dods did mix up his--'similes,' i think, is the right word--so funnily! hedgehogs and dormice and butterflies and sandboys, all in a breath. 'i don't see what there is to laugh at,' said geordie, very grumpily again, though he had been getting a little brighter. 'no more do i, i'm sure,' i replied, sadly enough, and then, i think, dods felt sorry. 'where shall we go?' he said gently. 'wherever you like--to the hut, i think. it is always nice there, and we can lock ourselves in if we hear the children coming,' i answered. the hut, as we called it, was our very most favourite place. it was much more than you would fancy from the name, as you will hear before long. but we did not wait to go on talking, till we got there. the children's voices did not come any nearer, but died away in the distance, so we walked on quietly, without hurrying. 'ida,' said geordie after a bit, 'it's dreadful, isn't it?' 'yes,' i agreed; 'i think it is.' the 'it' was the news poor papa had been telling us. we were not quite like most other children, i think, in some ways. i think we--that is, dods and i--were rather more thoughtful, though that sounds like praising ourselves, which i am sure i don't mean. but papa and mamma had always had us a good deal with them and treated us almost like companions, and up to now, though he was getting on for thirteen, dods had never been away at school, only going to kirke, the little town near us, for some lessons with the vicar, and doing some with me and our governess, who came over from kirke every day. so papa had told us what had to be told, almost as if we were grown-up people. we did not understand it quite exactly, for it had to do with business things, which generally mean 'money' things, it seems to me, and which, even now, though i am sixteen past, i don't perfectly understand. and i daresay i shall not explain it all as well as a quite grown-up person would. but i don't think that will matter. this story is just a real account of something rather out of the common, and i am writing it partly as a kind of practice, for i do hope i shall be able to write stories in books some day, and partly because i think it is interesting even if it never gets into a book, and i should like denzil and esmé to read it all over, for fear of their forgetting about it. i must first tell what the news was that we had just heard. poor papa had lost a lot of money! we were not very rich, but we had had quite enough, and our home was--and _is_, i am thankful to say--the sweetest, nicest home in the world. our grandfathers and great-grandfathers back to papa's great-great ones have always lived here and seen to everything themselves, which makes a home nicer than anything else. but a good deal of _papa's_ money came from property a long, long way off--somewhere in the west indies. it had been left to _his_ father by his godmother, and ever since i was quite little i remember hearing papa say what a good thing it was to have some money besides what came from our own property at home. for, as everybody knows, land in england--especially, i think, in our part of it--does not give half as much as it used to, from rents and those sorts of things. and we got into the way--i mean by 'we,' papa and mamma, and grandpapa, no doubt, in his time--of thinking of the west indian money as something quite safe and certain, that could not ever 'go down' like other things. but there came a day, not very long before the one i am writing about, which brought sudden and very bad news. things had gone wrong, dreadfully wrong out at that place--saint silvio's--and it was quite possible that _all_ our money from there would stop for good. the horrid part of it was, that it all came from somebody's wrongdoing--not from earthquakes or hurricanes or outside troubles of that kind--but from real dishonesty on the part of the agents papa had trusted. there was nothing for it but for poor papa himself to go out there, for a year at least, perhaps for two years, to find out everything and see what could be done. there was a _possibility_, papa said, of things coming right, or partly right again, once he was there and able to go into it all himself. but to do this it was necessary that he should start as soon as could be managed; and with the great doubt of our _ever_ being at all well off again, it was also necessary that mamma and we four should be very, very careful about expenses at home, and just spend as little as we could. a piece of good fortune had happened in the middle of all this; at least _papa_ called it good fortune, though i am afraid george and i did not feel as if it was good at all! papa had had an offer from some people to take our house--our own dear eastercove--for a year, or perhaps more. we had often been asked to let it, for it is so beautifully placed--close to the sea, and yet with lovely woods and grounds all round it, which is very uncommon at the sea-side. our pine woods are almost famous, and there are nooks and dells and glens and cliffs that i could not describe if i tried ever so hard, so deliciously pretty and picturesque are they. but till now we had never dreamt of letting it. indeed, we used to feel quite angry, which was rather silly, i daresay, if ever we heard of any offer being made for it. and now the offer that had come was a very good one; it was not only more money than had ever been proposed before, but it came from very nice sort of people, whom the agent knew were quite to be trusted in every way. 'they will take good care of the house and of all our things,' said papa, 'and keep on any of the servants who like to stay.' 'shall we not have _any_ servants then?' dods had asked. 'do you mean that mamma--mamma and ida and the little ones--i don't mind for myself, i'm a boy; i'll go to sea as a common sailor if it would be any good--but do you mean, that we shall be like _really_ poor people?' and here there came a choke in his voice that made me feel as if i could _scarcely_ keep from crying. for i knew what he was thinking of--the idea of mamma, our pretty mamma, with her merry laugh and nice dresses, and soft, white hands, having to work and even scrub perhaps, and to give up all the things and ways she was used to--it was too dreadful! papa looked sorry and went on again quietly-- 'no, no, my boy,' he said; 'don't exaggerate it. of course mamma and you all must have every comfort possible. one servant, anyway--hoskins is sure to stay, and a younger one as well, i _hope_. and there must be no thought of your going to sea, george, or going anywhere, till i come back again. i look to you to take care of them all--that is why i am explaining more to you and ida than many people would to such young ones. but i know you are both very sensible for your age. you see, we are sure of the new rent, thanks to this mr. trevor's offer--and even _that_ would prevent us from being in a desperate position. and, of course, the usual money will go on coming in from the property, though the most of it must go in keeping things in order, in case----' but here papa broke off. 'i know what you were going to say, papa,' said poor dods, growing scarlet; he was certainly very quick-witted,--"in case we have to sell eastercove!" oh, papa! anything but that! i'll work--i'll do _anything_ to make money, so long as we don't have to do that. our old, old home!' he could not say any more, and turned away his head. 'it has not come to that yet, my boy,' said papa, after a moment or two's silence. 'let us keep up heart in the meantime, and hope for the best.' then he went on to tell us some of the plans he and mamma had already begun to make--about our going to live in some little house at kirke, where we should not feel so strange as farther away, though there were objections to this too,--anything at all _nice_ in the shape of even a tiny house there would be dear, as the neighbourhood was much sought after by visitors in winter as well as in summer. for it was considered so very healthy for delicate people; the air was always clear and dry, and the scent of the pine woods so strengthening. papa, however, was doing his best; he and mamma were going there that very afternoon, 'to spy the land,' papa said, trying to speak cheerily. so now i come back to where i began my explanation as to what the 'it' was, that geordie and i agreed was so dreadful. [illustration: we were walking on slowly.] we were walking on slowly to the hut, and just as i had replied, 'i think it is,' we came in sight of it, and something--i don't know what--made us both stop and look at this favourite spot of ours. it was so pretty to-day--perhaps that was it. a sudden clearing brought us out of the wood, through which we had been following a well-worn, narrow path, and the bright, soft light of the early afternoon--of an april afternoon--was falling on the quaint little place. it was more like two or three huts than one, and indeed it really did consist of three or four rooms, which we children had been allowed to consider our own quarters, and to decorate and improve according to our fancy and taste. to begin with, it had been a bathing-house, of two rooms, partly of stone, partly of wood, standing on a little plateau, just at the edge of the pine trees, and well above the sea, so that even in stormy weather the water could not possibly reach it; besides which, i must say that stormy weather in the shape of high tides or great waves never did show itself in this cove. often and often we had sat there, listening to the boom and crash at the foot of the cliffs, round at the other side, as snug and peaceful as if we had been miles inland. and the sands that sloped down from our hut were just perfection, both as to prettiness and niceness for bathing. they shone to-day like gold and silver mixed in the sunshine; and the hut itself, though queerly shaped, looked pretty too. we had managed, in spite of the sandy soil, to get some hardy creepers to grow over it on the inland side, and we had sunk some old tubs filled with good soil in front of the porch--for there was a porch--in which flourished some nice, bushy evergreens, and there was even a tiny terrace with long flower-boxes, where, for six months of the year at least, geraniums and fuchsias, and for part of the time, nice, big, white and yellow and straw-coloured daisies seemed quite at home. it was a _lovely_ place for children to have of their own; and the year before, papa had added two other rooms to it, for our photographing--_iron_ rooms, these were, and not at all ugly, though that would not have mattered much, as they were at the back, beside the little kitchen, where we were allowed to cook our luncheons and teas when we were spending a whole day on the shore. 'dods!' i exclaimed, as we stood there in silence, admiring our mansion, 'we must see about the flowers for the long boxes. it's getting quite time, for bush has settled all about the bedding-out plants--he told me so yesterday--so he'll be able to tell us what he has to spare.' i spoke in utter forgetfulness--but it only lasted a moment--only, that is to say, till i caught the expression of geordie's mournful blue eyes--he _can_ make them look so mournful when he likes--fixed upon me in silent reproach. 'ida,' he said at last, 'what are you thinking of? _what's the use?_' 'oh, dods! oh, dear, dear doddie!' i cried--i don't think i quite knew what i was saying,--'forgive me. oh, how silly and unfeeling i seem! _oh_, doddie!' and then--i am not now ashamed to tell it, for i really had been keeping it in at the cost of a good deal of forcing myself--i just left off trying to be brave or self-controlled or anything, and burst out crying--regular loud crying. i am afraid i almost howled. george looked at me once more, then for a minute or so he turned away. i am not sure if he was crying, anyway he wasn't _howling_. but in an instant or two, while i was rubbing at my eyes with my handkerchief, and feeling rather, or very ashamed, i felt something come round my neck, crushing it up so tightly that i was almost choked, and then doddie's voice in my ear, very gruff, very gruff indeed of course, saying-- 'poor ida, poor old ida! i know it's quite as bad or worse for you. for a _man_ can always go out into the world and fight his way, and have some fun however hard he works.' 'that wouldn't make it any better for _me_, dods,' i said--we both forgot, i think, that he was a good way off being a man just yet,--'you're my only comfort. i don't mean that mamma isn't one, of course; but it's our business now to cheer her up. papa said so ever so many times. i don't really know, though, how i _could_ have cheered her up, or even tried to, if you had been away at school already!' poor george's face darkened at this. it was rather an unlucky speech. he had thought of things already that had never come into my head. one was that it seemed unlikely enough now that papa would ever be able to send him to school at all--i mean, of course, to the big public school, for which his name had been down for ever so long, and on which, like all english boys, his heart was set. for he knew how expensive all public schools are. 'don't talk of school, ida,' he said huskily. 'luckily it's a good year off still,' for it had never been intended that he should go till he was fourteen; 'and,' with a deep sigh, 'we must keep on hoping, i suppose.' 'yes, and working,' i added. 'whatever happens, dods, you must work well, and i'll do my best to help you. mightn't you perhaps gain a scholarship, or whatever you call them, that would make school cost less?' this remark was as lucky as the other had been unfortunate. dods brightened up at once. 'by jove,' he said, 'what a good idea! i never thought of it. i'll tell you what, ida; i'll ask mr. lloyd about it the very first time i see him--that'll be the day after to-morrow, as to-morrow's sunday.' mr. lloyd was the vicar of kirke. i felt quite proud of having thought of something to cheer geordie up, and my tears stopped, and by the time we had got to the hut, we were both in much better spirits. 'it is to be hoped,' i said, 'that papa and mamma _will_ find some kind of a house at kirke, however poky. for you would be very sorry not to go on with mr. lloyd--wouldn't you, dods?' 'of course i should,' he replied heartily. 'he's very kind and very strict. and if i mean to work harder than ever before, as i do now, since you put that jolly idea into my head, it's a good thing he _is_ strict.' when we got to the hut and unlocked the door, we found a good deal to do. for on saturdays we generally--we _meant_ to do it regularly, but i am afraid we sometimes forgot--had a sort of cleaning and tidying up. photographing is very nice and interesting of course, and so is cooking, but they are rather messy! and when you've been doing one or the other nearly all day, it's rather disgusting to have to begin washing up greasy dishes, and chemicalised rags and glasses, and pots and pans, and all the rest of it. i don't mean that we ever cleaned up the photographing things with the kitchen things; we weren't so silly, as, of course, we should not only have spoilt our instruments, but run a good risk of poisoning ourselves too. but the whole lot needed cleaning, and i don't know which were the tiresomest. and the last day we had spent at the hut, we had only half-tidied up, we had got _so_ tired. so there were all the things about, as if they'd been having a dance in the night, like hans andersen's toys, and had forgotten to put themselves to bed after it. dods and i looked at each other rather grimly. 'it's got to be done,' i said. 'it's a shame to see the place so bright and sunny outside and so _dreadfully_ messy indoors.' 'yes,' said dods, 'it is. so fire away, ida. after all----' but he didn't finish his sentence and didn't need to. i knew what he meant--that quite possibly it was the very last time we'd need to have a good cleaning up in the dear old hut. chapter ii 'muffins, for one thing, i hope' the first thing we had to do was really to 'fire away.' that is to say, to light a fire, for of course nothing in the way of washing up or cleaning can be done without hot water, and you cannot get hot water without fire of some kind. but that part of our work we did not dislike at all. we had grown quite clever at making fires and getting them to burn up quickly in the little stove, and we had always, or nearly always, a nice store of beautifully dry wood that we picked up ourselves. and though the hut was so near the sea, it was wonderfully dry. we could leave things there for weeks, without their becoming musty or mouldy. and as the fire crackled up brightly, and after a bit we got the kettle on and it began to sing, our spirits began to rise again a little, to keep it company. 'after all,' i said, 'there really is a good strong _likelihood_ that things won't turn out so badly. papa is very clever, and once he is out there himself, he will find out everything, and perhaps get them put straight once for all. it wouldn't so much matter our having less money than we have had till now, if all the muddle and cheating was cleared up.' 'no, it wouldn't,' geordie agreed, 'and of course it's best to be hopeful. so long as there's no talk of our selling eastercove, ida, i don't feel as if i minded anything.' 'and the great thing is to cheer up poor mamma while papa's away,' i said, 'and not to seem dull or miserable at having to live differently and go without things we've always been used to have. i don't think i shall mind that part of it so _very_ much, dods--shall you?' dods sighed. 'i don't know; i hope not for myself--of course what matters to _me_ is the perhaps not going to a big school. but you have cheered me up about that, ida. i shall hate you and mamma not having a carriage and nice servants and all that, though we must go on hoping it will only be for a bit.' 'and i _do_ hope we can stay on near here,' i said, 'so that at least we can feel that home is close-to. i would rather have ever so little a house at kirke than a much better one farther off--except that, well, i must say i shouldn't like it to be one of those dreadfully stuffy-looking little ones in rows in a street!' 'i'm afraid that's just what it is likely to be,' said dods. 'it will be pretty horrid; there's no use trying to pretend it won't be. but, ida, we're not working at all. we must get on, for papa and mamma will like to find us at home when they come in.' 'especially as to-morrow's sunday,' i added; 'and very likely, if it's as fine as to-day, we may all come down here to tea in the afternoon,' for that was a favourite habit of ours. we children used to consider that we were the hosts on these occasions, and papa and mamma our visitors. so we set to work with a will, without grumbling at the rather big collection of things there were to wash up, and the amount of sweeping and brushing to do. to begin with, we knew we had ourselves to thank for it, as we had left things in a very untidy way the last day we had spent at the hut. then too, even though only an hour or so had passed since we had heard the bad news, i think we had suddenly grown older. i have never felt thoroughly a child again since that morning. for the first time it seemed to come really home to me that life has a serious side to it, and i think--indeed i know--that george felt the same. i don't mean that we were made sad or unhappy, for i don't count that we had ever been very thoughtless children, but we both began to feel that there were certain things we could do, and should do, that no one else could do as well. i think it must be what people call the sense of 'responsibility,' and in some ways it is rather a nice feeling. it makes one feel stronger and braver, and yet more humble too, though that sounds contradictory, for there comes with it a great anxiety to prove worthy of the trust placed in one to do one's best. and just now it was very specially a case of being trusted. papa said he would go away happier, or at least less unhappy, for knowing that he left two 'big' children to take care of mamma, and though i cannot quite explain how, the feeling left by his words had begun to influence us already. we even were extra anxious to do our tidying very well and quickly, as we knew it would please mamma to see we were keeping the promises we had made when she first persuaded papa to let us have the hut for our own, and got it all made nice for us. and by four o'clock or so it did look very nice--i never saw it neater, and we felt we might rest for a few minutes. we had put everything ready for sunday afternoon's tea-party--everything that could be ready, i mean. the cups and saucers and fat brown tea-pot were arranged on the round table of the room we counted our parlour; it was in front of the kitchen, looking towards the sea, and here we did the unmessy part of the photographing, and kept any little ornaments or pictures we had. of the other two rooms one was the 'chemical room,' as we called it, and in a cupboard out of it we hung up our bathing-clothes, and the _fourth_ room, which had originally been the front bathing-house, so to say, or dressing-room, was now a bedroom, all except the bed. that does sound very 'irish,' does it not? but what i mean is that it was furnished simply as a bedroom usually is--only that there was no bed. we had often begged to be allowed to spend a night in the hut, for there was an old sofa that geordie could have slept on quite comfortably in the parlour, or even in the kitchen, and we had saved pocket-money enough to buy a camp bedstead, for which mamma had two or three mattresses and pillows and things like that among the spare ones up in the long garret. but so far we had never got leave to carry our picnicking quite so far. papa would not have minded, for of all things he wanted us to be 'plucky,' and did not even object to my being something of a tomboy; but mamma said she would certainly not sleep all night if she knew we were alone in the hut, and perhaps frightened, or ill, or something wrong with us. so _that_ plan had been put a stop to. 'i wonder what hoskins will give us in the shape of cakes for to-morrow,' i said. 'there is enough tea and sugar for two or three more afternoons'--'more than we shall want,' i added to myself with an inside sigh. hoskins was a sort of half-nurse, half-housekeeper person. she had not been with us _very_ long, only since esmé was born--but she really was very good and dear, and i know she cared for us in a particular way, for her father had been gardener for ages, though ages ago now, as she herself was pretty old, at eastercove. and she wasn't cross, like so many old servants both in books and real life--rather the other way--too "spoiling" of us. she had only one fault. she was a little deaf. 'muffins, for one thing, i hope,' said dods. 'they don't leave off making them till may, and it isn't may yet.' there was a baker in the village--i think i have forgotten to say that there was a very tiny village called eastercove, close to our gates--who was famed for his muffins. 'humph,' i said. 'i don't very much care about them. they are such a bother with toasting and buttering. i think bread and butter--thin and rolled--is quite as good, and some nice cakes and a big one of that kind of gingerbread that you hardly taste the ginger in, and that's like toffee at the top.' i was beginning to feel hungry, for we had not eaten much luncheon, which was our early dinner, and i think that made me talk rather greedily. 'you are a regular epicure about cakes,' said dods. i did not like his calling me that, and i felt my face get red, and i was just going to answer him crossly when i remembered about our great trouble, and thought immediately to myself how silly it would be to squabble about tiny things in a babyish way now. so i answered quietly-- 'well, you see, it is only polite to think of what other people like, if you invite them to tea, and i know papa likes that kind of gingerbread. he ate such a big piece one day that mamma called him a greedy boy.' geordie did not say anything, but i always know when he is sorry for teasing me, and i could see that he was just now. then we locked up and set off home again. as we came out of the pine woods and in sight of the drive we saw the pony carriage, and we ran on, so as to be at the front door when papa and mamma got there. they smiled at us very kindly, and papa said in what he meant to be a cheery voice-- 'well, young people, what have you been about? run in, ida, and hurry up tea. mamma is tired.' yes, poor mamma did look dreadfully tired, and through the outside cheeriness of papa's words and manner i could see that he was feeling very sad and dull. i hurried in, and we were soon all at tea in the pretty drawing-room. george and i did not always have tea downstairs, but to-day somehow there seemed no question of our not doing so. i waited till mamma had had some tea and was looking a little less white and done up, and then i said half-frightenedly-- 'did you see any nice little house at kirke?' though in my heart i felt sure they hadn't, or they would not have come back, looking so disappointed. mamma shook her head. 'i am afraid, dearie,' she began, but papa interrupted her-- 'no,' he said decidedly, 'we saw nothing the least possible to call "nice," except one or two places far and away too dear. and of course we knew already that there are plenty of nice houses to be got, if expense had not to be considered so closely. there is no good beating about the bush with george and ida,' he went on, turning to mamma. 'now that we have so thoroughly taken them into our confidence it is best to tell them everything. and the truth is,' he continued, leaning back in his chair with a rather rueful smile, 'i am really feeling almost in despair. i am afraid we shall have to give up the idea of staying at kirke.' 'yet there are so many advantages about it,' said mamma quickly. 'and there is, after all, that tiny house in the western road.' 'horrid poky little hole,' said papa. 'i cannot bear to think of you in it. i would almost rather you went about in a caravan like the gypsies we passed on the road.' 'yes,' i agreed, '_i_ wouldn't mind that at all--not in summer, at least.' 'ah, but unluckily, my dear child, "it is not always may,"' he replied, though i was pleased to see he held out his cup for some more tea (i have found out that things do seem much worse when one is tired or hungry!) and that his voice sounded more like itself. 'and it isn't always winter either,' said mamma cheerfully. 'let us be as happy as we can while we are together, and enjoy this nice spring weather. i _am_ glad, if sad things had to happen, that they did not come to us in november or december. perhaps mr. lloyd will find some nicer house for us.' 'does he know about--about our having to leave eastercove?' i asked. mamma nodded. 'yes,' she replied. 'we stopped there on our way back, and papa went in and told him.' i felt glad of that. it would prepare him for dods's anxiety about a scholarship. 'by the bye,' mamma continued, 'how fast they are getting on with the new parish room! i was looking at it while i was waiting for you, jack' (that's papa), 'and it seems really finished. are they not beginning to take away the iron room already?' 'lloyd says it is to be sold here, or returned to the makers for what they will give, next week,' papa replied. 'it has served its purpose very well indeed these two or three years. if----' 'if what?' said mamma. poor papa shrugged his shoulders. 'oh, it's no good thinking of it now,' he answered. 'i was only going to say--forgetting--that if geordie and ida liked i might buy it and add it on to the hut. it would make into two capital little bedrooms for very little cost, and lloyd happened to say to-day that the makers would rather sell it for less where it stands than have the expense of taking it back to london. they keep improving these things; it is probably considered old-fashioned already.' geordie and i looked at each other. how lovely it would have been! just what we had always longed for--to be allowed really to _live_ at the hut now and then. and with two more rooms we could have had hoskins with us, and then mamma wouldn't have been nervous about it. but as papa said, there was no use in thinking about it _now_. 'will the people who are coming to live here have the hut too?' i asked. papa did not seem to pay much attention to what i said. he was thinking deeply, and almost started as i turned to him with the question. 'i do not know,' he replied. 'it has not been alluded to.' 'i hope not,' said mamma. 'if we stay at kirke, as i still trust we may, it would be nice to come up there to spend an afternoon now and then. it is so far from the house that we would not seem like intruders. though, of course, once they see how nice it is, they may want to have it as a bathing-box.' 'that's not very likely,' said papa. 'they seem elderly people, and the son is a great sufferer from rheumatism. that is why they have taken such a fancy to this place--the scent of pine woods and the air about them are considered so good for illnesses of that kind. and sea-air suits him too, and they think it a wonderful chance to have all this as well as a dry climate and fairly mild winters. yes--we who live here _are_ uncommonly lucky.' he strolled to the window as he spoke and stood looking out without speaking. then he turned again. 'i'll remember about the hut,' he said. 'i don't fancy these good people would be likely to be fussy or ill-natured or to think you intruding. their letters are so well-bred and considerate.' we felt glad to hear that. 'mamma,' i said, 'we have made the hut so nice and tidy for to-morrow--sunday, you know. you and papa will come and have tea there, won't you? it will be the first time this year' (and 'the last perhaps' seemed whispered into my mind, though i did not utter the words), for the spring-coming had been uncertain and we had all had colds. mamma looked at papa. 'yes,' he said; 'certainly we will. and the little ones too, ida?' 'of course,' i said, and then i went off to talk about cakes--and muffins if possible, to please dods--to hoskins, the result of the interview proving very satisfactory. when i came back to the drawing-room the little ones were there--denzil, solemn as usual; esmé hopping and skipping about and chattering thirteen to the dozen, as usual, too! she is three or four years older now, and beginning to 'sober down,' as they say, so i hope if she ever reads this, which certainly will not be for three or four or more years from now, she will have gone on sobering down, enough to understand what a 'flibbertigibbet' (that is a word of hoskins's which i think very expressive) she was, and not to be hurt at my description of her. for i do love her dearly, and i always have loved her dearly, and i should be sorry for her ever to lose her good spirits, though it is already a comfort that she _sometimes_ sits still now, and listens to what is said to her. all the same, that part of our lives which i am writing this story about, would have been much duller and harder but for our butterfly's funny, merry ways. this afternoon she was especially laughing and mischievous, and it made me feel a little cross. i was tired, i daresay, with all the work we had been doing, _and_ the sadness that had come upon us so suddenly, and i did want to be quiet and talk sensibly. it was a little papa's fault too, i must say. he is sometimes rather like a boy still, though he has four big children. he hates being unhappy! i don't think he would mind my saying so of him, and he got mischievous and teased esmé, to make her say funny things, as she often does. and i suppose i looked rather too grave, for, after a little, mamma whispered to me-- 'ida, dear, don't look so dreadfully unhappy; you almost make me wish we had not told you anything till we were obliged to do so.' 'i don't look worse than geordie,' i replied, in a whisper too, 'or--or,' as i happened just then to catch sight of my younger brother's face, 'than denzil.' at this mamma did burst out laughing--a real merry laugh, which, in spite of my crossness, i was pleased to hear. 'my dear!' she exclaimed, 'who has ever seen denzil anything but solemn! and as he knows nothing, it has certainly not to do with what _we_ are all thinking about. he was the solemnest _baby_ even that ever was seen, though many babies are solemn. i used to feel quite ashamed of my frivolity when denny was only a couple of months old. and--no, poor old geordie is trying to cheer up, so you must too.' yes, it was true. geordie was laughing and playing with esmé and papa, though i know his heart was quite as heavy as mine. geordie is very particularly good in some ways. so i resolved to choke down, or at least to hide, my sadness--and still more the sort of crossness i had been feeling. it was not exactly real ill-tempered crossness, but the kind of hating being unhappy and thinking that other people are unhappy too, which comes with troubles when one isn't used to them especially, and isn't patient and unselfish, though one wants to be. however, i managed to look more amiable after mamma's little warning--still more, i think, after her hearty laugh. her laughing always seems to drive away crossness and gloominess; it is so pretty and bright, and so real. and i was helped too by another thing, though as yet it had scarcely taken shape in my mind, or even in my fancy. but it was there all the same, fluttering about somewhere, as if waiting for me to catch hold of it and make something of it. just yet i did not give myself time to think it out. all i felt was a sort of presentiment that somewhere or somehow there was a way out of our troubles, or rather out of one part of them, and that i was going to find it before long. and i am quite sure that sometimes the thinking a thing out is more than half done by our brains before we know it--much in the same way that we--dods and i--are quite sure that putting a lesson-book under your pillow at night helps you to know what you have to learn out of it by the next morning. lots of children believe this, though none of us can explain it, and we don't like to speak of it for fear of being laughed at. but i don't mind writing about it, as i shall not hear if people do laugh at it or not. anyway it _did_ happen to me this time, that _something_ worked the cobweb ideas that were beginning to float about in my brain into a real touchable or speakable plan, before the 'awake' side of it--of my brain, i mean--knew that anything of the kind was there. i will try to tell quite exactly how this came about. but first i must say that i don't think george was feeling so _very_ bad after all, for the last thing he said to me that evening as we went up to bed was, 'i do hope hoskins has managed to get some muffins for to-morrow.' chapter iii 'it's a wonderful idea, ida' i remember that i fell asleep very quickly that night. of course, like most children when they are well, i generally did. but that night it would not have been very surprising if i had kept awake and even got into a tossing-about, fidgety state, just from thinking about the strange, sudden trouble and change that were coming into our lives. on the contrary, i seemed to drop straight down into unconsciousness almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, and i must have slept several hours straight off without even dreaming, or at least dreaming anything that i could remember. for when i awoke the dawn was creeping in, and though i felt too lazy and comfortable to get up to look out, i knew that sunrise could not be far off. it was that time of early morning when one almost fancies that sun and moon stop a moment or two to say a word to each other on their way, though of course i know enough astronomy now to understand that those fancies _are_ only fancies. and yet there is a kind of truth in them, for the sun and moon, and the stars too, _have_ to do with all of us people living on this earth; indeed, we owe everything to the sun; and so it is not altogether fancy to think of him, great big kind thing that he is, as a wonderful friend, and of the little gentle moon as taking his place, as it were, when he is at work on the other side. and the curious, mingled sort of light in the room, faint and dreamy, though clear too, made me think to myself, 'the sun is saying, "how do you do?" and the moon, "good-bye."' but i soon shut my drowsy eyes again, though not to fall asleep again at once. on the contrary, i grew awaker and awaker, as i began to feel that my mind or memory or brain--i don't know which to call it--had something to tell me. what was it? i seemed almost to be listening. and gradually it came to me--the knowledge of the idea that had been working itself out during my sleep from the thoughts that had been there jumbled up together the day before. and when i got clear hold of what it was, i nearly called out, i felt so struck and startled at first, just as if some one had said it to me, though with astonishing quickness it spread itself out before me as a really possible and even sensible plan, with nothing dreamy or fanciful about it. it was this. 'why should not we all--mamma, that is to say, and we four children--why should we not live altogether at the hut during the year, or more perhaps, that papa would have to be away?' it may seem to those who read this story--if ever there are readers of it--a wild idea that had thus come to me. but 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating,' as hoskins is fond of saying. so please wait a little before you judge. and no sooner had the idea got into words than all the bits of it began to place themselves in order like the pieces of a dissected puzzle-map, or, still better, like the many-coloured skeins of silk in the pretty fairy story where the touch of the wand made them all arrange themselves. still more--no sooner had the first vague thoughts settled down than others came to join them, each finding its own corner in the building that i began to see was not a castle in the air but a good solid piece of work. it would be so healthy and airy, and yet not damp; nor, with proper care, need it be very cold, even in winter. it would be near enough to kirke for geordie to go on with his lessons with mr. lloyd, and for us to feel we had old friends close at hand, who would understand all about us, and very likely be kinder than ever. it would be near enough to home--dear eastercove--indeed, it would be eastercove--for us to take lots of furniture and things from the house to furnish as much more as was needed and to make it comfortable and even pretty, without emptying eastercove house at all. there was, as i have said, such a lot of stored-away extra furniture and old carpets and curtains and blankets and all sorts of things up in the great attic, and hoskins kept them all so nice and tidy, and without moths or mildew or horrible things like that, that it was quite a pleasure to go up there sometimes. it was like a very neat shop for second-hand things, which is more than can be said for most box-rooms or lumber-rooms, i fancy. and the moving these things would be no expense, and there would be no travelling expenses for any of us, and--the last idea that came into my head was the best of all. the old parish room! the iron room that mr. lloyd had told papa about the afternoon before! they wanted to get rid of it and would sell it for almost nothing. even if 'almost nothing' meant--i could not guess how much or how little--a few pounds, perhaps--it would be far, far less than the rent of a house, however small, and it would make into two or even three little rooms, easily. perhaps it would be enough just to divide it by screens or curtains, perhaps---- oh, the 'perhapses' that came crowding into my head when i had thought of the old parish room! i could scarcely lie still another minute--i felt in such a desperate hurry to tell geordie of the wonderful thought that had come to me. but it was still far from getting-up time; i knew it would be very selfish and unkind to wake up poor old dods in what would seem to him the middle of the night, for he was a very sound sleeper, and had hard enough work to get his eyes properly open by seven o'clock. [illustration: no--there was nothing for it but to lie still.] no--there was nothing for it but to lie still and be as patient as i could. it would be interesting to watch the light growing stronger and changing; it was already doing so in a curious way, as the cold, thin moonshine gave place to the sun, even then warmer somehow in its tone than the fullest moon-rays ever are. 'yes,' i thought, 'they have met and passed each other by now, i should think. i wonder--if----' strange to say, i cannot finish the sentence, for i don't know _what_ i was going to wonder! in spite of all my eagerness and excitement i knew nothing more, till--the usual summons, in hoskins's voice-- 'miss ida, my dear, it's the quarter-past. you were sleeping soundly--i could scarcely find it in my heart to awake you. but it's sunday morning, and you know it doesn't do to be late--and a beautiful spring morning too as ever was seen.' i could scarcely believe my ears. 'oh, hoskins!' i exclaimed, 'i _am_ sleepy. i was awake a good bit quite early, and i had no idea i had gone off again. i was _so_ awake, thinking.' the talking thoroughly roused me, and almost at once all the 'thinking' came back to me, so that by the time i was dressed, even though sunday morning dressing needed a little more care and attention than every day's, i had got it all clear and compact and ready, as it were, for geordie's cool inspection. to my great satisfaction he had had a good fit that morning of getting up promptly and being down the first after me, instead of, as often happened, the last after everybody. 'geordie,' i exclaimed, when i caught sight of him standing at the dining-room window, staring out--or perhaps i should say' gazing,' for staring is an ugly word, and the garden that morning was looking so particularly pretty--'geordie, i am just bursting to talk to you. is it any use beginning before papa and mamma come down, do you think?' geordie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. 'yes,' he said; 'we have five minutes, or ten perhaps. is it anything particular?' 'of course it is,' i replied, 'or i wouldn't say i was bursting to tell it you. and i think and hope it is something that will please you very much. you are to listen well and not interrupt me and say "nonsense," before you have taken it into your mind and thought it over.' i saw he already was looking interested, and i was glad of it. his face had been so sad when he first turned at the sound of my voice, and i well knew why. i can almost always understand geordie and very often guess what he is thinking of. he has such dear blue eyes, but they are the kind that can look very melancholy sometimes. i do hope he will have a happy life when he grows up--i am pretty sure he will deserve it. even now that he has been a good long while at school--big public school, i mean--he is just the same to me as ever. when he comes home for the holidays it seems as if he had never been away. 'i won't interrupt you--or say "nonsense," if i can help it,' he answered, with a little fun in his voice and smile coming in his eyes. then i told him. i need not repeat all i said, as i have written a lot of it already. but it must have been rather hard for geordie not to interrupt me. it all bubbled out so fast--all the splendid ideas and good reasons and perhapses--one on the top of the other, so that if he hadn't been pretty well accustomed to my ways he could scarcely have understood. it was quite interesting and exciting, as i went on, to watch the expression in his face--his cheeks grew pink, then crimson, and his eyes brighter and brighter. i soon saw i was not going to be snubbed. but real want of breath, and then the sound of mamma's skirts coming across the hall with a pretty soft rustle--i don't think any one else's skirts move so nicely; they seem to match her, not like that noisy flustering that is like saying, 'here i am; i expect to be attended to'--made me stop at last. there was only time for george to whisper-- 'it's a wonderful idea, ida. i'll think a lot and then we'll talk about it, by ourselves, first, of course.' 'we mustn't think about it in church,' i replied in the same tone; 'we must _try_, i suppose, dods, not to think of it in church--part of the time, at least. i don't see that it would matter so much during the first lesson, and _perhaps_ one of the psalms, if they are very long ones.' 'no--o, perhaps not,' he said, and then we both ran forward to kiss mamma. she looked at us, and i saw her face brighten when she saw that ours were not very sad or dull. i think she had been afraid that in his wish to help _her_, papa had put too much of the burden on us two, considering how young we were then. 'my darlings!' she said, in a rather low voice, 'my own brave boy and girl,' and i am almost sure the tears came into her eyes. but the smiles came too. 'what a lovely day it is going to be!' she went on, as she glanced out of the window. 'i am so glad. we must put cares aside as much as we can and try to be happy and hopeful.' 'yes, dear mamma,' i answered cheerfully, and with all the delightful exciting ideas in my head, it was quite easy to be bright, as you can understand, 'yes, we _are_ going to have a nice day. geordie and i'--i glanced at him; he had not exactly said so, but i knew he would not mind,--'geordie and i want to go down to the hut very soon after luncheon, if you say we may, to get it all ready for you and papa and the little ones, to come to tea.' 'all right,' said mamma, though i saw a tiny shadow cross her face as i spoke, and i knew she was thinking to herself that very likely it would be our last sunday afternoon tea-party for a very long time, perhaps for ever, as far as the hut was concerned! but these solemn kinds of 'perhapses' are always in our lives, and if we were always thinking of them, it would be more than our minds and hearts could bear. we should not _forget_ them, but i am sure we are not meant to be gloomy about them. still, at the best, even if my grand plan was carried out, there was plenty to be sad about, i knew. poor papa's going so far away, first and worst of all, and worst of course for mamma, for though we loved him dearly, she must love him, i suppose, still more. he came into the room just as these thoughts were flying about my brain. i thought he looked more tired and troubled than mamma--men are not so patient and not always so good at hiding their feelings as _some_ women. at least _i_ think so! we two, however, were really feeling cheerful, and i think our brightness made it easier for mamma to be, at least, less sad than she would otherwise have been. and i said to myself-- 'papa will cheer up too _if_ he likes our idea, and i really can't see why he should not like it.' so breakfast got on pretty well on the whole, and as soon as it was over, dods and i went off for a talk. how we did talk! but first of all--that was so like dods--he pulled out his watch and looked what o'clock it was. 'it's just half-past nine, ida,' he said, 'and we must be quite ready by half-past ten. so let's talk till ten, no longer; it always takes you twenty minutes or half an hour to get dressed for church, and you know it vexes papa to be kept waiting. and to-day it's really very important not to vex him at all, if anything is to come of our plan.' 'very well,' i said; 'i promise to go in at ten.' then we went to one of our favourite garden seats and set to work at our idea. it grew and grew; we kept thinking of new bits to it, each saying something which made the other think of something else, till by ten o'clock we began to feel as if it were all quite settled--'cut and dry.' the very last thing i called out to geordie as we ran in was about a certain old breakfast set of china we had espied in one of our visits to the garret. 'yes,' i was saying, 'those willow pattern cups and things would do beautifully. it wouldn't matter their being odd, for then mamma wouldn't mind if some got broken. and very likely, doddie, things _will_ get broken, more than----' 'what are you talking about, my dear child?' said mamma's voice, and, looking round, i saw that she was just coming out of the drawing-room on her way upstairs to get ready for church. 'you don't mean to say that your tea-things at the hut are all broken?' 'oh no, no, mamma dear,' i replied in a great hurry, and feeling myself grow red, though i don't think she noticed it; 'they are all right--none broken, and only one saucer chipped. but--i was only saying--we _might_ need more some time.' 'ah, well!' said mamma, with a little sigh, 'not at present, at any rate.' and oh how i wished i could tell her of the plan at once! but of course it was best to wait a little. i shall never forget that morning at church, and how _awfully_ difficult it was to give my attention. i found myself counting up the things we should need to make the hut comfortable, even while my voice was saying the responses quite correctly, and any one noticing me would very likely have thought i was being quite good and listening rightly. dods, whom i glanced at now and then, was looking very grave but not unhappy. i felt sure he was being much better than i--i mean about listening to what he heard and thinking of the words he said--though afterwards he told me that he too had found it difficult. 'what was most bothering me,' he said, 'was about the new rooms--the old parish room, i mean. what do you think, ida--should it be made into a dining-room and drawing-room, or----' 'oh no,' i interrupted, 'certainly not. the two front ones looking to the sea must decidedly be the sitting-rooms--the one to the left of the porch, in front of the kitchen, must be the dining-room, and the big dressing-room, the one we have always meant to be a real bedroom, must be the drawing-room. it is quite a nice, large room, and behind it, the 'messy' room must be _yours_, dods, which leaves the parish room to be divided for mamma and esmé and me. denzil can be with you--there's plenty of room.' 'but,' said geordie, 'you're forgetting the servants?' my face fell at this--i should have said that this conversation was on our way down to the hut that afternoon. we could not talk much before then, as we drove back from church with the others, but we set off as soon as we could after we had had dinner. 'yes,' i said, 'i was forgetting them altogether, and what's more, geordie, i haven't the least idea who they are to be, or how many we should have.' 'we must let mamma settle that of course,' he replied. 'hoskins will be one, anyway. still--it's a pity we can't propose some place for them, ida. it makes the whole plan seem rather unfinished and--childish.' 'like the man who built a house for himself and when it was all finished found he had forgotten a staircase!' i said, half laughing, but feeling rather mortified all the same. george did not at once reply. he was thinking. we were close to the hut by this time, and he did not say anything till we had unlocked the door and put down our packages and looked round us. everything was just exactly as we had left it the evening before, but somehow everything seemed different! the truth was, i suppose, that we were looking at it all through different spectacles--yesterday it was only a kind of summer-house or play-room--to-day it was a possible _home_. in some ways i felt as if i had never liked it as much; in others i began to be almost frightened at the ideas i was so full of! but as often happened with us, george's cool, common sense put me right. 'yes,' he said, after he had strolled into the other rooms and stared at them well as if he had never seen them before,--'yes, i don't see why it shouldn't do. and, about the servants, ida. of course papa and mamma must _settle_ everything; but if they do take it up seriously and papa buys the iron room, i rather think it's a good deal larger than we have been counting it. i believe it would divide into three quite well. there might be a partitioned-off little room for me, and a large curtain might do to separate mamma from you and esmé?' 'yes,' i said, my spirits rising again, 'and that would leave the back room for hoskins and whomever else we have--_i_ should like margery--wouldn't you, dods? she is such a good-natured, sturdy little thing. and----' 'we'd better not try to settle too much,' said sensible geordie. 'and you must talk quietly, ida, so as to show we have really thought of it not in a--oh, a babyish way, you know.' i felt a little ruffled at this. 'you'd better tell them all about it yourself, then,' i said; '_i_ don't want any of the honour and glory of it, and if there is any fear of their thinking us silly babies, why, then, we had better give up the whole idea.' 'nonsense, ida,' said geordie. 'it was you who first thought of it, and i think you deserve a lot of credit for it. and i expect you'll get it too. i only want papa and mamma--papa especially--to hear of it at first in the best sort of way.' 'yes--yes, i know!' i exclaimed, 'and you are a sensible old dods as you always are. and see what i have got to please you,' and i held up three lovely, fat muffins. we got the kitchen fire lighted and the tea-table spread in the parlour--i felt inclined to begin calling it 'the dining-room' now--and everything nice and ready before they all came. the first announcement of them was esmé, who flew in as usual, followed very deliberately by denzil. she gave me a hug when she saw the table. 'oh, what a lovely tea!' she said, 'and how delicious the hut looks. oh, _don't_ you wish, ida, we could live here always?' i glanced at dods--we could not help smiling at each other--it seemed a sort of good omen, her saying that, but we did not say anything. then came papa and mamma--they had walked down slowly through the wood, and as they came to the little 'plateau' where stood the hut, i saw them stop and look at it. i _wondered_ if the same idea was in their minds at all. i did not exactly want it to be, for i was rather pleased at being the first finder of it. chapter iv 'geordie stood up and waved his cap' no--papa and mamma had not been thinking of anything of that kind--afterwards mamma told me they had only been saying to each other how sweet and pretty it all looked and--though perhaps they did not say so aloud--feeling no doubt how sad it was that we should so soon have to leave it. but they came in quite brightly, and mamma answered gaily to esmé's exclamations about the 'lovely tea-party.' 'yes,' she said, 'it does look nice. and muffins too'--as geordie glanced up with a very red face from the fire where he was toasting one; 'don't scorch yourself _too_ much, in our service, my dear boy.' 'it's a good bit for myself as well,' said geordie in his rather gruff way. he always spoke like that if he thought he was being praised--above all, the least _over_-praised. 'i like muffins better than any kind of cake or things.' he certainly knew how to toast and butter them to perfection. i remember how very good they were that day. indeed, the tea-party was a great success altogether. after it was over we carried all the cups and saucers and plates into the kitchen, to be ready for margery to wash up, for mamma had left word at home that she was to come down to the hut to do so, which we were very glad of. 'i wanted to be together as much as possible to-day,' said mamma in her kind way. and just as we had cleared away everything in the parlour we saw margery coming, and to my great delight esmé asked if she and denzil might 'help her' in the kitchen, for dods and i had been wondering how we could get rid of the little ones without seeming unkind. so off they ran, and then for a few minutes we four--'big ones,' i was going to say, only that does seem putting geordie and myself too much on a line with papa and mamma, doesn't it?--sat silent. i was feeling rather nervous, not afraid of papa and mamma, but afraid of them thinking it was all a perfectly impossible plan. but at last, after looking at me several times and even giving me two or three little kicks, geordie plunged in, as was his way-- 'ida has something to say to you,' he began. 'it's only fair for her to say it, for it's all her own idea, though we have talked about it a good deal.' papa looked at me very kindly. 'what is it, my little girl?' he said. 'i am sure you know how pleased i--and your mother--will be to do anything we can to--to brighten all these troubles.' he seemed to know by instinct that what i had to say must have to do with what he had told us the day before. yes--only the day before! i could scarcely believe it--it seemed years ago. i felt my face growing red; mamma was looking at me too, and though her eyes were very kind, i grew more and more nervous, and of course i blurted it out quite differently from what i had meant to. 'it isn't only for us ourselves,' i began, 'though we should like it ever so much--awfully much better than anything else. but i feel as if it would be nicer for everybody--for mamma too, and for papa, when you are far away, you know,' and here i turned specially to him, 'not to have to think of us in a strange place and among strange people. and--and--there are lots of little bits of it that seem to fit in so well.' 'but, my dear child, i must interrupt you,' said papa smiling, 'before you go on to the "bits," do tell us what the whole is?' i had really forgotten that i had not done so--my own mind was so full of it, you see. 'oh,' i said, feeling very much ashamed of myself, especially as i knew geordie's blue eyes were fixed on me reproachfully. 'i'm very sorry for being so stupid. it's just this, papa--we've been thinking, at least i thought of it first, and dods has joined in the planning, that--why shouldn't we all, mamma and us four, come to _live_ here, really to live here altogether, while you are away?' papa gazed at me as if he did not understand, and no doubt just at first he did not. 'live _here_,' he repeated, 'but that is just----' 'yes,' i interrupted,--'here, in the hut. i don't mean of course go on living at home, at eastercove, though it would be eastercove too. that's the beauty of it; you would be able to feel that we _were_ at home, and close to all our friends.' but still papa repeated, in a dazed sort of way, i would say 'stupid,' only it would seem rude-- 'live _here_.' (i do think men are far slower at taking up new ideas than women.) 'live _here_,' he said again, till i really wished it would not be disrespectful to give him a little shake, and even dods, who is far patienter and less im----what should i say?--impetuous or impulseful, i must ask mamma which is best, began to look rather provoked. but mamma put it all right. 'yes, jack,' she said, the colour rushing into her face and her eyes sparkling,--'yes, _here_ in the hut, is what the child means, and, really, i think it is an inspiration.' mamma _is_ quick, and she has such a beautifully ready imagination. 'i don't see why we shouldn't. it is perfectly healthy; dry and airy and quite warm except perhaps in the middle of winter, and we surely could find ways and means of making a _dry_ house warm. ida, darling, i believe you have hit upon a way out of our greatest difficulty. _do_ say you think so too, jack!' light was gradually penetrating into papa's mind. 'here in the hut! yes, i wish it were possible,' he said, 'and i agree with you both so far. it _is_ dry and healthy, and might be made warm, but--it is so small! ah!' and he started to his feet, his whole face changing, 'talking of inspirations, i'm not sure but that _i_ have got one too--the------' here to our amazement, mamma's and mine i mean, in _his_ turn up jumped dods, and, respectful or not, interrupted papa in the most barefaced way-- 'stop, stop!' he cried, 'let me say it, dad, do, before you do. i want to have a bit of it. is your inspiration the old parish room? the iron room they want to get rid of? _is_ it?--do say.' they were both so excited it was quite funny to see them, geordie especially, for he is much calmer than papa naturally. papa turned to him smiling-- 'you have guessed it, my boy. yes, we might buy the room and turn it into two or three at least. it could not cost much--our own men could do it, i believe. it has doorways and windows and fireplaces too, i think, all ready, and i believe we can have it for an old song----' 'i hope i shan't be the one chosen to sing it!' exclaimed dods, at which we all laughed, though it was not particularly witty. but we were just in the sort of humour to laugh at the least little piece of fun. 'i wish--upon my word, i wish i could see about it this very afternoon,' went on papa, who was now racing ahead of us all in his eagerness. 'but you can't, dear; it's sunday, you know,' said mamma, patting his arm; 'and we have plenty to think about. there is no fear of mr. lloyd's selling it before to-morrow morning. let us hear some more of your plan, ida, dear.' i was only too ready to tell it--i was bursting to do so, and so was geordie. we set to work and talked--how we did talk!--papa and mamma putting in a word now and then, though they were so kind, understanding our wish to be considered the 'discoverers,' as it were, of the new home, that they really let us talk ourselves out. then we four made a sort of progress through the rooms, papa measuring here and there with the little folding-up foot-rule he always carried in his pocket, and mamma planning where she would put such and such a piece of furniture which could be quite well spared from the almost too full rooms up at the house, not to speak of the stores--treasures they were fast becoming in our eyes now--crowded away in the big garret. 'we must go up there first thing to-morrow morning,' said mamma, 'and have a good look round. i don't believe i know half the things we have--no one does, except hoskins.' 'you will have to take her into your confidence at once, i expect,' said papa. 'yes, i was just thinking so,' mamma replied; 'but i shall wait till you have inquired about the iron room. she knows our troubles already,' she went on, turning to geordie and me; 'she has known about them for some days, and she says whatever we do, or wherever we go, she will not leave us.' 'oh, i _am_ so glad!' exclaimed geordie and i in a breath. 'we thought she would be like that,' i went on; 'and i should hope she'd like the hut far, far better than going away to some horrid little poky house among strangers. and, mamma, don't you think margery would be the best for the other servant.' 'are we to have two?' said mamma laughing. 'your plans are getting quite grand, ida!' 'of course you must have two,' said papa, 'and one of the men to look after things outside. i have an idea about that; geordie and i will talk about it together,' and he nodded to geordie, who looked very pleased at being consulted in this way, as if he were quite big. 'when will you ask about the parish room?' he said to papa. 'may i go with you when you do? perhaps i could help about the measuring.' for they had already settled as to where it should be placed--at one side of the hut, but a little to the back, so that it should not spoil the rather pretty look we were gradually managing to give to the front, by training creepers over the porch, and filling two or three large square tubs with bushy, hardy plants which would stand the winter, and placing them at each side of the long low windows. 'certainly,' said papa. 'we can drive down to kirke immediately after breakfast to-morrow morning. and if it is all right about the room, i will see the man whom, i think, mr. lloyd employed to put it up. he will understand the best way of partitioning it off, and our own men can work under his directions.' so it was in the best of spirits--considering, that is to say, the real sorrow of parting with dear papa, and the real anxiety that _must_ hang over us for many months to come, at least--that we set off home again, esmé chattering about how she had wiped all the tea-cups and saucers, and how margery had said that she could not possibly have 'got through' without her. 'that is not a very elegant expression, my little girl,' said papa. 'don't you think you could say it some other way.' esmé looked rather puzzled. 'you says,' she replied, and at that papa laughed--i think he felt it was out of the frying-pan into the fire,--'you says to mamma or to ida when we're playing croquet, "now see if you can't get through that hoop."' 'but cups and saucers isn't croquet hoops,' said denzil solemnly, at which we all laughed. a very small joke will go a long way when people are all happy together, and each one trying to do his best to please or amuse the others. when i awoke on monday morning it was with much more quietly hopeful feelings than on that sad saturday i could have believed possible. i seemed to myself to have grown years older in the two days, which was partly nice and partly, just a very little, 'frightening.' i was proud of my idea being thought so well of, and i was very anxious to think it out more and more, so as really to help mamma and to prove that it _was_ a good one. so, though it was still very early, i lay quite quietly and did not mind the having a good while to wait till it was time to get up, so busied was my brain in going into all the details which i was able to think about. 'two little beds for esmé and me,' i began. 'let me see which are the smallest, to take up the least room? this one is rather too big, and besides, the people who have taken the house will most likely need it left. i wonder what they will do with this room. i daresay they will use it for visitors. it is so pretty--my own dear room!' for since my last birthday i had had a room to myself, all freshly done up with light chintz curtains and covers and white furniture. but i resolutely put the thought of my regret out of my mind, and went on thinking about the hut. esmé's cot would be big enough for her for a good while, and there was at least one old small bedstead up in the garret, and then dods and i had saved enough money to buy one, as i said. 'we must spend it on _something_ for the hut,' i reflected. 'perhaps we had better ask mamma what would be the most useful.' then my mind went on again about the other rooms and what would be needed for them, and i had just arrived at the chests of drawers when i must have fallen asleep, for when i was awakened by margery and the announcement, 'seven o'clock, miss ida,' i found myself dreaming that i was hanging up curtains in front of the fireplace instead of the window, and wondering how we could prevent their flying up the chimney! after breakfast papa and geordie set off almost immediately for kirke, to catch mr. lloyd before his week's work began again, papa said. and as soon as mamma had finished her regular housekeeping business for the day, she and i went up to the garret together, to spy the land, or rather the stores. i forget if i said that we happened to be in the middle of our easter holidays just then, which was most lucky, was it not? mamma and i really enjoyed ourselves up in the garret. it was all so neat, and not fusty or dusty or musty, and we came upon treasures--as often is the case if you explore a lumber-room--whose very existence even mamma had forgotten. 'i really think, ida,' mamma began, pushing her hair out of her eyes in a pretty way she has; her hair is lovely, so curly and fuzzy, like esmé's, though mine is dreadfully smooth! and theirs never _looks_ messy, however untidy it really may get,--'i really think we could find enough furniture here to do for all the rooms, after a fashion. and we can certainly take a few things away from downstairs without spoiling the look of the house. two beds at least--and one or two small tables. i must have a writing-table for myself--and several of the wicker chairs in the verandah might be spared. yes--i really don't think the furnishing will be much difficulty or expense.' 'and doddie and i have saved sixteen and sixpence, you know, mamma,' i said. 'we meant to buy a camp bedstead for the hut, you know, whenever you would let us furnish the room that is going to be our drawing-room now. so we can still get one for dods if you like, or anything else needed.' 'yes, darling,' said mamma. 'that will be very nice. we can wait a little till we see what is most required.' she spoke quite as seriously as i had done, though i know _now_ that sixteen and sixpence is really not nearly as much money as i then thought it. but that is what has always been so dear about mamma; she never 'snubs' us. and many people, even really very kind people, do hurt children's feelings dreadfully sometimes without in the least meaning it. it is one of the things i mean to try always to remember when i am quite grown-up myself, and it would be very wrong and ungrateful of any of _us_ ever to forget it, for our father and mother have shown us such a good example about it. then mamma went off to write some letters and i to the schoolroom to practise, which had to be done, holidays or no holidays! 'i wonder if we shall have a piano at the hut,' i thought. 'i shan't very much mind if we don't,' for at that time i did not care much for music, not, at least, for my own performances. since then i have come to 'appreciate' it a little better, though i am not at all clever about it, and i am afraid papa and mamma are rather disappointed at this. but esmé is learning the violin and plays already so well that i hope she will make up for me. i kept running to the window--the schoolroom overlooks the drive--every time i heard the sound of wheels, to see if it was papa and geordie coming back, which was very silly, as of course they would have a good deal to do, measuring and seeing the carpenter and arranging it all. but i felt as if i could not settle to anything till i knew about the iron room, as it did seem as if the whole plan depended a good deal on our getting it. and when at last i did catch sight of the dogcart coming swiftly along the avenue, my heart began to beat so fast that i had to stop once or twice to take breath on my way to the hall-door. mamma was there before me, as anxious as i, i do believe, though she was too sensible to show it. but before they got to the house, we knew it was all right. geordie stood up in the cart and waved his cap for us to understand. 'oh, i am so glad!' i cried, and mamma smiled. how strangely things change their--oh, dear, i can't find just the right word; yes, i have it now 'aspects'--in life sometimes. this was monday; on saturday only had we heard _the_ sad news, and here we were, quite in good, almost high spirits again, about a little bettering of what, if we had foreseen it a week ago, we should certainly have thought a cloud with no silver lining! papa and dods jumped down in a moment, and threw the reins to the groom. 'is it----' i began. 'all right,' papa interrupted. 'lloyd is delighted. very kind and sympathising, of course, with us, but so interested in our--i should say,' with a smile to me, 'ida's scheme. he thinks it a first-rate idea, at any rate till the autumn.' 'and he is coming up himself this afternoon,' said geordie, 'with the drawings and measures of the room, that he got when he bought it.' 'very good of him,' said mamma. 'and jervis, the carpenter, is coming too,' george went on; 'and we must all go down to the hut together. mr. lloyd said _particularly_ ida.' i felt myself grow red with pleasure. 'yes,' said papa; 'we must all go and give our opinions. i am very glad to have secured the room. they were already beginning to take it down. it is a very good size really, larger than you would think; and there are two doorways, i am glad to find, and a little porch. i have two or three ideas in my head as to how to join it on and so forth, but i can go into them better on the spot.' 'ida and i have been busy too,' said mamma. 'really, jack, you would scarcely believe the amount of extra furniture we have. there will be very little to buy--only, i do believe, one camp bedstead for geordie, and perhaps a servant's one; and a few bright, warm-looking rugs.' '_we_ might buy those, mamma,' i interrupted eagerly. 'i have told mamma about our sixteen and sixpence, doddie,' i went on, turning to george. 'i knew you wouldn't mind.' geordie nodded. 'sixteen and sixpence,' repeated papa. 'how have you managed to get together all that?' 'it's _hut_ money,' i replied. 'i mean it's on purpose to spend on the hut. we have other savings, too, for christmas and birthdays--this is all for the hut.' 'and it shall be spent on the hut,' said papa, 'on something lasting--to do honour to you both.' wasn't that nice of him? chapter v 'what _can_ she mean?' i remember that monday afternoon so well. it was very interesting. mr. lloyd was very kind and clever about things, and the carpenter, though a rather slow, very silent man, understood his business and was quite ready to do all that was wanted. papa was as eager as a boy, and geordie full of ideas too. so between us we got it beautifully planned. it was far nicer than i had dared to hope. they fixed to run a tiny passage between the side of the hut where the room was to be placed, so that the two doorways into it could both be used,--one to enter into geordie's room, so that he could run in and out without having to go through mamma's or ours, and the other leading into mamma's, from which we could pass to ours. and the partitions made them really as good as three proper rooms, each with a nice window. there could be no fireplace in ours, but as it was the middle one, and therefore sure to be the warmest, that would not matter, as there were two, one at each end in the iron room. if it was very cold, mamma said esmé and i might undress in hers, and _dress_ in his, geordie added, as he meant always to be up very early and light his own fire to work by, which rather amused us all, as he was _not_ famed for early rising. indeed, i never knew such a sleepy head as he was--poor old dods! we felt satisfied, as we walked home, that we had done a good day's work. 'though it _couldn't_ have been managed without the iron room,' geordie and i agreed. and a day or two later we felt still more settled and pleased when mamma told us that hoskins and margery were coming with us. hoskins was just a little melancholy about it all, not a bit for herself, i do believe, but because she thought it would be 'such a change, so different' for mamma and us. she cheered up however when we reminded her how much nicer it would be than a poky little house in a back street at kirke, or, worse still, away in some other place altogether, among strangers. and when she said something about the cold, in case we stayed at the hut through the winter, geordie said we could afford plenty of fires as we should have no rent to pay, and that _he_ was going to be 'stoker' for the whole family. 'you won't need to look after any fire but your own, master george,' said she, 'and not that, unless it amuses you. margery is not a lazy girl--i would not own her for my niece if she was. and besides that, there will be barnes to help to carry in the coal.' barnes was one of the under-gardeners. he lived with his father and mother at the lodge, but he had never had anything to do with the house, so i was surprised at what hoskins said. 'oh yes,' george explained, looking very business-like and nodding in a way he had, 'that is one of the things papa and i have settled about. we are rigging up a room for barnes, much nearer than the lodge--the old woodman's hut within a stone's throw of _our_ hut, ida, so that a whistle would bring him in a moment. he will still live at the lodge for eating, you see, but he will come round first thing and last thing. he's as proud as a peacock; he thinks he's going to be a kind of robinson crusoe; it will be quite a nice little room; there is even a fireplace in it. he says he won't need coals; there's such lots of brushwood about.' '_i_ have been thinking of that,' i said eagerly. 'it would seem much more in keeping to burn brushwood than commonplace coals----' 'except in my kitchen, if you please, miss ida,' put in hoskins. 'and better still than brushwood,' i went on, taking no notice of hoskins's 'kitchen,'--i would much rather have had a gypsy fire with a pot hanging on three iron rods, the way gypsies do, or are supposed to do,--'better than brushwood, fir cones. they do smell so delicious when they are burning. we might make a great heap of them before next winter. it would give the children something to do when they are playing in the wood.' [illustration: ordering denzil about as usual.] they--the two little ones--were of course in tremendous spirits about the whole thing,--such spirits that they could not even look sad for very long when at last--about three weeks after the days i have just been describing--the sorrowful morning arrived on which dear papa had to leave us. esmé cried loudly, as was her way; denzil, more silently and solemnly, as was his; but an hour or two afterwards we heard the little butterfly laughing outside in the garden and ordering denzil about as usual. 'never mind,' said mamma, glancing up from the lists of all sorts of things she was already busy at and reading what was in my mind, 'rather let us be glad that the child does not realise it. she is very young; it does not mean that she is heartless,' and mamma herself choked down her tears and turned again to her writing-table. i too had done my best not to cry, though it was _very_ difficult. i think george and i 'realised' it all--the long, lonely voyage for papa; the risks at sea which are always there; the dangers for his health, for the climate was a bad one, and it was not the safest season by any means. all these, and then the possibility of great disappointment when he got there--of finding that, after all, the discovery of things going wrong had come too late to put them right, and of all that would follow this--the leaving our dear, dear home, not for a few months, or even a year, but for _always_. it would not do even to think of it. and i had promised papa to be brave and cheerful. by this time i must explain that the hut--from now i must write it with a capital, as mamma did in her letters: 'the hut, eastercove' looked quite grand, we thought--was ready for us to move into. our tenants were expected at the house in a week or ten days, and we were now to leave it as soon as we could. a great part of the arranging, carting down furniture, and so on had been done, but it had been thought better to put off our actually taking up our quarters in our quaint new home till after papa had gone. _he_ said it would have worried him rather if we had left sooner, but i know the truth was, that he thought the having to be very busy, in a bustle in fact, at once on his going, would be the best for us all--mamma especially. and a bustle it was, though things had been hurried on wonderfully fast. the fixing up of the iron room was quite complete and the partitions were already in their places, the furniture roughly in the rooms too. but as everybody who has ever moved from one house to another knows, there were still _heaps_ to be done, and seen to by ourselves, which no work-people could do properly. and besides the arranging at the hut of course, there was a great deal for mamma to settle at the house, so as to leave everything nice for the people who were coming. that afternoon, i remember, the afternoon of the day papa left, we were at the hut till dark, working as hard as we could, even the little ones helping, by running messages and fetching and carrying. and by the time we went home we were very tired and beginning to find it very difficult to look on the bright side of things. 'i don't believe it will ever be really comfortable for mamma,' said geordie in the growly tone he used when he was anxious or unhappy. 'it's just a horrid business altogether. i don't believe papa will be able to get things right, out at that old hole of a place, and even if he doesn't get ill, as he very likely will, he'll only come home to leave it for good--i mean we'll have to sell eastercove. i'm almost sorry we did not go away now at once and get it over.' i glanced before us. mamma was some little way in front--i could just see her dimly, for it was dusk, with denzil and esmé, one on each side; esmé walking along soberly for once, and i caught snatches of mamma's voice coming back to us, for there was a light, though rather chilly evening breeze, blowing our way. i could hear that she was talking brightly to the children; no doubt it was not easy for her to do so. 'listen, geordie,' i said, nodding forwards, so to say, towards mamma. and he understood, though he did not say anything just at once. 'it is a good thing,' i went on, after a moment's silence, 'that the wind is not the other way. i would not like her to hear you talking like that, within a few hours of papa's going.' it was not often--very, very seldom indeed--that i felt it my place to blame good old dods; and honestly, i don't think i did it or meant it in any 'superior' way. i am sure i did not, for the words had scarcely passed my lips before they seemed to me to have been unkind. geordie was tired; he had been working very hard the last few days, and even a strong boy may feel out of heart when he is tired. 'i don't know what _i_ should do, not to speak of mamma,' i went on, 'if you got gloomy about things. we all depend on you so,' and for a moment or two i really felt as if i must begin to cry! then something crept round my neck, and i knew it was all right again. the something was geordie's arm, and it gave me a little hug, not the most comfortable thing in the world when you are out walking, and it tilts up your hat, but of course i did not mind. 'yes, ida,' he said, 'it's very babyish and cowardly of me, and i'm very sorry. i won't be like that again, i promise you.' then i gave him a sort of a hug in return, and we hurried on a little, not to leave mamma with the children dragging on at each side of her, as they are apt to do when they are tired. we none of us spoke much the rest of the way home, but geordie said one or two little things about how comfortable the hut was getting to look and so on, which _i_ understood, and which prevented poor mamma's suspecting that he was at all in low spirits. when people really _try_ to do right, i think outside things often come to help them. that very evening we were cheered and amused by a letter which had arrived by the second post while we were all out--a quite unexpected letter. it was from a cousin of ours, a girl, though a grown-up one, whom we were very fond of. she was _almost_ like a big sister, and her name was theresa. she was generally called 'taisy' for short. i have not spoken of her before; but, indeed, when i come to think of it i have not spoken of any of our relations, i have been so entirely taken up with the hut. we had however none _very_ near. taisy was almost the nearest. she lived with her grandmother, who was papa's aunt, so taisy was really only second cousin to us children. she was now about seventeen, and she was an orphan. many people like her would have been spoilt, for old aunt emmeline adored her and gave her nearly everything she could possibly want. but taisy wasn't a bit spoilt. she often came to stay with us, and one of the smaller parts of our big trouble was that we could not look forward to having her _this_ year, at any rate. papa had written to lady emmeline to tell her of what had happened; she was one of the few whom he felt he must write to about it, and it was partly because of taisy's not coming--i mean our not being able to have her--that he did so. and he had had a very kind letter back from his aunt. she wished she could help him, but though she was comfortably off, her money was what they call 'tied up,' somehow, and taisy would have none of _hers_ till she was twenty-one. besides, papa was not the sort of man to take or expect help, while he was strong and active and could work for us himself, and it was the kind of trouble in which a little help would really have been no use--a large fortune was at stake. taisy had not written; she had only sent loving messages to us all, and something about that 'by hook or by crook' she must see us before the summer was over. but the letter to mamma which was waiting for us roused our curiosity, and kept us quite bright and interested all that evening, in wondering what she _could_ mean. 'ever since i heard from grandmamma of your worries, dear auntie,' she wrote,--i must explain that taisy always called papa and mamma uncle and aunt, though they were really only cousins,-'i have been thinking and thinking about how i could still manage to pay you a visit. i really cannot face the idea of all the long summer without seeing you.' 'it _is_ very dull for her at longfields,' said mamma, interrupting herself in the reading aloud the letter to us. 'aunt emmeline never has cared much to have visitors, though she is a wonderfully strong and active old lady. and now that taisy is giving up regular lessons, it will be still duller. but it can't be helped, i suppose. yet i do wonder what the child has in her head,' and she went on reading. 'and, once i was with you, i am _sure_ i would not be any trouble, if only you had room for me. you don't know what a help i should be! so--don't be surprised if you see a balloon coming down towards the hut one day, and me getting out of it. i have not got my plan quite ready yet, and i am not going to say anything to granny about it till it is all cut and dried and ready to be stacked!--though, as she always lets me do whatever i want, i am not much afraid of her making any difficulties. her old friend, miss merry, will be coming over from ireland as usual, i suppose, and i am sure i should only be in the way, especially as i have no governess now. my best love to you all, and i do hope dear uncle jack will have a nice voyage and come back feeling quite happy again.--your loving taisy.' 'what _can_ she mean?' said geordie, looking up with a puzzled face. 'of course about a balloon is quite a joke, isn't it?' i said, though i spoke rather doubtfully, not knowing much about balloons! 'of course,' said geordie, in a superior tone. 'besides, there is no difficulty about her getting to us. the railway and the roads are not blocked up because of our troubles. the thing is, that there is nowhere to put her if she did come.' 'no,' i agreed, running over the rooms at the hut in my mind; 'we are quite closely enough packed as it is. there isn't any possible corner for another bed even.' 'unless,' said geordie slowly,--'unless you would let me really camp out, mamma? i could rig up a little tent, or--i wouldn't much mind sleeping in barnes's hut?' 'no, no,' mamma replied decidedly. 'i could not allow anything of the kind. our living at the hut is only possible because it is _not_ to be like rough camping out, but as healthy and "civilised" as if we were in a house. so put that out of your head, my dear boy. i could not risk your catching cold, or anything of that sort. remember, i feel responsible to your father in _my_ way for you all, just as you two big ones feel so for me,' she added with one of her own dear smiles. 'and then, dods,' i said, 'it wouldn't be safe--i know _i_ wouldn't feel safe--without having you actually in the house, even though barnes's hut is so near.' i think geordie liked my saying that. but i really meant it. so we went on wondering and puzzling as to what taisy meant. it was quite an amusement to us that first evening of papa's being away. and it was worth wondering about, for taisy was a very clever girl--what is called 'practical.' 'if she could come and be with us, i'm sure she would be a great help,' i thought. 'she is so full of nice ideas and funny ones too, and she never has headaches or neuralgia or horrid things like that. and yet she is _so_ kind--i remember that time i sprained my ankle. she was so good.' the next few days were so busy, however, that all thought even of taisy and her balloon went out of our heads. i only remember packings and unpackings and arranging and rearrangings, all in a jumble together, ending, nevertheless, in a great deal of satisfaction. the afternoon we went to the hut 'for good,' it really looked nice enough for us to feel it, for the time, more 'home' than the big house, which, on the surface, seemed rather upset still, though in reality it was nearly ready for the tenants, having gone through a magnificent spring cleaning. but our own little belongings were absent, and such of the rooms as were quite in order, to our eyes looked bare and unfamiliar, so that we were not sorry to be actually settled at the hut. the evenings were still a little chilly, which i, for one, did not regret, as it gave an excuse for nice bright fires in the sitting-rooms and mamma's bedroom. and the children had already picked up a good lot of fir cones, so that the pleasant scent of the trees seemed to be inside as well as out of doors. 'it _is_ cosy, isn't it, mamma?' i said, as we stood for a minute or two in what was now the little drawing-room; 'and oh, _aren't_ you glad not to be starting on a railway journey to some strange place, or even driving to that little house at kirke which you told me about as the best we could have got?' 'yes, indeed, darling,' mamma replied. 'and i am _so_ glad to be able to date my first letter to papa from the hut. i must make time to write to him to-morrow morning; it will just catch the mail.' 'and to-night,' i went on, 'you must rest. there isn't really very much more to do, is there? not at least anything that we need hurry about.' 'no,' said mamma, looking round. but she spoke rather doubtfully, and i felt that she was longing to get everything into perfectly 'apple-pie order,' though what that means i have never been able to understand, for as far as we know them nowadays, apple-pies are rather untidy-looking! 'there is very little now for me to see to at--home--at the house,' she went on. 'i am not going there at all for a day or two, and then just to give a look round and pay the wages owing till the trevors come.' the trevors were our tenants--a mother and an invalid son, and a not-very-young daughter--and several of our servants were staying on with them, which we were very glad of. 'and i want,' mamma began again, 'to get things started here regularly. your lessons, and the little ones' too, and--and--everything. our own clothes will take some time to arrange, and i must not expect hoskins to be everywhere at once. 'i will do _lots_, mamma,' i said. 'you don't know what i can do when i regularly set-to, and i promise you i won't open a story-book till the boxes are unpacked and arranged,' though i gave a little silent sigh as i said this. there seemed such heaps to unpack, for you see we had had to bring all our winter things with us too, and i was sensible enough to know that there must now be a lot of planning how to make frocks and coats and things last, that hitherto we should have given away without a second thought to those whom they might be of use to. and in my secret heart i was trembling a little at the idea that perhaps one of the things i should have to 'set-to' at would be sewing--above all, mending! 'for of course, as mamma says,' i reflected, 'we can't expect hoskins to do _everything_! and i knew it was a case of just spending the very least we could--without risking health or necessary comforts--till papa came home again, or at least till he got _some_ idea of what the future was likely to be. but for the moment it was worse than foolish to go on looking forward, when the _present_ was pretty clearly to be seen. and just then esmé came dancing in to tell us that tea was ready in the dining-room. 'quite ready and getting cold. so come quick,' she said. chapter vi 'you do understand so well, mamma' i shall never forget the first morning's awaking in the hut. well, as i knew it, it seemed as if i had not till then ever been there before. i do not mean so much the actual waking; that of course is always a little confusing, even if only in a different _room_ from the one you are used to, and i was particularly accustomed to my own room at eastercove, as we were not people who went away very much. we loved home too well for that. no, though i rubbed my eyes and stared about me and wondered why the window had changed its place, i soon remembered where i was, especially when i caught sight of esmé's little bed beside mine, and of esmé's pink cheeks and bright hair as she lay fast asleep still, looking like a comfortable doll. i was thinking rather of the feelings i had when i was dressed--i dressed very quickly, despising any warm water in my bath for once, and moved about very quietly, so as not to waken esmé and thereby vex hoskins the very first morning--and made my way out to the porch and stood there gazing about me. it was not so very early after all--half-past seven by mamma's little clock in the drawing-room, and i heard the servants working busily in the kitchen and dining-room, though there was no sound from poor old geordie's corner, in spite of his overnight intentions of being up by six! but outside it seemed very, very early. it was so absolutely _alone_--so strangely far from any sight or sound of common human life, except for just one little thing--a tiny white sail, far, far away on the horizon--a mere speck it seemed. and below where i stood,--i think i have said that the hut was on a sort of 'plateau,--' though at some little distance, came the sound of the waves, lapping in softly, for it was a calm day, and now and then the flash of a gull as it flew past, or the faint, peculiar cry of some other sea-bird or coast-bird nearer inland. for the spot was so quiet and seemingly isolated that rather wild, shy birds were not afraid of visiting it, even when there was no stormy weather or signs of such out at sea. and behind me were our dear pine woods, and the feeling of the squirrels and the home birds all busy and happy in the coming of the spring, though any sounds from there were very vague and soft. at first i did not know what it all reminded me of. something out of my own experiences i knew, but i had to think for a minute or two before it came back to my mind. and then i remembered that it was a story in a french book that mamma had read to us, partly in french, which geordie and i knew fairly well, and partly translating as she read. it was called _les ailes de courage_, by some great french author, who wrote it, i think, for his or her grandchildren, and it is almost the most interesting and strangest story i ever heard--about a boy who lived quite, quite alone in a cave by the seashore, and got to know all the wild creatures and their habits in the most wonderful way, so that they came to trust him as if he was one of themselves. i cannot give any right idea of the story; i doubt if any one could, but i wish you--if 'you' ever come to exist--would all read it. just as i was standing there, pleased to have remembered the association in my mind, i felt a hand slipped gently round my neck. it was not one of geordie's 'hugs,' and i looked up in surprise. it was mamma. 'how quietly you came,' i said; 'and oh, mamma, _doesn't_ it remind you of _les ailes de courage_?' 'yes,' she replied, 'i know exactly what you mean.' and then we stood perfectly still and silent for a moment or two, taking it all in, more and more, till a _very_ tiny sigh from mamma reminded me of something else--that dear papa was on that same great sea that we were gazing at--perhaps standing on the deck of the steamer and thinking of us--but _so_ far away already! 'it is chilly,' said mamma, 'and we must not begin our life here by catching cold. we had better go in, dear. i think it is going to be a lovely day, but in the meantime i hope hoskins has given us a fire in the dining-room.' yes--a nice bright little fire was crackling away merrily, a handful or two of the children's cones on the top. and the room looked quite cosy and tidy, as margery had finished dusting and so on, in here, and was now busy at the other side. 'i will go and see how esmé is getting on,' said mamma. 'she had had her bath before i came out, but there may be difficulties with her hair. and you might hurry up the boys, ida, for i have promised hoskins to be very punctual, and breakfast will be ready by eight.' it was a good thing i did go to hurry up the boys--they were both fast asleep! geordie looked dreadfully ashamed when i at last managed to get him really awake, and denzil almost began to cry. he had planned with esmé, he said, to have a run down to the sands before breakfast, and hoskins knew and had promised them a slice of bread and butter and a drink of milk. 'did she not wake you then?' i asked. 'she woke esmé at seven, but i was already up.' geordie could not remember if he had been awakened or not. denzil thought margery had come in and said something about 'seven o'clock,' but it was all mixed up with a wonderful dream that he wanted me to stay to listen to, about a balloon (he had heard us talking about taisy's balloon) with long cords hanging from it, like those in the grandfather's clock in the hall 'at home,' for you to climb up and down by, as if they were rope-ladders. 'you must have gone to sleep again and dreamt it through the word "o'clock" getting into your brain,' i said, whereupon i felt as if i had got out of the frying-pan into the fire, for instead of telling the rest of his dream, denzil now wanted to know exactly what i meant, and what his brain was 'like,' and how a word could get into it--was it a box in his head, and his ears the doors, etc., etc.--denzil had a dreadfully 'inquiring mind,' in those days--till i really had to cut him short and fly. 'you will neither of you be ready for breakfast, as it is,' i said; 'and if you are not quick you will have none at all, or at least quite cold.' i nearly ran against the coffee, which hoskins was just carrying in, as i got to the dining-room door, which would not have been a happy beginning. but i pulled up just in time, and took in good part hoskins's reminder that it wouldn't do to rush about as if we were in the wide passages at home. then she went on to tell me what it all made her think of, she was so glad to have remembered. 'it is just like a _ship_, miss ida. i have never been at sea, but i spent a day or two once on board one of the big steamers at southampton that a cousin of my mother's is stewardess of. yes, it's that that's been running in my head.' 'it can't have been a _very_ big one, then,' i said, rather pertly, i am afraid. but hoskins did not see the joke. 'oh, but it was, miss ida,' she went on, after she had placed the coffee-pot in safety. 'the big rooms, saloons, as they call them, were really beautiful, but the passages quite narrow, and the kitchens and pantries so small, you'd wonder they do do any washing-up in them, let alone cooking. not an inch of space lost, you may say. and as to how they manage in rough weather when everything's atop of the other, it's just wonderful, not that i've any wish to see for myself; the sea's all very well to be beside of, but as for going _on_ it,' and hoskins shook her head, but said no more. for mamma just then came into the room, and the kind-hearted woman did not want to remind her who _was_ on the sea at the present moment. we three--mamma and esmé and i--had made some way with our breakfast before the two lazy ones joined us, geordie rather shy and ashamed; denzil eager to explain the whole story of his dream, and to tease poor mamma about his brain and how it was made and what it was like, till i did wish i had not mentioned its existence to him. i don't remember anything very particularly interesting in the course of the first few days at the hut, or rather perhaps, _everything_ was so interesting that no one thing stands out very much in my memory or in my diary. i kept a diary in those days, as i daresay you who read this have suspected, otherwise i could not have been so exact about details, though it needs no diary to remind myself of the _feeling_ of it all, of the curious charm of the half gypsy life. not that it really was nearly as 'gypsy' as we would have liked it to be, or as we _thought_ we would have liked it to be! it was really so comfortable, and we were all so pleased with our own efforts to make it so, and their success, that by the end of a week or ten days we began to long for some adventures. 'a storm,' said geordie one day,--'a storm at sea. how would that do? not a very bad one of course, and------' 'no,' i said decidedly, frowning at him to remind him about papa's being on the sea,--'no, that wouldn't do at all. besides, there never are storms at this time of year. it's past the bad time. no, something more like real gypsies camping near us, and coming to ask us to lend them things, and telling our fortunes.' but at this idea _mamma_ shook her head. 'no, thank you,' she said, though she smiled; 'i have no wish for any such neighbours. besides, ida, you forget that though we are living in a hut, we are still at home on our own ground, and certainly gypsies have never been allowed to camp inside the lodge gates.' 'they never come nearer than kirke common now,' said george. 'they have been frightened of eastercove, barnes says, ever since papa was made a magistrate.' 'i think we must be content if we want adventures,' said mamma, 'with reading some aloud. i have got one or two nice books that none of you know, and i think it would be a very good plan to read aloud in the evenings.' we were not very eager about it. we liked very much to be read to, but we were not fond of being the readers, and though mamma read aloud beautifully, i knew it was not right to let it all fall upon her, as her voice was not very strong. 'it isn't as if taisy were here, to take turns with you, mamma,' i said, 'as she always does.' 'after this week,' said mamma, 'you will not want any more excitement, for we must really arrange about your lessons, ida--yours and the little ones. and geordie, of course, will begin again regularly with mr. lloyd, now that we are settled.' our daily governess was given up. she was not now quite 'advanced' enough for me, and to have her for denzil and esmé alone was very expensive, so it had been fixed that i was to work with mamma; and, on the other hand, be myself teacher to the little ones for the time. mamma had thought she would have so much less to do, with papa away, and no calls to pay, or going out to dinners and luncheons, all of which she had given up for the time. but it did not look very like it so far--i mean not very like her 'having more time' than at the big house, for there were always things turning up for her to do, and then she wrote enormously long letters to papa every week. and there were things about the place, the whole property, which she had to be consulted about now he was away. and for my part i was not at all looking forward to my new post of governess! 'it is such a pity,' i thought, 'that we can't have taisy. she wouldn't have minded teaching the children a bit, and she is so clever. lots of my own lessons i could have done with her too. and i know the little ones won't obey me; denzil would, but not esmé, and she will set him off.' i suppose my face was looking rather cloudy, for mamma went on again. 'i daresay we shall all feel a little depressed for a time, for we have had a good deal of really tiring work as well as excitement. and the worst of over-excitement, at least for young, strong people, is, that when it is over, everything seems flat, and we find ourselves wishing something else would happen.' 'yes,' i said; 'that's just what i feel. you do understand so well, mamma.' 'i have a mild piece of excitement in store for you to-day or to-morrow,' mamma went on again. 'i think it is quite time that i called on our tenants. they must be fairly settled by now.' 'i don't see that there was any settling for them to do,' i said. 'you left everything so beautifully neat and nice.' somehow i felt a little cross at the poor things! 'they have to unpack what they brought with them,' said geordie; 'and i'm sure----' he stopped short. i knew why he stopped. he thought that what he was going to say might vex me, for, as i think--or hope i have owned--i have a quick temper. but dods was not famous for 'tact'; that habit of his of stopping short all of a sudden often made me crosser than almost anything he could _say_. 'it's very rude not to finish your sentence,' i said sharply. 'what are you so sure about?' 'only that you made fuss enough about our own unpacking,' he replied, 'quite extra from the getting the hut in order and all that.' 'you are very unfair, and unkind,' i said, feeling as if i should like to cry, for _i_ thought i had been very patient and good-tempered. 'mamma, don't you think he needn't have said that?' 'he did not want to say it, to give him his due,' said mamma, smiling a little; 'and to give ida her due,' she went on, turning to geordie, 'i don't see, my boy, that you needed to _think_ it.' 'well,' said dods, and i felt my vexedness begin to go away, 'after all, i don't know that i did. i suppose we've all been rather fussy, though it wasn't in a bad sort of way.' 'no, indeed,' said mamma; 'it was in a very good sort of way. you have all been most helpful; i wish you could have seen my last letter to papa about you.' after that it would have been impossible to go on being vexed with any one, wouldn't it? i never knew any one like mamma for making horrid feelings go and nice ones come, and yet she is always quite _true_. 'then, do you mean that you want me to go with you when you call on the trevors, mamma?' i asked. 'yes, i do, rather particularly,' she replied, so of course i said i would be ready whatever time she fixed, though i didn't very much want to go. i was just at the age--i don't think i have quite grown past it even now--when girls hate paying calls, and i could not bear the idea of being received as visitors in our very own house. this was extremely silly of course, as it was such a lucky thing for us to have let it to good, careful people like the trevors, but i don't think it was an unnatural feeling. and afterwards, poor mamma owned to me that it was something of the same kind that had made her wish to take me with her. it would make her feel less 'lonely,' she thought. wasn't it sweet of her to think that? so that afternoon, or the next, i forget which, we found ourselves walking slowly up through the woods to the big house. i felt rather as if it must be sunday, for it was not often, except on sundays, that i was in the woods in very neat 'get up,'--proper gloves instead of rough garden ones, and best boots, and hat, and everything like for going to church, or for going a drive with mamma in the victoria. we did not expect--at least i did not--to find our new acquaintances very interesting. there was nobody young among them, and hearing that they had come to eastercove principally for health's sake did not sound very lively. but, after all, something interesting _did_ come of the visit, as i will tell you. we were ushered into the drawing-room--'the ladies were at home,' he said--by an oldish man-servant, with a nice face. into our own drawing-room--how funny it seemed! and already it did not seem quite our own, not the same. there were little changes in the places of the furniture, and there were unfamiliar odds and ends about, which made it feel strange. i was rather glad that there was no one in the room to receive us, and i squeezed mamma's hand tight, and i am sure she understood, and we both had time to get our breath, as it were, before any one appeared. when some one did come, nevertheless, we were taken a little by surprise, for she--it was miss trevor--entered by the window, and i had been looking towards the door. there are long, low-down windows in the drawing-room, and at one side a terracey sort of walk, which is very pleasant for sitting out on, in summer especially, as it is well shaded. immediately i saw her i felt she was nice. she seemed older than mamma, though perhaps she was not so really. her face was very quiet--that is the best word for it, and though i was so young then and knew so little of life, i felt that it was a face that had _grown_ quiet through goodness. even now i do not know much of miss trevor's history, but mamma has been told enough of it to make her think very highly of her. there was not the least bit of hardness, scarcely even of sadness in her expression, but just a look--a look that made one feel that she had come through sorrow, and could never care _very_ much about anything for herself again--anything _here_, i mean. 'i am so sorry,' she said at once, in a nice, hearty way, 'to have kept you waiting. it is such a lovely afternoon that mother and i have settled ourselves outside!' 'then please don't unsettle yourselves,' said mamma, and i saw a gleam of pleasure creep into miss trevor's gray eyes at mamma's pretty voice and manner. 'may we not join mrs. trevor on the terrace, for i suppose it is there you are sitting?' 'yes,' was the reply. 'it is so sheltered, and of course it is still early days for venturing anything of the kind. but mother is quite strong except for rheumatism, and really who _could_ have rheumatism in this dry, fragrant air? we are so delighted with everything about your beautiful home, mrs. lanark,' she went on. (it has _just_ struck me that till now i have never said that 'lanark' is our family name! really, i am not fit to try to write a story.) 'and you have done so much to make it perfect for us.' [illustration: we were out on the terrace, and mrs. trevor coming to meet us.] mamma and i felt repaid for our trouble by this, but before there was time to reply, we were out on the terrace, and mrs. trevor coming to meet us. it was not such an easy business for her to do so, as you might think. she had three dogs--darlings, i must own, and not barking, snapping darlings--dancing round her, and she was all twisted about with wool, red and green and white and all colours, unwound from the balls from her knitting. you never saw anything so funny, especially as the doggies, though very good-natured, were very lively and affectionate, and very spoilt, evidently accustomed to think the wools and the knitting and every bit of dear mrs. trevor herself only existed for their benefit. how she managed to keep the wool clean, and to knit the pretty fluffy things she did, i never found out. i really think there was some magic about it, for i _never_ saw her without the strands of it flying loose, _and_ the dogs dancing up and down to catch it! she was laughing--such a nice laugh. 'really,' she said, 'you will think me a slave to my pugs, mrs. lanark, and i am afraid it is true. zenia, dear, please untwist me.' miss trevor was evidently pretty well used to doing so, but she laughed too; and mamma and i started forward to help, so between us we managed to get the wool wound up pretty quickly, the doggies standing by more quietly than usual. they were more in awe of miss trevor, it was plain to see, than of their actual mistress. chapter vii 'no,' said mamma, 'that isn't all' then we all sat down at the end of the terrace; mrs. and miss trevor had already found out exactly the nicest place, one of our own favourite places, sheltered but not too shut in, with a view of the pine woods close by, at one side, and a peep of the farther off sea, through an opening that had been made on purpose, at the other. 'i love that glimpse of the sea,' said miss trevor, who naturally began to talk to me, as her mother and mamma were entertaining each other. 'yes,' i said, 'this corner is a very nice one. but you should see the view from where we are now--down at the hut, i mean.' 'it must be charming,' she replied, 'so open and wide. i am very anxious, indeed,' she went on smiling, 'to see the hut. it must be so--picturesque.' 'no, it isn't exactly that,' i said. 'it's _queer_, and out-of-the-common, of course, but the charm of the place _is_ the place,' and i laughed at my own way of expressing myself. 'it seems so entirely away from everything, except the sea and the trees and the wild creatures, though it isn't _really_ lonely.' then mamma turned to miss trevor with some little explanation about something or other in the house which mrs. trevor said her daughter took charge of, and the old lady--i hope it isn't rude to call her that? she did seem old to me--began talking to me. i liked her very much. she was _so_ fond of her three doggies, and she was so sympathising about one of ours that had died a few months before, and whom we had loved so dearly, that it was not till a good while afterwards that we could bear to have another. the one we did have in the end was a present from mrs. trevor, a pug puppy, and we have him still, and i named him 'woolly,' which everybody thinks a most unsuitable name for a pug, as they do not understand the reason for it. i daresay _you_ will guess that it was because the sight of a pug always reminds me of mrs. trevor's unwound balls, and the wool all twined round her. soon after, mamma said we must be going, and we bade mrs. trevor good-bye, but miss trevor said she would go a little bit of the way with us. she seemed to have something she wanted to say, and as if she did not quite know how to begin, till at last, just as we were close to the turn in the drive that led to the stables and coach-houses, she stood still for a moment. from where we were there was again a peep of the sea, all glistening and sparkling, though calm. 'this is another pretty peep,' said mamma. 'yes,' miss trevor agreed, 'and the advantage up here is that we can have these open views and yet be in shade. as the season gets on, i am afraid you will find it rather too unsheltered from the sun to sit out on the sea-side of the hut.' 'we shall have to rig up shady arrangements,' said mamma laughingly. 'that reminds me,' said miss trevor, which was not quite true, as she had been thinking of it all this time, i am sure, and wondering how she was to offer it without seeming officious, or anything of that sort,--'that reminds me'--then she broke off--'would you mind just looking in here a moment?' 'in here' was one of the coach-houses. miss trevor led the way towards it, and pushed open the door. inside stood a sort of bath-chair, of lighter build, even though larger, than such things generally are. it was of wickerwork, covered with pretty stuff like what tents and awnings are made of--as we saw when she threw off the sheet that was over it. 'we call this my brother's boudoir,' she said. 'it is quite a curiosity,' and she began drawing out and showing us all manner of contrivances--a table which hooked on to one side, another which fastened itself to the front, a large basket for the other side, a stool, quite strong enough for a second person to sit on comfortably to talk or read to whomever was in the chair; and besides all these, wonderful awnings that pulled out and could be turned and twisted like big umbrellas, and stretches of wickerwork to make the chair into a couch--and all this on wheels! 'it is not meant to be used as a bath-chair,' went on miss trevor; 'the wheels are just to move it easily for short distances. it is really a stationary affair. my brother invented a good deal of it himself two or three years ago when he was very ill--much more of an invalid than now, i mean.' 'it is a beautiful thing,' said mamma, in which i quite agreed with her, though we both wondered a little why she was exhibiting it at all to us so minutely. 'but will isn't at all pleased with us for bringing it here,' miss trevor continued. 'he says he never wants to see it again; it reminds him of his worst time, and he says i must get rid of it. he prefers sitting out among the pines in a quite well sort of way. so--it just struck mother and me, that _perhaps_ it might be some little use to you, down so near the sea where there is no shade,' and she glanced at us half timidly. 'oh!' i exclaimed, before mamma had time to speak, 'it would be splendid--just in front of the little porch. we could really make a sort of tiny room with it, and you could be _so_ comfortable, mamma, on sunny days. oh, do say we may have it!' miss trevor seemed delighted, and mamma smiled at my enthusiasm. 'it is a charming chair,' she said, 'far more than a chair indeed--i scarcely know what to call it. it is most kind of you to have thought of it for us, miss trevor, and if you are so good as to lend it to us, you may be sure we shall take the greatest care of it. and, of course, if mr. william trevor ever wants to have it while you are here, you must not for an instant hesitate to tell us and we should send it back at once.' miss trevor got rather red. 'oh, but,' she said, 'you don't quite understand, mrs. lanark. we want you to have it for good--to keep, i mean, if you care for it. i am perfectly certain that will won't want it. in fact, he says he hates the sight of it. and down at the hut, it might be of use, even after you have moved up here again. i will have it wheeled down to you to-morrow morning; it may need a little cleaning up first. the wheels are quite strong enough for a short journey, especially with no one inside. i only meant that it is not built in the peculiarly strong way a regular bath-chair needs to be.' i did feel so pleased to know it was to be our very own, and so, i think, did mamma. for when things are lent, there is always a rather fidgety feeling, for fear they should get spoilt in any way. and miss trevor had said it so nicely--as if our taking it would really be doing them a favour. for, of course, from almost complete strangers it is a little difficult to accept presents, though mamma has often told us that to receive a kindness graciously is quite as much a duty as to offer one. and then too she had spoken as if our return to our proper home was quite a certainty, and our absence from it only a question of a little time, though afterwards we heard that there had been a good deal of gossip in the neighbourhood about our being completely 'ruined,' and that eastercove was sure to have to be sold. i suppose a great deal of gossip is not meant to be unkind, but still it does seem sometimes as if people were more ready to exaggerate and talk about other people's _troubles_ than about their good fortune. we said good-bye to miss trevor soon after that--she, turning to go back to the house, and we, after mamma had asked her very heartily to come soon to see us in our 'gypsy encampment,' as mamma called it (i wished it had been a good deal more gypsy than it was!), which she seemed very eager to do, walking slowly towards the hut. more slowly than i felt inclined for--i was in a fever to tell geordie about the wonderful chair--but mamma was still feeling a little tired after all the bustle and busy-ness and sad feelings of the last few weeks, and so i tried to keep down my impatience. when we came quite out of the wood into the clear, open view of the sea, mamma stood still again and gazed down at it without speaking for a moment or two. 'are you thinking of papa?' i said softly, giving her arm, through which i had slipped my hand, a little squeeze. 