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THE HOUSEHOLD
All communications for this department should be
addressed to Miss Ada Louise Bryan, Clarkston, Ga.
THE SHADOW SHIPS.
Beyond the sunset’s cloudy bars
Beyond its beams which dim and die,
With sable sails and murky masts
The shadow ships at anchor lie.
From red to gold, from hot to cold
The sunset’s embers burn and die.
And in the bay beyond the day
The shadow ships at anchor lie.
The first star glimmers in the gloom,
» From leaf and flower the dew fall drips,
And as by unseen cables bound,
Rest silently the shadow ships.
They wait for you; they wait for me,
For all who have one common breath
To make one day the solemn voyage
To the unlovely land of death.
It may be yours, it may be mine
To hear tonight the solemn call,
We know not when shall be the sign,
We know not when the bolt shall fall,
We know not when our natal star
Shall vanish in a long eclipse,
And we be doomed to voyage afar,
Borne thither by the shadow ships.
But be it thou, or be it I,
Who first shall hear that coming call
No ship of these shall miss the port,
For Christ is pilot of them all.
Brattleboro, Vt. ARTHUR GOODENOUGH.
I
r
CHAT.
I am proud and happy to be able to welcome to
our circle so many new comers and old friends.
Gladly would I give greeting to each individually, only
this w’ould take up so much of the space, which their
letters will more interestingly fill. Several of those
who were so loved and admired in the Sunny South
Household are with us today and I thank them sin
cerely for responding so promptly to my invitation,
to join us. Italy Hemperly, if we were all as finely
sensitive as you are there would be no need of tele
phone, telegraph, or letters, to convey messages to
absent friends. Perhaps this will be some day in the
future, but I should hate to see Uncle Sam’s mailbag
done away with, for I dearly love to receive letters
and I have had such nice personal ones (from House
holders) this week. I was glad to hear through you,
Italy, of “Knight of the Wire” and his bride. I wish
them all the happiness pictured in the Knight’s lat
est book —Love Links.
Dear Mattie Howard, I have long known and loved
you through the Sunny South Household. Come often
to see us. Mr. Ivy, I don’t wonder that your modest
country bred ideas received a shock on hearing that
bit of courtship over the bold telephone. Girls are.
to blame for not exacting more respect from young
men. It seems we cannot look to what is called the
“best society” for examples in this respect. Lucy
Grey, of Arizona in her interesting letter gives us
a glimpse at the shortcomings of American society
girls abroad as pictured by Lilian Bell in her book
“The Expatriates.”
Geraldine, I certainly appreciate your letter, with
its sweet injunction, “Let us help one another.” Ossie,
let us have those ideas about bringing up children
and the smart sayings and tricks of the youngsters;
told by you, they will not fail to interest. Nilma
Dale, how versatile you are. I knew you chiefly
as a poet, but you can break the fetters of rhyme and
make prose serve your purpose well. Thank you
for.that rallying call. I hope it will wake up some
more of the old set —who have been sitting in the
shadow’ since the eclipse of the Sunny South. You
will see that we have that fine poet from the north,
Arthur Goodenough, with us today. Don’t you think
his “Shadow Ships” is beautiful? For next week I
have a lovely poem from Margaret Richard who wrote
that grand love story in verse—Virginia Vaughn.
Let us all try to follow the cheery admonition of
Farmer Bostwick—and “let the Sunshine into hearts
and our day lives.” ADA BRYAN.
A Department of Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think.
The Golden Age for June 27, 1907.
Wttb ®ur Correspondents
FROM A LITTLE SHUT-IN.
A dear friend has invited me to seek with her ad
mittance into the bright new Household of The
Golden Age. Some of the members may know me
through the Household of the dear Sunny South. I
.personally know Mr. Upshaw. He used to cheer
me wuth kind letters. He and I became crippled
the same year and the same month, but he has had
a far different life from mine. He has been
actively useful and found happiness in doing good. I
am a little shut-in, who can do nothing, it seems to
me, but suffer. Yet I try to be patient and look
forward to ease and rest in heaven. My father
died when I was a child and my dear, kind mother
and my half-sister live alone. Mother is growing
old and feeble, and my sister is also a cripple. Some
times life looks gloomy and dark to me, but I trust
in God, “He is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Dear
friends, I wish you and the Household much suc
cess and I ask you to pray for me. Your afflicted
sister, REBECCA WHITFIELD.
Finleyson, Ga.
*
A TELEPATHIC MESSAGE.
It was a May morning and somewhere from among
the whispering trees came the song of the mocking
bird; and as I went about the house I sang and whis
tled little snatches of song myself. Suddenly through
it all came a clear thought of the Sunny South House
hold Knight and his bride and I felt as if they were
near me. Perhaps he was telling her of his House
hold friends and wondering why a certain one of
them had not written to him the wishes she felt for
his happiness. I will write to them, I promised
myself, if I can get his present address. And then
I wondered if the Queen of the Knight’s heart was
“One of those fair-haired girls framed in the fresh
ness of the morning.” Then other thoughts came in«
and I forgot the incident.
Several days later something happened to bring
the thoughts all back. A letter in the Knight’s well
known handwriting and bearing the postmark of
faraway Mexico came, and I was not surprised to
learn that the Knight and his bride had passed
through College Park in the early morning of May
the 20th. “And we both tried to send you a thought,
message.” And I assure you I received that mes
sage, just as I have received hundreds of others.
Truly thoughts are things. Let us all strive to make
them beautiful and uplifting always.
