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TJ T 77' T T TTQT? T T TTX Conducted by
£ X |~S I 1 kJ O 1/ tl I 4 I J Ada Louise Bryan
A Department of Expression For Those Who Feel and Think.
r THE WAITING BRIDE.
My love, I lit the candles soon,
And put the kettle on to croon;
Oh, past the gilded, dread saloon,
Come home to me, come home!
Z
The supper table’s laid for two —
For only me, sweetheart, and you;
Joys shared with me you will not rue;
Come home, my love, come home!
Outside ’tis dark, and cold the night;
Within are warmth and love and light;
Your slippers, warming, wait in sight;
Come home, my love, come home!
In all my dreams you have chief part—
Yet, have you thrust me from your heart?
At every sound I shrink —I start —
Come home, my love, come home!
At last —at last —ah, do I hear
His welcome tread upon the stair?
His staggering tread! —God, God, I fear
Him drunk, come reeling home!
p n
Come home —come drunk —to me, his bride;
Oh, broad the world they say, and wide,
Yet where’s a place for me to hide
From him I fear, come home?
Would God that I afar had fled
Ere yet I heard his coming tread!
Nay, Father, better were I dead,
Safe, safe with Thee, at Home.
—Margaret A. Richard.
• », I?
CHAT.
Our widely-scattered Households are pretty well
represented at the meeting today. We have several
new-comers to whom we extend the right hand of
fellowship; among these are Zeta and Margaret
Neelv Brown. Margaret tells of a singular occurrence
—the seeing of a friend’s apparition while vet the
friend was alive, but wholly unconscious. This is
what is called a doppel-ganger, or double-walker, by
the Germans. I wonder how many of you have
had occult experiences? It, would he interesting to
have them relate at our Halloween meeting. We
can imagine ourselves seated around a crackling
wood fire exchanging “creenv” experiences on the
one night in which the spirits are said to walk.
S. T. P. gives Pen Ivy some hard nuts to crack
concerning the woman worker. Her letter is full of
strong, sensible thought. By the wav. I had a brief
hut nleasant interview with our loval Householder,
Mr. Ivy, who stopped for a few hours in the Gate
Citv en route for the Jamestown Exposition, about
which he is sure to have something interesting to
Little White Girl, it is good of you to visit us
often. Alwavs vour Household budget has in it
something eniovable and Instructive. You are right.
I think, in calling Mark Twain our greatest living
American writer. Don’t von believe Huckleberrv
Finn has the best right of anv «tory to be called
the renresentative American novel?
A Lesson from a Nicke] has been delaved or
overlooked in The Golden Aae office. It was nromnt
1v handed in. as T honed the old-time friend of the
“Sunnv” would, through it, bn enabled to find her
much-nrized Sunnv South Household badge. The
Old Loom in the Garret is by a new contributor, who
will come often. I hope.
Mattie Howard’s readv-to-hand remedies ought to
bo nasted in pvprv one’s scran-book.
Margaret ■Richard’s poem. The Waiting Pride is
a CTanhic n’e+wp from lif4 —true as it is sad. Alas,
that the pvil thing which renders such pictures real,
is made possible bv the laws of tbe land.
Mav McMillan’s lovely noem. The Hills of Peace,
will have to be saved over for next week. It
made me think of the grand sunsets we have bad
now for manv weeks. The golden cloud mountains
in the West—so calm and beautiful— «eem hills of
peace. ADA B '
The Golden Age for October 10, 1907.
XKDlttb ®ur Gorreeponbente
PIONEER DAYS IN TENNESSEE.
Old Monroe county, Tenn., has been a county
where, perhaps, as many tragedies have occurred
as any county in the state. It is one of the oldest
counties, and the beginning of its tragedies dates
back to the days when the Red Man hunted over
it and was monarch of the country so far as he
cared to extend his domain. It is in this county that
Old Fort Loudon of Pioneer fame is situated. All
who have read the early history of Tennessee, re
member how the pioneers of the then new state, were
besieged for days by the Indians who thirsted for
their blood because they felt that the territory be
longed to them and to them alone. The history of
that siege is one of the most thrilling of the bat
tles with the Indians and a number of story writers
have woven fascinating romances about it. It is said
that the fort was saved, finally, by the kindness of
an Indian woman who had formed an attachment for
a white man —one of the number within the fort.
This may be true, but I have been unable to es
tablish it. The old fort still may be seen; it lies
along the bank of the Little Tennessee river, and
the old well from which the besieged people got
water is still to be seen there, but the walls have
fallen in.
Some fifteen miles south of Fort Loudon is a
beautiful valley lying along the Pall Play Creek; this
level bit of country was used by the Indians as a
place to congregate after they had been on the
chase after game and here they played ball, a game
that has been a universal pastime by these people
wherever they have been found. It is said that
they would camp and spend weeks engaged In rac
ing their ponies, wrestling, shooting with bow and
arrow, running foot races and I suppose that the
gentlemen Indians wooed their dusky ladles and it
may be that they, quite like their pale faced
enemy, did their courting by the light of the moon.