'yes, dear,' she said, turning her face towards me, and i was pleased to see that she was smiling. 'he must be nearing the end of his long journey by now. but it was not only because of his voyage that i was thinking of him. the sea is always associated with him in my mind; it was the occasion of our first getting to know each other.' i felt greatly interested. 'did you meet on board ship, do you mean?' i asked. 'did you make a voyage together?' 'no, no,' said mamma, smiling again; 'i have never been a long voyage in my life. and the time i was thinking of--ever so long ago--had nothing to do with a voyage. i will tell you the story of it if you like. shall we sit down here a little? it is perfectly dry.' my hurry to get home to tell geordie about miss trevor's present had softened down in the interest of what mamma was speaking of; besides, when i came to think of it, i remembered that he could not yet be back from mr. lloyd's. so i was very pleased to do as mamma proposed. 'there is a little bathing-place far up in the north,' she began, when we had settled ourselves on a little bank made by some old roots which had spread out beyond the actual pine wood, 'which was rather a favourite in that part of the world a good many years ago, though now, i fancy, it is quite out of fashion. it was considered a very safe place for children, as there are great stretches of sands, and the bathing is very good, except that the tide at one part goes out with great swiftness and force, owing to a current of some kind just there. there is a garrison town--a small one--two miles or so from the bathing village--a station for cavalry--and the sands used to be, and i daresay still are, a favourite exercising ground for the horses. well, one morning, ever so long ago, as i said----' 'do you mean fifty years ago, or a hundred perhaps?' i interrupted thoughtlessly, forgetting that the story had some connection with mamma herself. 'no, no,' she said laughing, 'not quite as "ever so long ago" as that. let me see--i need not be quite exact--about twenty-four or twenty-five years ago, we will say. well, one fine summer morning an officer, a very young one, of only eighteen or nineteen, was galloping with his men--a small party--up and down these sands, when he heard and saw something which made him suddenly pull up and gaze down towards the sea, which had turned and was rapidly going out. it was just above the bathing-place--a perfectly safe place if the vans were drawn out when the tide turned, and not allowed to get into the sort of current i told you of. but by some mischance one of the vans had been allowed to stay in the water too long--the old bathing man was getting rather stupid, i fancy, and was busy drying things higher up, with his back to the sea, and did not hear the cry from the van, or see the white handkerchief that was frantically waved from its landward side. the young man had keen eyes and ears; he saw that there was not a moment to be lost--and he quickly took in what had happened and what must be done. the van was _almost_ off its wheels, swaying about with every little wave that ran in, as the water rose and rose. and just outside the door, on the ledge at the top of the steps, stood a forlorn little figure waving a handkerchief, or perhaps it was a towel, and crying at the top of her small voice-- "help, help; oh, _please_, help!" 'i don't know what the officer did about his men, who were already some little way off--i suppose he signed to them to wait for him,--but i know what he did himself, and that was to gallop as fast as his horse would go, down to the sea, shouting as he went to the bathing-man, who was quick enough to see what was wrong, as soon as his attention was called to it. 'he rushed for his old horse, and was wonderfully soon at the water's edge and in it, looking horribly frightened, but quick as he was, the young man was there at least a minute or two before him. and after one glance at the state of things, the first comer did not hesitate. for he saw that the van was growing less and less steady; it was _almost_ lifted off the ground by this time, though it kept recovering itself a little. and the small figure on the steps was calling more and more wildly and shaking her white signal more desperately, while she clung on with the other hand to the side of the lurching and swaying van. 'his--the young officer's, i mean--first idea was to harness his horse _somehow_ to the van, and draw it out bodily--riding like a postilion. but he gave this up at once when he found how deep the water was already and how unsteady the thing was. he was too angry with the careless owner of it to care whether the van itself swam out to sea or not, and too anxious, to risk wasting a moment. and the sight of the little white face and tear-swollen eyes lifted up to him doubled both these feelings. '"don't be frightened, you will be all right now," he called out to the child, who by this time scarcely knew what she was saying. he thinks she changed her piteous "help, help, do come!" to "oh, save me, please, save me!" and when he and his horse got quite close he had no need to encourage her to come to him--she almost sprang into his arms, so quickly that he was afraid she would fall into the water. but it was managed somehow, so that in another moment he found himself riding back to the shore again, with the little girl perched on the front of his saddle, clinging to him and tucked up so as to keep even her feet from getting wet. 'she was actually quite dry when they got back to the sands and he lifted her down--getting off himself to get a good shake, for _he_ was by no means quite dry, nor was the horse, who had behaved so well and pluckily, as if understanding there was something the matter, and now stood snorting with pleasure and satisfaction. 'and the little girl was sensible too. she had quite left off crying and held out her hand to her preserver. '"oh, thank you, thank you so velly much," she said, "for saving me. i was velly neely drowned, wasn't i? please go home and get dry quick, or else you'll catch cold." 'but before he had time to reply, a figure came rushing up to them in great excitement. it was the little girl's nurse, dreadfully frightened and ashamed, especially when the boy officer turned upon her very sharply and asked her what on earth she had been thinking of to leave her charge in such danger. 'she had a long story to tell, which he had not patience to listen to--how she had almost finished dressing the young lady when she found she had left her parasol on the sands, and had climbed over into the next van where a friend was, just as it was being drawn out, as she was so afraid of the parasol being stolen, thinking no harm could come to the child in that minute or two till the bathing-man came back again, and how her friend had seen the parasol higher up on the stones, and how--and then came the bathing-man lumbering up with _his_ story--or how he had thought there was no one in the van, and he was just a-goin' to fetch it out--not that it would have gone far---- '"but it _would_," said the soldier; "and even if it had stuck, the young lady would have been half killed with fright and soaked through, and perhaps fallen into the water bodily. the bathing-man deserved to be reported, and----" 'there came a shout for the young officer just then. some one, thinking _he_ had got drowned or something of the kind, had hurried back to see. so he rode off though just as he was going, the little girl stopped him for a moment. '"oh, please, mr. soldier," she said, "will you tell me your name, so that mamma can write to thank you?" 'he laughed, but he was already in the saddle, and all she heard was the one word, "jack."' mamma stopped when she got to this. i waited an instant to see if she was going on again. i felt a little puzzled, though i thought the story so interesting. 'that isn't all, is it, mamma?' i said. 'i do so like it, but--didn't you say--something about papa--and you and the sea, being mixed up?' mamma smiled; her pretty blue eyes were fixed on the water below us; they and it seemed almost the same colour this afternoon. 'no,' she said, 'that isn't all. it was many, at least several--nine or ten or so years later, that the story goes on again. the boy officer had been out in india and seen fighting and many other things that come into soldiers' lives. but now that was over for him. other duties had come into his life and changed it. well--he was staying near the sea, with his mother and sisters, and one day, after a boating expedition,--it was a picnic to a picturesque island not far off,--he was introduced to a girl who had come with some other acquaintances. and they walked up and down the sands for a little. he kept looking at her in rather a curious way, and she wondered why, till at last he said-- '"i have the strangest feeling that i have seen you before, but i cannot tell where or when. and your name does not help me to remember." 'then the girl looked at him in her turn very carefully. and a sudden rush of remembrance came over her. '"is your name," she said quite eagerly,--"is your name--your first name 'jack'?" '"yes," he said, more and more puzzled. 'she smiled, and then she laughed, and then she told him. '"i believe i can solve the riddle," she said. "i once rode through the sea on your horse--in front of you.'" 'and then jack remembered.' and _i_ understood! 'oh, mamma!' i exclaimed, 'what a dear story. and _you_ are the little girl, and dear papa is "jack," and--and--it ended in your being married! how clever it was of him to remember your face again!' 'don't you think it was still cleverer of me to remember his name?' said mamma. '_he_ always says so. but ida, dearest, look how low the sun is getting. we must hurry home, or geordie and the others will be getting tired of waiting for tea,' and she got up from her root-seat as she spoke, and we walked on quickly. i kept on thinking of the story all the way. it was so pretty and yet so queer to think of my own papa and mamma as if they were people in a book, and to picture to myself that once upon a time, or _ever_, they were strangers to each other. 'mamma must have been a dear little girl,' i thought to myself, as i glanced up at her; 'she is still so pretty and sweet;' and i felt that to me she _always_ would seem so, even when her golden hair had grown silver, and her bright eyes dimmer, and her rounded cheeks thin and worn. 'she will always be my dear pretty mamma,' i thought. chapter viii 'i've brought my house with me, like a snail' the interest of listening to mamma's story had made me for the time almost forget about miss trevor's present. but as we got close to the hut and saw george coming to meet us, it rushed back into my mind again. 'i say,' he called out, as he caught sight of us, 'it's past tea-time; hoskins wanted us to begin without waiting for you, but i wouldn't. she said she was sure you were having it up there with those people,' and he nodded his head in the direction of the big house. 'oh no!' said mamma, 'i like tea at home best, my boy.' and 'oh no!' i joined in;' i was really in a hurry to get back, dods, for i have something very interesting to tell you. and you mustn't call them "those people;" they are very nice indeed and _very_ kind. they're going to send----' 'wait till we are at tea to tell him all about it,' interrupted mamma. 'it will take some time, and i see esmé and denzil peeping out impatiently.' tea, you see, had become rather a settled sort of meal, even for mamma, though she and geordie and i had a sort of little dinner or supper, i scarcely know which to call it, later in the evening. but _nursery_ meals had of course to be given up at the hut, as there was no nursery to have them in, so esmé and denzil did not think five o'clock tea a small affair by any means. and whether it was that the being so _very_ close to the sea had sharpened our appetites, or that hoskins and margery between them made such very good 'plain cakes,' i can't say, but i certainly don't remember ever having nicer teas or enjoying them more than at the hut. 'well,' began geordie, after we were all seated comfortably at the table, 'what is the interesting thing you have to tell about, ida? has it anything to do with the--our tenants,' he went on, with a tone of satisfaction in his voice; 'i may call them _that_, for that's what they are.' 'yes, of course it has,' i said. 'you might have guessed that much without being a--what is it you call a man witch--oh yes, a wizard, as you knew mamma and i were there this afternoon, and i began to tell you they were going to send us something. it's the jolliest thing you ever saw, dods--isn't it, mamma? do help me to describe it.' between us we managed to do so pretty well, and i could see that geordie was really very pleased about it. but he was in one of those humours that boys have more often than girls, i think--of not showing that he was pleased--'contradictious,' hoskins calls it, and of trying to poke out something to find fault with or to object to. 'hum, hum,' he kept murmuring; 'yes, oh yes, i know the sort of thing. but there's one point you've forgotten, ida, and mamma too, haven't you?--where is this wonderful chair affair to be kept?' and he looked round the table in a provoking sort of way. 'it won't _always_ be fine dry weather, and certainly it wouldn't get in at the door here by your description, even if we had any room for it to stand in.' i suppose my face fell, and i think mamma, who is as quick as lightning to understand one's little changes of feeling, was rather vexed with geordie, who is--or _was_ rather--he has got out of those half-teasing ways wonderfully, now that he is older--tiresome sometimes, though he is so good, for she said quickly-- 'we shall find some place or plan something about it. don't be afraid, ida dear. it is a beautiful present. geordie will thoroughly appreciate it when he sees it.' 'is it big enough to hold both denny and me together?' asked esmé. 'it's big enough to hide you, so that you couldn't be seen at all, you small person,' said mamma laughing. i felt sure mamma would plan something, so that we need not feel we had got a white elephant in the shape of a garden chair. all the same, geordie's objection did worry me a little. i kept wondering, when i woke in the night, where we _could_ keep miss trevor's present, and hoping that we should not have to send it back after all. i need not have done so, for when it arrived, as it did the next morning, it was even more complete than we had known. it was enveloped in a huge waterproof cover, looking like a miniature van or waggon, as the gardener, sent with it, slowly pushed it along! and he explained that, for eight months or so of the year, it would be quite safe outside. for there were also rollers--i don't know exactly what to call them--strips of wood you could roll _it_ on to, to keep the wheels from the damp of the ground, if it _was_ damp, though, as the man said, when he had told us all this and shown us how to slide the wheels into the grooves, 'it's really never for to say damp or wet in the pine woods. if it was wheeled into a good sheltered place, i'd undertake to say it'd be safer and drier than inside most coach-houses or stables.' he was an eastercove man, i should explain, and of course he thought there was no place in the world to compare with it! there was another addition to the belongings of the chair, which we had not known of, and that was a hot water tin which fitted into the footstool, in the same neat, compact way which everything belonging to it did. really a very good thing, for of course any one sitting still out-of-doors may get cold feet, even though it is not winter or wintry weather. geordie stood with his hands in his pockets admiring it all, without a fault to find; not that he wanted to find one, i feel sure. he was in a much cheerier humour this morning, and perhaps he was feeling a little sorry for having wet-blanketed my pleasure at all, the night before. mamma called us all away from our new toy at last. geordie had to set off to mr. lloyd's, and for me, alas! it was one of the days on which i had to act governess to the little ones. i did not mind denzil so much, though he was--i don't mind if he sees this--i am afraid i must say he still is, _very_ slow at lessons. but he cannot help it, not altogether, anyway, and i do think he generally does his best, and when you know that of any one, you can be much less particular with them, can't you? besides, once he _has_ 'taken in' anything thoroughly, he does not forget it, which is a great comfort to a teacher. it was esmé who tried me the most. such a flibbertigibbet (that is one of hoskins's queer words, and mamma does not like me to use them much, but it is so expressive) you never saw. if you got her to give her attention, or thought you had, and were feeling quite pleased and even proud of it, as she sat there with her bright eyes fixed on the map, we'll say, while you were pointing but how big russia was, and how tiny england seemed with the sea all round it, all of a sudden she would say something like this-- 'ida, _did_ you see that girl just in front of the school-children in church?' (geography, i think, came on a monday morning.) 'i couldn't make out if the ribbon on her hat was green or blue, or both shaded together.' and then if i scolded her and begged her to think of her lessons and not of people's hats in church, she would explain in the funniest way, that thinking of the sea, which sometimes looks blue and sometimes green, and sometimes you don't know which, had made her remember how puzzled she had been about the girl's hat. upon which denzil must come in with his remark, very wise and proper of course-- '_i_ think,' he said, 'that esmé and nobody, shouldn't think about hats and ribbins and things like that in church--never. _i_ think it'd be much better if ladies and girls dressed all like each other, like men and boys, when they go to church.' 'oh, indeed,' said esmé; 'and who was it that was in a terrible fuss about his tie not being knotted up the right way only last sunday as ever was, and----' 'esmé!' i exclaimed, horrified, 'where _did_ you learn anything so vulgar--"last sunday as ever was"? what would mamma say if she heard you?' 'it was margery that said it,' replied esmé, not the least put out; 'and i thought it sounded rather nice, but i won't say it again if you'd rather i didn't. _is_ it nonsense, ida, about men and boys never thinking about their clothes? geordie can't bear his best hat to be touched, and i've noticed gentlemen, big ones, i mean like papa--looking as cross as anything if they couldn't put their hats safe. _i_ think they fuss more on sundays in church than any other time.' 'well, don't talk any more about it just now,' i said, 'or you will never get your geography into your head.' but it was already too late. there was very little use trying to call back esmé's wandering wits once they had started off on an expedition of their own, and i really began to fear i should have to tell mamma that i was very little, if any, use as the child's governess. about this too, as things turned out, i need not have worried. it is curious how very seldom what we vex ourselves about before it happens does come to pass! i suppose this should show us the harm and uselessness of fancying troubles, or exaggerating them. we were very busy and happy that afternoon, i remember, when george came back from kirke, in arranging the wonderful chair. we settled it near the porch, and to please us, as it was really a very fine, almost warm day, mamma said we might have tea there, and that she would sit in the chair with esmé on the stool, and the little table hooked on for their cups and plates. i made tea on a little table in the porch, and dods and den handed it out. it was rather a squash, but we didn't mind. mamma looked so comfortable under the awning, which we had drawn out, as we wanted to try everything; the only mistake was having the hot-water bottle in the footstool filled; poor mamma was obliged to ask to have it taken out, as she said she was afraid her feet were really nearly getting boiled, and of course it was not cold enough weather to require it. after tea was over and the things taken away, mamma said she would stay where she was for a little and finish a letter to papa, in which she would tell him all about her movable 'boudoir,' as she called it. she really seemed to have taken a great fancy to it, which i was very pleased at, for of us all--though she never said or seemed to think so--it was certainly mamma who had had to give up the most of what she was accustomed to, when we came to live at the hut. esmé and denzil ran down to the shore to play, and dods and i strolled round a little. i remember all about that evening, even without looking up in my diary. i think i was telling him the story mamma had told me, of when she was a little girl, and the bathing machine, and papa saving her, and we had walked up a short way behind the house, to a part of the path, or road--it was a road, though a small one--from where you could see a bit of the drive from the lodge to the big house. suddenly something came in view--the queerest-looking thing you ever saw, like a van, and yet not like one, more like a small omnibus, only all over the top it was bumped out into all kinds of shapes, so that it looked like a gypsy's basket waggon, with a cover over. 'what can that be?' i said to geordie. and we both stared hard, as the thing slowly made its way along. 'the trevors must have queer things sent to them,' i said. 'it isn't the railway van from the station, and yet, if it was travelling pedlars or anything of that kind, they wouldn't have let it in at the gates.' geordie did not speak. he has better eyes than i--i have always been a little near-sighted--and he stood there gazing before him with an odd expression creeping over his face. he saw--what i did not--a head, or part of one, poked out of the window at the back of the strange vehicle. 'geordie,' i said at last, 'what are you staring at so? what _do_ you think it is? oh!' as i suddenly caught sight of a new feature in the mystery, 'i do believe the thing is coming down _here_, and not going to the big house at all.' for there was a side road out of the drive just about the part that the strange carriage or waggon had now got to, which led in our direction. 'yes,' said geordie, turning to me, and speaking very slowly and distinctly, though there was a twinkle in his eyes, which rather spoilt the solemnity of his tone, 'you are right, ida. i will tell you what it is--it is the _balloon_.' now indeed it was i who stared! what could he mean? did balloons come in vans, and what had we to do with them? it was not for a moment or two that i remembered our joke about taisy,--that she meant to astonish us by coming down in a balloon or something wonderful and original of that kind, from her mysterious hints in her letter to mamma. and then i seemed to understand it all, almost better than dods did. it quite took my breath away. 'come, come, dods!' i cried, setting off as i spoke, 'let's run to meet her. oh, taisy, taisy, you funny girl! oh, how delighted i am!' we ran so fast that we reached the waggon almost before the driver and horses--there were two--seemed fairly launched on the side road, and in time to hear an eager voice from within calling out, 'all right, straight on, now. there is plenty of room.' it was theresa of course, but just at first she did not see us. she was leaning out on the other side to make the driver hear. but she turned, fast enough, when our shouts reached her, though she did not jump down, as we half expected. [illustration: 'i can't very well get out,' she said.] 'i can't very well get out,' she said. 'i'm so packed in, and there are some breakable things. but i'll manage it in a minute. yes, yes--it's i myself! i've come to stay with you, though i have not been invited. and--you'll understand directly, i've brought my house--or rather my room--with me like a snail, so auntie can't turn me away again.' she was so excited and delighted with herself, and we were so excited and delighted too, that we could scarcely speak for laughing. we did not let her get out; she _was_ so packed in, as she said, but we walked by the door, she talking as hard as she could, for her vehicle was lumbering along at a foot's pace. 'yes,' she said, in answer to our eager questions; 'i've been travelling like this since ten o'clock. no, not _quite_ like this--we did trot on the high road. the waggonette----' 'waggonette,' interrupted george, 'i should call it a--waggon and a half!' 'well, never mind about that. call it an omnibus if you like. anyway, _it_ started yesterday, and spent the night at wetherford. granny wanted me to come all the way to kirke by train and to write to tell you, which would have spoilt the fun. so i got her to let me '('to _let_ you indeed, miss taisy,' thought i to myself, though i did not say so; 'i know better. you said sweetly, "granny, dear, i just must;" and she said, "well, well, my darling, if you must, you must, i suppose")--'to let me come to wetherford this morning with her maid, and to meet old dawson' (the driver) 'there, and come on as you see. i had hard work to find room for myself inside, and i did begin to think we should never get here! but the evenings are long now, and it's been a lovely day; everything's dry and ready--bedding and all. there'll be plenty of time to unpack, and dawson is to stay the night at kirke, and ride home on one horse, leading the other.' 'and leaving the waggon,' i said, rather stupidly i must own; i think i was really feeling rather bewildered with the excitement and laughing and taisy's flow of explanation. she burst out laughing again at this. 'of course,' she said. 'if i didn't keep my house, i might as well go back again. but do let us hurry on to tell auntie all about it.' i think in her heart of hearts poor taisy was feeling a tiny atom anxious as to what mamma would think of it all. but she need not have done. mamma understood her so well and trusted her good sense as well as her affection, in spite of dear taisy's _rather_ wild ways sometimes. she--mamma, i mean--was sitting quietly where we had left her, reading, in the new chair. and it was nice to see the bright look of pleasure which came over her face when she realised that it was taisy, really taisy, and not an 'optical illusion,' who stood before her and then hugged and kissed her as no illusion could have done. 'but, my child,' said she, 'where----' 'where are you going to put me?' interrupted our new guest; 'look, auntie, look up and see,' and she pointed to the van, which was just coming in sight again. 'i have brought my house with me.' mamma's face looked completely puzzled now. 'i will explain,' theresa went on, and indeed george and i wanted this part of it explained as much as mamma did. 'that lovely old thing that's lumbering along is granny's discarded luggage-waggonette. it hasn't been used for centuries; it is really a small omnibus more than a waggonette. i ferreted it out in one of the coach-houses, where i was poking about with a vague idea that i might find something of the kind to make it possible for me to come to you after all. and i got the coachman to help me. we had it thoroughly dried and aired, and the seats at one side taken out--and a friend of the coachman's, who is a clever carpenter, has fitted it up. you will see. there is a table that slips down when not wanted, and a frame in one corner to hold a basin and ewer, and hooks for hanging things, and a tray like a deep drawer under the seat that's to be the bed. oh, it's lovely! and really as good as a cabin on board ship,' and taisy stopped to take breath. 'and did aunt emmeline know about it?' asked mamma. 'she gave me leave to do what i liked with the old thing,' said taisy; adding candidly, 'i did not tell her _what_ i was doing till it was all ready. she thought i was fixing it up for photographing, i think. but in the end she was nearly as excited about it as i was, and she gave me all sorts of things--blankets and pillows and crockery and little curtains. it's just stuffed with things--inside and out--though i brought as few personal things--clothes, i mean--as possible, for i don't want to crowd _you_ up, you see. i shall have room for everything when it's all unpacked, you will see,' she added, with a touch of apology in her voice. 'dearest child,' said mamma, 'as if we would mind that, if _you_ were comfortable.' taisy's eyes beamed. 'comfortable,' she repeated; 'that is no word for what i am going to be.' 'and how long may you stay?' asked geordie. 'as long as you like to have me,' was the reply. 'granny is expecting her old friend to-morrow, and i _know_ they will be much happier without me. i have a letter from granny for you, auntie, explaining her plans. but there's no hurry about that. i want to begin unpacking. and what a lovely arrangement all this is!' she went on admiringly, touching the arm of mamma's chair as she spoke, 'nearly as beautiful as my waggon!' then the history of miss trevor's present had to be related, and all its wonderful perfections exhibited. and then hoskins appeared with a cup of fresh tea for miss theresa, which she offered with a face all over smiles, for taisy was a great favourite of hers. and 'miss theresa' drank the tea, and devoured bread and butter and cake in a most gratifying way; and then she _had_ to run through the hut, and see all that we had done to it. so that, after all, it was rather late before we got to the unpacking of the waggon, though hoskins and margery and dawson had already done a good deal. chapter ix 'the kind sea, too, auntie dear' we _did_ get everything unpacked that night, but only in a rough-and-ready way. we should have liked to go on till midnight or later even, working by moonlight, for it was full moon and very clear weather just then, but this mamma would not hear of. and hoskins in her sensible way pointed out how much more nicely and neatly we could finish it all by daylight with the straw and packing cloths all tidied away, which she would 'see to' first thing in the morning. she and mamma had already arranged for taisy to sleep in my room that night, by esmé's sleeping with mamma, and by taking out the end of esmé's cot, to make it longer--long enough after a fashion, for _me_. how we laughed, taisy and i, though any other girl would have been tired after all she had done, and the tiresomely slow drive from wetherford! mamma was obliged to knock on the--wall, i was going to say--but of course it was not a wall, only a wooden partition, to tell us to be quiet. i never knew any one with such spirits as taisy--not only high spirits, but _nice_ ones, for she was never boisterous, and she knew in a moment if you were not inclined for laughing or joking, though her fun was always there, ready to bubble up again at the right moment. she was full of sympathy too, in spite of her cheerfulness; no one could possibly have called her heartless. looking back, i can see what a _very_ good thing it was for us all that she came, even for mamma. we were in danger just then of being too much taken up with our own little life--the life of the hut--which is one kind of selfishness. and dear mamma in her _un_selfishness might have got too silent about all she was feeling; she was so afraid of making us young ones melancholy. but i have seen her sitting or standing, when she thought we did not notice, gazing at the sea--gazing, gazing, as if she could scarcely bear it and yet must look at it. the cruel sea, which had taken dear papa so far away! on fine, sunny days i almost think somehow it seemed worse. i know that feeling about the sea myself, as if it _were_ cruel really, below its loveliness and brilliance. and i am sure she said something of this to taisy, the very day after taisy came, for i heard _her_ say, though her eyes were full of tears-- 'the _kind_ sea, too, auntie dear, which will bring him back again.' and as for us children, it was just delightful past words to have theresa. we had been very happy at the hut already, very busy and interested, but the _fun_ of the life there came with taisy. she was full of it, though the things we found so amusing are too trifling, even if they would not seem really silly, to write down. the arranging of her 'house,' as she would call it, was the nicest part of all the arranging we had had to do. we pulled it close up to one side of one of our doors--the 'parish room' doors you understand, where there were no windows, so that the waggon was, so to say, protected by one of the iron walls--i don't know what else to call it, and which also gave the advantage of a tap in the night arousing us at once, _in case_ taisy felt frightened, which she never did. but the tapping was very convenient all the same, as she could awaken me in the mornings when they got warm enough for very early bathing, without 'disturbing the whole house,' as hoskins said. and i could tap to her, last thing at night, to wish her good-night. you never saw a cosier place than we made of it; that first day after it was all arranged, we _couldn't_ leave off admiring it. there was taisy's bed along one side, rather a narrow one of course, though not worse than a berth at sea, and looking so bright with the lovely scarlet blankets lady emmeline had given her. and in one corner a little frame which held a ewer and basin, and in the other some hooks for hanging things with a red curtain that drew round, and short red curtains to the windows, and a _tiny_ chest of drawers; it was really one end of an old writing-table, or _secretaire_, to hold gloves and pocket-handkerchiefs and belts and small things like that. then under the bed there was a long low trunk, what is called a cabin portmanteau, i believe, which held taisy's best dresses, of which she had certainly not brought many, and hooks higher up than the hanging ones, for her hats. you wouldn't believe, unless you have ever been a long voyage--i _have_, since those days--all that was got into the old omnibus, by planning and ingenuity. taisy was as proud of it as if she had made or built, i suppose one should say, the whole carriage; indeed, i think we all were, once we had got everything perfectly arranged. mamma carried off some of her _most_ crushable things, as she said she had really some spare room in her own cupboards or wardrobes; and i took her best hat, as it had lovely white feathers, which it would have been a thousand pities to spoil, and which there was plenty of space for in the big box where esmé's and mine were. and then taisy declared she felt her house quite spacious. lady emmeline had sent several things for us, some especially for mamma herself, which i was particularly glad of, as dear mamma, never thinking of herself and anxious to leave the big house as pretty as usual, had left behind some little things that i am sure she missed. and old aunt emmeline and taisy seemed to have guessed by magic what these were. 'how nice!' i exclaimed, when taisy had got them unpacked. 'this screen is just like the one you have in the boudoir at home, and cushions--i _know_ you will be glad of some cushions, mamma, though you wouldn't bring any with you.' 'and a _couvre-pied_,' added taisy; 'granny was sure you hadn't got enough "wraps." nothing will persuade her that it is not always as cold as winter down here.' 'it is most kind of her,' said mamma; 'and i really am very, very pleased to have these things. and--did you know, ida?--aunt emmeline has also sent us two hampers full of all manner of good things to eat--chickens and a turkey, and a ham and pickled tongues, and i don't know all what.' 'yes,' said taisy; 'nothing will persuade her either that you are not----' she stopped suddenly and got rather red. 'i know,' said mamma, laughing, 'that we are not in danger of starvation as well as of cold. you need not mind, taisy dear--as if _anything_ could offend us that you said or that aunt emmeline thought. and of course it is true that we are anxious to spend as little as we can, while things are so uncertain.' 'and then we can't cure hams or pickle tongues like at home,' i added. so all the kind old lady's gifts were very welcome. i think hoskins was more pleased with the eatables than with anything. things had been nice before, but after taisy came, we really did enjoy ourselves. she was always planning something amusing or interesting, and mamma declared she had never heard me or geordie laugh so much in her life. it was very good for geordie to be 'routed out' a little, as taisy said. he was inclined to be too serious and anxious, and to overwork, at this time, because of the scholarship, and as i had put it into his head, i was doubly glad of being helped to keep him bright and merry, as i know he worked all the better for it. he was _really_ anxious-minded--not like denzil, who never laughed and was as solemn as an owl, not because _he_ was anxious, but just because he was too fat and comfortable to worry--poor old den!--he really _is_ so good-tempered, i don't like laughing at him. it was very nice too that just about this time came the first really long letter from papa; up to now he had written scarcely more than scraps. and this letter was decidedly more cheerful and hopeful. he had begun to go into things thoroughly, he said, and had got very good friends to help him, and he was beginning to think that, at worst, it would not turn out _too_ awfully bad. and for this mamma felt very grateful, though she had so bravely prepared for whatever might be to come. so for a few weeks we went on very contentedly, more than that, indeed--very brightly too. it was, for me, too delightful not to have much governessing to do, for taisy at once took the most of this on herself. and i assure you, she _did_ keep miss esmé in order. in return for this she joined me in some of my reading with mamma, and she always has said that she learnt more in this way about some lessons than she had ever done before. mamma is very clever. we went on, as i said, pretty steadily like this for some weeks till another rather big thing happened--almost as big as the 'descent of the balloon,' which we always called theresa's arrival. but before telling about this new event, i must relate a curious thing that happened one day. it was one afternoon--just after tea--we were still sitting out of doors where we had had tea--mamma in her 'boudoir,' for the days were getting quite long, and we were specially glad to be in the open air as much as possible, for we had had a good deal of rain for nearly a week--mamma was reading, and i think i was too--when hoskins came out of the house looking rather 'funny'--queer, i mean, as if not quite sure if she were vexed or not. 'if you please, ma'am,' she said, 'there's a gypsy at the back door, and i can't get her to go till she's seen you.' 'a gypsy,' mamma exclaimed in great surprise; 'how has she managed to get inside the grounds? and i did not know there were any in the neighbourhood just now. it is so seldom they come this way too. taisy,' she went on, looking round, 'you might speak to her for me and ask what she wants.' but taisy was not there. 'miss theresa has gone into the woods, i think,' said hoskins; 'i heard her calling to miss esmé just after tea-time.' mamma and i had not noticed the others going; our books must have been interesting, and time passes quickly in such a case. 'how did the gypsy get through the lodge gates?' mamma repeated. 'that's what i asked her first thing,' hoskins answered; 'but she did not answer very distinctly. she says she has come a good bit out of her way to see you--there are not any camping about near here. she has a boy with her--perhaps she wants something for him--quite a little fellow. she's a pleasant, civil-spoken woman--indeed, gypsies generally are if they want to get something out of you.' 'like most people, i am afraid,' said mamma, smiling as she reluctantly prepared to move. 'perhaps i had better speak to her; it would not do to have her lurking about all night. they are queer people--i should not like to rouse any ill-feeling in a gypsy.' 'mayn't i come with you, mamma?' i said. 'i have never spoken to a real gypsy.' mamma looked at me rather doubtfully. 'oh yes,' she said; 'but i don't want her to tell your fortune or anything of that kind, ida, so do not encourage her if she begins about it.' we made our way through the hut, followed by hoskins, to the door at the back, where, as she had said, the strange visitor was standing--margery, who was washing up (i never saw margery _not_ washing up, by the bye), was also keeping an eye on the woman, though i could see by the movement of her shoulders that she was giggling. mamma went forward. 'what do you want to see me for?' she said gently but rather coldly. the woman lifted her face--she was not quite as tall as mamma, and looked at her closely, but not rudely. she was older than i had somehow expected. her skin was very brown, her hair jet-black, her eyes not _quite_ as dark as one imagines a gypsy's must be; i thought to myself that perhaps the very tanned complexion made them seem lighter. she was wrinkled and weather-beaten, but not by any means ugly, though not beautiful, except her teeth, which were extremely white and even. 'yes, my lady,' she said, 'i did want to see you. i have come far to do so.' her accent was peculiar, her voice low, and she talked slowly, almost as if using a foreign language. 'how did you get through the gates?' mamma asked. the answer was a shake of the head. 'i have not passed through them--not to-day,' she said. 'there are ways--when one is in earnest.' 'i hope you have not broken through the hedges, or over the walls,' said mamma, rather uneasily. another shake of the head. 'no, no--have no fear; i have done no harm,' was the reply, and somehow mamma seemed as if she did not like to say any more about it. 'but what do you want to see me for?' she repeated. 'has it anything to do with the boy? is he your son, or your grandson?' and she glanced at the little fellow beside the gypsy. a very little fellow he was--dark too, very dark-skinned and grave and rather frightened-looking. he stood there with his eyes cast down, a shock of black hair tumbling over his forehead, so that it was difficult to distinguish the upper part of his face. mamma looked at him curiously--afterwards she told me she felt sorry for him, and wondered if the woman was good to him. she--the woman--glanced at him and said something rather sharply in a queer-sounding language, on which the little fellow gave a sort of tug to his cap, though without actually taking it off--meant, of course, for politeness. but he never spoke the whole time they were there. 'no, my lady,' the woman replied, turning again to mamma,--'no, i have no favour to ask for the child. he is not my son--nor my grandson,' and here she smiled, showing her white teeth; 'i am not quite old enough for that, though i may look it. i wanted to see you for a reason of my own--to do you no harm, you may be sure. and one day you will know the reason. but now,' and she held out her hand, 'you will let me tell your lines? not much, nor far--i would not ask it. just a little, and mostly of the past.' mamma shook her head. 'then the young lady's?' said the gypsy, looking at me. mamma shook her head still more decidedly. 'no, no,' she said; 'i would rather you told mine than hers. such things make young people fanciful.' 'then your own, my lady,' said the woman, and again she held out her hand persuasively,--'just a little.' i drew nearer. 'do, mamma,' i whispered; 'she may be offended if you don't.' mamma laughed, and held out her right hand. 'cross it with silver,' said the woman, simply but gravely, as if she were issuing a command. i had my purse in my pocket, and drew it out. 'give her a shilling,' said mamma. i did so. then the gypsy bent over mamma's hand, studying it closely and murmuring to herself. 'the other too,' she then said, without looking up. mamma gave it. 'yes,' said the gypsy, almost as if speaking to herself,--'yes--you have come through some dangers--water was the worst, but that was long ago. now water has robbed you of your dearest, but only for a time. it will restore what it has carried away. and you will be happy. you have a brave heart. strange things have happened of late to you. you have with you an unexpected visitor. and you are going to have another unexpected visit--a shorter one. show kindness to your guest; it is always well to do so, though you may not care to receive a stranger. and----' 'no,' said mamma,--'no, my good woman. i really don't want to hear any more. it is getting late, and you say you have come far and this little fellow will be tired. you had better go,'--she drew away her hand as she spoke, though quite gently. 'very well, my lady,' said the woman, without persisting further; 'and i thank you for your courtesy.' 'shall i send some one to see you through the lodge gates?' said mamma; but the woman shook her head. 'there is no need,' she said. 'i shall not pass that way,' and she walked off quietly. hoskins came forward and stood beside us. 'i declare,' she said, 'she is going by the shore! what a round to get to the high road!' 'perhaps she is going to meet a boat,' i said. for there were little coves farther on, from where boats were easily launched, and whence an hour or so's rowing would bring them to a small fishing village called brigsea. 'very likely,' said mamma; 'that is a good idea and explains the mystery. but she was a queer woman all the same,' and mamma seemed a tiny bit upset. 'she only told you good things, though,' i said. 'i do wonder how she knew about your escape from a great danger by water, long ago.' 'yes,' said mamma. 'it is very strange how they know things.' 'and about our unexpected visitor,' i went on; 'that meant taisy, of course. but i wonder who the new one coming can be?' 'oh, nobody, i daresay,' said mamma. 'visitors and letters coming are one of their stock prophecies. still she did not strike me as quite a commonplace gypsy. i wish taisy had been here to see her too. where can they all be, i wonder?' we were not kept uncertain very long. we heard a whoop, followed by the appearance of the two boys, who told us that taisy and esmé were coming directly. 'we've all been in the wood,' said geordie. 'i wish you had been here,' i said. 'there's been a gypsy at the back door,' and i went on to tell him of our strange visitor and what she had said. geordie whistled. 'i should have liked to talk to her,' he remarked. 'did she say how she got into the grounds?' i shook my head. 'no,' i replied. 'she was very mysterious about it, but she went away in the direction of the shore, so she prob----' i was interrupted by another whoop, and in a moment or two up came taisy and esmé, looking very hot and untidy, but very eager to hear all details of our rather uncanny visitor, as soon as the word 'gypsy' had caught their ears. and we talked so much about her that at last mamma said we had really better change the subject, or she would begin to wish she had not agreed to see the woman. 'you will all be dreaming about her and fancying she knew much more than she did,' mamma added; and though she smiled and did not seem at all vexed, i somehow felt that she rather wished the gypsy had not come. one little thing which she said helped to explain this. 'i cannot get the small boy out of my mind,' it was. 'she spoke sharply to him, and he seemed frightened. i do hope she is not unkind to him.' 'oh no,' i said; 'she had not an unkind face at all, though there was something rather--_odd_--about it, besides her being a gypsy.' taisy laughed, and stroked mamma's arm. 'i should think it _most_ unlikely she is unkind to the child,' she said, 'though he is not her son--or grandson! dear auntie, you are too tender-hearted.' just then i heard a sort of giggle from esmé, who, for a wonder, was sitting quietly with a book in a corner. i felt vexed with her. 'esmé,' i whispered, 'it's very rude to laugh at anything taisy says to mamma.' chapter x 'it's another snail' it was the next morning at breakfast that another strange thing happened. it was when the letters came. we did not get them quite so early as at home, for it would have brought the postman a good deal out of his way to come down to the hut, so it had been arranged for him to leave them at the lodge, and for them to be sent on from there. this morning there were only two: one for mamma--a long one, it seemed, but not a foreign one, as i saw by a glance at the thick paper while she was reading it. but i had not noticed anything about taisy's, and when a queer kind of little gasp made me look round at her, my first thought was that there was bad news of papa, which some one had somehow sent first to her--taisy--for her to 'break it,' as they say, to mamma. and my heart began to beat furiously, and no wonder, i think, for taisy was as white as the tablecloth, and was evidently on the point of bursting into tears. 'taisy, taisy,' i whispered. luckily she was sitting next me, so that i could speak to her in a low voice without being overheard. 'is it--oh, is it, anything wrong with papa?' and i felt myself clasping my hands together under the table in an agony of terror. _my_ face brought back taisy's presence of mind. 'no, no,' she said. 'nothing of that kind--nothing wrong really. i know i am very silly,' and already the colour was coming back to her cheeks, for she was not a nervous or delicate girl at all. 'it is only--oh, i must tell auntie first, and then you will understand the sort of fright i got.' she stopped abruptly, for just then mamma looked up from her letter and spoke to taisy. she was smiling a little, which made me feel all the more puzzled as to what was the matter with taisy when i heard her reply to mamma's question, 'have you too a letter from your grandmother?' 'yes, auntie,' as if the two words were all she could force herself to say. still, mamma did not notice her peculiar manner. she herself turned again to her letter. 'i must say my respect for our gypsy has risen,' she remarked, 'though i suppose it is really only a rather odd coincidence.' at this taisy's colour changed again and her lips began to quiver. and, happening to glance across the table, i saw that esmé's mouth was wide open, and that she was staring gravely at taisy, in a way quite unusual with her. i could not make it out at all. breakfast was over by this time. mamma turned to the children. 'run off, dears, but don't be very long. you have just time for a little blow before taisy and ida are ready for lessons.' 'but, mamma,' began esmé, 'i want to speak to taisy first.' 'no "buts," esmé,' said mamma decidedly. we were well used to them. 'taisy won't be ready to speak to you just yet. run off at----' she had not time to finish the sentence before she at last noticed taisy; the tears were really starting by now, and her breath came in little chokes. 'go, children,' mamma repeated, looking startled, 'and geordie, dear, you had better be getting ready for kirke.' geordie, big boy as he was, was very obedient. he got up, first catching hold of denzil by his sailor collar, to make him hurry up. he--george--must have been as puzzled as any one, for he had no idea of course what the letters contained. but he contented himself with a kind of reassuring nod to taisy as he left the room, and a sign to me as he gave a little gesture of the hand in her direction, as much as to say, 'be good to her, ida.' then taisy broke down and fairly sobbed. mamma got up and came round to her. 'my dearest child,' she said, 'what _is_ the matter? it has something to do with your grandmother's letter, i can see. do you dislike this boy--what is his name--oh yes, rolf--rolf dacre--that she writes about?' 'oh no, no, indeed. he is a very nice boy, as nice as he can be,' taisy replied, amidst her tears. 'it isn't that at all. it's--it's about the gypsy--the saying it like a prophecy--it wasn't right. i--i shouldn't have done it, but i thought it was no harm, only fun;' and she began sobbing again. for a moment or two mamma and i stared at each other, as if we thought taisy was losing her wits. then gradually light began to break in upon us. "_you_ shouldn't have done it," you say, dear,' mamma repeated. 'do you mean--can you mean----' taisy nodded. 'yes,' she said; 'you have guessed it, i see. but please do not be angry with me. i meant no harm.' 'then _you_ were the gypsy,' mamma exclaimed, as if she could scarcely believe it. 'and,' i added, 'the little boy was--oh, he was esmé, i suppose. that was why she was looking so queer at breakfast.' 'was she?' said taisy, 'i didn't notice. yes, she was the little boy. i did not mean to mix her up in it, but she came poking about when the boys were helping me to dress up, and we thought the best way to keep her quiet was for her to join in it. but, auntie--i was going to tell you all about it to-day--you believe me, don't you?' and she lifted such an appealing, tear-stained face to mamma, that mamma could not help patting it reassuringly and kissing her. 'it was very cleverly done--very,' she said. 'and i see no harm in a little trick of the kind if not carried too far. the only thing is--why did you not unmask yourself at once? perhaps--for esmé's sake--it would have been better not to keep up the mystification so long.' 'i know,' said taisy, calmer now, but speaking very humbly, 'that is what i did wrong. it might have led to her telling what was untrue. last night when you were pitying the child--who was _not_ my son or grandson'--and here taisy's sunny nature broke out again in one of her own merry laughs--'i could _scarcely_ keep it in.' 'but why did you, then?' i asked. 'oh, that is what i wanted to explain! i had a sort of wager with geordie. he said i might take you both in _once_, but certainly not twice, and he dared me to try it. so i made a second plan. i was coming again to-day--quite differently--dressed like a rather old-maidish lady, who wanted to know if you would let her have rooms here, as the sea-air and pine-wood air would be so good for her. i meant to have made her very pertinacious, and very funny, and i wanted you to get quite cross with her, auntie dear,' and taisy could not help a little sigh of regret. 'that was why the gypsy foretold that you were going to have another unexpected visitor. i wasn't quite happy about it. when i woke in the night, i felt as if i was carrying the trick too far, as you say. and then when i got granny's letter about another _real_ visitor, all of a sudden i felt so frightened--as if my joke had been turned into earnest as a punishment for my--my daring to predict anything.' 'yes, i understand,' said mamma; 'but do not get exaggerated about it.' then she was silent for a moment or two and seemed to be thinking it over. 'was esmé to have come again?' i asked. taisy shook her head. 'oh no--it was on condition of her keeping quite out of the way the second time--for of course she would have begun giggling if she had seen me, and spoilt it all--that i let her act the gypsy boy.' 'i think,' said mamma, 'that i must unconsciously have recognised something about her--that it was some feeling of that kind that made me so sorry for the boy. but about the whole affair--well, yes, taisy dear. perhaps it was scarcely right--not _quite_ respectful to one so much older than you as i am to let it go on so long. and not quite a good thing for esmé.' 'i know--i see,' said taisy very penitently. 'but,' mamma continued, 'don't exaggerate it now. i will--and you will help me to do so--put it all right by a little explanation to esmé. and don't get it into your head that the coincidence of a real visitor being proposed to us is in any way a "punishment" to you for your piece of fun, though i can understand your feeling startled.' 'oh!' exclaimed taisy, 'i shall never forget what i felt when i opened granny's letter and saw what it was about.' 'then,' said mamma, 'you had no sort of idea that the thing was the least possible?' 'not the very slightest,' taisy replied. 'you see it has happened unexpectedly to every one.' 'yes,' said mamma, glancing again at her letter; 'but you know rolf?' 'i have not seen him for more than a year,' said taisy. 'he spent one or two short holidays with us when his aunt, miss merry, was with granny. he is a very nice boy. i am sure george would like him, though he is two years or so older than dods.' i was growing rather impatient by this time to hear all about the contents of the letters which had caused such a sensation. 'do tell me about it, mamma,' i said. 'is it some one else coming to stay with us? where _could_ we put any one?' taisy began to laugh. 'that's the fun of it,' she said. 'it's another snail--some one who will bring his house with him!' mamma laughed too, but i could see that she was thinking over the new proposal, whatever it was, rather seriously. then between them they told me all about it. it appeared that aunt emmeline's friend, miss merry, had a nephew, the son of a sister, much, much younger than herself, who had died some years ago. the boy's father was in india, so he sometimes, though not always, spent his holidays with his aunt. and this spring something had happened--i forget what exactly--illness at his school, or his leaving school for some reason, sooner than had been expected--which left him with nowhere to go to for some time. 'as ill-luck would have it,' lady emmeline wrote to mother, 'just as taisy had gone to you, and bertha merry and i were settled cosily together, down comes this thunderbolt in the shape of a great hobbledehoy of a boy, who would be utterly out of his element with two elderly ladies and sure to get into mischief. not that he is not a nice fellow and a good boy--i know him to be both, otherwise i would certainly not propose what i am going to do.' and this was the proposal which she had written about--she or miss merry, or both perhaps--to taisy too--that rolf should come to us at the hut, and join geordie, if possible, in his lessons with mr. lloyd, and be just one of the family for the time. _he_ would be as happy as a boy could be; of that his aunt was sure, and would do anything in his power, like a big brother, to help mamma with the younger ones. but the fun of the thing was, that he would bring his room with him! there would be no difficulty about the expense of it. his father was rich and rolf an only child, and his aunt was free to spend whatever she thought right upon him, and being a very energetic little woman, as i think many old maids are, she had already written to some place where such things were to be got, to get sizes and prices and everything required for a neat little iron room, fitted up as a bedroom; and if mamma was so very, very kind as to agree to take him in, rolf would be ready to come the very next week. of course we talked it over a lot. it had to be considered if hoskins and margery could manage another guest, and we were almost surprised to find how pleased hoskins was about it. 'miss theresa,' she said, 'was such a help; there had not seemed half so much to do since she came. and the weather was getting so nice and mild, we would scarcely need fires at all soon, except perhaps 'a little bit, of an evening in the drawing-room.' and it would be such a good thing for master george to have a companion a little older than himself before going to school, which mamma in her own mind had already thought the same about. i never knew hoskins quite so cheery about anything. i think the truth was, that she had thoroughly enjoyed the gypsy mystification which had been confided to her. and i believe, at the bottom of her heart, she thought that somehow or other taisy had had a sudden gift of prediction, and that it would be very unlucky to refuse to receive the unlooked-for visitor. anyhow it ended in mamma's writing to aunt emmeline and miss merry, consenting pleasantly to rolf's joining us, provided he promised, or they for him, to be content with our present very simple quarters and way of living. 'that i am sure he will be,' said taisy, who had quite recovered her spirits by the time, or rather long before, the letters were written. 'any boy would be a goose who wasn't delighted with the hut, and rolf is certainly not a goose.' the only person who did not seem quite pleased about it was george. at first i thought this very strange, as naturally you would have expected him to be very delighted at the idea of a companion of his own standing, so to say, which he had never had. but dods was a queer boy in some respects. he is less so now on the whole, though he is just as dear and 'old-fashioned,' in nice ways, as ever, and i do think the _right_ ways in which he has changed are a good deal thanks to rolf. perhaps geordie was a little jealous of him before he came, without knowing it. it was not unnatural, considering everything. poor old dods, you see, had been left by papa in his own place, as the 'man' of the party, and we had all got into the habit of looking to him and even asking his opinion as if he were much older than he really was. and then he was so devoted to taisy; he looked upon himself as a sort of knight to her, i do believe, for down below his matter-of-factness and practicalness, i know now that there is a good deal of romance, and what i can only call poeticalness in dear geordie, so that the idea of a big, handsome, rather dashing fellow coming to take place above him must have been rather trying. i shall never forget the day rolf arrived. i had been feeling sorry for geordie, as i had begun to understand his rather disagreeable manner about rolf, and yet provoked with him too. i did not see after all, i thought to myself, why he should mind rolf's coming, any more than i minded taisy. for though taisy was our own cousin and we loved her dearly, she could not but take a _little_ the place of eldest daughter with mamma, and if she had not been so sweet, it might have been uncomfortable. and after all, rolf was a stranger--and only to be with us a short time. there was far less chance of his really interfering with geordie's own place. these things however are not often set straight by reasoning about them. it is the people themselves--their characters and ways and feelings--that put it all right if it is to be put right. and just as taisy's brightness and unselfishness and simpleness--i can't find a better word--kept away any possibility of jealousy of her on my own part, so it was with rolf. he and she were no sort of relation to each other, and yet in some ways they were very alike. i never did know, and i am sure i never shall know, any one with such a thoroughly straightforward, unfanciful, and yet very loving and sympathising heart as rolf. when i think--but no, i must not allude to that yet--i could scarcely bear to write of these past happy days if i did. but i am wandering away from the day of rolf's arrival. it was not of course a 'balloon surprise,' as dods called taisy's shooting down upon us as she had done, for we knew exactly what train he was coming by, and everything. and it was not so like a 'snail's visit,' which was taisy's own name for hers, as in this case the house came before the snail--the day before. it was a different kind of thing from the parish room--that very substantial affair. this was more like a strong, stout kind of tent--only it did not go up to a quite small point at the top, as i had imagined all tents do. but it was partly made of stretched canvas, with iron rods and bars, and the men who put it up told us it was fireproof as well as waterproof, which mamma was very glad to hear, especially when she saw that a small stove was among the furnishings that came with it. george was very pleased to find that the men from kirke who had received full directions about it all, from the makers, had instructions to set it up wherever we thought best. it almost reconciled him, i could see, to the idea of the stranger boy's visit--even to being pleased at it. and we three--taisy and geordie and i--were not long in finding the best place for the new addition to our encampment. we made it a sort of match, on the other side, to taisy's waggon, though, as it was much prettier to look at, it was placed so that a bit of it showed from the front of the house in a rather picturesque way. inside it really was awfully nice when we got the things unpacked. there was everything that could be wanted for camping out, for i don't think the people had understood that only an additional bedroom was required. they had even sent pots and pans and things like that for cooking, if required, on the stove. 'all the better,' said hoskins, whose face grew beamier and beamier with every article that appeared. 'i shall not be put about now if anything goes wrong with the kitchen fire, as has been at the back of my mind now and then. master dacre, by what miss theresa says, isn't one to grumble if we had to do a bit of cooking in his room, once in a way.' 'no, indeed,' said taisy laughing; 'he'd think it the best of fun and be quite ready to act kitchen-maid.' she declared she was getting quite jealous, as all the perfectly new and fresh furniture and fittings were set in their places, for of course her waggon had been provided with what she required in rather a makeshift way. there were tables and chairs and hanging presses and bookshelves all made to fold up into next to no compass; a squashy bath, which i did _not_ envy, as i was sure it would topple over and all the water be spilt. and there was a lovely red carpet, or strips of it, so thick and firm, which i _did_ envy, as what we had in our rooms was rather shabby, and two or three rugs, which, by the bye, soon found their way to the inside of the hut, when rolf discovered that we liked them, declaring that they were always kicking about in his way. 'yes,' said mamma, when we summoned her to see and admire, 'it is wonderfully nice. and i am glad it has all come the day before. it makes it seem more like rolf's being our guest, that his room should be all ready to receive him.' then esmé made us laugh. she had been standing gazing at it all with her mouth wide open, as was her way when very much interested or very admiring. and then she said, solemnly for once-- 'he must be very--termenjously rich!' after all, something of a surprise _did_ come with rolf, which i must now tell about. chapter xi 'i made sure of that,' said rolf we _heard_ it--the surprise i mean--almost before we heard the wheels of the fly from kirke, bringing the visitor that _was_ expected. for the drive from the lodge is on well-rolled gravel, and as there had been a few showers lately, it was soft, and you scarcely hear a carriage coming in that case. but what we did hear, as we stood about waiting to welcome rolf cordially, was a sharp, clear little voice, not talking, but--barking, and then, almost at the same moment, we caught sight of the fly, as it reached the turn at which anything coming up the drive could be seen from the hut. 'i do believe,' i exclaimed, turning to taisy,--'i do believe he has got a dog!' taisy shook her head. 'i don't know of it if he has,' she said; 'and i don't think he would have brought one without asking if he might.' taisy looked a little frightened. she felt somehow as if she were rather responsible for rolf, especially on account of the gypsy affair! 'it may be a dog belonging to the flyman,' i went on; 'though in that case it would probably be running alongside, and it doesn't sound as if it were.' our doubts were soon set at rest. when the fly drew up, not at the front--there was no place for carriages there, but on a piece of level ground a little towards the back on one side--out sprang our visitor--a tall, fair boy, a good bit taller than geordie, with nice blue eyes and a very sunny look about him, altogether. and--in his arms he held--as if very much afraid of losing it--the dearest, duckiest, little rough-haired terrier you ever saw! rolf--for of course it was rolf--looking just a trifle shy, for which we--geordie and i--liked him all the better--turned at once to taisy, as if to a sort of protector. but he could not hold out his hand, as it was all he could do with both hands to keep the frightened doggie from escaping there and then from his grasp. 'how funny!' i thought. 'why doesn't he let him go? he wouldn't want to run away from his own master!' 'i can't shake hands, taisy--but how are you?' rolf by this time was saying: 'will you introduce me to your cousins? this little beggar--i declare he's as slippery as an eel, in spite of his coat.' we needed no introduction--we all pressed round him to look at the terrier. 'is he so nervous?' said taisy. 'has the railway frightened him?' 'oh no, i don't think so. he was just as bad before we got into the train. it's just strangeness' was the rather puzzling reply. '"strangeness,"' taisy repeated, while geordie and i looked up in surprise,--'strangeness, with his own master holding him?' rolf gave a funny little laugh, and grew rather red. 'oh, but,' he said, 'you see, he doesn't know i'm his master, and i don't want him to. it isn't worth while. i--i only bought him this morning from the keeper at millings--you know millings?'--taisy nodded; it was a place near lady emmeline's. 'i asked him to be on the lookout for one as soon as i knew about coming here. i thought he'd suit miss lanark, as you once said something about her wanting a really nice little dog,' and he smiled at me in his frank, boyish way. it was quite true! rolf must have a good memory, for it was fully six months ago that i had once said in writing to taisy that papa had given me leave to have a dog of my very own if i could get a good-tempered, well-bred one, and that she must let me know if she came across a personage of the kind. for, though it seems odd that, living in the country, we had never had a pet of the kind, it was the case. i think papa and mamma had rather discouraged it, till we were old enough to treat a dog well and not to risk being ill-treated by him! since getting papa's leave to have one of my own i had almost forgotten about it, so many important things and changes had happened. but for a moment or two i forgot everything but my delight. the wee doggie was so sweet--so just exactly what i had pictured to myself as the perfection of a pet. 'oh, thank you, thank you!' i exclaimed, holding out my arms, in which rolf carefully deposited the little creature, not very sorry, i fancy, at the bottom of his heart to make him over to me, for he must have been rather a tiresome travelling companion. 'he's a young dog, but full-grown,' rolf said; 'and very affectionate and good-tempered. i made sure of that. and he's really a lady's dog--his mother belonged to a lady near millings, and that has been his home. she only sold him because she couldn't keep so many. he's a bit timid, they say, or rather nervous--but plucky too; if any one tried to hurt you he'd go for them, the keeper said. but it may take him a day or two to settle down.' it scarcely looked like it--already the little round, rough head was nestling against me, and the nice little cold, black nose rubbing my fingers approvingly, while taisy and george pressed up to me to see him. 'what's his name, rolf?' asked the former. geordie did not speak; i think for a minute or two he was feeling just a little jealous--or envious rather of rolf--as _he_ had not been able to give me a dog, when he saw how delighted i was. but he was too good and unselfish to let this feeling last, and when the terrier gave him a friendly lick in return for a patronising little pat, dods's kind heart was completely won. 'his name,' rolf repeated thoughtfully; 'i'm afraid i forgot to ask. but he'll soon get used to any name. it's often more the tone than the actual sound that a dog notices.' 'i know,' said taisy in her quick way; 'call him "rough." it's not very uncommon perhaps, but it would suit him--his coat--so well, and it is rather like "rolf" too.' we had just decided this when mamma's voice, coming towards us from the hut, made us turn round. 'what are you all about?' she asked. 'i heard the fly come some minutes ago. welcome to eastercove, rolf,' she went on, holding out her hand, which our visitor was now able to take. 'i hope you have had a pleas---- oh! so you have brought your dog,' and she looked a very little startled; 'take care, ida. is he quite good with strangers?' 'oh, but,' i began, and then i suddenly remembered that without mamma's leave i had no right to accept rolf's gift. 'he's mine--my own dog,' i went on; 'that's to say if you will let me have him. you know papa said i might have a dog,' i added pleadingly; 'though of course it is different now. and he is quite good-tempered and gentle.' 'yes,' rolf repeated; 'i made sure of that.' they were the first words mamma had heard him speak. he had not had a chance of thanking her for her 'welcome,' nor she of finishing her sentence about his journey, so taken up had we all been by master rough! but at least it had had the good effect of setting us all at our ease. then i went on to explain about rolf's having remembered what taisy had told him ever so long ago about my wish to have a dog--by the bye, it was lucky that i had not already got one! that possibility had never struck rolf; he had only been turning over in his mind what he could do to please us, whom he thought very kind to 'take him in,' and mamma turned to him in the pretty way she does, which always makes people like her. 'it was very good of you,' she said,--'very good and thoughtful,' and she too patted the new pet--_very_ gently; mamma is a little afraid, perhaps wisely so, of strange dogs--so that in her case he thought a wag of his tail sufficient notice of her attention instead of a lick, for which omission, if mamma had known of it, she would have been grateful! 'do you think,' she went on, turning to us three, 'that among you, you can look after him properly and prevent his getting into any trouble, or straying away in the woods?' 'and getting shot by mistake for a rabbit?' said geordie. 'he is so like one!' we all laughed at this; for nothing in dog shape, _little_ dog shape, at least, could be less like a bunny than rough, though perhaps it was not _very_ respectful of dods to joke at mamma's fears. but she did not mind, and by this time we were all feeling quite at home with rolf, and he with us. so we went in together to tea, where he and the two little ones had to be introduced to each other, and rough exhibited to denzil and esmé's admiring eyes. he had fallen asleep in my arms, feeling happy and comfortable again, and probably thinking i was his old mistress restored to him after some dreadful doggie nightmare of separation. 'mamma need not say, "_among_ you, will he be looked after?"' i thought to myself. 'the darling will have looking after enough from his owner--myself. i only hope the little ones won't tease him, or interfere with him, even out of kindness.' that first evening of rolf's visit left a very pleasant remembrance, and it was only a beginning of many happy days. he seemed to bring with him just what we needed (though taisy had done a good deal, rather of the same kind). it prevented our getting too much taken up with our own affairs, or becoming too 'old-fashioned,'--geordie and i especially--as hoskins called it, and i don't know that there is a better word to express what i mean. he was so thoroughly a boy, though the very nicest kind of boy--not ashamed of being a 'gentleman,' too, in lots of little ways, which many boys either despise, or are too awkward and shy to attend to. i don't mean to say that he was the least bit of a prig--just the opposite. he often forgot about wiping his feet, and was rather particularly clever at tearing his clothes, but never forgot to open the door for mamma and us girls, or to tug at his old straw hat or cap when he met us! or more important things in a sense--such as settling mamma's 'boudoir,' as we got into the habit of calling miss trevor's present, in the best place; and seeing that her letters were taken in good time to the lodge for the postman, and things like that. and looking back upon those days now that i am so much older, i can see that he must have had a good deal of 'tact' of the truest kind, as mamma says it really means care for other people's feelings, not to make dear old geordie at all jealous,--actually, indeed, to take away the touch of it which dods did feel at the beginning. before a couple of days had passed, all the boys were the best of friends. of course, i made rolf leave off calling me anything but 'ida,' and to esmé he was quite a slave. rather too much so. he spoilt her, and it was the only thing taisy and i were not quite pleased with him for, as it did make her much more troublesome again at her lessons. but there came a day when even he got very, very vexed with esmé. i think i must tell the story. she won't mind even if she ever reads this, for she is _much_ more sensible now, and often says she wonders how we all had patience with her. it had to do with rough, my doggie. dogs, as i daresay you, whoever you are, know, if you have had much to do with them, are not always fond of children, or perhaps i should say, are not fond of _all_ children. they hate fidgety, teasing ones, who will pull and pinch them for the fun of making them snap and snarl, or who _won't_ let them have a peaceful snooze on the hearthrug, if they themselves--the tiresome children, i mean--are inclined for noisy romping. if i were a dog, i should do more than snap and snarl in such a case, i know! esmé was not as bad as that. she was a kind-hearted little girl, and never meant to hurt or worry any one. but she was a terrible fidget, and very mischievous and thoughtless. it would have been better for her perhaps to have had a rather less free life than ours at the hut was. there was no one whose regular business it was to look after her. out of lesson hours she might do pretty much as she liked. mamma knew she would never do anything really naughty, or that she thought so, anyway, and we trusted a good deal to the boys, who, even little denzil, were so particularly steady-going, and whom she was generally with. but after rolf came, he and george naturally went about together a good deal, just as taisy and i did, and i don't think any of us realised how completely esmé had the upper hand of den. if i was to blame about her, by not keeping her more with taisy and myself, i was well punished for it by the fright she gave us, as you will hear. it was rather a hot day for the time of year--still only spring. we four elder ones had gone for a good long ramble in the farther off woods, taking our luncheon with us, and for some reason--i think i _was_, in my own mind, a little afraid of rough's getting trapped or some mischance of the kind--i had left my doggie at home, as safe as could be, i thought, for he was under hoskins's care, and she was nearly as fond of him as i myself. he would have been far safer, as it turned out, if we had taken him with us. esmé must have been 'at a loose end' that afternoon, from what she told me afterwards. denzil had got some little carpentering job in hand--he was rather clever at it, and at dinner-time, esmé, as well as he, told mamma about it--so she was quite happy, thinking they had got good occupation, and that there was no fear of any 'idle hands' trouble. but miss esmé, as was her way, got very tired of handing den the nails and tools and things he wanted, and of watching his rather slow progress, and told him she must really go for a run. 'all right,' said denzil; 'but don't go far.' he told us this part of it himself, when he came in for some blame in having 'let' esmé' get into mischief. this sounds rather hard upon him, doesn't it, considering he was fully a year younger than she? but, as i have explained, he was such a solemn old sober-sides, that we had all got into the way of treating him as if he were the responsible one of the two. 'no,' esmé replied, she would not go far; nor did she. she strolled about--i can see her now as she must have looked that afternoon--her hands behind her back, her black legs--she was a tall little girl for her age--showing rather long and thin beneath her big, brown holland overall, her garden hat tilted very much to the back, her lovely goldy hair in a great fuzz as usual, and her bright hazel eyes peering about for something to amuse herself with. as ill-luck would have it, she found the 'something' in the shape of my poor darling roughie! hoskins had allowed him to go out with a bone to the front of the hut, where he was lying very comfortably in the sunshine, on a mat, which he considered his own property. he had left off nibbling at the bone, and was half or three-quarters asleep. now when esmé is--no, i must in fairness say 'was,' she is so different now--in one of her idle yet restless humours, it irritated her somehow to see any one else peaceful and quiet, even if the some one else was only a dog. 'you lazy little beggar,' she said to rough. i don't really know that she said those very words, but i am sure it was something of the kind, and so i think i may 'draw on my imagination' a little in telling the story. 'you lazy little beggar, why don't you get up and go for a run? you are getting far too fat.' and--she told me this herself--she gave him a 'tiny' kick, not so as to hurt him--that i quite believe, but dogs have feelings about other things than being actually hurt in their bodies. he had been blinking up at her good-naturedly, though he was not, as i said, very fond of her. nor was she of him. but now, at the kick, or 'shove,' i think she called it, he gave a slight growl. and no wonder--it was not the sort of thing to sweeten even a sweet-tempered dog's temper--when he was doing no harm and only asking to be left alone in peace. esmé, however, declared that it was the growl that made her wish to tease him. she put her hand into the pocket of her blouse, meaning to take out her handkerchief to 'flick' him a little and make him wake up. but in this pocket, unluckily, besides the handkerchief were some nails and screws and such things which she had put there for convenience while being supposed to 'help' denzil, by handing them to him as he wanted them. and when she touched them, they rattled and jingled, thoroughly rousing poor roughie, who opened his eyes and growled again, this time more loudly, and esmé, delighted, rattled and jingled, and again he growled. then a wicked idea came into her head. she had heard of naughty boys tormenting cats in a certain way. 'it can't hurt him,' she thought; 'it will only make him run, which is good for him.' and she darted into the hut, and through it to rolf's tent, where, as i said, there was a small compact cooking stove, and among the things belonging to it a small but strong tin kettle. esmé looked at it. i believe she was more afraid just then of damaging the kettle than of harming the dog! still she lifted it and considered for a moment. 'no,' she thought, 'it's quite light; it can't hurt him. and it won't hurt _it_ either. i'll only put a few nails in,' and out she ran again to the front, where my poor pet was settling down for another nap, hoping, no doubt, that miss esmé had gone for good. by ill-luck, her other pocket held a good piece of stout string. she sat down and quietly tied up the kettle, so that the lid was secure, having first dropped into it enough nails and screws to make a woful clatter, but taking care that no jingle should be heard as yet. it is wonderful how careful a careless child can be if bent on mischief! [illustration: she fastened the one end of the string round his poor little body.] then speaking for once most gently and caressingly to roughie, who was so surprised that he lay quite still, she fastened the other end of the string to his tail, and round his poor little body too. 'i didn't want his tail to be pulled off,' she said afterwards--fortunately, for his tail _might_ have been badly hurt. then when all was ready, she got up cautiously, and walking away a few steps, called rough very sweetly. but he was rather suspicious; he first got up and stretched himself--there was a faint jingle--poor wee man, he looked behind him--no, esmé was not there; he moved, more jingle and rattle, again she called, and he, beginning to be frightened, turned towards her, on which the cruel little thing 'shoo'ed' him away. she described it all perfectly. and then the idea must have seized him of escaping by flight from the unseen terror. he ran--of course the noise got worse; he ran faster, and it grew louder--faster still--oh, my poor roughie!--louder still, esmé laughing--at _first_, that is to say--to herself, till his doggy wits began to desert him, and a sort of nightmare agony must have seized him. and then--too late--the naughty girl saw what she had done. chapter xii 'well--all is well that ends well!' what i described in the last chapter will explain the scene that met our eyes, and the sounds that reached our ears, as we got near the hut. and unluckily the 'we' did not mean only us four--the two bigger boys and taisy and i. for as we were passing through that part of the near woods which skirts the eastercove gardens--we always took care not to go very close to the house or more private part of the grounds, as, nice as the trevors were, mamma said we must never risk their feeling that the place was not quite their own for the time being--just, i say, as we passed the nearest point to the house, we came upon them, all three of them--mr., mrs., and miss. no, i think i should say all _six_ of them, for trotting round old mrs. trevor's heels were of course the three pugs. and, of course too, huddled up under one arm, was the bundle of many-coloured knitting; she was working as she walked, and when she stopped to speak to us, one or two balls rolled on to the ground, so that before rolf and geordie had time to touch their caps almost, they were both on their knees, trying to catch the truants before they rolled farther away. 'we were coming to see you all,' said miss trevor smiling; 'do you think your mother is at home and disengaged?' 'i think so,' i replied, and then i went on to explain that we had been out for several hours on a private picnicking expedition of our own, and we all joined in saying, 'do come,' for we liked the trevors very much, especially miss 'zenia.' we were a little frightened of mr. trevor; he was so tall and thin, and had the name of being tremendously learned, but they were all very kind, though i have nothing _very_ particular to tell about them. mrs. trevor always made us laugh, with her dogs and her knitting, but she _was_ so good-natured. so we strolled on together, in the pleasant, still, sunshiny afternoon--rolf and geordie talking to mr. trevor, who was not at all 'awe-inspiring' when he got on the subject of his own schooldays, for we heard them all laughing most heartily now and then. taisy declared afterwards that she had picked up balls of wool at least twenty times during that walk, as she kept beside mrs. trevor. and seeing that their mistress was thus engaged, the three dogs--they were really very well-behaved--took to following rather demurely, all three together, while i chatted to zenia. it was not till we were very near the hut that any unusual sounds reached us. i was just talking about roughie to miss trevor, descanting on his perfections, when a sort of queer yelping gasp, or gasping yelp, made us stand still for a moment. 'what can that be?' i said. 'oh, nothing,' said miss trevor. 'one hears all sorts of funny animal sounds in the woods, i have learnt to know. you are rather like an anxious mamma, ida, who has been out and left her baby too long. for i can see you at once think of the dear doggie,' and she laughed a little, though of course quite kindly. i laughed too, and we walked on--we were just a few steps in front of the others. but--again in another moment i stopped, this time holding up my hand, and saying, 'hush!' then i turned, and i fancy i had grown quite white already. 'miss trevor,' i said, 'it _is_ rough, and there must be something dreadful the matter. just listen.' there was the same gasping yelp, almost like a choking human cry, and the strangest rushing and clanking, jingling sounds, all mixed together. 'was he chained up? can he have broken loose?' said zenia breathlessly. 'it sounds like----' '"chained up,"' i repeated indignantly; 'my sweet little roughie! oh no, no!' i cried, as i rushed off. it was rather rude, i am afraid, to repeat her words like that, but she was far too kind to mind. 'geordie, geordie, rolf,' i cried, 'come quickly! there is something dreadfully the matter with rough.' so indeed it seemed, for the noise grew louder, and mingled with it now were a child's calls and shrieks. 'roughie, roughie,' i distinguished in esmé's voice; 'darling roughie, come to me. don't be so frightened, darling. i didn't mean it--oh, i didn't mean it!' and this was what i _saw_. esmé, hair streaming, eyes streaming, scarlet with terror, rushing over the ground in front and at the side of the hut, lost to sight for a moment among the trees, then out again, after _something_--a small, wild animal, it seemed--that was tearing before her, evidently trying to escape from her, or from--yes, what was that strange thing rushing after _it_? another still smaller wild beast of some kind, or what? no, it was nothing alive; it was a metal thing of some kind, rattling, clanking, jingling, and--oh, horrors!--tied to my poor pet's little body. i saw it all at once--affection quickens one's eyes, they say--i took it all in before there was time for any explanation, though esmé screamed to me as she flew on: 'oh, ida, ida, i didn't mean it! stop him, stop him!' naughty, naughty esmé! _he_ had already rushed past me--within a few yards, that is to say--without seeing me, whom he generally caught sight of before you could think it possible. blinded by terror--yes, and deafened too--he did not know i had come; he could not hear his own 'missus's' voice. and he was dreadful to look at: his tongue was hanging out; his whole little head seemed spattered with foam; he was rushing like a mad thing, even though, by the gasping sound he made, you could tell he was exhausted, and had scarcely any breath left. no wonder that, as the boys hurried up behind me, they and mr. trevor--mr. trevor especially--thought he _was_ mad. mr. trevor kept his presence of mind, i must say, under what _he_ thought the dreadful circumstances. he almost pushed his mother and sister and taisy into the porch, and tried to push me in too. but i evaded him. the boys and esmé were quite out of reach--_they_ were tearing after _her_, shouting to her to 'come back, come back!' which did not tend to lessen the uproar. and when _i_ started in pursuit, as of course i did, it must have seemed to any one looking on as if we had all gone mad together! indeed, taisy owned to me afterwards that, terrified as she was, she had hard work to keep down her laughter, especially when she heard me turn upon dignified mr. trevor, and in answer to his despotic-- 'go back, miss lanark, go back; i insist upon it,' shout back, 'nonsense; i will _not_ go back.' and as i heard his next words-- 'the dog must be shot at once. boys, is there a gun about the place?' i grew desperate, for i knew that there _was_ a gun--rolf's--though he and geordie had given their word of honour to mamma not to touch it without leave. then a new idea struck me. instead of rushing round like the others--like the boys that is to say, for by this time esmé had dropped in front of the porch, whence zenia trevor had dragged her in, and she was now sobbing on taisy's shoulder--instead of rushing after roughie, i 'doubled' and _met_ him, my arms outstretched, and using every endearing and coaxing tone i could think of. and oh, the joy and relief when, almost dead with exhaustion by now, he flew into my clasp, and, panting and nearly choking, faintly rubbed his poor little head against me! 'he knows me, he knows me!' i shouted. 'he is not a bit mad; he is only wild with terror.' but i had some trouble to get the others to believe me; _their_ fright had only increased tenfold when they saw me catch him. in some marvellous way mr. trevor had got out the gun--i have always suspected that taisy or hoskins or one of them had already thought of it--and stood within a few paces of my dog and me. but for my having him in my arms, he would have made an end of roughie, and certainly i would never have told this story. as it was, for a moment or two he--mr. trevor, not the poor pet--was very angry. 'miss lanark!' he shouted, 'you are mad yourself to touch him. has he bitten you?' for i was crying so by this time that i had hidden my face in rough's coat. '_bitten_ me!' i exclaimed, looking up and not caring if mr. trevor saw my tears or not,--'_bitten_ me! how can you imagine such a thing? look at him.' and, indeed, it was a sight to melt any heart and disarm any fears! roughie was lying quite still, nestling against me as close as he could get, only quivering now and then and giving little sobbing sighs, just as a tiny child does after some violent trouble and crying. i believe he was already asleep! mr. trevor approached cautiously. 'he--he certainly looks all right now,' he said. 'can it have been a fit of some extraordinary kind, then, or what can----' 'there is no mystery about it,' i said, 'except the mystery of how any one _could_ be so cruel. didn't you hear the rattling, mr. trevor--didn't you see--_this_?' and i gave a gentle tug to the string, still firmly fastened to the poor little man; but gently as i did it, the horrid kettle and things in it jingled slightly, and at once roughie opened his eyes and began to shake. i soothed him again, but mr. trevor did the sensible thing. he laid down the gun, calling to the boys as they hurried up not to touch it, and taking out his penknife cut the string, close to the kettle end first, and then handed the knife to me, to cut the string again where it was fastened to my dog. rolf and geordie could scarcely speak. 'who can have done it?' they exclaimed. '_could_ esmé have been so----' 'cruel and naughty,' i interrupted,--'yes, i am afraid so, though i _couldn't_ have believed it of her. geordie, pick up the kettle please, without jingling if you can help it, and please throw away the horrid things that are in it.' 'no, no, don't throw them away!' exclaimed a newcomer on the scene. 'they're my nails and screws.' it was denzil. 'and my kettle,' said poor rolf, rather dolefully, for he was proud of his cooking stove and all its neat arrangements, and the kettle looked nearly as miserable for a kettle as roughie did for a little dog! i turned upon denzil very sharply, i am afraid. 'did you know of it, then?' i said. poor denzil looked very frightened. 'in course not, ida,' he said. 'i came out to ask esmé for my nails. she had a lot of them in her blouse pockets, and she got tired of helping me and forgot to give me them back.' 'i'm very sorry,' i said. 'no, i am sure you would never do such a thing, den.' then i got up, very carefully, not to disturb my poor doggie, who was really asleep by this time, and we all--mr. trevor and the three boys and i--went to the group in the porch, whose anxiety was already relieved by seeing us more tranquil again. taisy had been dying to rush out to us, but esmé, sobbing in her arms, was not easily disposed of. she--esmé--had begun an incoherent confession of her misdoings, but now mamma stopped it. 'is it all right?' she asked eagerly, speaking to mr. trevor. 'the dog is _not_ mad then? what was it?' mr. trevor glanced, still a little doubtfully, at roughie in my arms. 'i--yes, i think he is all right again,' he replied. 'he certainly recognised his mistress's voice, which is the best sign. i do not think it was any kind of fit; it was just terror. he must be a nervous little creature.' 'yes,' said rolf; 'he is awfully nervous, though he is not cowardly.' 'a fine distinction, as applied to a dog,' said mr. trevor smiling. 'but if--you all knew it, how----' a howl--really it was a howl--from esmé interrupted him. 'oh, i know, i know!' she wailed. 'it was all my fault. but i only meant to tease him and make him run. i didn't mean--oh, ida, i didn't mean--to make him go mad. will you ever forgive me? rough will never look at me again, i know.' she was mistaken. the prettiest thing happened just then: roughie, placidly asleep, though giving little quivers and sobs still, was awakened by the noise she made. he opened his eyes, and his mouth--what denzil called 'smiling'--a little; i think he meant to give a friendly lick, but finding nothing handy for this, he contented himself with a very cheerful tail-wagging, first glancing up at esmé, who was bending over him, as much as to say, 'i do forgive you heartily.' i have always said that dogs--nice dogs--are sorry for people when they see them crying. since that day i have been sure of it. but the first effect of rough's magnanimity was to bring forth another burst of sobs and tears from poor esmé. yes, i too forgave her from that moment. 'oh, ida! oh, mamma! oh, everybody!' she cried, 'do forgive me! you see _he_ does.' so now we fell to petting and soothing her; it never took very long to get up esmé's spirits again, happily. before bedtime, except for reddened eyes, you would not have known there had been anything the matter, but from that day to this roughie has had no kinder or truer friend than her. we were all feeling rather overstrained. mr. trevor, i _fancy_, a little ashamed of the great fuss he had made, though perhaps i should scarcely speak of it like that, and i think we all felt glad when mamma said brightly-- 'well--all is well that ends well! will you join us at our schoolroom tea and forgive its being rather a scramble after all this upset?' she turned to the trevors, but before they had time to reply there came a half-laughing but rather distressed appeal from mrs. trevor. 'my dears,' she said, addressing everybody as far as i could make out, 'will some of you disentangle me? the dogs and i have all got mixed up together--naughty, naughty!' and she switched powerlessly with a knitting needle at the poodles, who this time were really enjoying themselves in a good ball-of-wool chase, as the excitement of rough's strange behaviour had actually made the old lady leave off knitting for fully five minutes! it was quite impossible not to laugh, but mrs. trevor herself laughed as heartily as any one, and at last, by turning her round and round as if we were playing at blind man's buff, and catching up first one poodle and then another, we got her free. and of course the wool looked none the worse! that laughing set us all still more at our ease, and by the time we had sobered down, hoskins appeared to announce tea. and after the kind trevors had said good-bye and gone, denzil set us off laughing again by announcing in his solemn way that he didn't believe mr. trevor was at all ill; he ate such a lot of buttered toast! this affair of poor little roughie was, i think, the most exciting thing that happened to us all that spring and summer at the hut. and though everybody, starting with the good-natured wee man himself, forgave esmé thoroughly, we were none of us allowed to _forget_ it. for my dog behaved in the funniest way. nothing for at least a fortnight would persuade him to leave my room, where he installed himself in what he evidently thought a fortress of security, under the bed. and he would only come out if i called him, and then expected me to hold him in my arms as if he were a baby, which, as you can understand, was not very convenient. but by degrees he got over it, and became his own happy little self again. i think it was the very day after this thrilling experience that we got another really cheering and hopeful letter from papa. and once this happier turn of things began, it kept on pretty steadily; the only drawback to our thankfulness being that he could name no date--no _probable_ one even--for his return. so the lengthening days followed each other till we got to midsummer, and then came july and august, specially lovely months that year, during which the sun looked down on a busy and happy party in the queer encampment that was our home for the time. in september rolf left us for the big school he was bound for. we missed him sadly, though we had the cheering _hope_ that his aunt would let him come to us again for the winter holidays. and so she did! a few days before christmas he and taisy--taisy had spent the autumn with her grandmother--arrived again, together this time, though less like snails, as they had left their houses behind them when they went away. and some changes in the arrangements were made. taisy had geordie's room, and geordie, to his great delight, took up his quarters in her waggon, as mamma did not like the idea of a girl's being outside--even though so near--through the long, dark nights. it was not a cold winter; it is never very cold at eastercove, and where the hut stands it seems even milder than higher up. so rolf stuck to his tent, and was very pleased to have an excuse for keeping his patent stove going all the time. those holidays came to an end only too soon. in march, just about a year after he had left, came the news of papa's return being fixed for june. it all fitted in. the trevors had taken the house for twelve months, and with the fine weather meant to go back to their own home in the north. and now there was no talk of letting our dear home again, or, as far as we could see, of ever leaving it except for pleasant reasons. but we kept the hut just as it was, for papa to see. rolf would not even have his tent moved till after that summer, and taisy's waggon is to this day somewhere about the premises, and mamma still has her movable 'boudoir' wheeled about to different parts of the grounds, as it suits her. * * * * * it is nearly three years since i made the last entry in my 'hut' diary, from which i have written out this history of 'the house that grew.' how i came to do so i will explain. we have been through some very anxious times lately about rolf. he is a soldier, and very soon after he got his commission his regiment went to india, and he with it. i will not tell the particulars, as he might not like it, but he 'came in' almost at once for some _very_ active service, up in some of those dreadfully out-of-the-way places, where there are so often disturbances with the natives, which in england do not attract much attention, unless you happen to have close personal interest in what is happening, as we had, for rolf had become almost like another brother to us, spending half his holidays at eastercove. and geordie--oh, i forgot to say he _did_ get the scholarship!--and he, by a happy coincidence, had been at school together. well--one sad day there came news that rolf was badly wounded. we have been waiting and waiting--and i think the anxiety 'got on my nerves,' as people say. for one day mamma spoke seriously to me, when she found me sitting idle, just longing for letters. 'ida, dear,' she said, 'you must get something to do--something _extra_, i mean, to interest you.' and after talking a little, the idea of writing out my 'hut' diary came into my head, and, as you see, i have done it! * * * * * and i have been, if i deserved to be so, rewarded for following mamma's advice. rolf is coming home--on leave--'invalided,' it is true, but his wound is not so bad as reported; indeed, according to _him_, not bad at all! papa and dods are just off to southampton to meet him and bring him straight here. the end macmillan and co.'s books for the young. _by mrs. molesworth._ the house that grew. illustrated by alice b. woodward. crown vo. s. d. this and that; a tale of two tinies. illustrated by hugh thomson. crown vo. s. d. _athenÆum._--"sure to be popular in the nursery." _punch._--"will be received with great pleasure by her many youthful admirers. a very pretty story." _illustrated by walter crane, leslie brooke, hugh thomson, and others._ _globe vo. s. d. each._ the adventures of herr baby. "carrots," just a little boy. the carved lions. the children of the castle. a christmas child. a sketch of a boy-life. a christmas posy. christmas tree land. the cuckoo clock. four winds farm. the girls and i. "grandmother dear." a book for boys and girls. little miss peggy: only a nursery story. the magic nuts. mary. a nursery story for very little children. miss mouse and her boys. my new home. nurse heatherdale's story. the oriel window. the rectory children. rosy. sheila's mystery. the tapestry room. tell me a story. two little waifs. us: an old-fashioned story. _also prize editions in ornamental bindings. crown vo. s. d. each._ _cloth elegant, gilt edges. s. d. each._ us: an old-fashioned story. "grandmother dear." "carrots." christmas child. cuckoo clock. tapestry room. * * * * * four ghost stories. crown vo. s. french life in letters. globe vo. s. d. summer stories for boys and girls. crown vo. s. d. the april baby's book of tunes. by the author of "elizabeth and her german garden." with coloured illustrations by kate greenaway. small to. s. a noah's ark geography. written and pictured by mabel dearmer. globe to. cloth. picture boards. s. the tale of the little twin dragons. with coloured illustrations by s. rosamond praeger. demy to. picture boards. s. the book of penny toys. written and illustrated by mabel dearmer, printed in colours by edmund evans. demy to. pictorial boards. s. the bravest of them all. by mrs. edwin hohler. illustrated by chas. e. brock. crown vo. s. d. for peggy's sake. by mrs. edwin hohler. with illustrations by f. h. townsend. crown vo. s. d. the drummer's coat. by the hon. j. w. fortescue. illustrated by h. m. brock. pott to. s. d. beasts: thumb-nail studies in pets. by wardlaw kennedy. with numerous illustrations. pott to.-- s. d. crown vo.