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For Woman’s Work.
NEXT YEAR.
“Next year, when birds are nesting in the trees
Whose buds are bursting into leafy life,
When daises dot the greening turf with white,
Give promise, sweet, that then you’ll be my
wife.”
She placed her little, trusting hand in mine,
And full of tender love, that knows no fear
Her answer gave, that thrilled my heart with joy,
Though she but echoed my own words, “ Next
Year!”
“Next Year!” My heart sang those two words,
all day.
They made the music, in my dreams, at night,
But one short twelve-month lay across the path.
Which I should walk to reach my life’s delight.
Alas! What woe mav mingle in the cup
Which “ Next Year’’ holds, to lift to waiting lips.
She gives us worm-wood when we ask for wine,
Then smiles, relentless, while each victim sips.
Next Year, when birds were nesting in the trees,
And buds were bursting into leaf and bloom,
When daises, all the greening turf made white,
My love lay sleeping ’neath them, in the tomb.
Sylvia Silverthorne.
For Woman’s Work.
JENNIE ESTLE’S NEEDLE.
BY SYLVIA SILVERTHORNE.
PART 11.
A gentleman, promenading leisurely in
a certain quarter of the city, one pleasant
morning in early summer, chanced to
follow a short distance behind some little
boys who were playing “express” with a
cart of home construction, when his
eye was attracted by white letters gleam
ing from a black back-ground on a board
they was using for an “end-gate” as they
termed it, in mechanical parlance. And
the white letters on the black ground read :
Plain Sewing.
Jennie Estle.
“Well my fine fellow,” said Arthur
Wells(for that was the gentleman’s name)
“you seem to be having rare fun.”
“Yes, sir I” said the elder one shyly, as
his finger found its way into his mouth,
and he glanced at the stranger, then at
his playmate, and then at the pavement.
“Well that end-gate you have for your
cart is a fine one. Where did you get
it ?”
“In grandma’s attic,” responded the
little fellow, showing more disposition to
talk as he found the gentleman had stop
ped tor a chat.
“In grandma’s attic, eh ? I wender
now if you would sell it tome? How much
is it worth?
“I guess it didn’t cost anything, ’cause
grandma said the lady made it herself.
That’s her name,” said he pointing to the
great white letters.
“Then I’ll give you this lor it,” said
Arthur, as he took irom his purse a gener
ous coin. “And you can buy a new ex
press if you choose.”
So the contract was speedily closed, for
what will not a boy give in exchange for
money? And a piece of the denomina
tion offered, looked to their boy-eyes, a
very corner-stone of wealth.
Producing a piece of wrapping paper,
Arthur wrapped his purchase neatly, and
then said to the boys.
“Now will you be kind enough to show
me where your grandma lives?”
“Yes sir. It is not very far.” They
led the way, and he soon found himself in
the very house where Jennie Estle be
gan to “work out her destiny.” There he
learned so much of her history, and
present whereabouts, as he cared to ask
from stranger-lips, and then set out in
search of her. A search in no wise liable
to prove fruitless, as her establishment
was like a city that is set on a hill, and
her reputation was such as to bring her in
to favorable prominence in most fashion
able localities.
When he found her, their meeting was
simply one of old time friends, for there
were many eyes looking on.
“I will not tarry now, Miss Estle,” he
said, “but with your permission, will call
on you at your home this evening, for I
have here (and he touched the carefully
wrapped sign-board) a volume by a favor
ite author. I never saw it until to-day.
Did not know of its publication, till it by
chance, fell under my eye, and with your
consent we will read it together.”
“Certainly, with pleasure” said she, as
she gave him her card, bearing her home
address, and they exchanged adieus, and
she went back to her business affairs, with
a consciousness only of a newly awakened
unrest. For in her other life, these two
had been unacknowledged lovers.
When evening came, Arthur Wells
called at the address given, where he sou d
Jennie “at home” amid surroundings that
partook of the tastefully luxuriant. Not
surroundings, a description of which is
briefly summed in the too words “gorge
ous display," but such as bore the impress
of the nicety of taste, the culture and re-
finement which were inherent in her who
had made this home for herself.
Arthur, all impatient, could not wait
long to open the “volume” he had brought.
Jennie could not suppress a reluctant sigh,
as she thought how much more pleasent,
after this long separation, would have been
an evening chat. But she would not say
so and let him go on with untying the cord
which he had tied about the supposed book.
Removing the wrapper, he held it up say
ing, “Here is the volume, but the contents
are all on the outside.
The hot blood surged to Jennie’s cheeks
at sight of her old swinging sign board, for
thereby the flood-gates of memory had
been opened and a tide of recollections
swept through which threatened to prove
embarrassing. Turning her eyes from the
board to his face, she parried the blow as
best she could, by saying :
“How could you say what you did to
day, that you had a new volume by a
favorite author ?”
