10
The Commoner.
VOLUME 6, NUMBER 25
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Misunderstood
Tho meed of praise too long withhold
May oft-times come in vain
Both powerless to undo the past,
Or quench tho awful pain
That liko a hidden firo burns on'
Till all ambition's strength is gone.
, The tears that come so tardily
, May fall upon a grave;
Tho .tenderness may come too late
' 'To strengthen, chocr or save,
If ho who walked and worked alone
Lies, dreamless, undor somo white
stone.
What though you say, "How well he
did!
How marvellous his pen
T'liat drew the veil from human hearts
To please the eyes of men!"
Ah, yes; .so playful each pen-stroke
You knew not when the great .heart
broke !
Oh,if "such praise had only come
Before the piteous words were said
That loosed lite fingers from the pen,
And bade him- join the dead
Ah, honors can not stir or thrill
Tho pulse, nor praises pierce death's
chill!
The far, white heights to which he
climbed L
But made the- stars tho further
seem ;
The -moon lbolced down through tos
sing clouds
Life seemed a loveless dream.
On those cold height's he missed the
thrill
Of joys which all your pulses fill.
You can not call it true success
Because men say that he was creat:
Ho missed tho blessings all men
have
Tho commonnlacen of vonr fnt
''He would have bartered fame and pen
And left his mountain-tops to win.
You heard his bitter cry to men,
And said "He sings another song!"
j.You said, "Hear how ho writes of
" . : , pain
"' As though he felt it!" "Lord, how
long,"
Ho cried, "must I stand here alone?"
He asked for bread: You gave a
stone.
A mnrblo shaft to mark his rest;
While you, unknowing, know too late
That he who voiced his soul in song
Was not. ftlld linvor nnnl.l li rr-
Earth held his spirit grand in thrall,
Till Death released him. That is all.
Selected
Our Social Chat
Now that the schools are closed
many girls are, for the first time'
seriously asking themselves what they
are to do for a living. Many of them
know very little about what consti
tutes a "living," as they have always
had the home behind them, and never
realized what necessity of a serious
nature means. Scarcely a woman
whose name heads a department in
any publication, but-has moro-or less
appeal for helpfulness from these
girls and young women. And every
one of these women who are sup
posed to be "successes," because they
have wou work on the battlefield of
AN OLD AND WELL THIRD niCMUTDT
Mns. WiNSLoWBSooTmNo Syrup for online
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tho world, would bo glad b help
these undecided sisters if they could.
But they the applicants for advice
seem looking for "an easy place,"
where the work is "respectable," for
getting that it is the person, not the
place that ennobles. Not one of the
many who have written to mo has
seemed satisfied to take up house
work, in any of its branches. They
are all looking to the stores, facto
ries and offices. Whether this is
right or not, is a question I do not
care to discuss. I am a wage-worker,
myself; but I am a housekeeper, too.
I try to do each work equally well.
Bye and bye, we shall find women
going back to the homes to the home
kitchens, in search of the health of
which the factories, in more ways
than one, have robbed thorn. They
will grow tired of factory foods, and
factory garments and factory homes.
But the kitchen of the future, like
the woman who goes back to it, will
be improved. The ( crude inconven
iences and wasteful ways will be abol
ished, and the "coming kitchen," liko
the coming cook and housekeoper, will
be something of a joy. Women will
know there is no disgrace to be at
tached to the name of "cook," or to
the doing of the work of one. Cook
ery will be raised to the ranks of the
"learned professions," as, indeed, it
should be, for it is at the very found
ation of all health, both of body, mind
and morals. New methods, new ma
chinery, sanitation and hygiene will
all be there to ereet her. and sho her-
.self, will be ready clothed with in
telligence and knowledge of ways and
means which make for success. A
good cook and housekeeper is never
out of employment voluntarily.
Looking to the Future
No girl or woman, however closely
guarded, can escape the possibility
iv;u uiaj urwe or uaving to care
for herself, and perhaps others, at
some turn of the tide of fortune. No
one who has closely observed the
struggles of women in a large city, to
earn a living, can fail to note the pe
culiar hardships of married women
suddenly forced from the home into
bread-winning. In most large cities,
there are thousand f wnmon ..,
the age of forty years upward, un
skilled in any business or trade, who
are forced by some necessity to en
gage in gainful occupations. Many
yjL uicob wumun are wives or widows
who, long past the age when they
'"b"1 ufiuumiy uuve oeen expected
to go out into the world and work
have suddenly found themselves
forced out of the home to seek em
ployment, in order to support small
children or a disabled or invalid hus
band, without having had the least
training in any business or trade.
There is no sadder spectacle than
that of the middle-aged or old woman
trying to earn a living with no ad
equate enuininmir fm on,, i.
Everything is against her. A younger
i7 ' ,r. il ulIsuc. auaptable girl,
will readily find places where a bare
living may be made while serving a
few months apprenticeship, or giving
a short time to a course of study pre
paratory to filling some of the many
openings for such; but the elderly
woman, forced through necessity to
work out," must accept even the
poorost wage3 given for unskilled lab
or, however unsuited to the strength
or tastes, because the present needs
of dependent ones is so insistent that
there is no other choice. Few women
past middle age work at wage-earning
except from necessity, and thous
ands of tho women who seem pros
perous, and are blamed for (appar
ently) "crowding out the men", are
doing the work because there is no
other way the dependent ones must
be fed, and there is no other support.
Married women cannot always depend
on the "protector" for even the necess
ities of life, even when the "protector"
is a strong man, earning good wages.