-- s. d. st. nicholas christmas book. a volume of christmas stories. profusely illustrated. with ornamental cover. to. s. d. macmillan and co., ltd., london. that house i bought _a little leaf from life_ by henry edward warner [illustration: logo] g. w. dillingham company publishers new york copyright, , by g. w. dillingham company _that house i bought_ dedication why a dedication? why a preface--a foreword? why any comment, save the title and the price mark? simplicity itself! the preface, foreword, dedication--what you may term it--gives opportunity to apologize for the liberality with which the author betrays his egotism, in the thickly sprinkled perpendicular pronoun. and yet this plain young tale of plain things could not be told in the third person, since it is a mere setting down of real experience, painfully truthful and laboriously pruned where imagination was tempted to stray into fields of fiction. there is but one confession of romantic mendacity--and it shall not be made, for it _might_ have happened! quien sabe? and now this little story is dedicated to all who have bought or intend to buy homes, who have lost or expect to lose them; to the bird of passage and to the homing, and to all who love their fellowmen--but very especially to you who read it. h. e. w. contents page dedication first period second period third period fourth period fifth period sixth period seventh period eighth period ninth period tenth period eleventh period the even dozenth that house i bought first period thirty-three years ago i formed a box of blocks into a castle and then kicked it down in disgust because i didn't like the chimney. mother said i displayed temper. birds build nests in tree-tops with horse-hair and straw, and odd bits of stuff; but my wife and i aren't birds. far from it. and we've been going along for fifteen years without a regular nest. all that time i've been building a house with blocks and kicking it down. the other day we went out to mont alto to take dinner with our friends, and on the way we saw a new house numbered " ." the number stuck out in letters of silver, burnished into brilliancy by a noonday sun. "that's an odd number," i remarked. "anyway you look at it, it's unlucky-- . and i'm not superstitious." "let's go in and examine it," she said. that's where it all started. we bought the house after dinner. it took fifteen minutes to decide, and in that time, of course, we didn't notice the place on the dining-room ceiling where the plumbing--but let it pass. the duke of mont alto would fix it up. we had great faith in the duke. the point is, we owned a house at last. that is, we had started to own it. we were tickled to death--also scared to death. there are two emotions for you, both fatal! coming into possession of a castle with ten rooms and large open plumbing, fronting fifty feet and going back one hundred and fifty-three feet to the company's stable, is a thrilling experience. my first thrill was in connection with the initial terms of the contract, which called for certain financial daring. up to this time i had laid to my soul the happy thought that a clean conscience is more than money; but believe me, friend, a silver quarter began to look like a gold eagle. change that in other days went merrily across the table without thought for the morrow, i found myself wearing to a frazzle, counting the cracks in the milled edges affectionately, hopefully, and yet with certain misgivings. naturally, we first paced off our yard, to see whether it was by feet, more or less, as shown in the plot. every man who buys a house paces off his yard. so does his wife. my wife made seventy-eight steps of it and i made fifty-one, on the length. by deducting for my long legs and adding for her confining skirt we came to the conclusion that mathematics was an inexact science, and decided to do it later with a tape measure. but for the purpose of this narrative we must get inside the house and look about. we found a wide hall with a grand staircase; a roomy parlor connecting by folding door with a spacious dining-room, and off the dining-room a real conservatory, all glass and tiles. opening into the pantry a swinging door, and another into the kitchen, and in the wall a refrigerator. in the basement a furnace with a barometer and thermometer atop. on the second floor four big rooms and a centre hallway, and in the bathroom large, open plumbing and the addition of a shower and spray bath. on the third floor two cozy rooms and another hallway and bath. item: slate roof; item: water-heated, hot and cold water all the time sometimes; item: hardwood floor downstairs. conveniences in every direction, gas and electric fittings throughout. and the whole sheltered by oak trees that leaned over to embrace us, wagging flirtatious branches through the big windows. "isn't this living!" i exclaimed. my wife looked out through the window at the distant picture of the low-lying city against the bay, and held my hand. it was as though we had not been married fifteen years, but were beginning our honeymoon--a couple of birds just mated, fetching things for the nest and glorying in its construction--silent in a dream of contemplation, but just ready to burst into song, the song of achievement. she did not reply, but pressed my hand. when finally she spoke, what was in her heart broke its leash. "i was just wondering," she said, "if we couldn't rent the second floor as a flat to pay the expenses, and then all we put in would be invested in the equity!" i awoke with a start from my dreaming. even a honeymoon has its practical side! but all sad realities have their recompense in a happy mind. give me the optimist and a famine and i'll show you a famine licked to a standstill. the combination of confident, hopeful ego and material misfortune never yet met, but that material misfortune took the count in the first round. the man who stands hugging misfortune in his chest has something coming to him. when it arrives it will land right square under that point where, if he were a woman of twenty years ago, he might have worn earrings. take the other chap, however--the fellow who not only shakes hands with trouble, but slaps it on the back, invites it to have a drink, sleeps with it, jollies it until it wrinkles up into a gorgeous grin six miles long; take that chap and put him in the middle of the sahara desert with nothing but a glad smile in his pocket, and he'll find a way to coax a mint julep out of the blooming sand! do you know, the more i think about the fellow who starts out by howling that _things can't be done_, the more i'm convinced that the creator got a lot of cracked forms into the outfit when man was molded, and these little defects must really be charged up to accident. the lord never intended any man made in his image to be afraid of anything that walks on hind legs or all fours, crawls or flies, or flops dismally over the slough of despond on a carrion-hunt. and just about the best way to mend this defect, i reckon, is to get married early and start right out buying a house and lot. if a fellow's an invertebrate he'll get past the first payment with a struggle. if he survives the second, it will put some starch into his hide. you are asking what all this has to do with that house i bought. why, bless your heart, friend, it has all to do with it! the very first thing a man must do when he buys a house and lot is, get himself into the state of mind. buying a house and lot is not so much a physical or financial transaction as a philosophical conclusion. you need the house and lot; you must argue yourself into a mental attitude toward that house and lot that simply knocks the props from under every obstacle. the man who is afraid to own his castle is a good citizen, perhaps, in every other respect. but the very best citizen is he who has the courage to own something and pay taxes on it, help support the community, and be useful to himself and to the world that holds him trustee of his possessions. second period heaven bless murphy! when my wife was a little girl with braids down her back, murphy used to see her in the excited crowd in front of the neighbor's door, as he toted a grand piano to the waiting van. many a time murphy has started to give that little girl a penny because she was so cute. many a time he has reconsidered and kept the penny himself! it was murphy who moved us. he is anywhere from seventy to ninety years old now--a stalwart, steel-muscled young fellow who runs his own wagon and lifts his end of the heaviest burden with a heart as light as his chest is deep and his back broad. his beard is long and white. how we tore up our old rooms and saw our furniture hustled out, how we looked regretfully back at the den we had papered and fixtured ourselves, with its rich red base and green forest over that, and the light sky--that is all another story. it is another story, too, how mother-in-law bustled here and there helpfully and every now and then added something of her own to our belongings, and how mamie telephoned every one she knew that we were moving to that house i bought! these are things we think of, but do not write. murphy was indefatigable. we thought we had a load more than murphy made it, what with shifting this and changing that, and substituting something and stuffing small truck under tables and empty boxes that we wanted for our conservatory. my wife watched him in admiration. "mr. murphy," she said, "you would be invaluable to the united railways as a conductor on the druid hill avenue line!" when the last load was about to leave my wife rushed to the door. "oh, mr. murphy, couldn't you take that couch upstairs and drop it off at----" murphy smiled and glanced at the wagon, with things tied on over the wheels, and the china closet swinging perilously far out on the tail piece. "i can do it," he said, "if i carry the china closet on my lap." murphy intended that as a jest. my wife hadn't thought of the possibilities of murphy's lap. the instant he mentioned it, she darted back into the house, quickly to reappear with a double armful of odds and ends that she couldn't get into the suit cases and trunks. "it's mighty kind of you," she said, with the sort of a smile that nailed me fifteen years ago. "if you can just carry these little things in your lap----" murphy is a game one. when he drove away murphy's lap looked like the market burden of a suburbanite. and because he was so cheerful about it, and so willing to do so much for so little, and because he is such a good citizen, again i say: "heaven bless murphy!" after murphy had moved us in our real troubles began. i should have said our real joys, for, believe me, the infant troubles of owning your castle are so refined and glorified by the pride of possession that they appear only as strengthening alloy in the pure gold of content. it was on thursday and friday that murphy moved us. on saturday i went to the house, and the lady who will hereafter listen for the tinkle of the door and telephone bells met me, brimming over with cheerfulness and almost as proud of herself as i was of the lord of the manor who strutted like a peacock, as for the first time he showed his feathers in his own front yard. never praise your wife too much, or she will dominate you. but as this is to be a truthful chronicle, be it said that my wife is the most wonderful woman in the world. how on earth she ever got the chairs and tables, the china closet and dishes, the cooking hardware and beds and mattresses and my desk and revolving bookcase, and heaven knows what, all in place in one day is beyond me. there were pictures on the walls--old friends in new places, looking down to greet me. a foolish billiken laughed out loud as i held up my hands in amazement. "step high and easy," said my wife. "you'll scratch the hardwood floor," and she rubbed my heelprint from the polish with the hem of her working skirt. then we started around testing the push-buttons. we pushed every button there was, and pulled down the curtains to try the effect in the parlor and dining-room. she hauled me around and showed me the marvelous gas range that she was going to do wonders with. that refrigerator, that was yet to have its first load of ice and provisions--it made me hungry just to look at it! we went upstairs and downstairs. i opened and closed every window and made wise-foolish observations on the proper care of a home. a man can be a fearful idiot when his chest is out. i chucked my coat and cuffs and collar and went to work on little odds and ends of chores about the place. hasn't a fellow a right to whistle and sing when he comes home from foraging and finds the lady bird dancing around the new nest? there was a thermometer on top of the furnace in the basement, and beside it a round thing to tell how much water we were catapulting into the radiators. when there is too much water it overflows from a tank upstairs; when there isn't enough you turn some in downstairs. so i started a march up and down stairs, first turning some on and then scooting skyward to listen to the overflow, and after making this trip about ten times i had an appetite like a typhoid convalescent. o the tintinnabulation of the bells! there are church bells and wedding bells, bells that cry the joy of a new birth or toll the sorrow of the huddled family, bells that ring victory in war and bells that scream the hilarity of la fiesta! but for the bell that speaks the common language of all men, i name the dinner bell! the first biscuits were piping hot on the plate. "are they as good as your mother used to make?" asked my wife. "my mother," i said, "was a piker at biscuit making!" and she beamed with pleasure when i slandered my honored mother! after the dinner we went out on the porch--the big, wide porch for which we had planned a swing on chains, and sat rocking and digesting, digesting and rocking, in a perfect picture of resident domesticity. in the house across the street there were lights. the people had just moved in--that is, they had moved in several days before and were just beginning to find the trouble with things and why the gas company could afford to pay considerable dividends on wind. i say, we were sitting there as cumfy as possible, when my wife caught my hand in a convulsive grip. with the other hand she pointed across the street to the second parlor blind. i followed her, and felt like a peeping tom. there on the blind was a great picture in silhouette--a picture of two figures standing, and the tall, masculine figure was holding both shoulders of the other and looking square into her eyes. "it's the daughter!" my wife almost whispered. "i know her by her hair ribbon; it's too young for the mother! look, look, they are going to ki----" she finished the word with a little gurgle, for they had done it! not only that, but the kiss was followed by an embrace, and another, and then the lights went out. a confounded belt had slipped at the powerhouse, i learned afterward. i think corporations should be heavily penalized for such breaks in the service. there should be some sort of appliance to keep belts from slipping. more than once the belt has slipped and left that whole residence district in darkness. third period i had always regarded the humorous paragraphs about the price of coal as mere pleasantries. i now deny that they are pleasantries, and they are far from "mere." there are several grades of coal. our furnace takes no. , and it's $ . a ton, april price. the man who dominates the situation told me by way of consolation that if it hadn't been for the big strike coal would be cents a ton cheaper. i can't see how that sort of consolation helps a fellow. our house burns about ten or twelve tons, normal conditions. we figured that about eight tons now would be the proper caper, and we could pay the difference next winter if driven to it. from the way the furnace ate coal to take the chill off the house the first day, i could see the board of charities asking me my name, address, age, social condition and whether my parents ever went to jail. now $ . times eight tons is $ . , and that's more than taxes, water rent and interest on a house and lot. so when the man backed up with a cartload and began to throw it in off-handedly, i was pained. a coal-heaver should treat $ . with more respect. i have seen men throw high-grade ore out of the independence mine with the same callous indifference, without myself being shocked; but here was a new situation. it was my $ . he was throwing around like dirt, and i spoke to him about it. "how," i said, "can you have the heart to dump $ . into my cellar without ceremony? you should at least remove your hat." do you know, i don't believe he appreciated the situation. william made the first fire. i instructed him to lay on the coal as scarcely as possible, and to go slow with the draughts. so he threw on six shovelsful of my $ . , opened everything and ran it up to degrees f. any man who sat ten minutes in our house and then dared to expose himself in a turkish steam room would freeze to death in ten seconds. we had a fire in the furnace two or three days. i got interested in (a) a newly patented ash sifter (b) and a process for mixing ashes with some chemical solution that would restore a ton of coal for twenty-five cents. if you have never sifted ashes, you've missed something. you take a couple of shovelsful of ashes and dump them in the sifter. then you pick up the sifter and agitate it. if i were employing an ash sifter, i should get one addicted to chills and ague, or st. vitus' dance, or something. then i could be sure he wasn't loafing on the job! well, after you've shivered the sifter, busted a suspender button, twisted your backbone into a pretzel, filled your eyes, ears, nose, and lungs with dust and cussed your patron saint, you've got the net result: one piece of half-burned coal, six clinkers, and the top of a tin can. that chemical process to make coal out of ashes for a quarter a ton is a good thing--for the inventor. with childlike confidence i bought a bottle of it. after ruining a barrel of perfectly good ashes and backsliding from the church of martin luther i gave it up. hereafter we will burn our coal as long as it will burn, and the ashes may go hang! i could have earned $ at my profession in the time i was trying to beat an honest coal dealer out of $ . . well, when we finally got the furnace working i hopped into the shower bath. may good fortune attend the man who thought of putting a shower bath in that house i bought! the water comes from overhead for one thing, and shoots into the delighted legs of the languorous for another, from the sides. it invigorates, cleanses, and tickles. ballington booth says man is regenerated by soup, soap, and salvation. but i would say, at first blush, that no man can get the full effect of regeneration on anything short of a shower bath in his house. i began by reducing my costume to a pleasant frame of mind and doing a few acrobatic stunts, deep breathing, setting-up exercises, and various liver-limberings. a free and easy perspiration set in. that, say all the doctors, is good for the system. then i stepped blithely into the shower, drew the rubber curtain close and, commending my soul to all the gods i could call to mind, took a long breath and turned her on. at first the water was icy cold, but as soon as that in the pipes had run out i was violently assaulted by a steaming deluge straight from the bowels of hades. calmly removing the first layer of skin as it was boiled off, i reached for the spigot and turned as per directions, to the right. instantly some one threw an iceberg into the tank and at the first shower of chilkootian damp i was converted into an icicle. boiled to a color that would excite the envy of an ambitious lobster, on one side, and frozen to a consistency that would inspire a harlequin block on the other, my emotions ran correspondingly hot and cold to a delirium of despair, as i found that no matter how i turned i got either hot or cold, and never a happy medium. my wife, who was downstairs with the kitchen door shut, said she could hear my remarks distinctly, and added that she would have forever hung her head in shame had company been calling at the time. women are too sensitive. it didn't occur to me, until i had been cooked and uncooked a dozen times that this thing might be done from the outside just as well. i stepped out and manipulated with a broom handle, poking it behind the curtain and jabbing, pushing, and pulling, hauling, twisting at those infernal mechanical devices with an energy born of insanity. finally, by some accident or other, i got the water just right and stepped in again. it was delicious. never was there such a grateful sense of appreciation as that i felt as i recovered my temper and went back to my beneficent gods. the water was not too cold, not too hot. then it stopped altogether. i looked up and around, tried all the valves, hammered on the wall, and then yelled to my wife: "what's the matter with the water?" she replied cheerily: "the man has come to fix the pipes in the furnace, and it's turned off!" with good things it were always thus. the minute a man really begins to enjoy life it's time to die. there is always a fly in the custard. fourth period our porch is one of those accommodating porches with plenty of room, a standing invitation to company. whenever company comes i have to convert myself into a moving van and tote all the furniture out from the parlor. the duke of mont alto, and the duchess, dropped in one evening with the purdys, and i began to move the parlor. what with spade pushing and furniture moving, i've got sandow backed off the board. it's wonderful what a little regular training will do for a fellow! but what gets me is, how on earth did murphy ever maneuver the big chair with the green upholstery into the house at all? it is exactly half an inch wider in every dimension than our door--but as murphy got it in it was up to me to get it out. i was pushing and shoving and twisting, trying it sideways and upside down, straight ahead and backing like a mule, stealing a fraction of space by half-closing the screen door, when my wife took hold of a leg to help me. that settled it. we stuck, in such a position that i could neither get myself out nor the chair in again. the duke and the duchess and the purdys all volunteered to assist by suggesting various things that they thought i hadn't thought of thinking of. i kept my temper and formed my mouth into a counterfeit smile, to show how polite a southern gentleman could be in trying circumstances. then i gave one mighty heave, determined to push the chair through or the jam down, and stuck worse than ever. "can't you get through?" asked my wife sympathetically. "certainly i can get through," i replied; "i'm just doing this to make it look difficult!" the purdys laughed at that, and the duke said i was a comical cuss. you see, he had an idea i was trying to amuse the company. that made me so mad that i dropped the chair to spit on my hands, and when i dropped the chair the stubborn thing fell right through the door of its own accord, and i straightened up like a general, and remarked: "now i suppose you'll make a pool among you and gobble all the credit for that!" and hanged if they didn't! to amble back to our muttons, it was a nice, quiet little visit. during the evening my wife got out some grape-fruit, and in the stilly night, the stars twinkling overhead and the grass growing silently, hardly disturbing us at all, it was exceedingly pleasant to hear the spoons go slippety-slosh into the evasive juices that reluctantly gave up about half what the labor was worth. but what i started to write about was the house party across the street. when you're sitting on the porch of your own house doing nothing but listening to the ebb and flow of grape-fruit juice, you can't help noticing the strings of japanese lanterns over yonder, and listening to the gay laughter of young people as they madly hurl bean-bags into a hole in a plank, shrieking the while and guying each other apace. o, postoffice! o, clap-in-an-clap-out! o, puss-in-the-corner! o, youth! the duke was saying something about the time when suburban streets would be two hundred feet wide to make landing places for aeroplanes, and when the human appetite would be regulated by push-buttons ranged along the diaphragm. but i didn't hear a word. i yearned to be across the street. that was uncomplimentary to company, but nevertheless i yearned. so did all the rest, only they aren't telling about it. when a man has passed into the sere and yellow he has a right to the consolation of retrospect. frankly, for a moment i wished i didn't have any house. i wanted to be over there where the young folks were, pitching bean-bags. and later, when they gathered around the piano and sang discordantly all the popular songs, i wanted to be there and join my voice in the music. it was awful music, but i wanted to howl right along with the young ones. when the company had gone i wrestled the green chair back into the house by way of the widest window, but my mind was still full of the thought that had seized me--of the youth, and gaiety, and glory of green years. as i went to close the shutters, the last of the young people had just gone up the street singing. i gave one good night glance at the parlor windows of the house across the way. then i started, called my wife, and we riveted our two noses to the pane. "the silhouettes!" i exclaimed hoarsely. "sshh!" she cautioned, and took my hand. the man silhouette was talking earnestly to the girl silhouette, and she was shaking her head. but suddenly she leaned closer to him, and threw her arms about his neck, and he kissed her, and she ran from the room and left him standing there. presently the girl silhouette came back, leading by the hand a large, fat silhouette with whiskers. i recognized him as the man i had seen mowing the lawn and working the garden hose. he shook hands with the man silhouette, and kissed the girl on the forehead, and joined their hands, and seemed to call toward the hallway; whereupon a fourth silhouette came in. "it's the girl's mother!" said my wife. they all stood together, and bowed and nodded and that sort of thing for an unconscionably long time, until our noses were cold from the glass. and then the silhouette with the whiskers pushed all the other silhouettes in the direction in which we knew their dining room lay, and stepped back to turn off the lights. when there was nothing to see but the blank curtain, we went upstairs; and after i had retired my wife crept away. i awoke and found her an hour later, sound asleep with her nose against the pane, her unseeing eyes turned toward the house across the way, and a smile on her lips. i lifted her and put her on the bed--and she didn't stir until morning. "that man silhouette," i said at breakfast; "did you see him last night after the--er--incident on the blinds?" "certainly not!" she replied, almost indignantly. "you men all think women are curious." i wondered if she had only dreamed, or could she be a somnambulist! "but," she added, as she poured the coffee, "i'm going to see what he looks like to-night, if i never get to bed; and i'm going to see _her_ if i have to go over there and borrow butter!" there you go again, youth! there you are at it, romance! what would i not give to be back myself, to the time when we, mayhap, were silhouettes for the entertainment of our neighbors! but come on, old man, come on! you must go straight ahead, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year! somewhere ahead there is a marble shaft, and a place with the roses; but your cradle is broken, your little tin wagon is rusted, your noah's ark is buried under the dust of years--and you have had your frivols! fifth period buying a house when spring is young involves a lot of thought and anxiety, from which is developed a high nervous pressure. you alternate days of earnest application and enforced recuperation. one begins to learn, too, how much he doesn't know. our yard, we found, was admirably adapted to quarry purposes, or would make an excellent clay bank. william told us he would level up the back lot and then put on a top soil and add a sort of compost of manure and loam, in which we could plant things. i reserved a square by feet for a patent wire pigeon fly. "why will you raise pigeons?" asked my wife. "i will raise pigeons," i replied with dignity, "for their giblets. i love pigeon giblets. you may have the squibs." "you mean squabs," said my wife. "i said squibs," i insisted stanchly. "you should say squabs," suggested my wife mildly. "i will have squibs or nothing," i replied, as becoming master of the house, and squibs it was. so be it known, we are going to raise squibs. "and i," said my wife, "shall raise a tomato. the back of the lot is in an all-day sun, and tomatoes thrive in the sun." "and a turnip or two," i said. "if you plant a couple of turnips and let nature take its course, you'll have turnips all over the place. i've heard that turnips and belgian hares are noted for----" "and sweet peas," said my wife, "i shall train them against the house." "you cannot train a pea," i said scornfully. "you may train a pig, or a dog, but you cannot train a pea." one of the reasons women may not vote is that they say just such foolish things as that! train a pea, indeed! i would as lief try to train a doorknob! with this little difficulty settled and out of the way, we made ready for serious work. we were rather late getting into our gardening, but made up in enthusiasm what we lacked in knowledge. with a piece of string and a few sticks, yours truly laid off a strip from the steps around the front porch to the side foundation; and then with a spade the same victim of circumstances broke his back in three places and wore two lovely blisters into the palms of his forepaws. uncle henry got his foot into the soil with a spade which, peculiarly enough, was borrowed from one named cain, who lives next door. that other cain was the father of agricolists. observe how history carries itself down the ages with consistency! and to complete the picture, observe me watering the earth with my sweat! who in thunder ever invented the scheme of hiding pieces of brick, broken concrete, can tops, chunks of wood and the wreck of dishes right where a fellow wants to dig a garden? i like a practical joke myself, but that is going too far. in taking off the top soil there was a reasonably clear thoroughfare, but when the heft of my hoof went against the heel of the spade for the first downward dash, it struck an impenetrable ambush of mason's findings. to make it worse, my wife stood on the porch cheerfully lending her aid in the form of advice. the man who owned the spade sat comfortably on his own porch reading the evening sun, and now and then glancing over the top at me with an amused smile. william came along. "are you digging a garden?" he asked. "no," i replied idiotically; "i am running a footrace with an angle-worm!" the duke of mont alto whizzed by in his automobile and waved his hand. he tooted twice. i think he was kidding me. a friend, wending homeward with his dinnerpail, paused to observe that it was hot weather for digging. that self-consciousness that makes the whole world miserable on occasion seized me. from every window i imagined delighted neighbors looking on; in the twitter of the birds i heard merry giggles. but against and in spite of all these handicaps i persisted. i had as implements, in addition to cain's spade--how i love that connection!--one table knife, one garden claw, one trowel, one sharp stick, one cracked hoe, and one perfectly good vocabulary. i went after the clay ground with my hands in preference to any or all of the tools, and after half an hour of agony had removed, by actual count, one hundred and thirty-seven large stones and a small pile of pebbles, none of the pebbles weighing more than one pound. then with my hands i crumbled the dirt chunks into powder and carefully sifted, smoothed off, rolled, tumbled, and otherwise adjusted the net product. sweat is the fluid excreted from the sudoriferous glands of the skin. the sudoriferous glands of yours truly worked overtime. yours truly excreted, exuded, flooded. to be swimming around in your own atmosphere is a novel and sometimes pleasurable experience. it's funny how a man bowls sixteen-ounce balls until his ribs crack and sits in a turkish bath until each pore is a geyser, and yet when that same result is obtained by means of honest labor and by pushing a spade, he complains. i cut the lines of this little front garden deep and clean, and sloped the pulverized earth back so that there would be a perpetual irrigation in the ditch from the overflow. rather clever idea, that. then my wife got out the dwarf nasturtium seeds and we put them in a box, and the box in the conservatory, and myself into the shower. i don't see how a farmer can get along without a shower in the house. we had about six hundred nasturtium seeds in envelopes bearing totally misleading pictures of what they will look like. i filled a box with rough earth and then pulverized it with an ice-pick. then i stuck holes with my finger and put one seed in each hole. after my fingernails had developed into a screaming argument for the use of soap, my wife discovered that i had planted them too deep. "you'll have to take them all out and plant them again," she said. i scratched my head, standing thoughtfully on one foot the while. "i will not," i said. "i will just scrape an inch of dirt off the top!" when it comes to inventing labor-saving devices, i'm a mental gatling. nothing happened to those nasturtium seeds for five days. on the morning of the fifth day i heard a scream from my wife and rushed downstairs, to find her leaning over the nasturtium box. "oooooeeee! lookee!" she shrieked. i looked. then i yelled. i grabbed her in both arms and danced around the conservatory like a plumb fool. then we both ran back and leaned over the box, and raved. there were half a dozen little greenish-white stalks sticking out, each top curved over like a dear little ingrowing nail. "aren't they cute!" exclaimed my wife. "cute!" i said, in disgust. "why, my dear, they're not cute--they're wonderful!" i pushed the window up a little to give them air. my wife caught my arm excitedly and pulled it down again. "you mustn't do that," she said; "you'll freeze the sprouts!" "sprouts," i said, "come on potatoes, onions, cabbages, and beets. these are not sprouts; they are bulbs!" she said not a word, but got a book and showed me a picture of a bulb--a tulip bulb. "that," she said, "is a bulb. these are sprouts." if there's anything that makes home unhappy, it's that atmosphere of superiority in a woman. i tried to point out to her that she couldn't believe everything she saw in a book. "history," i said, "is continually changing. that may have been a bulb at the time of publication, but----" it was no use. i had to give in. she had the dots on uncle henry for sure, but you've got to give it to me--you've just got to. how was this one? listen: "of course they're sprouts. i knew they were sprouts all the time. i was just trying to catch you." sixth period there are four little disconnected adventures in my notes that must find a place somewhere, and so i have decided to bunch them all in this chapter. if you'll draw your chair up closer, i'll give them to you in order: first--the adventure of the prospective tenant. second--the adventure of the mysterious push button. third--the adventure of the reluctant cow. fourth--the adventure of the nasty little fat robin. now for the adventure of the prospective tenant. the fact has been mentioned that we yearned to let our second floor of four beautiful rooms, private bath and shower, closet in every room, large plumbing, polished floors and heaven knows what. as a condition precedent to becoming a flatlord, i appealed to the populace through the want ad. my first copy ran like this: bateman avenue, mont alto-- minutes from city hall; four rooms and private hallway; bath with shower and spray, private; fine southern exposure two rooms; airy, ample windows; use of parlor, porch, piano and laundry; water-heated; garrison avenue cars; beautiful neighborhood; splendid view of city and bay; no children; will give breakfast if desired; church within a block; nearest saloon three miles away, but very fast street cars to that point. burglars shun neighborhood and nobody ever gets drunk. there were other things i overlooked, but we decided to let it go at that. certainly virtues had been mentioned which should overcome any prejudice against suburban life and the crickets. blithely i passed the copy over the counter and inquired the cost. the man smiled. "why don't you make this a display ad. and get a seven-cent flat rate on a six months' contract?" he inquired. i hate a sarcastic man with a pencil. "if you don't like that," i said, "do it yourself!" to make a long recital short, he put it satisfactorily into four lines and we waited for replies. we'll skip the first forty or fifty that didn't suit us. one day there came a gentleman who looked at our four rooms, raved over them and made a proposition, to wit: if we would put a gas range and sink in the red room, open up the wall in the front room and build a sleeping porch for his baby, furnish refrigerating plant for all the baby's milk and allow him the free use of the telephone, he would take our four rooms for three months at $ a month. "my good friend," i said, with suppressed emotion, "you overwhelm us. can't we remove the roof and build a little nursery for the baby, and rig you up a rainy-weather playroom in the basement? we expected to get $ a month, unfurnished, without changes; but you have made us to see the error of our conceit. can't we let you have the piano at the end of your three months, to move away to your future home, as an expression of good will?" he made a gesture of protest. "no," i insisted, "we will not have it any other way. you must accept our hospitality, sir--you simply must! my wife has a diamond ring that i'm sure she would be delighted to give your wife, and any time you want a trunk carried up or down stairs just call on me. my clothes would about fit you--allow me to lend you my dress suit and pajamas! not a word, sir, not a word! i will not permit you to excel me in generosity. and as for your $ . i wouldn't think of taking it! give it to a fund to provide red flannel nightshirts for the little heathens in timbuctoo. they need the night shirts, and, believe me, i thoroughly detest money!" he went away, and going in told the conductor that he was glad he didn't get roped into that lunatic asylum. now the adventure of the mysterious push button: what a wonderful lot of push buttons a contractor can get into ten rooms and a basement! my wife and i jammed our thumbs into at least thirty different kinds, trying them out. there were push buttons to turn on the electric light, push buttons to call the indefinite servant, push buttons to ring bells of all sorts. i half expected to find a push button that would kick a collector off the porch, but was disappointed. we wondered who made all the push buttons, and how much royalty they paid. a push button in that house i bought turns on the porch light and another on the second floor lights the hallway at the foot of the grand staircase, so that in case of burglars the lady of the house doesn't have to go down in advance, carrying the lamp. "that," i said, "is a distinct convenience. i can imagine the discomfiture of the burglar who suddenly finds himself illuminated for a mardi gras pageant, all ready to be shot up like a cheese or a porous plaster." "would you shoot a burglar?" asked my wife admiringly. i imitated a pouter pigeon with my chest. "the extent of my murders," i replied, "would be limited only by the supply of burglars." it does a fellow a lot of good, when he is just moving into the responsibilities of a real citizen, to perform mental assassinations like that. i piled up my dead and we passed on. we found, by pushing another button, that the consolidated gas and electric light company had provided the chandeliers in both parlor and dining room with as many globes as could be crowded into the set. the man who put them in left them all turned on. we burned fully seven cents' worth of watts before it occurred to us to limit the incandescence by turning off a few globes. then my wife got a mania for economizing, and it was uncle henry on a high chair under every individual set of lights, tickling the little flat black key things into a subdued quiescence. we left one watt incubator in each set, with the understanding that if company came we'd turn on the whole business and average it up on the month by sitting as late as possible on the front porch. but there was one button that got me. it was in the front bedroom with the double-mirror doors on the big closet. we pushed it and didn't hear a thing. logically, it ought to do something. i pushed again and listened for the tinkle. my wife went upstairs and downstairs, while i pushed, and every now and then i'd yell at her. "anything happening?" "no," she would reply. "push it real quickly and see if you can't take it by surprise!" i tried every method i could think of to make that push button earn its existence. every day since i've tried it, determined to learn what it ought to do or die in the attempt. but to this day that push button is a mystery. the adventure of the reluctant cow: billy pentz wants to know if we will keep a bee at our house. we will not. and another thing, i don't know why bees are kept in an apiary. i cannot see the line of identification between bees and apes. apes should be kept in an apiary; bees should be kept in a beeswax. but we have been thinking about a cow. there is a company cowary right back of our house, and when the wind is from the south the call of the diary is strong upon us. pardon me, i should have written the dairy. there's another digression. why should the transportation of two letters change a notebook into a milk foundry? i watched william milking a cow in the cowary, and the ease with which he performed what to me seemed no less than magic was simply astounding. sitting there as quietly as you please, on an inverted bucket, with an uninverted bucket between his knees, he directed streams of embryo butter and ice-cream and custard into the centre of a foaming pool with no more concern than a queen of the sixth century would show in knifing a kneeling page. "we will get a cow," i announced briefly, but with that masterful tone that identifies me in any company. my wife looked at me, the way some women look at some men. i withered but held my ground. "why, you can't even milk a cow!" she said. now, i've never taken a dare from any woman. i hiked right back down the patch, careless of the newly sown grass plots, and blundered into the cowary. "william," i said, "arise and hand me that can! i'm going to show you how i used to milk when i was a cowboy!" if this were fiction it would be funny, but it's fact; and many a thing that's funny in fiction is tragedy in fact. william handed me the bucket. i said, "so, bossy," and seated myself just as i had seen william do it, with my feet crossed and the bucket between my knees. that it slipped the first time and slopped over my trousers was merely an incident. after i'd managed a half-nelson grip with my knee caps i grabbed a couple of the cow's depending protuberances and squeezed. nothing happened. i squeezed again and pulled. a couple of drops trickled into the palms of my hands. encouraged, i tried a jiu-jitsu stunt designed to astonish the cow into yielding to superior intelligence, and she looked around at me and grinned. i say that cow grinned. some one once told me that among animals only hyenas could grin. then this cow was a hyena, that's all. i tackled her again, shoving my head into her ribs after the manner of certain yokels i had observed, as if there must be a secret spring to push open the vents. william and the cow grinned a duet. i pulled and pushed, twisted and tugged, coaxed and threatened, and finally i said something to that cow that was uncouth. heaven forgive me for ever speaking rudely to a lady beef! she lifted her near hind hoof and sent the bucket flying. then she moved over against me and mingled me with the soft sod. i got up and silently handed william a quarter, winking the while to accent the hush. when i went into the house i said: "my dear, william informs me that the company may keep a cow around here, but by the terms of our purchase we may not. it's a rank discrimination, but i'm afraid we cannot have a cow. the duke of mont alto and the city ordinances will not permit it!" the adventure of the nasty little fat robin: i don't know the botanical names of the birds around our house; in fact, i am not sure that botany is the science of birds. but, at any rate, we have half a dozen trees and each one is a choir loft. no wheezing organ, with rattling foot pedals and thumping water-pump, disturbs the clear harmonies of their music. no sonorous basso in the amen corner growls out a flat profundo to insult the memory of phoebe carey; no shrill tenor raises his chin until his adam's apple sticks out like a loose bung in a cider barrel, to shriek his blasphemy of divine music! we have just the little birds, whose throats swell and swell until you would think they must burst, and who sing their love-bugles through the branches careless of their audience. wonderful cadenzas chase each other in a game of lyric tag, never wearying, never breaking. trills that can be written only in spirit composition--long notes that sometimes salute a saint, sometimes absolve a sinner--sibilant sighs that bring up memories--all these things we have in our choir, and upon them there is no mortgage! there's a nasty little fat robin outside our kitchen door, though, who is some day going to meet disaster. we feed the robins on crumbs, and throw them such little delicacies as cracked marrow bones, chunks of suet and bits of sugar. when they have finished eating they hurry to the end of the house, where there is always a little water trickling out to make a bird fountain. (item: i must build a regular bird fountain.) this nasty little fat robin, who is going straight into trouble, is a hog on wings. all the others will be cheerfully setting about their dinner, when he will rush in, nibble a single bite and then stand guard over the rest, to keep them from it. i do not know whether to call him rottenfeller for hogging it, or rosenfelt for fighting. now kadott is my pet. i've called her kadott for a little missionary japanese friend, who lives at hadji konak, and i wonder if the japanese at hadji konak will appreciate the honor? the one thing that makes me fond of kadott is that she is very much in love with me; but she annoys me, too, because she makes me keep my distance and still coquettes. she has an odd little trick of coming nearly to me, turning her head and cocking her ear, as if to say: "there is going to be a love scene, and i must beware of eavesdroppers." some of these days she will eat from my hand. but now she only comes close and darts away at the first approach. she has built her nest and she has the mother instinct. when she has hatched her little family i'm going to be uncle henry to every one of them. and that is what i've been trying to get to. if the nasty little fat robin butts into kadott's family relations, there will be a murder. my hands will be red with the blood of a bandit. when you come out to that house i bought, stay all night and listen to the birds in the early morning. it seems to me that a man who listens to the birds in the right spirit ought to make a fairly decent citizen, in time. seventh period my wife is a most observant woman. "love," she said to me, apparently apropos of nothing at all, "must be a farce in a country where there is no moonlight." i nodded assent. it didn't strike me as being worth much more. "i wonder what is the trouble?" she said, after a pause. "trouble?" i repeated inquiringly. "across the street," she explained, "there were two silhouettes in the parlor monday night, and one went away early; the other had her handkerchief to her eyes----" "oho! so you've been keeping cases, eh?" "i don't get your vernacular," she retorted meaningly. "well--er--what's this got to do with moonlight?" i demanded, changing the subject. "it was moonlight last night, and it's moonlight to-night," she replied, "and all the derbies on the hat-rack over there belong to the men in the family, and it's nine-thirty. it seems to me that if i were the man silhouette, i'd at least write, but the mailman hasn't stopped there but once in four days, and then he only delivered a circular, because i got one myself and i recognized it by the big red type on the envelope, and--i think it's a shame, that's what i do, and i don't care, so there!" you know, when a woman doesn't care, so there, she usually gets all worked up about it. it's a way she has of showing her indifference. "have you seen him yet--the man silhouette?" i asked. "no," she replied; "but i thought, if he came to-night, it's so bright and all, i'd get a peep at his face. it would be awful if he were a dissipated man!" "you don't know her, and you don't know him, and you don't know her folks, and what difference does it make to you whether he runs a church or a roulette wheel?" i asked mildly. i went into the house and--well, yes, i might as well admit it--sat at the window where i could command a clear view of the parlor opposite. this affair was getting to be personal with me. and then i think a fellow ought to show an interest in anything that is close to his wife's sympathies. so while she watched on the porch, i watched from the window. he didn't come that night, and he didn't come the next night. but while i was watching--not obtrusively, you know, but just sympathetically--a messenger boy ran up the steps. the door opened halfway and he delivered a message and waited a moment, and then left, dashing up street on his wheel. i was pondering, when our telephone bell rang. i answered. a sweet young voice called: "exchange, give me mount vernon , , please--the hotel belvedere." i broke in. "hello! hello! you're on a busy wire! exchange----" "oh, please, sir, please get off the line and let me have it! this is very important!" i mumbled something and hung up the receiver. then i went back to my window and gazed across the street again. the hall light was turned on--the first time i had noticed it alone. the pale blind was down, but the light--why, a silhouette at the telephone! i ran to the kitchen, where my wife was messing with pots and pans. "i've got it, i've got it!" i screamed, waltzing her around. "you act like it," she said, laughing and disengaging herself. "what have you got?" "she's calling him up at the belvedere! telegram--telephone in hall--light--silhouette--go look!" she ran all the way to the window, and then i had to sit down and tell her just how i knew it must be the man silhouette. all the circumstances were too plain. there was no doubt of it. her intuition backed up my judgment. we sat on the porch until after ten, and then a closed taxi was driven rapidly to the little walk. a man, bundled in a big coat, handed the chauffeur something and dismissed him, and hurried up to the porch. the door swung open without summons and he entered. ten minutes later my wife said: "i wonder if the belt has slipped off down at the power house?" i grunted. "my dear," i said, "if you had quarreled and if you were making up on a moonlight night, would you bother about wasting kilowatts of electricity?" she wrinkled her forehead. "but the moonlight is on the outside of the house." "that's just where you're mistaken," i ventured. "it _was_ all outside, but they're getting all they need of it through the cracks on the sides of the curtain." she sighed. "and moreover," i added, "i'm going to bed." and i did; and there were no silhouettes. at midnight or worse my wife said: "i don't know much else about that man, but i know one thing." "what's that?" i asked. "he's stingy," was her reply; and i'll admit, myself, that he might have turned up the lights just a little while. but all this is foreign to the house. we awoke next morning to a busy experience, for our friends descended upon us. you know there is one stage through which you will have to pass when you buy a house, and for the sake of a name we'll call it the inspection of your intimates. the ink is hardly dry on the deed, or mortgage, or agreement, or whatever your instrument of conveyance may be, before you are on the telephone inviting them out to look at you. you want all your friends to see your new house--to make faces at it and chuck it under the chin, to talk baby talk to it and admire your pantry. the first crack out of the box mrs. smith walks in, sizes up the exterior with a sweeping glance as she enters, sniffs the atmosphere laden with fresh smells and as you stand at judgment remarks: "h'm!" now, "h-m!" may mean any one of twenty-seven things. you stand on one foot and wait. "my goodness, what small rooms!" is the next remark, which is somewhat softened by the addition, "but the wall paper is very pretty," and the reservation damns the praise again, "in places." all this time you are alternating flushes and chills. your spinal column is a sort of marathon track for emotions. you go through the house with her and show the bathroom with its shower, over which she enthuses, and you are in the seventh heaven of satisfaction. but the minute she reaches the third floor, which is a sort of three-quarter floor, your heart sinks again, because she remarks: "i suppose you will just use these little rooms for storage!" and you had fondly thought of occupying them yourself and renting the second floor to help out your investment. mrs. smith thinks your piano is too brilliant on the hardwood floor, and when she has gone home you shove a rug under it. mrs. jones comes next day and says it sounds dead on the rug, and you put it back on the floor. mrs. brown gets you to try it both ways in her presence and concludes that it lacks elevation and would sound better if you took it upstairs; while mrs. harris conceives the novel idea of turning the conservatory into a music-room for the benefit of the base tiling. your prides-in-chief are the linen closet, the big closets in each room, the gas range, the refrigerator built into the wall and the plumbing fixtures. and you are a bit peeved when mrs. johnson passes every one of these features by with calm indifference and raves over an unimportant railing you've had hammered onto the back porch. nearly every one of your intimates comments on the fact that your yard looks like a quarry, but you assure each one that william is going to put on a top soil and seed it down and you are going to plant a turnip and substitute a peach tree for the oak that was struck by lightning. you work yourself up into a human catalogue of advantages as you describe your wonderful plans, and then your intimate shakes her head smilingly. "my dear," she says, like a blooming icicle, "john and i had all these plans when we owned a house, and we never did get our yard fixed. you have no idea of the work and the expense and the disappointments! and don't plant any government seeds. they never come up." it's an odd coincidence that your congressman has just supplied you with a lot of radish, onion, lettuce, and other seeds, and that you have been lying awake nights passing resolutions of thanks to the agricultural department. but there is one who comes--heaven bless her!--who goes into seven fits of joy and envies you your happiness. you love her because of it--and because she is your mother. eighth period the real enjoyment of home comes when for the first time you are taking a week off. "are you going to atlantic city?" asks jones. you curl your lip in a sneer and tilt your nose and snort, and make yourself superior. "atlantic city! do i look easy? atlantic city, boardwalk, red hot sun, skinny bathers, flies in the dining-room, at $ a day? not on your life! i'm going to stay home and take the rest cure--that's me! i'm going to sleep late, eat four meals a day, spade my garden when i feel like it and enjoy life right. i'm going to take a shower bath every thirty-six minutes and no company--not a blooming visitor--the whole week. what i want is absolute rest." jones listens, but with an air of one who is wise. that was my experience. i was getting fagged, brain-weary and nervous from a terrific strain of making an appearance at work. the bluff went over and the powers that be told me to go away and cut out the telephone. so out to that house i bought forthwith hied me--instanter removed. to drop the load, to forget the worries, to submerge the business ego in a week of solid rest! i was getting near to heaven. the first morning i awoke with a start, leaped out of bed, shed my pajamas and grabbed for the things on the chair. i was dressed and halfway down stairs before i realized that it was off duty for mine. o joy! i got the sun from the porch and read the leading locals and saw half a dozen stories sticking out between the lines. the telephone was handy; i'd call up the office and suggest--whoa! the telephone had been cut out. "good!" i exclaimed internally. "i'll have late breakfast and sleep a couple of hours." my wife came down. "while i'm getting breakfast," she said, "suppose you turn the hose on the porch, and just kind of dust it off with this broom. the girl won't come until next week, and you know i'm a sick woman." i squirted the hose and dusted. scrubbery is one of my short talents. when the sun dried it off, the porch was streaked from end to end, and i had to do it over with my wife supervising. "it is so sweet for us to be together in our nice new home," she said, as i dutifully toted dishes to the kitchen. "you wipe while i wash them, and then you can take a hammer and some tacks and fix these old chairs for the kitchen. when you get that done you can put up some shelves for me in the fruit pantry, and why don't you arrange your books to-day? they're in all sorts of places. there are lots of sticks and stones around the yard. suppose you pick them up and mow the lawn. oh, i know what you can do! you can level up all these little gullies where the rain has cut up the loose dirt in the back yard. isn't it just too dear for anything for us to have a whole week of fun fixing up around the house? i think after you get through with the yard you can----" and so on and so on, to the end of the chapter! some people think cleaning up around a new house is pie for papa, but it isn't. there is none of that glamour you read about in "the delights of home" articles, and it isn't a thing on earth but a case of chuck the cuffs and collars and yield your soul to perspiration and persistence. first, when you start to follow the carpenter into nooks and corners of the cellar and little hiding places in the top floor, you find that he has invented innumerable kinds of leavings, deftly tucked here and there where nobody but a second-sight man would ever figure on locating them. you begin to pick up and after you've stooped about two thousand times you remember the picture in the liver medicine ad., where the man stands with his hands on the small of his back, looking unhappy and pessimistic. and it isn't only picking up, but it's cleaning out. what to do with the stuff bothers you. it's a cinch to burn the shavings and little pieces of wood and that kind of material, but you've got to deal again with bits of putty and glass and bent nails and tacks and other unburnable debris, and you hate to throw them into the bathtub because of the plumbing. you finally throw them out the window. later you realize that you threw them out unwisely. that's when you start to work on your lawn and side yard, and every time you stick in the trowel where you are setting out plants you fetch up a quart of junk. the astonishing lot of garbage they used to make the ground you stand on is bad enough, but with the things you've thrown out added to it the situation is exasperating. you run your lawn mower over a nail, pick it up, and then wonder why providence ever let you get away from an early death, for sheer imbecility. it was the nail you picked up in the third floor and didn't know how to dispose of it. pulling up a little bit of ground with your hands, to make a place for some dwarf nasturtium, you cut your finger with the piece of glass you threw out the side window. it's vexing. what to do with this wreckage a second time puzzles you, and you finally throw it over into the next lot. that's the time you find that your neighbor was watching you from his windows, and--it's not easy to be nice to people who throw their refuse over the lot line, is it? but the worst of all this cleaning-up business is that your wife bosses the job. somehow or other, the man who loves his wife still draws the line at matrimonial dictatorship, even in so small a thing as picking up after the carpenter. neither you nor your wife intended to let it go that far, and she really doesn't intend to go home to her mother, nor do you really intend to drown your domestic griefs in drink. but with some provocations man gets peevish and woman irritable. the night before it had rained. our back yard was soaked to the marrow, if a yard has a marrow. we had a wire stretched to mark our lot line and keep people off the grass seed and the garden. on the heels of the rain came one of the company drivers, took down the wire with deliberation and criminal purpose, and drove two goldarned mules and a wagon right through that yard, cutting ruts six inches deep and scattering parsnips, parsley, beans, peas, and lettuce all over the place. in a new development you have to stay at home twenty-four hours a day and yell at such people, or they'll have you rutted out of your possession. it was pitiful to see those great ruts when we had worked so hard, and the torn-up garden with its sprouts here and there showing what it might have been. but it was more pitiful to see me walking around with a pocketful of manslaughter, looking for the driver who did it. every driver on the place admitted that he didn't do it; so i came to the conclusion that it couldn't have been done at all. i was having delusions. the ruts and ruined gardens were figments of a disordered imagination. oh, well, what's the use? i got the rake, shovel, spade, hoe, hand cultivator, lawn mower, trowel, and a couple of things you lift young plants with and assembled myself on the lawn to put in a good day's work. with the rake i started to rake off the side yard, and got about halfway through when i discovered that the lawn needed mowing. halfway through with the mowing job my eye spotted certain thick spots of weeds, and so i started weeding. halfway through with that i stopped to pick up sticks and stones and throw them, as usual, over my neighbor's lot. then it was this thing and that thing, never finishing anything, until finally i chucked all things and started something new. that's the way with enthusiasts. for finishing a job, give me the plodder whose imagination is subordinate to his hoe. you see, he is a one-idea man, and the idea may not be his own; but the fellow with the genius for starting things is very seldom there at the finish. he dreams large and turns the details over to more successful men. this new thing i started concerns the front plot of garden around the porch. it was a disorganized thing as it stood. i cut out a ditch in front of it, piled all the dirt back against the house and toted baskets of hard stones from a neighboring lot. these i leaned against the sides of the ditch and hammered them in, or cut out the earth and set, making a stone wall that would retain the earth, hold a certain amount of water for irrigation and at the same time be ornamental. it took two hours to make as many yards of this stuff, and several friends called attention to the trouble i was taking for no necessary purpose. well, that may be so--and probably is--but it is so stupid to be always doing the necessary things, living on the obvious, plugging along on the course of existence that is common to all. ninth period by the time i had worn my finger nails to a state of complete dishabille--happy thought!--and had become a hopeless problem for the most sanguine manicurist, i began to learn things really. for instance, this is how a lawn ought to be made: first, grade your ground, then remove all stones and stumps; next roll it and then put on a couple of inches of top soil; then roll that until there isn't a bump in it, sow your grass seed and water constantly, prayerfully. in making our lawn those are the things they didn't do. i don't dare rake our lawn, because the minute i start, out will come a lot of bolders, leaving terrific yawns in the sod. i'm sure the duke will forgive me for getting peeved about that lawn, when he understands that there are callouses in my hands and knots in my lawn mower. also, why on earth, after throwing on the grass seed, do the men drive wagons over it and make ruts and jam their heels into it and make holes, where my vagrant sprinklings with the hose create lakes and puddles and produce never a single grass? with a little preliminary exercise, pushing the big road-roller on garrison avenue and shoving marble blocks out of the courthouse, i tackled our lawn with a new mower, put together by myself in accordance with instructions. our lawn mower is painted a beautiful green on the blades, to keep out the rust. also, it was never intended to cut. it would never do, in an emergency, to shave with. musically, our lawn mower for the first ten feet sang to my soul a song of sweet, rural peace and contentment. then it struck a snag and changed the tune. in the course of two dashes i discovered that the spectacle of a bald-headed front-yard farmer trotting up and down behind a lawn mower was a thing to make acquaintance with. two men i'd never seen in my life stopped and gazed at me, and one of them asked me if i was mowing my lawn. a little girl came by and stood cross-legged with her finger in her mouth, and, when i looked her way, snickered and ran home to tell her mother what a strange sight she had seen. our grocer lingered to remark that it was a hot afternoon, and as if in confirmation of his remarkable perspicuity a lake of sweat fell like a cloudburst from my brow and drowned a hill of ants. "don't work so hard," said my wife, as i made another turn. "why don't you take it easy?" "i am taking it easy," i replied. "all i need now is a leather chair and a highball to look like the maryland club in repose!" sarcasm is one of my strong points, and my wife realized that she had goaded me into sharp retort, so she giggled at me and ran to the telephone to tell her mother that henry was perfectly crazy about his new lawn mower and couldn't leave it alone for a minute. with all those people looking on and my lawn mower hitting a rock or a hole every seven revolutions, i felt cheap. i felt as though it might have been myself whose jawbone was broken by samson, or who bore balaam to jerusalem. the crowd kept growing, and a stream of honest toil rolled down my spine. somehow or other i finished the job. then i looked at the crowd. i left the lawn mower and walked over to them with a deadly glare in my eye. "any of you fellows want to fight?" i demanded rudely. nobody replied. "because if you do," i said, "i can tie both hands behind me and lick any six of you right now." the crowd melted away slowly. one man did stay a moment, but he didn't want to fight. he offered to feel my pulse. in spite of his sarcasm, and in the face of all criticism, i insist that i was beginning to learn. for instance, shall i tell you of the time i astonished campbell? campbell was raised in the country. the smell of sod is strong in his nostrils, and he is a handy man with a hoe. campbell is an agent for the duke, but time hangs on his hands at moments and he dropped around in a casual sort of way to look at our back yard. "i'm thinking of planting a turnip and some onions," said my wife pleasantly. campbell smiled. "in that soil," he said, "you'll never make them completely happy. they'll be crying for home all the time." "what's the matter with the soil?" demanded my wife. "well, it wasn't built for farming. you always have to put in richer soil. i'll show you." my wife thinks campbell is just about right. when he began to talk about how he'd enjoy fixing her garden, and would she please let him have the hoe, rake, spade, and a bucket to tote sod from a pile in the front yard, she began to look upon him as a dispensation of providence. agriculturally, i dwindled in importance as he expanded. he cut five rows, or furrows, or ditches, or whatever you call them, with the hoe, and into them he dropped peas, beans, onions, parsley, and parsnips. then he brought buckets of top soil and dumped it on the seeds along the line, and raked the soil over until it was smooth, and stuck the empty envelopes at the end of the rows for fear my wife would get the peas identified as corn, the beans as peanuts, the onions as cauliflower, the parsley as rhubarb, the parsnips as turnips. campbell let me bring some more buckets of soil. for that favor i have begun to question the degree of campbell's kindness. then i spoke. "your rows of top soil will start the seeds," i said, "but never maintain them when they're out. we must get some commercial fertilizer, and the minute the sprouts show, sprinkle it along the sides of the furrows. then we must soak the farm with a hose." my wife sneered. "he's right," said campbell. my wife winked at him to carry on the joke, but he insisted in sign language that i really had the proper dope. she wilted. "now," i said, "we'll have william throw five loads of top soil into this next patch, over which we will run a plough, mixing it not less than a foot deep. then we'll cover it down, roll it and soak it for a week. we will then be ready to plant our tomato vines and more onions, along the rows of which we'll sprinkle our fertilizer about two sacks to ten yards. this temporary work you've done is about as practical as a school of journalism or poetry. we'll let it stand as a horrible example, but all this goes under, too, in the fall. then we'll dig trenches around the yard, a foot deep, fill in solid with top soil and after a week of settling plant a double row of hedge, one foot apart in length and six inches apart in width. am i right?" i had her gasping. she stared at me in wonder, and campbell--well, he just stood with his mouth open like a catfish, admiring and astounded. that day when a man becomes a hero in his wife's eyes is a triumph such as napoleon never knew in his greatest moments, and the feel of it outdoes the joy of a nero in the plaudits of the claque. it isn't necessary to mention that i got it out of a bulletin from the agricultural department. tenth period getting acquainted is part and parcel of buying a house. there is something in the human chest that yearns for speaking terms, at least with the fellow who is liable to lend you his lawn mower or by whose wife you may some day be called upon for emergency aid in the culinary department. our good friends came out, it's true, and last night kittie and lucy eugenie sat on the porch, and afterward had iced tea and peanut sandwiches in the kitchen, but i mean the regular acquaintance of the long day that makes the wife forget distances and isolation. whooping cough was our visiting card. i got acquainted with the nearest neighbor through the courtesy of his advice when i made some fool remark about the nature of the ground for light gardening, and he gave me the benefit of his information to the contrary. we knew one family so intimately that we could almost nod as we passed without fear of being snubbed--but not a soul called, inquired, or seemed to care. it was the busy time, and we didn't mind so much then. when things lightened up on the labor end we would begin to notice it. and then we brought lydie out for the air. poor little thing! she whooped and whooped and whooped. in the middle of the night she whooped, and she whooped in the morning. she would stop doing almost anything else to run to her auntie and whoop. she knew her responsibility. in the city she had gone from door to door ringing bells and gravely informing the occupants that their children mustn't play with her, because it was catching. she ran her quarantine strictly, but, of course, our new community sharers didn't know that. the groceryman, milkman, iceman, paper boy, the plumber, carpenter, stableman--all manner of men who circulate--learned that lydie had the whooping cough. it wasn't long before our neighbors began to take notice--i mean our neighbors several houses removed, and across the street. we already knew our nearest neighbors, and their stout little red-haired heir and the little baby that sang miserere in the stilly night. but the niece with the whooping cough made us talked about and observed. one day a little girl ran up to lydie. "my mamma says i can play with you, 'cause i've had the whooping cough!" lydie promptly produced her jumping rope. and then there was another from the same house, and we discovered, to our joy, that the children of the horny-handed city editor had also had the whooping cough. we didn't need an introduction there, but the play privilege was pie for the baby. first thing i knew baby was on this porch and that porch, and on the way home in the evening i whistled for her and nodded to the grownups who were entertaining her. but we've lost our intermediary. the other night baby whooped and i whooped. mine was nervous indigestion, combined with a lot of imagination that makes the patent medicine business profitable. between us, baby and i kept up a merry circus all night. she was really sick, and we sent her home to her mother. what a wonderful thing it is to have a baby in the house! every morning catherine and eleanor go out and pick buttercups and forget-me-nots, and bring them to my wife; and she puts them in a vase with the greatest show of gratitude you ever saw, and then proceeds to stuff the children with cakes until they choke, and sends them home full. every day the little auburn-haired boy king in the house next door trots out with his tiny red wagon and laboriously drags that treasure of childhood up and down the pavement--sometimes prancing like a race horse, sometimes plodding along like a mule that curses his ancestry, sometimes ambling by like a good-natured family horse, guaranteed not to run away or scare at an automobile! and the little one--the baby in the go-cart. what a time the baby has watching big brother, and admiring his strength as he performs miracles, not only pulling and backing the tiny red wagon all by himself, but actually turning it around and running the other way, without so much as getting caught in the cracks or stuck in the sod! you can see admiration fairly oozing from baby's eyes; and when he runs at her and pretends to kick his heels into the dashboard, what a laugh she has! up the street, where the apartments are with the shiny sets of bells on the front by the door, and the big rocking chairs and air of solid comfort, there are some other children, but i haven't learned their names. they play around the porch and front yard, and run across the street, scampering up the hill to pick flowers from the lots that soon will feel the plow; and their mothers keep an eye on them--not that any accident could happen, for vehicles are scarce out our way and the street car doesn't enter the quiet of our lives; but just because--well, mothers are a bit peculiar that way--i mean that way of keeping an eye on the young ones. a fellow never knows what a remarkable head a child has, if he has none of his own, until he begins borrowing babies from the neighbors. there's catherine, for instance. catherine and eleanor and i were looking for the little pale anemones that hide around the roots of trees. i picked some four-petaled blue flowers and instructed the children. "these," i said, "are forget-me-nots." "no, they're not," said catherine promptly. "they are bluettes. forget-me-nots have five petals and these have only four." "oh!" i said; "and where did you learn that?" "my teacher told me, and she told me----" which ran into a long lecture on botany and horticulture and forest-lore and things that made me ashamed, for, frankly, i didn't know whether the tree that shaded us was an oak or a maple. i think there should be a limit on male suffrage, and woman domination, and child education. there are some things that make the average man feel cheap, if he has pride. but this is all about the babies, and about the house only indirectly. we love children, my wife and i, and, perhaps, we love them the more because we can send them back to where we borrowed them when they become troublesome. but the most wonderful thing about babies to me is that not so long ago we were all, you and i and your neighbor, all helpless, gooing, crowing, dimpling, fat or slim kids, bundled up in carriages and looking wonder-eyed at the great picture life unfolded before us. and these babies around us--some of these days they'll be the men and women, and some of them will borrow babies, and some will cuddle their own. the babies, god bless 'em!--and the flowers! they are very alike. eleventh period when the house was put in order we invited our professional associates jointly--the city editor and myself and our wives--to come out and see us. it was not a dress affair. it was a case of pajamas preferred and boiled shirts common, out under the hot sun in the flat, or lolling under the oaks in the grove, where we had hard benches to make our guests appreciate upholstery. there were fifty guests, boys and girls of all ages, and, lord, what a time we had! not that it beat a hibernian picnic, because it didn't; but in the pride of your first possession, to have your daily associates come out and look you over and help you enjoy it makes owning a house really worth while. what with getting ready and getting over it, catching up sleep and massaging aching muscles, that event stands as epochal in the history of our family. for days the wives worried each other to death about what they'd have. first, one would suggest ham sandwiches and chicken salad, and the minute they agreed on that the other would switch in soft crabs and roast beef. whether to drink coffee, tea, or lemonade, or all three; whether to have a modest modicum of malt, whether to make a punch or just let the guests drink from the air, like trees and flowers--these were all vexing points, by no means to be settled offhand. and it was not only one night that i was aroused by dream-talk like this: "really, i think lemonade would be nicer--and just a few sandwiches and coffee and ice cream, and----" the dream trailed off into a weary sigh that is the closest approach a real lady ever makes to a snore. well, it happened. they came by twos and threes, and i toted chairs and camp stools from the house the three long blocks to the grove. at first we made conversation with the children--eleanor and catherine--and then our intellectual dean, observing a catholic institution nearby, correctly surmised by its mansard slate roof that it was built before the eighties; it was built in ' . with such mental diversions we killed time until the managing editor arrived and started a game of duck on the rock, at which the city editor skinned his shoulder. we ran races, and the littlest copy reader's legs twinkled with joy over the rough course. the girls jumped rope and screamed, and it was altogether kid-dish. then we ate ham and roast beef sandwiches and drank coffee and cooled our æsophagi with ice cream and cake chasers. our member with the porcupine summit insisted upon singing, and the stenographer played all the popular things. we gathered at the reservoir, while two of the men and the healthiest girl ran a marathon around that long mile, and she finished beautifully. then we sat on the porch and had our pictures taken by flashlight. somebody burgled that house and moved the parlor furniture and piano into the dining-room and the dining-room stuff into the parlor. a merry wit tacked attachments to our houses, the managing editor put an "open for inspection" sign on the city editor's castle and some one stuck a "for rent" placard on ours. and then they began leaving, by twos and threes, and the telephone girl was one of the last to go, lingeringly. we slept that night--slept the sleep of the properly weary. all sorts of dreams romped through the long stillness and entertained us. the duke of mont alto was in one of mine, and he was telling me something about taxes and water rent. but before his conversation got disagreeable i was awakened by a racket on the roof. there's a fool woodpecker that comes there every morning at six o'clock and tries to drill through the slate. he's after a nest. it must be hard work. but if he ever gets through i know how he'll feel. he will have hustled some, but it will have been worth while. anything is worth while, friend, if the goal is a nest of your own, where you can have your friends out and nobody can tell you to keep off the grass or wipe your feet on the mat--_excepting your wife_! not at all apropo of the house, there's a thought i want to get out of my system. what a lot of braggarts we men are, anyhow--and what a queer old world it is! there are two classes of people in the world--those who are doing something worth while and those who are trying to steal the credit. a modest little hen two or three doors away laid an egg, and in very few words cackled the event; but you ought to have heard that insufferable rooster! the moment the thing happened he strutted around with his chest out, yelling at the top of his voice, drowning out the whole poultry yard: "ur-r-r-r, ur-r-r-r, ur-r-r-r! i'm the daddy of another egg!" how much more decent it would have been had he quietly stood by, preserving his dignity and judicial calm. now we'll get back to the story. i'm sifting top soil to make our garden right, and my wife is doing wonderful things inside the house with the furniture and fixings. every day she turns me around three times and shows me something new--something marvelous of her handiwork, immensely flattering to me since it justifies my judgment in the selection of a helpmeet. every day the business of buying the house looks more possible and less of a financial mountain. why, i can even afford to joke with the duke, who asked me what i intended to plant in our front garden against the porch. "i think," i said, "i'll plant a nice little row of mortgage vines and let 'em grow up and crawl all over the house. a mortgage vine, duke, has flowers on it all the year round, and it's the most homelike thing i know." the duke enjoyed that immensely--but then he can afford to laugh, because he lives on the other side of the road. * * * * * and now the time has come to end this recital of everyday incidents in the personal affairs of yours truly--a humble man of no importance whatever, who for that reason may be representative of eighty per cent. of the world's population. in closing, here is a thought that sticks with me: if i had started to buy a home when i was married, that home would long ago have been my clean-title property. if i had started to systematically bank or invest twenty per cent. of my earnings from the date of my first cub job, i'd have owned stock in the newspaper that lets me live. if i had to do it all over again-- why, lord bless you, i'd do just as i have done! i'd live the same sort of life, be just the same profligate fellow with no care for the morrow, go through just the same sort of trials and troubles and throw them off with just the same sort of optimism. after all, a fellow isn't capable of appreciating to the full a little possession until he has gone the route of silly extravagances and been pulled together by some sudden impulse to be a better citizen. and listen: without the least reflection on the good qualities of other men, the very best citizen of any community is the man who has married early and provided a nest of his own--who pays taxes and contributes his share to the happiness of society at large--who obeys the law and is not ashamed to be in love with his own wife--who works hard and plays hard, and who goes fishing. enough of that house i bought. come out and sit on our porch, and if there is anything in the larder you may sup with us. the end. the even dozenth, which is a postscript you might know it was suggested by a woman. no man ever yet resorted to the postscript. my wife says it ought to go in after everything else, like the tag of a play. i was in favor of leaving the thing in suspense, and annoying the reader--leaving something to tease the imagination. but she said it would be cruel. the fact is, there was a parade of silhouettes across the street last night. there was a preacher silhouette, and there were best man and maid of honor silhouettes, and their were jealous sister silhouettes--two of them. there were village cut-up silhouettes and silhouettes of little girls in pink ribbons--we knew they were pink because we saw them going in, stepping high to keep their white slippers clean. all the silhouettes gathered under a floral court of honor hung to the gas jet, and such a screaming and laughing and talking when it was over, you never heard! "at last," said my wife, "i shall see that man silhouette and that girl silhouette in the flesh. i shall sit here until they start for the train, and then rush across the street and look right into----" an odor of something burning came from the kitchen. "my roast!" screamed my wife, and dashed madly indoors, followed obediently by her husband. after we had rescued the roast we returned to the porch. a lot of idiots were throwing rice and shoes and flowers up the street. we followed the line of attack and there was the carriage, being hauled off by galloping horses to catch a train for niagara falls, with a slipper rattling out behind, and a streamer bearing the legend: we are just married! "and to think," said my wife, "that after all my sisterly solicitude i have never seen the bride!" "nor the groom," i ventured. "oh, well," she said, "he doesn't count--_now_!" and i reckon there may be something in that. finis. produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. the cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain. the home _shall the home be our world ... or the world our home?_ the home its work and influence by charlotte perkins gilman new york charlton company copyrighted republished, november, by the charlton co. printed by the co-operative press, new york city to every man who maintains a home-- to every woman who "keeps house"-- to every house-servant, owned, hired, or married-- to every boy and girl who lives at home-- to every baby who is born and reared at home-- in the hope of better homes for all this book is dedicated. contents chapter page i. introductory, ii. the evolution of the home, iii. domestic mythology, iv. present conditions, v. the home as a workshop. i. the housewife, vi. the home as a workshop. ii. the housemaid, vii. home-cooking, viii. domestic art, ix. domestic ethics, x. domestic entertainment, xi. the lady of the house, xii. the child at home, xiii. the girl at home, xiv. home influence on men, xv. home and social progress, xvi. lines of advance, xvii. results, two callings i _i hear a deep voice through uneasy dreaming, a deep, soft, tender, soul-beguiling voice; a lulling voice that bids the dreams remain, that calms my restlessness and dulls my pain, that thrills and fills and holds me till in seeming there is no other sound on earth--no choice._ _"home!" says the deep voice, "home!" and softly singing brings me a sense of safety unsurpassed; so old! so old! the piles above the wave-- the shelter of the stone-blocked, shadowy cave-- security of sun-kissed treetops swinging-- safety and home at last!_ _"home" says the sweet voice, and warm comfort rises, holding my soul with velvet-fingered hands; comfort of leafy lair and lapping fur, soft couches, cushions, curtains, and the stir of easy pleasures that the body prizes, of soft, swift feet to serve the least commands._ _i shrink--half rise--and then it murmurs "duty!" again the past rolls out--a scroll unfurled; allegiance and long labor due my lord-- allegiance in an idleness abhorred-- i am the squaw--the slave--the harem beauty-- i serve and serve, the handmaid of the world._ _my soul rebels--but hark! a new note thrilling, deep, deep, past finding--i protest no more; the voice says "love!" and all those ages dim stand glorified and justified in him; i bow--i kneel--the woman soul is willing-- "love is the law. be still! obey! adore!"_ _and then--ah, then! the deep voice murmurs "mother!" and all life answers from the primal sea; a mingling of all lullabies; a peace that asks no understanding; the release of nature's holiest power--who seeks another? home? home is mother--mother, home--to me._ _"home!" says the deep voice; "home and easy pleasure! safety and comfort, laws of life well kept! love!" and my heart rose thrilling at the word; "mother!" it nestled down and never stirred; "duty and peace and love beyond all measure! home! safety! comfort! mother!"--and i slept._ ii _a bugle call! a clear, keen, ringing cry, relentless--eloquent--that found the ear through fold on fold of slumber, sweet, profound-- a widening wave of universal sound, piercing the heart--filling the utmost sky-- i wake--i must wake! hear--for i must hear!_ _"the world! the world is crying! hear its needs! home is a part of life--i am the whole! home is the cradle--shall a whole life stay cradled in comfort through the working day? i too am home--the home of all high deeds-- the only home to hold the human soul!_ _"courage!--the front of conscious life!" it cried; "courage that dares to die and dares to live! why should you prate of safety? is life meant in ignominious safety to be spent? is home best valued as a place to hide? come out, and give what you are here to give!_ _"strength and endurance! of high action born!" and all that dream of comfort shrank away, turning its fond, beguiling face aside: so selfishness and luxury and pride stood forth revealed, till i grew fierce with scorn, and burned to meet the dangers of the day._ _"duty? aye, duty! duty! mark the word!" i turned to my old standard. it was rent from hem to hem, and through the gaping place i saw my undone duties to the race of man--neglected--spurned--how had i heard that word and never dreamed of what it meant!_ _"duty! unlimited--eternal--new!" and i? my idol on a petty shrine fell as i turned, and cowardice and sloth fell too, unmasked, false duty covering both-- while the true duty, all-embracing, high, showed the clear line of noble deeds to do._ _and then the great voice rang out to the turn, and all my terror left me, all my shame, while every dream of joy from earliest youth came back and lived!--that joy unhoped was truth, all joy, all hope, all truth, all peace grew one, life opened clear, and love? love was its name!_ _so when the great word "mother!" rang once more, i saw at last its meaning and its place; not the blind passion of the brooding past, but mother--the world's mother--come at last, to love as she had never loved before-- to feed and guard and teach the human race._ _the world was full of music clear and high! the world was full of light! the world was free! and i? awake at last, in joy untold, saw love and duty broad as life unrolled-- wide as the earth--unbounded as the sky-- home was the world--the world was home to me!_ the home i introductory in offering this study to a public accustomed only to the unquestioning acceptance of the home as something perfect, holy, quite above discussion, a word of explanation is needed. first, let it be clearly and definitely stated, the purpose of this book is to maintain and improve the home. criticism there is, deep and thorough; but not with the intention of robbing us of one essential element of home life--rather of saving us from conditions not only unessential, but gravely detrimental to home life. every human being should have a home; the single person his or her home; and the family their home. the home should offer to the individual rest, peace, quiet, comfort, health, and that degree of personal expression requisite; and these conditions should be maintained by the best methods of the time. the home should be to the child a place of happiness and true development; to the adult a place of happiness and that beautiful reinforcement of the spirit needed by the world's workers. we are here to perform our best service to society, and to find our best individual growth and expression; a right home is essential to both these uses. the place of childhood's glowing memories, of youth's ideals, of the calm satisfaction of mature life, of peaceful shelter for the aged; this is not attacked, this we shall not lose, but gain more universally. what is here asserted is that our real home life is clogged and injured by a number of conditions which are not necessary, which are directly inimical to the home; and that we shall do well to lay these aside. as to the element of sanctity--that which is really sacred can bear examination, no darkened room is needed for real miracles; mystery and shadow belong to jugglers, not to the truth. the home is a human institution. all human institutions are open to improvement. this specially dear and ancient one, however, we have successfully kept shut, and so it has not improved as have some others. the home is too important a factor in human life to be thus left behind in the march of events; its influence is too wide, too deep, too general, for us to ignore. whatever else a human being has to meet and bear, he has always the home as a governing factor in the formation of character and the direction of life. this power of home-influence we cannot fail to see, but we have bowed to it in blind idolatry as one of unmixed beneficence, instead of studying with jealous care that so large a force be wisely guided and restrained. we have watched the rise and fall of many social institutions, we have seen them change, grow, decay, and die; we have seen them work mightily for evil--or as mightily for good; and have learned to judge and choose accordingly, to build up and to tear down for the best interests of the human race. in very early times, when the child-mind of inexperienced man was timid, soft, and yet conservative as only the mind of children and savages can be, we regarded all institutions with devout reverence and fear. primitive man bowed down and fell upon his face before almost everything, whether forces of nature or of art. to worship, to enshrine, to follow blindly, was instinctive with the savage. the civilised man has a larger outlook, a clearer, better-ordered brain. he bases reverence on knowledge, he loses fear in the light of understanding; freedom and self-government have developed him. it does not come so readily to him to fall upon his face--rather he lifts his face bravely to see and know and do. in place of the dark and cruel superstitions of old time, with the crushing weight of a strong cult of priests, we have a free and growing church, branching steadily wider as more minds differ, and coming nearer always to that final merging of religion in life which shall leave them indistinguishable. in place of the iron despotisms of old time we have a similar growth and change in governments, approaching always nearer to a fully self-governing condition. our growth has been great, but it has been irregular and broken by strange checks and reversions; also accompanied, even in its heights, by parallel disorders difficult to account for. in all this long period of progress the moving world has carried with it the unmoving home; the man free, the woman confined; the man specialising in a thousand industries, the woman still limited to her domestic functions. we have constantly believed that this was the true way to live, the natural way, the only way. whatever else might change--and all things did--the home must not. so sure were we, and are we yet, of this, that we have utterly refused to admit that the home has changed, has grown, has improved, in spite of our unshaken convictions and unbending opposition. the softest, freest, most pliable and changeful living substance is the brain--the hardest and most iron-bound as well. given a sufficiently deep conviction, and facts are but as dreams before its huge reality. our convictions about the home go down to the uttermost depths, and have changed less under the tooth of time than any others, yet the facts involved have altered most radically. the structure of the home has changed from cave to tent, from tent to hut, from hut to house, from house to block or towering pile of "flats"; the functions of the home have changed from every incipient industry known to past times, to our remaining few; the inmates of the home have changed, from the polygamous group and its crowd of slaves, to the one basic family relation of father, mother, and child; but our feelings have remained the same. the progress of society we have seen to be hindered by many evils in the world about us and in our own characters; we have sought to oppose them as best we might, and even in some degree to study them for wiser opposition. certain diseases we have traced to their cause, removed the cause, and so avoided the disease; others we are just beginning to trace, as in our present warfare with "the white plague," tuberculosis. certain forms of vice we are beginning to examine similarly, and certain defects of character; we are learning that society is part of the living world and comes under the action of natural law as much as any other form of life. but in all this study of social factors affecting disease and vice and character, we have still held that the home--our most universal environment--was perfect and quite above suspicion. we were right at bottom. the home _in its essential nature_ is pure good, and in its due development is progressively good; but it must change with society's advance; and the kind of home that was wholly beneficial in one century may be largely evil in another. we must forcibly bear in mind, in any honest study of a long-accustomed environment, that our own comfort, or even happiness, in a given condition does not prove it to be good. comfort and happiness are very largely a matter of prolonged adjustment. we like what we are used to. when we get used to something else we like that too--and if the something else is really better, we profit by the change. to the tired farmer it is comfort to take off his coat, put up his yarn-stockinged feet on a chair, and have his wife serve him the supper she has cooked. the tired banker prefers a dressing gown or lounging jacket, slippers, a well-dressed, white-handed wife, and a neat maid or stately butler to wait on the table. the domestic roman preferred a luxurious bath at the hands of his slaves. all these types find comfort in certain surroundings--yet the surroundings differ. the new england farmer would not think a home comfortable that was full of slaves--even a butler he would find oppressive; the new york banker would not enjoy seeing his wife do dirty work. ideals change--even home ideals; and whatever kind of home we have, so that we grow up in it and know no other, we learn to love. even among homes as they now are, equally enjoyed by their inmates, there is a wide scale of difference. why, then, is it impossible to imagine something still further varying from what we now know; yet to the children born therein as dear and deeply loved? again let us remember that happiness, mere physical comfort and the interchange of family affection, is not all that life is for. we may have had "a happy childhood," as far as we can recall; we may have been idolised and indulged by our parents, and have had no wish ungratified; yet even so all this is no guarantee that the beloved home has given us the best training, the best growth. nourmahal, the light of the harem, no doubt enjoyed herself--but perhaps other surroundings might have done more for her mind and soul. the questions raised here touch not only upon our comfort and happiness in such homes as are happy ones, but on the formative influence of these homes; asking if our present home ideals and home conditions are really doing all for humanity that we have a right to demand. there is a difference in homes not only in races, classes, and individuals, but in periods. the sum of the criticism in the following study is this: the home has not developed in proportion to our other institutions, and by its rudimentary condition it arrests development in other lines. further, that the two main errors in the right adjustment of the home to our present life are these: the maintenance of primitive industries in a modern industrial community, and the confinement of women to those industries and their limited area of expression. no word is said against the real home, the true family life; but it is claimed that much we consider essential to that home and family life is not only unnecessary, but positively injurious. the home is a beautiful ideal, but have we no others? "my country" touches a deeper chord than even "home, sweet home." a homeless man is to be pitied, but "the man without a country" is one of the horrors of history. the love of mother and child is beautiful; but there is a higher law than that--the love of one another. in our great religion we are taught to love and serve all mankind. every word and act of christ goes to show the law of universal service. christian love goes out to all the world; it may begin, but does not stay, at home. the trend of all democracy is toward a wider, keener civic consciousness; a purer public service. all the great problems of our times call for the broad view, the large concept, the general action. such gain as we have made in human life is in this larger love; in some approach to peace, safety, and world-wide inter-service; yet this so patent common good is strangely contradicted and off-set by cross-currents of primitive selfishness. our own personal lives, rich as they are to-day, broad with the consciousness of all acquainted races, deep with the consciousness of the uncovered past, strong with our universal knowledge and power; yet even so are not happy. we are confused--bewildered. life is complicated, duties conflict, we fly and fall like tethered birds, and our new powers beat against old restrictions like ships in dock, fast moored, yet with all sail set and steam up. it is here suggested that one cause for this irregular development of character, this contradictory social action, and this wearing unrest in life lies unsuspected in our homes; not in their undying essential factors, but in those phases of home life we should have long since peacefully outgrown. let no one tremble in fear of losing precious things. that which is precious remains and will remain always. we do small honour to nature's laws when we imagine their fulfilment rests on this or that petty local custom of our own. we may all have homes to love and grow in without the requirement that half of us shall never have anything else. we shall have homes of rest and peace for all, with no need for half of us to find them places of ceaseless work and care. home and its beauty, home and its comfort, home and its refreshment to tired nerves, its inspiration to worn hearts, this is in no danger of loss or change; but the home which is so far from beautiful, so wearing to the nerves and dulling to the heart, the home life that means care and labour and disappointment, the quiet, unnoticed whirlpool that sucks down youth and beauty and enthusiasm, man's long labour and woman's longer love--this we may gladly change and safely lose. to the child who longs to grow up and be free; to the restless, rebelling boy; to the girl who marries all too hastily as a means of escape; to the man who puts his neck in the collar and pulls while life lasts to meet the unceasing demands of his little sanctuary; and to the woman--the thousands upon thousands of women, who work while life lasts to serve that sanctuary by night and day--to all these it may not be unwelcome to suggest that the home need be neither a prison, a workhouse, nor a consuming fire. home--with all that the sweet word means; home for each of us, in its best sense; yet shorn of its inordinate expenses, freed of its grinding labours, open to the blessed currents of progress that lead and lift us all--this we may have and keep for all time. it is, therefore, with no iconoclastic frenzy of destruction, but as one bravely pruning a most precious tree, that this book is put forward; inquiring as to what is and what is not vital to the subject; and claiming broadly that with such and such clinging masses cut away, the real home life will be better established and more richly fruitful for good than we have ever known before. ii the evolution of the home we have been slow, slow and reluctant, to apply the laws of evolution to the familiar facts of human life. whatever else might move, we surely were stationary; we were the superior onlookers--not part of the procession. ideas which have possessed the racial mind from the oldest times are not to be dispossessed in a day; and this idea that man is something extra in the scheme of creation is one of our very oldest. we have always assumed that we were made by a special order, and that our manners and customs were peculiarly and distinctively our own, separated by an immeasurable gap from those of "the lower animals." now it appears, in large succeeding waves of proof, that there are no gaps in the long story of earth's continual creation; some pages may be lost to us, but they were once continuous. there is no break between us and the first stir of life upon our planet. life is an unbroken line, a ceaseless stream that pours steadily on; or rather, it grows like an undying tree, some of whose branches wither and drop off, some reach their limit part way up, but the main trunk rises ever higher. we stand at the top and continue to grow, but we still carry with us many of the characteristics of the lower branches. at what point in this long march of life was introduced that useful, blessed thing--the home? is it something new, something distinctively human, like the church, the school, or the post office? no. it is traceable far back of humanity, back of the mammals, back of the vertebrates; we find it in most elaborate form even among insects. what is a home? the idea of home is usually connected with that of family, as a place wherein young are born and reared, a common shelter for the reproductive group. the word may be also applied to the common shelter for any other permanent group, and to the place where any individual habitually stays. continuous living in any place by individual or group makes that place a home; even old prisoners, at last released, have been known to come back to the familiar cell because it seemed like "home" to them. but "the home," in the sense in which we here discuss it, is the shelter of the family, of the group organised for purposes of reproduction. in this sense a beehive is as much a home as any human dwelling place--even more, perhaps. the snow hut of the eskimo, the tent of hides that covers the american savage, the rock-bound fastness of the cave-dweller--these are homes as truly as the costliest modern mansion. the burrow of the prairie dog is a home, a fox's earth is a home, a bird's nest is a home, and the shelter of the little "seahorse" is a home. wherever the mother feeds and guards her little ones,--more especially if the father helps her,--there is, for the time being, home. this accounts at once for the bottomless depths of our attachment to the idea. for millions and millions of years it has been reborn in each generation and maintained by the same ceaseless pressure. the furry babies of the forest grow to consciousness in nests of leaves, in a warm stillness where they are safe and comfortable, where mother is--and mother is heaven and earth to the baby. our lightly spoken phrase "what is home without a mother?" covers the deepest truth; there would never have been any home without her. it is from these antecedents that we may trace the formation of this deep-bedded concept, home. the blended feelings covered by the word are a group of life's first necessities and most constant joys: shelter, quiet, safety, warmth, ease, comfort, peace, and love. add to these food, and you have the sum of the animal's gratification. home is indeed heaven to him. the world outside is, to the animal with a home, a field of excitement, exertion, and danger. he goes out to eat, in more or less danger of being eaten; but if he can secure his prey and drag it home he is then perfectly happy. often he must feed where it falls, but then home is the place for the after-dinner nap. with the graminivora there is no thought of home. the peaceful grass-eater drops foal or fawn, kid, calf, or lamb, where chance may find her in the open, and feeds at random under the sky. vegetable food of a weak quality like grass has to be constantly followed up; there is no time to gather armfuls to take home, even if there were homes--or arms. but the beasts of prey have homes and love them, and the little timid things that live in instant danger--they, too, have homes to hide in at a moment's notice. these deep roots of animal satisfaction underlie the later growths of sentiment that so enshrine the home idea with us. the retreat, the shelter both from weather and enemies, this is a primal root. it is interesting to note that there is a strong connection still between a disagreeable climate and the love of home. where it is comfortable and pleasant out of doors, then you find the life of the street, the market place, the café, the plaza. where it is damp and dark and chill, where rain and wind, snow and ice make it unpleasant without, there you find people gathering about the fireside, and boasting of it as a virtue--merely another instance of the law that makes virtue of necessity. man began with the beasts' need of home and the beasts' love of home. to this he rapidly applied new needs and new sentiments. the ingenious ferocity of man, and his unique habit of preying on his own kind, at once introduced a new necessity, that of fortification. many animals live in terror of attack from other kinds of animals, and adapt their homes defensively as best they may, but few are exposed to danger of attack from their own kind. ants, indeed, sometimes make war; bees are sometimes thieves; but man stands clear in his pre-eminence as a destroyer of his own race. from this habit of preying on each other came the need of fortified homes, and so the feeling of safety attached to the place grew and deepened. the sense of comfort increased as we learned to multiply conveniences, and, with this increase in conveniences, came decreased power to do without them. the home where all sat on the floor had not so much advantage in comfort over "out-of-doors" as had the home where all sat on chairs, and became unable to sit on the ground with ease. so safety and comfort grew in the home concept. shelter, too, became more complex as door and window and curtain guarded us better, and made us more susceptible to chill. peace became more dear at home as war increased outside; quiet, as life waxed louder in the world; love, as we learned to hate each other more. the more dangerous and offensive life outside, the more we cling to the primal virtues of the home; and conversely, in our imagination of heaven, we do not picture the angels as bound up in their homes--if, indeed, they have any--but as gladly mingling in the larger love which includes them all. when we say "heaven is my home," we mean the whole of it. the care and shelter of the young is a far larger problem with us than with our hairy ancestors. our longer period of immaturity gives us monogamous marriage and the permanent home. the animal may change his mate and home between litters; ours lap. this over-lapping, long-continuing babyhood has given us more good than we yet recognise. thus we see that all the animal cared for in the home we have in greater degree, and care for more; while we have, further, many home ideals they knew not. one of the earliest steps in human development was ancestor-worship. with lower animals the parents do their duty cheerfully, steadily, devotedly, but there is no thought of return. the law of reproduction acts to improve the race by relentlessly sacrificing the individual, and that individual, the parent, never sets up a claim to any special veneration or gratitude. but with us it is different. our little ones lasting longer and requiring more care, we become more conscious of our relation to them. so the primitive parent very soon set up a claim upon the child, and as the child was absolutely helpless and in the power of the parent, it did not take long to force into the racial mind this great back-acting theory. the extreme height is found where it is made a religion, ancestor-worship, once very common, and still dominant in some of our oldest, _i.e._, most primitive civilisations, as the chinese. this ancestor-worship is what gave the element of sanctity to the home. as late as the roman civilisation its power was so strong that the home was still a temple to a dwindling group of household gods--mere fossil grandpas--and we ourselves are not yet free from the influence of roman civilisation. we still talk in poetic archaisms of "the altar of the home." the extension of the family from a temporary reproductive group to a permanent social group is another human addition to the home idea. to have lived in one hole all his infancy makes that hole familiar and dear to the little fox. to have lived in one nest all his life makes that nest more familiar and more dear to the rook. but to have lived in one house for generations, to have "the home of my ancestors" loom upon one's growing consciousness--this is to enlarge enormously our sense of the dignity and value of the term. this development of the home feeling of course hinges upon the theory of private property rights; and on another of our peculiar specialties, the exaltation of blood-relationships. our whole social structure, together with social progress and social action, rests in reality on social relationship--that is, on the interchange of special services between individuals. but we, starting the custom at a time when we knew no better, and perpetuating it blindly, chose to assume that it was more important to be connected physically as are the animals, than psychically as human beings; so we extended the original family group of father, mother, and child into endless collateral lines and tried to attach our duties, our ambitions, our virtues and achievements to that group exclusively. the effect of this on any permanent home was necessarily to still further enlarge and deepen the sentiment attached to it. there is another feature of human life, however, which has contributed enormously to our home sentiment,--the position of women. having its rise, no doubt, in the over-lapping babyhood before mentioned, the habit grew of associating women more continuously with the home, but this tendency was as nothing compared to the impetus given by the custom of ownership in women. women became, practically, property. they were sold, exchanged, given and bequeathed like horses, hides, or weapons. they belonged to the man, as did the house; it was one property group. with the steadily widening gulf between the sexes which followed upon this arbitrary imprisonment of the woman in the home, we have come to regard "the world" as exclusively man's province, and "the home" as exclusively woman's. the man, who constitutes the progressive wing of the human race, went on outside as best he might, organising society, and always enshrining in his heart the woman and the home as one and indivisible. this gives the subtle charm of sex to a man's home ideals, and, equally, the scorn of sex to a man's home practices. home to the man first means mother, as it does to all creatures, but later, and with renewed intensity, it means his own private harem--be it never so monogamous--the secret place where he keeps his most precious possession. thus the word "home," in the human mind, touches the spring of a large complex group of ideas and sentiments, some older than humanity, some recent enough for us to trace their birth, some as true and inalienable as any other laws of life, some as false and unnecessary as any others of mankind's mistakes. it does not follow that all the earliest ones are right for us to-day, because they were right for our remote predecessors, or that those later introduced are therefore wrong. what is called for is a clear knowledge of the course of evolution of this earliest institution and an understanding of the reasons for its changes, that we may discriminate to-day between that which is vital and permanent in home life and that which is unessential and injurious. we may follow without difficulty the evolution of each and all the essential constituents of home, mark the introduction of non-essentials, show the evils resultant from forced retention of earlier forms; in a word, we may study the evolution of the home precisely as we study that of any other form of life. take that primal requisite of safety and shelter which seems to underlie all others, a place where the occupant may be protected from the weather and its enemies. this motive of home-making governs the nest-builder, the burrow-digger, the selector of caves; it dominates the insect, the animal, the savage, and the modern architect. dangers change, and the home must change to suit the danger. so after the caves were found insufficient, the lake-dwellers built above the water, safe when the bridge was in. the drawbridge as an element of safety lingered long, even when an artificial moat must needs be made for lack of lake. when the principal danger is cold, as in arctic regions, the home is built thick and small; when it is heat, we build thick and large; when it is dampness, we choose high ground, elevate the home, lay drains; when it is wind, we seek a sheltered slope, or if there is no slope, plant trees as a wind-break to protect the home, or, in the worst cases, make a "cyclone cellar." the gradual development of our careful plastering and glazing, our methods of heating, of carpeting and curtaining, comes along this line of security and shelter, modified always by humanity's great enemy, conservatism. in these mechanical details, as in deeper issues, free adaptation to changed conditions is hindered by our invariable effort to maintain older habits. older habits are most dear to the aged, and as the aged have always most controlled the home, that institution is peculiarly slow to respond to the kindling influence of changed condition. the chaldeans built of brick for years unnumbered, because clay was their only building material. when they spread into assyria, where stone was plenty, they continued calmly putting up great palaces of sunbaked brick,--mere _adobe_,--and each new king left the cracking terraces of his predecessor's pride and built another equally ephemeral. the influence of our ancestors has dominated the home more than it has any other human institution, and the influence of our ancestors is necessarily retroactive. in the gathering currents of our present-day social evolution, and especially in this country where progress is not feared, this heavy undertow is being somewhat overcome. things move so rapidly now that one life counts the changes, there is at last a sense of motion in human affairs, and so these healthful processes of change can have free way. the dangers to be met to-day by the home-builder are far different from those of ancient times, and, like most of our troubles, are largely of our own making. earthquake and tidal wave still govern our choice of place and material somewhat, and climate of course always, but fire is the chief element of danger in our cities, and next to fire the greatest danger in the home is its own dirt. the savage was dirty in his habits, from our point of view, but he lived in a clean world large enough to hold his little contribution of bones and ashes, and he did not defile his own tent with detritus of any sort. we, in our far larger homes, with our far more elaborate processes of living, and with our ancient system of confining women to the home entirely, have evolved a continuous accumulation of waste matter in the home. the effort temporarily to remove this waste is one of the main lines of domestic industry; the effort to produce it is the other. just as we may watch the course of evolution from a tiny transparent cell, absorbing some contiguous particle of food and eliminating its microscopic residuum of waste, up to the elaborate group of alimentary processes which make up so large a proportion of our complex physiology; so we may watch the evolution of these home processes from the simple gnawing of bones and tossing them in a heap of the cave-dweller, to the ten-course luncheon with its painted menu. in different nations the result varies, each nation assumes its methods to be right, and, so assuming, labours on to meet its supposed needs, to fulfil its local ambitions and duties as it apprehends them. and in no nation does it occur to the inhabitants to measure their habits and customs by the effect on life, health, happiness, and character. the line of comfort may be followed in its growth like the line of safety. at first anything to keep the wind and rain off was comfortable--any snug hole to help retain the heat of the little animal. then that old abc of all later luxury, the bed, appeared--something soft between you and the rock--something dry between you and the ground. so on and on, as ease grew exquisite and skill increased, till we robbed the eider duck and stripped the goose to make down-heaps for our tender flesh to lie on, and so to the costly modern mattress. the ground, the stamped clay floor, the floor of brick, of stone, of wood; the rushes and the sand; the rug--a mere hide once and now the woven miracle of years of labour in the east, or gaudy carpet of the west--so runs that line of growth. always the simple beginning, and its natural development under the laws of progress to more and more refinement and profusion. always the essential changes that follow changed conditions, and always the downward pull of inviolate home-tradition, to hold back evolution when it could. see it in furnishing: a stone or block of wood to sit on, a hide to lie on, a shelf to put the food on. see that block of wood change under your eyes and crawl up history on its forthcoming legs--a stool, a chair, a sofa, a settee, and now the endless ranks of sittable furniture wherewith we fill the home to keep ourselves from the floor withal. and these be-stuffed, be-springed, and upholstered till it would seem as if all humanity were newly whipped. it is much more tiresome to stand than to walk. if you are confined at home you cannot walk much--therefore you must sit--especially if your task be a stationary one. so, to the home-bound woman came much sitting, and much sitting called for ever softer seats, and to the wholly home-bound harem women even sitting is too strenuous; there you find cushions and more cushions and eternal lying down. a long way this from the strong bones, hard muscles, and free movement of the sturdy squaw, and yet a sure product of evolution with certain modifications of religious and social thought. our homes, thanks to other ideas and habits, are not thus ultra-cushioned; our women can still sit up, most of the time, preferring a stuffed chair. and among the more normal working classes, still largely and blessedly predominant, neither the sitting nor the stuffing is so evident. a woman who does the work in an ordinary home seldom sits down, and when she does any chair feels good. in decoration this long and varied evolution is clearly and prominently visible, both in normal growth, in natural excess, and in utterly abnormal variations. so large a field of study is this that it will be given separate consideration in the chapter on domestic art. what is here sought is simply to give a general impression of the continual flux and growth of the home as an institution, as one under the same laws as those which govern other institutions, and also of the check to that growth resultant from our human characteristic of remembering, recording, and venerating the past. the home, more than any other human phenomenon, is under that heavy check. the home is an incarnate past to us. it is our very oldest thing, and holds the heart more deeply than all others. the conscious thought of the world is always far behind the march of events, it is most so in those departments where we have made definite efforts to keep it at an earlier level, and nowhere, not even in religion, has there been a more distinct, persistent, and universal attempt to maintain the most remote possible status. "the tendency to vary," that inadequate name for the great centrifugal force which keeps the universe swinging, is manifested most in the male. he is the natural variant, where the female is the natural conservative. by forcibly combining the woman with the home in his mind, and forcibly compelling her to stay there in body, then, conversely, by taking himself out and away as completely as possible, we have turned the expanding lines of social progress away from the home and left the ultra-feminised woman to ultra-conservatism therein. where this condition is most extreme, as in the orient, there is least progress; where it is least extreme, as with us, there is the most progress; but even with us, the least evolved of all our institutions is the home. move it must, somewhat, as part of human life, but the movement has come from without, through the progressive man, and has been sadly retarded in its slow effect on the stationary woman. this difference in rate of progress may be observed in the physical structure of the home, in its industrial processes, and in the group of concepts most closely associated with it. we have run over, cursorily enough, the physical evolution of the home-structure, yet wide as have been its changes they do not compare with the changes along similar lines in the ultra-domestic world. moreover, such changes as there are have been introduced by the free man from his place in the more rapidly progressive world outside. the distinctively home-made product changes far less. we see most progress in the physical characteristics of the home, its plan, building, materials, furnishings, and decoration, because all these are part of the world growth outside. we see less progress in such of the home industries as remain to us. it should be always held in mind that the phrase "domestic industry" does not apply to a special kind of work, but to a certain grade of work, a stage of development through which all kinds pass. all industries were once "domestic," that is, were performed at home and in the interests of the family. all industries have since that remote period risen to higher stages, except one or two which are still classed as "domestic," and rightly so, since they are the only industries on earth which have never left their primal stage. this a very large and important phase of the study of the home, and will be given due space later. least of all do we see progress in the home ideas. the home has changed much in physical structure, in spite of itself. it has changed somewhat in its functions, also in spite of itself. but it has changed very little--painfully little--dangerously little, in its governing concepts. naturally ideas change with facts, but if ideas are held to be sacred and immovable, the facts slide out from under and go on growing because they must, while the ideas lag further and further behind. we once held that the earth was flat. this was our concept and governed our actions. in time, owing to a widening field of action on the one hand, and a growth of the human brain on the other, we ascertained the fact that the earth was round. see the larger thought of columbus driving him westward, while the governing concepts of the sailors, proving too strong for him, dragged him back. then, gradually, with some difficulty, the idea followed the fact, and has since penetrated to all minds in civilised countries. but the flatness of the earth was not an essential religious concept, though it was clung to strongly by the inert religion of the time; nor was it a domestic concept, something still more inert. if it had been, it would have taken far longer to make the change. what progress has been made in our domestic concepts? the oldest,--the pre-human,--shelter, safety, comfort, quiet, and mother love, are still with us, still crude and limited. then follow gradually later sentiments of sanctity, privacy, and sex-seclusion; and still later, some elements of personal convenience and personal expression. how do these stand as compared with the facts? our safety is really insured by social law and order, not by any system of home defence. against the real dangers of modern life the home is no safeguard. it is as open to criminal attack as any public building, yes, more. a public building is more easily and effectively watched and guarded than our private homes. sewer gas invades the home; microbes, destructive insects, all diseases invade it also; so far as civilised life is open to danger, the home is defenceless. so far as the home is protected it is through social progress--through public sanitation enforced by law and the public guardians of the peace. if we would but shake off the primitive limitations of these old concepts, cease to imagine the home to be a safe place, and apply our ideas of shelter, safety, comfort, and quiet to the city and state, we should then be able to ensure their fulfilment in our private homes far more fully. the mother-love concept suffers even more from its limitations. as a matter of fact our children are far more fully guarded, provided for, and educated, by social efforts than by domestic; compare the children of a nation with a system of public education with children having only domestic education; or children safeguarded by public law and order with children having only domestic protection. the home-love and care of the armenians for their children is no doubt as genuine and strong as ours, but the public care is not strong and well organised, hence the little armenians are open to massacre as little americans are not. our children are largely benefited by the public, and would be much more so if the domestic concept did not act too strongly in limiting mother love to so narrow a field of action. the later sentiments of sanctity and the others have moved a little, but not much. _why_ it is more sacred to make a coat at home than to buy it of a tailor, to kill a cow at home than to buy it of a butcher, to cook a pie at home than to buy it of a baker, or to teach a child at home than to have it taught by a teacher, is not made clear to us, but the lingering weight of those ages of ancestor-worship, of real sacrifice and libation at a real altar, is still heavy in our minds. we still by race-habit regard the home as sacred, and cheerfully profane our halls of justice and marts of trade, as if social service were not at least as high a thing as domestic service. this sense of sanctity is a good thing, but it should grow, it should evolve along natural lines till it includes all human functions, not be forever confined to its cradle, the home. the concept of sex-seclusion is, with us, rapidly passing away. our millions of wage-earning women are leading us, by the irresistible force of accomplished fact, to recognise the feminine as part of the world around us, not as a purely domestic element. the foot-binding process in china is but an extreme expression of this old domestic concept, the veiling process another. we are steadily leaving them all behind, and an american man feels no jar to his sexuo-domestic sentiments in meeting a woman walking freely in the street or working in the shops. the latest of our home-ideas, personal convenience and expression, are themselves resultant from larger development of personality, and lead out necessarily. the accumulating power of individuality developed in large social processes by the male, is inherited by the female; she, still confined to the home, begins to fill and overfill it with the effort at individual expression, and must sooner or later come out to find the only normal field for highly specialised human power--the world. thus we may be encouraged in our study of domestic evolution. the forces and sentiments originating in the home have long since worked out to large social processes. we have gone far on our way toward making the world our home. what most impedes our further progress is the persistent retention of certain lines of industry within domestic limits, and the still more persistent retention of certain lines of home feelings and ideas. even here, in the deepest, oldest, darkest, slowest place in all man's mind, the light of science, the stir of progress, is penetrating. the world does move--and so does the home. iii domestic mythology there is a school of myths connected with the home, more tenacious in their hold on the popular mind than even religious beliefs. of all current superstitions none are deeper rooted, none so sensitive to the touch, so acutely painful in removal. we have lived to see nations outgrow some early beliefs, but others are still left us to study, in their long slow processes of decay. belief in "the divine right of kings," for instance, is practically outgrown in america; and yet, given a king,--or even a king's brother,--and we show how much of the feeling remains in our minds, disclaim as we may the idea. habits of thought persist through the centuries; and while a healthy brain may reject the doctrine it no longer believes, it will continue to feel the same sentiments formerly associated with that doctrine. wherever the pouring stream of social progress has had little influence,--in remote rural regions, hidden valleys, and neglected coasts,--we find still in active force some of the earliest myths. they may change their names as new religions take the place of old, santa claus and st. valentine holding sway in place of forgotten deities of dim antiquity, but the festival or custom embodied is the same that was enjoyed by those most primitive ancestors. of all hidden valleys none has so successfully avoided discovery as the home. church and state might change as they would--as they must; science changed, art changed, business changed, all human functions changed and grew save those of the home. every man's home was his castle, and there he maintained as far as possible the facts and fancies of the place, unaltered from century to century. the facts have been too many for him. the domestic hearth, with its undying flame, has given way to the gilded pipes of the steam heater and the flickering evanescence of the gas range. but the sentiment about the domestic hearth is still in play. the original necessity for the ceaseless presence of the woman to maintain that altar fire--and it was an altar fire in very truth at one period--has passed with the means of prompt ignition; the matchbox has freed the housewife from that incessant service, but the _feeling_ that women should stay at home is with us yet. the time when all men were enemies, when out-of-doors was one promiscuous battlefield, when home, well fortified, was the only place on earth where a man could rest in peace, is past, long past. but the _feeling_ that home is more secure and protective than anywhere else is not outgrown. so we have quite a list of traditional sentiments connected with home life well worth our study; not only for their interest as archaeological relics, but because of their positive injury to the life of to-day, and in the hope that a fuller knowledge will lead to sturdy action. so far we have but received and transmitted this group of myths, handed down from the dim past; we continue to hand them down in the original package, never looking to see if they are so; if we, with our twentieth-century brains really believe them. a resentful shiver runs through the reader at the suggestion of such an examination. "what! scrutinise the home, that sacred institution, and even question it? sacrilegious!" this very feeling proves the frail and threadbare condition of this group of ideas. good healthy young ideas can meet daylight and be handled, but very old and feeble ones, that have not been touched for centuries, naturally dread inspection, and no wonder--they seldom survive it. let us begin with one especially dominant domestic myth, that fondly cherished popular idea--"the privacy of the home." in the home who has any privacy? privacy means the decent seclusion of the individual, the right to do what one likes unwatched, uncriticised, unhindered. neither father, mother, nor child has this right at home. the young man setting up in "chambers," the young woman in college room or studio, at last they realise what privacy is, at last they have the right to be alone. the home does provide some privacy for the family as a lump--but it remains a lump--there is no privacy for the individual. when homes and families began this was enough, people were simple, unspecialised, their tastes and wishes were similar; it is not enough to-day. the progressive socialisation of humanity develops individuals; and this ever-increasing individuality suffers cruelly in the crude familiarity of home life. there sits the family, all ages, both sexes, as many characters as persons; and every budding expression, thought, feeling, or action has to run the gauntlet of the crowd. suppose any member is sufficiently strong to insist on a place apart, on doing things alone and without giving information thereof to the others--is this easy in the home? is this relished by the family? the father, being the economic base of the whole structure, has most power in this direction; but in ninety-nine cases in a hundred he has taken his place and his work outside. in the one hundredth case, where some artist, author, or clergyman has to do his work at home--what is his opinion then of the privacy of that sacred place? the artist flees to a studio apart, if possible; the author builds him a "den" in his garden, if he can afford it; the clergyman strives mightily to keep "the study" to himself, but even so the family, used to herding, finds it hard to respect anybody's privacy, and resents it. the mother--poor invaded soul--finds even the bathroom door no bar to hammering little hands. from parlour to kitchen, from cellar to garret, she is at the mercy of children, servants, tradesmen, and callers. so chased and trodden is she that the very idea of privacy is lost to her mind; she never had any, she doesn't know what it is, and she cannot understand why her husband should wish to have any "reserves," any place or time, any thought or feeling, with which she may not make free. the children, if possible, have less even than the mother. under the close, hot focus of loving eyes, every act magnified out of all natural proportion by the close range, the child soul begins to grow. noticed, studied, commented on, and incessantly interfered with; forced into miserable self-consciousness by this unremitting glare; our little ones grow up permanently injured in character by this lack of one of humanity's most precious rights--privacy. the usual result, and perhaps the healthiest, is that bickering which is so distinctive a feature of family life. the effect varies. sore from too much rubbing, there is a state of chronic irritability in the more sensitive; callous from too much rubbing there is a state of chronic indifference in the more hardy; and indignities are possible, yes, common, in family life which would shock and break the bonds of friendship or of love, and which would be simply inconceivable among polite acquaintances. another result, pleasanter to look at, but deeply injurious to the soul, is the affectionate dominance of the strongest member of the family; the more or less complete subservience of the others. here is peace at least; but here lives are warped and stunted forever by the too constant pressure, close and heavy, surrounding them from infancy. the home, as we know it, does not furnish privacy to the individual, rich or poor. with the poor there is such crowding as renders it impossible; and with the rich there is another factor so absolutely prohibitive of privacy that the phrase becomes a laughing-stock. private?