Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Fob Woman’s Work. A CHURCH YARD REVERIE. BY M. M. E. M. How sad to wander through a church yard lonely, And o’er the names upon the tomb stones pore— Recalling memories of the long dead only, Whose forms are seen upon the earth no more! Here at my feet a statesman once was burled, In him were placed a nation’s faith and trust, What is he now ? A heap of “ mouldering ashes ” With all his pride long humbled to the dust. A beauty slumbers here, now long forgotten, Who once was honored as a kingdom’s toast; To win a smile from this high favored maiden Was reckoned as a triumph and a boast. — She lies here now, with those who once admired her, Her beauty and her lovers both forgot, And only this frail marble tablet rises, To mark from other graves her resting spot. Os what avail are worth and matchless beauty? They fade from memory with the form’s decay, And wandering through these sad and lonely church y<rds We read how all things mortal pass away! For Woman’s Work. “GRANNY SCOTT.” An Easter Story. VELMA CALDWELL MELVILLE. She was a very thin wrinkled old wo man, who tarried last in the long cold apartment known as the women’s sleeping room of the Brown County poor-house, one stormy Easter Sabbath morning. Every one else was crowding and hurrying down into the scarcely less cheerless general living room below. “Granny Scott, ye’d better hurry er ye’ll stan’ no chance fer the warm corner,” said a deformed girl limping past her, as the stiff old fingers fumbled with her shoe-fast enings. “Never mind, there’s plenty needs it worse no doubt. Here Mary, you hain’t half enough on you, use this shawl till it warms up a bit,” was the cherry reply, as the old woman held out a faded woolen shawl. The girl stared wonderingly at her. “Yer don’t mean it ?” “Os course, I do, why child, this aint such a hard world as ye seem to think.” “Don’t know much bout the world, but the poor ’ouse is hard nufand hugging the shawl about her unsightly shoulders, she hobbled off without so much as a “thank you,” but more surprised than she had ever been before in her life. “Poor child!” murmured the old wo man, and then wrapping a shawl about her own bent form she knelt by her bed side. Poor old Granny Scott, a friendless men dicant, yet the daughter of a King, coming gladly into her Father’s presence on this Easter morning. When she arose, the room was deserted by all save a bed-ridden woman, and a young girl in delicate health. Tenderly she inquired of the former if there was aught she could do for her. “No-o-o,” wailed the poor creature; “but I’m dread ful cold, and I haint slept a wink since one o’clock.” “I’m sorry, sister; but mebby if I’d fetch my beddin over we could fix you more comfortable fer a while” and suiting the action to the word the shivering old body went for her own covers and pillow; and soon had the satisfaction of seeing her neighbor more comfortable. “Granny, ye’ll freeze up here,” said the bed-ridden woman, “and for the life of me I don’t see how ye kin be so cheerful on sech a mornin.” “Why this is Easter, don’t you know? I am glad in my heart, and the words keep risging in my ears: ‘Christ is risen’.” “Oh !” said the other wonderingly, while the girl in the bed a little way off, raised her head to look at such a strange being. Granny immediately crossed over to her; but merely pausing to drop a kiss on the white forehead, passed on, and down the narrow, dirty stairs. The last was a pain ful task for one so infirm. About ten o’clock on the same forenoon any one peeping into the “general living room” would have beheld a large uncarpet ed room, with patched, discolored walls and ceiling, dirty,curtainless windows, and furnished with two long home made tables, covered with oil-cloth, a heterogeneous collection of old chairs,and a small rusty box stove. Beside the latter was a pile of wet, green wood, while from within came sounds of simmering and dead snapping that were most doleful. From twelve to twenty per sons of all ages and in all stages of decrepi tude were huddled about, while at the furthest window a young girl sat, her hands toying idly with some coarse towels she had been given to hem. “What a miserable fire,” growled an old woman near the outside of the circle, “when I kept house I never used green wood.” “Ah yes, Granny Dodge, every un knows ez it wuz yer extravegenee that put ye in the poor ’ouse,” cried another old crone spitefully. “Hey, there,” put in a one-legged old soldier, rousing from a nap, and scenting a skirmish, “Rhoda Mapes, can’t