College Park, Ga. ITALY HEMPERLY.
*
COURTING OVER THE TELEPHONE.
Courting is an ancient and time honored business,
and it has been carried on in many different ways.
But not until that wonderful modern invention —the
telephone —came into the world have we had court
ing carried on at a distance and —sometimes within
the hearing of persons who are in no wise concerned
in it. One day, while I was sitting in the office of
a hotel in a city to which I had paid a business visit,
a well-appearing young man entered and went up to
the telephone. It was about eleven o’clock and there
were only three persons In the office, but I don’t
think that young man would have cared had there
been a dozen present. He proceeded to carry on an
animated and familiar conversation with a young
lady. I did not understand all his talk over the
phone, but I and the others, distinctly heard with sur
prise and amusement his parting message: “Well,
goodbye, honey. Be a good girl; I’m yours with much
love, and a basketful of hugs.” When the young man
had left the office, I asked the clerk what kind of per
sons those were, who would talk in such away over
a telephone in a public office. “Oh,” he replied, “they
are all right. The young lady is a nice girl, and the
man belongs to a fine family. He is dead gone on the
girl.” I thought to myself, he cannot have much
respect for her, or regard for the opinion of people
about her, or he wouldn’t speak to her in that coarse
ly familiar manner. To a friend of mine to whom I
was talking later I said, “Tom, old boy, what
kind of new way do you have here of measuring
hugs—by the bucketfull? Down our way, they are
measured by the armfull but are not discussed in
public.” Then I told him about the telephone inci
dent, which amused him, but also shocked liis sense
Conducted by
Ada Louise ‘Bryan
of propriety, and good taste, for he, like myself, had
been brought up in the country, where modesty is not
yet at a discount and where men respect the women
they hope to secure as wives. Modesty is a woman’s
most precious possession, and one that renders her
most lovable in the eyes of her masculine admirers.
Though he be a wild, fast fellow himself, he wants
his lady love to be of angelic purity, while his wife
must be like Caesar’s, not only innocent, but above
suspicion. B. R. IVY.
Ivy, Ala.
*
WHAT IS “BEST SOCIETY”?
“The Expatriates’” by Lilian Bell is not a new
book but it is one that is well worth reading. It
deals with the doings of an American family who
went to Paris to live. Now, as every one knows,
the aristocracy of two or three of the old countries,
particularly of France, claims to comprise the best
society, in the true sense of the expression, of the
civilized world and most educated people who have
traveled admit that this is true. Nevertheless since
'reading “The Expatriates” I have been wondering
what is regarded as true refinement and true nobility.
For, to my mind, the French aristocrats pictured In
“The Expatriates” are a despicable set of people;
and French sentiments as regards honor, love, women
and matrimony are unspeakably vile. Lilian Bell
has spent much time in Paris, and that she is a deep
student of human nature and is capable of seeing
beneath the surface of things is evidenced in all of
her writings. Also she is fair-minded, as is showq
by her criticisms of America and Americans. So, I
take it for granated that the conditions she pictures
in “The Expatriates” are mainly true ones. The
French aristocrat has, it seems, a fine scorn of Ameri
cans because of their money-making proclivities, and I
submit that the man who devotes his whole time
and mind to the piling up of dollars, or the woman
who takes pleasure in ostentatiously displaying jew
els and wealth, is sordid and vulgar. But the mar|
or woman who realizes that there are better things,
and who considers himself or herself too good to
engage in any gainful occupation, but who spends
most of the time scheming to get possession of the
money some one else has earned, is not only sordid
and vulgar, but absolutely unprincipled. It may be
a mistake to regard Count Boni de Castellane of real
life and the Marquis d’Auteuil of “The Expatriates”
as typical of their class, but everybody admits that
once a poverty-stricken nobleman has secured the
much-despised American heiress and her highly ven
erated American dollars he is not only received but
is much sought after by that same “best society.”
Now, the only society I know anything about is that
of a small and somewhat poverty-stricken section of
our own South, and I know that there a person who
is suspected of having married for money loses —and
justly so —the respect and esteem of the best people
of the community. Are not courage, moral and phy
sical, intelligence, noble ideals, high aspirations,
unshakable principles, and, above all, upright living
more to be desired by all right-thinking people than
a long line of ancestry and elegance of manners.?
And if a class of persons cannot be called right-think
ing, have they ”«iy real claim to comprising the “best
society”? LUCY GREY.
Tucson, Ariz. Ter.
R
A BOY NATURALIST—GIRLS ON THE FARM.
When I learned that there was to be a “Household”
in The Golden Age, presided over by our erstwhile
“Evelyn Holman,” thinks I to myself, I’ll certainly
be among the first to present myself at the golden
door to wish her God-speed, and when, before my
good intentions were put into realities, I received a
“card of invitation,” my head immediate!/ began to
swell and hasn’t exactly been restored to its normal
size, therefore whatever errors you perceive in this
attribute to that unusual condition of the brain, and
some of you bid me welcome, for a cold shoulder
turned just now might be extremely dangerous for
this “budding genius.” “Gwinnett Farmer,” your
letter is proof conclusive, sir, “that the w r ay to a
man’s heart is via his stomach.” I’m sure you
will wish your women folks were like me, inasmuch
as I give canned goods a wide go-by. In fact, so
scared am I of poisoning that I let the rest of the
family, so the “gude mon” says, regale themselves
heartily, and if no serious results follow, I taste
thereof. Wish you were here to dine with us today.
The cabbage and taters are biling, the good old
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