--a place private where we admit to the most intimate personal association an absolute stranger; or more than one? strangers by birth, by class, by race, by education--as utterly alien as it is possible to conceive--these we introduce in our homes--in our very bedchambers; in knowledge of all the daily habits of our lives--and then we talk of privacy! moreover, these persons can talk. as they are not encouraged to talk to us, they talk the more among themselves; talk fluently, freely, in reaction from the enforced repression of "their place," and, with perhaps a tinge of natural bitterness, revenging small slights by large comment. with servants living in our homes by day and night, confronted with our strange customs and new ideas, having our family affairs always before them, and having nothing else in their occupation to offset this interest, we find in this arrangement of life a condition as far removed from privacy as could be imagined. consider it further: the average servant is an ignorant young woman. ignorant young women are proverbially curious, or old ones. this is not because of their being women, but because of their being ignorant. a well-cultivated mind has matter of its own to contemplate, and mental processes of absorbing interest. an uncultivated mind is comparatively empty and prone to unguarded gossip; its processes are crude and weak, the main faculty being an absorbing appetite for events--the raw material for the thoughts it cannot think. hence the fondness of the servant class for "penny dreadfuls"--its preferred food is highly seasoned incident of a wholly personal nature. this is the kind of mind to which we offer the close and constant inspection of our family life. this is the kind of tongue which pours forth description and comment in a subdomiciliary stream. this is the always-open avenue of information for lover and enemy, spy and priest, as all history and literature exhibit; and to-day for the reporter--worse than all four. in simple communities the women of the household, but little above the grade of servant in mind, freely gossip with their maids. in those more sophisticated we see less of this free current of exchange, but it is there none the less, between maid and maid, illimitable. does not this prove that our ideas of privacy are somewhat crude--and that they are kept crude--must remain crude so long as the home is thus vulgarly invaded by low-class strangers? may we not hope for some development of home life by which we may outgrow forever these coarse old customs, and learn a true refinement which keeps inviolate the privacy of both soul and body in the home? one other, yes, two other avenues of publicity are open upon this supposed seclusion. we have seen that the privacy of the mother is at the mercy of four sets of invaders: children, servants, tradesmen, and callers. the tradesmen, in a city flat, are kept at a pleasing distance by the dumb-waiter and speaking tube; and, among rich households everywhere, the telephone is a defence. but, even at such long range, the stillness and peace of the home, the chance to do quiet continued work of any sort, are at the mercy of jarring electric bell or piercing whistle. one of the joys of the country vacation is the escape from just these things; the constant calls on time and attention, the interruption of whatever one seeks to do, by these mercantile demands against which the home offers no protection. in less favoured situations, in the great majority of comfortable homes, the invader gets far closer. "the lady of the house" is demanded, and must come forth. the front door opens, the back door yawns, the maid pursues her with the calls of tradesmen, regular and irregular; from the daily butcher to the unescapable agent with a visiting card. of course we resist this as best we may with a bulwark of trained servants. that is one of the main uses of servants--to offer some protection to the inmates of this so private place, the home! then comes the fourth class--callers. a whole series of revelations as to privacy comes here; a list so long and deep as to tempt a whole new chapter on that one theme. here it can be but touched on, just a mention of the most salient points. first there is the bulwark aforesaid, the servant, trained to protect a place called private from the entrance of a class of persons privileged to come in. to hold up the hands of the servant comes the lie; the common social lie, so palpable that it has no moral value to most of us--"not at home!" the home is private. therefore, to be in private, you must claim to be out of it! back of this comes a whole series of intrenchments--the reception room, to delay the attack while the occupant hastily assumes defensive armour; the parlour or drawing room, wherein we may hold the enemy in play, cover the retreat of non-combatants, and keep some inner chambers still reserved; the armour above mentioned--costume and manner, not for the home and its inmates, but meant to keep the observer from forming an opinion as to the real home life; and then all the weapons crudely described in rural regions as "company manners," our whole system of defence and attack; by which we strive, and strive ever in vain, to maintain our filmy fiction of the privacy of the home. the sanctity of the home is another dominant domestic myth. that we should revere the processes of nature as being the laws of god is good; a healthy attitude of mind. but why revere some more than others, and the lower more than the higher? the home, as our oldest institution, is necessarily our lowest, it came first, before we were equal to any higher manifestation. the home processes are those which maintain the individual in health and comfort, or are intended to; and those which reproduce the individual. these are vital processes, healthy, natural, indispensable, but why sacred? to eat, to sleep, to breathe, to dress, to rest and amuse one's self--these are good and useful deeds; but are they more hallowed than others? then the shocked home-worshipper protests that it is not these physical and personal functions which he holds in reverence, but "the sacred duties of maternity," and "all those precious emotions which centre in the home." let us examine this view; but, first let us examine the sense of sanctity itself--see what part it holds in our psychology. in the first dawn of these emotions of reverence and sanctity, while man was yet a savage, the priest-craft of the day forced upon the growing racial mind a sense of darkness and mystery, a system of "tabu"--of "that which is forbidden." in china still, as term of high respect, the imperial seat of government is called "the forbidden city." to the dim thick early mind, reverence was confounded with mystery and restriction. today, in ever-growing light, with microscope and telescope and röntgen ray, we are learning the true reverence that follows knowledge, and outgrowing that which rests on ignorance. the savage reveres a thing because he cannot understand it--we revere because we can understand. the ancient sacred must be covered up; to honour king or god you must shut your eyes, hide your face, fall prostrate. the modern sacred must be shown and known of all, and honoured by understanding and observance. let not our sense of sanctity shrink so sensitively from the searcher; if the home is really sacred, it can bear the light. so now for these "sacred processes of reproduction." (protest. "we did not say 'reproduction,' we said 'maternity!'") and what is maternity but one of nature's processes of reproduction? maternity and paternity and the sweet conscious duties and pleasures of human child-rearing are only more sacred than reproduction by fission, by parthenogenesis, by any other primitive device, because they are later in the course of evolution, so higher in the true measure of growth; and for that very reason education, the social function of child-rearing, is higher than maternity; later, more developed, more valuable, and so more sacred. maternity is common to all animals--but we do not hold it sacred, in them. we have stultified motherhood most brutally in two of our main food products--milk and eggs--exploiting this function remorselessly to our own appetites. in humanity, in some places and classes we do hold it sacred, however. why? "because it is the highest, sweetest, best thing we know!" will be eagerly answered. is it--really? is it better than liberty, better than justice, better than art, government, science, industry, religion? how can that function which is common to savage, barbarian, peasant, to all kinds and classes, low and high, be nobler, sweeter, better, than those late-come, hard-won, slowly developed processes which make men greater, wiser, kinder, stronger from age to age? the "sacred duties of maternity" reproduce the race, but they do nothing to improve it. is it not more sacred to teach right conduct for instance, as a true preacher does, than to feed one's own child as does the squaw? grant that both are sacred--that all right processes are sacred--is not the relative sanctity up and out along the line of man's improvement? do we hold a wigwam more sacred than a beast's lair and less sacred than a modern home? if so, why? do we hold an intelligent, capable mother more sacred than an ignorant, feeble one? where are the limits and tendencies of these emotions? the main basis of this home-sanctity idea is simply the historic record of our ancient religion of ancestor-worship. the home was once used as a church, as it yet is in china; and the odour of sanctity hangs round it still. the other basis is the equally old custom of sex-seclusion--the harem idea. this gives the feeling of mystery and "tabu," of "the forbidden"--a place shut and darkened--wholly private. a good, clean, healthy, modern home, with free people living and loving in it, is no more sacred than a schoolhouse. the schoolhouse represents a larger love, a higher function, a farther development for humanity. let us revere, let us worship, but erect and open-eyed, the highest, not the lowest; the future, not the past! closely allied to our sense of home-sanctity and sprung from the same root, is our veneration for the old; either people or things; the "home of our ancestors" being if anything more sacred than our own, and the pot or plate or fiddle-back chair acquiring imputed sanctity by the simple flux of time. what time has to do with sanctity is not at first clear. perhaps it is our natural respect for endurance. this thing has _lasted_, therefore it must be good; the longer it lasts the better it must be, let us revere it! if this is a legitimate principle, let us hold pilgrimages to the primordial rocks, they have lasted longer than anything else, except sea water. let us frankly worship the sun--or the still remoter dog-star. let us revere the gar-fish above the shad--the hedgehog more than the cow--the tapir beyond the horse--they are all earlier types and yet endure! still more practically let us turn our veneration to the tools, vehicles, and implements which preceded ours--the arrow-head above the bullet, the bone-needle above the sewing machine, the hour-glass above the clock! there is no genuine reason for this attitude. it is merely a race habit, handed down to us from very remote times and founded on the misconceptions of the ignorant early mind. the scientific attitude of mind is veneration of all the laws of nature, or works of god, as you choose to call them. if we must choose and distinguish, respecting this more than that, let us at least distinguish on right lines. the claim of any material object upon our respect is the degree of its use and beauty. a weak, clumsy, crooked tool acquires no sanctity from the handling of a dozen grandfathers; a good, strong, accurate one is as worthy of respect if made to-day. it is quite possible to the mind of man to worship idols, but it is not good for him. a great english artist is said to have scorned visiting the united states of america as "a country where there were no castles." we might have showed him the work of the mound-builders, or the bones of the triceratops, they are older yet. it will be a great thing for the human soul when it finally stops worshipping backwards. we are pushed forward by the social forces, reluctant and stumbling, our faces over our shoulders, clutching at every relic of the past as we are forced along; still adoring whatever is behind us. we insist upon worshipping "the god of our fathers." why not the god of our children? does eternity only stretch one way? another devoutly believed domestic myth is that of the "economy" of the home. the man is to earn, and the woman to save, to expend judiciously, to administer the products of labour to the best advantage. we honestly suppose that our method of providing for human wants by our system of domestic economy is the cheapest possible; that it would cost more to live in any other way. the economic dependence of women upon men, with all its deadly consequences, is defended because of our conviction that her labour in the home is as productive as his out of it; that the marriage is a partnership in which, if she does not contribute in cash, she does in labour, care, and saving. it is with a real sense of pain that one remorselessly punctures this beautiful bubble. when plain financial facts appear, when economic laws are explained, then it is shown that our "domestic economy" is the most wasteful department of life. the subject is taken up in detail in the chapter on home industries; here the mere statement is made, that the domestic system of feeding, clothing, and cleaning humanity costs more time, more strength, and more money than it could cost in any other way except absolute individual isolation. the most effort and the least result are found where each individual does all things for himself. the least effort and the most result are found in the largest specialisation and exchange. the little industrial group of the home--from two to five or ten--is very near the bottom of the line of economic progress. it costs men more money, women more work, both more time and strength than need be by more than half. a method of living that wastes half the time and strength of the world is not economical. somewhat along this line of popular belief comes that pretty fiction about "the traces of a woman's hand." it is a minor myth, but very dear to us. we imagine that a woman--any woman--just because she is a woman, has an artistic touch, an æsthetic sense, by means of which she can cure ugliness as kings were supposed to cure scrofula, by the laying on of hands. we find this feelingly alluded to in fiction where some lonely miner, coming to his uncared-for cabin, discovers a flower pot, a birdcage and a tidy, and delightedly proclaims--"a woman has been here." he thinks it is beautiful because it is feminine--a sexuo-æsthetic confusion common to all animals. the beauty-sense, as appealed to by sex-distinctions, is a strange field of study. the varied forms of crests, combs, wattles, callosities of blue and crimson, and the like, with which one sex attracts the other, are interesting to follow; but they do not appeal to the cultivated sense of beauty. beauty--beauty of sky and sea, of flower and shell, of all true works of art--has nothing to do with sex. when you turn admiring eyes on the work of those who _have_ beautified the world for us; on the immortal marbles and mosaics, vessels of gold and glass, on building and carving and modelling and painting; the enduring beauty of the rugs and shawls of india, the rich embroideries of japan, you do not find in the great record of world-beauty such conspicuous traces of a woman's hand. then study real beauty in the home--any home--all homes. there are women in our farm-houses--women who painfully strive to produce beauty in many forms; crocheted, knitted, crazy-quilted, sewed together, stuck together, made of wax; made--of all awful things--of the hair of the dead! here are traces of a woman's hand beyond dispute, but is it beauty? through the hands of women, with their delighted approval, pours the stream of fashion without check. fashion in furniture, fashion in china and glass, fashion in decoration, fashion in clothing. what miracle does "a woman's hand" work on this varying flood of change? the woman is as pleased with black horsehair as with magenta reps; she is equally contented with "anti-macassars" as with sofa-cushions, if these things are fashionable. her "old canton" is relegated to the garret when "french china" of unbroken white comes in; and then brought down again in triumph when the modern goes out and the antique comes in again. she puts upon her body without criticism or objection every excess, distortion, discord, and contradiction that can be sewed together. the æsthetic sense of woman has never interfered with her acceptance of ugliness, if ugliness were the fashion. the very hair of her head goes up and down, in and out, backwards and forwards under the sway of fashion, with no hint of harmony with the face it frames or the head it was meant to honour. in her house or on her person "the traces of a woman's hand" may speak loud of sex, and so please her opposite; but there is no assurance of beauty in the result. this sweet tradition is but another of our domestic myths. among them all, most prominent of all, is one so general and so devoutly accepted as to call for most thorough exposure. this is our beloved dogma of "the maternal instinct." the mother, by virtue of being a mother, is supposed to know just what is right for her children. we honestly believe, men and women both, that in motherhood inheres the power rightly to care for childhood. this is a nature-myth, far older than humanity. we base the theory on observation of the lower animals. we watch the birds and beasts and insects, and see that the mother does all for the young; and as she has no instruction and no assistance, yet achieves her ends, we attribute her success to the maternal instinct. what is an instinct? it is an inherited habit. it is an automatic action of the nervous system, developed in surviving species of many generations of repetition; and performing most intricate feats. there is an insect which prepares for its young to eat a carefully paralysed caterpillar. this ingenious mother lays her eggs in a neatly arranged hole, then stings a caterpillar, so accurately as to deprive him of motion but not of life, and seals up the hole over eggs and fresh meat in full swing of the maternal instinct. a cruelly inquiring observer took out the helpless caterpillar as soon as he was put in; but the instinct-guided mother sealed up the hole just as happily. she had done the trick, as her instinct prompted, and there was no allowance for scientific observers in that prompting. she had no intelligence, only instinct. you may observe mother instinct at its height in a fond hen sitting on china eggs--instinct, but no brains. we, being animals, do retain some rudiments of the animal instincts; but only rudiments. the whole course of civilisation has tended to develop in us a conscious intelligence, the value of which to the human race is far greater than instinct. instinct can only be efficient in directing actions which are unvaryingly repeated by each individual for each occasion. it is that repetition which creates the instinct. when the environment of an animal changes he has to use something more than instinct, or he becomes ex-tinct! the human environment is in continual flux, and changes more and more quickly as social evolution progresses. no personal conditions are so general and unvarying with us as to have time to develop an instinct; the only true ones for our race are the social instincts--and maternity is not a social process. education is a social process, the very highest. to collect the essentials of human progress and supply them to the young, so that each generation may improve more rapidly, that is education. the animals have no parallel to this. the education of the animal young by the animal mother tends only to maintain life, not to improve it. the education of a child, and by education is meant every influence which reaches it, from birth to maturity, is a far more subtle and elaborate process. the health and growth of the body, the right processes of mental development, the ethical influences which shape character--these are large and serious cares, for which our surviving driblets of instinct make no provision. if there were an instinct inherent in human mothers sufficient to care rightly for their children, then all human mothers would care rightly for their children. do they? what percentage of our human young live to grow up? about fifty per cent. what percentage are healthy? we do not even expect them to be healthy. so used are we to "infantile diseases" that our idea of a mother's duty is to nurse sick children, not to raise well ones! what percentage of our children grow up properly proportioned, athletic and vigorous? ask the army surgeon who turns down the majority of applicants for military service. what percentage of our children grow up with strong, harmonious characters, wise and good? ask the great army of teachers and preachers who are trying for ever and ever to somewhat improve the adult humanity which is turned out upon the world from the care of its innumerable mothers and their instincts. our eyes grow moist with emotion as we speak of our mothers--our own mothers--and what they have done for us. our voices thrill and tremble with pathos and veneration as we speak of "the mothers of great men--" mother of abraham lincoln! mother of george washington! and so on. had wilkes booth no mother? was benedict arnold an orphan? _who_, in the name of all common sense, raises our huge and growing crop of idiots, imbeciles, cripples, defectives, and degenerates, the vicious and the criminal; as well as all the vast mass of slow-minded, prejudiced, ordinary people who clog the wheels of progress? are the mothers to be credited with all that is good and the fathers with all that is bad? that we are what we are is due to these two factors, mothers and fathers. our physical environment we share with all animals. our social environment is what modifies heredity and develops human character. the kind of country we live in, the system of government, of religion, of education, of business, of ordinary social customs and convention, this is what develops mankind, this is given by our fathers. what does maternal instinct contribute to this sum of influences? has maternal instinct even evolved any method of feeding, dressing, teaching, disciplining, educating children which commands attention, not to say respect? it has not. the mothers of each nation, governed only by this rudimentary instinct, repeat from generation to generation the mistakes of their more ignorant ancestors; like a dog turning around three times before he lies down on the carpet, because his thousand-remove progenitors turned round in the grass! that the care and education of children have developed at all is due to the intelligent efforts of doctors, nurses, teachers, and such few parents as chose to exercise their human brains instead of their brute instincts. that the care and education of children are still at the disgraceful level generally existent is due to our leaving these noble functions to the unquestioned dominance of a force which, even among animals, is not infallible, and which, in our stage of socialisation, is practically worthless. of all the myths which befog the popular mind, of all false worship which prevents us from recognising the truth, this matriolatry is one most dangerous. blindly we bow to the word "mother"--worshipping the recreative processes of nature as did forgotten nations of old time in their great phallic religions. the processes of nature are to be studied, not worshipped; the laws of nature find best reverence in our intelligent understanding and observance, not in obsequious adoration. when the human mother shows that she understands her splendid function by developing a free, strong, healthy body; by selecting a vigorous and noble mate; by studying the needs of childhood, and meeting them with proficient services, her own or that of others better fitted; by presenting to the world a race of children who do not die in infancy, who are not preyed upon by "preventable diseases," who grow up straight, strong, intelligent, free-minded, and right-intentioned; then we shall have some reason to honour motherhood, and it will be brain-work and soul-work that we honour. intelligence, study, experience, science, love that has more than a physical basis--human motherhood--not the uncertain rudiments of a brute instinct! iv present conditions the difference between our current idea of the home to-day, and its real conditions, is easily seen. that is, it is easily seen if we are able temporarily to resist the pressure of inherited traditions, and use our individual brain power for a little while. we must remember, in attempting to look fairly, to see clearly, that a concept is a much stronger stimulus to the brain than a fact. a fact, reaching the brain through any sensory nerve, is but an impression; and if a previous impression to the contrary exists, especially if that contrary impression has existed, untouched, for many generations, the fact has but a poor chance of acceptance. "what!" cries the astonished beholder of some new phenomenon. "can i believe my eyes!" and he does not believe his eyes, preferring to believe the stock in trade of his previous ideas. it takes proof, much proof, glaring, positive, persistent, to convince us that what we have long thought to be so is not so. "a preconceived idea" is what we call this immoveable lump in the brain, and if the preconceived idea is deeply imbedded, knit, and rooted as an "underlying conviction," and has so existed for a very long time, then a bombardment of most undeniable facts bounds off it without effect. our ideas of the home are, as we have seen, among the very deepest in the brain; and to reach down into those old foundation feelings, to disentangle the false from the true, to show that the true home does not involve this group of outgrown rudiments is difficult indeed. yet, if we will but use that wonderful power of thought which even the most prejudiced can exercise for a while, it is easy to see what are the real conditions of the average home to-day. by "average" is not meant an average of numbers. the world still has its millions of savage inhabitants who do not represent to-day, but anthropologic yesterdays, long past. even in our own nation, our ill-distributed social advance leaves us a vast majority of population who do not represent to-day, but a historic yesterday. the home that is really of to-day is the home of the people of to-day, those people who are abreast of the thought, the work, the movement of our times. the real conditions of the present-day home are to be studied here; not in the tepee of the sioux, the clay-built walls of the pueblo, the cabin of the "georgia cracker," or mountaineer of tennessee; or even in the thousand farm-houses which still repeat so nearly the status of an earlier time. the growth and change of the home may be traced through all these forms, in every stage of mechanical, industrial, economic, artistic, and psychic development; but the stage we need to study is that we are now in, those homes which are pushed farthest in the forefront of the stream of progress. an average home of to-day, in this sense, is one of good social position, wherein the husband has sufficient means and the wife sufficient education to keep step with the march of events; one which we should proudly point out to a foreign visitor as "a typical american home." now, how does this home really stand under dispassionate observation? the ideal which instantly obtrudes itself is this: a beautiful, comfortable house meeting all physical needs; a happy family, profoundly enjoying each other's society; a father, devotedly spending his life in obtaining the wherewithal to maintain this little heaven; a mother, completely wrapped up in her children and devotedly spending her life in their service, working miracles of advantage to them in so doing; children, happy in the home and growing up beautifully under its benign influence--everybody healthy, happy, and satisfied with the whole thing. this ideal is what we are asked to lay aside temporarily; and in its place to bring our minds to bear on the palpable facts in the case. readers of a specially accurate turn of mind may perhaps be interested enough to jot down on paper their own definite observations of, say, a dozen homes they know best. one thing may be said here in defence of our general ignorance on this subject: the actual conditions of home life are studiously concealed from casual observation. our knowledge of each other's homes is obtained principally by "calling" and the more elaborate forms of social entertainments. the caller only reaches the specially prepared parlour or reception room; the more intimate friends sometimes the bedroom or even nursery, if they are at the time what we call "presentable"; and it is part of our convention, our age-long habit of mind, to accept this partial and prepared view as a picture of the home life. it is not. to know any home really, you must live in it, "winter and summer" it, know its cellar as well as parlour, its daily habits as well as its company manners. so we have to push into the background not only the large, generally beautiful home ideal, smiling conventionally like a big bronze buddha; but also that little pocket ideal which we are obliged to use constantly to keep up the proper mental attitude. we are not used to looking squarely, open-eyed and critical, at any home, so "sacred" is the place to us. now, having laid aside both the general ideal and the pocket ideal, what do we see? as to physical health and comfort and beauty: ask your health board, your sanitary engineer, how the laws of health are observed in the average home--even of the fairly well-to-do, even of the fairly educated. learn what we may of art and science, the art of living, the science of living is not yet known to us. we build for ourselves elaborate structures in which to live, following architectural traditions, social traditions, domestic traditions, quite regardless of the laws of life for the creature concerned. this home is the home of a live animal, a large animal, bigger than a sheep--about as big as a fallow deer. the comfort and health of this animal we seek to insure by first wrapping it in many thicknesses of cloth and then shutting it up in a big box, carefully lined with cloth and paper and occasionally "aired" by opening windows. we feed the animal in the box, bringing into it large and varied supplies of food, and cooking them there. growing dissatisfied with the mess resultant upon this process, disliking the sight and sound and smell of our own preferred food-processes, yet holding it essential that they shall all be carried on in the same box with the animal to be fed; we proceed to enlarge the box into many varied chambers, to shut off by closed doors these offensive details (which we would not do without for the world), and to introduce into the box still other animals of different grades to perform the offensive processes. you thus find in a first-class modern home peculiar warring conditions, in the adjustment of which health and comfort are by no means assured. the more advanced the home and its inhabitants, the more we find complexity and difficulty, with elements of discomfort and potential disease, involved in the integral--supposedly integral--processes of the place. the more lining and stuffing there are, the more waste matter fills the air and settles continually as dust; the more elaborate the home, the more labour is required to keep it fit for a healthy animal to live in; the more labour required, the greater the wear and tear on both the heads of the family. the conditions of health in a representative modern home are by no means what we are capable of compassing. we consider "antiseptic cleanliness" as belonging only to hospitals, and are content to spend our daily, and nightly, lives in conditions of septic dirt. an adult human being consumes six hundred cubic feet of air in an hour. how many homes provide such an amount, fresh, either by day or night? diseases of men may be attributed to exposure, to wrong conditions in shop and office, to chances of the crowd, or to special drug habits. diseases of women and children must be studied at home, where they take rise. the present conditions of the home as to health and comfort are not satisfactory. as to beauty: we have not much general knowledge of beauty, either in instinct or training; yet, even with such as we have, how ill satisfied it is in the average home. the outside of the house is not beautiful; the inside is not beautiful; the decorations and furnishings are not beautiful. the home, by itself, in its age-long traditionalism, does not allow of growth in these lines; nor do its physical limitations permit of it. but as education progresses and money accumulates we hire "art-decorators" and try to creep along the line of advance. a true natural legitimate home beauty is rare indeed. we may be perfectly comfortable among our things, and even admire them; people of any race or age do that; but that sense of "a beautiful home" is but part of the complex ideal, not a fact recognised by those who love and study beauty and art. we do not find our common "interiors" dear to the soul of the painter. so we may observe that in general the home does not meet the demands of the physical nature, for simple animal health and comfort; nor of the psychical for true beauty. now for our happy family. let it be carefully borne in mind that no question is raised as to the happiness of husband and wife; or of parent and child in their essential relation; but of their happiness as affected by the home. the effect of the home, as it now is, upon marriage is a vitally interesting study. two people, happily mated, sympathetic physically and mentally, having many common interests and aspirations, proceed after marrying to enter upon the business of "keeping house," or "home-making." this business is not marriage, it is not parentage, it is not child-culture. it is the running of the commissary and dormitory departments of life, with elaborate lavatory processes. the man is now called upon to pay, and pay heavily, for the maintenance of this group of activities; the woman to work, either personally, by deputy, or both, in its performance. then follows one of the most conspicuous of conditions in our present home: the friction and waste of its supposedly integral processes. the man does spend his life in obtaining the wherewithal to maintain--not a "little heaven," but a bunch of ill-assorted trades, wherein everything costs more than it ought to cost, and nothing is done as it should be done--on a business basis. how many men simply hand out a proper sum of money for "living expenses," and then live, serene and steady, on that outlay? home expenses are large, uncertain, inexplicable. in some families an exceptional "manager," provided with a suitable "allowance," does keep the thing in comparatively smooth running order, at considerable cost to herself; but in most families the simple daily processes of "housekeeping" are a constant source of annoyance, friction, waste, and loss. housekeeping, as a business, is not instructively successful. as the structure of the home is not what we so readily took for granted in our easily fitting ideals, so the functions of the home are not, either. we are really struggling and fussing along, trying to live smoothly, healthfully, peacefully; studying all manner of "new thought" to keep us "poised," pining for a "simpler life"; and yet all spending our strength and patience on the endless effort to "keep house," to "make a home"--to live comfortably in a way which is not comfortable; and when this continuous effort produces utter exhaustion, we have _to go away from home_ for a rest! think of that, seriously. the father is so mercilessly overwhelmed in furnishing the amount of money needed to maintain a home that he scarce knows what a home is. time, time to sit happily down with his family, or to go happily out with his family, this is denied to the patient toiler on whose shoulders this ancient structure rests. the mother is so overwhelmed in her performance or supervision of all the inner workings of the place that she, too, has scant time for the real joys of family life. the home is one thing, the family another; and when the home takes all one's time, the family gets little. so we find both husband and wife overtaxed and worried in keeping up the institution according to tradition; both father and mother too much occupied in home-making to do much toward child-training, man-making! what is the real condition of the home as regards children--its primal reason for being? how does the present home meet their needs? how does the home-bound woman fill the claims of motherhood? as a matter of fact, _are_ our children happy and prosperous, healthy and good, at home? again the ideal rises; picture after picture, tender, warm, glowing; again we must push it aside and look at the case as it is. in our homes to-day the child grows up--when he does not die--not at all in that state of riotous happiness we are so eager to assume as the condition of childhood. the mother loves the child, always and always; she does what she can, what she knows how; but the principal work of her day is the care of the house, not of the child; the construction of clothes--not of character. follow the hours in the day of the housewife: count the minutes spent in the care and service of the child, as compared with those given to the planning of meals, the purchase of supplies, the labour either of personally cleaning things or of seeing that other persons do it; the "duties" to society, of the woman exempt from the actual house-labour. "but," we protest, "all this is for the child--the meals, the well-kept house, the clothes--the whole thing!" yes? and in what way do the meals we so elaborately order and prepare, the daintily furnished home, the much-trimmed clothing, contribute to the body-growth, mind-growth, and soul-growth of the child? the conditions of home life are not those best suited to the right growth of children. infant discipline is one long struggle to coerce the growing creature into some sort of submission to the repressions, the exactions, the arbitrary conventions of the home. in broad analysis, we find in the representative homes of to-day a condition of unrest. the man is best able to support it because he is least in it; he is part and parcel of the organised industries of the world, he has his own special business to run on its own lines; and he, with his larger life-basis, can better bear the pressure of house-worries. the wife is cautioned by domestic moralists not to annoy her husband with her little difficulties; but in the major part of them, the economic difficulties, she must consult him, because he pays the bills. when a satisfactory chinaman is running a household; when the money is paid, the care deputed, the whole thing done as by clock-work, this phase of home unrest is removed; but the families so provided for are few. in most cases the business of running a home is a source of constant friction and nervous as well as financial waste. quite beyond this business side come the conditions of home life, the real conditions, as affecting the lives of the inmates. with great wealth, and a highly cultivated taste, we find the members of the family lodged in as much privacy and freedom as possible in a home, and agreeing to disagree where they are not in accord. with great love and highly cultivated courtesy and wisdom, we find the members of the family getting on happily together, even in a physically restricted home. but in the average home, occupied by average people, we find the members of the family jarring upon one another in varying degree. that harmony, peace, and love which we attribute to home life is not as common as our fond belief would maintain. the husband, as we have seen, finds his chief base outside, and bears up with greater or less success against the demands and anxieties of the home. the wife, more closely bound, breaks down in health with increasing frequency. the effect of home life on women seems to be more injurious in proportion to their social development. our so-called "society" is one outlet, though not a healthful one, through which the woman seeks to find recreation, change, and stimulus to enable her to bear up against a too continuous home life. the young man at home is almost a negligible factor--he does not stay in it any more than he can help. the young woman at home finds her growing individuality an increasing disadvantage, and many times makes a too hasty marriage because she is not happy at home--in order to have "a home of her own," where she still piously believes all will be well. the child at home has no knowledge of any other and better environment wherewith to compare this. he accepts his home as the unavoidable base of all things--he cannot think of life with a different home. but the eagerness with which he hails any proposition that takes him out of it, his passionate hunger for change, for novelty; the fever which most boys have for "running away"; the eager, intense interest in stories of anything and everything as far removed from home life as possible; the dreary _ennui_ of the child who is punished by being kept at home--or who has to stay there continuously for any reason--standing at the window which can give sight of the world outside and longing for something to happen--all this goes to indicate that home life does not satisfy the child. there was a time when it did, when it satisfied every member of the family; but that was under far more primitive conditions. the home has not developed in the same ratio as its occupants. the people of to-day are not content in the homes of a thousand years before yesterday. our present home conditions are being changed--very gradually, owing to the stiffness of the material, but are slowly changing before our eyes. as a matter of fact, we are ready--more than ready--for the homes of the future; as a matter of feeling, we are clinging with all our might to the homes of the past; and, in their present conditions, our homes are not by any means those centres of rest, peace, and satisfaction we are so religiously taught to think them. suppose for an instant that they were. suppose the trouble, the weariness, the danger and evils of outside life were all laid aside the moment we entered the home. there all was well. no financial trouble. no industrial trouble. no physical trouble. no mental trouble. no moral trouble. just a place where everything ran on wheels; and where the world-worn soul could count on peace and refreshment. vain supposition! whatever the financial troubles of the world, the place where they are felt most is in the home. here is where the money is spent, and most wastefully misspent as we shall see later. here is where there is never enough, where the demand continually exceeds the supply. as to industrial trouble, the labour question is a large one everywhere. the introduction of machinery has brought its train of needless disadvantages as well as its essential advantages. there are dishonesty and inefficiency to meet and cope with. but compare the conversation of a hundred business men with that of a hundred housekeeping women, and learn respect for the magnitude of the industrial troubles of the home. for physical troubles, as we have before indicated, the home is no relief. we struggle to enforce laws improving the physical conditions of the coal mine and the factory, but these laws find their utmost difficulty of application in the "sweatshops," the place where work is done at home. there is no law to improve the sanitary condition of the kitchen, to compel the admission of oxygen to the bedroom. in the home every law of health may be disregarded with impunity. we strive by building regulations and boards of health to make some improvement, but the conditions of home life, as now existing, are no guarantee of safety from physical troubles. as to the mental and moral--the whole field of psychical error and difficulty--the home is the place where we suffer most. the struggles and falls of the soul, our most intimate sins, the keenest pain we know--the home is the arena for these in large measure. tender virtues grow there, too--deep and abiding love, generous devotion, patient endurance--faithfulness and care; but for one home that shows us these is another where dominant injustice, selfishness, unthinking cruelty, impatience, grossest rudeness, a callous disregard for the oft-trodden feelings of others is found instead. no wide acquaintance with present homes can fail to note these things in every shade of growth. home is a place where people live, people good and bad, great and small, wise and unwise. the home does not make the bad good, the small great, or the foolish wise. many a man who _has_ to be decent in his social life is domineering and selfish at home. many a woman who has to be considerate and polite in her social life, such as it is, is exacting and greedy at home, and cruel as only the weak and ignorant can be. now if the home was what produced the virtues we commonly attribute to it, then all homes, of all times and peoples, would have the same effect. the american man holds pre-eminence as sacrificed to the home; the american woman as being most petted and indulged therein. in england we find the man more the centre of indulgence, in germany still more so--and the women subsidiary to his use and pleasure. how can "the home" be credited with such opposite results? if, as is commonly assumed, the home has any unfailing general effect, we must be able to point out that effect in the homes of russia, china, france, and egypt. if we find the homes of the nations differ we must look for the cause in the national institutions--not the domestic. that our well-loved homes are as good as they are is due to our race progress; to our religion, our education, our general social advance. when a peasant family from hungary comes to america, they establish a hungarian home. as they become americanised the home changes and improves. the credit is not due to the home, but to the country. meanwhile the home does have certain definite effects upon our life; due to its own nature, and acting upon us in every time and place. these we shall analyse and follow in studying the effects of the home upon society in a later chapter. in this observation of present conditions we should note merely how our average home life now stands. and we may plainly see these things; a general condition of unrest and more or less dissatisfaction. a tendency to ever-growing expense, which threatens the very existence of the home and is forcing many into boarding houses. an increasing difficulty in the industrial processes--a difficulty so great that the lives of our women are embittered and shortened by it, and the periods of anxiety and ill-adjustment are longer than those of satisfactory service. an improvement in sanitary conditions so far as public measures can reach the home, but a wide field of disease owing to wrong habits of clothing, eating, and breathing. a rudimentary custom of child-culture only beginning to show signs of progress; and a degree of unhappiness to which the divorce and criminal courts, as well as insane asylums and graveyards, bear crushing testimony. with conditions of home life as far from our cherished ideal as these, is it not time for us bravely to face the problem, and study home life with a view to its improvement? not "to abolish the home," as is wildly feared by those who dare not discuss it. a pretty testimony this to their real honour and belief! is the home so light a thing as to be blown away by a breath of criticism? are we so loosely attached to our homes as to give them up when some defects are pointed out? is it not a confession of the discord and pain we so stoutly deny, that we are not willing to pour light into this dark place and see what ails it? there is no cause for fear. so long as life lasts we shall have homes; but we need not always have the same kind. our present home is injured by the rigidly enforced maintenance of long-outgrown conditions. we may free ourselves, if we will, from every one of those injurious, old conditions, and still retain all that is good and beautiful and right in the home. v the home as a workshop _i. the housewife_ all industry began at home. all industry was begun by women. back of history, at the bottom of civilisation, during that long period of slowly changing savagery which antedates our really human life, whatever work was done on earth was done by the woman in the home. from that time to this we have travelled far, spread wide, grown broad and high; and our line of progress is the line of industrial evolution. where the patient and laborious squaw once carried on her back the slaughtered game for her own family, now wind and steam and lightning distribute our provisions around the world. where she once erected a rude shelter of boughs or hides for her own family, now mason and carpenter, steel and iron worker, joiner, lather, plasterer, glazier, plumber, locksmith, painter, and decorator combine to house the world. where she chewed and scraped the hides, wove bark and grasses, made garments, made baskets, made pottery, made all that was made for her own family, save the weapons of slaughter, now the thousand manufactures of a million mills supply our complex needs and pleasures. where she tamed and herded a few beasts for her own family, now from ranchman to packer move the innumerable flocks and herds of the great plains; where she ploughed with a stick and reaped with a knife, for her own family, now gathered miles of corn cross continent and ocean to feed all nations. where she prepared the food and reared the child for her own family--what! has the world stopped? is history a dream? is social progress mere imagination?--_there she is yet!_ back of history, at the bottom of civilisation, untouched by a thousand whirling centuries, the primitive woman, in the primitive home, still toils at her primitive tasks. all industries began at home, there is no doubt of that. all other industries have left home long ago. why have these stayed? all other industries have grown. why have not these? what conditions, social and economic, what shadowy survival of oldest superstitions, what iron weight of custom, law, religion, can be adduced in explanation of such a paradox as this? talk of siberian mammoths handed down in ice, like some crystallised fruit of earliest ages! what are they compared with this antediluvian relic! by what art, what charm, what miracle, has the twentieth century preserved _alive_ the prehistoric squaw! this is a phenomenon well worth our study, a subject teeming with interest, one that concerns every human being most closely--most vitally. sociology is beginning to teach us something of the processes by which man has moved up and on to his present grade, and may move farther. among those processes none is clearer, simpler, easier to understand, than industrial evolution. its laws are identical with those of physical evolution, a progression from the less to the greater, from the simple to the complex, a constant adaptation of means to ends, a tendency to minimise effort and maximise efficiency. the solitary savage applies his personal energy to his personal needs. the social group applies its collective energy to its collective needs. the savage works by himself, for himself; the civilised man works in elaborate inter-dependence with many, for many. by the division of labour and its increasing specialisation we vastly multiply skill and power; by the application of machinery we multiply the output; by the development of business methods we reduce expense and increase results; the whole line of growth is the same as that which makes a man more efficient in action than his weight in shell-fish. he is more highly organised and specialised. so is modern industry. the solitary savage knew neither specialisation nor organisation--he "did his own work." this process gives the maximum of effort and the minimum of results. specialised and organised industry gives the minimum of effort and the maximum of results. that is civilised industry. the so idealised and belauded "home industries" are still savage. the modern home is built and furnished by civilised methods. arts, crafts, and manufactures, sciences, professions, many highly sublimated processes of modern life combine to make perfect the place where we live; but the industries practised in that place remain at the first round of the ladder. instead of having our pick of the latest and best workers, we are here confined to the two earliest--the housewife and the housemaid. the housewife is the very first, and she still predominates by so large a majority as to make us wonder at the noisy prominence of "the servant question." (it is not so wonderful, after all, for that class of the population which keeps servants is the class which makes the most noise.) even in rich america, even in richest new york, in _nine-tenths_ of the families the housewife "does her own work." this is so large a proportion that we will consider the housewife first--and fully. why was woman the first worker? because she is a mother. all living animals are under the law of, first, self-preservation, and, second, race-preservation. but the second really comes first; the most imperative forces in nature compel the individual to sacrifice to the race. this law finds its best expression in what we call "the maternal sacrifice." motherhood means giving. there is no limit to this urgency. the mother gives all she has to the young, including life. in many low organisms the sacrifice is instantaneous and complete--the mother dies in giving birth to the young--just lays her eggs and dies. such forms of life have to remain low, however. the defunct mothers can be of no further use to the young, so they have to be little instinctive automata, hopelessly arrested in the path of progress. nature perceived that this wholly sacrified mother was not the best kind. little by little the usefulness of the mother was prolonged, the brooding mother, the feeding mother, lastly the nursing mother, highest of all. order mammalia stands at the top, type of efficient motherhood. when human development began, new paths were open to mother-love--new tasks to maternal energy. the human mother not only nursed and guarded the child, but exercised her dawning ingenuity in adding to its comfort by making things. the constructive tendency is essentially feminine; the destructive masculine. male energy tends to scatter and destroy, female to gather and construct. so human labour comes by nature from the woman, was hers entirely for countless ages, while the man could only hunt and fight, or prance and prophesy as "medicine man"; and this is still so in those races which remain savage. even in so advanced a savage race as the zulus, the women do the work; and our own country has plenty of similar examples near at hand. as human civilisation is entirely dependent on progressive industry, while hunting and fighting are faculties we share with the whole carnivora, it is easy to see that during all those ages of savagery the woman was the leader. she represented the higher grade of life; and carried it far enough to bring to birth many of the great arts as well as the humbler ones, especially the invaluable art of language.[ ] [ ] see otis mason, "woman's share in primitive culture." but maternal energy has its limits. what those limits are may be best studied in an ant's nest or a beehive. these marvellous insects, perfected types of industry and of maternity, have succeeded in _organising motherhood_. most creatures reproduce individually, these collectively--all personal life absolutely lost in the group life. moved by an instinct coincident with its existence, the new-hatched ant, still weak and wet from the pupa, staggers to the nearest yet unborn to care for it, and cares for it devotedly to the end of life. one bee group-mother, crawling from cell to cell, lays eggs unnumbered for the common care; the other group-mothers, their own egg-laying capacity in abeyance, labour unceasingly in the interests of those common eggs; and the delicate perfection of provision and service thus attained results in--what? in a marvellous motherhood and a futile fatherhood; the predominant female, the almost negligible male--a temporary fertilising agent merely; in infinite reproduction, and that is all; in more bees, and more ants, more and more for ever, like the sands of the sea. they would cover the earth like a blanket but for merciful appetites of other creatures. but this is only multiplication--not improvement. nature has one more law to govern life besides self-preservation and reproduction--progress. to be, to re-be, and to be better is the law. it is not enough to keep one's self alive, it is not enough to keep one's kind alive, we must improve. this law of growth, which is the grand underlying one that moves the universe, acts on living species mainly through the male. he is progressive where the female is conservative by nature. he is a variant where she is the race type. this tendency to vary is one of the most beneficent in nature. through it comes change, and, through change, improvement. the unbridled flow of maternal energy is capable of producing an exquisite apparatus for child-rearing, and no more. the masculine energy is needed also, for the highest evolution. well is it for the human race that the male savage finally took hold of the female's industry. whether he perceived her superiority and sought to emulate it is doubtful; more probably it was the pressure of economic conditions which slowly forced him to it. the glaring proofs of time taught him that the pasture was more profitable than the hunting ground, and the cornfield than the pasture. the accumulating riches produced by the woman's industry drew him on. slowly, reluctantly, the lordly fighter condescended to follow the humble worker, who led him by thousands of years. in the hands of the male, industry developed. the woman is a patient, submissive, inexhaustible labourer. the pouring forces of maternity prompt her to work for ever--for her young. not so the man. working is with him an acquired habit, and acquired very late in his racial life. the low-grade man still in his heart despises it, he still prefers to be waited on by women, he still feels most at home in hunting and fighting. and man alone being represented in the main fields of modern industry, this male instinct for hunting and fighting plays havoc with the true economic processes. he makes a warfare of business, he makes prey of his competitors, he still seeks to enslave--to make others work for him, instead of freely and joyously working all he can. the best industrial progress needs both elements--ours is but a compromise as yet, something between the beehive and the battlefield. but, with all the faults of unbridled male energy, it has lifted industry from the limits of the home to that of the world. through it has come our splendid growth; much marred by evils of force and fraud, crude, wasteful, cruel, but progressive; and infinitely beyond the level of these neglected rudimentary trades left at home; left to the too tender mercies of the housewife. the iron limits of her efficiency are these: first, that of average capacity. just consider what any human business would be in which there was no faintest possibility of choice, of exceptional ability, of division of labor. what would shoes be like if every man made his own, if the shoemaker had never come to his development? what would houses be like if every man made his own? or hats, or books, or waggons? to confine any industry to the level of a universal average is to strangle it in its cradle. and there, for ever, lie the industries of the housewife. what every man does alone for himself, no man can ever do well--or woman either. that is the first limit of the "housewife." the next is the maternal character of this poor primeval labourer. because of her wealth of power and patience it does not occur to her to make things easier for herself. the fatal inertia of home industries lies in their maternal basis. the work is only done for the family--the family is satisfied--what remains? there is no other ambition, no other incentive, no other reward. where the horizon of duty and aspiration closes down with one's immediate blood relations, there is no room for growth. all that has pushed and pulled reluctant man up the long path of social evolution has not touched the home-bound woman. whatever height he reached, her place was still the same. the economic relation of the sexes here works[ ] with tremendous force. depending on the male for her economic profit, her own household labours kept to the sex-basis, and never allowed to enter the open market, there was nothing to modify her original sex-tendency to work with stationary contentment. if we can imagine for a moment a world like ours, with all our elaborate business processes in the hands of women, and the men still in the position of the male savage--painted braves, ready for the warpath, and good for little else--we get a comparison with this real condition, where the business processes are in the hands of men, and the women still in the position of the female savage--docile toilers for the family, and good for little else. that is the second limit of the housewife--that she is merely working for her own family--in the sex-relation--not the economic relation; as servant to the family instead of servant to the world. [ ] see "women and economics," c. p. stetson. next comes her isolation. even the bottom-level of a universal average--even the blind patience of a working mother--could be helped up a little under the beneficent influence of association. in the days when the ingenious squaw led the world, she had it. the women toiled together at their primitive tasks and talked together as they toiled. the women who founded the beginnings of agriculture were founders also of the village; and their feminine constructive tendencies held it together while the destructive tendencies of the belligerent male continually tore it apart. all through that babyhood of civilisation, the hunting and fighting instinct made men prey upon the accumulated wealth resultant from the labouring instinct of women--but industry conquered, being the best. as industry developed, as riches increased, as property rights were defined, as religions grew, women were confined more and more closely at home. later civilisations have let them out to play--but not to work. the parasitic female of the upper classes is allowed the empty freedom of association with her useless kind; but the housewife is still confined to the house. we are now giving great attention to this matter of home industry. we are founding chairs of household science, we are writing books on domestic economics; we are striving mightily to elevate the standard of home industry--and we omit to notice that it is just because it is home industry that all this trouble is necessary. so far as home industry had been affected by world industry, it has improved. the implements of cooking and cleaning, for instance--where should we be if our modern squaw had to make her own utensils, as did her ancient prototype? the man, in world industry, makes not only the house, with all its elaborate labour-saving and health-protecting devices; not only the furniture of the house, the ornaments, hangings, and decorations, but the implements of the home industries as well. go to the household furnishing store of our day--remember the one pot of the savage family to boil the meat and wash the baby--and see the difference between "homemade" and "world-made" things. so far as home industry has progressed, it is through contact with the moving world outside; so far as it remains undeveloped, it is through the inexorable limitations of the home in itself. there is one more limitation to be considered--the number of occupations practised. though man has taken out and developed all the great trades, and, indeed, all trades beyond a certain grade, he has left the roots of quite a number at home. the housewife practises the conflicting elements of many kinds of work. first, she is cook. whatever else is done or undone, we must eat; and since eating is ordained to be done at home, that is her predominant trade. the preparation and service of food is a most useful function; and as a world-industry, in the hands of professionals, students, and experts, it has reached a comparatively high stage of development. in the nine-tenths of our homes where the housewife is cook, it comes under all these limitations: first, average capacity; second, sex-tendency; third, isolation; fourth, conflicting duties. the cook, having also the cleaning to do, the sewing, mending, nursing, and care of children, the amount of time given to cooking is perforce limited. but even the plainest of home cooking must take up a good proportion of the day. the cooking, service, and "cleaning up" of ordinary meals, in a farmhouse, with the contributory processes of picking, sorting, peeling, washing, etc., and the extra time given to special baking, pickling, and preserving, take fully six hours a day. to the man, who is out of the house during work-hours, and who seldom estimates woman's work at its real value, this may seem extreme, but the working housewife knows it is a fair allowance, even a modest one. there are degrees of speed, skill, intelligence, and purchasing power, of course; but this is a modest average; two hours for breakfast, three for dinner, one for supper. the preparation of food as a household industry takes up half the working time of half the population of the world. this utterly undeveloped industry, inadequate and exhausting, takes nearly a quarter of a twelve-hour day of the world's working force. cooking and sewing are inimical; the sewing of the housewife is quite generally pushed over into the evening as well as afternoon, thus lengthening her day considerably. nursing, as applied to the sick, must come in when it happens, other things giving way at that time. cleaning is continuous. cooking, of course, makes cleaning; the two main elements of dirt in the household being grease and ashes; another, and omnipresent one, dust. then, there are the children to clean, and the clothes to clean--this latter so considerable an item as to take two days of extra labour--during which, of course, other departments must be less attended. we have the regular daily labour of serving meals and "clearing up," we have the regular daily labour of keeping the home in order; then we have the washing day, ironing day, baking day, and sweeping day. some make a special mending day also. this division, best observed by the most competent, is a heroic monument to the undying efforts of the human worker to specialise. but we have left out one, and the most important one, of our home industries--the care of children. where is children's day? the children are there every day, of course. yes, but which hour of the day? with six for food, with--spreading out the washing and ironing over the week--two for laundry, with--spreading the sweeping day and adding the daily dusting and setting to rights--two for cleaning; and another two for sewing--after these twelve hours of necessary labour are accounted for, what time remains for the children? the initial purpose of the home is the care of children. the initial purpose of motherhood is the care of children. how are the duties of the mother compatible with the duties of the housewife? how can child-culture, as a branch of human progress, rise to any degree of proficiency in this swarming heap of rudimentary trades? nothing is asked--here--as to how the housewife, doing all these things together her life long, can herself find time for culture and development; or how can she catch any glimmer of civic duty or public service beyond this towering pile of domestic duty and household service. the particular point herein advanced is that the conditions of home industry _as such_ forever limit the growth of the industry so practised; forever limit the growth of the persons so practising them; and also tend to limit the growth of the society which is content to leave any of its essential functions in this distorted state. our efforts to "lift the standard of household industry" ignore the laws of industry. we seek by talking and writing, by poetising and sermonising, and playing on every tender sentiment and devout aspiration, to convince the housewife that there is something particularly exalted and beautiful, as well as useful, in her occupation. this shows our deep-rooted error of sex-distinction in industry. we consider the work of the woman in the house as essentially feminine, and fail to see that, as work, it is exactly like any other kind of human activity, having the same limitations and the same possibilities. suppose we change the sex and consider for a while the status of a house-husband. he could be a tall, strong, fine-looking person--man-servants often are. he could love his wife and his children--industrial status does not affect these primal instincts. he could toil from morning to night, manfully, to meet their needs. suppose we are visiting in such a family. we should find a very rude small hut--no one man could build much of a house, but, ah! the tender love, the pride, the intimate emotion he would put into that hut! for his heart's dearest--for his precious little ones--he had dragged together the fallen logs--chipped them smooth with his flint-ax (there could have been no metal work while every man was a house-husband), and piled them together. with patient, loving hands he had daubed the chinks with clay, made beds of leaves, hung hides upon the walls. even some rude stools he might have contrived--though furniture really belongs to a later period. but over all comes the incessant demand for food. his cherished family must eat, often and often, and under that imperative necessity all others wait. so he goes forth to the hunt, brave, subtle, fiercely ingenious; and, actuated by his ceaseless love for his family he performs wonders. he brings home the food--day after day--even sometimes enough for several days, though meat does not keep very long. the family would have food of a sort, shelter of a sort, and love. but try to point out to the house-husband what other things he could obtain for them, create for them, provide for them, if he learned to combine with other men, to exchange labour, to organise industry. see his virtuous horror! what! give up his duty to his family! let another man hunt for them!--another man build their home--another man make their garments! he will not hear of it. "it is my duty as a husband," he will tell you, "to serve my wife. it is my duty as a father to serve my children. no other person could love them as i do, and without that love the work would not be done as well." strong in this conviction, the house-husband would remain intrenched in his home, serving his family with might and main, having no time, no strength, no brain capacity for undertaking larger methods; and there he and his family would all be, immovable in the stone age. never was any such idiot on earth as this hypothetical home-husband. it was not in him to stay in such primitive restrictions. but he has been quite willing to leave his wife in that interestingly remote period. the permanent error of the housewife lies in that assumption that her love for her family makes her service satisfactory. family affection has nothing to do with the specialist's skill; nor with the specialist's love of his work for the pleasure of doing it. that is the kind of love that makes good work; and that is the kind of work the world needs and the families within it. men, specialised, give to their families all that we know of modern comforts, of scientific appliances, of works of art, of the complex necessities and conveniences of modern life. women, unspecialised, refuse to benefit their families in like proportion; but offer to them only the grade of service which was proper enough in the stone age, but is a historic disgrace to-day. a house does not need a wife any more than it does a husband. are we never to have a man-wife? a really suitable and profitable companion for a man instead of the bond-slave of a house? there is nothing in the work of a house which requires marital or maternal affection. it does require highly developed skill and business sense--but these it fails to get. would any amount of love on the part of that inconceivable house-husband justify him in depriving his family of all the fruits of progress? what a colossal charge of malfeasance in office could be brought against such a husband--such a father; who, under the name of love, should so fail in his great first duty--progress. how does the woman escape this charge? why is not she responsible for progress, too? by that strange assumption does she justify this refusal to keep step with the world? she will tell you, perhaps, that she cannot do more than she does--she has neither time nor strength nor ambition for any more work. so might the house-husband have defended himself--as honestly and as reasonably. it is true. while every man had to spend all his time providing for his own family, no man ever had, or ever could have, time, strength, or ambition to do more. it is not _more_ work that is asked of women, but less. it is _a different method_ of work. human progress rests upon the interchange of labour; upon work done humanly for each other, not, like the efforts of the savage or the brute, done only for one's own. the housewife, blinded by her ancient duty, fails in her modern duty. it is true that, while she does this work in this way, she can do no more. therefore she must stop doing it, and learn to do differently. the house will not be "neglected" by her so doing; but is even now most shamefully neglected by her antique methods of labour. the family will not be less loved because it has a skilled worker to love it. love has to pass muster in results, as well as intentions. here are five mothers, equally loving. one is a hottentot. one is an eskimo. one is a hindoo. one is a german peasant woman. one is an american and a successful physician. which could do most for her children? all might compete on even terms if "love is enough," as poets have claimed; but _which could best provide for her children_? neither overflowing heart nor overburdened hand sufficiently counts in the uplifting of the race; that rests on _what is done_. the position of the housewife is a final limitation and a continuous, increasing injury both to the specific industries of the place, and to her first great duty of motherhood. the human race, fathered only by house-husbands, would never have moved at all. the human race, mothered only by housewives, has moved only half as fast and as far as it rightly should have done, and the work the patient housewife spends her life on is pitifully behind in the march of events. the home as a workshop is utterly insufficient to rightly serve the needs of the growing world. vi the home as a workshop _ii. the housemaid_ among that tenth part of the population sufficiently rich to keep servants, the conditions of domestic industry are familiar to us. this is the tenth which is most conscious, and most vocal. it has the widest range of social contact; it is most in touch with literature; both in speech and writing we hear oftenest from the small class who keep servants. the woman who does her own work is not usually a writer and has little time for reading. moreover, her difficulties, though great, are not of the sort that confound the mistress of servants. the housewife is held to her work by duty and by love; also by necessity. she cannot "better herself" by leaving; and indeed, without grave loss and pain, she cannot leave at all. so the housewife struggles on, too busy to complain; and accomplishes, under this threefold bond of duty, love, and necessity far more than can be expected of a comparatively free agent. therefore we hear little of the "problem" of domestic service where the wife is the servant; and have to draw our conclusions from such data as the large percentage of farmers' wives who become insane, and such generalisations as those of the preceding chapter. but the "servant question" is clearly before us. it is an economic problem which presses upon us all, (that tenth of us all which is so prominent that it tacitly assumes its problem to be universal;) and the pressure of which increases daily. we are even beginning to study it scientifically. miss salmon's valuable book on "domestic service" contributes much useful information. the household economic association exists largely to alleviate the distresses of this system of industry. scarce one woman (of this tenth) but feels the pinch of our imperfect method of doing housework, and as they become better educated and more intelligent, as some of them even learn something of more advanced economic processes, this crude, expensive, and inadequate system causes more and more uneasiness and distress. what is the status of household industry as practised by servants? it is this: the housewife having become the lady of the house, and the work still having to be done in the house, others must be induced to do it. in the period from which this custom dates it was a simple matter of elevating "the wife or chief wife"[ ] to a position of dominance, and leaving the work to be done by the rest of the women. domestic service, as an industrial status, dates from the period of the polygynous group; the household with the male head and the group of serving women; from the time when wives were slaves and slaves were wives, indiscriminately. (see domestic relations of jacob.) [ ] see veblen's "theory of the leisure class." the genesis of the relation being thus established, it is easy to account for its present peculiar and dominating condition--celibacy. the housemaid is the modern derivative from the slave-wife. she may no longer be the sub-wife of the master--but neither may she be another man's wife. no married man wishes his wife to serve another man. this household service, being esteemed as a distinctly feminine function, closely involved with maternity, or at least with marriage, or, if not with marriage, at the very least with woman's devotion, and quite inconsistent with any other marriage; therefore we find the labours of the household performed by celibate women of a lower class. our modern household is but a variation of the primitive group--the man and his serving women still. in the period of slave labour, where both men and women were owned and exploited, we find household labour performed by men; and in those oriental nations where slavery yet exists we find man-service common in the home. also in nations still influenced by feudalism, where service once went with the soil, where the lord is still attended by what was originally his contingent of fighting men, but which has gradually dwindled to an array of footmen and butlers; there we find men still contented, or partially contented, to do house-service. but it ranks last and lowest in man's mind, and justly. as fast as industrial evolution progresses we find men less and less content to do this work in this way; or, for that matter, women either. in the highly advanced economic status of america we are especially confronted with this difficulty, and have to supply our needs from nations still largely under the influence of the feudal régime, or those in the yet lower period of slavery. men-servants, when obtained, are generally satisfactory; no public outcry is made over them. it is the "servant-girl" that constitutes the element of difficulty, and it is she that we must consider. let it be clearly held in mind that the very first economic relation was that of sex, based on the natural tendency of the female to work; sex-labour. the second stage of economic relation is that of force; slave-labour. the next is that of payment, what we call the contract system; wage-labour. social evolution still shows us all these forms actively present in this age, though belonging to such remote and different ones; just as physical evolution still shows us monad and mollusk as well as vertebrate mammals. each stage has its use and value. but when an early stage comes into contact with a later one there is trouble. we have all seen how inevitably a savage status recedes and disappears before the civilised. individual savages may be assimilated by the civilised competing race; but savagery and civilisation cannot coexist when they come in contact and competition. a savage cult may endure on an island in the south seas, but not in england or america. so an early status of labour has to give way to a later; as shown so conspicuously in the last great historic instance in our own country. household industry is a mixed status, composed mainly of sex-labour, the first stage; and partially of slave-labour, the second. this slave-labour is in the act of changing to contract labour; and, as such, cannot endure the conditions of home industry. the housewife has to, the house-slave had to, the house-servant mostly had to; but the house-_employee_ does not have to, and will not if she can help it. the contract status of labour is incompatible with home industry. note how the condition of celibacy intereacts upon the relation. we expect of our house-servants that they be "attached," "loyal," "faithful," "respectful," "devoted"; we do not say they always are, but that is our ideal; these are the qualities for which we most praise them. attachment is especially valued. if only we could still _own_ them! then there would be that pleasant sense of permanence and security so painfully lacking in our modern house-service. short of owning them we seek by various futile methods to "attach" them. some societies give medals for long service. the best thing we can say of a servant is "she stayed with me for seven years!" or whatever period we can boast. now we do not seek to "attach" our butcher or baker or candlestick-maker; why our cook? because this status of celibacy has necessarily resulted in the most painful conditions of transient incapacity in house-service. people must marry. people ought to marry. people will marry, whether we say yes or no. why should the housemaid stay a maid for our sakes? what do we offer in the exciting prospect of always doing the same work for the same wages, compared to the prospect of doing the same work, without wages, it is true, but with a "mechanic's lien" on her husband's purse? or what would any scale of wages or promotion be against the joys of a home of her own, a husband of her own, children of her own? we, intrenched in our own homes and families, think she ought to be satisfied with serving our husbands and children, but she is not--and never will be. there is of course a certain percentage of old maids and widows, sufficiently disagreeable not to be wanted by their relatives, or sufficiently independent not to want them; sufficiently capable to hold a place as house-servant, but not sufficiently capable to follow any other trade; or, in last possibility, there is here and there that blessed damosel of our domestic dreams--a strong, capable, ingenious woman, not hampered by any personal ties or affections; not choosing to marry; preferring to work in a kitchen to working in a shop; and so impressed by the august virtues and supreme importance of our family that she becomes "attached" to it for life. these cases are, however, rare. in the vast majority of households the maid is a maid, a young woman of the lower classes, doing this work because she can do no other, and doing it only until she marries. the resultant conditions of the industry so practised are precisely what we might expect. this young woman is in no way attached to the family. a family is connected by the ties of sex, by marriage and heredity, with occasional cases of adoption. if the servant is not a relative, or adopted, she does not belong to the family. she has left her father's family, and looks forward to her husband's, meanwhile as an aid to the first or a means to the latter, she serves ours. she is of the lower classes because no others will do this work. she is ignorant because, if she were intelligent, she would not do it--does not do it; the well-schooled, well-trained young woman much prefers other work. so we find household industry in that tenth of our homes not served by the housewife, is in the hands of ignorant and inferior young women, _under conditions of constant change_. the position of the lady of the house, as this procession of untrained, half-trained, ill-trained, or at least _otherwise_-trained young women march through her domain, is like that of the sergeant of companies of raw recruits. she "lifts 'em--lifts 'em--lifts 'em"--but there is never any "charge that wins the day." household industry we must constantly remember never rises to the level of a regular trade. it is service--not "skilled labour." what is done there is done under no broad light of public improvement, but is merely catering to the personal tastes and habits, whims and fancies of one family. the lady of the house is by no means a captain of industry. she is not a trainer and governor of able subordinates, like the mate of a ship or the manager of a hotel. her position is not one of power, but of helplessness. she has to be done for and waited on. whatever maternal instinct may achieve at first hand in the woman-who-does-her-own-work, it does _not_ make competent instructors. when the lady of the house's husband gets rich enough she hires a house-keeper to engage, discharge, train, and manage the housemaids. here and there we do find an efficient lady of the house who can do wonders even with this stream of transient incapacity, but the prominence of the servant-question proves her rarity. if all ladies of houses could bring order out of such chaos, could meet constant needs by transient means, the subtleties of refined tastes by the inefficiencies of unskilled labour, then nothing more need be said. but the thing cannot be done. the average house-mistress is not a servant-charmer and the average housemaid is _necessarily incapable_. this is what should be squarely faced and acknowledged. the kind of work that needs to be done to keep a modern home healthy, comfortable, and refined, cannot be done--can never be done--by this office-boy grade of labour. because home industry is home industry, because it has been left aborted in the darkness of private life while other industries have grown so broad and high in the light of public life, we have utterly failed to recognise its true value. these industries, so long neglected and misused, are of supreme importance. the two main ones--the preparation of food and the care of children--can hardly be over-estimated in value to the race. on the one the health of the world mainly depends, yes, its very life. on the other the progress of the world depends, and that is more than life. that these two great social functions should be left contentedly to the hands of _absolutely the lowest grade of labour in our civilisation_ is astounding. it is the lowest grade of labour not because it is performed by the lowest class of labour--humanity can grow to splendid heights from that beginning, and does so every day; but it is the lowest because it is carried on in the home. the conditions of home industry as practised by either housewife or housemaid are hopelessly restrictive. they are, as we have seen, the low standard of average capacity; the element of sex-tendency; the isolation and the unspecialised nature of the work. in two of these conditions the housemaid gains on the housewife. she is partly out of the sex-tendency status and partly into the contract relation; hence the patient, submissive, conservative influence is lightened. in families of greater affluence there is some specialisation; we have varieties in housemaid; cookmaid, scullerymaid, nursemaid, chambermaid, parlourmaid,--as many as we can afford; and in such families we find such elevation of home-industry as is possible; marred, however, by serious limitations. household industry is a world question; and in no way to be answered by a solution only possible of application to one family in a thousand. it is a question of our time and the future, and not met by a solution which consists in maintaining an elaborate archaism. the proper feeding of the world to-day is no more to be guaranteed by one millionaire's french cook, than was the health of the roman world by one patrician's greek doctor. human needs, in remote low stages of social development, were met by privately owned labourers. as late as the middle ages the great lord had in his_menie_ every kind of functionary to minister to his wants; not only his private servants of the modern kind, with butlers and sutlers and pantlers in every degree; but his armourer, his tailor, his minstrel, and his fool. the feudal lord kept a fool to amuse him, whereas we go to the theatre. he kept a cook to feed him--and we do it yet. he kept a poet to celebrate his deeds and touch his emotions. we have made poetry the highest class in literature, and literature the world's widest art--by setting the poet free. to work for the world at large is necessary to the development of the work. a private poet is necessarily ignoble. so is a private cook. the iron limitations of household service are immutable--world service has none. to cater to the whims of one master lowers both parties concerned. to study the needs of humanity and minister to them is the line of social progress. there is nothing private and special in the preparation of food; a more general human necessity does not exist. there must be freedom and personal choice in the food prepared, but it no more has to be cooked for you than the books you love best have to be written for you. we flatter ourselves that we get what we want by having it done at home. apply that condition to any other kind of human product and see if it holds. we get what we want by free choice from the world's markets--not from a workshop in the back yard. imagine the grade of production, the arts, crafts, and manufactures, that we should have to select from, if we tried to have all things made for us by private servants! apply the intelligence and skill of this zoetrope procession of housemaids to watch-making or shoe-making, or umbrella-making, or the making of paper, or glass, or steel, or any civilised commodity; and if we can easily see how immeasurably incompetent these flitting handmaids would be for any of these lines of work, why do we imagine them competent to prepare food and take care of children? because we have never thought of it at all. men are too busy doing other things, too blinded by their scorn for "women's work." women are too busy doing these things to think about them at all; or if they think, stung by the pain of pressing inconvenience, they only think personally, they only feel it for themselves, each one blindly buried in her own home, like the crafty ostrich with his head in the sand. the question is a public one; none could be more so. it affects in one of its two branches every human being except those who board; every home, without exception. perhaps some impression may be made on the blank spaces of our untouched minds by exhibiting the economic status of home industry. we americans are credited with acuteness and good business sense. how can we reconcile ourselves to the continuance of a system not only so shamefully inadequate, but so ruinously expensive? if we are not mortified to find that our boasted industrial progress carries embedded in its very centre this stronghold of hoary antiquity, this knotted, stumpy bunch of amputated rudiments; if we are not moved by the low standard of general health as affected by food, and the no standard of general education as affecting the baby, perhaps we can be stimulated somewhat by the consideration of expense. the performance of domestic industries involves, first, an enormous waste of labour. the fact that in nine cases out of ten this labour is unpaid does not alter its wastefulness. if half the men in the world stayed at home to wait on the other half, the loss in productive labour would be that between half and the fraction required to do the work under advanced conditions, say one-twentieth. any group of men requiring to be cooked for, as a ship's crew, a lumber camp, a company of soldiers, have a proportionate number of cooks. to give each man a private cook would reduce the working strength materially. our private cooks being women makes no difference in the economic law. we are so accustomed to rate women's labour on a sex-basis, as being her "duty" and not justly commanding any return, that we have quite overlooked this tremendous loss of productive labour. then there is the waste of endless repetition of "plant." we pay rent for twenty kitchens where one kitchen would do. all that part of our houses which is devoted to these industries, kitchen, pantry, laundry, servants' rooms, etc., could be eliminated from the expense account by the transference of the labour involved to a suitable workshop. not only our rent bills, but our furnishing bills, feel the weight of this expense. we have to pay severally for all these stoves and dishes, tools and utensils, which, if properly supplied in one proper place instead of twenty, would cost far less to begin with; and, in the hands of skilled professionals, would not be under the tremendous charge for breakage and ruinous misuse which now weighs heavily on the householder. then there is the waste in fuel for these nineteen unnecessary kitchens, and lastly and largest of any item except labour, the waste in food. first the waste in purchasing in the smallest retail quantities; then the waste involved in separate catering, the "left overs" which the ingenious housewife spends her life in trying to "use up"; and also the waste caused by carelessness and ignorance in a great majority of cases. perhaps this last element, careless ignorance, ought to cover both waste and breakage, and be counted by itself, or as a large item in the labour account. count as you will, there could hardly be devised a more wasteful way of doing necessary work than this domestic way. it costs on the most modest computation three times what it need cost. once properly aroused to a consideration of these facts it will be strange indeed if america's business sense cannot work out some system of meeting these common human necessities more effectually and more economically. the housemaid would be more of a step in advance if the housewife, released from her former duties, then entered the ranks of productive labour, paid her substitute, and contributed something further to the world's wealth. but nothing could be farther from the thoughts of the lady of the house. her husband being able to keep more than one woman to do the work of the house; and much preferring to exhibit an idle wife, as proof of his financial position,[ ] the idle wife proceeds so to conduct her house as to add to its labours most considerably. the housewife's system of housekeeping is perforce limited to her own powers. the size of the home, the nature of its furnishings and decorations, the kind of clothes worn by the women and children, the amount of food served and the manner of its service; all these are regulated by the housewife's capacity for labour. but once the housemaid enters the field of domestic labour there is a scale of increase in that labour which has no limits but the paying capacity of the man. [ ] see veblen again. this element of waste cannot be measured, because it is a progressive tendency, it "grows by what it feeds upon" (as most things do, by the way!) and waxes greater and greater with each turn of the wheel. if the lady of the house, with one servant, were content to live exactly as she did before; keeping the work within the powers of the deputy, she would be simply and absolutely idle, and that is a very wearing condition; especially to woman, the born worker. so the lady of the house, mingling with other ladies of houses, none of them having anything but houses to play with, proceeds so to furnish, decorate, and arrange those houses, and so to elaborate the functions thereof, as to call for more and ever more housemaids to do the endless work. this open door of senseless extravagance hinges directly upon the idle wife. she leaves her position of domestic service, not to take a higher one in world service; but to depute her own work to an inferior and do none at all. thus we find that in the grade of household labour done by the housewife we have all those elements of incapacity and waste before explained; and that in the grade done by the housemaid we have a decrease in ability, a measurable increase in direct waste, and an immeasurable increase in the constantly rising sum of waste due to these bloated buildings stuffed with a thousand superfluities wherein the priceless energies of women are poured out in endless foolishness; in work that meets no real need; and in play that neither rests nor refreshes. so far our sufferings under the present rapid elimination of the housemaid have taught us little. our principal idea of bettering the condition is by training servants. we seriously propose to establish schools to train these reluctant young women to our service; even in some cases to pay them for going there. this is indeed necessary; for why should they pay for tuition, or even waste time in gratuitously studying, when they can get wages without? we do not, and cannot, offer such graded and progressive salaries as shall tempt really high-class labour into this field. skilled labour and domestic service are incompatible. the degree of intelligence, talent, learning, and trained skill which should be devoted to feeding and cleaning the human race will never consent to domestic service. it is the grade of work which forever limits its development, the place, the form of service. so long as the home is the workshop the housewife cannot, and the housemaid will not, even if she could, properly do this work for the neglected world. is it not time that the home be freed from these industries so palpably out of place? that the expense of living be decreased by two-thirds and the productive labour increased by nine-twentieths? that our women cease to be an almost universal class of house-servants; plus a small class of parasitic idlers and greedy consumers of wealth? that the preparation of food be raised from its present condition of inadequacy, injury, and waste to such a professional and scientific position that we may learn to spare from our street corners both the drug-store and the saloon? that the care of children become at last what it should be--the noblest and most valuable profession, to the endless profit of our little ones and progress of the race? and that our homes, no longer greasy, dusty workshops, but centres of rest and peace; no longer gorgeous places of entertainment that does not entertain, but quiet places of happiness; no longer costing the laborious lives of overworked women or supporting the useless lives of idle ones, but properly maintained by organised industries; become enjoyed by men and women alike, both glad and honourable workers in an easy world? vii home-cooking we are all reared in a traditional belief that what we get to eat at home is, by virtue of that location, better than what we get to eat anywhere else. the expression, "home-cooking," carries a connotation of assured excellence, and the popular eating-house advertises "pies like those your mother used to make," as if pie-making were a maternal function. economy, comfort, and health are supposed to accompany our domestic food supply, and danger to follow the footsteps of those who eat in a hotel, a restaurant, or a boarding house. is this long-accepted theory correct? is the home, as the last stage of our elaborate processes of social nutrition, a success? "home-cooking" is an alluring phrase, but lay aside the allurement; the term applies to eskimo hut, to choctaw wigwam, to turk and chinaman and russian jew--whose home-cooking are we praising? our own, of course. which means nothing--absolutely nothing--but that the stomach adapts itself to what it has to live on--unless it is too poisonous. of course we like what we are used to; be it sauerkraut or saleratus biscuit. we like tobacco too, and alcohol, and chloral and morphine. the long-suffering human system (perhaps toughened by ages of home-cooking)--will adapt itself even to slow death. but how does our universally praised home-cooking affect our health? to find it pure and undefined, far from the deleterious products of mere business cooking, we must go to the isolated farmhouse. does either the physician or the epicure point with pride to that dietary? its results are not due to lack of proper materials. there you have no much-blamed "baker's bread"; no "city milk"; no wilted vegetables and questionable meats; no painted confectionery and bakeshop sweets; no wild hurry to catch the morning car. you have mother love and mother instinct untrammelled, with the best materials we know, pure dairy produce and fresh vegetables and fruits. as a result, you should look for splendid health, clear complexions, bright eyes, perfect teeth, and sublime digestions. instead, we find men who keep fairly well to middle life because their vigorous out-of-door work enables them to cope for a while with their home-cooking; but in the women you find a sadly low average of health and beauty. dyspepsia is the rule. false teeth are needed before they are thirty. patent medicine is the family divinity. their ordinary home-cooking is pork and potatoes; and their extraordinary home-cooking is such elaborate elegance of pie and cake as to supply every element of mischief omitted in the regular diet. the morbid appetites, the uneasy demand for stimulants, both in men and women, the rarity of good digestion--these do not prove much in favour of this system of preparing food. the derivation of the habit is clear enough and easily traced. among individual animals, the nutritive processes are simple. by personal effort each creature helps himself from a free supply, competing mercilessly with every other creature that comes in his way. vegetarian animals compete peaceably as philosophical anarchists; carnivorous ones compete with more violence. among both classes we find homes among those whose food is portable; holes, caves, or nests; places where the young can be guarded and their food brought to them. from the grisly heap of bones in the lion's den, or shells below the squirrel's nest, through the "kitchen middens" of primitive man, to the daily output of garbage from our well-loved homes to-day is an unbroken line. "a place to feed the young" was once a sufficient definition of a home, but the home has grown since then. man is a social animal. he is part of something; his life is not dependent on his own efforts solely, but on those of many other men. we get our food, not by going out to quarrel with one another over a free supply, but by helping one another in various elaborate processes of production, distribution, and preparation. in this last process of preparation women long held a monopoly; and, as women were kept at home, so food was, naturally, prepared at home. but as soon as men banded together to go on long expeditions without women--which was at the beginning of the history of war--they learned to cook and eat away from home, and the cook, as a craftsman, was developed. this social functionary has been officiating for a long time. he has cooked as a business, giving his whole time to it; he has cooked for miscellaneous numbers, and has had to study averages; he has cooked for great dignitaries, epicurean and capricious. so, in course of time, has grown among us some little knowledge of the art and science of cooking. this growth has not taken place in the home. an ignorant overworked poor woman, cooking for her family, has not, and never can have, the time, means, or opportunity for the large experiment and practice which have given us the great diet-list of to-day. each woman, learning only from her mother, has been able only to hand down to us the habits of a dark, untutored past. outside the home, man, the specialised cook, acting under pressure of larger needs and general competition, has gradually improved the vessels, utensils, and materials of the home food supply. note carefully that, in home-cooking, there are absent these great necessities of progress--specialisation and competition, as well as the wide practical experience which is almost as essential. go among the most backward peasantry of any country and compare the "home-cooking" of each nation in its present form, with the specialised cooking of the best hotels, clubs, or of those great official or private entertainments which employ the professional cook. it is rare, of course, to find home-cooking wholly unaffected by social cooking, for man, as an ultra-domestic character, learns something elsewhere and brings it home; but the point to be insisted on is that the development in cooking comes from outside the home, and does not originate in it. still, in spite of all our progress, the great mass of mankind eats two meals at home; women and children, three. the preparation of food is still the main business of housekeeping; its labour, the one great labour of the place; its cost, the main expense. in building, the conveniences for this trade--kitchen, dining-room, pantry, cupboard, and cellar--require a large part of the outlay, and the furnishing of these with linen, china, and silver, as well as the wooden and iron articles, adds heavily to the list. the wife and mother still has, for her main duty, the management of the family food supply, even if she is not the principal worker, and the maintenance of domestic service, to keep our food system in motion, is one of the chief difficulties of modern life. nine-tenths of our women "do their own work," as has been before shown. those nine-tenths of the female population--as well as the majority of servants--expend most of their labour in the preparation of food and the cleansing processes connected with it. with all this time, labour, and expense given to the feeding of humanity, what are the results? how are we educated in knowledge and taste as to right eating? what are our general food habits? to these questions it may be promptly answered that no other animal is so depraved in its feeding habits as man; no other animal has so many diseases of the alimentary system. the dog ranks next to us in diseases, and shares our home-cooking. the hog, which we most highly recommend, is "corn-fed," not reared on our remnants of the table. the long and arduous labours of public-spirited men have lifted our standards of living in many ways. public sanitation, beginning outside and slowly driven in on the reluctant home, has lowered our death rate in the great filth-diseases which used to decimate the world. but the food diseases are not lessened. wrong eating and wrong drinking are responsible for an enormous proportion of our diseases and our crimes, to say nothing of the still larger average of unhealthiness and unhappiness in which we live. can we get at the causes of this department of human trouble? and, when found, do they bear any relation to our beloved custom of home-cooking and home-eating? we can--and they do. the trouble springs from two main features: bad food--insufficient, oversufficient, ill-chosen, or ill-prepared; and our own ignorance and lack of self-control. consider the bad food first. food is produced all over the earth, passes through many hands, and is finally selected by the housewife. she is not a trained expert, and can never be while she confines herself to serving one house. she does not handle quantities sufficient or cater for consumers enough to gain large knowledge of her business. she is, in nine cases out of ten, limited financially in her buying power. these conditions make the food market particularly open to adulteration, and to the offering of inferior materials. the individual housewife cannot herself discriminate in all the subtleties of adulterated food, nor has she the time or the means to secure expert tests of her supplies. moreover, her separate purchasing power is so small that it cannot intimidate the seller; he has ignorance and a small purse to deal with, and he deals with them accordingly. the purchase of food in quantities by trained buyers would lift the grade of our supplies at once. no man is going to waste time and money in adulteration subject to daily analysis, or in offering stale, inferior articles which will not appear saleable to the trained eye. the wholesale poisoning of babies by bad milk is an evil our city governments are seeking to combat, but the helpless anarchy of a million ignorant homes, unorganised, untrained, and obliged to get the milk at once, renders our governmental efforts almost vain. insufficient food is owing, in part, to economic causes, and in part to ignorance of what the body needs. on the economic side comes in a most important view of the home as a food purveyer. the private purchase and preparation of food is the most expensive method. it is wonderful to see how people cling to their notion of "the economy" of home-cooking. by the simplest business laws, of world-wide application, the small purchaser has to pay the largest price. the expenses incident to the re-retailing of food, from the apples rotting on the ground in new york state to the apples we purchase at twenty cents a quart for new york city tables, form a large part of the cost of living. thousands of middlemen thrive like leeches on the long, slow current of food material, as it pours in myriad dribbling streams from the great sources of production, far away, into our innumerable kitchen doors. in a city block there are, let us say, two hundred families, which, at our usual average of five individuals to a family, would number one thousand persons. the thousand persons should consume, we will say, five hundred quarts of milk a day. the purchase of five hundred quarts