ye let no un spend their pinion, or hev their say thought you put in ?” “Whose doin the putten in, I’d like ter know, Tobey White,” cried Rhoda with dignity. “Sakes alive—” began Granny Dodge when one of the children, balancing her self on a wet stick of wood, fell, and bump ed her head on the stove-leg. It was Granny Scott who now came forward, and leading the child to a tin basin on a dry goods box, bathed her head and soothed her to silence. Margaret, sitting by the window, had seen and heard all; but as peace was re stored she turned from the dismal scene within to the one without. Easter, that year, came on the second day of April. Rain and snow had alternately fallen all the morning. The ground outside was brown and muddy save for patchesof dirty white here and there. There was a dismal drip,drip, drip off the eaves and an occasion al splash against the window-panes. Away in the village she heard a church bell, and she knew it was calling the people to the Easter service, and vaguely she pict ured them—happy, innocent, and well dressed, flocking toward the house of God. Only last year she had mingled with just such a company of worshippers and raised her voice with others in the beautiful Easter anthems; but that was all past, so very far in the past. She could never go to church again, never sing or even pray; no, for her, Mercy’s door was forever closed. “Hadn’t you better sit nearer the fire, dear?” The voice and a gentle touch on her shoulder interrupted the painful train of thought, and the young girl turned her white face up to meet the kindly one that had bent over her in the morning. Some of the hardness died out of her own as she saw who it was. “You are not strong yet, and ought not to get cold,” the motherly voice wenton. “It is no matter, Grandmother Scott,” the girl answered bitterly, “I do not care to live, I’d much rather be lying over there on the hfllside under that pile of snow, than sitting here.” “Don’t talk that way child, God has something for you to do, or he would have taken you out of the world ere this.” “God ! —something for me to do— Ido not understand. Surely you must know that God cares nothing for me; that I am despised and abandoned even by my qwn mother.” I “ ‘When thy father and mother forsake thee, then the Lord will take thee up’. ” “But it don’t mean such as I. There is neither mercy nor hope for a woman when once she has sinned.” “What will you do when you get strong enough to leave here?” the gentle voice inquired without making reference to the last remark. “Oh, Mrs. Dow says she can find me a place to sew; but I shall only stay around here until I can save enough to go where I am not known. I can not bear to be despised by creatures whom one year ago I would have spurned. I hate every one here, but you grandmother.” “Dear, dear child, you must not speak and feel thus. You may have sinned; but to such sinners our Lord said: “Go in peace and sin no more.” Let me advise you to put the old life behind you, and go forth strong to suffer if need be. but de termined to conquer everything. You may still enjoy much of earth and all of Heaven.” Thus the two talked on in low earnest tones, forgetful of the curious group across the room,who, drawn together by their own pettiness, talked in low tones too, wonder ing how Granny Scott could uphold such a girl, piously parading their own virtuous lives. Later came the scant dinner, made into quite a feast, however, by the luxury of an egg apiece, because it was Easter you know. All were surprised to see Granny Scott leave hers untouched. “Don’t ye like eggs?” inquired her near neighbors. “Oh yes, but I like something else better, something that I will do with it after dinner,” she said. They did not ask anything more, in fact,they were a little in awe of the old wo man who was almost a stranger in their midst,having come to the poor-house but a few weeks previously. They noticed that after dinner she took a little basin of water and wrapping the coveted egg in a piece of gay colored cloth, dropped it in. “Going to color it,” was the universal comment, “well tfthat don’t beat all.” When it was done she presented the gay colored egg to a little boy whose lower limbs were paralyzed, and who sat in a sort of box all the year round, save at night when some one carried him to a lounge out in the kitchen. The little fellow’s joy was unbounded over his treasure, and even' Rhoda Mapes and Toby White smiled approvingly at each other; but such an atmosphere could not last long there, and some one presently, with a great assumption