Our Women and Children Conducted by Lucille Skaggs Edwards. THE HOUSE FLY For years the house fly was regard ed simply as a petty thief, helping itself freely to our table delicacies. But we have learned that what the fly leaves in our dishes is of infinite ly more consequence than the little it takes away! Feeding where there are cases of typhoid and other enteric diseases, it brings into our homes on its hairy feet and in its amazingly constructed stomach, the germs of these deadly disorders. Wherever it walks, it leaves a trail of them, depositing them everywhere in the numerous “f y-specks.” Beyond a doubt this active little household Mercury, winging its way from the sick room to the dining table, is responsible for the spread of many malignant diseases. At first thought the fly appears to be very fastidious in its personal cleanliness. In amazement we have watched its systematized washings, rubbings and brushings! How can this apparently neat little insect leave such a trail of virulent poisons across our food? Let a house fly walk over a plate of cold meat which has been boiled and jellied. In a few days, springing from each tiny footprint, a growth of bacteria may be plainly seen. Try it—it will make you shudder—and think! The table may be spotless, the sil ver handsomely chased, the china of the latest design—the guests may be witty, wise and beautiful, but the house fly, with its germ-infested feet, makes it a banquet of death. By the medical world the house fly has been condemned as being the most active and harmful of all man’s foes, carrying death to more human beings than have all the beasts of prey and poisonous reptiles put to gether. What a fearful charge! But wait! A member of the United States Pub lic Health Service is authority for the statement that the “story of the danger of disease from the house fly has been only half told.” Think of it—only half told! What must we do? As soon as settled warm weather comes, flies begin to breed. Garbage, damp, moldy cloth and paper, decay ing vegetables, in fact, any ferment ing animal or vegetable matter serves as a breeding place. If there are flies about, find their breeding place, and remove it. Drive all flies out of a sick-room, especially where there are cases of contagious diseases. Let not one es cape. Cart way, bury or burn all decay ing matter about your homes. Screen all foods, whether in the house or on sale at the stores. Cover tightly all garbage; scald cans often. Watch your sewage system closely. It must not leak. It should not be exposed to these active little pest car riers; screen every door and window. And after you have taken every pre caution—still you will have flies! The problem is a vexatious one. It is much more than this, it is fraught with real danger. What are you go ing to do about it? A common sense fly paper, open to no criticism on the score of danger from poison, a harmless, always ready weapon in your war of extermination, is one of your most valuable allies. Defying fly traps, swifter than the nimblest pursuer armed with a “swat ter,” your household foe, so minute yet so mighty, cannot resist the lure of its appetite. Harmlessly buzzing, it swoops down hungrily upon the ap petizing meal spread in its very sight —and it never gets up from the table! While you are complaining about them, flies are multiplying. Statis tics showing what mischief they are already responsible for will not serve to rid you of them. * Be enthusiastic in your active com paign against these enemies of the family’s health and happiness! When there has been a real awaken ing to the perils of the germ-distrib uting dynamo called the house fly, it is doomed.—People’s Home Journal. DREAMS By Rosamond L. McNaught. A humble woman stands at her tubs The whole of a summer day; With splashes and shakes, and wrings and rubs, She washes and washes away. And think you the duty an ugly thing? A stupid grind it seems; And the worker does not smile or sing; But—over the tubs she dreams and dreams. Above her sewing a woman bends, And cuts and bastes and fits; And over mistakes that she sometimes mends Perplexed brow she knits. Then at her machine, past the set of sun, She stitches the lone, long seams; And though her task is a homely one, ’Tis illumed with the flame of a woman’s dreams. With a “Rock-a-by-by” a woman swings Her babe in a rocking-chair; And she lays her hand, the while she sings, On the darling’s silken hair. Both maid and nurse, she is tired to death, But her face with glory beams! For, quickened by balm of the babe’s soft breath, She strings in the dusk a chaplet of dreams. DISOBEDIENCE By Frances McKinnon Morton I am convinved as I grow older and see more of children and am better able to project myself into their world that it is very rare to meet with ac tual intentional disobedience in young children. Very young children fail of a full understanding of the re quests made of them, and many poor little tender hands have been smacked when their owner was ignorant not only of his offense but more than that, still in ignorance of the meaning of the original request. The feeling that a parent has been cruel or un just rouses anger, ill-will, and fear, in a child, and finally out of this mental disease there grows the de sire to deceive—to withdraw the in ner self from the misunderstanding parent. It is safe, in our dealings with very small children, to go on the general principle that none of them really wish to displease or to be dis obedient. One very frequent cause of disobedience in little children is the bad habit so many of us have of giving commands in the negative rather than the positive form. A little child does not understand the meaning of the word “don’t,” and as it represents no concrete object it is not a word easily defined to a child’s limited intelligence. One baby that I knew, when asked if she understood “don’t” replied naively, “Yeth, it’th the smack word.” SOME DON’TS. Don’t lose faith in men because me man whom you have placed upon pedestal has disappointed you. Your | mistake was in putting any man on a | ledestal. It is like putting children I >n dress parade before your company. | They go to “acting up” just at the wrong time. When you put your friend on a pedestal you expect too much of him. You expect him to be superhuman and hold him to account when he does just about as other men vould do under similar circumstances. It will be better if, instead of elevat ing any one man above the human ken you raise men generally to that com non level where you can accept them generally as pretty good folks after : ill with their inconsistencies and their I weakness. None of us has wings and few of us have horns. Politics is a game and whatever the •eligious professions of men may be, if they have a political machine, they play the game according to the old time rules. None of them play it ac cording to the scriptures.—The Oma ha Nebraskan. Miss Oleatha Alexander, the only Colored pupil in the graduating class of Franklin school, was awarded a certificate for her excellence in pen manship. Hti mnir-Tii——■-TTH—n-Mi—— ■■■■ntf.- I fun - Oak Dining Room Set $18.85 This suit is carefully built entirely of oak and nicely fin ished golden. The pedestal base is non-dividing and the top can be extended to six feet. The full box seat chairs have genuine Spanish leather seats. Suit is similar t