of milk and the proportionate cream, as well as butter, would maintain a nice little dairy--several blocks together would maintain a large one. your bustling restaurant proudly advertises "milk and cream fresh every day from our own dairies!" but your beloved home has no such purchasing power, but meekly absorbs pale cultures of tuberculosis and typhoid fever at eight cents a quart. the poorer people are, the more they pay for food, separately. the organised purchasing power of these same people would double their food supply, and treble it. besides the expense entailed in purchasing is that of private preparation. first, the "plant" is provided. for our two hundred families there are two hundred stoves, with their utensils. the kitchen, and all that it contains, with dining-rooms, etc., have been already referred to, but should be held firmly in mind as a large item in rent and furnishing. next, there is the labour. two hundred women are employed for about six hours a day each,--twelve hundred working hours,--at twenty cents an hour. this means two hundred and forty dollars a day, or sixteen hundred and eighty dollars a week, that the block of families is paying to have its wastefully home-purchased food more wastefully home-cooked. of course, if these cooks are the housewives, they do not get the money; but the point is, that this much labour is _worth_ that amount of money, and that productive energy is being wasted. what ought it to cost? one trained cook can cook for thirty, easily; three, more easily, for a hundred. the thousand people mentioned need, in largest allowance, thirty cooks--and the thirty cooks, organised, would not need six hours a day to do the same work, either. thirty cooks, even at ten dollars a week, would be but three hundred dollars, and that is some slight saving as against sixteen hundred and eighty! we have not mentioned fully another serious evil. "insufficient food" would be easily removable from our list by a more economical method of buying and cooking it. the other element of insufficiency--ignorance,--would go also, if we had skilful and learned cooks and caterers instead of unskilled and unlearned amateurs, who know only how to cater to the demands of hungry children and injudicious men at home. wise temperance workers know that many men drink because they are not properly fed; and women, too, consume tea and coffee to make up in stimulants for the lack of nutrition about which they know nothing. under this same head comes the rest of that list, the over-sufficient, ill-chosen, and ill-prepared food. it is not simply that the two hundred amateur cooks (whether they be permanent wife or transient servant, they are all, in a business sense, amateurs,--ask a real cook!) waste money by their sporadic efforts, but their incapacity wastes our blood in our veins. we do not die, swift and screaming, from some sharp poison administered through malice; but our poor stomachs are slowly fretted by grease-hardened particles, and wearied out by heavy doses of hot dough. only iron vigour can survive such things. "it is ill-chosen," is one charge against home-cooking. what governs our choice? why does a german eat decaying cabbage and mite-infested cheese, an american revel in fat-soaked steak and griddle-cakes, a frenchman disguise questionable meats with subtly-blended spices, and so on, through the tastes of all the nations and localities? it is environment and heredity that governs us--that's all. it is not knowledge, not culture and experience, not an enlightened taste, or the real choice of a trained mind capable of choosing. a child is fed by his mother, who transmits remote ancestral customs, unchanged by time. children are hungry and like to eat. the young stomach is adapted to its food supply; it grows accustomed to it and "likes" it,--and the man continues to demand the doughnuts, the sauerkraut, the saleratus biscuit, which he "likes." one ghastly exception should be taken to this smooth statement. i have said that "the young stomach is adapted to its food supply." alas, alas! this is true of those who survive; but think of the buried babies,--of the dear, dead children, of the "diseases incidental to childhood,"--and question if some part of that awful death-list is not due to our criminal ignorance of what is proper food! there is no knowledge, save the filtering down of ancient customs and what the private cook can pick up from house to house; no experience, save that gained by practising on one's own family or the family of one's employer--and i never heard of either wife or servant gathering statistics as to who lived and who died under her cooking--no special training; and no room or time or means to learn! it would be a miracle if all should survive. the ignorance which keeps us so ill-fed _is an essential condition of home-cooking_. if we had only home-shoe-making, or home-doctoring, or home-tailoring--barbering--what you please--we should show the same wide-spread ignorance and lack of taste. what we have learned in cooking comes from the advance of that great branch of human industry in its free social field, and that advance has reacted to some degree on the immovable home. next consider self-control, the lack of which is so large a factor in our food diseases. we have attained some refinement of feeling in painting, music, and other arts; why are we still so frankly barbaric in our attitude toward food? why does modern man, civilised, educated, cultured, still keep his body in a loathsome condition, still suffer, weaken, and die, from foul food habits? it is not alone the huge evil of intemperance in drink, or simple gluttony; but the common habits of our young girls, serenely indulging in unlimited candy, with its attendant internal consequences; or of our cultured women, providing at their entertainments a gross accumulation of unwholesome delicacies, with scarcely more discrimination than was shown by heliogabalus. we eat what we like, and our liking is most crude and low. the position of the woman who feeds us--the wife and mother--is responsible for this arrest of development. she is not a free cook, a trained cook, a scientific cook; she belongs to the family. she must cook for the man because he pays for it. he maintains the home--and her--largely for that very purpose. it is his home, his table, his market bill; and, if john does not like onions, or pork, or cereals, they do not appear. if mrs. peterkin paid for it, and john was cook, why john would cook to please her! in two ways is mrs. peterkin forced to cater to john's appetite; by this plain, economic fact, that it is his food she is cooking, and by the sexuo-economic fact that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach." for profit and for love--to do her duty and to gain her ends--in all ways, the home cook is forced to do her home cooking to please john. it is no wonder john clings so ardently to the custom. never again on earth will he have a whole live private cook to himself, to consider, before anything else, his special tastes and preferences. he will get better food, and he will have to get used to it. his tastes will be elevated by the quality of the food, instead of the quality of the food being adapted solely to his tastes. to the children, again, the mother caters under direct pressure of personal affection. it is very, very hard to resist the daily, yea, tri-daily, demands of those we love. it is this steady, alluring effort of subservient love which keeps us still so primitively self-indulgent in our food habits. the mother-love of a dumb animal may teach her what is right for her young to eat, but it does not teach the human mother. ask any doctor, any trained nurse, anyone who has watched the children of the poor. if the children of the rich are more wisely fed, it is not because of any greater amount of mother-love, but of some degree of mother-education. motherhood and wifehood do not teach cooking. what we need in our system of feeding the world is not instinct, affection, and duty, but knowledge, practice, and business methods. those who are fitted by natural skill and liking to be cooks should cook, and many should profit by their improved products. scientific training, free from the tender pressure of home habits, would soon eliminate our worst viands; and, from the wide choice offered by a general field of patronage, there would appear in time a cultivated taste. greater freedom for personal idiosyncrasy would be given in this general field of choice, yet a simpler average would undoubtedly be formed. great literature and great music were never developed when the bard performed for his master only. we, keeping our food system still on this miserable basis of private catering to appetite, are thereby prevented from studying it with a view to race improvement. the discoveries of the food specialist and scientific dietist are lost in the dark recesses of a million homes, in the futile, half-hearted efforts of unskilled labour. what the immediate family "likes" is the governing law; no matter how wise may be the purpose of the mother-cook. with most of us food is scarcely thought of in its real main use--to supply bodily waste with judiciously combined materials. the home-bred appetite cries out for "mother's cooking," with no more idea of its nutritive values than has a child. this is most remarkable among our enormous farming population, yet there most absolutely the case. the mechanic or business man has no dealings whatever with his food except to eat it. he gives over his life's health, his daily strength, into the hands of his beloved female domestic; and asks nothing whatever of her production except that it "taste good." but the farmer has a different trade. with him the whole business of his life is to feed things that they may grow. he has to replenish the soil with the elements his crops exhaust, in order to reap the best crops, the most profit. and even more directly with his live-stock; from hen to horse, with pigs, sheep, and cattle, he has constantly to consider what to put into them in order to be sure of the product, not too much grain for the horse, not too much hay; enough "green feed" in season; the value of the silo, the amount of salt necessary; the effect of beets, of wild onions, in the grass and in the butter; what to give hens in winter to make them lay; how to regulate the diet for more milk and less cream, or for less milk and more cream; how to fatten, how to strengthen, how to improve--in all ways the farmer has to realise the importance of food values in his business. yet that same man, day after day, consumes his own food and sees his children fed, to say nothing of the mother of his children, without ever giving one thought to the nutritive values of that food. there must be enough to satisfy hunger, and it must "taste good," according to his particular brand of ancestry, his race habits, and early environment; but, beyond that, nothing is required. the farmer has assistance in his business. he shares in the accumulated experience of many farmers, before him and about him. there are valuable experiments being made in his behalf by the bureau of agriculture. he has trade papers to bring him the fruits of the world's progress in this line. agriculture is one of the world's great functions, and has made magnificent progress. but humaniculture has no bureau, no secretary, no experiment stations; unless we count the recent experiments in boric-acid diet. the most valuable livestock on earth are casually fed by the haphazard efforts of any and every kind of ignorant woman; hired servants or married servants, as the case may be; dull, shortsighted, overworked women, far too busy in "doing the cooking" ever to study the science of feeding humanity. no science could ever make progress in such hands. science must rest on broad observation, on the widest generalisation and deduction, on careful experiment and reconsideration. this is forever impossible at home. until the food laboratory entirely supersedes the kitchen there can be no growth. many of us, struggling to sit fast between two stools, seeing the imperative need of scientific feeding for humanity, yet blindly clinging to the separate wife-mother-cook functionary, exhort "the woman" to study all this matter, and cheerfully to devote her life to scientifically feeding her beloved family. "the woman"--that is, a woman, any woman, every woman, and that means the deadly average, the hopelessly isolated, the handicapped maternal, with the lack of specialisation, the confusion of other trades, and the lack of incentive. not until "the woman" in "the home" can everywhere manifest a high degree of skill as a doctor, as an architect, as a barber, as anything, can she manifest that high degree as a cook. cooking is an art; cooking is a science; cooking is a handicraft; cooking is a business. none of these can ever grow without following the laws of all industrial progress--specialisation, contact and exchange, legitimate competition, and the stimulus of large world-incentives. when we have these we shall be able to improve our kind of animal as much as we do other kinds. we cannot arbitrarily by breeding, but we can by nutrition and education--to an unknown extent. nutrition, properly adjusted, nutrition for the human animal, has hardly been thought of by the home cook. the inexorable limit of our home-cooking is the home. viii domestic art one of the undying efforts of our lives, of the lives of half the world, is "to make home beautiful." we love beauty, we love home, we naturally wish to combine the two. the rich spare no expense, the æsthetic no care and pains, in this continuous attempt; and the "home" papers, or "home departments" in other papers, teem with instruction on the subject for the eager, but untutored many. in varying fields of work there is a strong current of improvement, in household construction, furnishing, and decoration; and new employments continually appear wherein the more cultured few apply their talents to the selection and arrangement of "artistic interiors" ready-made for the purchaser. whole magazines are devoted to this end, articles unnumbered, books not a few, and courses of lectures. people who know beauty and love it are trying to teach it to those who do not, trying to introduce it where it is so painfully needed--in the home. why does it not originate there? why did the people who cared most for beauty and art, the greeks, care so little for the home? and why do the people who care most for the home--our anglo-saxons--care so little for beauty and art? and, in such art-knowledge and art-growth as we have, why is it least manifested at home? what is there in home-life, as we know it, which proves inimical to the development of true beauty? if there is some condition in home life which is inimical to art, is that condition essential and permanent, or may it be removed without loss to what is essential and permanent? here are questions serious and practical; practical because beauty is an element of highest use as well as joy. our love of it lies deep, and rests on truest instinct; the child feels it passionately; the savage feels it, we all feel it, but few understand it; and whether we understand it or not we long for it in vain. we often make our churches beautiful, our libraries and museums, but our domestic efforts are not crowned with the same relative success. the reasons for this innate lack of beauty in the home are not far to seek. the laws of applied beauty reach deep, spread wide, and are inexorable: truth; first, last, and always--no falsehood, imitation, or pretence: simplicity; no devious meandering, but the direct clear purpose and result: unity, harmony, that unerring law of relation which keeps the past true to the whole--never too much here or there--all balanced and at rest: restraint; no riotous excess, no rush from inadequacy to profusion. if the student of art rightly apprehends these laws, his whole life is richer and sounder as well as his art. if the art he studies is one under definite laws of construction, he has to learn them, too; as in architecture, where the laws of mechanics operate with those of æsthetics, and there is no beauty if the mechanical laws are defied. architecture is the most prominent form of domestic art. why is not domestic architecture as good as public architecture? if the home is a temple, why should not our hills be dotted with fair shrines worthy of worship? we may talk as we will of "the domestic shrine," but the architect does not find the kitchen stove an inspiring altar. if it did inspire him, if he began to develop the idea of a kitchen--a temple to hygeia and epicurus, a great central altar for the libations and sacrifices, with all appropriate accessories for the contributory labour of the place--he could not make a pocket-edition of this temple, and stick it on to every house in forced connection with the other domestic necessities. the eating-room then confronts him, a totally different _motif_. we do not wish to eat in the kitchen. we do not wish to see, smell, hear, or think of the kitchen while we eat. so the domestic architect is under the necessity of separating as far as possible these discordant purposes, while obliged still to confine them to the same walls and roof. then come the bedrooms. we do not wish to sleep in the kitchen--or in the dining-room. nothing is further from our ideals than to confound the sheets with the tablecloths, the bed with the stove, the dressing table with the sink. so again the architect, whose kitchen-tendency was so rudely checked by the dining-room tendency, is brought up standing by the bedroom tendency, its demand for absolute detachment and remoteness, and the necessity for keeping its structural limits within those same walls and roof. then follows the reception-room tendency--we do not wish to receive our visitors in the kitchen--or the bedroom--or exclusively in the dining-room. so the parlour theme is developed as far as may be, connected with the dining-room, and disconnected as far as possible from all the other life-themes going on under that roof. when we add to these the limits of space, especially in our cities, the limits of money, so almost universal, and the limits of personal taste, we may have clearly before us the reasons why domestic architecture does not thrill the soul with its beauty. whenever it does, to any extent, the reason is as clear. the feudal castle was beautiful because it had one predominant idea--defence; and was a stone monument to that idea. here you could have truth, and did have it. defence was imperative, absolute; every other need was subsidiary; a fine type of castle could give room for unity, simplicity, harmony, and restraint; and stirs us yet to delighted admiration. but it was not a comfortable dwelling-house. a cottage is also capable of giving the sense of beauty; especially an old thatch-roofed cottage; mossy, mouldy, leaky, damp. the cottage is an undifferentiated home; it is primarily a kitchen--with a bedroom or two added--or included! small primitive houses, like the white, square, flat-roofed dwellings of algiers, group beautifully, or, taken singly, give a good bit of white against blue fire, behind green foliage. but as a theme in itself, a thing to study and make pictures of, the castle, the temple of war, is the most beautiful type of dwelling place--and the least inhabitable. in our really comfortable homes we have lost beauty, though we have gained in comfort. would it be possible to have comfort and beauty too; beauty which would thrill and exalt us, delight and satisfy us, and which the art critic would dwell upon as he now does on temple, hall, and church? let us here take up the other domestic arts; surrendering architecture as apparently hopeless. we cannot expect our composers in wood and stone to take a number of absolutely contradictory themes and produce an effect of truth, unity, harmony, simplicity, and restraint; but may we not furnish and decorate our homes beautifully? perhaps we might; but do we? what do we know, what do we care, for the elementary laws which make this thing beautiful, that thing ugly, and the same things vary as they are combined with others! in the furnishing and decoration of a home we have room for more harmony than in the exterior, because each room may be treated separately according to its especial purpose, and we can accustom ourselves to the æsthetic jar of stepping from one to another, or even bring them all under some main scheme. but here we are confronted by the enormous unrestricted weight of the limitation which is felt least by the architect--personal taste. we do not dictate much to our builders, most of us; but we do dictate as to the inside of the house and all that is in it. the dominating influence in home decoration is of course the woman. she is the final arbiter of the textures, colours, proportions, sizes, shapes, and relations of human production. how does she effect our output? what is her influence upon art--the applied art that is found, or should be found, in everything we make and use? we may buy, if we can afford it, specimens of art, pictorial or sculptural art, or any other, and place them in our houses; but the mere accumulation of beautiful objects is not decoration; often quite the contrary. there are many beautiful vases in the shop where you bought yours; there is but one in the japanese room--and there is beauty. the magpie instinct of the collector has no part in a genuine sense of beauty. an ostentatious exhibit of one's valuable possessions does not show the sense of beauty. a beautiful chamber is neither show-room nor museum. that personal "taste" in itself is no guide to beauty needs but little proof. the "taste" of the flathead indian, of the tattooed islander, of all the grades of physical deformity which mankind has admired, is sufficient to show that a personal preference is no ground for judgment in beauty. beauty has laws, and an appreciation of them is not possessed equally by all. the more primitive and ignorant a race, or class, the less it knows of true beauty. the indian basket-makers wove beautiful things, but they did not know it; give them the cheap and ugly productions of our greedy "market" and they like them better. they may unconsciously produce beauty, but they do not consciously select it. our women are far removed from the primitive simplicity that produces unconscious beauty; and they are also far removed from that broad culture and wide view of life which can intellectually grasp it. they have neither the natural instinct nor the acquired knowledge of beauty; but they do have, in million-fold accumulation, a "personal taste." the life of the woman in the home is absolutely confined to personal details. her field of study and of work is not calculated to develop large judgment, but is calculated to develop intense feeling; and feeling on a comparatively low plane. she is forced continually to contemplate and minister to the last details of the physical wants of humanity in ceaseless daily repetition. whatever tendency to develop artistic feeling and judgment she might have in one line of her work, is ruthlessly contradicted by the next, and the next; and her range of expression in each line is too small to allow of any satisfying growth. the very rich woman who can purchase others' things and others' judgment, or the exceptional woman who does work and study in some one line, may show development in the sense of beauty; but it is not produced at home. the love of it is there, the desire for it, most cruelly aborted; and the result of that starved beauty-sense is what we see in our familiar rooms. being familiar, we bear with our surroundings; perhaps even love them; when we go into each other's homes we do not think their things to be beautiful; we think ours are because we are used to them; we have no appreciation of an object in its relation to the rest, or its lack of relation. the bottled discord of the woman's daily occupations if quite sufficient to account for the explosions of discord on her walls and floors. she continually has to do utterly inharmonious things, she lives in incessant effort to perform all at once and in the same place the most irreconcilable processes. she has to adjust, disadjust, and readjust her mental focus a thousand times a day; not only to things, but to actions; not only to actions, but to persons; and so, to live at all, she must develop a kind of mind that does _not object to discord_. unity, harmony, simplicity, truth, restraint--these are not applicable in a patchwork life, however hallowed by high devotion and tender love. this is why domestic art is so low--so indistinguishable. when our great centennial exhibition was given us, a wave of beauty spread into thousands of homes, but it did not originate there. the white city by the lake was an inspiration to myriad lives, and wrought a lovely change in her architecture and many other arts; but the black city by the lake is there yet, waiting for another extra-domestic uplifting. the currents of home-life are so many, so diverse, so contradictory, that they are only maintained by using the woman as a sort of universal solvent; and this position of holding many diverse elements in solution is not compatible with the orderly crystallisation of any of them, or with much peace of mind to the unhappy solvent. the most conspicuous field for the display of the beauty sense--or the lack of it--in our home life, is in textile fabrics and their application to the body. the house is the foundation of textile art. people who live out of doors wear hides, if they wear anything. in the shelter and peace of the house, developed by ever-widening commerce, grew these wonderful textile arts, the evolution of a new plane for beauty. we find in nature nothing approaching it, save in the limited and passing form of spreading leaf and petal. to make a continuous substance soft as flowers, warm as furs, brilliant as the sunset--this was a great step in art. woven beauty is a home product, and in the house we are most free to use and admire it. the "street dress," even the most unsophisticated, is under some restrictions; but the house dress may be anything we please. there is nothing in the mechanical limitations of house life to pervert or check this form of loveliness. we are free to make and to use the most exquisite materials, to wear the most pleasing of textures and shapes. why, then, do we find in this line of development such hideously inartistic things? because the discords of domestic industries and functions prevent a sense of harmony even here. because the woman, confined to a primitive, a savage plane of occupation, continues to manifest an equally savage plane of æsthetic taste. one of the most marked features of early savage decoration is in its distortion and mutilation of the body to meet arbitrary standards of supposed beauty. an idea of beauty, true or false, is apprehended, its line of special evolution rapidly followed, and there is no knowledge of physiology or grasp of larger harmonies of bodily grace to check the ensuing mutilation. the zulus decorate their cattle by cutting the dewlap into fringe, and splitting and twisting the growing horns into fantastic shapes. some savage women tie the gastrocnemius muscle tightly above and below, till the "calf of the leg" looks like a dutch cheese on a broomstick. some tie strings about the breasts till they dangle half detached; some file the teeth or pluck out the eyebrows. in the home, among women, still appear these manifestations of a crude beauty-sense, unchecked by larger knowledge. our best existent examples are in the chinese foot-binding custom, and ours of waist-binding. the initial idea of the corset is in a way artistic. we perceive that the feminine form has certain curves and proportions, tending thus and so; and following the tendency we proceed to exaggerate those curves and proportions and fix them arbitrarily. this is the same law by which we conventionalise a flower for decorative purposes, turning the lily of the field into the _fleur-de-lis_ of the tapestry. the egyptians did it, to an extreme degree, in their pictorial art, reducing the human body to certain fixed proportions and attitudes. the application of these principles to living bodies is peculiar to the savage, and its persistence among our women is perhaps the strongest proof of the primitive nature of the home. as women enter the larger life of the world these limitations are easily outgrown; the working-woman cannot make a conventionalised ornament of her body, and the business woman does not care to; the really educated woman knows better, and the woman artist would be bitterly ashamed of such an offence against nature; only the home-bound woman peacefully maintains it. to the scientific student, man or woman, the sturdy reappearance of this very early custom is intensely interesting; he sees in the "newest fashion" of holding and binding the body a peculiar survival of the very oldest fashion in personal decoration known to us. the latest corset advertisement ranks ethnologically with the earliest egyptian hieroglyph, the aztec inscriptions, and races far behind them. the woman's love of beauty finds its freest expression along lines of personal decorations, and there, as in the decoration of the house, we see the same crippling influence. she loves beautiful textures, velvet, satin, and silk, soft muslin and sheer lawn; she loves the delicate fantasy of lace, the alluring richness of fur; she loves the colour and sparkle of gems, the splendour of burnished metal, and, in her savage crudity of taste, she slaps together any and every combination of these things and wears them happily. a typical extreme of this ingenuous lack of artistic principles is the recent, and still present, enormity of trimming lace with fur. this combines the acme of all highly wrought refinement of texture and exquisite delicacy of design, a fabric that suggests the subtleties of artistic expression with a gossamer tenuity of grace; this, and dressed hide with the hair still on, the very first cover for man's nakedness, the symbol of savage luxury and grandeur, of raw barbaric wealth, which suggests warmth, ample satisfying warmth and crude splendour in its thick profusion! we cut up the warmth and amplitude into threads and scraps which can only suggest the gleanings of a tan-yard rag-picker, and use these shabby fragments to _trim lace_! trim what is in itself the sublimated essence of trimming, with the leavings of the earliest of raw materials! only the soul which spends its life in a group of chambers connected merely by mechanical force; in a group of industries connected merely by iron tradition, could bear a combination like that--to say nothing of enjoying it. domestic art is almost a contradiction in terms. the development of art, like the development of industry, requires the specialisation, the life-long devotion, impossible to the arbitrary combinations of home life. where you find great beauty you find a great civic sense, most clearly in that high-water mark of human progress in this direction, ancient greece. within the limits of their cities, the greeks were more fully "civilised" than any people before or since. they thought, felt, and acted in this large social contact; and so developed a sufficient breadth of view, a wide, sweet sanity of mind, which allowed of this free growth of the art-sense. great art is always public, and appears only in periods of high social development. the one great art of the dark ages--religious architecture--flourished in that universal atmosphere of "christendom," the one social plane on which all met. the greeks were unified in many ways; and their highly socialised minds gave room for a more general development of art, as well as many other social faculties. household decoration was not conspicuous, nor elaborate attire; and while their women were necessarily beautiful as the daughters of such men, it was the men whose beauty was most admired and immortalised. the women stayed at home, as now, but the home did not absorb men, too, as it does now. when art caters to private tastes, to domestic tastes, to the wholly private and domestic tastes of women, art goes down. the home was the birthplace of art, as of so many other human faculties, but is no sufficing area for it. so long as the lives of our women are spent at home, their tastes limited by it, their abilities, ambitions, and desires limited by it, so long will the domestic influence lower art. "so much the worse for art!" will stoutly cry the defenders of the home; and they would be right if we could have but one. we can have both. a larger womanhood, a civilised womanhood, specialised, broad-minded, working and caring for the public good _as well as the private_, will give us not only better homes, but homes more beautiful. the child will be cradled in an atmosphere of harmonious loveliness, and its influence will be felt in all life. this is no trifle of an artificially cultivated æsthetic taste; it is one of nature's deepest laws. "art" may vary and suffer in different stages of our growth, but the laws of beauty remain the same; and a race reared under those laws will be the nobler. these more developed women will outgrow the magpie taste that hoards all manner of gay baubles; the monkey-taste that imitates whatever it sees; the savage taste that distorts the human body; they will recognise in that body one infinitely noble expression of beauty, and refuse to dishonour it with ugliness. they will learn to care for proportion as well as plumpness, for health as well as complexion, for strength and activity as essentials to living loveliness, and to see that no dress can be beautiful which in any way contradicts the body it should but serve and glorify. we do not know, because we have not seen, the difference to our lives which will be made by this large sense of beauty in the woman--in the home; but we may be assured that, while she stays continually there, we shall have but our present stage of domestic art. ix domestic ethics the relation of the home to ethics is so vital, so intimate, so extensive, as to call for the utmost care and patience in its study. the "domestic virtues" are well known to us, and well loved. we have a general conviction that all our virtues as well as charity begin at home; that the ethical progress of man is a steady stream flowing out of the home, and as far as we compare one virtue with another, we assume the domestic virtues to be the best. in half the race we ask nothing but the domestic virtues; in the other half we look for something further; but consider such civic and social virtues as appear to be offshoots of the domestic. we call the home "the cradle of all the virtues," and never imagine for a moment that it can cradle anything else--in the line of ethics. now let us make a careful examination of this field; first establishing a standard of human conduct and character, and then studying the relation of the home to that standard. the same consideration referred to in previous chapters is here most urgently pressed upon the reader: that all the qualities found in the home do not necessarily originate there. as a race rises and improves, its improvement appears in the home, as elsewhere. but that improvement is in itself due to varying conditions. the diffusion of intelligence following the discovery of the art of printing lifted the general average mind, and so lifted the home as well as other departments of life. but that increase of intelligence did not originate in home life, and is in no way due to its influence. the sense of human liberty which spread rapidly among us in the early years of the settlement of this country, following, as it did, the splendid dash for religious liberty which brought so many of our ancestors here, has borne fruit in our home life. we have more freedom in the family relation than is found in older forms of government, but this larger freedom did not originate in the home and is in no way to be accredited to it. home-life, as such, does in itself tend to produce certain ethical qualities; qualities not produced, or not in any such degree, by other fields of life. constant association with helpless infancy develops a generous care and kindness--that is, it does so when the helpless infants are one's own. the managers of foundling and orphan asylums do not seem always to be so affected. constant association with the inevitable errors and mistakes of childhood develops patience and sympathy, or tends to do so. there are qualities brought out in home life which extend their influence into the life of the world. the young man or woman who has had good home influence shows that advantage all through life. but there are also qualities brought out in the world's life apart from the home; and the man or woman affected by these shows them in the home life. we find in our homes the gathered flowers of civilisation, of christianity, of progress in general; and unconsciously accredit the homes with the production of these beautiful results--quite erroneously. the influence of religion, as we all know when we stop to think of it, has done much more for us than the influence of the home. the canaanites had homes--yet gave their children to moloch. the demand of the idol had more power than the appeal of the child. the hindoos have homes, yet give their babies to the water, their widows to the fire. besides religion there are many other influences which affect human character and conduct; the influences of our government, our education, our business. we are seeking here to point out precisely what ethical qualities are developed by home life, good or bad; and to show further that the present condition of the home is not final, nor vitally essential. we may so change the conditions of home life as to retain all that modifies character for good, and to discard all that modifies it for evil. the home as a permanent institution in society, if rightly placed and understood, works for good. the home in its non-essential conditions, if wrongly placed in our scheme of thought, if misunderstood, if out of proportion and loaded with anachronisms, works evil. in the complex group of qualities which make up the human character to-day, for good and ill, many influences are traceable; and we wish here to disentangle from among them some lines of influence, and show what place is held by the home in making us what we are and what we wish to be. what is the preferred type of excellence in humanity according to our social instincts and to the measure of history? we began as savages, and the savage standard of ethics is easily grasped; we have progressed a long way beyond that savage standard; but ours is still well within the reach of common understanding. without seeking for careful sequence let us enumerate our principal human virtues: love; with derivatives of kindness, sympathy, courtesy, etc. truth; with honesty, accuracy, etc. courage; connects with strength and wisdom. justice; with a right humility. self-control; with endurance, patience, and again with courtesy; also with temperance and chastity. honour; a high, inflexible standard of various virtues. these are arbitrary general types, but do fairly enough for this study. a human being possessed of these in high degree we should call "good." they all combine well with one another, and have many derivatives, some of which are above noted. their common opposites are as easily given: hate; unkindness, coldness, rudeness. falsehood; lying, dishonesty, inaccuracy. cowardice; connects with weakness and ignorance. injustice; this allows pride--rests on ignorance. self-indulgence; followed by intemperance, unchastity, impatience, and other vices. dishonour; meaning a low standard of virtues in general. man the savage had of these courage, in some lines; endurance and patience, in some lines; civilised man surpasses him in these, and has developed all the others. what are the conditions which have brought forth this degree of virtue in us, and how does the home rank among those conditions? let us first do it full justice. mother-love is the foundation and permanent force of home life; and, mother-love is, indeed, the parent of all the love we know. altruism was born of babyhood. the continued existence of the child--of a succession of children; the permanent presence of helplessness and its irresistible demands for care; this forced us into a widening of the sympathies, a deepening of sensitiveness to others' needs; this laid the foundations of human love. in this sense, the home is the cradle of one of our very greatest virtues. love began with the mother; but it should not stop with her. "mother-love" is precisely limited to its own children. few, indeed, are the mothers who love other women's children. as "mother" is a synonym for all kindness, so "stepmother" is a synonym for all unkindness. folklore and fairy-tale indicate old fact. infant helplessness and orphan need are not only what appeals to the mother--it is most the blood-tie, the physical relation. civilisation and christianity teach us to care for "the child," motherhood stops at "my child." still, in the home we do find the nursery of all the lines of family affection, parental, filial, fraternal, and these are good. hearts able to love ten could more easily take in twenty; the love of one's own parents spread to our present care for the aged; the power of loving grew, and, as soon as it overstepped the limits of the home, it grew more rapidly. we have learned to love our neighbours--if not as ourselves, at least, better than strangers. we have learned to love our fellow-citizens, fellow-craftsmen, fellow-countrymen. to-day the first thrills of international good-will are stealing across the world--and we are extending our sympathy even to the animals. all this beautiful growth of love began at home; but the influence of the home, as it now exists upon the growth, is not so wholly gratifying. the love that we call human, the love of one another, the love christ teaches us, is extra-domestic. we are not told, "inasmuch as you have done it to your own families you have done it unto me." we are not exhorted to an ever-increasing intensity of devotion to our own blood-relations. both the teaching of our religion and the tendency of social progress call for a larger love, and the home, in its position of arrested development, primitive industry, and crippled womanhood, tends rather to check that growth than to help it. the man's love for his family finds expression in his labour for other people--he serves society, and society provides for him and his dear ones; so good will spreads and knits; comradeship and fellow-feeling appear, friendship brings its pure height of affection; this is the natural line of development in the great social virtue, love. but the woman, still expressing her love for her family in direct personal service, misses all that. the primitive father, to feed the child, went forth himself and killed some rabbit--and the primitive mother cooked it: love, in grade a. the modern father, to feed his child, takes his thousandth part in some complex industry, and receives his thousand-fold share of the complex products of others' industry, and so provides for the child far more richly than could the savage: love, in grade z. but the modern mother--if we can call her so by courtesy--to feed her child still does nothing but cook for it, still loves in grade a; and the effect of that persistence of grade a is to retard the development of grade z. mother-love is the fountain of all our human affection; but mother-love, _as limited by the home_, does not have the range and efficacy proper to our time. the home, as at present maintained, checks the growth of love. as to truth. this is a distinctly modern virtue. it comes in slowly, following power and freedom. the weak lie, a small beast hides; the lion does not hide. the slave lies--and the courtier; the king does not lie--he does not need to. the most truthful nations are the most powerful. the most truthful class is the most powerful. the more truthful sex is the more powerful. weakness, helplessness, ignorance, dependence, these breed falsehood and evasion; and, in child, servant, and woman, the denizens of the home, we have to combat these tendencies. the standard of sincerity of the father may be taught the son; but the home is not the originator of that standard. in this, as in other virtues, gain made in quite other fields of growth is necessarily transmitted to the home; but fair analysis must discriminate between the effect of religion, of education, of new social demands, and the effect of the home as such. courage comes along two main lines--by exposure to danger, and by increase of strength. the home, in its very nature, is intended to shield from danger; it is in origin a hiding place, a shelter for the defenceless. staying in it is in no way conducive to the growth of courage. constant shelter, protection, and defence may breed gratitude--must breed cowardice. we expect timidity of "women and children"--the housemates. yet courage is by no means a sex attribute. every species of animal that shows courage shows it equally in male and female--or even more in mother than in father. "it is better to meet a she-bear robbed of her whelps than a fool in his folly." this dominant terror--the fool--is contrasted with the female bear--not the male. belligerence, mere combativeness, is a masculine attribute; but courage is not. the cowardice of women is a distinctly home product. it is born of weakness and ignorance; a weakness and an ignorance by no means essential feminine attributes, but strictly domestic attributes. keep a man from birth wrapped in much cloth, shut away from sky and sun, wind and rain, continually exhausting his nervous energy by incessant activity in monotonous little things, and never developing his muscular strength and skill by suitable exercise of a large and varied nature, and he would be weak. savage women are not weak. peasant women are not weak. fishwives are not weak. the home-bound woman is weak, as would be a home-bound man. also, she is ignorant. not, at least not nowadays, ignorant necessarily of books, but ignorant of general life. it is this ignorance and this weakness which makes women cowards; cowards frank and unashamed; cowards accustomed to be petted and praised, to be called "true woman" because they scream at that arch-terror of the home--a mouse. this home-bred cowardice, so admired in women, is of necessity transmitted to their sons as well as daughters. it is laughed out of them and knocked out of them, but it is born into them, relentlessly, with every generation. as black mothers must alter the complexion of a race, so must coward mothers alter its character. apart from fighting--where the natural combative sex-tendency often counts as courage--our men are not as brave as they would be if their mothers were braver. we need courage to-day as much as we ever needed it in our lives. courage to think and speak the truth; courage to face convention and prejudice, ridicule and opposition. we need courage in men and women equally, to face the problems of the times; and we do not get that courage from the home. the sense of justice is one of the highest human attributes; one of the latest in appearance, one of the rarest and most precious. we love and honour justice; we seek in some main lines of life to enforce it, after a fashion; but many of our arrangements are still so palpably unjust that one would think the virtue was but dreamed of, as yet unborn. justice follows equality and freedom. to apprehend it at all the mind must first perceive the equal, and then resent the unequal. we must get a sense of level, of balance, and then we notice a deflection. as a matter of social evolution our system of legal justice springs from the primitive market place, the disputes of equals, the calling in of a third party to adjudicate. the disputants know instinctively that an outsider can see the difficulty better than an insider. slowly the arbiter was given more power, more scope; out of much experience came the crystallisation of law. "justice!" was the cry of the lowest before the highest; and the greatest kings were honoured most for this great virtue. the field for justice has widened as the state widened; it has reached out to all classes; its high exercise distinguishes the foremost nations of our times. yet even in the teeth of the law-courts injustice is still common; in everyday life it is most patent. we have made great progress in the sense of justice and fair play; yet we are still greatly lacking in it. what is the contribution of domestic ethics to this mighty virtue? in the home is neither freedom nor equality. there is ownership throughout; the dominant father, the more or less subservient mother, the utterly dependent child; and sometimes that still lower grade--the servant. love is possible, love deep and reciprocal; loyalty is possible; gratitude is possible; kindness, to ruinous favouritism, is possible; unkindness, to all conspiracy, hate, and rebellion is possible; justice is not possible. justice was born outside the home and a long way from it; and it has never even been adopted there. justice is wholly social in its nature--extra-domestic--even anti-domestic. just men may seek to do justly in their homes, but it is hard work. intense, personal feeling, close ties of blood, are inimical to the exercise of justice. do we expect the judge upon the bench to do justice, dispassionate, unswerving, on his own child--his own wife--in the dock? if he does, we hail him as more than mortal. do we expect a common man--not a judge with all the training and experience of his place, but a plain man--to do justice to his own wife and his own child in the constant intimacy of the home? do we expect the mother to do justice to the child when the child is the offender and the mother the offended? where plaintiff, judge, and executioner are lodged in one person; where there is no third party--no spectators even--only absolute irresponsible power, why should we--how could we--expect justice! we don't. we do not even think of it. no child cries for "justice!" to the deaf walls of the home--he never heard of it. he gets love--endless love and indulgence. he gets anger and punishment with no court of appeal. he gets care--neglect--discourtesy--affection-- indifference--cruelty--and sometimes wise and lovely training--but none of these are justice. the home, as such, in no way promotes justice; but, in its disproportionate and unbalanced position to-day, palpably perverts and prevents it. allied to justice, following upon large equality and recognition of others, comes that true estimate of one's self and one's own powers which is an unnamed virtue. "humility" is not it--to undervalue and depreciate one's self may be the opposite of pride, but it is not a virtue. a just estimate is not humility. but call it humility for convenience' sake; and see how ill it flourishes at home. in that circumscribed horizon small things look large. there is no general measuring point, no healthy standard of comparison. the passionate love of the wife, the mother, and equally of the husband, the father, makes all geese swans. the parents idealise their children; and the children, even more restricted by the home atmosphere--_for they know no other_--idealise the parents. this is sometimes to their advantage--often the other way. constant study of near objects, with no distant horizon to rest and change the focus, makes us short-sighted; and, as we all know, the smallest object is large if you hold it near enough. constant association with one's nearest and dearest necessarily tends to a disproportionate estimate of their values. there is no perspective--cannot be--in these close quarters. the infant prodigy of talent, praised and petted, brings his production into the cold light of the market, under the myriad facets of the public eye, to the measurement of professional standards--and no most swift return to the home atmosphere can counterbalance the effect of that judgment day. a just estimate of one's self and one's work can only be attained by the widest and most impersonal comparison. the home estimate is essentially personal, essentially narrow. it sometimes errs in underrating a world-talent; but nine times out of ten it errs the other way--overrating a home-talent. humility, in the sense of an honest and accurate estimate of one's self, is not a home-made product. a morbid modesty or an unfounded pride often is. the intense self-consciousness, the prominent and sensitive personality developed by home life, we are all familiar with in women. the woman who has always been in close personal relation with someone,--daughter, sister, wife, mother,--and so loved, valued, held close, feels herself neglected and chilly when she comes into business relations. she feels personal neglect in the broad indifference of office or shop; and instantly seeks to establish personal relations with all about her. as a business woman she outgrows it in time. it is not a sex-quality, it is a home-quality; found in a boy brought up entirely at home as well as in a girl. it tends to a disproportionate estimate of self; it is a primitive quality, common to children and savages; it is not conducive to justice and true social adjustment. closely allied to this branch of character is the power of self-control. as an initial human virtue none lies deeper than this; and here the home has credit for much help in developing some of the earlier stages of this great faculty. primitive man brought to his dawning human relation a long-descended, highly-developed ego. he had been an individual animal "always and always," he had now to begin to be a social animal, a collective animal, to develop the social instincts and the social conduct in which lay further progress. the training of the child shows us in little what history shows us in the large. what the well-bred child has to learn to make him a pleasing member of the family is self-control. to restrain and adjust one's self to one's society--that is the line of courtesy--the line of christianity--the line of social evolution. the home life does indeed teach the beginning of self-control; but no more. as compared with the world, it represents unbridled license. "in company" one must wear so and so, talk so and so, do so and so, look so and so. to "feel at home" means relaxation of all this. this is as it should be. the home is the place for personal relief and rest from the higher plane of social contact. but social contact is needed to develop social qualities, constant staying at home does not do it. the man, accustomed to meet all sorts of people in many ways, has a far larger and easier adjustment. the woman, used only to the close contact of a few people in a few relations, as child, parent, servant, tradesman; or to the set code of "company manners," has no such healthy human plane of contact. "i never was so treated in my life!" she complains--and she never was--at home. this limits the range of life, cuts off the widest channels of growth, overdevelops the few deep ones; and does not develop self-control. the dressing-gown-and-slippers home attitude is temporarily changed for that of "shopping," or "visiting," but the childish sensitiveness, the disproportionate personality, remain dominant. a too continuous home atmosphere checks in the woman the valuable social faculties. it checks it in the man more insidiously, through his position of easy mastery over these dependents, wife, children, servants; and through the constant catering of the whole _ménage_ to his special tastes. if each man had a private tailor shop in his back yard he would be far more whimsical and exacting in his personal taste in clothes. every natural tendency to self-indulgence is steadily increased by the life service of an entire wife. this having one whole woman devoted to one's direct personal service is about as far from the cultivation of self-control as any process that could be devised. the man loves the woman and serves her--but he serves her _through his service of the world_--and she serves him direct. he can fuss and dictate as to details, he can develop all manner of notions as to bacon, or toast, or griddle cakes; the whole cuisine is his, he supports it, it is meant to please him, and under its encompassing temptation he increases in girth and weight; but not in self-control. he may be a wise, temperate, judicious man, but the home, with its disproportionate attention to personal desires, does not make him so. no clearer instance could be given of the effect of domestic ethics. in this one field may be shown the beneficent effects of the early home upon early man, the continued beneficent effects of what is essential in the home upon modern man; and the most evil effects of the domestic rudiments upon modern man. the differing ages and sexes held together by love, yet respecting one another's privacy, demand of one another precisely this power of self-control. children together, with no adults, become boisterous and unruly; adults together, with no children, become out of sympathy with childhood; the sexes, separated, tend to injurious excesses; but the true home life checks excess, develops what is lacking, harmonises all. what does the morbid, disproportioned, overgrown home life do? it tends to develop a domineering selfishness in man and a degrading abnegation in woman--or sometimes reverses this effect. the smooth, unconscious, all-absorbing greed which the unnaturally developed home of to-day produces in some women, is as evil a thing as life shows. here is a human creature who has all her life been loved and cared for, sheltered, protected, defended; everything provided for her and nothing demanded of her except the exercise of her natural feminine functions, and some proficiency in the playground regulations of "society." the degree of sublimated selfishness thus produced by home life is quite beyond the selfishness we so deplore in men. a man may be--often is--deplorably selfish in his home life; but he does not expect all the world to treat him with the same indulgence. he has to give as well as take in the broad, healthy, growing life of the world. the woman has her home-life to make her selfish, and has no world life to offset it. men are polite to her on account of her sex--not on account of any power, any achievement, any distinctive human value, but simply because she is a woman. her guests are necessarily polite to her. her hosts are necessarily polite to her, and so are her fellow-guests. her servants are necessarily polite to her. her children also; if they are not she feels herself abused, denied a right. the home and its social tributaries steadily work to develop a limitless personal selfishness in which the healthy power of self-control is all unknown. one way or the other swings the pendulum; here the woman pours out her life in devotion to her husband and children; in which case she is developing selfishness in them with as much speed and efficacy as if she were their worst enemy; and here again the woman sits, plump and fair, in her padded cage, bedizening its walls with every decoration; covering her own body with costly and beautiful things; feeding herself, her family, her guests; running from meal to meal as if eating were really the main business of a human being. this is the extreme. our primitive scheme requires that the entire time of the woman-who-does-her-own-work shall be spent in ministering to the physical needs of her family; and in the small minority who have other women to do it for them, that she shall still have this ministry her main care--and shall have no others. it is this inordinate demand for the life and time of a whole woman to keep half a dozen people fed, cleaned, and waited on, which keeps up in us a degree of self-indulgence we should, by every step of social development, have long since outgrown. the personal preparation of food by a loving wife and mother does not ensure right nourishment--that we have shown at length; but it does ensure that every human soul thus provided for shall give far too much thought to what it eats and drinks and wherewithal it shall be clothed. the yielding up of a woman's life to the service of these physical needs of mankind does not develop self-control, nor its noble line of ensuing virtues--temperance, chastity, courtesy, patience, endurance. see the child growing up under this disproportionate attention; fussy, critical, capricious, always thinking of what he wants and how he wants it. the more his mother waits on him, the more she has to do so; he knows no better than to help himself to the offered life. see the husband, criticising the coffee and the steak; or so enjoying and praising them that the happy wife eagerly spends more hours in preparing more dishes that john will like. it is a pleasant, roseate atmosphere. all are happy in it. why is it not good? because it is a hotbed of self-indulgence. because it constantly maintains a degree of personal devotion to one's appetites which would disappear under a system of living suited to our age. self-control is developed by true home life; by true family love. family, love, unmodified by social relation, gives also the family feud; the unconscionably narrow pride of the clansman; the home life of the first century, arbitrarily maintained in the twentieth, gives us its constant contribution of first-century ethics. as to honour--that delicate, deep-rooted, instinctive ethical sense; applied so rigidly to this, so little to that; showing so variously; "business honour," "military honour," "professional honour," "the honour of a gentleman"--what is the standard of honour in the home? the only "honour" asked of the woman is chastity; quite a special sex-distinction, not as yet demanded in any great degree of the man. if the home develops chastity, it seems to discriminate sharply in its preferred exponent. but apart from that virtue, what sense of honour do we find in the home-bound woman? is it to keep her word inflexibly? a woman's privilege is to change her mind. is it to spare the weaker? would that some dream of this high grace could stand between the angry woman and the defenceless child. is it to respect privacy, to scorn eavesdropping, to regard the letter of another person as inviolate? the standard of honour in the home is not that of "an officer and a gentleman." the things a decent and well-educated woman will sometimes do to her own children, do cheerfully and unblushingly, are flatly dishonourable; but she does not even know it. and the things she does outside the home, with only her home-bred sense of honour to guide her, are equally significant. to slip in front of others who are standing in line; to make engagements and break them; to even engage rooms and board, and then change her plans without letting the other party know; thus entailing absolute money loss to a perfectly innocent person, without a qualm; this is frequently done by women with a high standard of chastity; but no other sense of honour whatever. the home is the cradle of all the virtues, but we are in a stage of social development where we need virtues beyond the cradle size. the virtues begun at home need to come out and grow in the world as men need to do--and as woman need to do, but do not know it. the ethics of the home are good in degree. the ethics of human life are far larger and more complex. our moral growth is to-day limited most seriously by the persistent maintenance in half the world of a primitive standard of domestic ethics. x domestic entertainment long is the way from the primal home, with its simple child-_motif_, to the large and expensive house of entertainment we call home to-day. the innocent "guest-chamber" early added to the family accommodations has spread its area and widened its demands, till we find the ultra-type of millionaire mansion devoting its whole space, practically, to the occupation of guests--for even the private rooms are keyed up to a comparison with those frankly built and furnished for strangers. the kitchen, the dining-room, the pantry, the table-furniture of all sorts, are arranged in style and amplitude to meet the needs of guests. the sitting-room becomes a "parlour," the parlour a "drawing-room" with "reception-room" addition; and then comes the still more removed "ballroom"--a remarkable apartment truly, to form part of a home. some even go so far as to add a theatre--that most essentially public of chambers--in this culminating transformation of a home to a house of entertainment. from what once normal base sprang this abnormal growth? how did this place of love and intimacy, the outward form of our most tender and private relations, so change and swell to a place of artificial politeness and most superficial contact? the point of departure is not hard to find; it lies in that still visible period when hospitality was one of our chief virtues. of all the evolving series of human virtues none is more easily studied in its visible relation to condition and its rapid alterations than hospitality. moreover, though considered a virtue, it is not so intermingled with our deepest religious sanction as to be painful to discuss; we respect, but do not worship it. hospitality is a quality of human life, a virtue which appears after a certain capacity for altruism is developed; not a very high degree, for we find a rigid code of hospitality among many savage tribes; and which obtains in exact proportion to the distance, difficulty, and danger of travelling. we still find its best type among the bedouin arabs and the scotch highlanders; we find it in our own land more in the country than the city, more in the thinly settled and poorly roaded south than in the more thickly settled and better roaded north; and most of all on the western frontier, where mountain and desert lie between ranch and ranch. to call out the most lively sense of hospitality the traveller must be weary (that means a long, hard road), and "distressed"--open to injury, if not hospitably received. to have a fresh, clean, rosy traveller drop in after half an hour's pleasant stroll does not touch the springs of hospitality. the genuine figure to call out this virtue is the stranger, the wanderer, the pilgrim. hospitality will not stand constant use. the steady visitor must be a friend; and friendship is quite a different thing from hospitality. that finds its typical instance in the old scotch chief sheltering the hunted fugitive; and defending him against his pursuers even when told that his guest was the murderer of his son. as guest he was held sacred; he had claimed the rights of hospitality and he received them. had he returned to make the same demand every few days, even without renewing his initial offence, it is doubtful if hospitality would have held out. a somewhat thin, infrequent virtue is hospitality at its heights, requiring intervals of relaxation. "withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour's house, lest he weary of thee and hate thee," says the proverb of the very people where the laws of hospitality were sacred; and "the stranger within thy gates" came under the regular provision of household law. hospitality became a sort of standing custom under feudalism, as part of the parental care of the lord of the land; and thus acquired its elements of pride and ostentation. each nobleman owned all the land about him; the traveller had to claim shelter of him either directly or through his dependents, and the castle was the only place big enough for entertainment. the nobleman saw to it that no other person on his domain should be able to offer much hospitality. so the castle or the abbey had it all. a little of this spirit gave character to the partly danger-based southern hospitality. it was necessary to the occasional stranger on the original and legitimate grounds; it became a steady custom to the modern lord of the manor, none of whose subsidiary fellow-citizens had the wherewithal to feed and shelter guests. but hospitality, even in that form, is not what issues cards and lays red carpet under awnings from door to curb. here no free-handed cordial greeting keeps the visitor to dinner--the dinner where the plates are named and numbered and the caterer ready with due complement of each expensive dish. hospitality must blush and apologise--"i'm sorry, but you must excuse me, i have to dress for dinner!" and "why, of course! i forgot it was so late!--dear me! the jenkinses will have come before me if i don't hurry home!" on what ground, then, is that dinner given--why are the jenkinses asked that night? if not the once sacred spirit of hospitality, is it the still sacred spirit of friendship? are the people we so expensively and elaborately entertain--and who so carefully retaliate, card for card, _plat_ for _plat_ and dollar for dollar--are these the people whom we love? among our many guests is an occasional friend. the occasional friend we entreat to come and see us _when we are not entertaining_! friendships are the fruit of true personal expression, the drawing together that follows recognition, the manifest kinships of the outspoken soul. in friendship we discriminate, we particularise, we enjoy the touch and interchange of like characteristics, the gentle stimulus of a degree of unlikeness. friendship comes naturally, spontaneously, along lines of true expression in work, of a casual propinquity that gives rein to the unforced thought. more friendships are formed in the prolonged association of school-life or business life, in the intimacy of a journey together or a summer's camping, than ever grew in a lonely lifetime of crowded receptions. friendship may coexist with entertainment, may even thrive in spite of it, but is neither cause nor result of that strange process. what, then, is "entertainment," to which the home is sacrificed so utterly--which is no part of fatherhood, motherhood, or childhood, of hospitality or friendship? on what line of social evolution may we trace the growth of this amazing phenomenon; this constant gathering together of many people to eat when they are not hungry, dance when they are not merry, talk when they have nothing to say, and sit about so bored by their absurd position that the hostess must needs hire all manner of paid performers wherewith to "entertain" them? here is the explanation: humanity is a relation. it is not merely a number of human beings, like a number of grains of sand. the human being, to be really human, must be associated in various forms; grouped together in the interchange of function. the family relation, as we have seen, does not in itself constitute humanity; human relations are larger. man, as a separate being, the personal man, must have his private house to be separate in. man, as a collective being, the social man, must have his public house to be together in. this does not mean a drinking place, but any form of building which shelters our common social functions. a church is a public house--in it we meet together as human beings; as individuals, not as families; to perform the common social function of worship. all religions have this collective nature--people come together as human beings, under a common impulse. the home is a private house. that belongs to us separately for the fulfilment of purely personal functions. every other form of building on earth is a public house, a house for people to come together in for the fulfilment of social functions. church, school, palace, mill, shop, post office, railway station, museum, art gallery, library, every kind of house except the home is a public house. these public houses are as essential to our social life and development as the private house is to our physical existence. inside the home are love, marriage, birth, and death; outside the home are agriculture, manufacture, trade, commerce, transportation, art, science, and religion. every human--_i.e._, social--process goes on outside the home, and has to have its appropriate building. in these varied forms of social activity, humanity finds its true expression; the contact and interchange, the stimulus and relief, without which the human soul cannot live. humanity _must_ associate, that is the primal law of our being. this association, so far in history, has been almost entirely confined to men. they have associated in war, in work, in play. men have always been found in groups, on land and sea, doing things together; developing comradeship, loyalty, justice; enjoying the full swing of human faculties. but women, with the one partial exception of the privileges of the church, have been denied this most vital necessity of human life--association. every woman was confined separately, in her private house, to her most separate and private duties and pleasures; and the duties and pleasures of social progress she was utterly denied. the church alone gave her a partial outlet; gave her a common roof for a common function, a place to come together in; and to the church she has flocked continually, as her only ground of human association. but as society continued to evolve, reaching an ever-higher degree of interdependent complexity, developing in the human soul an ever-growing capacity and necessity for wide, free, general association, and transmitting that increasing social capacity to the daughter as well as the son, the enormous pressure had to find some outlet. "what will happen if an irresistible force meets an immovable body?" is the old question, and the answer is "the irresistible force will be resisted and the immovable body be moved." that is exactly what has happened. the irresistible force of the public spirit has met the immovable body of the private house--and that great, splendid, working social force has been frittered away in innumerable little processes of private amusement; the quiet, beautiful, private home has been bloated and coarsened in immeasurable distention as a place of public entertainment. there is more than one line of tendency, good and bad, at work to bring about this peculiar phenomenon of domestic entertainment; but the major condition, without which it could not exist, is the home-bound woman; and the further essential, without which it could not develop to the degree found in what we call "society," is that the home-bound woman be exempt from the domestic industries, exempt from the direct cares of motherhood, exempt from any faintest hint of the great human responsibility of mutual labour; exempt from any legitimate connection with the real social body; and so, still inheriting the enormously increasing pressure of the social spirit, she pours out her energies in this simulacrum of social life we still call "social." what is the effect, or rather what are some of the effects, of this artificial game of living upon the real course of life? and in particular how does it affect the home, and how does the home affect it? in the first place this form of human association, based upon the activities of otherwise idle women, and requiring the home as its vehicle of expression, tends to postpone marriage. the idle woman, contributing nothing to the household labours or expenses, requires to be wholly supported by her husband. this would be a check on marriage even if she stayed at home twirling her thumbs; for he would have to provide women to wait on her, on him, on the children, in default of her service as "house-wife." he could not marry as soon as the man whose wife, strong and skilled in house-service, held up her end of the business, as does the farmer's and mechanic's wife to-day. but when to the expense of maintaining a useless woman is added the expense of entertaining her useless friends; when this entertainment takes the form, not of hospitality sharing the accommodations of the home, the food of the family, but of providing extra rooms, furniture, dishes, and servants; of special elaboration of costly food; and of a whole new gamut of expensive clothing wherein to entertain and be entertained--then indeed does marriage recede, and youth wither and blacken in awaiting it. current fiction, current jokes, current experience, and all the background of history and literature, show us this strong and vicious tendency at work; and ugly is the work it does. no personal necessities, no family necessities, call for the expenses lavished on entertainment. once started, the process races on, limited by no law of nature, for it is an unnatural process; excess following excess, in nightmare profusion. veblen in his great book "the theory of the leisure class," treats of the general development of this form of "conspicuous waste," but this special avenue of its maintenance is open to further study. women who work in their homes may be ignorant, uncultured, narrow; they may act on man as a check to mental progress; they may retard the development of their remaining industries and be a heavy brake on the wheels of social progress; they may and they do have this effect; but they are at least honest workers, though primitive ones. their homes are held back from full social development, but they are legitimate homes. their husbands, if selfish and vicious, waste money and life in the saloons, finding the social contact they must have somewhere; but the wives, getting along as they can without social contact, meet the basic requirements of home life, and offer to the honest and self-controlled young man a chance to enjoy "the comforts of a home," and to save money if he will. i am by no means pointing out this grade of woman's labour as desirable; that is sufficiently clear in previous chapters; but it is in origin right, and, though restricted, not abnormal. domestic entertainment is abnormal. it is an effort to meet a natural craving in an unnatural way. it continually seeks to "bring people together" because they are unnaturally kept apart; and to furnish them with entertainment in lieu of occupation. any person whose work is too hard, too long, too monotonous, or not in itself attractive, needs "relaxation," "amusement," "recreation"; but this does not account in the least for domestic entertainment. that is offered to people who do not work at all. those of them who do, part of the time, as business men sufficiently wealthy to be "in society," and yet sufficiently human to keep on in real social activities, are not relaxed, amused, or recreated by the alleged entertainment. those who most conspicuously and entirely give themselves up to it are most wearied by it. they may develop a morbid taste for the game, which cannot be satisfied without it; but neither are they satisfied within it. the proofs of this are so patent to the sociologist as to seem tedious in enumeration; one alone carries weight enough to satisfy any questioner--that is the ceaseless and rapid contortions of invention with which the "entertainment" varies. if the happy denizens of the highest "social circles" sat serene and content like the gods upon olympus, banqueting eternally in royal calm, argument and criticism would fall to the ground. if they rose from their eternal banqueting, refreshed and strong, recreated in vigour and enthusiasm, and able to plunge into the real activities of life, then we might well envy them, and strive, with reason, to attain their level. but this is in no wise the case. look for your evidence at the requisites of entertainment in any age of sufficient wealth and peace to maintain idlers, and in no age more easily typical than our own, and see the convulsive and incessant throes of change, the torrent of excess, the license, the eccentricity, the sudden reaction to this and that extreme, with which the wearied entertainers seek to devise entertainment that will entertain. the physiologist knows that where normal processes are arrested abnormal processes develop. the persistent energy of the multiplying cell finds expression in cyst and polypus as readily as in good muscle and gland; and, whereas the normal growth finds its natural limit and proportion in the necessary organic interchange with other working parts of the mechanism, no such healthy check acts upon the abnormal growth. legs and arms do not grow and stretch indefinitely, putting out wabbling, pendulous eccentricities here and there; but a tumour grows without limit and without proportion; without use, and, therefore, without beauty. it takes no part in the bodily functions, and, therefore, is a disease. yet it is connected with the body, grows in it, and swells hugely upon stolen blood. social life has this possibility of morbid growth as has the physical body. all legitimate social functions check and limit each other, as do our physical functions. no true branch of the social service can wax great at the expense of the others. if there are more in any trade or profession than are needed, the less capable are dropped out--cannot maintain a place in that line of work. our use to each other is the natural check and guide in normal social growth. this whole field of domestic entertainment is abnormal in its base and direction, and therefore has no check in its inordinate expansion. as long as money can be found and brains be trained to minister to its demands the stream pours on; and all industry and art are corrupted in the service. true social intercourse, legitimate amusement, is quite another matter. human beings must associate, in innumerable forms and degrees of intimacy. perfect friendship is the most intense, the closest form, and our great national and international organisations the largest and loosest. between lies every shade of combination, temporary and permanent, deep and shallow, all useful and pleasant in their place. a free human being, rightly placed in society, has first his work--or her work--the main line of organic relation. that means special development, and all affiliations, economic and personal, that rest on that specialisation. then come the still larger general human connections, religious, political, scientific, educational, in which we join and work with others in the great world-functions that include us all. play is almost as distinctively a human function as work--perhaps quite as much so; and here again we group and re-group, in sports and games, by "eights," by "nines," by "elevens," and all progressive associations. then, where the play is so subtle and elaborate as to require a life's work, as in the great social function of the drama, we have people devoting their time to that form of expression, though they may seek their own recreation in other lines. all natural mingling to perform together--as in the harvest dances and celebrations of all peoples--or to enjoy together the performance of others, as when we gather in the theatre, this is legitimate human life; and, while any one form may be overdeveloped, by excessive use, as an unwise athlete may misuse his body, it is still in its nature right, and good, if not misused. but the use of the home as a medium of entertainment is abnormal in itself, in its relation, or, rather, in its total lack of relation to the real purpose of the place. the happy privacy of married love is at once lost. the quiet wisdom, peace, and loving care which should surround the child are at once lost. the delicate sincerity of personal expression, which should so unerringly distinguish one's dress and house, is at once lost. the only shadow of excuse for cumbering the home with crude industries--our claim that we do this so as to more accurately meet the needs of the family--is at once lost. the whole household machinery, once so nobly useful, and still interesting, as a hand-loom or spinning wheel, is prostituted to uses of which the primal home had no conception. in an ideal home we should find, first, the perfect companionship of lovers; then the happy, united life of father, mother, and child, of brother and sister; then all simple, genuine hospitality; then the spontaneous intercourse of valued friends--the freedom to meet and mingle, now more, now less, in which, as character develops, we slowly find our own, and our whole lives are enriched and strengthened by right companionship. right here is the point of departure from the legitimate to the illegitimate; from what is natural, true, and wholly good to this avenue of diseased growth. as we reach out more and more for a wider range of contact--a chance of more varied association--we should leave the home and find what we seek in its own place: the general functions of human life, the whole wide field of human activity. in school, in college, the growing soul finds at once possibilities of contact impossible at home. true association is impossible without common action. we do not sit voiceless and motionless, shaking hands with each other's souls. true and long-established friends and lovers may do this for a season. "silence is the test of friendship," someone has said; but friendship and love require something more than this for birth and maintenance. the "ties" of love and friendship are found in the common memories and common hopes, the things we have done, do, and will do, for and with each other. the home is for the family, and at most, a few "familiar" friends. the wider range of friendship, actual and potential, that the human soul of to-day requires, is not possible at home. see the broad graded list of a man's school friends and college friends, classmates, and fellows in club and society, associates in games and sports, business friends of all degrees, friends and associates in politics; he has an enormous range of social contact, from every grade of which he gets some good, and, out of the whole, some personal friends he likes to have come freely to his home. contrast with this the woman's scale--the average woman, she whose "sphere" is wholly in the home. by nature--that is, by human nature--she has the same need and capacity for large association. being pruned down to a few main branches, confined almost wholly to the basic lines of attachment known equally to the savage, she pours a passionate intensity of feeling into her narrow range. the life-long give-and-take with a friend of whose private life one knows nothing is impossible to her. she must monopolise, being herself monopolised from birth. this intensity of feeling, finally worn down by the rebuff it must needs meet, gives place in the life of the woman who is able to "entertain," to the "dear five hundred friends" of that sterile atmosphere. it is no longer the free reaching out of the individual toward those who mean help and strength, breadth and change and progress, rest and relaxation. in the varied life of the world we are brought in contact with many kinds of people, in different lines of work, and are drawn to those who belong to us. in the monotonous life of "society" we are brought in contact with the same kind of people, or people whose life effort is to appear the same--all continually engaged in doing the same thing. if any new idea jars the monotony, off rushes the whole crowd after it--bicycle, golf, or ping-pong--till they have made it monotonous, too. no true and invigorating social intercourse can take place among people who are cut off from real social activities, whose medium of contact is the utterly irrelevant and arbitrary performance of what they so exquisitely miscall "social functions." the foundation error lies in the confinement of a social being to a purely domestic scale of living. by bringing into the home people who have no real business there, they are instantly forced into an artificial position. the home is no place for strangers. they cannot work there, they cannot play there, so they must be "entertained." so starts the merry-go-round. the woman must have social contact, she cannot go where it is in the normal business of life, so she tries to drag it in where she is; forcing the social life into the domestic. the domestic life is crowded out by this foreign current, and, as there is no place for legitimate social activities, in any home or series of homes, however large and costly, the illegitimate social activities are at once set up. the train of evils to the health of society we are all acquainted with, though not with their causes. sociology is yet too new to us for practical application. we are too unfamiliar with normal social processes to distinguish the abnormal, even though suffering keenly under it. yet this field is so within the reach of everyone that it would seem easy to understand. the human being's best growth requires a happy, quiet, comfortable home; with peace and health, order and beauty in its essential relations. the human being also requires right social relation, the work he is best suited to, full range of expression in that work, and intercourse free and spontaneous with his kind. women are human beings. they are allowed the first class of relations--the domestic; but denied the other--the social. hence they are forced to meet a normal need in an abnormal way, with inevitable evil results. we can see easily the more conspicuous evils of luxury and extravagance, of idleness, excitement, and ill health, of the defrauded home, the withering family life, the black shadows beyond that; but there are others we do not see. large among these is our loneliness. the machinery of domestic entertainment is paradoxically in our way. we are for ever and for ever flocking together, being brought together, arranging to meet people, to be met by people, to have other people meet each other, and meanwhile life passes and we have not met. "how i wish i could see more of you!" we sigh to the few real friends. your friend may be at the same dinner--taking out someone else, or, even taking you out--in equal touch with neighbours at either side and eyes opposing. your friend may be at the same dance--piously keeping step with many another; at the same reception, the same tea, the same luncheon--but you do not meet. as the "society" hand is gloved that there be no touching of real flesh and blood, so is the society soul dressed and defended for the fray in smooth phrase and glossy smile--a well-oiled system, without which the ceaseless press and friction would wear us raw, but within which we do anything but "meet." for truth and health and honest friendliness, for the bringing out of the best there is in us, for the maintenance of a pure and restful home-life and the development of an inspiring and fruitful social life, we need some other medium of association than domestic entertainments. and we are rapidly finding it. the woman's club is a most healthy field of contact, and the woman's clubhouse offers a legitimate common ground for large gatherings. the increasing number of women in regular business life alters the whole position. the business woman has her wider range of contact during the day, and is glad to rest and be alone with her family at night. if she desires to go out, it is to see real friends, or to some place of real amusement. when all women are honestly at work the "calling habit" will disappear perforce, with all its waste and dissimulation. given a healthy active life of true social usefulness for all women, and given a full accommodation of public rooms for public gatherings, and the whole thing takes care of itself. the enormous demand for association will be met legitimately, and the satisfied soul will gladly return from that vast field of social life to the restful quiet, the loving intimacy, the genuineness of home-life, with its constant possibilities of real hospitality and the blessings of true friendship. xi the lady of the house the effect of the house upon women is as important as might be expected of one continuous environment upon any living creature. the house varies with the varying power and preference of the owner; but to a house of some sort the woman has been confined for a period as long as history. this confinement is not to be considered as an arbitrary imprisonment under personal cruelty, but as a position demanded by public opinion, sanctioned by religion, and enforced by law. in the comparative freedom to "walk abroad" of our present-day civilised women, we too quickly forget the conditions immediately behind us, when even the marketing for the household was done by men, and the conditions still with us for many millions of women in many countries who are house-bound for life. to briefly recount the situation, we find in the pre-human home the mother sharing the hole or nest with her young, also sharing the outside task of getting food for them. in some species the father assists the mother, he never does it all. in other cases the father is no assistance, even a danger, seeking in cannibal infanticide to eat his own young; the mother in this case must feed and defend the young, as well as feed herself, and so must leave home at frequent intervals. the common cat is an instance of this. she is found happily nursing the kittens in her hidden nest among the hay; but you often find the kittens alone while the mother goes mousing, and a contributary thomas you do not find. as we have before seen, our longer period of infancy and its overlapping continuity, a possible series of babies lasting twenty years or so, demanded a permanent home; and so long as the mother had sole charge of this progressive infant party she must needs be there to attend to her maternal duties. this condition is what we have in mind, or think we have in mind, when maintaining the duty of women to stay at home. wherever woman's labour is still demanded, as among all savages, in the peasant classes where women work in the fields, and in our own recent condition of slavery, either the mother takes her baby with her, or a group of babies are cared for by one woman while the rest are at work. again, among our higher classes, almost the first step of increasing wealth is to depute to a nurse the mother's care, in order that she may be free from this too exacting claim. the nurse is a figure utterly unknown to animals, save in the collective creatures, like the bee and ant; a deputy-mother, introduced by us at a very early period. but this sharing of the mother's duties has not freed the woman from the house, because of quite another element in our human life. this is the custom of ownership in women. the animal mother is held by love, by "instinct" only; the human mother has been for endless centuries a possession of the father. in his pride and joy of possession, and in his fear lest some other man annex his treasure, he has boxed up his women as he did his jewels, and any attempt at personal freedom on their part he considered a revolt from marital allegiance. the extreme of this feeling results in the harem-system, and the crippled ladies of china; wherein we find the women held to the house, not by their own maternal ties, of which we talk much but in which we place small confidence, but by absolute force. this condition modifies steadily with the advance of democratic civilisation, but the mental habit based upon it remains with us. the general opinion that a woman should be in the home is found so lately expressed as in the works of our present philosopher, mr. dooley. in his "expert evidence" he says, "what the coort ought to 've done was to call him up and say 'lootgert, where's your good woman?' if lootgert cudden't tell, he ought to be hanged on gineral principles; f'r a man must keep his wife around the house, and when she isn't there it shows he's a poor provider." the extent and depth of this feeling is well shown by a mass of popular proverbs, often quoted in this connection, such as "a woman should leave her house three times--when she is christened, when she is married, and when she is buried" (even then she only leaves it to go to church), or again, "the woman, the cat, and the chimney should never leave the house." so absolute is this connection in our minds that numbers of current phrases express it, the housewife--hausfrau, and the one chosen to head this chapter--the lady of the house. now what has this age-long combination done to the woman, to the mother and moulder of human character; what sort of lady is the product of the house? let us examine the physical results first. there is no doubt that we have been whitened and softened by our houses. the sun darkens, the shade pales. in the house has grown the delicate beauty we admire, but are we right in so admiring? the highest beauty the world has yet known was bred by the sun-loving athenians. their women were home-bound, but their men raced and wrestled in the open air. no argument need be wasted to prove that air and sun and outdoor exercise are essential to health, and that health is essential to beauty. if we admire weakness and pallor, it by no means shows those qualities to be good; we can admire deformity itself, if we are taught to. without any reference to cause or necessity, it may be readily seen that absolute confinement to the house must have exactly the same effect on women that it would on men, and that effect is injurious to the health and vigour of the race. it is possible by continuous outdoor training of the boys and men to counteract the ill effect of the indoor lives of women; but why saddle the race with difficulties? why not give our children strong bodies and constitutions from both sides? the rapid and increasing spread of physical culture in modern life is helping mend the low conditions of human development; but the man still has the advantage. this was most convincingly shown by the two statues made by dr. sargent for the world's fair of from an extended series of measurements of college boys and girls. thousands and thousands of specimens of our young manhood and young womanhood were carefully measured, and there stand the two white figures to show how we compare in beauty--the men and women of our time. the figure of the man is far and away more beautiful than that of the woman. it is better proportioned as a whole; she is too short-legged, too long-waisted, too narrow-chested. it is better knit, more strongly and accurately "set up." she does not hang together well at all--the lines of connection are weak and wavering, and in especial does she lack any power and grace in the main area, the body itself, the torso. there is the undeveloped chest and the over-developed hips; and between them, instead of a beautifully modelled trunk, mere shapeless tissues, crying mutely for the arbitrary shape they are accustomed to put on outside! we are softer and whiter for our long housing; but not more truly beautiful. the artist seeks his models from the stately burden-bearing, sun-browned women of italy; strong creatures, human as well as feminine. the house life, with its shade, its foul air, its overheated steaminess, its innumerable tiring small activities, and its lack of any of those fine full exercises which built the proportions of the greeks, has not benefited the body of the lady thereof; and in injuring her has injured all mankind, her children. how of her mind? how has the mental growth of the race been affected by the housing of women? apply the question to men. think for a moment of the mental condition of humanity, if men too had each and every one stayed always in the home. the results are easy to picture. no enlargement of industry, only personal hand-to-mouth labour: not a trade, not a craft, not a craftsman on earth; no enlargement of exchange and commerce, only the products of one's own field, if the house-bound were that much free: no market, local, national, or international; no merchant in the world. no transportation, that at once; _no roads_--why roads if all men stayed at home? no education--even the child must leave home to go to school; no art, save the squaw-art of personal decoration of one's own handmade things. no travel, of course, and so no growth of any human ties, no widespread knowledge, love, and peace. in short, no human life at all--if men, all men, had always stayed at home. merely the life of a self-maintained family--the very lowest type, the type we find most nearly approached by the remote isolated households of the "poor whites," of the south. even they have some of the implements and advantages of civilisation, they are not utterly cut off. the growth of the world has followed the widening lives of men, outside the home. the specialised trade, with its modification of character; the surplus production and every widening range of trade and commerce; the steadily increasing power of distribution, and transportation, with its increased area, ease, and speed; the ensuing increase in travel now so general and continuous; and following that the increase in our knowledge and love of one another; all--all that makes for civilisation, for progress, for the growth of humanity up and on toward the race ideal--takes place outside the home. this is what has been denied to the lady of the house--merely all human life! some human life she must needs partake of by the law of heredity, sharing in the growth of the race through the father; and some she has also shared through contact with the man in such time as he was with her in the house, to such a degree as he was willing and able to share his experience. also her condition has been steadily ameliorated, as he, growing ever broader and wiser by his human relationships, brought wisdom and justice and larger love into his family relationship. but the gain came from without, and filtered down to the woman in most niggardly fashion. literature was a great world-art for centuries and centuries before women were allowed to read--to say nothing of write! it is not long since the opinion was held that, if women were allowed to write, they would but write love letters! in our last century, in civilised christian england, harriet martineau and jane austen covered their writing with their sewing when visitors came in; writing was "unwomanly!" the very greatest of our human gains we have been the slowest to share with woman: education and democracy. we have allowed them religion in a sense--as we have allowed them medicine--to take; not to give! they might have a priest as they might have a doctor, but on no account be one! religion was for man to preach--and woman to practise. in some churches, very recently, we are at last permitting women to hold equal place with men in what they deem to be the special service of god, but it is not yet common. her extra-domestic education has been won within a lifetime; and there are still extant many to speak and write against it, even in the universities--those men of mezozoic minds! and her place as active participant in democratic government is still denied by an immense majority, on the ground--the same old underlying ground--that it would take her from the house! here, clear and strong, stands out that ancient theory, that the very existence of womanhood depends on staying in the house. we have seen what has been denied to woman by absence from the world; what do we find bestowed upon her by the ceaseless, enclosing presence of the house? how does staying in one's own house all one's life affect the mind? we cannot ask this question of a man, for no man has ever done it except a congenital invalid. nothing short of paralysis will keep a man in the house. he would as soon spend his life in petticoats, they are both part of the feminine environment--no part of his. he will come home at night to sleep, at such hours as suit him. he likes to eat at home, and brings his friends to see the domestic group--house, wife, and children; all, things to be fond and proud of, things a man wishes to own and maintain properly. but for work or play, out he goes to his true companions--men, full-grown human creatures who understand each other; in his true place--the world, our human medium. the woman, with such temporary excursions as our modern customs permit, works, plays, rests, does all things in her house, or in some neighbouring house--the same grade of environment. the home atmosphere is hers from birth to death. that this custom is rapidly changing i gladly admit. the women of our country and our time are marching out of the home to their daily work by millions, only to return to them at night with redoubled affection; but there are more millions far, many more millions, who are still housewives or ladies of houses. the first result is a sort of mental myopia. looking always at things too near, the lens expands, the focus shortens, the objects within range are all too large, and nothing else is seen clearly. to spend your whole time in attending to your own affairs in your own home inevitably restricts the mental vision; inevitably causes those same personal affairs to seem larger to you than others' personal affairs or the affairs of the nation. this is a general sweeping consequence of being house-bound; and it is a heavily opposing influence to all human progress. the little-mindedness of the house-lady is not a distinction of sex. it is in no essential way a feminine distinction, but merely associatively feminine in that only women are confined to houses. a larger range of interest and care instantly gives a resultant largeness of mind, in women as well as men. such free great lives as have been here and there attained by women show the same broad human characteristics as similar lives of men. it can never be too frequently insisted upon, at least not in our beclouded time, that the whole area of human life is outside of, and irrelevant to, the distinctions of sex. race characteristics belong in equal measure to either sex, and the misfortune of the house-bound woman is that she is denied time, place, and opportunity to develop those characteristics. she is feminine, more than enough, as man is masculine more than enough; but she is not human as he is human. the house-life does not bring out our humanness, for all the distinctive lines of human progress lie outside. in the mind of the lady of the house is an arrangement of fact and feeling, which is untrue because it is disproportionate. the first tendency of the incessant home life is to exaggerate personality. the home is necessarily a hotbed of personal feeling. there love grows intense and often morbid; there any little irritation frets and wears in the constant pressure like a stone in one's shoe. the more isolated the home, the more cut off from the healthy movement of social progress, as in the lonely farmhouses of new england, the more we find those intense eccentric characters such as mary e. wilkins so perfectly portrays. the main area of the mind being occupied with a few people and their affairs, a tendency to monomania appears. the solitary farmer is least able to escape this domestic pressure, and therefore we find these pathological conditions of home life most in scattered farms. human creatures, to keep healthy, _must_ mingle with one another. the house-bound woman cannot; therefore she does not maintain a vigorous and growing mind. such contact as she has is mainly through church opportunities; and along all such lines as are open to her she eagerly flocks, finding great relief therein. but compare the interchange between a group of house-ladies, and a corresponding group of men--their husbands perhaps. each of these men, touching the world through a different trade, has an area of his own; from which he can bring a new outlook to the others. even if all are farmers, in which case there is much less breadth and stimulus in their intercourse, they still have some connection with the moving world. they seek to meet at some outside point, the store, the blacksmith's shop, the railroad station, the post-office; the social hunger appeasing itself as best it may with such scraps of the general social activities as fall to it. but the women, coming together, have nothing to bring each other but personalities. some slight variation in each case perhaps, a little difference in receipts for sponge-cake, cures for measles, patterns for clothes, or stitches for fancy-work. (oh, poor, poor lives! where fancy has no work but in stitches, and no play at all!) the more extended and well-supplied house merely gives its lady a more extended supply of topics of the same nature. she may discuss candle-shades instead of bed-quilts, "entrées" instead of "emptin's"; ferns for the table instead of "yarbs" for the garret; but the distinction is not vital. it is still the lady prattling of her circumambient house, as snails might (possibly do!) dilate upon the merits of their ever-present shells. the limitations of the house as an area for a human life are most baldly dreary and crippling in the lower grades, the great majority of cases, where the housewife toils, not yet become the lady of the house. here you see grinding work, and endless grey monotony. here are premature age, wasting disease, and early death. if a series of photographs could be made of the working housewives in our country districts, with some personal account of the "poor health" which is the main topic of their infrequent talk; we should get a vivid idea of the condition of this grade of house-bound life. the lady is in a different class, and open to a different danger. she is not worn out by overwork, but weakened by idleness. she is not starved and stunted by the hopeless lack of expression, but is, on the contrary, distorted by a senseless profusion of expression. there is pathos even to tears in the perforated cardboard fly-traps dangling from the gaudy hanging lamp in the farmhouse parlour; the little weazened, withered blossom of beauty thrust forth from the smothered life below. there is no pathos, rather a repulsive horror, in the mass of freakish ornament on walls, floors, chairs, and tables, on specially contrived articles of furniture, on her own body and the helpless bodies of her little ones, which marks the unhealthy riot of expression of the overfed and underworked lady of the house. every animal want is met, save those of air and exercise, though nowadays we let her out enough to meet those, if she will do it in games and athletic sports--anything that has not, as veblen puts it, "the slightest taint of utility." she is a far more vigorous lady physically, than ever before. also, nowadays, we educate her; in the sense of a large supply of abstract information. we charge her battery with every stimulating influence during youth; and then we expect her to discharge the swelling current in the same peaceful circuit which contented her great-grandmother! this gives us one of the most agonising spectacles of modern times. here is a creature, inheriting the wide reach of the modern mind; that socially-developed mind begotten of centuries of broadest human intercourse; and, in our later years of diffused education, rapid transit, and dizzying spread of industrial processes, increasing its range and intensity with each generation. this tremendous engine, the healthy use of which requires contact with the whole field of social stimulus to keep up its supplies, and the whole field of social activity for free discharge, we expect to find peaceful expression in its own single house. there is of course a margin of escape--there must be. in earlier decades the suppressed activity of this growing creature either still found vent in some refined forms of household industry, as in the exquisite embroideries of our grandmothers, or frankly boiled over in "society." the insatiate passion of woman for "society" has puzzled her unthinking mate. he had society, the real society of large human activities; but he saw no reason why she should want any. she ought to be content at home, in the unbroken circle of the family. while the real labours of the house held her therein she stayed, content or not; but, free of those, she has reached out widely in such planes as were open to her, for social contact. as women, any number of women, failed to furnish any other stimulus than that she was already overfilled with--they being each and all mere ladies of houses--she was naturally more attracted to the more humanly developed creature, man. man's power, his charm, for woman is far more than that of sex. it is the all-inclusive vital force of human life--of real social development. she has hung around him as devotedly as the cripple tags the athlete. when women have their own field of legitimate social activity, they retain their admiration for really noble manhood, but the "anybody, good lord!" petition is lost forever. a hint is perhaps suggested here, as to the world-old charm for women, of the priest and soldier. both are forms of very wide social service--detached, impersonal, giving up life to the good of the whole--infinitely removed from the close clinging shadow of the house! in our immediate time the progress of industry has cut the lady off from even her embroidery. man, alert and inventive, follows her few remaining industries relentlessly, and grabs them from her, away from the house, into the mill and shop where they belong. but she, with ever idler hands, must stay behind. he will furnish her with everything her heart can wish--but she must stay right where she is and swallow it. _"lady love! lady love! wilt thou be mine? thou shalt neither wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine! but sit on a cushion and sew a gold seam and feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream!"