of righteousness, remarked that “them was curious doings fer the Sunday.” Granny Scott, smiling her sunshiney smile, replied : “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day; ” and then made the toilsome ascent of the stairs to sit for an hour, as had been her wont ever since she came, by the bed-ridden one’s side. Margaret and two or three others soon followed, listening in silence to the sweet quivering voice as it read of the Savior’s death and resurrection. “We ought to sing something,” she said at the close. Margaret, dear, won’t you sing for us?” “Oh, I can't, Granny.” cried the girl bursting into tears. “Never mind,” and the quivering voice rose in the famil iar air of Coronation, while one by one the other cracked voices joined in ; and before the end Margaret’s full sweet tones mingled with the rest. There was silence in the room below until the end, when Rhoda Mapes wondered if the “old un had clean gone aloft to be singing at her age.” A wordy war followed under command of Toby ably assisted by Mary, the deformed girl, who still reveled in the warmth af forded by Granny’s shawl. There was no happier woman in hut or mansion that night than Granrty Scott as she knelt by her poor bed-side to once more render thanks for a risen Lord, for “she had done what she could.” “Some day I shall go from this poor house, right straight to a home in the Heavens—to a mansion not made with hands; and it won’t be a bit further I’ll have to go than if I’d gone from the beautiful home I once owned here, not a bit, and mebby I’ll be even gladder to get there,” she had said to the bed-ridden woman that day, when the lat ter spoke bitterly of being compelled to live and die in a poor-house. Dear patient Granny, she was nearer to taking the journey than she knew. “Nearer her Father’s House Where the many mansions be; Nearer the great white throne, Nearer the crystal sea. Nearer the bound of life Where we lay our burdens down Nearer leaving the cross; Nearer gaining the crown.” Some where about midnight the inmates of the County House were startled by the cry of “fire,” and a panic ensued. All who were able to escape fled from the building with what ever articles of apparel or bedding they could lay hands on ; all, we say, but not all, for Granny Scott and Mar garet were left vainly trying to assist the poor bed-ridden creature to a place of safety; but their strength was small and the woman heavy and helpless. Some one appeared at a window bidcjing them come that way, as the stairs were burning. “Don’t leave me, oh don't,” pleaded the woman clinging to Granny. “Go Margaret, child, save yourself,” said the latter, “I am old and useless, I will stay.” “No, no! Granny, let me stay, I am an outcast, no one will miss me.” “Margaret, I tell thee go, and from hence forth lead a noble, God-fearing life. Go.” The man was already beside them and pushing the girl toward the window; but she was in a dead faint e’er they reached it. Taking her in his arms he essayed to descend when the ladder broke, and before another could be found the roof had fallen in, forever silencing the frantic screams of the helpless victim, and the prayer of her heroic friend. What way more fitting for the trans mission of a King’s daughter than by a chariot of fire ? Who shall doubt that, to quote her own words, she went “right straight from the poor-house to a home in Heaven ?” or that her robe will not be as white, and her crown as bright as that of a Luther, Wesley or Beecher ? When a man has the toothache, his wife is generally the one who suffers. Till a child is awake, how tell his mood ? Until a woman is awaked, how tell her na ture?— George Mac Donald. One is forced step by step, to get experi ence in the world; but the learning is so disagreeable.— Charlotte Bronte. Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and as a recreation.— Southey* The first of our duties to woman—no thoughtful persons now doubt this—is to secure for her such physical training and exercise as may confirm her health, and perfect her beauty—the highest refinement of that beauty being unattainable without splendor of activity, and of delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, 1 say, and increase its power; it cannot be too powerful, nor shed its sacred light too far; only remem ber that all physical freedom is vain to produce beauty without a corresponding freedom of heart.