“Beg pardon! I did not say a new
volume. I said one I did not know had
been published, and as for ‘favorite author’
—arn’t you the author of this ? So I am
told.”
“Then why didn’t you say you had a
rare painting by a promising artist, for
surely there is a promise at least implied,”
said she pointing to its face, and with an
inclination to help divert the subject into
humorous channels.
“Well, at least, I will say this, that this
little board has done service in a double
capacity. First, as a sign-board to bring
you needed employment, and next as a
guide-board to help me find you, that I
might take you away from that employ
ment and make it no longer necessary to
you. When I first learned of your finan
cial reverses my first impulse was to go to
you and ask you to share my lot,
but on calmer reflection, I realized that I
had nothing to offer you. My business
was then in the state of a venture. I hoped
to succeed, but I might fail and I could
not ask you to share my failure, if such
awaited me.
When I began to see the rays of success
glimmering in my horizon, I wrote you,
but my letters were returned with the in
formation that you had disappeared from
among those who had been your friends in
days prior to your misfortune, and all in
quiry failed to bring me tidings of your
where-abouts, so tliat, finally, desparing
of success in the search, I gave you up as
lost, at least to me.”
Then with eloquence, and a degree of
pride which is pardonable in a man, who,
for the first time after long years of wait
ing, may tell the woman he loves, of his
worldly successes, (especially when wholly
the result of his own exertion) he poured
out his words, scarcely heeding what he
said, till he had finished his story. Then
after a brief pause he seemed to recall, how
much of self had entered into the recital,
and he continued.
“What I have told you may apparently
savor of egotism, Jennie, but when I assure
you that in each and every undertaking
you have been constantly in my mind,
and that I have craved and striven for this
only that I might some day share it with
you, should I ever find and be able to win
you, then you will not censure my “much
speaking” of myself. Jennie, I love you,
have always loved you, and have hoped
for your love in return. Do you love me?
And will you abandon this work, and come
with me and share my successes?”
Hesitating a moment, she replied a little
nervously,
“Questions, in pairs are very difficult to
answer. Won’t you ask them singly?”
“Do you love me, Jennie?” he asked
with something of desperateness in his
tone, for he began to have mis-givings as
to the answer.
“Yes, Arthur I do.” she replied without
even a show of evasiveness.
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Sylvia Silverthorne.
‘Then my other question is almostanswer
ed.but at your request Iwill repeat it.” said
he regaining his composure. “Will you
abandon this work and come with me and
share my successes? Be my wife, never
more to know a burden or a care ?”
“Arthur,” said she, “do you love
me ?”
“More than all the world, Jennie. You
do not doubt it ?”
“Then will you give up your business,
and all that it holds for you, and come and
share my successes?”
<( Jennie, you but jest, while I am in
deepest earnest. How can you?”
“Not jesting, Arthur. Only showing
y ou, by comparison, how much you ask of
me. You havejust told all about your busi
ness affairs with a fervor which tells me
that you are bound up in all that pertains
to them,almost as one is “joined to his idols.”
You could not tear yourself apart from all
this, which is part of your life. Then
what a wide gulf separates us. How much
of energy and endeavor, I have put into
my work, ere I was able to bring it to its
present standing, you can have some idea.
And now it stands the fulfillment of my
plans, except that it must go on. Into my
dreams, perhaps, but never into my plans
came thoughts of loveand marriage. And
now, after having builded, I cannot turn
and tear down. Even if I willed it, I
could not abandon this work without bring
ing failure to those who are, with me,
bound up in it.
Aside from wishing success for my own
sake, I have long been ambitious to estab
lish a business which would give paying
employment to many of my sex, and in a
way that they would not feel continually,
the crush of an “iron heel.” I have suc
ceeded in an unhoped-for degree and I
could not find it in my heart to close these
once-opened doors.”
“You reason like a philosopher Jennie,
or a philanthropist, as you are, and yours
has been a noble life, but 1 insist that you
now give up this enterprise—”
“Never, Arthur.” she interrupted. “I
tell you, you must be reasonable and cease
to think of, or urge such a thing. I have
chosen my life work, and set myself apart
to it, and I must not play false to my bet
ter self. The mere fashioning of garments
may seem a trivial thing. So is any other
work viewed in its details. But when you
consider the benefits that accrue to the
various individuals concerned in the work
in all its numerous departments, it then
takes on an appearance of greater magni
tude.”
“Then for this you throw aside my love
and crucify your own.”
“Do not you see that love is become a
secondary matter under the circumstances ?
And Arthur, let me hope you will not per
sist in being blind to, or ignoring the fact
that I am fettered by circumstances and
therefore cannot consult or yield to my
own will, as I might do were none but my
self involved ir. the result.”
And so seeing with what tenacity she
clung to her idea of “duty versus love,”
Arthur chose the part of wisdom and for
bore to press his suit farther—at present.