_ this amiable programme, so exquisitely ludicrous, when offered to the world's most inherently industrious worker, becomes as exquisitely cruel when applied. the physical energies of the mother--an enormous fund--denied natural expression in bodily exertion, work morbidly in manifold disease. the social energies, boundless, resistless, with which she is brought more in contact every year, denied natural expression in world-service, work morbidly inside the painfully inadequate limits of the house. here we have the simple explanation of that unreasonable excess which characterises the lady of the house. the amount of wealth this amiable prisoner can consume in fanciful caprices is practically unlimited. her clothing and ornament is a study in itself. start any crazy fad or fashion in this field, and off goes the flood of self-indulgence, the craving for "expression," absurdity topping extravagance. there is nothing to check it save the collapse of the source of supplies. a modern "captain of industry" has a brain so socially developed as to require for its proper area of expression an enormous range of social service. he gets it. he develops great systems of transportation, elaborate processes of manufacture, complex legislation or financial manoeuvres. without reference to his purpose, to the money he may acquire, or the relative good or evil of his methods, the point to be noted is that he is exercising his full personal capacity. his sister, his wife, has a similar possibility of brain activity, and practically no provision for its exercise. so great is the growth, so tremendous the pressure of live brains against dead conditions, that in our current life of to-day we find more and more women pouring wildly out into any and every form of combination and action, good, bad, and indifferent. the church sewing circle, fair, and donation party no longer satisfy her. the reception, dinner, ball, and musicale no longer satisfy her. even the splendid freedom of physical exercise no longer satisfies her. more and more the necessity for full and legitimate social activity makes itself felt; and more and more she is coming out of the house to take her rightful place in the world. not easily is this accomplished, not cheaply and safely. she is breaking loose from the hardest shell that ever held immortal seed. she is held from within by every hardened layer of untouched instinct which has accumulated through the centuries; and she is opposed from without by such mountain ranges of prejudice as would be insurmountable if prejudice were made of anything real. the obsequious terror of a child, cowed by the nurse's bugaboo, is more reasonable than our docile acquiescence in the bonds of prejudice. it is pleasantly funny, knowing the real freedom so easily possible, to see a strong, full-grown woman solemnly state that she cannot pass the wall of cloudy grandeur with mrs. grundy for gate-keeper, that seems to hem her in so solidly. first one and then another reaches out a courageous hand against this towering barricade, touches it, shakes it, finds it not fact at all, but merely feeling--and passes calmly through. there is really nothing to prevent the woman of to-day from coming out of her old shell; and there is much to injure her, if she stays in. the widespread nervous disorders among our leisure-class women are mainly traceable to this unchanging mould, which presses ever more cruelly upon the growing life. health and happiness depend on smooth fulfilment of function, and the functional ability of a modern woman can by no means be exercised in this ancient coop. the effect of the lady of the house upon her husband is worth special study. he thinks he likes that kind of woman, he stoutly refuses to consider any other kind; and yet his very general discontent in her society has been the theme of all observers for all time. in our time it has reached such prominence as to be commented upon even in that first brief halcyon period, the "honeymoon." _punch_ had a piteous cartoon of a new-married pair, sitting bored and weary on the beach, during their wedding journey. "don't you wish some friend would come along?" said she. "yes," he answered--"or even an enemy!" men have accepted the insufficiencies and disagreeablenesses of "female society" as being due to "the disabilities of sex." they are not, being really due to the disability of the house-bound. love may lead a man to "marry his housekeeper," and we condemn the misalliance; but he makes a housekeeper of his wife without criticism. the misalliance is still there. a man, a healthy, well-placed man, has his position in the world and in the home, and finds happiness in both. he loves his wife, she meets his requirements as a husband, and he expects nothing more of her. his other requirements he meets in other ways. that she cannot give him this, that, and the other form of companionship, exercise, gratification, is no ground of blame; the world outside does that. so the man goes smoothly on, and when the woman is uncertain, capricious, exacting, he lays it to her being a woman, and lets it go at that. but she, for all field of exertion, has but this house; for all kinds of companionship, this husband. he stands between her and the world, he has elected to represent it to her, to be "all the world" to her. now, no man that ever lived, no series or combination of husbands that widowhood or polyandry ever achieved can be equivalent to the world. the man needs the wife and has her--needs the world and has it. the woman needs the husband--and has him; needs the world--and there is the husband instead. he stands between her and the world, with the best of intentions, doubtless; but a poor substitute for full human life. "what else should she want?" he inquires in genuine amazement. "i love her, i am kind to her, i provide a good home for her--she has her children and she has me--what else should she want?" what else does he want? he has her--the home and the children--does that suffice him? he wants also the human world to move freely in, to act fully in, to live widely in, and _so does she_. and because she cannot have it, because he stands there in its stead, she demands of him the satisfaction of all these thwarted human instincts. she does not know what ails her. she thinks he does not love her enough; that if he only loved her enough, stayed with her enough, she would be satisfied. no man can sit down and love a woman eighteen hours a day, not actively. he does love her, all the time, in a perfectly reasonable way, but he has something else to do. he loves her for good and all; it is in the bank, to draw on for the rest of life, a steady, unfailing supply; but she wants to see it and hear it and feel it all the time, like the miser of old who "made a bath of his gold and rolled in it." the most glaring type of this unfortunate state of mind in recent fiction is that of the morbid marna in the "confessions of a wife"--a vivid expression of what it is to be a highly-concentrated, double-distilled wife--_and nothing else_! no shadow of interest had she in life except this man; no duty, no pleasure, no use, no ambition, no religion, no business--nothing whatever but one embodied demand for her man. he was indeed all the world to her--and he didn't like it. if the woman was fully developed on the human side she would cease to be overdeveloped on the feminine side. if she had her fair share of world-life she would expect of her husband that he be a satisfactory man, but not that he be a satisfactory world, which is quite beyond him. cannot men see how deeply benefited they would be by this change, this growth of woman? she would still be woman, beautiful, faithful, loving; but she would not be so greedy, either for money or for love. the lady of the house may be most softly beautiful, she may be utterly devoted, she may be unutterably appealing; but all her centuries of cherished existence have but brought us to _punch's_ "advice to those about to marry": "don't!" the world's incessant complaint of marriage, mockery of marriage, resistance, outbreak, and default, gives heavy proof that that great human institution has serious defects. the blame has generally been laid on man. suppose we now examine the other fact, the equal factor, and see if there is not some essential error in her position. this might furnish a wide field of study in the leisure hours of the lady of the house. xii the child at home there are upon earth many millions of people--most of them children. mankind has been continuous upon earth for millions of years; children have been equally continuous. children constitute a permanent class, the largest class in the population. there are men, there are women, there are children, and the children outnumber the adults by three to two. in the order of nature, all things give way before the laws and processes of reproduction; the individual is sacrificed to the race. natural forces, working through the unconscious submission of the animal, tend steadily to improve a species through its young. social forces, working through our conscious system of education, tend to improve our species through its young. humanity is developed age after age through a gradual improvement in its children; and since we have seen this and learned somewhat to assist nature by art, humanity develops more quickly and smoothly. every generation brings us more close to recognition of this great basic law, finds us more willing to follow nature's principle and bend all our energies to the best development of the child. we early learned to multiply our power and wisdom by transmission through speech, and, applying that process to the child, we taught him what we knew, saving to humanity millennial periods of evolution by this conscious short-cut through education. nature's way of teaching is a very crude one--mere wholesale capital punishment. she kills off the erring without explanation. they die without knowing what for, and the survivors don't know, either. we, by education, markedly assist nature, transmitting quick knowledge from mouth to mouth, as well as slow tendency from generation to generation. more and more we learn to collect race-improvement and transmit it to the child, the most swift and easy method of social progress. to-day, more than ever before, are our best minds giving attention to this vital problem--how to make better people. how to make better bodies and better minds, better tendencies, better habits, better ideas--this is the study of the modern educator. slowly we have learned that the best methods of education are more in modifying influence than in transmitted facts; that, as the proverb puts it, "example is better than precept." the modifying influences of social environment have deeper and surer effect on the human race than any others, and that effect is strongest on the young. therefore, we attach great importance to what we call the "bringing up" of children, and we are right. the education of the little child, through the influences of its early environment, is the most important process of human life. whatever progress we make in art and science, in manufacture and commerce, is of no permanent importance unless it modifies humanity for the better. that a race of apes should live by agriculture, manufacture, and commerce is inconceivable. they would cease to be apes by so living; but, _if they could_, those processes would be of no value, the product being only apes. we are here to grow, to become a higher and better kind of people. every process of life is valuable in proportion to its contributing to our improvement, and the process that most contributes to our improvement is the most important of human life. that process is the education of the child, and that education includes all the influences which reach him, the active efforts of parent and teacher, the unconscious influence of all associates, and the passive effect of the physical environment. all these forces, during the most impressionable years of childhood, and most of them during the whole period, are centered in the home. the home is by all means the most active factor in the education of the child. this we know well. this we believe devoutly. this we accept without reservation or inquiry, seeing the power of home influences, and never presuming to question their merit. in our general contented home-worship we seem to think that a home--any home--is in itself competent to do all that is necessary for the right rearing of children. or, if we discriminate at all, if we dare admit by referring to "a good home" that there are bad ones--we then hold all the more firmly that the usual type of "a good home" is the perfect environment for a child. if this dogma is questioned, our only alternative is to contrast the state of the child without a home to that of the child with one. the orphan, the foundling, the neglected child of the street is contrasted with the well-fed and comfortably clothed darling of the household, and we relapse into our profound conviction that the home is all right. again the reader is asked to put screws on the feelings and use the reason for a little while. let us examine both the child and the home, with new eyes, seeing eyes, and consider if there is no room for improvement. and first, to soothe the ruffled spirit and quiet alarm, let it be here stated in good set terms that the author does not advocate "separating the child from the mother," or depriving it of the home. mother and child can never be "separated" in any such sense as these unreasoning terrors suggest. the child has as much right to the home as anyone--_more_, for it was originated for his good. the point raised is, whether the home, as it now is, is the best and only environment for children, and, further, whether the home as an environment for children cannot be improved. what is a child? the young of the human species. first, a young animal, whose physical life must be conserved and brought to full development. then, a young human, whose psychical life, _the_ human life, must be similarly cared for. how does the home stand as regards either branch of development? in what way is it specifically prepared for the use, enjoyment, and benefit of a child? first, as to the structure of the thing, the house. we build houses for ourselves, modifying them somewhat according to climate, position, and so on. how do we modify them for children? what is there in the make-up of any ordinary house designed to please, instruct, educate, and generally benefit a child? in so far as he shares our own physical needs for shelter and convenience he is benefited; but, _as a child_, with his own specific necessities, desires, and limitations, what has the architect planned for the child--what have the mason and carpenter built for the child? is there anything in the size and proportion, the material, the internal arrangement, the finish and decoration, to hint of the existence of children on earth? the most that we find, in the most favoured houses, is "a sunny nursery." in one home of a thousand we find one room out of a dozen planned for children. what sort of an allowance is this for the largest class of citizens? suppose our homes had, among the more expensive ones, one room for the adult family to flock into, and all the rest was built and arranged for children! we should think ourselves somewhat neglected in such an arrangement. but we are not as numerous as our children, nor as important; and, in any case, the home _belongs_ to the child; he is the cause of its being; it is for him, hypothetically, that we marry and start a home. what, then, is the explanation of this lack of special provision for the real founder of the home? this utter unsuitability of the house to the child, and the child to the house, finds its crowning expression in our cities, where house-owners refuse to let their houses to families with children! what are houses for? what are homes for? for children, first, last, and always! how, then, have we come to this vanishing point of absurdity? what paradoxical gulf stretches between these houses where "no children need apply" and the rest of the houses. _there is no visible difference in their plans and construction._ no houses are built for children; and these particular landlords simply accent the fact, and try to limit the use of the house to the persons for whom it was intended--the adults. what is there in the presence of children in a house to alarm the owner? "they are so destructive," he will tell you; "they are mischievous, they are noisy. other tenants object to them. they injure the house when old enough to run about, and squall objectionably when babies." all this is true enough. most babies are a source of distress to their immediate neighbours because of their painful wailing, and most little children continue to cause distress by their noise in play and shrieks under punishment. is all this outcry necessary? must the poor baby suffer by night and day; must the small child bang and yell, and must it be punished so frequently? why is the process of getting acclimated to the world so difficult and agonising? is there really no way that the experience of all the ages may be turned to account to facilitate the first years of a child's life? our behaviour to the child rests on several assumptions which are, at least, not proven. we assume that he has to be sick. we assume that he has to be naughty. we assume that life is hard and unpleasant, anyway, and that, the sooner he learns this and gets broken into it, the better. there is no more reason why a child should be sick than a calf or colt. infancy is tender, and needs care, but it is not a disease. the egyptian mother loves her baby, no doubt, though it goes blind through her ignorance and neglect--she knows nothing of ophthalmia, and lets the flies crawl over its helpless face, even while she loves it. we scorn and pity her ignorance, but we accept the colic, disorders of teething, and all the train of "preventable diseases" which kill off our babies, precisely as she accepts ophthalmia. we have not learned yet how to make a baby the happy, contented, smoothly developing little animal that he should be. some of us do better than others, but the knowledge of one is no gain to the rest, being confined to one family. slowly the wider human care, the larger love, the broader knowledge, of doctor, nurse, and teacher are penetrating the innermost fortress of the home, and teaching the mother how to care for the child. the home did not teach her, and never would. in the untouched homes of ancient eastern races, countless generations of mothers transmit the same traditional mistakes, love in the same blind way, and weep the same loss as unprofitably as they did ten thousand years ago. in the homes of civilised races, where the light of social progress is most fully felt, we see the most improvement; but even here the pressure of growing knowledge is still combated by the jealous arrogance of the untaught mother, and the measureless inertia of the home. in plain fact, what does the average home offer to the newcomer, the utterly defenceless baby, the all-important coming generation? see physical conditions first. to what sort of world is the new soul introduced? to a place built and furnished for several mixed and conflicting industries; not to a place planned for babies--aired, lighted, heated, coloured, and kept quiet to suit the young brain and body; but a building meant for a number of grown people to cook in, sweep and dust in, wash and iron in, cut and sew in, eat and wash dishes in, see their friends in, dress, undress, and sleep in; and incidentally, in the cracks and crevices of all these varied goings on, to "bring up" children in. in that very small percentage of families where a nursery is arranged for children, and a nurse and a nursery-governess do deputy service for the always alleged "mother's care," we find some provision made for children; but of what sort? this deputy is inferior to the mother, save in a certain rule-of-thumb experience which enables her to "manage children." her knowledge of infant hygiene is not much greater, nor of infant psychology. look, for instance, at the babies of our richer classes, as we see them continually in the streets and parks. our only alternative from the home is the street, we having as yet no place for our babies. if near a park so much the better, but in general the sidewalk must serve, for rich or poor. as one immediate physical condition, examine the dress of these babies and young children; this among parents of wealth, and, presumably, intelligence. see the baby in the perambulator so rolled and bedded in, so tucked and strapped, that he cannot move anything but perhaps a stiffly projecting arm. think of an adult cocooned in this manner, unable to roll, stir, turn, in any way relieve the pressure or change the attitude. and, when you have considered the sensations of a tough and patient adult frame, think further of those of a soft, tender, active, and impatient baby body. the dress of a baby or little child bears no relation to his immediate comfort or to the needs of his incessant growth. among our wisest parents there is to-day a new custom, happily increasing, of barefoot freedom, of dirt-proof overalls, of a chance for beautiful, unconscious growth; but this does not reach the vast majority of suffering little ones. it does not spread because of the seclusion and irresponsible dominance of the separate home; and further--because of the low-grade intelligence of the home-bound mother. she whose condition of arrested development makes her unquestioningly submit to the distortion, constriction, weight, and profusion of fashion in clothing for her own body, is not likely to show much sense in dressing a child. beautiful fabrics, rich textures, expensive adornments, she heaps upon it. she wishes it to look pretty, according to her barbaric taste; and she disfigures the grave, sweet beauty of a baby face, the lovely moving curves of the little body, with heavy masses of stiff cloth, starched frippery, and huge, nodding, gaily decorated hats that would please an ashantee warrior. if some cartoonist would give us a copy of the sistine mother and child in the costume of our mothers and children, showing those immortal cherub faces blinking obliquely from under flopping hat brims and rich plumes, perhaps we might in sudden shocked perception see with what coarse irreverence we disfigure our blessed little ones. the child does not find in the home any assurance of health, beauty, or free growth. he, and especially she, must wear the dainty garments on which our misguided mother love so wastefully lavishes itself; and must then be restricted in all natural exercise lest they be torn or soiled. to dress a little child so that he may be perfectly comfortable, and grow in absolute freedom, has not occurred to the home-bound mother. neither has she learned how to feed it. if the home is the best place for children, if the home is the best place for the preparation of food, would it not seem as if in all these long, long years we might have evolved some system of feeding little children so as to keep them at least alive--to say nothing of their being healthy? the animal mother, guided by her unspoiled instinct, does manage to feed her young, and to teach it how to feed itself. the human mother, long since cut off from that poor primitive guidance, and proudly refusing to put knowledge in its place, feeds the baby in accordance with her revered domestic traditions, and calls in the doctor to remedy her mistakes. one man, in buffalo, has recently saved fifteen hundred babies in a year, lowering the annual death rate by that amount, by public distribution of directions for preparing milk. he was not a mother. he was not shut up in a home. he studied and he taught in the light of public progress, in a growing world; and succeeded in filtering some of this saving knowledge into the darkness of fifteen hundred homes. the average child is not fed properly; and there is nothing in the home to teach the mother how. she must learn outside, but she is not willing to. she still believes, and her husband with her, in the infallible power of "a mother's love" and "a mother's care"; and our babies are buried by thousands and thousands without our learning anything by the continual sacrifice. this is owing to the isolation of the home. if there were any general knowledge, general custom, association, comparison; if mothers considered their enormous responsibility _as a class_, instead of merely as individuals, this could not be. knowledge and experience have to be gathered by wide and prolonged study; they do not come by an infinite repetition of the same private experiments. we have to-day the first stirring of this great multitude of separately concealed experimenters toward that association and exchange of view, that carefully recorded observation, that reasonable study, which are necessary for any human advance. our mothers are beginning to come out of their isolation into normal human contact; to take that first step toward wisdom--the acknowledgment of ignorance; and to study what little is known of this new science, child-culture. but it is only a beginning, very scant and small, and ridiculed unmercifully by the great slow dead-weight of the majority. the position of the satirist of modern motherhood is a safe and easy one. to ally one's self with the great mass of present humanity, and the far greater mass of the past, of all our hoary and revered traditions, and to direct this combined weight against the first movement of a new idea--this is an old game. humanity has thus resisted every step of its own progress; but, though it makes that progress difficult and slow, it cannot wholly prevent it. if the home and the home-bound mother do not ensure right food or clothing for the child, what do they offer in safety, and in the increasing educational influence which early environment must have? as to safety--the shelter of the home--we have already seen that even to the adult the home offers no protection from the main dangers of our time: disease, crime, and fire or other accident. the child not only shares these common dangers, but is more exposed to them, owing to more absolute confinement to the home and greater susceptibility. whatever we suffer from sewer-gas, carbonic dioxide, or microbes and bacteria, the child suffers more. he breathes the dust of our carpets, and eats it if we do not watch him. "i can't take my eyes off that child one minute," cries the admiring mamma, "or he'll be sure to put something in his mouth!" that a perfectly clean place might be prepared for a creeping baby, where there was nothing whatever he could put in his mouth, has never occurred to her. the child shares and more than shares every danger of the home, and furthermore suffers an endless list of accidents peculiar to his limitations. even our dull nerves are roused to some sort of response by the terrible frequency of accidents to little children. i have here a number, taken from one newspaper in one city during one year; not exhaustive daily scrutiny either; merely a casual collection: "mother and baby both badly burned." a three-year-old baby this--a match, a little night-dress flaming, struggle, torture, death! "choked in mother's arms" is the next one; the divine instinct of maternity giving a two-year-old child half a filbert to eat. it was remarked in the item that the "desolate couple" had lost two other little ones within two months. it did not state whether the two others were accidentally murdered by a mother's care. "child's game proved fatal" is the next. three-years-old twins were these; "playing fire engine in the parlour while their mother prepared the midday meal." one climbed on the table and lit a newspaper at a gas jet, and set fire to the other. it is then related "both children cried out, but their mother, thinking they were only playing, did not hasten to find what was the matter." "the child died at p.m." is the conclusion. "accidentally killed his baby" follows. the fond father, holding his two-year-old son on his knee, shot and killed him with a revolver "which he believed to be empty." "escaping gas kills baby"--"boy has cent in his throat"--"insane mother's crime"--"drowns her eight-year-old daughter"--and here a doctor says, "it would be an excellent idea for every family to have a little book giving briefly prompt antidotes for various poisons. physicians know that there are scores of cases of accidental poisoning never heard of outside the family concerned. i've had several cases of poisoning by an accidental dose of chloroform and aconite liniment, and one woman gave her child muriatic acid that was kept for cleaning the marbles." another "mother and child burned"--"child scratched by a -foot fall"--(this one was saved by striking several clothes-lines after she fell out of the window)--"kitten was life preserver"--another fall out of a window, but the child was holding a kitten, and her head struck on it--so only the kitten was smashed. "a governor's child badly hurt"--"will probably prove fatal," this was a two-story drop over a staircase; and shows that it is not only in the homes of the poor that these things happen. another "baby burned" follows--this poor little one was left strapped into its carriage, and set fire to by an enterprising little brother. "tiny singer fell dead" describes a five-year-old boy as singing a selection from "cavalleria rusticana" as a means of entertaining a party of young friends--and burst a blood-vessel in the brain. then there is a story of a grisly murder in which a tiny child testifies as to seeing her father kill her mother; the child was not hurt--physically. and then a bit of negative evidence quite striking in its way, describing "the mother of twenty-five children" and incidentally stating "of these only three sons and four daughters are now living." seven out of twenty-five does not seem a large proportion to survive the perils of the home. these are a few, a very few, instances of extreme injury and death. they are as nothing to the wide-spread similar facts we do not hear of; and as less than nothing to the list of minor accidents to which little children are constantly exposed in the shelter of the home. we bar our windows and gate our stairs in some cases; but our principal reliance is on an unending watchfulness and a system of rigid discipline. "children need constant care!" we maintain; and "a child must be taught to mind instantly, for its own protection." a child is not a self-acting poison or explosive. if he were in an absolutely safe place he might be free for long, bright, blessed hours from the glaring argus-eyed watchfulness which is so intense an irritant. convicts under sentence of death are in their last hours kept under surveillance like this, lest they take their own lives. partly lest the child injure himself among the many dangers of the home, and partly lest he injure its frail and costly contents, he grows up under "constant watching." if this is remitted, he "gets into mischief" very promptly. "mischief" is our broad term for the natural interaction of a child and a home. the inquiry of the young mind, and the activity of the young body, finding no proper provision made for them, inevitably fall foul of our complicated utensils, furniture, and decorations, and what should be a normal exercise becomes "mischief." our chapter of accidents here leads us to the great underlying field of education. say that the child lives to grow up, during these wholly home-bound years; in spite of wrong clothing, wrong feeding, and the many perils we fatuously call "incident to babyhood" (when they are only incident to our lack of proper provision for babyhood). if he battles through his infancy and early childhood successfully, what has he gained from his early environment in education? what are the main facts of life, as impressed upon every growing child by his home surroundings? the principal fact is eating. this he learns perforce by seeing his mother spending half her time on that one business; by seeing so much house-space given to it; by the constant arrival of food supplies, meat, groceries, milk, ice, and the rest; and excursions to get them. the instincts of early savagery, which every child has to grow through, are heavily reinforced by the engrossing food-processes of the home. they do not necessarily please him or her, either. the child does not grow up with a burning ambition to be a cook. whether the ever-present kitchen business was run by the mother or by a servant, it was not run joyously and proudly; nor was it run in such wise as to really teach the child the principles of hygiene in food-values and preparation. if the family is a wealthy one the child is not allowed in the kitchen perhaps, but is the more impressed by the complicated machinery of the dining-room, and that elaborate cult of special "manners" used in this sacred service of the body. thus and thus must he eat, and thus handle his utensils; and if the years and the tears spent in acquiring these eleusinian mysteries make due impression on the fresh brain tissue, then we may expect to find the human being more impressed by the art of eating than by any other. and so we do find him. the children of the kitchen are differently affected from the children of the dining-room. these last, of our "upper classes," receive the indelible stamp of the tri-daily ritual, and go through the rest of life thinking more highly of "table manners" than of any other line of conduct, for the reason that they were more incessantly, thoroughly, and importunately taught that code than any other. to handle a fork properly is insisted upon far more imperatively than to properly handle a temper. the principal business of the home being the care of the body, and this accomplished through these archaic domestic industries, the unending up-current of young life, which should so steadily purify and uplift the world, in every generation is steeped anew in this exaggeration of physical needs and caprices. beyond the overwhelming cares of the table the other home industries involve the care and replenishment of furniture and clothes. hour after hour, day after day, the child sees his mother devoting her entire life to attendance upon these things--the daily cleaning, the weekly cleaning, the spring and fall cleaning, the sewing and mending at all times. these things must be done, by some people, somewhere; but must they be done by all people, that is by all women, the people who surround the child, and all the time? must the child always associate womanhood with house-service; and assume, necessarily assume, that the main business of life is to be clean, well-dressed, and eat in a proper manner? if the mother is not herself the house-servant--what else is she? what does the growing brain gather of the true proportions of life from his dining-room-and-parlour mamma? her main care, and talk, is still that of food and clothes; and partly that of "entertainment," which means more food and more clothes. can we not by one daring burst of effort imagine a home where there was still the father and mother love, still the comfort, convenience, and beauty we so enjoy, still the sweet union of the family group, and yet no kitchen? perhaps even, in some remote dream, no dining-room? where the mother was a wise, strong, efficient human being, interested in and working for the progress of humanity; and giving to her baby, in these sweet hours of companionship, some true sense of what life is for and how it works. no, we cannot imagine it, most of us. we really cannot. we are so indelibly kitchen-bred, or dining-room-bred, that mother means cook, or at least housekeeper, to our minds; and family means dinner-table. so grows the child in the home. in the school he learns something of social values, in the church something, in the street something; from his father, who is a real factor in society, something; but in the home he learns by inexorably repeated impressions of every day and hour, that life, this deep, new, thrilling mystery of life consists mainly of eating and sleeping, of the making and wearing of clothes. we are irresistibly reminded of the strange text, "take no thought of what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." a little difficult to follow this command when mother does nothing else! xiii the girl at home what is the position of the home toward us in youth? we have seen something of its effect upon the child, the wholly helpless child, who knows no other place or power. we have seen something of its effect upon the woman in her life-long confinement there. between childhood and maturity comes youth; holding what is left of the child's pure heart and vivid hopes, and what begins to stir of man's or woman's power. the gain of a race, if there is a gain, must make itself felt in youth--more strength, more growth, more beauty, a larger conscience, a sounder judgment, a more efficient will. each new generation must improve upon its parents; else the world stands still or retrogrades. in this most vivid period of life how does the home meet the needs of the growing soul? the boy largely escapes it. he is freer, even in childhood; the more resistant and combative nature, the greater impatience of pain, makes the young male far harder to coerce. he sees his father always going out, and early learns to view the home from a sex-basis, as the proper place for women and children, and to push incessantly to get away from it. from boy to boy in the alluring summer evenings we hear the cry, "come on out and have some fun!" vainly we strive and strive anew to "keep the boys at home." it cannot be done. fortunately for us it cannot be done. we dread to have them leave it, and with good reason, for well we know there is no proper place for children in the so long unmothered world; but even in danger and temptation they learn something, and those who struggle through their youth unscathed make better men than if they had been always softly shielded in the home. the world is the real field of action for humanity. so far humanity has been well-nigh wholly masculine; and the boy, feeling his humanity, pushes out into his natural field, the world. he learns and learns, from contact with his kind. he learns about all sorts of machinery, all manner of trades and businesses. he has companions above him and below him and beside him, the wide human contact in which we grow so rapidly. if he is in the city he knows the city, if he is in the country he knows the country, far more fully than his sister. a thousand influences reach him that never come to her, formative influences, good and bad, that modify character. he has far less of tutelage, espionage, restraint; he has more freedom by daylight, and he alone has any freedom after dark. all the sweet, mysterious voices of the night, the rich, soft whisperings of fragrant summer, when the moon talks and the young soul answers; the glittering, keen silence of winter nights, when between blue-black star-pointed space and the level shine of the snow stands but one living thing--yourself--all this is cut off from the girl. the real intimacy with nature comes to the soul alone, and the poor, over-handled girl soul never has it. in some few cases, isolated and enviable, she may have this common human privilege, but not enough to count. she must be guarded in the only place of safety, the home. guarded from what? from men. from the womanless men who may be prowling about while all women stay at home. the home is safe because women are there. out of doors is unsafe because women are not there. if women were there, everywhere, in the world which belongs to them as much as to men, then everywhere would be safe. we try to make the women safe in the home, and keep them there; to make the world safe for women and children has not occurred to us. so the boy grows, in the world as far as he can reach it, and the girl does not grow equally, being confined to the home. in very recent years, within one scant century, we are letting the girls go to school, even to college. they pour out into the larger field and fill it at once. their human faculties have some chance to grow as well as the over-emphasised feminine ones; and in our schools and colleges youth of both sexes finds the room, stimulus, and exercise it could not find at home. the boy who does not go to college goes to business, to work in some way. to find an able-bodied intelligent boy in a home between breakfast and supper would argue a broken leg. but girls we find by thousands and thousands; "helping mother," if mother does the work; and if there are servants to do the work, the girl does--what? what is the occupation of the daughter of the house? let us suppose her to be healthy. let us suppose her to have a fair share of ability and education. she has no longer the school or the college, she has only the home. not that she is physically confined there. she may go out by daylight, giving careful account of her steps, and visit other girls in their homes. she may receive visits, both from girls and boys; and she may go out continually to all manner of entertainments. perhaps she is expected to dust the parlour, to arrange the flowers, to "keep up her music." she has enough to eat, enough and more than enough to wear; but what exercise has she for body or brain? perhaps in games and dances she keeps her body active--but what sort of occupation is that for a young human creature of this century, a creature of power? the young woman has the same race inheritance of ability, the same large brain-growth, as the man. the physical improvement of our times is reflected in them too; fine stalwart girls we see, tall, straight, broad-shouldered. she has had, in specific education, the same mental training as the boy. how would her brother be content with a day's work of dusting the parlour and arranging the flowers; of calling and being called on? amusement is good, sometimes necessary; best and most necessary to the tired, unhappy, and overworked. but youth--healthy, happy, and vigorous, full of the press of unused power and the accumulating ambition of all the centuries--why should youth waste its splendour in such unsatisfying ways? if you ask the father, he will merely say that it is the proper position for a girl; he is "able to support her," she does not "have to work," she can amuse herself, and as for a field for her abilities--she will find that in her own home when she is married. ask her mother--and she will tell you, making a sad confession all unknowingly--"let her enjoy herself now; she will have care enough later." there is a tacit agreement that girls shall have all the "good time" possible while they are girls, that they may have it to remember! does this "good time" satisfy the girl? is she happy in her father's home, just passing the time till she moves into her husband's? sometimes she is. her education has been strong to make her so. the home atmosphere of predominant clothes and food has been about her from the cradle, and she still has clothes and food, and may elaborate them without limit. she may devote as much time to the adornment of the table as she wishes; and if her inclination take her also to the kitchen, perhaps even to the cooking school, that is more than well. she may also devote herself to the parlour and its adornment; but most naturally of all to the adornment of her own young body--all these are proper functions of the home. she may love and serve her immediate dear ones also, to any extent; that is the basic principle of it all, that is occupation enough for any girl. yes, there is occupation enough as far as filling time goes; but how if it does not satisfy? how if the girl wants something else to do--something definite, something developing? this is deprecated by the family. "work" is held by all to be a thing no mortal soul should do unless compelled by want. we speak sadly, tenderly, of the poor girl whose father died and left her unprovided for, wherefore "she had to work." we have not learned to see that some kind of work is necessary to all human creatures to use their powers; not mere tread-mill repetition of small, useless things, but such range of action as shall exercise all the faculties. and least of all have we learned to see that a human soul, to be healthy, must love and care for more than its own blood relations. what the girl, as a normal human being, wants is full exercise in large social relation; things to think about, feel, and do, which do not in any way concern the home. race-babyhood may be content at home--it was first made for babies. but as we grow up into our modern human range of power, no home can or ought to content us. we need not, therefore, cease to love it, need not neglect or ignore it. we simply need something more. that is the great lack which keeps girlhood unsatisfied; the call of the human soul for its full field of action, the world. we try to meet this lack by a surfeit of supplies for lower needs. since we first began to force upon our girl baby's astonished and resisting brain the fact that she was a girl; since we curbed her liberty by clothing and ornament calculated only to emphasise the fact of sex, and by restrictions of decorum based upon the same precocious distinction, we have never relaxed the pressure. as if we feared that there might be some mistake, that she was not really a girl but would grow up a boy if we looked the other way, we diligently strove to enforce and increase her femininity by every possible means. so by the time her womanhood does come it finds every encouragement, and the humanhood which should predominate we have restricted and forbidden. moreover, whatever of real humanness she does manifest we persist in regarding as feminine. for instance, the girl wants friends, social contact. she cannot satisfy this want in normal lines of work, in the natural contact of the busy world, so she tries to meet it on the one plane allowed--in what we call "society." her own life being starved, she seeks to touch other lives as far and fast as possible. next to doing things one's self is the association with others who can do them. so the girl reaches out for friends. women friends can give her little; their lives are empty as her own, their talk is of the same worn themes--their point of view either the kitchen or the parlour. therefore she finds most good in men friends; they are human, they are doing something. all this is set down to mere feminine "desire to attract"; we expect it, and we provide for it. our "social" machinery is largely devoted to "bringing young people together"; not in any common work, in large human interests, but in such decorated idleness, with music, perfume, and dance, as shall best minister to the only forces we are willing to promote. is the girl satisfied? is it really what she wants, all she wants? if she were a circassian slave, perhaps it would do. for the daughter of free, active, intelligent, modern america it does not do; and therefore our girls in ever-increasing numbers are leaving home. it is not that they do not love their homes; not that they do not want homes of their own in due season; it is the protest of every healthy human soul against the-home-and-nothing-else. our poorer girls are going into mills and shops, our richer ones into arts and professions, or some educational and philanthropic work. we oppose this proof of racial growth and vitality by various economic fallacies about "taking the bread out of other women's mouths"--and in especial claim that it is "competing with men," "lowering wages" and the like. we talk also, in the same breath, or the next one, about "the god-given right to work"--and know not what we mean by that great phrase. to work is not only a right, it is a duty. to work to the full capacity of one's powers is necessary for human development. it is no benefit to a human being to keep him, or her, in down-wrapped idleness, it is a gross injury. if a man could afford to put daughters and wife to bed and have them fed and washed like babies, would that be a kindness? "they do not have to walk!" he might say. yes, they do have to, else would their muscles weaken and shrink, and beauty and health disappear. for the health and beauty of the body it must have full exercise. for the health and beauty of the mind it must have full exercise. no normal human mind can find full exercise in dusting the parlour and arranging the flowers; no, nor in twelve hours of nerve-exhaustion in the kitchen. exhaustion is not exercise. "but they are free to study--to read, to improve their minds!" we protest. minds are not vats to be filled eternally with more and ever more supplies. it is _use_, large, free, sufficient use that the mind requires, not mere information. our college girls have vast supplies of knowledge; how can they use it in the home? could a college boy apply his education appropriately to "keeping house"--and, if not, how can the girl? full use of one's best faculties--this is health and happiness for both man and woman. but how about those other people's wages?--will be urged. productive labour adds to the wealth of the world, it does not take away. if wealth were a fixed quantity, shared carefully among a lot of struggling beggars, then every new beggar would decrease the other's share. to work is to _give_, not to beg. every worker adds to the world's wealth, increases everyone's share. of course there are people whose "work" is not of value to anyone; who simply use their power and skill to get other people's money away from them; the less of these the better. that is not productive labour. but so long as we see to it that the work we do is worth more than the pay we get, our consciences may be clean; we give to the world and rob no one. as to the immediate facts that may be alleged, "overcrowded labour market," "over-production," and such bugaboos, these are only facts as watered stock and stolen franchises are facts; not economic laws, but criminal practices. a temporary superficial error in economic conduct need not blind us to permanent basic truth, and the truth which concerns us here is that a human creature must work for the health and power and pleasure of it; and that all good work enriches the world. so the girl need not stay at home and content her soul with chocolate drops lest some other girl lose bread. she may butter that bread and share the confections, by her labour, if it be productive. and by wise working she may learn to see how unwise and how unnecessary are the very conditions which now hold her back. at present she is generally held back. her father will not allow her to work. her mother needs her at home. so she stays a while longer. if she marries, she passes out of this chapter, becoming, without let or change, "the lady of the house." if she does not marry, what then? what has father or mother, sister or brother, to offer to the unmarried woman? what is the home to her who has no "home of her own"? the wife and mother has a real base in her home: distorted and overgrown though it may have become, away in at the centre lies the everlasting founder--in the little child. unnecessary as are the mother's labours now, they were once necessary, they have a base of underlying truth. but what real place has a grown woman of twenty-five and upwards in anyone else's home? she is not a child, and not a mother. the initial reason for being at home is not there. what business has she in it? the claim of filial devotion is usually advanced to meet this question. her parents need her. and here comes out in glaring colours the distinction between girl and boy, between man's and woman's labour. whatever of filial gratitude, love, and service is owed to the parent is equally owed by boy and girl. if there is a difference it should be on the boy's side, as he is more trouble when little and less assistance in the house when big. now, what is the accepted duty of the boy to the parents, when they are old, feeble, sick, or poor? first, to maintain them, that is, to provide for them the necessaries of life and as much more as he can compass. then, to procure for them service and nursing, if need be. also himself to bestow affection and respect, and such part of his time as he can spare from the labour required to maintain them. this labour he performs like a civilised man, by the service of other people in some specialised industry; and his ability to care for his parents is measured by his ability to perform that larger service. what is the accepted duty of the girl to the parents in like case? she is required to stay at home and wait upon them with her own hands, serve them personally, nurse them personally, give all her time and strength to them, and this in the old, old uncivilised way, with the best of intentions, but a degree of ability measured by the lowest of averages. it is the duty of the child to care for the infirm parent--that is not questioned; but how? why, in one way, by one child, and in so different a way by another? the duty is precisely the same; why is the manner of fulfilling it so different? if the sick and aged mother has a capable son to support her, he provides for her a house, clothing, food, a nurse, and a servant. if she has but a daughter, that daughter can only furnish the nurse and servant in her own person, skilled or unskilled as the case may be; and both of them are a charge upon the other relatives or the community for the necessaries of life. why does not the equally capable daughter _do more_ to support her parent when it is necessary? she cannot, if she is herself the nurse and servant. why does she have to be herself the nurse and servant? because she has been always kept at home and denied the opportunity to take up some trade or profession by which she could have at once supported herself, her parents, and done good service in the world. because "the home is the place for women," and in the home is neither social service nor self-support. there is another and a darker side to this position. the claim of exclusive personal service from the daughter is maintained by parents who are not poor, not old, not sick, not feeble; by a father who is quite able to pay for all the service he requires, and who prefers to maintain his daughter in idleness for his own antiquated masculine pride--and by a mother who is quite able to provide for herself, if she choose to; who is no longer occupied by the care of little children, who does not even do house-service, but who lives in idleness herself, and then claims the associate idleness of her daughter, on grounds past finding out. perhaps it is that an honourably independent daughter, capable, respected, well-paid, valuable to the community, would be an insupportable reproach to the lady of the house. perhaps it is a more pathetic reason--the home-bound, half-developed life, released from the immediate cares, which, however ill-fulfilled, at least gave sanction to her position, now seeks to satisfy its growing emptiness by the young life's larger hope and energy. this may be explanation, but is no justification. the value and beauty of motherhood depend on the imperative needs of childhood. the filial service of the child depends on the imperative needs of the parent. when the girl is twenty-one and the mother is forty-five, neither position holds. the amount of love and care needed by either party does not require all day for its expression. the young, strong, well-educated girl should have her place and work, equally with her brother. does not the mother love her son, though he is in business? could she not manage to love a daughter in business, too? it is not love, far less is it wisdom, which so needlessly immolates a young life on the altar of this ancient custom of home-worship. the loving mother is not immortal. what is to become of the unmarried daughter after the mother is gone? what has the home done to fit her for life. she may be rich enough to continue to live in it, not to "have to work," but is she, at fifty, still to find contentment in dusting the parlour and arranging the flowers, in calling and receiving calls, in entertaining and being entertained? where is her business, her trade, her art, her profession, her place in life? the home is not the whole of life. it is a very minor part of it--a mere place of preparation for living. to keep the girl at home is to cut her off from life. more and more is this impossible. the inherited power of the ages is developing women to such an extent that by the simple force of expansion they are cracking the confining walls about them, bursting out in all directions, rising under the enormous pressure that keeps them down like mushrooms under a stone. the girl has now enough of athletic training to strengthen her body, balance her nerves, set her tingling with the healthy impulse to _do_. she has enough mental training to give some background and depth to her mind, with the habit of thinking somewhat. if she is a college girl, she has had the inestimable privilege of looking at the home _from outside_, in which new light and proportion it has a very different aspect. the effort is still made by proud and loving fathers, unconscious of their limitations, to keep her there afterward, and by loving mothers even more effectually. they play upon the strings of conscience, duty, and affection. they furnish every pleasant temptation of physical comfort, ease, the slow corruption of unearned goods. to oppose this needs a wider range of vision and a greater strength of character than the daughter of a thousand homes can usually command. the school has helped her, but she has not had it long. the college has helped her more, but that is not a general possession as yet, and has had still shorter influence. strong, indeed, is the girl who can decide within herself where duty lies, and follow that decision against the combined forces which hold her back. she must claim the right of every individual soul to its own path in life, its own true line of work and growth. she must claim the duty of every individual soul to give to its all-providing society some definite service in return. she must recognise the needs of the world, of her country, her city, her place and time in human progress, as well as the needs of her personal relations and her personal home. and, further, using the parental claim of gratitude and duty in its own teeth, she must say: "because i love you i wish to be worthy of you, to be a human creature you may be proud of as well as a daughter you are fond of. because i owe you care and service when you need it, i must fit myself now to render that care and service efficiently. moreover, my duty to you is not all my duty in the world. life is not merely an aggregation of families. i must so live as to meet all my duties, and, in so doing, i shall better love and serve my parents." conscience is strong in women. children are very violently taught that they owe all to their parents, and the parents are not slow in foreclosing the mortgage. but the home is not a debtor's prison--to girls any more than to boys. this enormous claim of parents calls for examination. do they in truth do all for their children; do their children owe all to them? is nothing furnished in the way of safety, sanitation, education, by that larger home, the state? what could these parents do, alone, in never so pleasant a home, without the allied forces of society to maintain that home in peace and prosperity. these lingering vestiges of a patriarchal cult must be left behind. ancestor-worship has had victims enough. girls are human creatures as well as boys, and both have duties, imperative duties, quite outside the home. one more protest is to be heard: "most girls marry. surely they might stay at home contentedly until they leave it for another." yes, most girls marry. all girls ought to--unless there is something wrong with them. and, being married, they should have homes. but, to have a home and enjoy it, is one thing; to stay in it--the whole time--is quite another. it is the same old assumption that woman is a house-animal; that she has no place in the open, no business in the world. if the girl had a few years of practical experience in the world she would be far better able to enjoy and appreciate her own home when she had one. at present, being so much restricted where she is, she very often plunges from the frying-pan into the fire, simply from too much home. "why should she have married that fellow!" cries the father; "i gave her a good home--she had everything she wanted." it does not enter the mind of this man that a woman is something more than a rabbit. even rabbits, well-fed rabbits, will gnaw and dig to get out--they like to run as well as eat. also, the girl whose character has time to "set" a little in some legitimate business associations, instead of being held in everlasting solution at home, will be able to face the problems of domestic industry and expense with new eyes. no men, with practical sense and trained minds, would put up for a week with the inchoate mass of wasted efforts in the home; and, when women have the same trained minds and practical sense, they will not put up with it much longer. for the home's sake, as well as her own sake, the girl will profit by experience in the working world. once she learns the pleasure and power of specialisation, the benefits of organisation, the advantages of combination, the whole tremendous enginery of civilised life, she can no more drop back into her ancestral cradle than her brother could turn into an arcadian shepherd, piping prettily to his fleecy charge. xiv home influence on men in our peculiar and artificial opposition of "the home" and "the world," we have roughly ascribed all the virtues to the first, and all the vices to the second. "the world, the flesh, and the devil" we still associate, forgetting that home is the very temple of the flesh, and in no way impervious to the devil. sin is found at home as generally as elsewhere--must be, unless women are sinless and men absolved on entering the sacred door. there are different sins and virtues, truly, as we have seen in the chapter on domestic ethics. there is less fighting at home, as there is but one man there. there is less stealing, the goods being more in common, only sometimes a sly rifling of pockets by the unpaid wife. a man pays his housekeeper, or his housemaids, because he has to; and he pays, and pays highly, the purely extortionate women of pleasure; but sometimes he forgets to pay his wife, and sometimes she steals. the home has patience, chastity, industry, love. but there is less justice, less honour, less courage, less truth; it does not embrace all the virtues. such as it is, strong for good and also very weak for some good, possibly even showing some tendencies to evil, what is its influence on men? the boy baby feels it first; and that we have touched on. the home teaches the boy that women were made for service, domestic service, that the principal cares and labours of life are those which concern the body, and that his own particular tastes and preferences are of enormous importance. as fast as he gets out of the home and into the school, he learns quite other things, getting his exaggerated infant egotism knocked out of him very suddenly, and, as he gets out of school and into business, also into politics, he learns still further of the conditions of life. proportion changes, perspective changes; he grows to have a very different view of life from the woman's view. the same thing happening to a man and a woman produces a widely varying effect; what is a trifle in the day's large activities to him is an event of insistent pressure to her; and, here, in the eternal misunderstanding between the home-bred woman and the world-bred man, lie the seeds of ceaseless trouble. the different range of vision of the occupant of the home and the occupant of the world makes it impossible for them to see things similarly. we are familiar with the difference, but have always considered it a distinction of sex. we have called the broader, sounder, better balanced, more fully exercised brain "a man's brain," and the narrower, more emotional and personal one "a woman's brain"; whereas the difference is merely that between the world and the house. the absolute relation between any animal's brain and his range of activity is patent to the zoölogist, and simply furnishes the proof of its law of development. the greater the extent and complexity of any creature's business, the greater the mental capacity, of course. we are familiar with the mental effect of living on small islands--"the insular mind," "insular prejudice" are well known terms. the smaller the island, the more deprived of contact and association with the rest of the world, the greater the insularity of mind. the englishman is somewhat affected by the size of his country; the manxman still more, and the dwellers on the lighthouse rock most of all. our homes are not physically isolated, save on scattered farms and ranches--where the worst results are found; but they are isolated in their interests and industries. the thought used every day is thought about half a dozen people and their concerns, mainly their personal bodily care and comfort; the mental processes of the woman must needs be intensified in personality as they are limited in range. hence her greater sensitiveness to all personal events, and that quick variation in attitude so inevitable in a mind whose daily work involves continual and instant change. _varium et mutabile!_ murmurs the man sagely--"a woman's privilege is to change her mind!" if the nature of his industry were such that he had to change his mind from cooking to cleaning, from cleaning to sewing, from sewing to nursing, from nursing to teaching, and so, backward, forward, crosswise and over again, from morning to night--he too would become adept in the lightning-change act. the man adopts one business and follows it. he develops special ability, on long lines, in connection with wide interests--and so grows broader and steadier. the distinction is there, but it is not a distinction of sex. this is why the man forgets to mail the letter. he is used to one consecutive train of thought and action. she, used to a varying zigzag horde of little things, can readily accommodate a few more. the home-bred brain of the woman continually puzzles and baffles the world-bred brain of the man; and from the beginning of their association it has an effect upon him. in childhood even he sees his sister serving in the home functions far more than he is required to do; she is taught to "clean up" where he is not; different values are assigned to the same act in boy or girl, and he is steadily influenced by it. the first effect of the home on the boy is seen very young in his contempt for girls, and girls' play or work. when, after a period of separation wherein he has consorted as far as possible only with boys and men, he is again drawn towards the girl on lines of sex-attraction, a barrier has risen between them which is never wholly removed. he has immense areas of experience utterly unknown to her. his words and acts in a given case are modified by a thousand memories and knowledges which she has not; so word and act differ sharply, though the immediate exciting cause be the same. the very terms they use have different weight and meaning; the man must pick and choose and adopt a different speech in talking to a woman. he loves, he admires, he venerates; and from this attitude considering all her foolishness and ignorance as feminine and therefore charming, he is thus taught to worship ignoble things. charles reade in his "peg woffington" describes that strong, brave, intelligent, and most charming woman as starting and screaming at a very distant rat--and her lover being therefore more strongly attracted to her. every sign of weakness, timidity, inability to understand and do, is deemed feminine and admired. yet we all know that the best love is that which exalts, that which truly respects as well as fondly enjoys. the smallness of the home-bound woman is not so injurious as the still smaller nature of the harem-bound, by as much as the home is larger and freer than the harem; but just as harem women limit man's growth, so do home women in slighter degree. the influence of women upon men is enormous. the home-bound mother limits the child and boy; the home-bound girl limits the youth; and the home-bound wife keeps up the pressure for life. it is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating; but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed, and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it. the woman is narrowed by the home and the man is narrowed by the woman. in proportion as man is great, as his interests are world-wide and his abilities high, is he injured by constant contact with a smaller mind. the more ordinary man feels it less, being himself nearer to the domestic plane of thought and action; but the belittling effect is there all the time. if the boy's mother commanded as wide a range of action as his father; if her work were something to honour and emulate as well as her dear self something to love, the boy would never learn to use that bitter term "only mother." the father is a soldier, and the boy admires and longs to follow in great deeds. the father is a captain of industry--a skilled tradesman, a good physician--the boy has the father to love, and the work to admire as well. the father is something to other people, as well as all in all to him; and the boy has a new respect for him, seeing him in the social relation as well as the domestic. but his mother he sees only in the domestic relation and is early taught by the father himself, that he is "to take care of her!" think of it! teaching a child that he is to take care of his mother! a full-grown able-bodied woman will take a child of ten out with her at night--"to protect her!" the exquisite absurdity of this position has no comparison or parallel. think of a cow protected by a calf! a bear by a cub--a cat by a kitten! a tall, swift mare by a lanky colt! an alert, sharp-toothed collie by a tumbling, fat-pawed pup! how can a boy respect a thing that he, a child, can take care of! he can love, and does. he can take care of, and does. he can later on support, and does; and even--this in a recent instance of this sublime monstrosity--he can "give away" _his own mother_ in marriage! no wonder he so soon learns to say "only mother!" when she is _not_ only mother, but mother and much besides, a real human being, usefully exercising her human faculties, the boy will make a better man. again, if his sister shared every freedom and advantage of childhood; were equally educated, not only in school, but in play, and in the ever-stimulating experiences of daily life, he would feel far differently toward her. see two children on a journey, the mother holding fast to the girl from beginning to end, only the car seat and window for her; the boy on the steps, the platform, running about the station, asking questions of brakeman and engineer, learning all the time. the boy gets five times as much out of life as the girl, and he knows it. it is not long before he is ashamed to play with girls, and one cannot blame him. then comes the sweetheart. a new deep love, a great overmastering reverence for the woman, rises in his heart. in the light of that love he accepts her as she is, glorifying and idealising every weakness, every limitation, because it is hers. this is not well. he could love her just as well, better, if his reverence were better deserved, if the dignity of sex were enhanced by the dignity of a wise, strong, capable human being. of course the man feels that he would not love her as well if she were different. so he felt in past ages when she was even more feminine, even less human. so he will feel in coming ages, when she is truly his equal, a strong and understanding friend, a restful and stimulating companion, as well as the beautiful and loving woman. we have always been drawn together by love and always will be. the beautiful georgian slave is beloved, the peasant lass, the princess; man loves woman, and she need not fear any change in that. our error lies in a false estimate of womanhood and manhood. the home, its labours, cares, and limitations we have called womanly; and everything else in life manly; wherefore if a woman manifested any power, ambition, interest, outside the home, that was unwomanly and must cost her her position as such. this is entirely wrong. a woman is a woman and attractive to the men of her place and time, whether she be a beaded hottentot, a rosy milkmaid, a pretty schoolma'am, or a veiled beauty of the zenana. we are taught that man most loves and admires the domestic type of woman. this is one of the roaring jokes of history. the breakers of hearts, the queens of romance, the goddesses of a thousand devotees, have not been cooks. women in general are attractive to men, but let a woman be glaringly conspicuous--the great singer, dancer, actress--immediately she has lovers without number. the best-loved women of all time have not been the little brown birds at home, by any means. of course, when a man marries the queen of song he expects her to settle at once to the nest and remain there. but does he thereafter maintain the same degree of devotion that he bestowed before? it is not easy, after all, to maintain the height of romantic devotion for one's house-servant--or even one's housekeeper. the man loves his wife; but it is in spite of the home--not because of it. and wherever the shadow of unhappiness falls between them, wherever the sad record of sorrow and sin is begun, it is too often because love strays from that domestic area to follow a freer bird in a wider field. it is not marriage which brings this danger, it is domestic service; it is not the perfect and mutual ownership of love, nor the sanction of law and religion; it is the one-sided ownership wherein the wife becomes the private servant, cook, cleaner, mender of rents, a valet, janitor, and chambermaid. even as such she has more practical claim to respect than the wife who does not do this work nor any other; who is not the servant of the house, but merely its lady; who has absolutely no claim to human honour, no place in the social scheme, except that of the female. thus we find that the influence of the home upon man, as felt through the home-restricted woman, is not always for the best; and that even, as supposedly increasing the woman's charm, it does not work. what follows further of the influence of the home upon man directly? how does it modify his personal life and development? the boy grows and breaks out of the home. it has for him a myriad ties--but he does not like to be tied. he strikes out for himself. if he is an english boy of the upper classes he is cut off early and sent to a boarding school; later he has "chambers" of his own. if an american, he simply goes into business, and in most cases away from home, boarding for a while. then he loves, marries, and sets up a home of his own; a woman-and-child house, which he gladly and proudly maintains and in many ways enjoys. so satisfied are we in our convictions regarding this status that we really and practically worship the home and family, holding it to be a man's first duty to maintain them. no man does it more patiently and generously than the american, and he is supported in his position by all the moral opinion of our world. he is "a good family man" we say, and can say no more. to stay at home evenings is especially desirable; the more of life that can be spent at home the better, we think, for all concerned. now what is the real effect upon the man? is the home, as we have it, satisfying to the real needs of man's nature; and if not, could it be improved? the best proof of man's dissatisfaction with the home is found in his universal absence from it. it is not only that his work takes him out (and he sees to it that it does!) but the man who does not "have to work" also goes out, for pleasure. the leisure classes in any country have no necessity upon them to leave home, yet their whole range of uneasy activity is to get outside, or to furnish constant diversion and entertainment, to while away the hours within. a human creature must work, play, or rest. men work outside, play outside, and cannot rest more than so long at a time. the man maintains a home, as part of his life-area, but does not himself find room in it. this is legitimate enough. it should be equally true of the woman. no human life of our period can find full exercise in a home. both need it, to rest in; to work from; but not to stay in. this we find practically worked out in the average man's attitude toward the home. he provides it, cheerfully, affectionately, proudly; at any cost of labour, care, and ingenuity; but if he has to stay in it too much, he knows it softens and enfeebles him. so he goes out, to meet men, to work and live as far as he can; and when he wants "a real good time,"--rest, recreation, healthful amusement,--he goes altogether with "the boys." the distant camp in the woods, the mountain climb, the hunting trip,--real rest and pleasure to the man are found with men away from home. there is a sort of strain in the constant association with the smaller life, as there is in the painful keeping step with shorter legs; a slow, soft, gentle downward pull, against which every active man rebels. but he is bound to it, for life. the immutable laws of sex hold him to the woman; and as she is so he must be, more or less. he is bound to the home by the needs of the child, and by the physical convenience and necessity of the place. if it were all that it should be, it would offer to the man rest, comfort, stimulus, and inspiration. in so far as it does, it is right. in so far as it does not, it is wrong. the ideal home shines clear and bright, at the end of the day's work. peace and happiness, relief from all effort and anxiety, the calm replenishment of food and sleep, the most delightful companionship. in some cases it gives all this in fact. in many, many others the man has to descend in coming home--to come down to it instead of up. in it is a whole new field of cares, worries, and labours. the primitive machinery of the place, so imperfectly managed by the inexpert average woman, jars rudely on his specialised consciousness. the children are his pride and joy--that is as it should be. but when their lack of intelligent care robs him of his rest at night; and their lack of intelligent education, makes them an anxiety and a distress instead of a comfort; that is as it should not be. he does not bring his deficiencies in business home to his wife and expect her to walk the floor at night with them. the systematised man's work is done for the day, and he comes home to shoulder a share of the unsystematised inadequate woman's work. when the woman of exceptional ability keeps the whole house running smoothly, has no trouble with servants, no trouble with the children, then the influence of the home on man is pure beneficence. such cases are most rare. so used are we to the contrary, so besotted in our blind adoration of ancient deficiencies, that we exhort the young couple to face "the cares and troubles of married life" as if they really were an essential part of it. they have nothing to do with married life. they are the cares and troubles of our antiquated, mischievous system of housekeeping. if men in their business were still using methods of a million years ago, they would need some exhortation too. it is marvellous that the same man who casts upon the scrap heap his most expensive machinery to replace it with still better, who constantly adjusts and readjusts his business to the latest demands of our rapidly changing time, can go home and contentedly endure the same petty difficulties which his father and his grandfather and all his receding ancestors endured in turn. the inadequacy of the home, the gross imperfections of its methods and management have anything but a helpful influence on men. necessary difficulties are to be borne or overcome, but to suffer with a sickle when a steam reaper is to be had is contemptible rather than elevating. there will be some pathetic protest here that it is a man's duty to help woman bear the troubles and difficulties of the home. the woman ardently believes this, and the man too, sometimes. of all incredible impositions this is the most astounding. here we see half the human race, equally able with the other half (equal does not mean similar, remember!), content to see every industry on earth taken away from them, save house-service and child-culture, growing up in the full knowledge and acceptance of this field of labour, generally declining to study said industries before undertaking them, cheerfully undertaking them without any pretense of efficiency, and then calling upon the other half of the world, upon men, who do everything else that is done to maintain our civilisation, to help them do their work! we object to seeing the man harness the woman to the plough, and we are right. it is a poor way to work. a horse is more efficient, a steam-plough still better. it is time that we objected to the woman's effort to harness the man to the home, in all its cumbrous old-world inefficiencies. it is not more labour that the home wants, it is better machinery and administration. some hold that the feebleness of woman has a beneficent effect on man, draws out many of his nobler qualities. he should then marry a bed-ridden invalid--a purblind idiot--and draw them all out! the essential weakness and deficiencies of the child are quite sufficient to call out all the strength and wisdom of both parents, without adding this travesty of childhood, this pretended helplessness of a full-grown woman. the shame of it! that a mother, one who needs every attainable height of wisdom and power, should forego her own human development--to make good her claim on man for food and clothes and draw out his nobler qualities! the virtue of parentage is to be measured by its success, not by the amount of effort and sacrifice expended. granting that the care of the body is woman's especial work; the feeding, clothing, and cleaning of the world; she should by this time have developed some system of doing it which would make it less of a burden to the man as well as the woman. it is most discreditable to the business sense of a modern community that these vitally important life processes should be so clumsily performed, at such heavy cost of time, labour, and money. the care and education of children are legitimately shared by the father. in this a man and his wife are truly partners. they engage in a common business and both labour in it. at present the man by no means does his share in this all-important work, save as he does it collectively, through school and college; there the woman is in default. in the early years the man gives little thought and care to the child, this being supposed to be perfectly well attended to by the woman. that it is not, we may readily see; but the man can by no means assist in it; because he is so overburdened already in the material provision for the home. the enormous and unnecessary expense of our domestic processes constitutes so excessive a drain on man's energy that it would be cruel, as well as useless, to expect him to do more. with the reduction in expense which we have shown to be possible, lessening the cost of living by two-thirds and adding to productive labour by nearly half, the home, instead of being an unconscionable burden and ceaseless care, would become what it should be: an easily attained place of complete rest, comfort, peace, and invigoration. the present influence of the home on men is felt most through this inordinate expense. the support of the family we have laid entirely upon man, thus developing in the dependent woman a limitless capacity for receiving things, and denying her the power to produce them. if this result remained in its simple first degree it would be bad enough; requiring of the man the maintenance of himself, a healthy able-bodied woman, and all the children, instead of having a vigorous helpmate, to honourably support herself, and do her share toward supporting her own children. this result is cumulative, however. the confinement of the woman to the home, when she does not labour, results in her becoming a parasite, and the appetite of a parasite is insatiable. she has no sense of what we call "the value of money,"--meaning how much labour it represents,--because she never laboured for it. she received it from her father, all unthinking of where he got it, as is natural to a child; and she continues to be a child, receiving as unthinkingly from her husband. this position we consider right, even beautiful; man stoutly maintains it himself, and considers any effort of the woman to support herself as a reflection on him. he has arrogated to himself as a masculine function the power of producing wealth; and considers it "unfeminine" for a woman to do it; and as indicating a lack of manliness in him. he should "consider the ant," in this capacity, or the bee; and see that a purely masculine functionary has no other occupation whatsoever. he should consider also the male savage--he is "masculine" enough surely; but he is little else. last, nearest, and most practical he should consider the immense majority of women all over the world to-day who labour in the home. the lady of the house is a pure parasite, almost wholly detrimental in her influence, but the housewife is one of the hardest workers on earth. she works unceasingly; as mrs. diaz put it years ago, in a thoughtful husband's sudden consideration of his wife's working hours--"no noonings--no evenings--no rainy days!" she works harder and longer than the man, in a miscellaneous shifting field of effort far more exhausting to vitality than his specialised line; _and she bears children too_! if any man could make a boast equal to that of the mother of nine children--(whose son told me this himself) that she had never missed washing on monday _but twice_--there might be some ground for the claim of superior strength. in this kind of home--and it is still the rule on earth--what is the influence on man? does this grade and amount of labour on the part of women lighten the burden, as we so fondly and proudly assume? it shows great ignorance of economic values to assume it. the poorer a man is, the more he has to pay for everything. in this nine-tenths of our population where the woman works in the home, the man works harder and gets less comfort for his money than among those more successful men able to maintain a parasite. he sustains to the fullest degree all the economic disadvantages we have previously enumerated--the last extreme of wasteful purchase, the lowest stage of industrial exchange. with him, a self-supporting wife would at once double the family income, and the benefits of organised labour and purchase would reduce their expenses at the same time. the unnecessary expenses of a poor man's home are far greater in proportion than those of the rich man; and his enjoyment of the place is less. he has always a tired wife, an unprogressive wife, a wife who cannot be to him what a strong, happy, growing woman should be. if she had eight hours (to take even the custom of our labour-wasting time) of specialised work, to be done with and left with eagerness for the beloved home, she would have a far fresher and more stimulating mind than she has after her ceaseless, confusing toils in the confined domestic atmosphere. the two, together, could afford a better house. the two, together, with twice the money and half the expense for food, could furnish their children with far better care than the overworked and undereducated housewife can give them. the result upon the man would be pleasant, indeed. a clean, pretty, quiet home--not full of smell and steam and various messy industries, but simply a place to rest in when he comes to it. a wife as glad to be at home as he. children also glad of the reunion hour, and the mother and father both delighted to be with their children. what is there in this a man should dread? would not such a home be good to come to, and would not its influence be wholly pleasant? our puritanism shrinks at the idea of homes being wholly pleasant. they should be something of a trial, we think, for our soul's good. the wife and mother ought to be tired and overworked, careworn, dirty, anxious from hour to hour as she tries to "mind the children" and all her other trades as well. the man ought to be contented with the exhausted wife, the screaming babies, the ill-cooked food, the general weary chaos of the place, the endless demand on his single purse. is he? what is the average workingman's attitude toward this supposed haven of rest? the statistics of the temperance society are enough to show us the facts. a man does not like that kind of a place--and why should he? he is tired, working for six or ten; and to go from his completed labour of the day, back to his wife's uncompleted labour of the day and night, does not rest him. he wants companionship. she cannot give it him. her talk is of the suds, the coal, the need of shoes, clothes, furniture, utensils--everything! he wants amusement, she cannot give it him. an exhausted woman, taken every day, is not entertaining. the children are, or should be, in bed. the wife wants rest and companionship, and amusement, too; but that is another story. we are considering the man. she must stay at home in any case, the home being her place; but he does not have to, and out he goes. the instinctive demands of a highly developed human creature, a social creature, are strong within him; needs as vital as the needs of the body, and utterly unsatisfied at home. out he goes, and to the one pleasant open door--the saloon. ease, freedom, comfort, pleasant company, talk of something new, amusement--these are the main needs; and if a stimulating drink is the necessary price, there is nothing in the average man's ill-fed stomach, overdeveloped personal selfishness, or untrained conscience, to refuse it. the measureless results in evil we all know well. many are the noble souls devoting their life's efforts to the closing of the saloon, the driving back of erring man to the safe and supposedly all-satisfying shelter of the home. we do not dream that it is the home which drives him there. one thing we have divined at last; that insufficient and ill-chosen food, villainously cooked, is one great cause of man's need for stimulants. under this much illumination we now strive mightily to make man's private cook a better cook. if every man's wife were a delmonico, if his appetites were catered to with absolute skill and ingenuity, would that teach him temperance and self-control? the worse the private cook, the greater the physical need for stimulant. the better the private cook, the greater the self-indulgence developed in the happy epicurean. but good or bad, no man of any grade can get the social stimulus he needs by spending every evening with his cook! that is the key to the whole thing. your cook may be "a treasure," she may cater to your needs most exquisitely, she may also be the mother of your children, as has been the case from the earliest times; but she is none the less your own personal servant, and as such not your social equal. you may love her dearly and honour her in her female capacity, also honour the excellence of her cooking, but you are not satisfied with her conversation or her skill in games. the influence of the home with a working wife is not all that could be desired; and we may turn with some hope of better things to the home with a parasite wife. here certainly the man comes home to rest and peace and comfort, and to satisfying companionship with the "eternal feminine." here is a woman who is nothing on earth but a woman, not even a cook. here, of course, the food is satisfactory; the children all a father's heart could wish, having the advantage of the incessant devotion of an entire mother; the machinery of the home, so painfully prominent to the workingman, is here running smoothly and unseen; and the whole thing is well within the means of the proud "provider." what the food supply is in the hands of the housemaid we have seen. what the child is in the hands of the nursemaid, we may see anywhere. the parasitic woman by no means uses the time free of housework to devote herself to her children. a mother is essentially a worker. when a woman does not work it dries the very springs of motherhood. the idler she is, the less she does for her children. the rich man's children are as often an anxiety and disappointment to him as the poor man's. the expense of the place is a thing of progressive dimensions. the home of the parasitic woman is a bottomless pit for money. she is never content. how could a human creature be content in such an unnatural position? she is supplied with nourishment; she has such social stimulus as her superficial contact with her kind affords, but nothing comes out; there is no commensurate action. in the uneasy distress of this position her only idea of relief is to get something more; if she is not satisfied after one dinner, get or give another dinner; if not satisfied with one dress, get two, get twenty, get them all! if the home does not satisfy, by all means get another one in the country; perhaps that will feel different; try first one and then the other. if the two, or three, should pall, get a yacht, go to some other country, get more things to put in the home or on one's pretty body; get, get, get! and never a thought of the ease and freedom and joy that would come of doing. not of playing at doing, with a hot poker or a modelling tool--but really doing human work. it does not occur to her, and it does not occur to him. he thinks it right and beautiful to maintain the dainty domestic vampire, and pours forth his life's service to meet her insatiate demands. all the reward he asks is her love and faith, her sweet companionship. may we look, then, in homes of this class for an ideal influence on man? consecrating his life to the business of not only feeding and clothing, but profusely decorating and amusing a useless woman,--does this have an elevating effect on him? when he thinks of how charming she will look in the costly fur, the lace, the jewels, how she will enjoy the new home, the new carriage, the new furniture; of her fresh and ceaseless delight in her "social functions"--does his heart leap within him? he performs wonders in business, honest or dishonest, useful to mankind or cruel; he slowly relinquishes the ideals of his youth, devotes his talents to whatever will make the most money, even prostitutes his political conscience, and robs the city and the state, in order to meet the demands of that fair, plump, smiling queen of the home. and she gives in return--? her influence is--? the working wife does not lift a man up very high. the parasite wife pulls him down. the home of the working wife gives to boy and man the impression that women are servants. the home of the idle wife gives to boy and man the impression that women are useless and rapacious; but, we must have them because they are women. this is the worst that the home shows us, and is, fortunately, confined to a minority of cases. but it is none the less an evil influence of large extent. it leaves to the woman no functions whatever save those of the female, and, as exaggeration is never health, does not improve her as a female. the really restful and stimulating companionship of man and wife, the general elevating social intercourse between men and women, is not to be found in the homes of the wealthy any more than in those of the poor. the demands upon the man are unending, and the returns in good to body or mind bear no proportion to the expense. the woman who has no other field of usefulness or growth than a home wherein she is not even the capable servant, cannot be the strong, noble, uplifting creature who does good to man; but rapidly becomes the type most steadily degrading. xv home and social progress if there is one fact more patent than another in regard to social evolution, it is that our gain is far greater in material progress than in personal. the vast and rapid increase in wealth, in power, in knowledge, in facility and speed in production and distribution; the great spread of political, religious, and educational advantages; all this is in no way equalled by any gain in personal health and personal happiness. the world grows apace; the people do not keep pace with it. our most important machines miss much of their usefulness because the brain of the workman has not improved as rapidly as the machine. great systems of transportation, involving intricate mechanical arrangement, break continually at this, their weakest link--the human being. we create and maintain elaborate systems of justice and equity, of legislation, administration, education; and they are always open to failure in this same spot--the men are not equal to the system. the advance in public good is far greater than the advance in private good. we have improved every facility in living; but we still live largely as before--sick, feeble, foolishly quarrelling over small personal matters, unaware of our own great place in social evolution. this has always been known to us and has been used only to prove our ancient theory as to the corrupt and paltry stuff humanity is made of. "frail creatures of dust, and feeble as frail," is our grovelling confession; and to those who try to take comfort in our undeniable historic gains, it has been triumphantly pointed out that, gain as we would, "the human heart" was no better--"poor human nature" was unimprovable. this is utterly untrue. human nature has changed and improved in tremendous ratio; and, if its improvement has been strangely irregular, far greater in social life than in personal life, it is for a very simple reason. all these large social processes which show such marked improvement are those wherein people work together in legitimate specialised lines in the world. these personal processes which have not so improved, the parts of life which are still so limited and imperfectly developed, may be fully accounted for by their environment--the ancient and unchanging home. bring the home abreast of our other institutions; and our personal health and happiness will equal our public gains. once more it must be stated that the true home, the legitimate and necessary home, the home in right proportion and development, is wholly good. it is at once the beautiful beginning, the constant help, and one legitimate end of a life's work. to the personal life, the physical life, this is enough. to the social life, it is not. if human duty had no other scope than to maintain and reproduce this species of animal, that duty might be accomplished in the home. the purely maternal female, having no other reason for being than to bear and rear young; a marauding male, to whom the world was but a hunting ground wherein to find food for his family--these, and their unimproved successors, need nothing more than homes. but human duty is not so limited. these processes of reproduction are indeed essential to our human life, as are the processes of respiration and digestion, but they do not constitute that life, much less conclude it. as human beings, our main field of duty lies in promoting social advance. to maintain ourselves and our families is an animal duty we share with the other animals; to maintain each other, and, by so doing to increase our social efficiency, is human duty, first, last, and always. we have always seen the necessity for social groups, religious, political, and other; we have more or less fulfilled our social functions therein; but we have in the main supposed that all this common effort was merely for the greater safety and happiness of homes; and when the interests of the home and those of the state clashed, most of us have put home first. the first person to learn better was that very earliest of social servants, the soldier. he learned first of all to combine for the common good, and though his plane of service was the lowest of all, mere destruction, the group sentiments involved were of the highest order. the destructive belligerence of the male, and his antecedent centuries of brute combat, made fighting qualities most prominent; but the union and organisation required for successful human warfare called out high social qualities, too. the habit of acting together necessarily develops in the brain the power and desire to act together; the fact that success or failure, life or death, advantage or injury, depends on collective action, necessarily develops the social consciousness. this modification we find in the army everywhere, gradually increasing with race-heredity; and, long since, so far overwhelming the original egoism of the individual animal, that the common soldier habitually sacrifices his life to the public service without hesitation. the steps in social evolution must always be made in this same natural order, from one stage of development to another, by means of existing qualities. primitive man had no altruism, he had no honour, his courage was flickering and wholly personal; he had no sense of order and discipline, of self-control and self-sacrifice; but he had a strong inclination to fight, and by means of that one tendency he was led into relations which developed all those other qualities. it is easy to see that this stage of our social development was diametrically opposed by the home. the interests of the home demanded personal service; the habits of the home bred industry and patience; the influence of the inmates of the home, of the women and children, did not promote martial qualities. so our valorous ancestor promptly left home and went a-fighting, for thousands and thousands of years, while human life was maintained by the women at home. when men gradually learned to apply their energies to production, instead of destruction; learning in slow, painful, costly ages that wealth was in no way increased by robbing, nor productive strength by slaughter; they were able to apply to their new occupations some of the advantageous qualities gained in the old. thus industry grew, spread, organised, and the power and riches and wisdom of the world began to develop. as far back as history can go we find some men producing, even while a large and important caste was still fighting. the warriors sought wealth by plundering other nations, not realising that if the other nations had been all warriors there would have been nothing to plunder. slowly the wealth-makers overtook the wealth-takers, caught up with them, passed them; and now the greater part of the masculine energy of the world is devoted to productive industry in some form, and the army is recruited from the lowest ranks of life. in this new field of social service, productive industry, what is the influence of the home? at first it was altogether good. to wean the man from his all too-natural instinct to wander, kill, and rob, the attractions of home life were needed. to centre and localise his pride and power, to make him bend his irregular expansive tendencies to the daily performance of labour, was a difficult task; and here again he had to be led by the force of existing qualities. the woman was the great drawing power here, the ease and comfort of the place, the growing love of family, and these influences slowly overcame the warrior and bound him to the plough. thus far the home influence led him up, and, in turn, his military qualities lifted the home industries from the feminine plane to the human. to produce wealth for the home to consume was a better position than that of living by plunder; but we should have small cause to glory in the march of civilisation if that was all we had done. just as the fierce and brutal savage, entering into military combination, under no better instincts than self-defence and natural belligerence, yet learned by virtue of that combination new and noble qualities; so the still fierce and brutal soldier, entering into industrial combination under no better instincts than those of sex-attraction and physical wants in increasing degree, yet learned, by virtue of this form of union, new qualities even more valuable to the race. the life of any society is based on the successful interaction of its members, rather than the number of its families. for instance, in those vast, fat, ancient empires, where a vast population, scattered over wide territory, supported local life in detached families, by individual effort; there was almost no national life, no general sense of unity, no conscious connection of interests. the one tie was taxation; and if some passing conqueror annexed a province, the only change was in the tax-collector, and the people were not injured unless he demanded more than the previous one. a vital nation must exist in the vivid common consciousness of its people; a consciousness naturally developed by enlarging social functions, by undeniable common interests and mutual services. if any passing conqueror were to annex--or seek to annex--a portion of our vast territory, he would find no slice of jellyfish, no mere cellular existence with almost no organised life. he would find that every last and least part of the country was vitally one with the whole, and would submit to no dismemberment. this social consciousness, on which our civilised life depends, in the growth of which lies social progress, is not developed in the home. on the contrary it is opposed by it. up to a certain level the home promotes social development. beyond that level it hinders it, if allowed to do so. self-interest drove men into military combination--where they learned much. family interest drove them into industrial activity, and even allowed a low form of combination. but social interest is what leads us all farthest and highest; the impulse to live, not for self-preservation only, not for reproduction only, but for social progress. it should not be hard to see that these apparently dissimilar and opposed interests can only be harmonised by the dominance of the greatest. the man who would strive for his own advantage at the expense of his family, we call a brute. the man who strives for the advantage of his family at the expense of his country--we should call a traitor! yet this is the common attitude of the citizen of to-day, and in this attitude he is maintained and extolled by the home! the soldier who would seek to save his own life to the injury of the army we promptly shoot. if he should seek to save his home at the same risk, we should still dishonour and punish him. the army, very highly developed in a very low scheme of action, knows that neither self nor family must stand for a moment against the public service. industry is not so well organised as warfare, and so our scale of industrial virtues is not so high. we degrade and punish for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman"; but we take no cognisance of "conduct unbecoming a manufacturer and a gentleman," unless he is an open malefactor. yet a manufacturer is a far higher and more valuable social servant than a soldier of any grade. we do not yet know the true order of importance in our social functions, nor their distinctly organic nature. with our proven capacity, why do we manifest so little progress in industrial organisation and devotion? a student of prehuman evolution, one familiar only with nature's long, slow, stumbling process of developing by exclusion--like driving a flock of sheep by killing those who went the wrong way--might answer the question in this manner: that we have not been engaged in industrial processes long enough to develop the desired qualities. this is usually considered the evolutionary standpoint; and from it we are advised not to be impatient, and are told that a few thousand years' more killing will do much for us. but social evolution takes place on quite other grounds. we have added education to heredity; mutual help to the cruel and wasteful processes of elimination. the very essence of social relation is its transmission of individual advance to the collective. physical evolution acts only through physical heredity; we have that in common with all animals; but we have also social heredity, that great psychic current of transmitted wisdom and emotion which immortalises the gains of the past and generalises the gains of the present. a system of free public education does more to develop the brains of a people than many thousand years of "natural selection," and does not prevent natural selection, either. the one capacity wherein the world does not progress as it should is the power of social intelligence; of a rational, efficiently acting, common consciousness. our "body politic" is like that of a vigorous, well-grown idiot. we have all the machinery for large, rich, satisfying life; and inside is the dim, limited mind, incapable of enjoyment or action. it has been found in recent years that idiocy may result from a too small skull; the bones have not enlarged, and the brain, compressed and stunted, cannot perform its functions. in one case this was most cruelly proven, by an operation upon an old man, from birth and idiot. his skull was opened and so treated as to give more room to the imprisoned brain, and, with what hopeless horror can be imagined, the man became intelligently conscious at last--conscious of what his life had been! there is some similar arrest in the development of the social consciousness; else our cities would not sit gnawing and tearing at themselves, indifferent to dirt, disease, or vice, and enjoying only physical comfort. if any operation should give sudden new light to this long-clouded civic brain, we might feel the same horror of the years behind us, but not the same hopelessness--society is immortal. it is here suggested that one check to the social development proper to our time is the pressure of the rudimentary home. we are quite willing to admit that a home life we consider wrong, as the chinese or turkish, can paralyse a nation. we have even come to see that the position of women is a good gauge of progress. is it so hard, then, to admit at least a possibility that the position of our women, the nature of our homes, may have some important influence upon our social growth? there is no demand that we destroy the home, any more than that we destroy the women, _but we must change their relative position_. the brain is the medium of social contact, the plane of human development. the savage is incapable of large relation because his mental area is not big enough; he is not used to such extensive combinations. where the brain is accustomed only to incessant consideration of its own private interests, and to direct personal service of those interests, it is thereby prevented from developing the capacity for seeing the public interests, and for indirect collective service of those interests. the habit, continuous and unrelieved, of thinking in a small circuit checks the power to think in a large circuit. this arrested brain development, this savage limitation to the personal, and mainly to the physical, is what we have so rigidly enforced upon women. the primitive home to the primitive mind is sufficient; but the progress of the mind requires a commensurate progress of the home--and has not had it. owing to our peculiar and unnatural division of life-area, half the race has been free to move on, and so has accomplished much for all of us; but the other half, being confined to the same position it occupied in the infancy of society, has been denied that freedom and that progress. owing again to the inexorable reunion of these divided halves in each child, physical heredity does what it can to bridge the gulf, the ever-widening gulf; pouring into the stationary woman some share of the modern abilities of social man; and also forcing upon the moving man some share of the primitive disabilities of the domestic woman. we thus have a strange and painful condition of life. social progress, attained wholly by the male, gives to the unprogressive woman unrest, discontent, disease. the more society advances, the less she can endure her ancient restrictions. hence arises much evil and more unhappiness. domestic inertia, maintained by the woman, gives to the progressive man a tremendous undertow of private selfishness and short-sightedness. hence more evil, far more; for the social processes are the most important; and a deeper unhappiness too; for the shame of the social traitor, the helplessness of the home-bound man who knows his larger duty but cannot meet it, is a higher plane of suffering than hers, and also adds to hers continually. all this evil and distress is due not at all to the blessed influence of the true home, suited to our time, but to the anything but blessed influence of a home suited to the stone age--or perhaps the bronze! it is not in the least necessary. the change we require does not involve the loss of one essential good and lovely thing. it does not injure womanhood, but improves it. it does not injure childhood, but improves it. it does not injure manhood, but improves that too. what is the proposed change? it is the recognition of a new order of duties, a new scale of virtues; or rather it is the practical adoption of that order long since established by the facts of business, the science of government, and by all great religions. our own religion in especial, the most progressive, the most social, gives no sanction whatever to our own archaic cult of home-worship. what is there in the teachings of christianity to justify--much less command--this devotion to animal comfort, to physical relations, to the a b c of life? in his own life christ rose above all family ties; his disciples he called to leave all and follow him; the devotion he recognised was that of mary to the truth, not of martha to the housekeeping; and the love he taught, that love which is the beginning and the end of christian life, is not the love of one's own merely, but of the whole world. "whoso careth not for his own is worse than an infidel"--truly. and whoso careth only for his own is _no better_! besides--and this should reconcile the reluctant heart--this antiquated method of serving the family _does not serve them to the best advantage_. in what way does a man best benefit his family? by staying at home and doing what he can with his own two hands--whereby no family on earth would ever have more than the labour of one affectionate amateur could provide; or by going out from the home and serving other people in a specialised trade--whereby his family and all families are gradually supplied with peace and plenty, supported and protected by the allied forces of civilisation? in what way does a woman best benefit her family? by staying at home and doing what she can with her own two hands--whereby no family ever has more than the labour of one affectionate amateur can provide--or by enlarging her motherhood as man has enlarged his fatherhood, and giving to her family the same immense advantages that he has given it? we have always assumed that the woman could do most by staying at home. is this so? can we prove it? why is that which is so palpably false of a man held to be true of a woman? "because men and woman are different!" will be stoutly replied. of course they are different--in sex, _but not in humanity_. in every human quality and power they are alike; and the right service of the home, the right care and training of the child, call for human qualities and powers, not merely for sex-distinctions. the home, in its arbitrary position of arrested development, does not properly fulfil its own essential functions--much less promote the social ones. among the splendid activities of our age it lingers on, inert and blind, like a clam in a horse-race. it hinders, by keeping woman a social idiot, by keeping the modern child under the tutelage of the primeval mother, by keeping the social conscience of the man crippled and stultified in the clinging grip of the domestic conscience of the woman. it hinders by its enormous expense; making the physical details of daily life a heavy burden to mankind; whereas, in our stage of civilisation, they should have been long since reduced to a minor incident. consider what the mere protection and defence of life used to cost, when every man had to be fighter most of his life. ninety per cent., say, of masculine energy went to defend life; while the remaining ten, and the women, in a narrow, feeble way, maintained it. they lived, to be sure, fighting all the time for the sorry privilege. now we have systematised military service so that only a tiny fraction of our men, for a very short period of life, need be soldiers; and peace is secured, not by constant painful struggles, but by an advanced economic system. "eternal vigilance" may be "the price of liberty," but it is a very high price; and paid only by the barbarian who has not risen to the stage of civilised service. organisation among men has reduced this wasteful and crippling habit of being every-man-his-own-soldier. we do not have to carry a rifle and peer around every street-corner for a hidden foe. as a result the released energy of the ninety per cent. men, a tenth being large allowance for all the fighting necessary, is now poured into the channels that lead to wealth, peace, education, general progress. yet we are still willing that the personal care of life, the service of daily physical needs, shall monopolise as many women as that old custom of universal warfare monopolised men! ninety per cent. of the feminine energy of the world is still spent in ministering laboriously to the last details of bodily maintenance; and the other tenth is supposed to do nothing but supervise the same tasks, and flutter about in fruitless social amusement. this crude waste of half the world's force keeps back human progress just as heavily as the waste of the other half did. by as much as the world has grown toward peace and power and unity since men left off spending their lives in universal warfare, will it grow further toward that much-desired plane when women leave off spending their lives in universal house-service. the mere release of that vast fund of energy will in itself increase all the facilities of living; but there is a much more important consequence. the omnipresent domestic ideal is a deadly hinderance to the social ideal. when half our population honestly believe that they have no duties outside the home, the other half will not become phenomenal statesmen. this cook-and-housemaid level of popular thought is the great check. the social perspective is entirely lost; and a million short-sighted homes, each seeing only its own interests, cannot singly or together grasp the common good which would benefit them all. that the home has improved as much as it has is due to the freedom of man outside it. that it is still so clumsy, so inadequate, so wickedly wasteful of time, of money, of human life, is due to the confinement of woman inside it. what sort of citizens do we need for the best city--the best state--the best country--the best world? we need men and women who are sufficiently large-minded to see and feel a common need, to work for a common good, to rejoice in the advance of all, and to know as the merest platitude that their private advantage is to be assured _only_ by the common weal. that kind of mind is not bred in the kitchen. a citizenship wherein all men were either house-servants or idlers would not show much advance. neither does a community wherein all women, save that noble and rapidly increasing minority of self-supporting ones, are either house-servants or idlers. our progress rests on the advance of the people, all the people; the development of an ever-widening range of feeling, thought, action; while its flowers are found in all the higher arts and sciences, it is rooted firmly in economic law. this little ganglion of aborted economic processes, the home, tends to a sort of social paralysis. in its innumerable little centres of egoism and familism are sunk and lost the larger vibrations of social energy which should stimulate the entire mass. again, society's advance rests on the personal health, sanity, and happiness of its members. the home, whose one justification is in its ministering to these, does not properly fulfil its purpose, and cannot unless it is managed on modern lines. social progress rests on the smooth development of personal character, the happy fulfilment of special function. the home, in its ceaseless and inexorable demands, stops this great process of specialisation in women, and checks it cruelly in men. a man's best service to society lies in his conscientious performance of the work he is best fitted for. but the service of the home demands that he do the work he is best paid for. man after man, under this benumbing, strangling pressure, is diverted from his true path in social service, and condemned to "imprisonment with hard labour for life." the young man, for a time, is comparatively free; and looks forward eagerly to such and such a line of growth and large usefulness. but let him marry and start a home, and he must do, not what he would--what is best for him and best for all of us; but what he must--what he can be sure of pay for. we have always supposed this to be a good thing, as it forced men to be industrious. as if it was any benefit to society to have men industrious in wrong ways--or useless ways, or even slow, stupid, old-fashioned ways! human advance calls for each man's best, for his special faculties, for the work he loves best and can therefore do best and do most of. this work is not always the kind that commands the greater wages; at least the immediate wages he must have. the market will pay best for what it wants, and what it wants is almost always what it is used to, and often what is deadly bad for it. having a family to support, in the most wasteful possible way, multiplies a man's desire for money; but in no way multiplies his ability, his social value. therefore the world is full of struggling men, putting in for one and trying to take out for ten; and in this struggle seeking continually for new ways to cater to the tastes of the multitude, and especially to those of the rich; that they may obtain the wherewithal to support the ten, or six, or simply the one; who though she be but one and not a worker, is quite ready to consume more than any ten together! social advantage is ruthlessly sacrificed to private advantage in our life to-day; not to necessary and legitimate private interests either; not to the best service of the individual, but to false and scandalously wasteful private interests; to the maintenance and perpetuation of inferior people. the position is this: the home, as now existing, costs three times what is necessary to meet the same needs. it involves the further waste of nearly half the world's labour. it does not fulfil its functions to the best advantage, thus robbing us again. it maintains a low grade of womanhood, overworked or lazy; it checks the social development of men as well as women, and, most of all, of children. the man, in order to meet this unnecessary expense, must cater to the existing market; and the existing market is mainly this same home, with its crude tastes and limitless appetites. thus the man, to maintain his own woman in idleness, or low-grade labour, must work three times as hard as is needful, to meet the demands of similar women; the home-bound woman clogging the whole world. change this order. set the woman on her own feet, as a free, intelligent, able human being, quite capable of putting into the world more than she takes out, of being a producer as well as a consumer. put these poor antiquated "domestic industries" into the archives of past history; and let efficient modern industries take their place, doing far more work, far better work, far cheaper work in their stead. with an enlightened system of feeding the world we shall have better health--and wiser appetites. the more intelligent and broad-minded woman will assuredly promote a more reasonable, healthful, beautiful, and economical system of clothing, for her own body and that of the child. the wiser and more progressive mother will at last recognise child-culture as an art and science quite beyond the range of instinct, and provide for the child such surroundings, such training, as shall allow of a rapid and enormous advance in human character. the man, relieved of two-thirds of his expenses; provided with double supplies; properly fed and more comfortable at home than he ever dreamed of being, and associated with a strong, free, stimulating companion all through life, will be able to work to far better purpose in the social service, and with far greater power, pride, and enjoyment. the man and woman together, both relieved of most of their personal cares, will be better able to appreciate large social needs and to meet them. each generation of children, better born, better reared, growing to their full capacity in all lines, will pour