— Ruskin For Woman’s Work. A POTPOURRI. Fancy, Fashion, Fact and Fiction. “This gray old earth has borrowed its mirth,” once more, from the glad spring time,and laughs again in the fullness of its new life. One wonders sometimes that this weary old world has the heart to smile her smile of eternal youth, with each recurring spring, when she has watched so many of her children die, in winter’s cold embrace. But the pain of the parting seems to be forgotten in the birth of a new season. The grieving mother rends her gray gar ment of sackcloth, and lo! from beneath creeps out the green of her coming corona tion robes ; decked with the royal gold and purple of the crocus and bordered with the ermine of the snow drop. Every slender wand of peach, by the wayside, blushes with the consciousness of its own upstream ing life; and stands a cloud of rosy color against the gray back ground of fence or hillside. Yes the world is old—the world is wise—and perchance the world is weary, who knows ?—but it is spring, and behold, she looks as if the book of Genesis was but a tale of yesterday. Spring brings joy to every heart, but to none more than to the milliner, tor the Easter bonnet is quite an item in the sum total of existence; though as for that “all seasons are thine oh! Fashion.” In a short while the little invitation to the milliner’s openings—which remind one so much of the “spider to the fly,” will come round and the all too willing fly will duly respond. The bonnets worn this season vary but little from those worn hitherto. The hats are broad brimmed, low crowned affairs, for the most part trimmed with long, falling sprays of flowers. The fashion of massing several kinds of flowers on one hat seems to have given place to the much prettier mode of using sprays of one flower only; with its own leaves and buds. A good deal of gold and silver thread is now used in toilettes, and judiciously ap plied, it heightens the effect. More especial ly is it permissible in the large figured an tique brocades and tapestry goods, that are now being revived. A young girl seen some days ago in a directoire gown, of that indescribable lav ender gray, peculiar to the dove’s breast, had outlined the pattern—which was a bold design of wild roses—in gold thread. This she pridefully confessed was the work of her own fingers, and it was certain ly a success. As she stood near a window, in this gown that had some how a sixteenth century air about it, a large hat with droop ing feathers shading a half pensive face, and the light of the westerly sun catching alike the gleam of her hair and the gold of her gown, she looked like some fair, pictu ed beauty of the long ago, who had but left her walnut frame to sigh over the degen eracy of modern times. A great deal more attention is being given to neck wear this season than for some time, and one especially pretty feat ure is the black lace scarf, reaching from the neck to the hem of the dress so grace fully that it lends a charm to any toilette. Happily for those whose purses are slen der—and their name is legion—the fashions do not change so rapidly and so entirely as they did some years ago, when the anecdote did not seem so far fetched, of the man who was riding home at a furious pace,and being accosted by a friend flung back the reply, as he rushed on, that he had bought a hat for his wife and wanted to take it to her before it got out of style. The bells are already atilt with the Easter chimes; and the Easter cards seem to contradict the assertion that there is nothing new under the sun. This is distinctly the age of books,and of the making of them there seems to be no end. Where there are so many well deserving of praise, it is hard to discriminate. Albe it, it is safe to say that there has been no daintier little volume published for many a day than Charles Egbert Craddock’s— “Despot of Broomsedge Cove.” It is as sweet, pure and sparkling as a" mountain rill, and withal such a perfectly natural little romance that it thrills with that hid den vein of pathos which runs through all humanity. For the most part it is written in Ten nessee dialect, which lends another charm to its witchery; for when “you’uns and we’uns” fall in love,there is a freshness and piquancy about it, that cannot be claimed for the romancing of plain “You and I.” Thos. Nelson Page’s little book entitled “Two Little Confederates” is a charming story for the children, more especially for the boys, and will be read and enjoyed by the youth on both sides. But enough of books. The rank and file is full and crowded, yet the presses roll on, resistlessly turning out, alike wheat and chaff to await the winnowing of public opinion : and the cry is, “still'they come.” Eiuuam Rknmah.