For this reason, every girl should be
given a training in some branch of
business, trade -or profession, where
by she may bo enabled to meet th6
"evil days," should they befall her.
Before Marriage
No man has a right to ask a woman
to take up tho duties of a family un
less he can support a home, and no
woman is wise to take up such duties
without a reasonable prospect of such
support. Marriage means, for a wom
an, that her earning power is circum
scribed by the new relations of life,
if not wholly curtailed. It is morally
wrong to bring children into the world
unless there is a reasonable assur
ance that we are able to give them
some of the opportunities and helps
that go to fit them for a life's work.
These considerations are bound to
come up after marriage, and it is bet
ter to give them some thought in time
to satisfy ourselves of either the pos
ibility or the impossibility. If care
fully considered, it will save much
heartache and moments of discour
agement. "To encourage the birth of children
without proper provision for their
support is to obtain a verv small anees.
sion to the population of the country
at the expense of a very great acces
sion of misery," says Malthus. Some
fathers think if they barely make a
Jiving, controlling in the effort the
lives of the wife and unfortunate chil
dren given them, they are doing noth
ing censurable. But simply to eke out
a living is a negative vice, and a man
should realize that he owes more to
the woman he marries and the chil
dren he brings into the world than
a mere animal existence. Thqre must
be a higher object than merely to get
and acquire, and before there can be
a higher type of enjoyment, there
musi; be the means to purchase it.
Ferret out the sorrows in most fam
ilies, and at the root of it all will be
found to lie the need of the where
withal to give to those dependent on
us the coveted and desirable pleas
ures and equipment for a life of use
fulness. One should be taught from
the first to earn a little more than is
spent, and in this way an increase,
though of slow growth, will be appar
ent. We have but to look at the
hundreds of homes for the care of
indigent children, and watch the
streani of worse than parentless little
ones constantly pouring into them, to.
realize that marriage should be en
couraged with much discriminating
care. Not all men and women are fit
for parenthood. Ex.
wUhputS!11' r worried' she e-
Tv irjthier mistake:is t she hard
ly knows how to rest. If she is tired
she may sit down; but she will be
darning stockings, mending the cloth-
ng, crocheting shawls or embroider
ing doileys. She does not realize that
this is work, or that it tires. If she
is exhausted, she will write letters
or run up her accounts"-and the
accounts" of most women are regular
Chinese puzzles, requiring a strona
head to unravel them, because the fac
ulty of "figuring", in- the woman's
make up has boen allowed to lapse
she so seldom has anything of conse
quence to "figure."
All over the country women's hos
pitals flourish, and doctors grow rich
because of these two mistakes of
women. Instead of studying up suit
able foods to eat, and then taking
time to deliberately eat them, tho
average woman makes her meals on
stuffs from- the drug store. It may
not cost quite so much in money (and
it may cost more) as good nourishing
foods, but the expense as re
gards broken health and unhappy
homes is one of the biggest extrav
agances we have to deal with.
A woman will walk a dozen blocks
and fiKht her wav thrombi ,wmi n i,n
.gain-counter crowd to save, a nickel,
and will waste a dollar's worth of en
ergy in order to save a dime. Why?
Well, she considers the energy as be
ing her own, and she has been taught
that the dime is the husband's prop
erty. She will only have to suffer
for the waste of the one, while she
feels that she must account for tho
other, and she chooses what she' con
siders the least of the two evils.
A Woman's Mistakes
One of the most serious mistakes
a woman makes is in the matter of
eating. If a man is npt about, a
woman thinks a cup of tea, or any
old scrap, is enough. If there is any
retrenchment to bo done, she begins
at the grocer-and-butchor end of ex
penses. If she is busy, she will not
y waste the time" to eat; If she is un
happy, it affects her appetite, or, if
"Home-Made and Home-Cured"
Now Is the season when fruits of
all kinds are beginning to be plenti
ful, and the products of tho garden
are at their best. The housewife who
"does her own things" is to be en
vied, and especially so when one reads
of the uncleanliness, , adulterants,
poisonous preservatives, inferior qual
ity of the fruits and vegetables, etc.,
which are used in the food products
of the great factories of the land
indeed, of the world. We remember
the oiden days, when there was no
question as to "what was what" when
it came to the table; the only ques
tion being whether thare was enough
to "go 'round."
The farm and village family may
have pure foods, whatever the re
stricted city dweller must put up
with. Canning outfits for family use
may be had cheaply in some in
stances not costing over ten dollars,
and lasting, with good care, for years.
The cost may be divided among sev
eral families, but a "neighborhood"
outfit would not be very satisfactory,
as all are not alike careful of it, and
it is not always available when want
ed. It is better, with such things,
to neither borrow nor len,d, no matter
how unneighborly such a course might
seem. In all neighborhoods there are
some who will rather buy their foods
than to put them up, or having put
up a store with poor success, must
buy of more fortunate (or careful)
ones. A canning outfit could be made
to pay for itself.
Fruit juices should be stored plenti
fully, to be used in cookery and for
pleasant, non-alcoholic drinks, and
this can be readily done. A small
evaporator, to fit onto the kitchen
range, will cost about five dollars, and
the fruit can be dried in them as one
has time, or has room on the range.
BETTER THAN SPANKING
F panklng does not euro children of bod wotting.
If jt did tlioro would bo fow chlldron tlint would do
It. Tboro 1b u coontltutlonnl cnuso for this, lira
M. Summers, Box 118, Notro Damo, Ind., will bond
her home treatment to any mother. Sho nsks no
onoy. Write her today if your children trouDlu
you In this way. Don't blame tho cuUd. W
usances are It can't help It.
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