into the world a rising flood of happiness and power. then we shall see social progress. xvi lines of advance it will be helpful and encouraging for us to examine the development of the home to this date, and its further tendencies; that we may cease to regret here, and learn to admire there; that we may use our personal powers definitely to resist the undertow of habit and prejudice, and definitely to promote all legitimate progress. there is a hopelessness in the first realisation of this old-world obstacle still stationary in our swift to-day; but there need not be. while apparently as strong as ever, it has in reality been undermined on every side by the currents of evolution; its whilom prisoners have been stimulated and strengthened by the unavoidable force of those same great currents, and little remains to do beyond the final opening of one's own eyes to the facts--not one's grandmother's eyes, but one's _own_--and the beautiful work of reconstruction. examine the main root of the whole thing--the exclusive confinement of women to the home, to their feminine functions and a few crude industries; and see how rapidly that condition is changing. the advance of women, during the last hundred years or so, is a phenomenon unparalleled in history. never before has so large a class made as much progress in so small a time. from the harem to the forum is a long step, but she has taken it. from the ignorant housewife to the president of a college is a long step, but she has taken it. from the penniless dependent to the wholly self-supporting and often other-supporting business woman, is a long step, but she has taken it. she who knew so little is now the teacher; she who could do so little is now the efficient and varied producer; she who cared only for her own flesh and blood is now active in all wide good works around the world. she who was confined to the house now travels freely, the foolish has become wise, and the timid brave. even full political equality is won in more than one country and state; it is a revolution of incredible extent and importance, and its results are already splendidly apparent. this vast number of human beings, formerly as separate as sand grains and as antagonistic as the nature of their position compelled, are now organising, from house to club, from local to general, in federations of city, state, nation, and world. the amount of social energy accumulated by half of us is no longer possible of confinement to that half; the woman has inherited her share, and has grown so large and strong that her previous surroundings can no longer contain or content her. the socialising of this hitherto subsocial, wholly domestic class, is a marked and marvellous event, now taking place with astonishing rapidity. that most people have not observed it proves nothing. mankind has never yet properly perceived historic events until time gave him the perspective his narrow present horizon denied. where most of our minds are home-enclosed, like the visual range of one sitting in a hogshead, general events make no impression save as they impinge directly on that personal area. the change in the position of woman, largely taking place in the home, is lost to general view; and so far as it takes place in public, is only perceived in fractions by most of us. to man it was of course an unnatural and undesired change; he did not want it, did not see the need or good of it, and has done all he could to prevent it. to the still inert majority of women, content in their position, or attributing their growing discontent to other causes, it is also an unnatural and undesired change. ideas do not change as fast as facts, with most of us. mankind in general, men and women, still believe in the old established order, in woman's ordination to the service of bodily needs of all sorts; in the full sufficiency of maternal instinct as compared with any trivial propositions of knowledge and experience; in the noble devotion of the man who spends all his labours to furnish a useless woman with luxuries, and all the allied throng of ancient myths and falsehoods. thus we have not been commonly alive to the full proportions of the woman's movement, or its value. the facts are there, however. patient griselda has gone out, or is going, faster and faster. the girls of to-day, in any grade of society, are pushing out to do things instead of being content to merely eat things, wear things, and dust things. the honourable instinct of self-support is taking the place of the puerile acceptance of gifts, and beyond self-support comes the still nobler impulse to give to others; not corrupting charity, but the one all-good service of a life's best work. measuring the position of woman as it has been for all the years behind us up to a century or so ago with what it is to-day, the distance covered and the ratio of progress is incredible. it rolls up continually, accumulatively; and another fifty years will show more advance than the past five hundred. this alone is enough to guarantee the development of the home. no unchanging shell can contain a growing body, something must break; and the positive force of growth is stronger than the negative force of mere adhesion of particles. a stronger, wiser, nobler woman must make a better home. in the place itself, its customs and traditions, we can also note great progress. the "domestic industries" have shrunk and dwindled almost out of sight, so greedily has society sucked at them and forced them out where they belong. the increasing difficulties which assail the house-keeper, either in trying to occupy the primeval position of doing her own work, or in persuading anyone else to do it for her, are simply forcing us, however reluctantly, to the adoption of better methods. even in the most neglected field of all, the care and education of the little child, some progress has been made. education in the hands of men, broad-minded, humanly loving men, has crept nearer and nearer to the cradle; and now even women, and not only single women, but _even mothers_, are beginning to study the nature and needs of the child. the more they study, the more they learn, the more impossible become the home conditions. the mother cannot herself alone do all that is necessary for her children, to say nothing of continuing to be a companion to her husband, a member of society, and a still growing individual. she can sacrifice herself in the attempt,--often does,--but the child has a righteous indifference to such futile waste of life. he does not require a nervous, exhausted, ever-present care, and it is by no means good for him. he wants a strong, serene, lovely mother for a comfort, a resource, an ideal; but he also wants the care of a trained highly qualified teacher, and the amateur mama cannot give it to him. motherhood is a common possession of every female creature; a joy, a pride, a nobly useful function. teacherhood is a profession, a specialised social function, no more common to mothers than to fathers, maids, or bachelors. the ceaseless, anxious strain to do what only an experienced nurse and teacher can do, is an injury to the real uses of motherhood. why do we dread having children, as many of our much-extolled mothers so keenly do? partly the physical risk and suffering, which are not necessary to a normal woman,--and more the ensuing care, labour, and anxiety,--and oh,--"the responsibility!" the more modern the mother is, the more fit for a higher plane of execution, the more unfit she is for the lower plane, the old primitive plane of home-teaching. if your father is a combination of all college professors you may get part of a college training at home--but not the best part. if your mother is a born teacher, a trained teacher, an experienced teacher, you may get part of your schooling at home--but not the best part. there would never have been a school or college on earth, if every man had remained content with teaching his boys at home. there will never be any proper standard of training for little children while each woman remains content with caring for her own at home. but the house-wife is changing. these ways no longer satisfy her. she insists on more modern methods, even in her ancient labours. then follows the equally different attitude of the housemaid; her rebellion, refusal, retirement from the field; and the immense increase in mechanical convenience seeping in steadily from outside, and doing more to "undermine the home" than any wildest exhortations of reformers. the gas range, the neat and perfect utensils, these have in themselves an educational reaction; we cannot now maintain the atmosphere "where greasy joan doth keel the pot." the pot is a white enamelled double boiler, and joan need not be greasy save of _malice prepense_. besides the improvement of utensils, we have in our cities and in most of the smaller towns that insidious new system of common supply of domestic necessities, which webs together the once so separate homes by a network of pipes and wires. our houses are threaded like beads on a string, tied, knotted, woven together, and in the cities even built together; one solid house from block-end to block-end; their boasted individuality maintained by a thin partition wall. the tenement, flat, and apartment house still further group and connect us; and our claim of domestic isolation becomes merely another domestic myth. water is a household necessity and was once supplied by household labour, the women going to the wells to fetch it. water is now supplied by the municipality, and flows among our many homes as one. light is equally in common; we do not have to make it for ourselves. where water and light are thus fully socialised, why are we so shy of any similar progress in the supply of food? food is no more a necessity than water. if we are willing to receive our water from an extra-domestic pipe--why not our food? the one being a simple element and the other a very complex combination makes a difference, of course; but even so we may mark great progress. some foods, more or less specific, and of universal use, were early segregated, and the making of them became a trade, as in breadstuffs, cheese, and confectionery. where this has been done we find great progress, and an even standard of excellence. in america, where the average standard of bread-making is very low, we regard "baker's bread" as a synonym for inferiority; but even here, if we consider the saleratus bread of the great middle west, and all the sour, heavy, uncertain productions of a million homes, the baker bears comparison with the domestic cook. it is the maintenance of the latter that keeps the former down; where the baker is the general dependence he makes better bread. our american baker's bread has risen greatly in excellence as we make less and less at home. all the initial processes of the food supply have been professionalised. our housewife does not go out crying, "dilly-dilly! dilly-dilly! you must come and be killed"--and then wring the poor duck's neck, pick and pluck it with her own hands; nor does the modern father himself slay the fatted calf--all this is done as a business. in recent years every article of food which will keep, every article which is in common demand, is prepared as a business. the home-blinded toiler has never climbed out of her hogshead to watch this rising tide, but it is nearly up to the rim, ready to pour in and float her out. every delicate confection, every pickle, sauce, preserve, every species of biscuit and wafer, and all sublimated and differentiated to a degree we could never have dreamed of; all these are manufactured in scientific and business methods and delivered at our doors, or our dumb-waiters. breakfast foods are the latest step in this direction; and the encroaching delicatessen shop with its list of allurements. even the last and dearest stronghold, the very core and centre of domestic bliss--hot cooked food--is being served us by this irreverent professional man. the sacred domestic rite of eating may be still performed in the sanctuary, but the once equally sacred, subsidiary art of cooking is swiftly going out of it. as to eating at home, so dear a habit, so old a habit, old enough to share with every beast that drags her prey into her lair, that she and her little ones may gnaw in safety; this remains strongly in evidence, and will for some time yet. but while it reigns unshaken in our minds let us follow, open-eyed, the great human distinction of eating together. to share one's food, to call guest and friend to the banquet, is not a custom of any animal save those close allies in social organisation, the ants and their compeers. not only do we permit this, but it is our chiefest joy and pride. from the child playing tea-party to the lord mayor's banquet, the human race shows a marked tendency to eat together. it is our one great common medium--more's the pity that we have none better as yet! to share food is the first impulse of true hospitality, the largest field of artificial extravagance. moreover, in actual fact, in the working world, food is eaten together by almost all men at noon; and by women and men in what they call "social life" almost daily. in recent years, in our cities, this habit increases widely, swiftly; men, women, and families eat together more and more; and the eating-house increases in excellence commensurately. whatever our opinion of these two facts, both _are_ facts--that we like to eat in "the bosom of the family" and that we equally like to eat in common. why, then, do we so fear a change in this field? "because of the children!" most people will reply triumphantly. are the children, then, perfectly fed at home? is the list of dietary diseases among our home-fed little ones a thing to boast of? may it be hinted that it is because child-feeding has remained absolutely domestic, while man-feeding has become partially civilised, that the knowledge of how to feed children is so shamefully lacking? be all this as it may, it is plainly to be seen that our domestic conditions as to food supply are rapidly changing, and that all signs point to a steady rise in efficiency and decrease in expense in this line of human service. there remains much to be done. in no field of modern industry and business opportunity is there a wider demand to be met than in this constantly waxing demand for better food, more hygienic food, more reliable food, cheaper food, food which shall give us the maximum of nutrition and healthy pleasure, with the minimum of effort and expense. at this writing--may, --there is in flourishing existence a cooked-food supply company, in new haven (conn.), in pittsburgh (pa.), and in boston (mass.), with doubtless others not at present known to the author. turning to the other great domestic industry, the care of children, we may see hopeful signs of growth. the nursemaid is improving. those who can afford it are beginning to see that the association of a child's first years with low-class ignorance cannot be beneficial. there is a demand for "trained nurses" for children; even in rare cases the employment of some kindergarten ability. among the very poor the day-nursery and kindergarten are doing slow, but beautiful work. the president of harvard demands that more care and money be spent on the primary grades in education; and all through our school systems there is a healthy movement. child-study is being undertaken at last. pedagogy is being taught as a science. in our public parks there is regular provision made for children; and in the worst parts of the cities an incipient provision of playgrounds. there is no more brilliant hope on earth to-day than this new thought about the child. in what does it consist? in recognising "the child," children as a class, children as citizens with rights to be guaranteed only by the state; instead of our previous attitude toward them of absolute personal ownership--the unchecked tyranny, or as unchecked indulgence, of the private home. children are at last emerging from the very lowest grade of private ownership into the safe, broad level of common citizenship. that which no million separate families could give their millions of separate children, the state can give, and does. our progress, so long merely mechanical, is at last becoming personal, touching the people and lifting them as one. now what is all this leading to? what have we to hope--or to dread--in the undeniable lines of development here shown? what most of us dread is this: that we shall lose our domestic privacy; that we shall lose our family dinner table; that woman will lose "her charm;" that we shall lose our children; and the child lose its mother. we are mortally afraid of separation. the unfolding and differentiation of natural growth is not separation in any organic sense. the five-fingered leaf, closely bound in the bud, separates as it opens. the branches separate from the trunk as the trees grow. but this legitimate separation does not mean disconnection. the tree is as much one tree as if it grew in a strait-jacket. all growth must widen and diverge. if natural growth is checked, disease must follow. if allowed, health and beauty and happiness accompany it. the home, if it grows on in normal lines, will not be of the same size and relative density as it was in ancient times; but it will be as truly home to the people of to-day. in trying to maintain by force the exact limits and characteristics of the primitive home, we succeed only in making a place modern man is not at home in. the people of our time need the home of our time, not the homes of ancient barbarians. the primitive home and the home-bound woman are the continually acting causes of our increasing domestic unhappiness. by clinging to unsuitable conditions we bring about exactly the evils we are most afraid of. a little scientific imagination well based on existing facts, well in line with existing tendencies, should be used to point out the practical possibilities of the home as it is to be. try to consider it first with the woman out for working hours. this is an impassable gulf to the average mind. "home, with the woman out--there is no such thing!" cries it. the instant assumption is that she will never be in, in which case i am willing to admit that there would be no home. suppose we retrace our steps a little and approach the average mind more gradually. can it imagine a home, a real happy home, with the woman out of it for one hour a day? can it, encouraged by this step, picture the home as still enduring while the woman is out of it two hours a day? is there any exact time of attendance required to make a home? what is, in truth, required to make a home? first mother and child, then father; this is the family, and the place where they live is the home. now the father goes out every day; does the home cease to exist because of his hours away from it? it is still his home, he still loves it, he maintains it, he lives in it, only he has a "place of business" elsewhere. at a certain stage of growth the children are out of it, between say . and . . does it cease to be home because of their hours away from it? do they not love it and live in it--_while they are there_? now if, while the father was out, and the children were out, the mother should also be out, would the home disappear into thin air? it is home _while the family are in it_. when the family are out of it it is only a house; and a house will stand up quite solidly for some eight hours of the family's absence. incessant occupation is not essential to a home. if the father has wife and children with him in the home when he returns to it, need it matter to him that the children are wisely cared for in schools during his absence; or that his wife is duly occupied elsewhere while they are so cared for? two "practical obstacles" intervene; first, the "housework"; second, the care of children below school age. the housework is fast disappearing into professional hands. when that is utterly gone, the idle woman has but one excuse--the babies. this is a very vital excuse. the baby is the founder of the home. if the good of the baby requires the persistent, unremitting care of the mother in the home, then indeed she must remain there. no other call, no other claim, no other duty, can be weighed for a moment against this all-important service--the care of the little child. but we have already seen that if there is one thing more than another the home fails in, it is just this. if there is one duty more than another the woman fails in, it is just this. our homes are not planned nor managed in the interests of little children; and the isolated home-bound mother is in no way adequate to their proper rearing. this is not disputable on any side. the death rate of little children during the years they are wholly in the home and mother's care proves it beyond question. the wailing of little children who live--or before they die--wailing from bodily discomfort, nervous irritation, mental distress, punishment--a miserable sound, so common, so expected, that it affects the price of real estate, tenants not wishing to live near little children on account of their cries--this sound of world-wide anguish does not seem to prove much for the happiness of these helpless inmates of the home. such few data as we have of babies and young children in properly managed day nurseries, give a far higher record of health and happiness. not the sick baby in the pauper hospital, not the lonely baby in the orphan asylum; but the baby who has _not_ lost his mother, but who adds to mother's love, calm, wise, experienced professional care. the best instance of this, as known to me, is that of m. godin's _phalanstère_ in guise, france. an account of it can be found in the _harper's monthly_, november, ; or in m. godin's own book, "social solutions," translated by marie howland, now out of print. this wise and successful undertaking had been going on for over twenty years when the above article was written. among its features was a beautifully planned nursery for babies and little children, and the results to child and parent, to home and state were wholly good. better health, greater peace and contentment, a swift, regular, easy development these children enjoyed; and when, in later years, they met the examinations of the public schools, they stood higher than the children of any other district in france. a newborn baby leads a far happier, healthier, more peaceful existence in the hands of the good trained nurse, than it does when those skilled hands are gone, and it is left on the trembling knees of the young, untrained mother. "but the nurse does not love it!" we wildly protest. what if she does not? cannot the mother love it _while the nurse takes care of it_? this is the whole position in a nutshell. nothing is going to prevent the mother from loving her children in one deep, ceaseless river of calm affection, with such maternal transports as may arise from time to time in addition; but nothing ought to prevent the child's being properly taken care of while the love is going on. the mother is not ashamed to depend on the doctor if the child is ill, on the specialist if the child is defective, on the teacher when the child is in school. why should she so passionately refuse to depend on equally skilled assistance for the first five years of her babies' lives--those years when iron statistics remorselessly expose her incapacity? the home that is coming will not try to be a workshop, a nursery, or a school. the child that is coming will find a more comfortable home than he ever had before, and something else besides--a place for babies to be happy in, and grow up in, without shrieks of pain. the mother that is coming, a much more intelligent person than she has ever been before, will recognise that this ceaseless procession of little ones requires some practical provision for its best development, other than what is possible in the passing invasion of the home. "how a baby does tyrannise over the household!" we complain, vaguely recognising that the good of the baby requires something different from the natural home habits of adults. we shall finally learn to make a home for the babies too. this involves great changes in both our idea of home, and our material provision for it. why not? growth is change, and there is need of growth here. slowly, gradually, by successive experiments, we shall find out how to meet new demands; and these experiments are now being made, in all the living centres of population. xvii results to us, who have for so many unbroken generations been wholly bound to the home, who honestly believe that its service and maintenance constitute the whole duty of men and women, the picture of a world in which home and its affairs takes but a small part of life's attention gives rather a blank outlook. what else are we to do! what else to love--what else to serve eternally! what else to revere, to worship! how shall we occupy the hands of man if but a tithe of his labour supports him in comfort; how fill the heart of woman, when her family are happily and rightly served without sacrificing her in the operation! it is hard, at first--we being so accustomed to spend all life in merely keeping ourselves alive--to see what life might be when we had some to spare. we find it difficult to imagine this "world of trouble" as rid of its troubles; as rationally and comfortably managed; peaceful, clean, safe, healthy, giving everyone room and time to grow. nor need we labour to forecast events too accurately; especially the material details which must be decided by long experiment. no rigid prescription is needed; no dictum as to whether we shall live in small separate houses, greenly gardened, with closely connected conveniences for service and for education, for work and play; or in towering palaces with shaded flower-bright courts and cloisters. all that must work out as have our great modern wonders in other lines, little by little, in orderly development. but what we can forecast in safety is the effect on the human body and the human soul. a peaceful, healthy, happy babyhood and childhood, with such delicate adjustment of educational processes as we already see indicated, will give us a far better individual. the full-grown mother, contributing racial advance in both body and mind, will add greatly to this gain. we can be better people everywhere, better born, bred, fed, educated in all ways. but quite beyond this is the rich growth of our long aborted social instincts, which will rapidly follow the reduction of these long artificially maintained primitive and animal instincts. where now trying to meet general needs by personal efforts, modern needs by ancient methods, we must perforce manifest an intense degree of self-interest to keep up the struggle; as soon as we meet these needs easily, swiftly, inexpensively, by modern methods and common efforts, less self-interest will be necessary. when sidewalks were narrow and streets foul, great was the jostling, keen the resentment--"you take the wall of me, sir!" where all is broad, clean, safe, no such hot feeling exists. we do not truly prefer to be always sharply looking out for ourselves; it is much more interesting to look out for each other; but this method of handicapping each man with his own affairs, in such needless weight, keeps up a selfishness which true civilisation tends steadily to eliminate. social instincts in social conditions are as natural as animal instincts in animal conditions. starving, shipwrecked sailors, robbed of all social advantages, are reduced sometimes even to cannibalism. polite people at a banquet show no hint of such fierce, relentless greed. relieved of the necessity for spending our whole time taking care of ourselves, we shall deliciously launch forward into the much larger pleasure of taking care of one another. relieved of the ceaseless, instant pressure of purely physical needs, we shall be able to put forth the true demands of human life at last. the mind, no longer penned in its weary treadmill of private affairs, will spread into its legitimate area--public affairs. we shall be able to see a greater number of things at once, and care about them. that larger-mindedness will be an immediate result; for we have already far more capacity than we use. we have developed the modern civilised mind, the social mind, through the world's work; but we bury it, enslave it, stultify it, in the home's work. a new power--a new sense of range--freedom, growth, as of a great stream flowing freely; plenty of force to work with, plenty of room to work in--this is what will follow as we learn to properly relate the home to the rest of life. once the mind rises, free, outside those old enclosing, crushing walls, it will see life with different eyes. our common good will appear to us as naturally as our private good does now. at present the average mind does not seem able to grasp a great general fact, be it for good or evil. to make a man appreciate the proposed advantage, realise the impending or existing evil, we must "bring it home to him," make him feel it "where he lives." when his home does not occupy most of his mind, tax his strength, reduce his range of interest and affection, he can see the big things more easily. when he "lives" in the whole city--_i.e._, thinks about it, cares about it, works for it, loves it--then he will promptly feel anything that affects it in any part. this common love and care are just as possible to human beings as love and care for one's own young are possible to the beasts. it is possible; it is natural; it is a great and increasing joy; but its development is checked by a system which requires all our love and care for our own, and even then does not properly provide for them. the love of human beings for each other is not a dream of religion, it is a law of nature. it is bred of human contact, of human relation, of human service; it rests on identical interest and the demands of a social development which must include all, if it permanently lift any. against this perfectly natural development stands this opposing shell; this earlier form of life, essential in its place, most mischievous out of it; this early cradle of humanity in which lie smothered the full-grown people of to-day. must we then leave it--lose it--go without it? never. the more broadly socialised we become, the more we need our homes to rest in. the large area is necessary for the human soul; the big, modern, civilised social nature. but we are still separate animal beings as well as collective social beings. always we need to return to the dear old ties, to the great primal basis, that we may rise refreshed and strengthened, like antæus from the earth. private, secluded, sweet, wholly our own; not invaded by any trade or work or business, not open to the crowd; the place of the one initial and undying group of father, mother, and child, will remain to us. these, and the real friend, are all that belong to the home. it should be the recognised base and background of our lives; but those lives must be lived in their true area, the world. and so lived, by both of us, all of us; shared in by the child, served in by the woman as well as the man; that world will grow to have the sense of intimacy, of permanent close attachment, of comfort and pleasure and rest, which now attaches only to the home. so, living, really living in the world and loving it, the presence there of father, mother, and child will gradually bring out in it all the beauty and safety, the refreshment and strength we so vainly seek to ensure in our private home. the sense of duty, of reverence, of love, honestly transferred to the world we live in, will have its natural, its inevitable effect, and make that world our home at last. the end books by charlotte perkins gilman the man-made world, or: our androcentric culture. by charlotte perkins gilman many books have been written about women, as such; women as females. this is a book about men, as such; men as males. women have been considered as a sex, and their character and actions so discussed. this book considers men as a sex; and their character and actions are so discussed. too much of women's influence is dreaded as "feminization"--as likely to render our culture "effeminate." too much of men's influence is here studied as "masculization" and as having rendered our culture--there is no analogue for "effeminate." we have heard much of the "eternal womanly;" this book treats of the eternal manly. "_cherchez la femme!_" is the old hue and cry; this book raises a new one: "_cherchez l'homme!_" by mail of charlton co., $ . . what diantha did. a novel by charlotte perkins gilman we have had military novels, and marine novels; novels of adventure, of mystery and crime; religious novels, historic novels, novels of business life, trades unions and the labor question; novels of "local color," dialect novels; and romances pure and simple--also impure and complicated. this novel deals with the most practical problem of women's lives today--and settles it--not by cooperation. by mail of charlton co., $ . . charlton company, wall st., new york "the yellow wallpaper" worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpieces of hawthorne and poe.--_literature._ as a short story it stands among the most powerful produced in america.--_chicago news._ by mail of charlton co., $ . . "human work" charlotte perkins gilman has added a third to her great trilogy of books on economic subjects as they affect our daily life, particularly in the home. mrs. gilman is by far the most brilliant woman writer of our day, and this new volume, which she calls "human work," is a glorification of labor.--_new orleans picayune._ charlotte perkins gilman has been writing a new book, entitled "human work." it is the best thing that mrs. gilman has done, and it is meant to focus all of her previous work, so to speak.--_tribune, chicago._ in her latest volume, "human work," charlotte perkins gilman places herself among the foremost students and elucidators of the problem of social economics.--_san francisco star._ it is impossible to overestimate the value of the insistence on the social aspect of human affairs as mrs. gilman has outlined it.--_public opinion._ by mail of charlton co., $ . . "in this our world" there is a joyous superabundance of life, of strength, of health, in mrs. gilman's verse, which seems born of the glorious sunshine and rich gardens of california.--_washington times._ the freshness, charm and geniality of her satire temporarily convert us to her most advanced views.--_boston journal._ the poet of women and for women, a new and prophetic voice in the world. montaigne would have rejoiced in her.--_mexican herald._ by mail of charlton co., $ . . "the home" indeed, mrs. gilman has not intended her book so much as a treatise for scholars as a surgical operation on the popular mind.--_the critic, new york._ whatever mrs. gilman writes, people read--approving or protesting, still they read.--_republican, springfield, mass._ full of thought and of new and striking suggestions. tells what the average woman has and ought not keep, what she is and ought not be.--_literature world._ but it is safe to say that no more stimulating arraignment has ever before taken shape and that the argument of the book is noble, and, on the whole, convincing.--_congregationalist, boston._ the name of this author is a guarantee of logical reasoning, sound economical principles and progressive thought.--_the craftsman, syracuse._ by mail of charlton co., $ . . "the home" has been translated into swedish. "women and economics" since john stuart mill's essay there has been no book dealing with the whole position of women to approach it in originality of conception and brilliancy of exposition.--_london chronicle._ the most significant utterance on the subject since mill's "subjection of women."--_the nation._ it is the strongest book on the woman question that has yet been published.--_minneapolis journal._ a remarkable book. a work on economics that has not a dull page,--the work of a woman about women that has not a flippant word.--_boston transcript._ this book unites in a remarkable degree the charm of a brilliantly written essay with the inevitable logic of a proposition of euclid. nothing that we have read for many a long day can approach in clearness of conception, in power of arrangement, and in lucidity of expression the argument developed in the first seven chapters of this remarkable book.--_westminster gazette, london._ will be widely read and discussed as the cleverest, fairest, most forcible presentation of the view of the rapidly increasing group who look with favor on the extension of industrial employment to women.--_political science quarterly._ by mail of charlton co., $ . . "women and economics" has been translated into german, dutch, italian, hungarian, russian and japanese. "concerning children" wanted:--a philanthropist, to give a copy to every english-speaking parent.--_the times, new york._ should be read by every mother in the land.--_the press, new york._ wholesomely disturbing book that deserves to be read for its own sake.--_chicago dial._ by mail of charlton co., $ . . "concerning children" has been translated into german, dutch and yiddish. charlton company, wall st., new york the forerunner a monthly magazine; written, edited, owned and published by charlotte perkins gilman wall street, new york city, u.s.a. subscription per year: domestic $ . canadian . foreign . this magazine carries mrs. gilman's best and newest work; her social philosophy, verse, satire, fiction, ethical teaching, humor, and opinion. it stands for humanness in women, and in men; for better methods in child-culture; for the new ethics, the new economics, the new world we are to make--are making. orders taken for bound vols. of first year, $ . books by charlotte perkins gilman women and economics $ . concerning children . in this our world (verse) . the yellow wallpaper (story) . the home . human work . what diantha did (novel) . the man-made world; or, our androcentric culture . charlton company, wall st., new york the wonderful wizard of oz by l. frank baum w. w. denslow. [illustration] geo. m. hill co. new york. introduction. folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. the winged fairies of grimm and andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations. yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. [illustration] having this thought in mind, the story of "the wonderful wizard of oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. it aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out. l. frank baum. chicago, april, . [illustration] copyright by l. frank baum and w. w. denslow. all rights reserved [illustration] list of chapters. chapter i.--the cyclone. chapter ii.--the council with the munchkins. chapter iii.--how dorothy saved the scarecrow. chapter iv.--the road through the forest. chapter v.--the rescue of the tin woodman. chapter vi.--the cowardly lion. chapter vii.--the journey to the great oz. chapter viii.--the deadly poppy field. chapter ix.--the queen of the field mice. chapter x.--the guardian of the gates. chapter xi.--the wonderful emerald city of oz. chapter xii.--the search for the wicked witch. chapter xiii.--how the four were reunited. chapter xiv.--the winged monkeys. chapter xv.--the discovery of oz the terrible. chapter xvi.--the magic art of the great humbug. chapter xvii.--how the balloon was launched. chapter xviii.--away to the south. chapter xix.--attacked by the fighting trees. chapter xx.--the dainty china country. chapter xxi.--the lion becomes the king of beasts. chapter xxii.--the country of the quadlings. chapter xxiii.--the good witch grants dorothy's wish. chapter xxiv.--home again. _this book is dedicated to my good friend & comrade. my wife l.f.b._ chapter i. the cyclone. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] dorothy lived in the midst of the great kansas prairies, with uncle henry, who was a farmer, and aunt em, who was the farmer's wife. their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. there were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. uncle henry and aunt em had a big bed in one corner, and dorothy a little bed in another corner. there was no garret at all, and no cellar--except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. it was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole. when dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. the sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. [illustration: "_she caught toto by the ear._"] when aunt em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. the sun and wind had changed her, too. they had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. she was thin and gaunt, and never smiled, now. when dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, aunt em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at. uncle henry never laughed. he worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. he was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke. it was toto that made dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. toto played all day long, and dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly. [illustration] to-day, however, they were not playing. uncle henry sat upon the door-step and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. dorothy stood in the door with toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. aunt em was washing the dishes. from the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and uncle henry and dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. there now came a sharp whistling in the air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction also. suddenly uncle henry stood up. "there's a cyclone coming, em," he called to his wife; "i'll go look after the stock." then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept. aunt em dropped her work and came to the door. one glance told her of the danger close at hand. "quick, dorothy!" she screamed; "run for the cellar!" toto jumped out of dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl started to get him. aunt em, badly frightened, threw open the trap-door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole. dorothy caught toto at last, and started to follow her aunt. when she was half way across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor. a strange thing then happened. the house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon. the north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. in the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather. it was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but dorothy found she was riding quite easily. after the first few whirls around, and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle. toto did not like it. he ran about the room, now here, now there, barking loudly; but dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to see what would happen. once toto got too near the open trap-door, and fell in; and at first the little girl thought she had lost him. but soon she saw one of his ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air was keeping him up so that he could not fall. she crept to the hole, caught toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again; afterward closing the trap-door so that no more accidents could happen. hour after hour passed away, and slowly dorothy got over her fright; but she felt quite lonely, and the wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf. at first she had wondered if she would be dashed to pieces when the house fell again; but as the hours passed and nothing terrible happened, she stopped worrying and resolved to wait calmly and see what the future would bring. at last she crawled over the swaying floor to her bed, and lay down upon it; and toto followed and lay down beside her. in spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, dorothy soon closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. [illustration] chapter ii. the council with the munchkins. [illustration] [illustration] she was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if dorothy had not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. as it was, the jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened; and toto put his cold little nose into her face and whined dismally. dorothy sat up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. she sprang from her bed and with toto at her heels ran and opened the door. the little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw. the cyclone had set the house down, very gently--for a cyclone--in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. there were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. a little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. while she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had ever seen. they were not as big as the grown folk she had always been used to; but neither were they very small. in fact, they seemed about as tall as dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age, although they were, so far as looks go, many years older. [illustration: "_i am the witch of the north._"] three were men and one a woman, and all were oddly dressed. they wore round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. the hats of the men were blue; the little woman's hat was white, and she wore a white gown that hung in plaits from her shoulders; over it were sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds. the men were dressed in blue, of the same shade as their hats, and wore well polished boots with a deep roll of blue at the tops. the men, dorothy thought, were about as old as uncle henry, for two of them had beards. but the little woman was doubtless much older: her face was covered with wrinkles, her hair was nearly white, and she walked rather stiffly. when these people drew near the house where dorothy was standing in the doorway, they paused and whispered among themselves, as if afraid to come farther. but the little old woman walked up to dorothy, made a low bow and said, in a sweet voice, "you are welcome, most noble sorceress, to the land of the munchkins. we are so grateful to you for having killed the wicked witch of the east, and for setting our people free from bondage." [illustration] dorothy listened to this speech with wonder. what could the little woman possibly mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had killed the wicked witch of the east? dorothy was an innocent, harmless little girl, who had been carried by a cyclone many miles from home; and she had never killed anything in all her life. but the little woman evidently expected her to answer; so dorothy said, with hesitation, "you are very kind; but there must be some mistake. i have not killed anything." "your house did, anyway," replied the little old woman, with a laugh; "and that is the same thing. see!" she continued, pointing to the corner of the house; "there are her two toes, still sticking out from under a block of wood." dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. there, indeed, just under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes. "oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried dorothy, clasping her hands together in dismay; "the house must have fallen on her. what ever shall we do?" "there is nothing to be done," said the little woman, calmly. [illustration] "but who was she?" asked dorothy. "she was the wicked witch of the east, as i said," answered the little woman. "she has held all the munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and day. now they are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favour." "who are the munchkins?" enquired dorothy. "they are the people who live in this land of the east, where the wicked witch ruled." "are you a munchkin?" asked dorothy. "no; but i am their friend, although i live in the land of the north. when they saw the witch of the east was dead the munchkins sent a swift messenger to me, and i came at once. i am the witch of the north." "oh, gracious!" cried dorothy; "are you a real witch?" "yes, indeed;" answered the little woman. "but i am a good witch, and the people love me. i am not as powerful as the wicked witch was who ruled here, or i should have set the people free myself." "but i thought all witches were wicked," said the girl, who was half frightened at facing a real witch. "oh, no; that is a great mistake. there were only four witches in all the land of oz, and two of them, those who live in the north and the south, are good witches. i know this is true, for i am one of them myself, and cannot be mistaken. those who dwelt in the east and the west were, indeed, wicked witches; but now that you have killed one of them, there is but one wicked witch in all the land of oz--the one who lives in the west." "but," said dorothy, after a moment's thought, "aunt em has told me that the witches were all dead--years and years ago." "who is aunt em?" inquired the little old woman. "she is my aunt who lives in kansas, where i came from." the witch of the north seemed to think for a time, with her head bowed and her eyes upon the ground. then she looked up and said, "i do not know where kansas is, for i have never heard that country mentioned before. but tell me, is it a civilized country?" "oh, yes;" replied dorothy. "then that accounts for it. in the civilized countries i believe there are no witches left; nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. but, you see, the land of oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off from all the rest of the world. therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us." "who are the wizards?" asked dorothy. "oz himself is the great wizard," answered the witch, sinking her voice to a whisper. "he is more powerful than all the rest of us together. he lives in the city of emeralds." dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the munchkins, who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the corner of the house where the wicked witch had been lying. [illustration] "what is it?" asked the little old woman; and looked, and began to laugh. the feet of the dead witch had disappeared entirely and nothing was left but the silver shoes. "she was so old," explained the witch of the north, "that she dried up quickly in the sun. that is the end of her. but the silver shoes are yours, and you shall have them to wear." she reached down and picked up the shoes, and after shaking the dust out of them handed them to dorothy. "the witch of the east was proud of those silver shoes," said one of the munchkins; "and there is some charm connected with them; but what it is we never knew." dorothy carried the shoes into the house and placed them on the table. then she came out again to the munchkins and said, "i am anxious to get back to my aunt and uncle, for i am sure they will worry about me. can you help me find my way?" the munchkins and the witch first looked at one another, and then at dorothy, and then shook their heads. "at the east, not far from here," said one, "there is a great desert, and none could live to cross it." "it is the same at the south," said another, "for i have been there and seen it. the south is the country of the quadlings." "i am told," said the third man, "that it is the same at the west. and that country, where the winkies live, is ruled by the wicked witch of the west, who would make you her slave if you passed her way." "the north is my home," said the old lady, "and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this land of oz. i'm afraid, my dear, you will have to live with us." dorothy began to sob, at this, for she felt lonely among all these strange people. her tears seemed to grieve the kind-hearted munchkins, for they immediately took out their handkerchiefs and began to weep also. as for the little old woman, she took off her cap and balanced the point on the end of her nose, while she counted "one, two, three" in a solemn voice. at once the cap changed to a slate, on which was written in big, white chalk marks: "let dorothy go to the city of emeralds." [illustration] the little old woman took the slate from her nose, and, having read the words on it, asked, "is your name dorothy, my dear?" "yes," answered the child, looking up and drying her tears. "then you must go to the city of emeralds. perhaps oz will help you." "where is this city?" asked dorothy. "it is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by oz, the great wizard i told you of." "is he a good man?" enquired the girl, anxiously. "he is a good wizard. whether he is a man or not i cannot tell, for i have never seen him." "how can i get there?" asked dorothy. "you must walk. it is a long journey, through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. however, i will use all the magic arts i know of to keep you from harm." "won't you go with me?" pleaded the girl, who had begun to look upon the little old woman as her only friend. "no, i cannot do that," she replied; "but i will give you my kiss, and no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the witch of the north." she came close to dorothy and kissed her gently on the forehead. where her lips touched the girl they left a round, shining mark, as dorothy found out soon after. "the road to the city of emeralds is paved with yellow brick," said the witch; "so you cannot miss it. when you get to oz do not be afraid of him, but tell your story and ask him to help you. good-bye, my dear." [illustration] the three munchkins bowed low to her and wished her a pleasant journey, after which they walked away through the trees. the witch gave dorothy a friendly little nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and straightway disappeared, much to the surprise of little toto, who barked after her loudly enough when she had gone, because he had been afraid even to growl while she stood by. but dorothy, knowing her to be a witch, had expected her to disappear in just that way, and was not surprised in the least. chapter iii how dorothy saved the scarecrow. [illustration] when dorothy was left alone she began to feel hungry. so she went to the cupboard and cut herself some bread, which she spread with butter. she gave some to toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water. toto ran over to the trees and began to bark at the birds sitting there. dorothy went to get him, and saw such delicious fruit hanging from the branches that she gathered some of it, finding it just what she wanted to help out her breakfast. then she went back to the house, and having helped herself and toto to a good drink of the cool, clear water, she set about making ready for the journey to the city of emeralds. dorothy had only one other dress, but that happened to be clean and was hanging on a peg beside her bed. it was gingham, with checks of white and blue; and although the blue was somewhat faded with many washings, it was still a pretty frock. the girl washed herself carefully, dressed herself in the clean gingham, and tied her pink sunbonnet on her head. she took a little basket and filled it with bread from the cupboard, laying a white cloth over the top. then she looked down at her feet and noticed how old and worn her shoes were. "they surely will never do for a long journey, toto," she said. and toto looked up into her face with his little black eyes and wagged his tail to show he knew what she meant. at that moment dorothy saw lying on the table the silver shoes that had belonged to the witch of the east. "i wonder if they will fit me," she said to toto. "they would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out." she took off her old leather shoes and tried on the silver ones, which fitted her as well as if they had been made for her. finally she picked up her basket. "come along, toto," she said, "we will go to the emerald city and ask the great oz how to get back to kansas again." she closed the door, locked it, and put the key carefully in the pocket of her dress. and so, with toto trotting along soberly behind her, she started on her journey. there were several roads near by, but it did not take her long to find the one paved with yellow brick. within a short time she was walking briskly toward the emerald city, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow roadbed. the sun shone bright and the birds sang sweet and dorothy did not feel nearly as bad as you might think a little girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own country and set down in the midst of a strange land. [illustration] she was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country was about her. there were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and vegetables in abundance. evidently the munchkins were good farmers and able to raise large crops. once in a while she would pass a house, and the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the wicked witch and setting them free from bondage. the houses of the munchkins were odd looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. all were painted blue, for in this country of the east blue was the favorite color. towards evening, when dorothy was tired with her long walk and began to wonder where she should pass the night, she came to a house rather larger than the rest. on the green lawn before it many men and women were dancing. five little fiddlers played as loudly as possible and the people were laughing and singing, while a big table near by was loaded with delicious fruits and nuts, pies and cakes, and many other good things to eat. the people greeted dorothy kindly, and invited her to supper and to pass the night with them; for this was the home of one of the richest munchkins in the land, and his friends were gathered with him to celebrate their freedom from the bondage of the wicked witch. dorothy ate a hearty supper and was waited upon by the rich munchkin himself, whose name was boq. then she sat down upon a settee and watched the people dance. when boq saw her silver shoes he said, "you must be a great sorceress." "why?" asked the girl. "because you wear silver shoes and have killed the wicked witch. besides, you have white in your frock, and only witches and sorceresses wear white." [illustration: "_you must be a great sorceress._"] "my dress is blue and white checked," said dorothy, smoothing out the wrinkles in it. "it is kind of you to wear that," said boq. "blue is the color of the munchkins, and white is the witch color; so we know you are a friendly witch." dorothy did not know what to say to this, for all the people seemed to think her a witch, and she knew very well she was only an ordinary little girl who had come by the chance of a cyclone into a strange land. when she had tired watching the dancing, boq led her into the house, where he gave her a room with a pretty bed in it. the sheets were made of blue cloth, and dorothy slept soundly in them till morning, with toto curled up on the blue rug beside her. she ate a hearty breakfast, and watched a wee munchkin baby, who played with toto and pulled his tail and crowed and laughed in a way that greatly amused dorothy. toto was a fine curiosity to all the people, for they had never seen a dog before. "how far is it to the emerald city?" the girl asked. [illustration] "i do not know," answered boq, gravely, "for i have never been there. it is better for people to keep away from oz, unless they have business with him. but it is a long way to the emerald city, and it will take you many days. the country here is rich and pleasant, but you must pass through rough and dangerous places before you reach the end of your journey." this worried dorothy a little, but she knew that only the great oz could help her get to kansas again, so she bravely resolved not to turn back. she bade her friends good-bye, and again started along the road of yellow brick. when she had gone several miles she thought she would stop to rest, and so climbed to the top of the fence beside the road and sat down. there was a great cornfield beyond the fence, and not far away she saw a scarecrow, placed high on a pole to keep the birds from the ripe corn. dorothy leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully at the scarecrow. its head was a small sack stuffed with straw, with eyes, nose and mouth painted on it to represent a face. an old, pointed blue hat, that had belonged to some munchkin, was perched on this head, and the rest of the figure was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, which had also been stuffed with straw. on the feet were some old boots with blue tops, such as every man wore in this country, and the figure was raised above the stalks of corn by means of the pole stuck up its back. [illustration: "_dorothy gazed thoughtfully at the scarecrow._"] while dorothy was looking earnestly into the queer, painted face of the scarecrow, she was surprised to see one of the eyes slowly wink at her. she thought she must have been mistaken, at first, for none of the scarecrows in kansas ever wink; but presently the figure nodded its head to her in a friendly way. then she climbed down from the fence and walked up to it, while toto ran around the pole and barked. "good day," said the scarecrow, in a rather husky voice. "did you speak?" asked the girl, in wonder. "certainly," answered the scarecrow; "how do you do?" "i'm pretty well, thank you," replied dorothy, politely; "how do you do?" "i'm not feeling well," said the scarecrow, with a smile, "for it is very tedious being perched up here night and day to scare away crows." "can't you get down?" asked dorothy. "no, for this pole is stuck up my back. if you will please take away the pole i shall be greatly obliged to you." dorothy reached up both arms and lifted the figure off the pole; for, being stuffed with straw, it was quite light. "thank you very much," said the scarecrow, when he had been set down on the ground. "i feel like a new man." dorothy was puzzled at this, for it sounded queer to hear a stuffed man speak, and to see him bow and walk along beside her. "who are you?" asked the scarecrow, when he had stretched himself and yawned, "and where are you going?" "my name is dorothy," said the girl, "and i am going to the emerald city, to ask the great oz to send me back to kansas." "where is the emerald city?" he enquired; "and who is oz?" "why, don't you know?" she returned, in surprise. "no, indeed; i don't know anything. you see, i am stuffed, so i have no brains at all," he answered, sadly. [illustration] "oh," said dorothy; "i'm awfully sorry for you." "do you think," he asked, "if i go to the emerald city with you, that the great oz would give me some brains?" "i cannot tell," she returned; "but you may come with me, if you like. if oz will not give you any brains you will be no worse off than you are now." "that is true," said the scarecrow. "you see," he continued, confidentially, "i don't mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, because i cannot get hurt. if anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin into me, it doesn't matter, for i cant feel it. but i do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am i ever to know anything?" "i understand how you feel," said the little girl, who was truly sorry for him. "if you will come with me i'll ask oz to do all he can for you." "thank you," he answered, gratefully. they walked back to the road, dorothy helped him over the fence, and they started along the path of yellow brick for the emerald city. toto did not like this addition to the party, at first. he smelled around the stuffed man as if he suspected there might be a nest of rats in the straw, and he often growled in an unfriendly way at the scarecrow. "don't mind toto," said dorothy, to her new friend; "he never bites." "oh, i'm not afraid," replied the scarecrow, "he can't hurt the straw. do let me carry that basket for you. i shall not mind it, for i can't get tired. i'll tell you a secret," he continued, as he walked along; "there is only one thing in the world i am afraid of." "what is that?" asked dorothy; "the munchkin farmer who made you?" "no," answered the scarecrow; "it's a lighted match." chapter iv. the road through the forest. [illustration] after a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew so difficult that the scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow bricks, which were here very uneven. sometimes, indeed, they were broken or missing altogether, leaving holes that toto jumped across and dorothy walked around. as for the scarecrow, having no brains he walked straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length on the hard bricks. it never hurt him, however, and dorothy would pick him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing merrily at his own mishap. [illustration] the farms were not nearly so well cared for here as they were farther back. there were fewer houses and fewer fruit trees, and the farther they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became. at noon they sat down by the roadside, near a little brook, and dorothy opened her basket and got out some bread. she offered a piece to the scarecrow, but he refused. "i am never hungry," he said; "and it is a lucky thing i am not. for my mouth is only painted, and if i should cut a hole in it so i could eat, the straw i am stuffed with would come out, and that would spoil the shape of my head." dorothy saw at once that this was true, so she only nodded and went on eating her bread. "tell me something about yourself, and the country you came from," said the scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner. so she told him all about kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone had carried her to this queer land of oz. the scarecrow listened carefully, and said, "i cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call kansas." [illustration: "_'i was only made yesterday,' said the scarecrow._"] "that is because you have no brains," answered the girl. "no matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. there is no place like home." the scarecrow sighed. "of course i cannot understand it," he said. "if your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then kansas would have no people at all. it is fortunate for kansas that you have brains." "won't you tell me a story, while we are resting?" asked the child. the scarecrow looked at her reproachfully, and answered, "my life has been so short that i really know nothing whatever. i was only made day before yesterday. what happened in the world before that time is all unknown to me. luckily, when the farmer made my head, one of the first things he did was to paint my ears, so that i heard what was going on. there was another munchkin with him, and the first thing i heard was the farmer saying, "'how do you like those ears?' "'they aren't straight,' answered the other. "'never mind,' said the farmer; 'they are ears just the same,' which was true enough. "'now i'll make the eyes,' said the farmer. so he painted my right eye, and as soon as it was finished i found myself looking at him and at everything around me with a great deal of curiosity, for this was my first glimpse of the world. "'that's a rather pretty eye,' remarked the munchkin who was watching the farmer; 'blue paint is just the color for eyes.' "'i think i'll make the other a little bigger,' said the farmer; and when the second eye was done i could see much better than before. then he made my nose and my mouth; but i did not speak, because at that time i didn't know what a mouth was for. i had the fun of watching them make my body and my arms and legs; and when they fastened on my head, at last, i felt very proud, for i thought i was just as good a man as anyone. "'this fellow will scare the crows fast enough,' said the farmer; 'he looks just like a man.' "'why, he is a man,' said the other, and i quite agreed with him. the farmer carried me under his arm to the cornfield, and set me up on a tall stick, where you found me. he and his friend soon after walked away and left me alone. "i did not like to be deserted this way; so i tried to walk after them, but my feet would not touch the ground, and i was forced to stay on that pole. it was a lonely life to lead, for i had nothing to think of, having been made such a little while before. many crows and other birds flew into the cornfield, but as soon as they saw me they flew away again, thinking i was a munchkin; and this pleased me and made me feel that i was quite an important person. by and by an old crow flew near me, and after looking at me carefully he perched upon my shoulder and said, [illustration] "'i wonder if that farmer thought to fool me in this clumsy manner. any crow of sense could see that you are only stuffed with straw.' then he hopped down at my feet and ate all the corn he wanted. the other birds, seeing he was not harmed by me, came to eat the corn too, so in a short time there was a great flock of them about me." "i felt sad at this, for it showed i was not such a good scarecrow after all; but the old crow comforted me, saying: 'if you only had brains in your head you would be as good a man as any of them, and a better man than some of them. brains are the only things worth having in this world, no matter whether one is a crow or a man.' "after the crows had gone i thought this over, and decided i would try hard to get some brains. by good luck, you came along and pulled me off the stake, and from what you say i am sure the great oz will give me brains as soon as we get to the emerald city." "i hope so," said dorothy, earnestly, "since you seem anxious to have them." "oh yes; i am anxious," returned the scarecrow. "it is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool." [illustration] "well," said the girl, "let us go." and she handed the basket to the scarecrow. there were no fences at all by the road side now, and the land was rough and untilled. towards evening they came to a great forest, where the trees grew so big and close together that their branches met over the road of yellow brick. it was almost dark under the trees, for the branches shut out the daylight; but the travellers did not stop, and went on into the forest. "if this road goes in, it must come out," said the scarecrow, "and as the emerald city is at the other end of the road, we must go wherever it leads us." "anyone would know that," said dorothy. "certainly; that is why i know it," returned the scarecrow. "if it required brains to figure it out, i never should have said it." after an hour or so the light faded away, and they found themselves stumbling along in the darkness. dorothy could not see at all, but toto could, for some dogs see very well in the dark; and the scarecrow declared he could see as well as by day. so she took hold of his arm, and managed to get along fairly well. "if you see any house, or any place where we can pass the night," she said, "you must tell me; for it is very uncomfortable walking in the dark." soon after the scarecrow stopped. "i see a little cottage at the right of us," he said, "built of logs and branches. shall we go there?" "yes, indeed;" answered the child. "i am all tired out." so the scarecrow led her through the trees until they reached the cottage, and dorothy entered and found a bed of dried leaves in one corner. she lay down at once, and with toto beside her soon fell into a sound sleep. the scarecrow, who was never tired, stood up in another corner and waited patiently until morning came. [illustration] chapter v. the rescue of the tin woodman [illustration] [illustration] when dorothy awoke the sun was shining through the trees and toto had long been out chasing birds and squirrels. she sat up and looked around her. there was the scarecrow, still standing patiently in his corner, waiting for her. "we must go and search for water," she said to him. "why do you want water?" he asked. "to wash my face clean after the dust of the road, and to drink, so the dry bread will not stick in my throat." "it must be inconvenient to be made of flesh," said the scarecrow, thoughtfully; "for you must sleep, and eat and drink. however, you have brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly." they left the cottage and walked through the trees until they found a little spring of clear water, where dorothy drank and bathed and ate her breakfast. she saw there was not much bread left in the basket, and the girl was thankful the scarecrow did not have to eat anything, for there was scarcely enough for herself and toto for the day. when she had finished her meal, and was about to go back to the road of yellow brick, she was startled to hear a deep groan near by. "what was that?" she asked, timidly. "i cannot imagine," replied the scarecrow; "but we can go and see." just then another groan reached their ears, and the sound seemed to come from behind them. they turned and walked through the forest a few steps, when dorothy discovered something shining in a ray of sunshine that fell between the trees. she ran to the place, and then stopped short, with a cry of surprise. one of the big trees had been partly chopped through, and standing beside it, with an uplifted axe in his hands, was a man made entirely of tin. his head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all. dorothy looked at him in amazement, and so did the scarecrow, while toto barked sharply and made a snap at the tin legs, which hurt his teeth. "did you groan?" asked dorothy. "yes," answered the tin man; "i did. i've been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me." "what can i do for you?" she enquired, softly, for she was moved by the sad voice in which the man spoke. [illustration] "get an oil-can and oil my joints," he answered. "they are rusted so badly that i cannot move them at all; if i am well oiled i shall soon be all right again. you will find an oil-can on a shelf in my cottage." dorothy at once ran back to the cottage and found the oil-can, and then she returned and asked, anxiously, "where are your joints?" "oil my neck, first," replied the tin woodman. so she oiled it, and as it was quite badly rusted the scarecrow took hold of the tin head and moved it gently from side to side until it worked freely, and then the man could turn it himself. "now oil the joints in my arms," he said. and dorothy oiled them and the scarecrow bent them carefully until they were quite free from rust and as good as new. the tin woodman gave a sigh of satisfaction and lowered his axe, which he leaned against the tree. "this is a great comfort," he said. "i have been holding that axe in the air ever since i rusted, and i'm glad to be able to put it down at last. now, if you will oil the joints of my legs, i shall be all right once more." so they oiled his legs until he could move them freely; and he thanked them again and again for his release, for he seemed a very polite creature, and very grateful. "i might have stood there always if you had not come along," he said; "so you have certainly saved my life. how did you happen to be here?" "we are on our way to the emerald city, to see the great oz," she answered, "and we stopped at your cottage to pass the night." "why do you wish to see oz?" he asked. "i want him to send me back to kansas; and the scarecrow wants him to put a few brains into his head," she replied. the tin woodman appeared to think deeply for a moment. then he said: "do you suppose oz could give me a heart?" "why, i guess so," dorothy answered; "it would be as easy as to give the scarecrow brains." [illustration: "_'this is a great comfort,' said the tin woodman._"] "true," the tin woodman returned. "so, if you will allow me to join your party, i will also go to the emerald city and ask oz to help me." "come along," said the scarecrow, heartily; and dorothy added that she would be pleased to have his company. so the tin woodman shouldered his axe and they all passed through the forest until they came to the road that was paved with yellow brick. the tin woodman had asked dorothy to put the oil-can in her basket. "for," he said, "if i should get caught in the rain, and rust again, i would need the oil-can badly." it was a bit of good luck to have their new comrade join the party, for soon after they had begun their journey again they came to a place where the trees and branches grew so thick over the road that the travellers could not pass. but the tin woodman set to work with his axe and chopped so well that soon he cleared a passage for the entire party. dorothy was thinking so earnestly as they walked along that she did not notice when the scarecrow stumbled into a hole and rolled over to the side of the road. indeed, he was obliged to call to her to help him up again. "why didn't you walk around the hole?" asked the tin woodman. "i don't know enough," replied the scarecrow, cheerfully. "my head is stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why i am going to oz to ask him for some brains." "oh, i see;" said the tin woodman. "but, after all, brains are not the best things in the world." "have you any?" enquired the scarecrow. "no, my head is quite empty," answered the woodman; "but once i had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, i should much rather have a heart." "and why is that?" asked the scarecrow. "i will tell you my story, and then you will know." so, while they were walking through the forest, the tin woodman told the following story: "i was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. when i grew up i too became a wood-chopper, and after my father died i took care of my old mother as long as she lived. then i made up my mind that instead of living alone i would marry, so that i might not become lonely. [illustration] "there was one of the munchkin girls who was so beautiful that i soon grew to love her with all my heart. she, on her part, promised to marry me as soon as i could earn enough money to build a better house for her; so i set to work harder than ever. but the girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the housework. so the old woman went to the wicked witch of the east, and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. thereupon the wicked witch enchanted my axe, and when i was chopping away at my best one day, for i was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg. "this at first seemed a great misfortune, for i knew a one-legged man could not do very well as a wood-chopper. so i went to a tin-smith and had him make me a new leg out of tin. the leg worked very well, once i was used to it; but my action angered the wicked witch of the east, for she had promised the old woman i should not marry the pretty munchkin girl. when i began chopping again my axe slipped and cut off my right leg. again i went to the tinner, and again he made me a leg out of tin. after this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but, nothing daunted, i had them replaced with tin ones. the wicked witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first i thought that was the end of me. but the tinner happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin. "i thought i had beaten the wicked witch then, and i worked harder than ever; but i little knew how cruel my enemy could be. she thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves. once more the tinner came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that i could move around as well as ever. but, alas! i had now no heart, so that i lost all my love for the munchkin girl, and did not care whether i married her or not. i suppose she is still living with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her. [illustration] "my body shone so brightly in the sun that i felt very proud of it and it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. there was only one danger--that my joints would rust; but i kept an oil-can in my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever i needed it. however, there came a day when i forgot to do this, and, being caught in a rainstorm, before i thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and i was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. it was a terrible thing to undergo, but during the year i stood there i had time to think that the greatest loss i had known was the loss of my heart. while i was in love i was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so i am resolved to ask oz to give me one. if he does, i will go back to the munchkin maiden and marry her." both dorothy and the scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story of the tin woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a new heart. "all the same," said the scarecrow, "i shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one." "i shall take the heart," returned the tin woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world." dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to kansas and aunt em it did not matter so much whether the woodman had no brains and the scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted. [illustration] what worried her most was that the bread was nearly gone, and another meal for herself and toto would empty the basket. to be sure neither the woodman nor the scarecrow ever ate anything, but she was not made of tin nor straw, and could not live unless she was fed. chapter vi. the cowardly lion. [illustration] [illustration: "_you ought to be ashamed of yourself!_"] [illustration] all this time dorothy and her companions had been walking through the thick woods. the road was still paved with yellow brick, but these were much covered by dried branches and dead leaves from the trees, and the walking was not at all good. there were few birds in this part of the forest, for birds love the open country where there is plenty of sunshine; but now and then there came a deep growl from some wild animal hidden among the trees. these sounds made the little girl's heart beat fast, for she did not know what made them; but toto knew, and he walked close to dorothy's side, and did not even bark in return. "how long will it be," the child asked of the tin woodman, "before we are out of the forest?" "i cannot tell," was the answer, "for i have never been to the emerald city. but my father went there once, when i was a boy, and he said it was a long journey through a dangerous country, although nearer to the city where oz dwells the country is beautiful. but i am not afraid so long as i have my oil-can, and nothing can hurt the scarecrow, while you bear upon your forehead the mark of the good witch's kiss, and that will protect you from harm." "but toto!" said the girl, anxiously; "what will protect him?" "we must protect him ourselves, if he is in danger," replied the tin woodman. just as he spoke there came from the forest a terrible roar, and the next moment a great lion bounded into the road. with one blow of his paw he sent the scarecrow spinning over and over to the edge of the road, and then he struck at the tin woodman with his sharp claws. but, to the lion's surprise, he could make no impression on the tin, although the woodman fell over in the road and lay still. little toto, now that he had an enemy to face, ran barking toward the lion, and the great beast had opened his mouth to bite the dog, when dorothy, fearing toto would be killed, and heedless of danger, rushed forward and slapped the lion upon his nose as hard as she could, while she cried out: "don't you dare to bite toto! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, a big beast like you, to bite a poor little dog!" "i didn't bite him," said the lion, as he rubbed his nose with his paw where dorothy had hit it. "no, but you tried to," she retorted. "you are nothing but a big coward." "i know it," said the lion, hanging his head in shame; "i've always known it. but how can i help it?" "i don't know, i'm sure. to think of your striking a stuffed man, like the poor scarecrow!" "is he stuffed?" asked the lion, in surprise, as he watched her pick up the scarecrow and set him upon his feet, while she patted him into shape again. "of course he's stuffed," replied dorothy, who was still angry. "that's why he went over so easily," remarked the lion. "it astonished me to see him whirl around so. is the other one stuffed, also?" "no," said dorothy, "he's made of tin." and she helped the woodman up again. "that's why he nearly blunted my claws," said the lion. "when they scratched against the tin it made a cold shiver run down my back. what is that little animal you are so tender of?" "he is my dog, toto," answered dorothy. "is he made of tin, or stuffed?" asked the lion. "neither. he's a--a--a meat dog," said the girl. "oh. he's a curious animal, and seems remarkably small, now that i look at him. no one would think of biting such a little thing except a coward like me," continued the lion, sadly. "what makes you a coward?" asked dorothy, looking at the great beast in wonder, for he was as big as a small horse. [illustration] "it's a mystery," replied the lion. "i suppose i was born that way. all the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for the lion is everywhere thought to be the king of beasts. i learned that if i roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way. whenever i've met a man i've been awfully scared; but i just roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go. if the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, i should have run myself--i'm such a coward; but just as soon as they hear me roar they all try to get away from me, and of course i let them go." "but that isn't right. the king of beasts shouldn't be a coward," said the scarecrow. "i know it," returned the lion, wiping a tear from his eye with the tip of his tail; "it is my great sorrow, and makes my life very unhappy. but whenever there is danger my heart begins to beat fast." "perhaps you have heart disease," said the tin woodman. "it may be," said the lion. "if you have," continued the tin woodman, "you ought to be glad, for it proves you have a heart. for my part, i have no heart; so i cannot have heart disease." "perhaps," said the lion, thoughtfully, "if i had no heart i should not be a coward." "have you brains?" asked the scarecrow. "i suppose so. i've never looked to see," replied the lion. "i am going to the great oz to ask him to give me some," remarked the scarecrow, "for my head is stuffed with straw." "and i am going to ask him to give me a heart," said the woodman. "and i am going to ask him to send toto and me back to kansas," added dorothy. "do you think oz could give me courage?" asked the cowardly lion. "just as easily as he could give me brains," said the scarecrow. "or give me a heart," said the tin woodman. "or send me back to kansas," said dorothy. "then, if you don't mind, i'll go with you," said the lion, "for my life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage." "you will be very welcome," answered dorothy, "for you will help to keep away the other wild beasts. it seems to me they must be more cowardly than you are if they allow you to scare them so easily." "they really are," said the lion; "but that doesn't make me any braver, and as long as i know myself to be a coward i shall be unhappy." so once more the little company set off upon the journey, the lion walking with stately strides at dorothy's side. toto did not approve this new comrade at first, for he could not forget how nearly he had been crushed between the lion's great jaws; but after a time he became more at ease, and presently toto and the cowardly lion had grown to be good friends. during the rest of that day there was no other adventure to mar the peace of their journey. once, indeed, the tin woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing. this made the tin woodman very unhappy, for he was always careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept several tears of sorrow and regret. these tears ran slowly down his face and over the hinges of his jaw, and there they rusted. when dorothy presently asked him a question the tin woodman could not open his mouth, for his jaws were tightly rusted together. he became greatly frightened at this and made many motions to dorothy to relieve him, but she could not understand. the lion was also puzzled to know what was wrong. but the scarecrow seized the oil-can from dorothy's basket and oiled the woodman's jaws, so that after a few moments he could talk as well as before. [illustration] "this will serve me a lesson," said he, "to look where i step. for if i should kill another bug or beetle i should surely cry again, and crying rusts my jaw so that i cannot speak." thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it. the tin woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. "you people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but i have no heart, and so i must be very careful. when oz gives me a heart of course i needn't mind so much." chapter vii. the journey to the great oz. [illustration] [illustration] they were obliged to camp out that night under a large tree in the forest, for there were no houses near. the tree made a good, thick covering to protect them from the dew, and the tin woodman chopped a great pile of wood with his axe and dorothy built a splendid fire that warmed her and made her feel less lonely. she and toto ate the last of their bread, and now she did not know what they would do for breakfast. "if you wish," said the lion, "i will go into the forest and kill a deer for you. you can roast it by the fire, since your tastes are so peculiar that you prefer cooked food, and then you will have a very good breakfast." "don't! please don't," begged the tin woodman. "i should certainly weep if you killed a poor deer, and then my jaws would rust again." [illustration] but the lion went away into the forest and found his own supper, and no one ever knew what it was, for he didn't mention it. and the scarecrow found a tree full of nuts and filled dorothy's basket with them, so that she would not be hungry for a long time. she thought this was very kind and thoughtful of the scarecrow, but she laughed heartily at the awkward way in which the poor creature picked up the nuts. his padded hands were so clumsy and the nuts were so small that he dropped almost as many as he put in the basket. but the scarecrow did not mind how long it took him to fill the basket, for it enabled him to keep away from the fire, as he feared a spark might get into his straw and burn him up. so he kept a good distance away from the flames, and only came near to cover dorothy with dry leaves when she lay down to sleep. these kept her very snug and warm and she slept soundly until morning. when it was daylight the girl bathed her face in a little rippling brook and soon after they all started toward the emerald city. this was to be an eventful day for the travellers. they had hardly been walking an hour when they saw before them a great ditch that crossed the road and divided the forest as far as they could see on either side. it was a very wide ditch, and when they crept up to the edge and looked into it they could see it was also very deep, and there were many big, jagged rocks at the bottom. the sides were so steep that none of them could climb down, and for a moment it seemed that their journey must end. "what shall we do?" asked dorothy, despairingly. "i haven't the faintest idea," said the tin woodman; and the lion shook his shaggy mane and looked thoughtful. but the scarecrow said: "we cannot fly, that is certain; neither can we climb down into this great ditch. therefore, if we cannot jump over it, we must stop where we are." "i think i could jump over it," said the cowardly lion, after measuring the distance carefully in his mind. "then we are all right," answered the scarecrow, "for you can carry us all over on your back, one at a time." "well, i'll try it," said the lion. "who will go first?" "i will," declared the scarecrow; "for, if you found that you could not jump over the gulf, dorothy would be killed, or the tin woodman badly dented on the rocks below. but if i am on your back it will not matter so much, for the fall would not hurt me at all." [illustration] "i am terribly afraid of falling, myself," said the cowardly lion, "but i suppose there is nothing to do but try it. so get on my back and we will make the attempt." the scarecrow sat upon the lion's back, and the big beast walked to the edge of the gulf and crouched down. "why don't you run and jump?" asked the scarecrow. "because that isn't the way we lions do these things," he replied. then giving a great spring, he shot through the air and landed safely on the other side. they were all greatly pleased to see how easily he did it, and after the scarecrow had got down from his back the lion sprang across the ditch again. dorothy thought she would go next; so she took toto in her arms and climbed on the lion's back, holding tightly to his mane with one hand. the next moment it seemed as if she was flying through the air; and then, before she had time to think about it, she was safe on the other side. the lion went back a third time and got the tin woodman, and then they all sat down for a few moments to give the beast a chance to rest, for his great leaps had made his breath short, and he panted like a big dog that has been running too long. [illustration] they found the forest very thick on this side, and it looked dark and gloomy. after the lion had rested they started along the road of yellow brick, silently wondering, each in his own mind, if ever they would come to the end of the woods and reach the bright sunshine again. to add to their discomfort, they soon heard strange noises in the depths of the forest, and the lion whispered to them that it was in this part of the country that the kalidahs lived. "what are the kalidahs?" asked the girl. "they are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers," replied the lion; "and with claws so long and sharp that they could tear me in two as easily as i could kill toto. i'm terribly afraid of the kalidahs." "i'm not surprised that you are," returned dorothy "they must be dreadful beasts." the lion was about to reply when suddenly they came to another gulf across the road; but this one was so broad and deep that the lion knew at once he could not leap across it. so they sat down to consider what they should do, and after serious thought the scarecrow said, "here is a great tree, standing close to the ditch. if the tin woodman can chop it down, so that it will fall to the other side, we can walk across it easily." "that is a first rate idea," said the lion. "one would almost suspect you had brains in your head, instead of straw." the woodman set to work at once, and so sharp was his axe that the tree was soon chopped nearly through. then the lion put his strong front legs against the tree and pushed with all his might, and slowly the big tree tipped and fell with a crash across the ditch, with its top branches on the other side. they had just started to cross this queer bridge when a sharp growl made them all look up, and to their horror they saw running toward them two great beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. "they are the kalidahs!" said the cowardly lion, beginning to tremble. "quick!" cried the scarecrow, "let us cross over." [illustration: "_the tree fell with a crash into the gulf._"] so dorothy went first, holding toto in her arms; the tin woodman followed, and the scarecrow came next. the lion, although he was certainly afraid, turned to face the kalidahs, and then he gave so loud and terrible a roar that dorothy screamed and the scarecrow fell over backwards, while even the fierce beasts stopped short and looked at him in surprise. but, seeing they were bigger than the lion, and remembering that there were two of them and only one of him, the kalidahs again rushed forward, and the lion crossed over the tree and turned to see what they would do next. without stopping an instant the fierce beasts also began to cross the tree, and the lion said to dorothy, "we are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws. but stand close behind me, and i will fight them as long as i am alive." "wait a minute!" called the scarecrow. he had been thinking what was best to be done, and now he asked the woodman to chop away the end of the tree that rested on their side of the ditch. the tin woodman began to use his axe at once, and, just as the two kalidahs were nearly across, the tree fell with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, snarling brutes with it, and both were dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks at the bottom. "well," said the cowardly lion, drawing a long breath of relief, "i see we are going to live a little while longer, and i am glad of it, for it must be a very uncomfortable thing not to be alive. those creatures frightened me so badly that my heart is beating yet." "ah." said the tin woodman, sadly, "i wish i had a heart to beat." [illustration] this adventure made the travellers more anxious than ever to get out of the forest, and they walked so fast that dorothy became tired, and had to ride on the lion's back. to their great joy the trees became thinner the further they advanced, and in the afternoon they suddenly came upon a broad river, flowing swiftly just before them. on the other side of the water they could see the road of yellow brick running through a beautiful country, with green meadows dotted with bright flowers and all the road bordered with trees hanging full of delicious fruits. they were greatly pleased to see this delightful country before them. "how shall we cross the river?" asked dorothy. "that is easily done," replied the scarecrow. "the tin woodman must build us a raft, so we can float to the other side." so the woodman took his axe and began to chop down small trees to make a raft, and while he was busy at this the scarecrow found on the river bank a tree full of fine fruit. this pleased dorothy, who had eaten nothing but nuts all day, and she made a hearty meal of the ripe fruit. but it takes time to make a raft, even when one is as industrious and untiring as the tin woodman, and when night came the work was not done. so they found a cozy place under the trees where they slept well until the morning; and dorothy dreamed of the emerald city, and of the good wizard oz, who would soon send her back to her own home again. [illustration] chapter viii. the deadly poppy field. [illustration] [illustration] our little party of travellers awakened next morning refreshed and full of hope, and dorothy breakfasted like a princess off peaches and plums from the trees beside the river. behind them was the dark forest they had passed safely through, although they had suffered many discouragements; but before them was a lovely, sunny country that seemed to beckon them on to the emerald city. to be sure, the broad river now cut them off from this beautiful land; but the raft was nearly done, and after the tin woodman had cut a few more logs and fastened them together with wooden pins, they were ready to start. dorothy sat down in the middle of the raft and held toto in her arms. when the cowardly lion stepped upon the raft it tipped badly, for he was big and heavy; but the scarecrow and the tin woodman stood upon the other end to steady it, and they had long poles in their hands to push the raft through the water. they got along quite well at first, but when they reached the middle of the river the swift current swept the raft down stream, farther and farther away from the road of yellow brick; and the water grew so deep that the long poles would not touch the bottom. "this is bad," said the tin woodman, "for if we cannot get to the land we shall be carried into the country of the wicked witch of the west, and she will enchant us and make us her slaves." "and then i should get no brains," said the scarecrow. "and i should get no courage," said the cowardly lion. [illustration] "and i should get no heart," said the tin woodman. "and i should never get back to kansas," said dorothy. "we must certainly get to the emerald city if we can," the scarecrow continued, and he pushed so hard on his long pole that it stuck fast in the mud at the bottom of the river, and before he could pull it out again, or let go, the raft was swept away and the poor scarecrow left clinging to the pole in the middle of the river. "good bye!" he called after them, and they were very sorry to leave him; indeed, the tin woodman began to cry, but fortunately remembered that he might rust, and so dried his tears on dorothy's apron. of course this was a bad thing for the scarecrow. "i am now worse off than when i first met dorothy," he thought. "then, i was stuck on a pole in a cornfield, where i could make believe scare the crows, at any rate; but surely there is no use for a scarecrow stuck on a pole in the middle of a river. i am afraid i shall never have any brains, after all!" [illustration] down the stream the raft floated, and the poor scarecrow was left far behind. then the lion said: "something must be done to save us. i think i can swim to the shore and pull the raft after me, if you will only hold fast to the tip of my tail." [illustration] so he sprang into the water and the tin woodman caught fast hold of his tail, when the lion began to swim with all his might toward the shore. it was hard work, although he was so big; but by and by they were drawn out of the current, and then dorothy took the tin woodman's long pole and helped push the raft to the land. they were all tired out when they reached the shore at last and stepped off upon the pretty green grass, and they also knew that the stream had carried them a long way past the road of yellow brick that led to the emerald city. "what shall we do now?" asked the tin woodman, as the lion lay down on the grass to let the sun dry him. "we must get back to the road, in some way," said dorothy. "the best plan will be to walk along the river bank until we come to the road again," remarked the lion. so, when they were rested, dorothy picked up her basket and they started along the grassy bank, back to the road from which the river had carried them. it was a lovely country, with plenty of flowers and fruit trees and sunshine to cheer them, and had they not felt so sorry for the poor scarecrow they could have been very happy. they walked along as fast as they could, dorothy only stopping once to pick a beautiful flower; and after a time the tin woodman cried out, "look!" then they all looked at the river and saw the scarecrow perched upon his pole in the middle of the water, looking very lonely and sad. "what can we do to save him?" asked dorothy. the lion and the woodman both shook their heads, for they did not know. so they sat down upon the bank and gazed wistfully at the scarecrow until a stork flew by, which, seeing them, stopped to rest at the water's edge. "who are you, and where are you going?" asked the stork. "i am dorothy," answered the girl; "and these are my friends, the tin woodman and the cowardly lion; and we are going to the emerald city." "this isn't the road," said the stork, as she twisted her long neck and looked sharply at the queer party. "i know it," returned dorothy, "but we have lost the scarecrow, and are wondering how we shall get him again." "where is he?" asked the stork. "over there in the river," answered the girl. "if he wasn't so big and heavy i would get him for you," remarked the stork. "he isn't heavy a bit," said dorothy, eagerly, "for he is stuffed with straw; and if you will bring him back to us we shall thank you ever and ever so much." "well, i'll try," said the stork; "but if i find he is too heavy to carry i shall have to drop him in the river again." so the big bird flew into the air and over the water till she came to where the scarecrow was perched upon his pole. then the stork with her great claws grabbed the scarecrow by the arm and carried him up into the air and back to the bank, where dorothy and the lion and the tin woodman and toto were sitting. when the scarecrow found himself among his friends again he was so happy that he hugged them all, even the lion and toto; and as they walked along he sang "tol-de-ri-de-oh!" at every step, he felt so gay. "i was afraid i should have to stay in the river forever," he said, "but the kind stork saved me, and if i ever get any brains i shall find the stork again and do it some kindness in return." "that's all right," said the stork, who was flying along beside them. "i always like to help anyone in trouble. but i must go now, for my babies are waiting in the nest for me. i hope you will find the emerald city and that oz will help you." "thank you," replied dorothy, and then the kind stork flew into the air and was soon out of sight. [illustration: "_the stork carried him up into the air._"] they walked along listening to the singing of the bright-colored birds and looking at the lovely flowers which now became so thick that the ground was carpeted with them. there were big yellow and white and blue and purple blossoms, besides great clusters of scarlet poppies, which were so brilliant in color they almost dazzled dorothy's eyes. "aren't they beautiful?" the girl asked, as she breathed in the spicy scent of the flowers. "i suppose so," answered the scarecrow. "when i have brains i shall probably like them better." "if i only had a heart i should love them," added the tin woodman. "i always did like flowers," said the lion; "they seem so helpless and frail. but there are none in the forest so bright as these." they now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers he sleeps on and on forever. but dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep. but the tin woodman would not let her do this. "we must hurry and get back to the road of yellow brick before dark," he said; and the scarecrow agreed with him. so they kept walking until dorothy could stand no longer. her eyes closed in spite of herself and she forgot where she was and fell among the poppies, fast asleep. "what shall we do?" asked the tin woodman. "if we leave her here she will die," said the lion. "the smell of the flowers is killing us all. i myself can scarcely keep my eyes open and the dog is asleep already." it was true; toto had fallen down beside his little mistress. but the scarecrow and the tin woodman, not being made of flesh, were not troubled by the scent of the flowers. [illustration] "run fast," said the scarecrow to the lion, "and get out of this deadly flower-bed as soon as you can. we will bring the little girl with us, but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried." so the lion aroused himself and bounded forward as fast as he could go. in a moment he was out of sight. "let us make a chair with our hands, and carry her," said the scarecrow. so they picked up toto and put the dog in dorothy's lap, and then they made a chair with their hands for the seat and their arms for the arms and carried the sleeping girl between them through the flowers. on and on they walked, and it seemed that the great carpet of deadly flowers that surrounded them would never end. they followed the bend of the river, and at last came upon their friend the lion, lying fast asleep among the poppies. the flowers had been too strong for the huge beast and he had given up, at last, and fallen only a short distance from the end of the poppy-bed, where the sweet grass spread in beautiful green fields before them. "we can do nothing for him," said the tin woodman, sadly; "for he is much too heavy to lift. we must leave him here to sleep on forever, and perhaps he will dream that he has found courage at last." "i'm sorry," said the scarecrow; "the lion was a very good comrade for one so cowardly. but let us go on." they carried the sleeping girl to a pretty spot beside the river, far enough from the poppy field to prevent her breathing any more of the poison of the flowers, and here they laid her gently on the soft grass and waited for the fresh breeze to waken her. [illustration] chapter ix. the queen of the field mice. [illustration] [illustration] "we cannot be far from the road of yellow brick, now," remarked the scarecrow, as he stood beside the girl, "for we have come nearly as far as the river carried us away." the tin woodman was about to reply when he heard a low growl, and turning his head (which worked beautifully on hinges) he saw a strange beast come bounding over the grass towards them. it was, indeed, a great, yellow wildcat, and the woodman thought it must be chasing something, for its ears were lying close to its head and its mouth was wide open, showing two rows of ugly teeth, while its red eyes glowed like balls of fire. as it came nearer the tin woodman saw that running before the beast was a little gray field-mouse, and although he had no heart he knew it was wrong for the wildcat to try to kill such a pretty, harmless creature. so the woodman raised his axe, and as the wildcat ran by he gave it a quick blow that cut the beast's head clean off from its body, and it rolled over at his feet in two pieces. the field-mouse, now that it was freed from its enemy, stopped short; and coming slowly up to the woodman it said, in a squeaky little voice, "oh, thank you! thank you ever so much for saving my life." "don't speak of it, i beg of you," replied the woodman. "i have no heart, you know, so i am careful to help all those who may need a friend, even if it happens to be only a mouse." "only a mouse!" cried the little animal, indignantly; "why, i am a queen--the queen of all the field-mice!" "oh, indeed," said the woodman, making a bow. "therefore you have done a great deed, as well as a brave one, in saving my life," added the queen. at that moment several mice were seen running up as fast as their little legs could carry them, and when they saw their queen they exclaimed, [illustration: "_permit me to introduce to you her majesty, the queen._"] "oh, your majesty, we thought you would be killed! how did you manage to escape the great wildcat?" and they all bowed so low to the little queen that they almost stood upon their heads. "this funny tin man," she answered, "killed the wildcat and saved my life. so hereafter you must all serve him, and obey his slightest wish." "we will!" cried all the mice, in a shrill chorus. and then they scampered in all directions, for toto had awakened from his sleep, and seeing all these mice around him he gave one bark of delight and jumped right into the middle of the group. toto had always loved to chase mice when he lived in kansas, and he saw no harm in it. but the tin woodman caught the dog in his arms and held him tight, while he called to the mice: "come back! come back! toto shall not hurt you." at this the queen of the mice stuck her head out from a clump of grass and asked, in a timid voice, "are you sure he will not bite us?" "i will not let him," said the woodman; "so do not be afraid." [illustration] one by one the mice came creeping back, and toto did not bark again, although he tried to get out of the woodman's arms, and would have bitten him had he not known very well he was made of tin. finally one of the biggest mice spoke. "is there anything we can do," it asked, "to repay you for saving the life of our queen?" "nothing that i know of," answered the woodman; but the scarecrow, who had been trying to think, but could not because his head was stuffed with straw, said, quickly, "oh, yes; you can save our friend, the cowardly lion, who is asleep in the poppy bed." "a lion!" cried the little queen; "why, he would eat us all up." "oh, no;" declared the scarecrow; "this lion is a coward." "really?" asked the mouse. "he says so himself," answered the scarecrow, "and he would never hurt anyone who is our friend. if you will help us to save him i promise that he shall treat you all with kindness." "very well," said the queen, "we will trust you. but what shall we do?" "are there many of these mice which call you queen and are willing to obey you?" "oh, yes; there are thousands," she replied. "then send for them all to come here as soon as possible, and let each one bring a long piece of string." the queen turned to the mice that attended her and told them to go at once and get all her people. as soon as they heard her orders they ran away in every direction as fast as possible. "now," said the scarecrow to the tin woodman, "you must go to those trees by the river-side and make a truck that will carry the lion." so the woodman went at once to the trees and began to work; and he soon made a truck out of the limbs of trees, from which he chopped away all the leaves and branches. he fastened it together with wooden pegs and made the four wheels out of short pieces of a big tree-trunk. so fast and so well did he work that by the time the mice began to arrive the truck was all ready for them. they came from all directions, and there were thousands of them: big mice and little mice and middle-sized mice; and each one brought a piece of string in his mouth. it was about this time that dorothy woke from her long sleep and opened her eyes. she was greatly astonished to find herself lying upon the grass, with thousands of mice standing around and looking at her timidly. but the scarecrow told her about everything, and turning to the dignified little mouse, he said, "permit me to introduce to you her majesty, the queen." dorothy nodded gravely and the queen made a courtesy, after which she became quite friendly with the little girl. the scarecrow and the woodman now began to fasten the mice to the truck, using the strings they had brought. one end of a string was tied around the neck of each mouse and the other end to the truck. of course the truck was a thousand times bigger than any of the mice who were to draw it; but when all the mice had been harnessed they were able to pull it quite easily. even the scarecrow and the tin woodman could sit on it, and were drawn swiftly by their queer little horses to the place where the lion lay asleep. [illustration] after a great deal of hard work, for the lion was heavy, they managed to get him up on the truck. then the queen hurriedly gave her people the order to start, for she feared if the mice stayed among the poppies too long they also would fall asleep. [illustration] at first the little creatures, many though they were, could hardly stir the heavily loaded truck; but the woodman and the scarecrow both pushed from behind, and they got along better. soon they rolled the lion out of the poppy bed to the green fields, where he could breathe the sweet, fresh air again, instead of the poisonous scent of the flowers. dorothy came to meet them and thanked the little mice warmly for saving her companion from death. she had grown so fond of the big lion she was glad he had been rescued. then the mice were unharnessed from the truck and scampered away through the grass to their homes. the queen of the mice was the last to leave. "if ever you need us again," she said, "come out into the field and call, and we shall hear you and come to your assistance. good bye!" "good bye!" they all answered, and away the queen ran, while dorothy held toto tightly lest he should run after her and frighten her. after this they sat down beside the lion until he should awaken; and the scarecrow brought dorothy some fruit from a tree near by, which she ate for her dinner. [illustration] chapter x. the guardian of the gate. [illustration] [illustration] it was some time before the cowardly lion awakened, for he had lain among the poppies a long while, breathing in their deadly fragrance; but when he did open his eyes and roll off the truck he was very glad to find himself still alive. "i ran as fast as i could," he said, sitting down and yawning; "but the flowers were too strong for me. how did you get me out?" then they told him of the field-mice, and how they had generously saved him from death; and the cowardly lion laughed, and said, "i have always thought myself very big and terrible; yet such small things as flowers came near to killing me, and such small animals as mice have saved my life. how strange it all is! but, comrades, what shall we do now?" "we must journey on until we find the road of yellow brick again," said dorothy; "and then we can keep on to the emerald city." so, the lion being fully refreshed, and feeling quite himself again, they all started upon the journey, greatly enjoying the walk through the soft, fresh grass; and it was not long before they reached the road of yellow brick and turned again toward the emerald city where the great oz dwelt. [illustration] the road was smooth and well paved, now, and the country about was beautiful; so that the travelers rejoiced in leaving the forest far behind, and with it the many dangers they had met in its gloomy shades. once more they could see fences built beside the road; but these were painted green, and when they came to a small house, in which a farmer evidently lived, that also was painted green. they passed by several of these houses during the afternoon, and sometimes people came to the doors and looked at them as if they would like to ask questions; but no one came near them nor spoke to them because of the great lion, of which they were much afraid. the people were all dressed in clothing of a lovely emerald green color and wore peaked hats like those of the munchkins. [illustration] "this must be the land of oz," said dorothy, "and we are surely getting near the emerald city." "yes," answered the scarecrow; "everything is green here, while in the country of the munchkins blue was the favorite color. but the people do not seem to be as friendly as the munchkins and i'm afraid we shall be unable to find a place to pass the night." "i should like something to eat besides fruit," said the girl, "and i'm sure toto is nearly starved. let us stop at the next house and talk to the people." so, when they came to a good sized farm house, dorothy walked boldly up to the door and knocked. a woman opened it just far enough to look out, and said, "what do you want, child, and why is that great lion with you?" "we wish to pass the night with you, if you will allow us," answered dorothy; "and the lion is my friend and comrade, and would not hurt you for the world." "is he tame?" asked the woman, opening the door a little wider. "oh, yes;" said the girl, "and he is a great coward, too; so that he will be more afraid of you than you are of him." "well," said the woman, after thinking it over and taking another peep at the lion, "if that is the case you may come in, and i will give you some supper and a place to sleep." so they all entered the house, where there were, besides the woman, two children and a man. the man had hurt his leg, and was lying on the couch in a corner. they seemed greatly surprised to see so strange a company, and while the woman was busy laying the table the man asked, "where are you all going?" "to the emerald city," said dorothy, "to see the great oz." "oh, indeed!" exclaimed the man. "are you sure that oz will see you?" "why not?" she replied. "why, it is said that he never lets any one come into his presence. i have been to the emerald city many times, and it is a beautiful and wonderful place; but i have never been