Well chosen policy. He would give time
for the “leaven” to work, and then—
But to Jennie the days following the
interview, partook in a very diminutive
degree, of the “fires of enthusiasm,”
which had belonged to those of the past.
Her heart,which had hitherto been occupied
only by her “ideal,” had now a new tenant
whose name was Love, and “Oh, Cupid,
Cupid ! Little knowest thou the mischief
thou hast wrought.” On some of her strong
points, weakness and wavering began to
take the place of firmness of purpose.
Not that the wish for the good of her sex
became less strong, but seeing with “new
eyes” she was conscious that among her
employes were women fully capable of
filling herplace. She saw also, when she
had viewed the subject criticlly from her
new stand-point, that by proper arrang-
ment she could be spared and yet without
detriment to the success of the work.
Alas, then, for her, when she came to re
alize that she had “Sold her birthright for
a mess'of pottage.” Her birthright ? Yes.
For it comes to a woman that she loves
and is loved by one worthy of her pure
affection ; that is the highest boon earth
has to offer her, and if she shall put that
from her, whatever she puts in its stead,
wiL prove for her but a “mess of pottage.”
But her decision had been so positively
final that her heart whispered her no hope
that the rejected opportunity would ever
again present itself. She did not know
that though Cupid often closes doors be
hind him, he seldom bars them, and in an
unexpected hour they may swing wide
again.
And Arthur? In all this “meantime”
he has been buoyed by hope to a remajk
able extent, considering the unfavorable
—aye, positively negative tone of Jennie’s
final answer, but somewhere among his
brain-treasures he had stored away a fund
of “knowledge of human nature” which
aided him to discern, without the spirit of
prophecy. So he knew if he would but
“bide his time,” he should win Jennie
Estle for his wife, and he did, for when,
after an interval of some months, he came
to her with the former question, she was
ready with an affirmative answer. Yet
woman-like, she could not forbare adding
a paragraph, and this is what she said.
“In relinquishing my work now, I fear
I shall not prove the example to my sex
which I hoped to be. Others, looking
upon my “career,” thus cut short by
marriage, will hesitate about qualifying
themselves for any special life-work, while
the probabilities of a fate similar to mine,
stare them in the face, and” she added,
“that is why it is such an unusual thing
for a woman to build up and carry on a suc
cessful business enterprise.”
the end.
For Woman’s Work.
THE HOME COMING.
A happy start and a hearty home-com
ing can almost alone make a commonplace
outing a paying investment. As much
depends on the one taking vacation as on
the stay-at-homes. It is easier to wave
one’s handkerchief to the departing sister,
and call blessings down upon her journey
if she has honestly said: “ 1 wish you might
go too!” The work is lighter when one
pair of hands takes up what two laid down,
if the owner of one pair has thrown a last
loving look over her shoulder to the other,
for no matter how many weary rounds she
may take, the remembrance of that last
loving look goes with her through all her
duties, to cheer and brighten. Otten
through the days that follow, when tired
with the round of endless duties the com
forting thought arises, that though absent
and on pleasure bent, the love of the one
that is gone is sweet and comforting.
And then the return 1 How much this
means to the mother, who seldom has a
vacation. How eagerly the eyes of a lov
ing mother take in every detail done in
honor of her home-coming. Some loving
hand has placed just where the sun can kiss
it into warmth—her own favorite flower,
and the little stand and the book just ready
to be re-opened at the page where she left
off, the rocking chair drawn up to the fire
waiting for her to sink into its restful
depths. The tea-table so spotless, and the
little hands and faces bright and clean—
the vase of fresh flowers and so many little
acts of love, they all speak to her of the
mindfulness of her refined nature, of her
weariness, her absence from home and
loved ones; and so after noting all the
sweet manifestations of care and love—she
sinks down into her accustomed place of
rest beside the fire, and listens to each little
eager voice as it tells of its passtimes, and
of how the good-night kiss was missed and
the little prayer said. But for this evening
she must still be the guest, loving hands
wait upon her. Soon enough, yet, for her
to come back to the serving and burden
bearing that had been hers ere she took
that little rest. Oh, the joy and beauty of
such a home-coming! Oh, the unutterable
thankfulness that one can have and hold
such a home. Could those at home, wait
ing and watching for the return of the
absent one, but realize how all these loving
attentions but serve to increase her happi
ness, and her determination to make home
happy for others—how many would strive
to make the home-coming a great joy.
Alas, some homes are full of gloom! No
matter how bright the sun may shine, it
seems never to penetrate within these
walls to cheer their sombre inmates. Well
for those that can look forward to the hap
py return. Coming back to such a home,
means great pleasure, indeed it is half the
pleasure of the vacation. Then let us every
one try to make the home-coming to the ab
sent one—one of pleasure, be it mother or
sister or anylovea and cherished one, whose
absence we have mourned. C. B. G.