permitted to see the great oz, nor do i know of any living person who has seen him." "does he never go out?" asked the scarecrow. "never. he sits day after day in the great throne room of his palace, and even those who wait upon him do not see him face to face." "what is he like?" asked the girl. "that is hard to tell," said the man, thoughtfully. "you see, oz is a great wizard, and can take on any form he wishes. so that some say he looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say he looks like a cat. to others he appears as a beautiful fairy, or a brownie, or in any other form that pleases him. but who the real oz is, when he is in his own form, no living person can tell." "that is very strange," said dorothy; "but we must try, in some way, to see him, or we shall have made our journey for nothing." [illustration] "why do you wish to see the terrible oz?" asked the man. "i want him to give me some brains," said the scarecrow, eagerly. "oh, oz could do that easily enough," declared the man. "he has more brains than he needs." "and i want him to give me a heart," said the tin woodman. "that will not trouble him," continued the man, "for oz has a large collection of hearts, of all sizes and shapes." "and i want him to give me courage," said the cowardly lion. "oz keeps a great pot of courage in his throne room," said the man, "which he has covered with a golden plate, to keep it from running over. he will be glad to give you some." "and i want him to send me back to kansas," said dorothy. "where is kansas?" asked the man, in surprise. "i don't know," replied dorothy, sorrowfully; "but it is my home, and i'm sure it's somewhere." "very likely. well, oz can do anything; so i suppose he will find kansas for you. but first you must get to see him, and that will be a hard task; for the great wizard does not like to see anyone, and he usually has his own way. but what do you want?" he continued, speaking to toto. toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak. [illustration: "_the lion ate some of the porridge._"] the woman now called to them that supper was ready, so they gathered around the table and dorothy ate some delicious porridge and a dish of scrambled eggs and a plate of nice white bread, and enjoyed her meal. the lion ate some of the porridge, but did not care for it, saying it was made from oats and oats were food for horses, not for lions. the scarecrow and the tin woodman ate nothing at all. toto ate a little of everything, and was glad to get a good supper again. the woman now gave dorothy a bed to sleep in, and toto lay down beside her, while the lion guarded the door of her room so she might not be disturbed. the scarecrow and the tin woodman stood up in a corner and kept quiet all night, although of course they could not sleep. the next morning, as soon as the sun was up, they started on their way, and soon saw a beautiful green glow in the sky just before them. "that must be the emerald city," said dorothy. as they walked on, the green glow became brighter and brighter, and it seemed that at last they were nearing the end of their travels. yet it was afternoon before they came to the great wall that surrounded the city. it was high, and thick, and of a bright green color. in front of them, and at the end of the road of yellow brick, was a big gate, all studded with emeralds that glittered so in the sun that even the painted eyes of the scarecrow were dazzled by their brilliancy. there was a bell beside the gate, and dorothy pushed the button and heard a silvery tinkle sound within. then the big gate swung slowly open, and they all passed through and found themselves in a high arched room, the walls of which glistened with countless emeralds. before them stood a little man about the same size as the munchkins. he was clothed all in green, from his head to his feet, and even his skin was of a greenish tint. at his side was a large green box. when he saw dorothy and her companions the man asked, "what do you wish in the emerald city?" "we came here to see the great oz," said dorothy. the man was so surprised at this answer that he sat down to think it over. "it has been many years since anyone asked me to see oz," he said, shaking his head in perplexity. "he is powerful and terrible, and if you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise reflections of the great wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in an instant." [illustration] "but it is not a foolish errand, nor an idle one," replied the scarecrow; "it is important. and we have been told that oz is a good wizard." "so he is," said the green man; "and he rules the emerald city wisely and well. but to those who are not honest, or who approach him from curiosity, he is most terrible, and few have ever dared ask to see his face. i am the guardian of the gates, and since you demand to see the great oz i must take you to his palace. but first you must put on the spectacles." "why?" asked dorothy. "because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the emerald city would blind you. even those who live in the city must wear spectacles night and day. they are all locked on, for oz so ordered it when the city was first built, and i have the only key that will unlock them." [illustration] he opened the big box, and dorothy saw that it was filled with spectacles of every size and shape. all of them had green glasses in them. the guardian of the gates found a pair that would just fit dorothy and put them over her eyes. there were two golden bands fastened to them that passed around the back of her head, where they were locked together by a little key that was at the end of a chain the guardian of the gates wore around his neck. when they were on, dorothy could not take them off had she wished, but of course she did not want to be blinded by the glare of the emerald city, so she said nothing. then the green man fitted spectacles for the scarecrow and the tin woodman and the lion, and even on little toto; and all were locked fast with the key. then the guardian of the gates put on his own glasses and told them he was ready to show them to the palace. taking a big golden key from a peg on the wall he opened another gate, and they all followed him through the portal into the streets of the emerald city. chapter xi. the wonderful emerald city of oz. [illustration] even with eyes protected by the green spectacles dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful city. the streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds. they walked over a pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the brightness of the sun. the window panes were of green glass; even the sky above the city had a green tint, and the rays of the sun were green. there were many people, men, women and children, walking about, and these were all dressed in green clothes and had greenish skins. they looked at dorothy and her strangely assorted company with wondering eyes, and the children all ran away and hid behind their mothers when they saw the lion; but no one spoke to them. many shops stood in the street, and dorothy saw that everything in them was green. green candy and green pop-corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green hats and green clothes of all sorts. at one place a man was selling green lemonade, and when the children bought it dorothy could see that they paid for it with green pennies. there seemed to be no horses nor animals of any kind; the men carried things around in little green carts, which they pushed before them. everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous. the guardian of the gates led them through the streets until they came to a big building, exactly in the middle of the city, which was the palace of oz, the great wizard. there was a soldier before the door, dressed in a green uniform and wearing a long green beard. "here are strangers," said the guardian of the gates to him, "and they demand to see the great oz." "step inside," answered the soldier, "and i will carry your message to him." so they passed through the palace gates and were led into a big room with a green carpet and lovely green furniture set with emeralds. the soldier made them all wipe their feet upon a green mat before entering this room, and when they were seated he said, politely, "please make yourselves comfortable while i go to the door of the throne room and tell oz you are here." they had to wait a long time before the soldier returned. when, at last, he came back, dorothy asked, "have you seen oz?" [illustration] "oh, no;" returned the soldier; "i have never seen him. but i spoke to him as he sat behind his screen, and gave him your message. he says he will grant you an audience, if you so desire; but each one of you must enter his presence alone, and he will admit but one each day. therefore, as you must remain in the palace for several days, i will have you shown to rooms where you may rest in comfort after your journey." "thank you," replied the girl; "that is very kind of oz." the soldier now blew upon a green whistle, and at once a young girl, dressed in a pretty green silk gown, entered the room. she had lovely green hair and green eyes, and she bowed low before dorothy as she said, "follow me and i will show you your room." so dorothy said good-bye to all her friends except toto, and taking the dog in her arms followed the green girl through seven passages and up three flights of stairs until they came to a room at the front of the palace. it was the sweetest little room in the world, with a soft, comfortable bed that had sheets of green silk and a green velvet counterpane. there was a tiny fountain in the middle of the room, that shot a spray of green perfume into the air, to fall back into a beautifully carved green marble basin. beautiful green flowers stood in the windows, and there was a shelf with a row of little green books. when dorothy had time to open these books she found them full of queer green pictures that made her laugh, they were so funny. in a wardrobe were many green dresses, made of silk and satin and velvet; and all of them fitted dorothy exactly. "make yourself perfectly at home," said the green girl, "and if you wish for anything ring the bell. oz will send for you to-morrow morning." she left dorothy alone and went back to the others. these she also led to rooms, and each one of them found himself lodged in a very pleasant part of the palace. of course this politeness was wasted on the scarecrow; for when he found himself alone in his room he stood stupidly in one spot, just within the doorway, to wait till morning. it would not rest him to lie down, and he could not close his eyes; so he remained all night staring at a little spider which was weaving its web in a corner of the room, just as if it were not one of the most wonderful rooms in the world. the tin woodman lay down on his bed from force of habit, for he remembered when he was made of flesh; but not being able to sleep he passed the night moving his joints up and down to make sure they kept in good working order. the lion would have preferred a bed of dried leaves in the forest, and did not like being shut up in a room; but he had too much sense to let this worry him, so he sprang upon the bed and rolled himself up like a cat and purred himself asleep in a minute. the next morning, after breakfast, the green maiden came to fetch dorothy, and she dressed her in one of the prettiest gowns--made of green brocaded satin. dorothy put on a green silk apron and tied a green ribbon around toto's neck, and they started for the throne room of the great oz. [illustration] first they came to a great hall in which were many ladies and gentlemen of the court, all dressed in rich costumes. these people had nothing to do but talk to each other, but they always came to wait outside the throne room every morning, although they were never permitted to see oz. as dorothy entered they looked at her curiously, and one of them whispered, "are you really going to look upon the face of oz the terrible?" "of course," answered the girl, "if he will see me." "oh, he will see you," said the soldier who had taken her message to the wizard, "although he does not like to have people ask to see him. indeed, at first he was angry, and said i should send you back where you came from. then he asked me what you looked like, and when i mentioned your silver shoes he was very much interested. at last i told him about the mark upon your forehead, and he decided he would admit you to his presence." just then a bell rang, and the green girl said to dorothy, "that is the signal. you must go into the throne room alone." she opened a little door and dorothy walked boldly through and found herself in a wonderful place. it was a big, round room with a high arched roof, and the walls and ceiling and floor were covered with large emeralds set closely together. in the center of the roof was a great light, as bright as the sun, which made the emeralds sparkle in a wonderful manner. but what interested dorothy most was the big throne of green marble that stood in the middle of the room. it was shaped like a chair and sparkled with gems, as did everything else. in the center of the chair was an enormous head, without body to support it or any arms or legs whatever. there was no hair upon this head, but it had eyes and nose and mouth, and was bigger than the head of the biggest giant. as dorothy gazed upon this in wonder and fear the eyes turned slowly and looked at her sharply and steadily. then the mouth moved, and dorothy heard a voice say: "i am oz, the great and terrible. who are you, and why do you seek me?" it was not such an awful voice as she had expected to come from the big head; so she took courage and answered, "i am dorothy, the small and meek. i have come to you for help." the eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a full minute. then said the voice: "where did you get the silver shoes?" "i got them from the wicked witch of the east, when my house fell on her and killed her," she replied. "where did you get the mark upon your forehead?" continued the voice. "that is where the good witch of the north kissed me when she bade me good-bye and sent me to you," said the girl. again the eyes looked at her sharply, and they saw she was telling the truth. then oz asked, "what do you wish me to do?" "send me back to kansas, where my aunt em and uncle henry are," she answered, earnestly. "i don't like your country, although it is so beautiful. and i am sure aunt em will be dreadfully worried over my being away so long." the eyes winked three times, and then they turned up to the ceiling and down to the floor and rolled around so queerly that they seemed to see every part of the room. and at last they looked at dorothy again. "why should i do this for you?" asked oz. "because you are strong and i am weak; because you are a great wizard and i am only a helpless little girl," she answered. "but you were strong enough to kill the wicked witch of the east," said oz. "that just happened," returned dorothy, simply; "i could not help it." "well," said the head, "i will give you my answer. you have no right to expect me to send you back to kansas unless you do something for me in return. in this country everyone must pay for everything he gets. if you wish me to use my magic power to send you home again you must do something for me first. help me and i will help you." "what must i do?" asked the girl. "kill the wicked witch of the west," answered oz. "but i cannot!" exclaimed dorothy, greatly surprised. "you killed the witch of the east and you wear the silver shoes, which bear a powerful charm. there is now but one wicked witch left in all this land, and when you can tell me she is dead i will send you back to kansas--but not before." the little girl began to weep, she was so much disappointed; and the eyes winked again and looked upon her anxiously, as if the great oz felt that she could help him if she would. "i never killed anything, willingly," she sobbed; "and even if i wanted to, how could i kill the wicked witch? if you, who are great and terrible, cannot kill her yourself, how do you expect me to do it?" [illustration] "i do not know," said the head; "but that is my answer, and until the wicked witch dies you will not see your uncle and aunt again. remember that the witch is wicked--tremendously wicked--and ought to be killed. now go, and do not ask to see me again until you have done your task." sorrowfully dorothy left the throne room and went back where the lion and the scarecrow and the tin woodman were waiting to hear what oz had said to her. "there is no hope for me," she said, sadly, "for oz will not send me home until i have killed the wicked witch of the west; and that i can never do." her friends were sorry, but could do nothing to help her; so she went to her own room and lay down on the bed and cried herself to sleep. the next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the scarecrow and said, "come with me, for oz has sent for you." so the scarecrow followed him and was admitted into the great throne room, where he saw, sitting in the emerald throne, a most lovely lady. she was dressed in green silk gauze and wore upon her flowing green locks a crown of jewels. growing from her shoulders were wings, gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest breath of air reached them. when the scarecrow had bowed, as prettily as his straw stuffing would let him, before this beautiful creature, she looked upon him sweetly, and said, "i am oz, the great and terrible. who are you, and why do you seek me?" now the scarecrow, who had expected to see the great head dorothy had told him of, was much astonished; but he answered her bravely. "i am only a scarecrow, stuffed with straw. therefore i have no brains, and i come to you praying that you will put brains in my head instead of straw, so that i may become as much a man as any other in your dominions." "why should i do this for you?" asked the lady. "because you are wise and powerful, and no one else can help me," answered the scarecrow. "i never grant favors without some return," said oz; "but this much i will promise. if you will kill for me the wicked witch of the west i will bestow upon you a great many brains, and such good brains that you will be the wisest man in all the land of oz." "i thought you asked dorothy to kill the witch," said, the scarecrow, in surprise. [illustration] "so i did. i don't care who kills her. but until she is dead i will not grant your wish. now go, and do not seek me again until you have earned the brains you so greatly desire." the scarecrow went sorrowfully back to his friends and told them what oz had said; and dorothy was surprised to find that the great wizard was not a head, as she had seen him, but a lovely lady. "all the same," said the scarecrow, "she needs a heart as much as the tin woodman." on the next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the tin woodman and said, "oz has sent for you. follow me," so the tin woodman followed him and came to the great throne room. he did not know whether he would find oz a lovely lady or a head, but he hoped it would be the lovely lady. "for," he said to himself, "if it is the head, i am sure i shall not be given a heart, since a head has no heart of its own and therefore cannot feel for me. but if it is the lovely lady i shall beg hard for a heart, for all ladies are themselves said to be kindly hearted." but when the woodman entered the great throne room he saw neither the head nor the lady, for oz had taken the shape of a most terrible beast. it was nearly as big as an elephant, and the green throne seemed hardly strong enough to hold its weight. the beast had a head like that of a rhinoceros, only there were five eyes in its face. there were five long arms growing out of its body and it also had five long, slim legs. thick, woolly hair covered every part of it, and a more dreadful looking monster could not be imagined. it was fortunate the tin woodman had no heart at that moment, for it would have beat loud and fast from terror. but being only tin, the woodman was not at all afraid, although he was much disappointed. "i am oz, the great and terrible," spake the beast, in a voice that was one great roar. "who are you, and why do you seek me?" [illustration: "_the eyes looked at her thoughtfully._"] "i am a woodman, and made of tin. therefore i have no heart, and cannot love. i pray you to give me a heart that i may be as other men are." "why should i do this?" demanded the beast. "because i ask it, and you alone can grant my request," answered the woodman. oz gave a low growl at this, but said, gruffly, "if you indeed desire a heart, you must earn it." "how?" asked the woodman. "help dorothy to kill the wicked witch of the west," replied the beast. "when the witch is dead, come to me, and i will then give you the biggest and kindest and most loving heart in all the land of oz." so the tin woodman was forced to return sorrowfully to his friends and tell them of the terrible beast he had seen. they all wondered greatly at the many forms the great wizard could take upon himself, and the lion said, [illustration] "if he is a beast when i go to see him, i shall roar my loudest, and so frighten him that he will grant all i ask. and if he is the lovely lady, i shall pretend to spring upon her, and so compel her to do my bidding. and if he is the great head, he will be at my mercy; for i will roll this head all about the room until he promises to give us what we desire. so be of good cheer my friends for all will yet be well." the next morning the soldier with the green whiskers led the lion to the great throne room and bade him enter the presence of oz. the lion at once passed through the door, and glancing around saw, to his surprise, that before the throne was a ball of fire, so fierce and glowing he could scarcely bear to gaze upon it. his first thought was that oz had by accident caught on fire and was burning up; but, when he tried to go nearer, the heat was so intense that it singed his whiskers, and he crept back tremblingly to a spot nearer the door. then a low, quiet voice came from the ball of fire, and these were the words it spoke: [illustration] "i am oz, the great and terrible. who are you, and why do you seek me?" and the lion answered, "i am a cowardly lion, afraid of everything. i come to you to beg that you give me courage, so that in reality i may become the king of beasts, as men call me." "why should i give you courage?" demanded oz. "because of all wizards you are the greatest, and alone have power to grant my request," answered the lion. the ball of fire burned fiercely for a time, and the voice said, "bring me proof that the wicked witch is dead, and that moment i will give you courage. but so long as the witch lives you must remain a coward." the lion was angry at this speech, but could say nothing in reply, and while he stood silently gazing at the ball of fire it became so furiously hot that he turned tail and rushed from the room. he was glad to find his friends waiting for him, and told them of his terrible interview with the wizard. "what shall we do now?" asked dorothy, sadly. "there is only one thing we can do," returned the lion, "and that is to go to the land of the winkies, seek out the wicked witch, and destroy her." "but suppose we cannot?" said the girl. "then i shall never have courage," declared the lion. "and i shall never have brains," added the scarecrow. "and i shall never have a heart," spoke the tin woodman. "and i shall never see aunt em and uncle henry," said dorothy, beginning to cry. "be careful!" cried the green girl, "the tears will fall on your green silk gown, and spot it." so dorothy dried her eyes and said, "i suppose we must try it; but i am sure i do not want to kill anybody, even to see aunt em again." "i will go with you; but i'm too much of a coward to kill the witch," said the lion. "i will go too," declared the scarecrow; "but i shall not be of much help to you, i am such a fool." "i haven't the heart to harm even a witch," remarked the tin woodman; "but if you go i certainly shall go with you." therefore it was decided to start upon their journey the next morning, and the woodman sharpened his axe on a green grindstone and had all his joints properly oiled. the scarecrow stuffed himself with fresh straw and dorothy put new paint on his eyes that he might see better. the green girl, who was very kind to them, filled dorothy's basket with good things to eat, and fastened a little bell around toto's neck with a green ribbon. they went to bed quite early and slept soundly until daylight, when they were awakened by the crowing of a green cock that lived in the back yard of the palace, and the cackling of a hen that had laid a green egg. [illustration: "_the soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets._"] chapter xii. the search for the wicked witch. [illustration] [illustration] the soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the emerald city until they reached the room where the guardian of the gates lived. this officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends. "which road leads to the wicked witch of the west?" asked dorothy. "there is no road," answered the guardian of the gates; "no one ever wishes to go that way." "how, then, are we to find her?" enquired the girl. [illustration] "that will be easy," replied the man; "for when she knows you are in the country of the winkies she will find you, and make you all her slaves." "perhaps not," said the scarecrow, "for we mean to destroy her." [illustration] "oh, that is different," said the guardian of the gates. "no one has ever destroyed her before, so i naturally thought she would make slaves of you, as she has of all the rest. but take care; for she is wicked and fierce, and may not allow you to destroy her. keep to the west, where the sun sets, and you cannot fail to find her." they thanked him and bade him good-bye, and turned toward the west, walking over fields of soft grass dotted here and there with daisies and buttercups. dorothy still wore the pretty silk dress she had put on in the palace, but now, to her surprise, she found it was no longer green, but pure white. the ribbon around toto's neck had also lost its green color and was as white as dorothy's dress. the emerald city was soon left far behind. as they advanced the ground became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this country of the west, and the ground was untilled. in the afternoon the sun shone hot in their faces, for there were no trees to offer them shade; so that before night dorothy and toto and the lion were tired, and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with the woodman and the scarecrow keeping watch. now the wicked witch of the west had but one eye, yet that was as powerful as a telescope, and could see everywhere. so, as she sat in the door of her castle, she happened to look around and saw dorothy lying asleep, with her friends all about her. they were a long distance off, but the wicked witch was angry to find them in her country; so she blew upon a silver whistle that hung around her neck. at once there came running to her from all directions a pack of great wolves. they had long legs and fierce eyes and sharp teeth. "go to those people," said the witch, "and tear them to pieces." "are you not going to make them your slaves?" asked the leader of the wolves. "no," she answered, "one is of tin, and one of straw; one is a girl and another a lion. none of them is fit to work, so you may tear them into small pieces." "very well," said the wolf, and he dashed away at full speed, followed by the others. it was lucky the scarecrow and the woodman were wide awake and heard the wolves coming. "this is my fight," said the woodman; "so get behind me and i will meet them as they come." he seized his axe, which he had made very sharp, and as the leader of the wolves came on the tin woodman swung his arm and chopped the wolf's head from its body, so that it immediately died. as soon as he could raise his axe another wolf came up, and he also fell under the sharp edge of the tin woodman's weapon. there were forty wolves, and forty times a wolf was killed; so that at last they all lay dead in a heap before the woodman. then he put down his axe and sat beside the scarecrow, who said, "it was a good fight, friend." they waited until dorothy awoke the next morning. the little girl was quite frightened when she saw the great pile of shaggy wolves, but the tin woodman told her all. she thanked him for saving them and sat down to breakfast, after which they started again upon their journey. [illustration] now this same morning the wicked witch came to the door of her castle and looked out with her one eye that could see afar off. she saw all her wolves lying dead, and the strangers still travelling through her country. this made her angrier than before, and she blew her silver whistle twice. straightway a great flock of wild crows came flying toward her, enough to darken the sky. and the wicked witch said to the king crow, "fly at once to the strangers; peck out their eyes and tear them to pieces." the wild crows flew in one great flock toward dorothy and her companions. when the little girl saw them coming she was afraid. but the scarecrow said, "this is my battle; so lie down beside me and you will not be harmed." so they all lay upon the ground except the scarecrow, and he stood up and stretched out his arms. and when the crows saw him they were frightened, as these birds always are by scarecrows, and did not dare to come any nearer. but the king crow said, "it is only a stuffed man. i will peck his eyes out." the king crow flew at the scarecrow, who caught it by the head and twisted its neck until it died. and then another crow flew at him, and the scarecrow twisted its neck also. there were forty crows, and forty times the scarecrow twisted a neck, until at last all were lying dead beside him. then he called to his companions to rise, and again they went upon their journey. when the wicked witch looked out again and saw all her crows lying in a heap, she got into a terrible rage, and blew three times upon her silver whistle. [illustration] forthwith there was heard a great buzzing in the air, and a swarm of black bees came flying towards her. "go to the strangers and sting them to death!" commanded the witch, and the bees turned and flew rapidly until they came to where dorothy and her friends were walking. but the woodman had seen them coming and the scarecrow had decided what to do. "take out my straw and scatter it over the little girl and the dog and the lion," he said to the woodman, "and the bees cannot sting them." this the woodman did, and as dorothy lay close beside the lion and held toto in her arms, the straw covered them entirely. the bees came and found no one but the woodman to sting, so they flew at him and broke off all their stings against the tin, without hurting the woodman at all. and as bees cannot live when their stings are broken that was the end of the black bees, and they lay scattered thick about the woodman, like little heaps of fine coal. then dorothy and the lion got up, and the girl helped the tin woodman put the straw back into the scarecrow again, until he was as good as ever. so they started upon their journey once more. the wicked witch was so angry when she saw her black bees in little heaps like fine coal that she stamped her foot and tore her hair and gnashed her teeth. and then she called a dozen of her slaves, who were the winkies, and gave them sharp spears, telling them to go to the strangers and destroy them. the winkies were not a brave people, but they had to do as they were told; so they marched away until they came near to dorothy. then the lion gave a great roar and sprang toward them, and the poor winkies were so frightened that they ran back as fast as they could. when they returned to the castle the wicked witch beat them well with a strap, and sent them back to their work, after which she sat down to think what she should do next. she could not understand how all her plans to destroy these strangers had failed; but she was a powerful witch, as well as a wicked one, and she soon made up her mind how to act. [illustration] there was, in her cupboard, a golden cap, with a circle of diamonds and rubies running round it. this golden cap had a charm. whoever owned it could call three times upon the winged monkeys, who would obey any order they were given. but no person could command these strange creatures more than three times. twice already the wicked witch had used the charm of the cap. once was when she had made the winkies her slaves, and set herself to rule over their country. the winged monkeys had helped her do this. the second time was when she had fought against the great oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the west. the winged monkeys had also helped her in doing this. only once more could she use this golden cap, for which reason she did not like to do so until all her other powers were exhausted. but now that her fierce wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her slaves had been scared away by the cowardly lion, she saw there was only one way left to destroy dorothy and her friends. [illustration] so the wicked witch took the golden cap from her cupboard and placed it upon her head. then she stood upon her left foot and said, slowly, "ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!" next she stood upon her right foot and said, "hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!" after this she stood upon both feet and cried in a loud voice, "ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!" now the charm began to work. the sky was darkened, and a low rumbling sound was heard in the air. there was a rushing of many wings; a great chattering and laughing; and the sun came out of the dark sky to show the wicked witch surrounded by a crowd of monkeys, each with a pair of immense and powerful wings on his shoulders. one, much bigger than the others, seemed to be their leader. he flew close to the witch and said, "you have called us for the third and last time. what do you command?" "go to the strangers who are within my land and destroy them all except the lion," said the wicked witch. "bring that beast to me, for i have a mind to harness him like a horse, and make him work." "your commands shall be obeyed," said the leader; and then, with a great deal of chattering and noise, the winged monkeys flew away to the place where dorothy and her friends were walking. [illustration] some of the monkeys seized the tin woodman and carried him through the air until they were over a country thickly covered with sharp rocks. here they dropped the poor woodman, who fell a great distance to the rocks, where he lay so battered and dented that he could neither move nor groan. others of the monkeys caught the scarecrow, and with their long fingers pulled all of the straw out of his clothes and head. they made his hat and boots and clothes into a small bundle and threw it into the top branches of a tall tree. the remaining monkeys threw pieces of stout rope around the lion and wound many coils about his body and head and legs, until he was unable to bite or scratch or struggle in any way. then they lifted him up and flew away with him to the witch's castle, where he was placed in a small yard with a high iron fence around it, so that he could not escape. but dorothy they did not harm at all. she stood, with toto in her arms, watching the sad fate of her comrades and thinking it would soon be her turn. the leader of the winged monkeys flew up to her, his long, hairy arms stretched out and his ugly face grinning terribly; but he saw the mark of the good witch's kiss upon her forehead and stopped short, motioning the others not to touch her. [illustration: "_the monkeys wound many coils about his body._"] "we dare not harm this little girl," he said to them, "for she is protected by the power of good, and that is greater than the power of evil. all we can do is to carry her to the castle of the wicked witch and leave her there." so, carefully and gently, they lifted dorothy in their arms and carried her swiftly through the air until they came to the castle, where they set her down upon the front door step. then the leader said to the witch, "we have obeyed you as far as we were able. the tin woodman and the scarecrow are destroyed, and the lion is tied up in your yard. the little girl we dare not harm, nor the dog she carries in her arms. your power over our band is now ended, and you will never see us again." then all the winged monkeys, with much laughing and chattering and noise, flew into the air and were soon out of sight. [illustration] the wicked witch was both surprised and worried when she saw the mark on dorothy's forehead, for she knew well that neither the winged monkeys nor she, herself, dare hurt the girl in any way. she looked down at dorothy's feet, and seeing the silver shoes, began to tremble with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. at first the witch was tempted to run away from dorothy; but she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the silver shoes gave her. so the wicked witch laughed to herself, and thought, "i can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to use her power." then she said to dorothy, harshly and severely, "come with me; and see that you mind everything i tell you, for if you do not i will make an end of you, as i did of the tin woodman and the scarecrow." dorothy followed her through many of the beautiful rooms in her castle until they came to the kitchen, where the witch bade her clean the pots and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood. dorothy went to work meekly, with her mind made up to work as hard as she could; for she was glad the wicked witch had decided not to kill her. with dorothy hard at work the witch thought she would go into the court-yard and harness the cowardly lion like a horse; it would amuse her, she was sure, to make him draw her chariot whenever she wished to go to drive. but as she opened the gate the lion gave a loud roar and bounded at her so fiercely that the witch was afraid, and ran out and shut the gate again. "if i cannot harness you," said the witch to the lion, speaking through the bars of the gate, "i can starve you. you shall have nothing to eat until you do as i wish." so after that she took no food to the imprisoned lion; but every day she came to the gate at noon and asked, "are you ready to be harnessed like a horse?" and the lion would answer, "no. if you come in this yard i will bite you." the reason the lion did not have to do as the witch wished was that every night, while the woman was asleep dorothy carried him food from the cupboard. after he had eaten he would lie down on his bed of straw, and dorothy would lie beside him and put her head on his soft, shaggy mane, while they talked of their troubles and tried to plan some way to escape. but they could find no way to get out of the castle, for it was constantly guarded by the yellow winkies, who were the slaves of the wicked witch and too afraid of her not to do as she told them. the girl had to work hard during the day, and often the witch threatened to beat her with the same old umbrella she always carried in her hand. but, in truth, she did not dare to strike dorothy, because of the mark upon her forehead. the child did not know this, and was full of fear for herself and toto. once the witch struck toto a blow with her umbrella and the brave little dog flew at her and bit her leg, in return. the witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before. dorothy's life became very sad as she grew to understand that it would be harder than ever to get back to kansas and aunt em again. sometimes she would cry bitterly for hours, with toto sitting at her feet and looking into her face, whining dismally to show how sorry he was for his little mistress. toto did not really care whether he was in kansas or the land of oz so long as dorothy was with him; but he knew the little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too. now the wicked witch had a great longing to have for her own the silver shoes which the girl always wore. her bees and her crows and her wolves were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up all the power of the golden cap; but if she could only get hold of the silver shoes they would give her more power than all the other things she had lost. she watched dorothy carefully, to see if she ever took off her shoes, thinking she might steal them. but the child was so proud of her pretty shoes that she never took them off except at night and when she took her bath. the witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in dorothy's room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the dark, so she never came near when dorothy was bathing. indeed, the old witch never touched water, nor ever let water touch her in any way. but the wicked creature was very cunning, and she finally thought of a trick that would give her what she wanted. she placed a bar of iron in the middle of the kitchen floor, and then by her magic arts made the iron invisible to human eyes. so that when dorothy walked across the floor she stumbled over the bar, not being able to see it, and fell at full length. she was not much hurt, but in her fall one of the silver shoes came off, and before she could reach it the witch had snatched it away and put it on her own skinny foot. the wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her trick, for as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the power of their charm, and dorothy could not use it against her, even had she known how to do so. [illustration] the little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes, grew angry, and said to the witch, "give me back my shoe!" "i will not," retorted the witch, "for it is now my shoe, and not yours." "you are a wicked creature!" cried dorothy. "you have no right to take my shoe from me." "i shall keep it, just the same," said the witch, laughing at her, "and some day i shall get the other one from you, too." this made dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of water that stood near and dashed it over the witch, wetting her from head to foot. instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear; and then, as dorothy looked at her in wonder, the witch began to shrink and fall away. "see what you have done!" she screamed. "in a minute i shall melt away." "i'm very sorry, indeed," said dorothy, who was truly frightened to see the witch actually melting away like brown sugar before her very eyes. "didn't you know water would be the end of me?" asked the witch, in a wailing, despairing voice. "of course not," answered dorothy; "how should i?" "well, in a few minutes i shall be all melted, and you will have the castle to yourself. i have been wicked in my day, but i never thought a little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds. look out--here i go!" with these words the witch fell down in a brown, melted, shapeless mass and began to spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor. seeing that she had really melted away to nothing, dorothy drew another bucket of water and threw it over the mess. she then swept it all out the door. after picking out the silver shoe, which was all that was left of the old woman, she cleaned and dried it with a cloth, and put it on her foot again. then, being at last free to do as she chose, she ran out to the court-yard to tell the lion that the wicked witch of the west had come to an end, and that they were no longer prisoners in a strange land. [illustration] chapter xiii. the rescue [illustration] [illustration] the cowardly lion was much pleased to hear that the wicked witch had been melted by a bucket of water, and dorothy at once unlocked the gate of his prison and set him free. they went in together to the castle, where dorothy's first act was to call all the winkies together and tell them that they were no longer slaves. there was great rejoicing among the yellow winkies, for they had been made to work hard during many years for the wicked witch, who had always treated them with great cruelty. they kept this day as a holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and dancing. "if our friends, the scarecrow and the tin woodman, were only with us," said the lion, "i should be quite happy." "don't you suppose we could rescue them?" asked the girl, anxiously. "we can try," answered the lion. so they called the yellow winkies and asked them if they would help to rescue their friends, and the winkies said that they would be delighted to do all in their power for dorothy, who had set them free from bondage. so she chose a number of the winkies who looked as if they knew the most, and they all started away. they travelled that day and part of the next until they came to the rocky plain where the tin woodman lay, all battered and bent. his axe was near him, but the blade was rusted and the handle broken off short. the winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him back to the yellow castle again, dorothy shedding a few tears by the way at the sad plight of her old friend, and the lion looking sober and sorry. when they reached the castle dorothy said to the winkies, "are any of your people tinsmiths?" "oh, yes; some of us are very good tinsmiths," they told her. "then bring them to me," she said. and when the tinsmiths came, bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she enquired, [illustration: "_the tinsmiths worked for three days and four nights._"] "can you straighten out those dents in the tin woodman, and bend him back into shape again, and solder him together where he is broken?" the tinsmiths looked the woodman over carefully and then answered that they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. so they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body and head of the tin woodman, until at last he was straightened out into his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. to be sure, there were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as the woodman was not a vain man he did not mind the patches at all. when, at last, he walked into dorothy's room and thanked her for rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and dorothy had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his joints would not be rusted. at the same time her own tears fell thick and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears did not need to be wiped away. as for the lion, he wiped his eyes so often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was obliged to go out into the court-yard and hold it in the sun till it dried. "if we only had the scarecrow with us again," said the tin woodman, when dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, "i should be quite happy." "we must try to find him," said the girl. so she called the winkies to help her, and they walked all that day and part of the next until they came to the tall tree in the branches of which the winged monkeys had tossed the scarecrow's clothes. it was a very tall tree, and the trunk was so smooth that no one could climb it; but the woodman said at once, "i'll chop it down, and then we can get the scarecrow's clothes." now while the tinsmiths had been at work mending the woodman himself, another of the winkies, who was a goldsmith, had made an axe-handle of solid gold and fitted it to the woodman's axe, instead of the old broken handle. others polished the blade until all the rust was removed and it glistened like burnished silver. as soon as he had spoken, the tin woodman began to chop, and in a short time the tree fell over with a crash, when the scarecrow's clothes fell out of the branches and rolled off on the ground. dorothy picked them up and had the winkies carry them back to the castle, where they were stuffed with nice, clean straw; and, behold! here was the scarecrow, as good as ever, thanking them over and over again for saving him. now they were reunited, dorothy and her friends spent a few happy days at the yellow castle, where they found everything they needed to make them comfortable. but one day the girl thought of aunt em, and said, "we must go back to oz, and claim his promise." "yes," said the woodman, "at last i shall get my heart." "and i shall get my brains," added the scarecrow, joyfully. "and i shall get my courage," said the lion, thoughtfully. "and i shall get back to kansas," cried dorothy, clapping her hands. "oh, let us start for the emerald city to-morrow!" [illustration] this they decided to do. the next day they called the winkies together and bade them good-bye. the winkies were sorry to have them go, and they had grown so fond of the tin woodman that they begged him to stay and rule over them and the yellow land of the west. finding they were determined to go, the winkies gave toto and the lion each a golden collar; and to dorothy they presented a beautiful bracelet, studded with diamonds; and to the scarecrow they gave a gold-headed walking stick, to keep him from stumbling; and to the tin woodman they offered a silver oil-can, inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels. every one of the travellers made the winkies a pretty speech in return, and all shook hands with them until their arms ached. dorothy went to the witch's cupboard to fill her basket with food for the journey, and there she saw the golden cap. she tried it on her own head and found that it fitted her exactly. she did not know anything about the charm of the golden cap, but she saw that it was pretty, so she made up her mind to wear it and carry her sunbonnet in the basket. then, being prepared for the journey, they all started for the emerald city; and the winkies gave them three cheers and many good wishes to carry with them. chapter xiv. the winged monkeys [illustration] [illustration] you will remember there was no road--not even a pathway--between the castle of the wicked witch and the emerald city. when the four travellers went in search of the witch she had seen them coming, and so sent the winged monkeys to bring them to her. it was much harder to find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow daisies than it was being carried. they knew, of course, they must go straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right way. but at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know which was east and which was west, and that was the reason they were lost in the great fields. they kept on walking, however, and at night the moon came out and shone brightly. so they lay down among the sweet smelling yellow flowers and slept soundly until morning--all but the scarecrow and the tin woodman. the next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if they were quite sure which way they were going. "if we walk far enough," said dorothy, "we shall sometime come to some place, i am sure." but day by day passed away, and they still saw nothing before them but the yellow fields. the scarecrow began to grumble a bit. "we have surely lost our way," he said, "and unless we find it again in time to reach the emerald city i shall never get my brains." "nor i my heart," declared the tin woodman. "it seems to me i can scarcely wait till i get to oz, and you must admit this is a very long journey." "you see," said the cowardly lion, with a whimper, "i haven't the courage to keep tramping forever, without getting anywhere at all." [illustration] then dorothy lost heart. she sat down on the grass and looked at her companions, and they sat down and looked at her, and toto found that for the first time in his life he was too tired to chase a butterfly that flew past his head; so he put out his tongue and panted and looked at dorothy as if to ask what they should do next. "suppose we call the field mice," she suggested. "they could probably tell us the way to the emerald city." "to be sure they could," cried the scarecrow; "why didn't we think of that before?" dorothy blew the little whistle she had always carried about her neck since the queen of the mice had given it to her. in a few minutes they heard the pattering of tiny feet, and many of the small grey mice came running up to her. among them was the queen herself, who asked, in her squeaky little voice, "what can i do for my friends?" "we have lost our way," said dorothy. "can you tell us where the emerald city is?" [illustration] "certainly," answered the queen; "but it is a great way off, for you have had it at your backs all this time." then she noticed dorothy's golden cap, and said, "why don't you use the charm of the cap, and call the winged monkeys to you? they will carry you to the city of oz in less than an hour." "i didn't know there was a charm," answered dorothy, in surprise. "what is it?" "it is written inside the golden cap," replied the queen of the mice; "but if you are going to call the winged monkeys we must run away, for they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us." "won't they hurt me?" asked the girl, anxiously. "oh, no; they must obey the wearer of the cap. good-bye!" and she scampered out of sight, with all the mice hurrying after her. dorothy looked inside the golden cap and saw some words written upon the lining. these, she thought, must be the charm, so she read the directions carefully and put the cap upon her head. "ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!" she said, standing on her left foot. "what did you say?" asked the scarecrow, who did not know what she was doing. "hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!" dorothy went on, standing this time on her right foot. "hello!" replied the tin woodman, calmly. [illustration: "_the monkeys caught dorothy in their arms and flew away with her._"] "ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!" said dorothy, who was now standing on both feet. this ended the saying of the charm, and they heard a great chattering and flapping of wings, as the band of winged monkeys flew up to them. the king bowed low before dorothy, and asked, "what is your command?" "we wish to go to the emerald city," said the child, "and we have lost our way." "we will carry you," replied the king, and no sooner had he spoken than two of the monkeys caught dorothy in their arms and flew away with her. others took the scarecrow and the woodman and the lion, and one little monkey seized toto and flew after them, although the dog tried hard to bite him. the scarecrow and the tin woodman were rather frightened at first, for they remembered how badly the winged monkeys had treated them before; but they saw that no harm was intended, so they rode through the air quite cheerfully, and had a fine time looking at the pretty gardens and woods far below them. dorothy found herself riding easily between two of the biggest monkeys, one of them the king himself. they had made a chair of their hands and were careful not to hurt her. "why do you have to obey the charm of the golden cap?" she asked. "that is a long story," answered the king, with a laugh; "but as we have a long journey before us i will pass the time by telling you about it, if you wish." "i shall be glad to hear it," she replied. "once," began the leader, "we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. perhaps some of us were rather too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull the tails of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds, and throwing nuts at the people who walked in the forest. but we were careless and happy and full of fun, and enjoyed every minute of the day. this was many years ago, long before oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land. "there lived here then, away at the north, a beautiful princess, who was also a powerful sorceress. all her magic was used to help the people, and she was never known to hurt anyone who was good. her name was gayelette, and she lived in a handsome palace built from great blocks of ruby. everyone loved her, but her greatest sorrow was that she could find no one to love in return, since all the men were much too stupid and ugly to mate with one so beautiful and wise. at last, however, she found a boy who was handsome and manly and wise beyond his years. gayelette made up her mind that when he grew to be a man she would make him her husband, so she took him to her ruby palace and used all her magic powers to make him as strong and good and lovely as any woman could wish. when he grew to manhood, quelala, as he was called, was said to be the best and wisest man in all the land, while his manly beauty was so great that gayelette loved him dearly, and hastened to make everything ready for the wedding. "my grandfather was at that time the king of the winged monkeys which lived in the forest near gayalette's palace, and the old fellow loved a joke better than a good dinner. one day, just before the wedding, my grandfather was flying out with his band when he saw quelala walking beside the river. he was dressed in a rich costume of pink silk and purple velvet, and my grandfather thought he would see what he could do. at his word the band flew down and seized quelala, carried him in their arms until they were over the middle of the river, and then dropped him into the water. "'swim out, my fine fellow,'" cried my grandfather, "'and see if the water has spotted your clothes.'" quelala was much too wise not to swim, and he was not in the least spoiled by all his good fortune. he laughed, when he came to the top of the water, and swam in to shore. but when gayelette came running out to him she found his silks and velvet all ruined by the river. [illustration] "the princess was very angry, and she knew, of course, who did it. she had all the winged monkeys brought before her, and she said at first that their wings should be tied and they should be treated as they had treated quelala, and dropped in the river. but my grandfather pleaded hard, for he knew the monkeys would drown in the river with their wings tied, and quelala said a kind word for them also; so that gayelette finally spared them, on condition that the winged monkeys should ever after do three times the bidding of the owner of the golden cap. this cap had been made for a wedding present to quelala, and it is said to have cost the princess half her kingdom. of course my grandfather and all the other monkeys at once agreed to the condition, and that is how it happens that we are three times the slaves of the owner of the golden cap, whomsoever he may be." "and what became of them?" asked dorothy, who had been greatly interested in the story. "quelala being the first owner of the golden cap," replied the monkey, "he was the first to lay his wishes upon us. as his bride could not bear the sight of us, he called us all to him in the forest after he had married her and ordered us to always keep where she could never again set eyes on a winged monkey, which we were glad to do, for we were all afraid of her. "this was all we ever had to do until the golden cap fell into the hands of the wicked witch of the west, who made us enslave the winkies, and afterward drive oz himself out of the land of the west. now the golden cap is yours, and three times you have the right to lay your wishes upon us." as the monkey king finished his story dorothy looked down and saw the green, shining walls of the emerald city before them. she wondered at the rapid flight of the monkeys, but was glad the journey was over. the strange creatures set the travellers down carefully before the gate of the city, the king bowed low to dorothy, and then flew swiftly away, followed by all his band. "that was a good ride," said the little girl. "yes, and a quick way out of our troubles." replied the lion. "how lucky it was you brought away that wonderful cap!" [illustration] chapter xv. the discovery of oz, the terrible. [illustration] [illustration] the four travellers walked up to the great gate of the emerald city and rang the bell. after ringing several times it was opened by the same guardian of the gate they had met before. "what! are you back again?" he asked, in surprise. "do you not see us?" answered the scarecrow. "but i thought you had gone to visit the wicked witch of the west." "we did visit her," said the scarecrow. "and she let you go again?" asked the man, in wonder. "she could not help it, for she is melted," explained the scarecrow. "melted! well, that is good news, indeed," said the man. "who melted her?" "it was dorothy," said the lion, gravely. "good gracious!" exclaimed the man, and he bowed very low indeed before her. then he led them into his little room and locked the spectacles from the great box on all their eyes, just as he had done before. afterward they passed on through the gate into the emerald city, and when the people heard from the guardian of the gate that they had melted the wicked witch of the west they all gathered around the travellers and followed them in a great crowd to the palace of oz. the soldier with the green whiskers was still on guard before the door, but he let them in at once and they were again met by the beautiful green girl, who showed each of them to their old rooms at once, so they might rest until the great oz was ready to receive them. the soldier had the news carried straight to oz that dorothy and the other travellers had come back again, after destroying the wicked witch; but oz made no reply. they thought the great wizard would send for them at once, but he did not. they had no word from him the next day, nor the next, nor the next. the waiting was tiresome and wearing, and at last they grew vexed that oz should treat them in so poor a fashion, after sending them to undergo hardships and slavery. so the scarecrow at last asked the green girl to take another message to oz, saying if he did not let them in to see him at once they would call the winged monkeys to help them, and find out whether he kept his promises or not. when the wizard was given this message he was so frightened that he sent word for them to come to the throne room at four minutes after nine o'clock the next morning. he had once met the winged monkeys in the land of the west, and he did not wish to meet them again. the four travellers passed a sleepless night, each thinking of the gift oz had promised to bestow upon him. dorothy fell asleep only once, and then she dreamed she was in kansas, where aunt em was telling her how glad she was to have her little girl at home again. promptly at nine o'clock the next morning the green whiskered soldier came to them, and four minutes later they all went into the throne room of the great oz. of course each one of them expected to see the wizard in the shape he had taken before, and all were greatly surprised when they looked about and saw no one at all in the room. they kept close to the door and closer to one another, for the stillness of the empty room was more dreadful than any of the forms they had seen oz take. [illustration] presently they heard a voice, seeming to come from somewhere near the top of the great dome, and it said, solemnly. "i am oz, the great and terrible. why do you seek me?" they looked again in every part of the room, and then, seeing no one, dorothy asked, "where are you?" "i am everywhere," answered the voice, "but to the eyes of common mortals i am invisible. i will now seat myself upon my throne, that you may converse with me." indeed, the voice seemed just then to come straight from the throne itself; so they walked toward it and stood in a row while dorothy said: "we have come to claim our promise, o oz." "what promise?" asked oz. "you promised to send me back to kansas when the wicked witch was destroyed," said the girl. "and you promised to give me brains," said the scarecrow. "and you promised to give me a heart," said the tin woodman. "and you promised to give me courage," said the cowardly lion. "is the wicked witch really destroyed?" asked the voice, and dorothy thought it trembled a little. "yes," she answered, "i melted her with a bucket of water." "dear me," said the voice; "how sudden! well, come to me to-morrow, for i must have time to think it over." "you've had plenty of time already," said the tin woodman, angrily. "we shan't wait a day longer," said the scarecrow. "you must keep your promises to us!" exclaimed dorothy. the lion thought it might be as well to frighten the wizard, so he gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a corner. as it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder. for they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden, a little, old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. the tin woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and cried out, [illustration] "who are you?" "i am oz, the great and terrible," said the little man, in a trembling voice, "but don't strike me--please don't!--and i'll do anything you want me to." our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay. "i thought oz was a great head," said dorothy. "and i thought oz was a lovely lady," said the scarecrow. "and i thought oz was a terrible beast," said the tin woodman. "and i thought oz was a ball of fire," exclaimed the lion. "no; you are all wrong," said the little man, meekly. "i have been making believe." "making believe!" cried dorothy. "are you not a great wizard?" "hush, my dear," he said; "don't speak so loud, or you will be overheard--and i should be ruined. i'm supposed to be a great wizard." "and aren't you?" she asked. "not a bit of it, my dear; i'm just a common man." "you're more than that," said the scarecrow, in a grieved tone; "you're a humbug." "exactly so!" declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as if it pleased him; "i am a humbug." "but this is terrible," said the tin woodman; "how shall i ever get my heart?" "or i my courage?" asked the lion. "or i my brains?" wailed the scarecrow, wiping the the tears from his eyes with his coat-sleeve. [illustration: "_exactly so! i am a humbug._"] "my dear friends," said oz, "i pray you not to speak of these little things. think of me, and the terrible trouble i'm in at being found out." "doesn't anyone else know you're a humbug?" asked dorothy. "no one knows it but you four--and myself," replied oz. "i have fooled everyone so long that i thought i should never be found out. it was a great mistake my ever letting you into the throne room. usually i will not see even my subjects, and so they believe i am something terrible." "but, i don't understand," said dorothy, in bewilderment. "how was it that you appeared to me as a great head?" "that was one of my tricks," answered oz. "step this way, please, and i will tell you all about it." he led the way to a small chamber in the rear of the throne room, and they all followed him. he pointed to one corner, in which lay the great head, made out of many thicknesses of paper, and with a carefully painted face. "this i hung from the ceiling by a wire," said oz; "i stood behind the screen and pulled a thread, to make the eyes move and the mouth open." "but how about the voice?" she enquired. "oh, i am a ventriloquist," said the little man, "and i can throw the sound of my voice wherever i wish; so that you thought it was coming out of the head. here are the other things i used to deceive you." he showed the scarecrow the dress and the mask he had worn when he seemed to be the lovely lady; and the tin woodman saw that his terrible beast was nothing but a lot of skins, sewn together, with slats to keep their sides out. as for the ball of fire, the false wizard had hung that also from the ceiling. it was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely. "really," said the scarecrow, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself for being such a humbug." "i am--i certainly am," answered the little man, sorrowfully; "but it was the only thing i could do. sit down, please, there are plenty of chairs; and i will tell you my story." so they sat down and listened while he told the following tale: "i was born in omaha--" "why, that isn't very far from kansas!" cried dorothy. "no; but it's farther from here," he said, shaking his head at her, sadly. "when i grew up i became a ventriloquist, and at that i was very well trained by a great master. i can imitate any kind of a bird or beast." here he mewed so like a kitten that toto pricked up his ears and looked everywhere to see where she was. "after a time," continued oz, "i tired of that, and became a balloonist." "what is that?" asked dorothy. "a man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of people together and get them to pay to see the circus," he explained. [illustration] "oh," she said; "i know." "well, one day i went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so that i couldn't come down again. it went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. for a day and a night i travelled through the air, and on the morning of the second day i awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country. "it came down gradually, and i was not hurt a bit. but i found myself in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, thought i was a great wizard. of course i let them think so, because they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything i wished them to. "just to amuse myself, and keep the good people busy, i ordered them to build this city, and my palace; and they did it all willingly and well. then i thought, as the country was so green and beautiful, i would call it the emerald city, and to make the name fit better i put green spectacles on all the people, so that everything they saw was green." "but isn't everything here green?" asked dorothy. "no more than in any other city," replied oz; "but when you wear green spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you. the emerald city was built a great many years ago, for i was a young man when the balloon brought me here, and i am a very old man now. but my people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them think it really is an emerald city, and it certainly is a beautiful place, abounding in jewels and precious metals, and every good thing that is needed to make one happy. i have been good to the people, and they like me; but ever since this palace was built i have shut myself up and would not see any of them. "one of my greatest fears was the witches, for while i had no magical powers at all i soon found out that the witches were really able to do wonderful things. there were four of them in this country, and they ruled the people who live in the north and south and east and west. fortunately, the witches of the north and south were good, and i knew they would do me no harm; but the witches of the east and west were terribly wicked, and had they not thought i was more powerful than they themselves, they would surely have destroyed me. as it was, i lived in deadly fear of them for many years; so you can imagine how pleased i was when i heard your house had fallen on the wicked witch of the east. when you came to me i was willing to promise anything if you would only do away with the other witch; but, now that you have melted her, i am ashamed to say that i cannot keep my promises." "i think you are a very bad man," said dorothy. "oh, no, my dear; i'm really a very good man; but i'm a very bad wizard, i must admit." "can't you give me brains?" asked the scarecrow. "you don't need them. you are learning something every day. a baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get." "that may all be true," said the scarecrow, "but i shall be very unhappy unless you give me brains." the false wizard looked at him carefully. "well," he said, with a sigh, "i'm not much of a magician, as i said; but if you will come to me to-morrow morning, i will stuff your head with brains. i cannot tell you how to use them, however; you must find that out for yourself." [illustration] "oh, thank you--thank you!" cried the scarecrow. "i'll find a way to use them, never fear!" "but how about my courage?" asked the lion, anxiously. "you have plenty of courage, i am sure," answered oz. "all you need is confidence in yourself. there is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty." "perhaps i have, but i'm scared just the same," said the lion. "i shall really be very unhappy unless you give me the sort of courage that makes one forget he is afraid." "very well; i will give you that sort of courage to-morrow," replied oz. "how about my heart?" asked the tin woodman. "why, as for that," answered oz, "i think you are wrong to want a heart. it makes most people unhappy. if you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart." "that must be a matter of opinion," said the tin woodman. "for my part, i will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart." [illustration] "very well," answered oz, meekly. "come to me to-morrow and you shall have a heart. i have played wizard for so many years that i may as well continue the part a little longer." "and now," said dorothy, "how am i to get back to kansas?" "we shall have to think about that," replied the little man, "give me two or three days to consider the matter and i'll try to find a way to carry you over the desert. in the meantime you shall all be treated as my guests, and while you live in the palace my people will wait upon you and obey your slightest wish. there is only one thing i ask in return for my help--such as it is. you must keep my secret and tell no one i am a humbug." they agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went back to their rooms in high spirits. even dorothy had hope that "the great and terrible humbug," as she called him, would find a way to send her back to kansas, and if he did that she was willing to forgive him everything. [illustration] chapter xvi. the magic art of the great humbug. [illustration] [illustration] next morning the scarecrow said to his friends: "congratulate me. i am going to oz to get my brains at last. when i return i shall be as other men are." "i have always liked you as you were," said dorothy, simply. "it is kind of you to like a scarecrow," he replied. "but surely you will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain is going to turn out." then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful voice and went to the throne room, where he rapped upon the door. "come in," said oz. the scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the window, engaged in deep thought. "i have come for my brains," remarked the scarecrow, a little uneasily. "oh, yes; sit down in that chair, please," replied oz. "you must excuse me for taking your head off, but i shall have to do it in order to put your brains in their proper place." "that's all right," said the scarecrow. "you are quite welcome to take my head off, as long as it will be a better one when you put it on again." so the wizard unfastened his head and emptied out the straw. then he entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed with a great many pins and needles. having shaken them together thoroughly, he filled the top of the scarecrow's head with the mixture and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place. when he had fastened the scarecrow's head on his body again he said to him, "hereafter you will be a great man, for i have given you a lot of bran-new brains." the scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his greatest wish, and having thanked oz warmly he went back to his friends. dorothy looked at him curiously. his head was quite bulging out at the top with brains. "how do you feel?" she asked. [illustration: "_'i feel wise, indeed,' said the scarecrow._"] "i feel wise, indeed," he answered, earnestly. "when i get used to my brains i shall know everything." "why are those needles and pins sticking out of your head?" asked the tin woodman. "that is proof that he is sharp," remarked the lion. "well, i must go to oz and get my heart," said the woodman. so he walked to the throne room and knocked at the door. "come in," called oz, and the woodman entered and said, "i have come for my heart." "very well," answered the little man. "but i shall have to cut a hole in your breast, so i can put your heart in the right place. i hope it won't hurt you." "oh, no;" answered the woodman. "i shall not feel it at all." [illustration] so oz brought a pair of tinners' shears and cut a small, square hole in the left side of the tin woodman's breast. then, going to a chest of drawers, he took out a pretty heart, made entirely of silk and stuffed with sawdust. "isn't it a beauty?" he asked. "it is, indeed!" replied the woodman, who was greatly pleased. "but is it a kind heart?" "oh, very!" answered oz. he put the heart in the woodman's breast and then replaced the square of tin, soldering it neatly together where it had been cut. "there," said he; "now you have a heart that any man might be proud of. i'm sorry i had to put a patch on your breast, but it really couldn't be helped." "never mind the patch," exclaimed the happy woodman. "i am very grateful to you, and shall never forget your kindness." [illustration] "don't speak of it," replied oz. then the tin woodman went back to his friends, who wished him every joy on account of his good fortune. the lion now walked to the throne room and knocked at the door. "come in," said oz. "i have come for my courage," announced the lion, entering the room. "very well," answered the little man; "i will get it for you." he went to a cupboard and reaching up to a high shelf took down a square green bottle, the contents of which he poured into a green-gold dish, beautifully carved. placing this before the cowardly lion, who sniffed at it as if he did not like it, the wizard said, "drink." "what is it?" asked the lion. "well," answered oz, "if it were inside of you, it would be courage. you know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so that this really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. therefore i advise you to drink it as soon as possible." the lion hesitated no longer, but drank till the dish was empty. "how do you feel now?" asked oz. "full of courage," replied the lion, who went joyfully back to his friends to tell them of his good fortune. oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the scarecrow and the tin woodman and the lion exactly what they thought they wanted. "how can i help being a humbug," he said, "when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can't be done? it was easy to make the scarecrow and the lion and the woodman happy, because they imagined i could do anything. but it will take more than imagination to carry dorothy back to kansas, and i'm sure i don't know how it can be done." chapter xvii. how the balloon was launched. [illustration] for three days dorothy heard nothing from oz. these were sad days for the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and contented. the scarecrow told them there were wonderful thoughts in his head; but he would not say what they were because he knew no one could understand them but himself. when the tin woodman walked about he felt his heart rattling around in his breast; and he told dorothy he had discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had owned when he was made of flesh. the lion declared he was afraid of nothing on earth, and would gladly face an army of men or a dozen of the fierce kalidahs. thus each of the little party was satisfied except dorothy, who longed more than ever to get back to kansas. on the fourth day, to her great joy, oz sent for her, and when she entered the throne room he said, pleasantly: "sit down, my dear; i think i have found the way to get you out of this country." "and back to kansas?" she asked, eagerly. "well, i'm not sure about kansas," said oz; "for i haven't the faintest notion which way it lies. but the first thing to do is to cross the desert, and then it should be easy to find your way home." "how can i cross the desert?" she enquired. "well, i'll tell you what i think," said the little man. "you see, when i came to this country it was in a balloon. you also came through the air, being carried by a cyclone. so i believe the best way to get across the desert will be through the air. now, it is quite beyond my powers to make a cyclone; but i've been thinking the matter over, and i believe i can make a balloon." "how?" asked dorothy. "a balloon," said oz, "is made of silk, which is coated with glue to keep the gas in it. i have plenty of silk in the palace, so it will be no trouble for us to make the balloon. but in all this country there is no gas to fill the balloon with, to make it float." "if it won't float," remarked dorothy, "it will be of no use to us." "true," answered oz. "but there is another way to make it float, which is to fill it with hot air. hot air isn't as good as gas, for if the air should get cold the balloon would come down in the desert, and we should be lost." "we!" exclaimed the girl; "are you going with me?" "yes, of course," replied oz. "i am tired of being such a humbug. if i should go out of this palace my people would soon discover i am not a wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them. so i have to stay shut up in these rooms all day, and it gets tiresome. i'd much rather go back to kansas with you and be in a circus again." [illustration] "i shall be glad to have your company," said dorothy. "thank you," he answered. "now, if you will help me sew the silk together, we will begin to work on our balloon." so dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as oz cut the strips of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. first there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and then a strip of emerald green; for oz had a fancy to make the balloon in different shades of the color about them. it took three days to sew all the strips together, but when it was finished they had a big bag of green silk more than twenty feet long. then oz painted it on the inside with a coat of thin glue, to make it air-tight, after which he announced that the balloon was ready. "but we must have a basket to ride in," he said. so he sent the soldier with the green whiskers for a big clothes basket, which he fastened with many ropes to the bottom of the balloon. when it was all ready, oz sent word to his people that he was going to make a visit to a great brother wizard who lived in the clouds. the news spread rapidly throughout the city and everyone came to see the wonderful sight. oz ordered the balloon carried out in front of the palace, and the people gazed upon it with much curiosity. the tin woodman had chopped a big pile of wood, and now he made a fire of it, and oz held the bottom of the balloon over the fire so that the hot air that arose from it would be caught in the silken bag. gradually the balloon swelled out and rose into the air, until finally the basket just touched the ground. then oz got into the basket and said to all the people in a loud voice: "i am now going away to make a visit. while i am gone the scarecrow will rule over you. i command you to obey him as you would me." the balloon was by this time tugging hard at the rope that held it to the ground, for the air within it was hot, and this made it so much lighter in weight than the air without that it pulled hard to rise into the sky. "come, dorothy!" cried the wizard; "hurry up, or the balloon will fly away." "i can't find toto anywhere," replied dorothy, who did not wish to leave her little dog behind. toto had run into the crowd to bark at a kitten, and dorothy at last found him. she picked him up and ran toward the balloon. [illustration] she was within a few steps of it, and oz was holding out his hands to help her into the basket, when, crack! went the ropes, and the balloon rose into the air without her. [illustration] "come back!" she screamed; "i want to go, too!" "i can't come back, my dear," called oz from the basket. "good-bye!" "good-bye!" shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where the wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and farther into the sky. and that was the last any of them ever saw of oz, the wonderful wizard, though he may have reached omaha safely, and be there now, for all we know. but the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another, "oz was always our friend. when he was here he built for us this beautiful emerald city, and now he is gone he has left the wise scarecrow to rule over us." still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the wonderful wizard, and would not be comforted. chapter xviii. away to the south. [illustration] [illustration] dorothy wept bitterly at the passing of her hope to get home to kansas again; but when she thought it all over she was glad she had not gone up in a balloon. and she also felt sorry at losing oz, and so did her companions. the tin woodman came to her and said, "truly i should be ungrateful if i failed to mourn for the man who gave me my lovely heart. i should like to cry a little because oz is gone, if you will kindly wipe away my tears, so that i shall not rust." [illustration] "with pleasure," she answered, and brought a towel at once. then the tin woodman wept for several minutes, and she watched the tears carefully and wiped them away with the towel. when he had finished he thanked her kindly and oiled himself thoroughly with his jewelled oil-can, to guard against mishap. the scarecrow was now the ruler of the emerald city, and although he was not a wizard the people were proud of him. "for," they said, "there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man." and, so far as they knew, they were quite right. the morning after the balloon had gone up with oz the four travellers met in the throne room and talked matters over. the scarecrow sat in the big throne and the others stood respectfully before him. "we are not so unlucky," said the new ruler; "for this palace and the emerald city belong to us, and we can do just as we please. when i remember that a short time ago i was up on a pole in a farmer's cornfield, and that i am now the ruler of this beautiful city, i am quite satisfied with my lot." "i also," said the tin woodman, "am well pleased with my new heart; and, really, that was the only thing i wished in all the world." "for my part, i am content in knowing i am as brave as any beast that ever lived, if not braver," said the lion, modestly, [illustration: "_the scarecrow sat on the big throne._"] "if dorothy would only be contented to live in the emerald city," continued the scarecrow, "we might all be happy together." "but i don't want to live here," cried dorothy. "i want to go to kansas, and live with aunt em and uncle henry." "well, then, what can be done?" enquired the woodman. the scarecrow decided to think, and he thought so hard that the pins and needles began to stick out of his brains. finally he said: "why not call the winged monkeys, and asked them to carry you over the desert?" "i never thought of that!" said dorothy, joyfully. "it's just the thing. i'll go at once for the golden cap." when she brought it into the throne room she spoke the magic words, and soon the band of winged monkeys flew in through an open window and stood beside her. "this is the second time you have called us," said the monkey king, bowing before the little girl. "what do you wish?" "i want you to fly with me to kansas," said dorothy. but the monkey king shook his head. "that cannot be done," he said. "we belong to this country alone, and cannot leave it. there has never been a winged monkey in kansas yet, and i suppose there never will be, for they don't belong there. we shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert. good-bye." and with another bow the monkey king spread his wings and flew away through the window, followed by all his band. dorothy was almost ready to cry with disappointment. "i have wasted the charm of the golden cap to no purpose," she said, "for the winged monkeys cannot help me." "it is certainly too bad!" said the tender hearted woodman. the scarecrow was thinking again, and his head bulged out so horribly that dorothy feared it would burst. "let us call in the soldier with the green whiskers," he said, "and ask his advice." [illustration] so the soldier was summoned and entered the throne room timidly, for while oz was alive he never was allowed to come further than the door. "this little girl," said the scarecrow to the soldier, "wishes to cross the desert. how can she do so?" "i cannot tell," answered the soldier; "for nobody has ever crossed the desert, unless it is oz himself." "is there no one who can help me?" asked dorothy, earnestly. "glinda might," he suggested. "who is glinda?" enquired the scarecrow. "the witch of the south. she is the most powerful of all the witches, and rules over the quadlings. besides, her castle stands on the edge of the desert, so she may know a way to cross it." "glinda is a good witch, isn't she?" asked the child. "the quadlings think she is good," said the soldier, "and she is kind to everyone. i have heard that glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived." "how can i get to her castle?" asked dorothy. "the road is straight to the south," he answered, "but it is said to be full of dangers to travellers. there are wild beasts in the woods, and a race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country. for this reason none of the quadlings ever come to the emerald city." the soldier then left them and the scarecrow said, "it seems, in spite of dangers, that the best thing dorothy can do is to travel to the land of the south and ask glinda to help her. for, of course, if dorothy stays here she will never get back to kansas." "you must have been thinking again," remarked the tin woodman. "i have," said the scarecrow. "i shall go with dorothy," declared the lion, "for i am tired of your city and long for the woods and the country again. i am really a wild beast, you know. besides, dorothy will need someone to protect her." "that is true," agreed the woodman. "my axe may be of service to her; so i, also, will go with her to the land of the south." "when shall we start?" asked the scarecrow. "are you going?" they asked, in surprise. "certainly. if it wasn't for dorothy i should never have had brains. she lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the emerald city. so my good luck is all due to her, and i shall never leave her until she starts back to kansas for good and all." "thank you," said dorothy, gratefully. "you are all very kind to me. but i should like to start as soon as possible." "we shall go to-morrow morning," returned the scarecrow. "so now let us all get ready, for it will be a long journey." [illustration] chapter xix. attacked by the fighting trees. [illustration] [illustration] the next morning dorothy kissed the pretty green girl good-bye, and they all shook hands with the soldier with the green whiskers, who had walked with them as far as the gate. when the guardian of the gate saw them again he wondered greatly that they could leave the beautiful city to get into new trouble. but he at once unlocked their spectacles, which he put back into the green box, and gave them many good wishes to carry with them. "you are now our ruler," he said to the scarecrow; "so you must come back to us as soon as possible." "i certainly shall if i am able," the scarecrow replied; "but i must help dorothy to get home, first." as dorothy bade the good-natured guardian a last farewell she said, "i have been very kindly treated in your lovely city, and everyone has been good to me. i cannot tell you how grateful i am." "don't try, my dear," he answered. "we should like to keep you with us, but if it is your wish to return to kansas i hope you will find a way." he then opened the gate of the outer wall and they walked forth and started upon their journey. the sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the land of the south. they were all in the best of spirits, and laughed and chatted together. dorothy was once more filled with the hope of getting home, and the scarecrow and the tin woodman were glad to be of use to her. as for the lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country again, while toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time. "city life does not agree with me at all," remarked the lion, as they walked along at a brisk pace. "i have lost much flesh since i lived there, and now i am anxious for a chance to show the other beasts how courageous i have grown." [illustration: "_the branches bent down and twined around him._"] they now turned and took a last look at the emerald city. all they could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and high up above everything the spires and dome of the palace of oz. "oz was not such a bad wizard, after all," said the tin woodman, as he felt his heart rattling around in his breast. "he knew how to give me brains, and very good brains, too," said the scarecrow. "if oz had taken a dose of the same courage he gave me," added the lion, "he would have been a brave man." dorothy said nothing. oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he had done his best, so she forgave him. as he said, he was a good man, even if he was a bad wizard. the first day's journey was through the green fields and bright flowers that stretched about the emerald city on every side. they slept that night on the grass, with nothing but the stars over them; and they rested very well indeed. in the morning they travelled on until they came to a thick wood. there was no way of going around it, for it seemed to extend to the right and left as far as they could see; and, besides, they did not dare change the direction of their journey for fear of getting lost. so they looked for the place where it would be easiest to get into the forest. the scarecrow, who was in the lead, finally discovered a big tree with such wide spreading-branches that there was room for the party to pass underneath. so he walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under the first branches they bent down and twined around him, and the next minute he was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his fellow travellers. this did not hurt the scarecrow, but it surprised him, and he looked rather dizzy when dorothy picked him up. "here is another space between the trees," called the lion. [illustration] "let me try it first," said the scarecrow, "for it doesn't hurt me to get thrown about." he walked up to another tree, as he spoke, but its branches immediately seized him and tossed him back again. "this is strange," exclaimed dorothy; "what shall we do?" "the trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our journey," remarked the lion. "i believe i will try it myself," said the woodman, and shouldering his axe he marched up to the first tree that had handled the scarecrow so roughly. when a big branch bent down to seize him the woodman chopped at it so fiercely that he cut it in two. at once the tree began shaking all its branches as if in pain, and the tin woodman passed safely under it. "come on!" he shouted to the others; "be quick!" they all ran forward and passed under the tree without injury, except toto, who was caught by a small branch and shaken until he howled. but the woodman promptly chopped off the branch and set the little dog free. the other trees of the forest did nothing to keep them back, so they made up their minds that only the first row of trees could bend down their branches, and that probably these were the policemen of the forest, and given this wonderful power in order to keep strangers out of it. the four travellers walked with ease through the trees until they came to the further edge of the wood. then, to their surprise, they found before them a high wall, which seemed to be made of white china. it was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads. "what shall we do now?" asked dorothy. "i will make a ladder," said the tin woodman, "for we certainly must climb over the wall." chapter xx. the dainty china country. [illustration] [illustration] while the woodman was making a ladder from wood which he found in the forest dorothy lay down and slept, for she was tired by the long walk. the lion also curled himself up to sleep and toto lay beside him. the scarecrow watched the woodman while he worked, and said to him: "i cannot think why this wall is here, nor what it is made of." "rest your brains and do not worry about the wall," replied the woodman; "when we have climbed over it we shall know what is on the other side." after a time the ladder was finished. it looked clumsy, but the tin woodman was sure it was strong and would answer their purpose. the scarecrow waked dorothy and the lion and toto, and told them that the ladder was ready. the scarecrow climbed up the ladder first, but he was so awkward that dorothy had to follow close behind and keep him from falling off. when he got his head over the top of the wall the scarecrow said, "oh, my!" "go on," exclaimed dorothy. so the scarecrow climbed further up and sat down on the top of the wall, and dorothy put her head over and cried, "oh, my!" just as the scarecrow had done. then toto came up, and immediately began to bark, but dorothy made him be still. the lion climbed the ladder next, and the tin woodman came last; but both of them cried, "oh, my!" as soon as they looked over the wall. when they were all sitting in a row on the top of the wall they looked down and saw a strange sight. [illustration: "_these people were all made of china._"] before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. scattered around were many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colours. these houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as high as dorothy's waist. there were also pretty little barns, with china fences around them, and many cows and sheep and horses and pigs and chickens, all made of china, were standing about in groups. but the strangest of all were the people who lived in this queer country. there were milk-maids and shepherdesses, with bright-colored bodices and golden spots all over their gowns; and princesses with most gorgeous frocks of silver and gold and purple; and shepherds dressed in knee-breeches with pink and yellow and blue stripes down them, and golden buckles on their shoes; and princes with jewelled crowns upon their heads, wearing ermine robes and satin doublets; and funny clowns in ruffled gowns, with round red spots upon their cheeks and tall, pointed caps. and, strangest of all, these people were all made of china, even to their clothes, and were so small that the tallest of them was no higher than dorothy's knee. no one did so much as look at the travellers at first, except one little purple china dog with an extra-large head, which came to the wall and barked at them in a tiny voice, afterwards running away again. "how shall we get down?" asked dorothy. they found the ladder so heavy they could not pull it up, so the scarecrow fell off the wall and the others jumped down upon him so that the hard floor would not hurt their feet. of course they took pains not to light on his head and get the pins in their feet. when all were safely down they picked up the scarecrow, whose body was quite flattened out, and patted his straw into shape again. "we must cross this strange place in order to get to the other side," said dorothy; "for it would be unwise for us to go any other way except due south." they began walking through the country of the china people, and the first thing they came to was a china milk-maid milking a china cow. as they drew near the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, the pail, and even the milk-maid herself, all falling on the china ground with a great clatter. dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her leg short off, and that the pail was lying in several small pieces, while the poor milk-maid had a nick in her left elbow. "there!" cried the milk-maid, angrily; "see what you have done! my cow has broken her leg, and i must take her to the mender's shop and have it glued on again. what do you mean by coming here and frightening my cow?" "i'm very sorry," returned dorothy; "please forgive us." but the pretty milk-maid was much too vexed to make any answer. she picked up the leg sulkily and led her cow away, the poor animal limping on three legs. as she left them the milk-maid cast many reproachful glances over her shoulder at the clumsy strangers, holding her nicked elbow close to her side. [illustration] dorothy was quite grieved at this mishap. "we must be very careful here," said the kind-hearted woodman, "or we may hurt these pretty little people so they will never get over it." a little farther on dorothy met a most beautiful dressed young princess, who stopped short as she saw the strangers and started to run away. dorothy wanted to see more of the princess, so she ran after her; but the china girl cried out, "don't chase me! don't chase me!" she had such a frightened little voice that dorothy stopped and said, "why not?" "because," answered the princess, also stopping, a safe distance away, "if i run i may fall down and break myself." "but couldn't you be mended?" asked the girl. "oh, yes; but one is never so pretty after being mended, you know," replied the princess. "i suppose not," said dorothy. "now there is mr. joker, one of our clowns," continued the china lady, "who is always trying to stand upon his head. he has broken himself so often that he is mended in a hundred places, and doesn't look at all pretty. here he comes now, so you can see for yourself." indeed, a jolly little clown now came walking toward them, and dorothy could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way and showing plainly that he had been mended in many places. the clown put his hands in his pockets, and after puffing out his cheeks and nodding his head at them saucily he said, "my lady fair, why do you stare at poor old mr. joker? you're quite as stiff and prim as if you'd eaten up a poker!" "be quiet, sir!" said the princess; "can't you see these are strangers, and should be treated with respect?" "well, that's respect, i expect," declared the clown, and immediately stood upon his head. "don't mind mr. joker," said the princess to dorothy; "he is considerably cracked in his head, and that makes him foolish." [illustration] "oh, i don't mind him a bit," said dorothy. "but you are so beautiful," she continued, "that i am sure i could love you dearly. won't you let me carry you back to kansas and stand you on aunt em's mantle-shelf? i could carry you in my basket." "that would make me very unhappy," answered the china princess. "you see, here in our own country we live contentedly, and can talk and move around as we please. but whenever any of us are taken away our joints at once stiffen, and we can only stand straight and look pretty. of course that is all that is expected of us when we are on mantle-shelves and cabinets and drawing-room tables, but our lives are much pleasanter here in our own country." "i would not make you unhappy for all the world!" exclaimed dorothy; "so i'll just say good-bye." "good-bye," replied the princess. they walked carefully through the china country. the little animals and all the people scampered out of their way, fearing the strangers would break them, and after an hour or so the travellers reached the other side of the country and came to another china wall. it was not as high as the first, however, and by standing upon the lion's back they all managed to scramble to the top. then the lion gathered his legs under him and jumped on the wall; but just as he jumped he upset a china church with his tail and smashed it all to pieces. "that was too bad," said dorothy, "but really i think we were lucky in not doing these little people more harm than breaking a cow's leg and a church. they are all so brittle!" "they are, indeed," said the scarecrow, "and i am thankful i am made of straw and cannot be easily damaged. there are worse things in the world than being a scarecrow." chapter xxi. the lion becomes the king of beasts. [illustration] [illustration] after climbing down from the china wall the travellers found themselves in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with tall, rank grass. it was difficult to walk far without falling into muddy holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight. however, by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they reached solid ground. but here the country seemed wilder than ever, and after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had ever seen. "this forest is perfectly delightful," declared the lion, looking around him with joy; "never have i seen a more beautiful place." "it seems gloomy," said the scarecrow. "not a bit of it," answered the lion; "i should like to live here all my life. see how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home." "perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said dorothy. "i suppose there are," returned the lion; "but i do not see any of them about." they walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. dorothy and toto and the lion lay down to sleep, while the woodman and the scarecrow kept watch over them as usual. when morning came they started again. before they had gone far they heard a low rumble, as of the growling of many wild animals. toto whimpered a little but none of the others was frightened and they kept along the well-trodden path until they came to an opening in the wood, in which were gathered hundreds of beasts of every variety. there were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the others in the natural history, and for a moment dorothy was afraid. but the lion explained that the animals were holding a meeting, and he judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble. as he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the great assemblage hushed as if by magic. the biggest of the tigers came up to the lion and bowed, saying, [illustration] "welcome, o king of beasts! you have come in good time to fight our enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more." "what is your trouble?" asked the lion, quietly. "we are all threatened," answered the tiger, "by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest. it is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a tree trunk. it has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us." the lion thought for a moment. "are there any other lions in this forest?" he asked. "no; there were some, but the monster has eaten them all. and, besides, they were none of them nearly so large and brave as you." "if i put an end to your enemy will you bow down to me and obey me as king of the forest?" enquired the lion. "we will do that gladly," returned the tiger; and all the other beasts roared with a mighty roar: "we will!" "where is this great spider of yours now?" asked the lion. "yonder, among the oak trees," said the tiger, pointing with his fore-foot. "take good care of these friends of mine," said the lion, "and i will go at once to fight the monster." he bade his comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle with the enemy. the great spider was lying asleep when the lion found him, and it looked so ugly that its foe turned up his nose in disgust. its legs were quite as long as the tiger had said, and it's body covered with coarse black hair. it had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as slender as a wasp's waist. this gave the lion a hint of the best way to attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the monster's back. then, with one blow of his heavy paw, all armed with sharp claws, he knocked the spider's head from its body. jumping down, he watched it until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was quite dead. the lion went back to the opening where the beasts of the forest were waiting for him and said, proudly, "you need fear your enemy no longer." then the beasts bowed down to the lion as their king, and he promised to come back and rule over them as soon as dorothy was safely on her way to kansas. chapter xxii. the country of the quadlings [illustration] [illustration: "_the head shot forward and struck the scarecrow._"] [illustration] the four travellers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered from top to bottom with great pieces of rock. "that will be a hard climb," said the scarecrow, "but we must get over the hill, nevertheless." so he led the way and the others followed. they had nearly reached the first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, "keep back!" "who are you?" asked the scarecrow. then a head showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, "this hill belongs to us, and we don't allow anyone to cross it." "but we must cross it," said the scarecrow. "we're going to the country of the quadlings." "but you shall not!" replied the voice, and there stepped from behind the rock the strangest man the travellers had ever seen. he was quite short and stout and had a big head, which was flat at the top and supported by a thick neck full of wrinkles. but he had no arms at all, and, seeing this, the scarecrow did not fear that so helpless a creature could prevent them from climbing the hill. so he said, "i'm sorry not to do as you wish, but we must pass over your hill whether you like it or not," and he walked boldly forward. as quick as lightning the man's head shot forward and his neck stretched out until the top of the head, where it was flat, struck the scarecrow in the middle and sent him tumbling, over and over, down the hill. almost as quickly as it came the head went back to the body, and the man laughed harshly as he said, "it isn't as easy as you think!" a chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and dorothy saw hundreds of the armless hammer-heads upon the hillside, one behind every rock. the lion became quite angry at the laughter caused by the scarecrow's mishap, and giving a loud roar that echoed like thunder he dashed up the hill. again a head shot swiftly out, and the great lion went rolling down the hill as if he had been struck by a cannon ball. dorothy ran down and helped the scarecrow to his feet, and the lion came up to her, feeling rather bruised and sore, and said, "it is useless to fight people with shooting heads; no one can withstand them." "what can we do, then?" she asked. "call the winged monkeys," suggested the tin woodman; "you have still the right to command them once more." "very well," she answered, and putting on the golden cap she uttered the magic words. the monkeys were as prompt as ever, and in a few moments the entire band stood before her. "what are your commands?" enquired the king of the monkeys, bowing low. "carry us over the hill to the country of the quadlings," answered the girl. "it shall be done," said the king, and at once the winged monkeys caught the four travellers and toto up in their arms and flew away with them. as they passed over the hill the hammer-heads yelled with vexation, and shot their heads high in the air; but they could not reach the winged monkeys, which carried dorothy and her comrades safely over the hill and set them down in the beautiful country of the quadlings. "this is the last time you can summon us," said the leader to dorothy; "so good-bye and good luck to you." "good-bye, and thank you very much," returned the girl; and the monkeys rose into the air and were out of sight in a twinkling. the country of the quadlings seemed rich and happy. there was field upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. the fences and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had been painted yellow in the country of the winkies and blue in the country of the munchkins. the quadlings themselves, who were short and fat and looked chubby and good natured, were dressed all in red, which showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain. the monkeys had set them down near a farm house, and the four travellers walked up to it and knocked at the door. it was opened by the farmer's wife, and when dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for toto. "how far is it to the castle of glinda?" asked the child. "it is not a great way," answered the farmer's wife. "take the road to the south and you will soon reach it." thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very beautiful castle. before the gates were three young girls, dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as dorothy approached one of them said to her, "why have you come to the south country?" "to see the good witch who rules here," she answered. "will you take me to her?" "let me have your name and i will ask glinda if she will receive you." they told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the castle. after a few moments she came back to say that dorothy and the others were to be admitted at once. [illustration] chapter xxiii. the good witch grants dorothy's wish. [illustration] [illustration: "_you must give me the golden cap._"] [illustration] before they went to see glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the castle, where dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints. when they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl into a big room where the witch glinda sat upon a throne of rubies. she was both beautiful and young to their eyes. her hair was a rich red in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. her dress was pure white; but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the little girl. "what can i do for you, my child?" she asked. dorothy told the witch all her story; how the cyclone had brought her to the land of oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful adventures they had met with. "my greatest wish now," she added, "is to get back to kansas, for aunt em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last i am sure uncle henry cannot afford it." glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving little girl. "bless your dear heart," she said, "i am sure i can tell you of a way to get back to kansas." then she added: "but, if i do, you must give me the golden cap." "willingly!" exclaimed dorothy; "indeed, it is of no use to me now, and when you have it you can command the winged monkeys three times." "and i think i shall need their service just those three times," answered glinda, smiling. dorothy then gave her the golden cap, and the witch said to the scarecrow, "what will you do when dorothy has left us?" "i will return to the emerald city," he replied, "for oz has made me its ruler and the people like me. the only thing that worries me is how to cross the hill of the hammer-heads." "by means of the golden cap i shall command the winged monkeys to carry you to the gates of the emerald city," said glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler." "am i really wonderful?" asked the scarecrow. "you are unusual," replied glinda. turning to the tin woodman, she asked: "what will become of you when dorothy leaves this country?" he leaned on his axe and thought a moment. then he said, "the winkies were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the wicked witch died. i am fond of the winkies, and if i could get back again to the country of the west i should like nothing better than to rule over them forever." "my second command to the winged monkeys," said glinda, "will be that they carry you safely to the land of the winkies. your brains may not be so large to look at as those of the scarecrow, but you are really brighter than he is--when you are well polished--and i am sure you will rule the winkies wisely and well." then the witch looked at the big, shaggy lion and asked, "when dorothy has returned to her own home, what will become of you?" "over the hill of the hammer-heads," he answered, "lies a grand old forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their king. if i could only get back to this forest i would pass my life very happily there." "my third command to the winged monkeys," said glinda, "shall be to carry you to your forest. then, having used up the powers of the golden cap, i shall give it to the king of the monkeys, that he and his band may thereafter be free for evermore." the scarecrow and the tin woodman and the lion now thanked the good witch earnestly for her kindness, and dorothy exclaimed, [illustration] "you are certainly as good as you are beautiful! but you have not yet told me how to get back to kansas." "your silver shoes will carry you over the desert," replied glinda. "if you had known their power you could have gone back to your aunt em the very first day you came to this country." "but then i should not have had my wonderful brains!" cried the scarecrow. "i might have passed my whole life in the farmer's cornfield." "and i should not have had my lovely heart," said the tin woodman. "i might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world." "and i should have lived a coward forever," declared the lion, "and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me." "this is all true," said dorothy, "and i am glad i was of use to these good friends. but now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule beside, i think i should like to go back to kansas." "the silver shoes," said the good witch, "have wonderful powers. and one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. all you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go." "if that is so," said the child, joyfully, "i will ask them to carry me back to kansas at once." she threw her arms around the lion's neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. then she kissed the tin woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. but she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades. glinda the good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a good-bye kiss, and dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to her friends and herself. dorothy now took toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying, "take me home to aunt em!" * * * * * [illustration] instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears. the silver shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where she was. at length, however, she sat up and looked about her. "good gracious!" she cried. for she was sitting on the broad kansas prairie, and just before her was the new farm-house uncle henry built after the cyclone had carried away the old one. uncle henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, barking joyously. dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. for the silver shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert. [illustration] chapter xxiv. home again. aunt em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw dorothy running toward her. "my darling child!" she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses; "where in the world did you come from?" "from the land of oz," said dorothy, gravely. "and here is toto, too. and oh, aunt em! i'm so glad to be at home again!" [illustration] transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.