How I should like to wring the secrets of those days
from the towering cliffs, the giant trees and the
running creeks! These scenes have long since
passed away and where the roaming Indian pitched
his wigwam, where his squaw cultivated her little
patch of corn and pumpkins, the white man now has
his acres of fine corn and wheat.
As we go back into the mountains and follow the
windings of Ball Play Creek, which was named for
the valley that I have mentioned, we find a people
that are of a distinct class to themselves. I had
intended to write of them this time but my ears have
already heard something like this, “Does he think
that he Is the only one that we want to hear from?”
which means, that I shall stop and come another
time, as I “Larn thet yer latch string air allers tied
onter a peg on the outside uv yer cabin.”
“TENNESSEEAN.”
A LESSON FROM A NICKEL.
Some time ago, one of our members suggested—•
I believe it was our incomparable Eugene (by the
way, Eugene, Earnest Willie gave me a most inter
esting account of his visit to your place)—that we
tell each other what life has brought to us during
these past ten years. To me it has brought so
much of mingled sunshine and shadow that it would
take up all the Household pages to tell it. It has
taught me many lessons, chief of which is, trust in
an overruling power. I have learned to trust Him,
even In small, everyday matters. I believe I will
tell you one of these everyday little things, at the
risk of your smiling over its insignificance.
I attended services in the Tabernacle in Atlanta,
for time’s changes have brought me from a “dear
old Georgia home among the pines,” to the suburbs
of Georgia’s queen city, and when the collection
plate went around I dropped into it al] the contents
of my slender purse, but one nickel, which I re
tained to pay my car fare home. A small voice
within me said, “Put the nickel in. too. and trust
to getting home some way”; but I would not listen
to it. I felt ashamed that I had not. when on re
turning home, in the car I unexpectedly met a dear
friend whom I had not seen for thirty vears. and
she insisted on paying my fare. This is a small
matter, but it teaches a large lesson —the lesson
that we should trust God, even in little, everyday
things. I have trusted Him many times in my life,
and He has never failed me. Remember, friends, that
what seems an impossibility should not deter us
from doing what God impresses upon us we should
do. With Him nothing is impossible. Trusting and
obeying when we cannot understand why we should,
is the kind of faith we need.
Now, just one personal word to the readers of
The Golden Age Household: Can any one of these
tell me where I can obtain one of the old-time Sunny
South Household badges? I lost mine at Dr. Brough
ton’s Tabernacle —a gold stick-pin with the tetters
S. S. H. upon it. It was I —as the older Householders
may remember —who suggested this design as a
badg Q for the Sunny South Household members—to
be worn at their reunion on the occasion of the ban
quet given by Colonel Seals at his residence in At
lanta. It was a memorable occasion—so many
friends met and exchanged words of love and kind
ness. Those dear old days are treasured in memory
as some happy dream. I wished to bequeath the
little badge as a cherished souvenir to the next gen
eration, and I would be glad, indeed, if this should
meet the eye of the one who found it, and the finder
will let me know by a card addressed to Box 109,
East Point, Ga.
GRAY HAIRED MOTHER.
BUSINESS WOMEN ARE SOUGHT AS WIVES.
It is always rather amusing to me to hear folks
arguing—sometimes wrought up to fever heat —about
something that their argument isn’t going to affect
in the least one way or the other.
A few years ago you could scarcely pick up a
paper without seeing this sentence, “Is marriage a
failure?” And some decided that it was, and some
decided that it was not, but people went on marry
ing when they got the chance, just as they had al
ways done, and some of them were failures, but
most of them were successes, just as they had always
been.
So I know that what I say for, or Mr. Ivy against
the woman in business isn’t going to affect the sit
uation much, but I want to say my “say” just this
time, and then, even though I am a woman and
should, of course, like to have the last word. I am
not going to “speak out in meetin’ ” on this subject
any more —unless Mr. Ivy or somebody else says
something “dreadfully awful.”
Much is being said and written just now opposing
a business career for women, but it is my humble
opinion that, so long as social, economic and com
mercial conditions remain what they are, women
are going to hold, if not advance, the position they
have gained in the business world. In entering busi
ness life women have simply accepted the changed
and altered conditions that confront them and proven
themselves equal to the occasion.
Not many women work away from home because
they prefer it, but because they must. And the fact
that there are weak, silly women at work In the
business world is no more of an argument against
women entering the business world than It is against
women marrying, for there are as many foolish mar
ried women as there are simple business women.
And in which position do you think their influence
is more hurtful to humanity as unimportant sales
women and stenographers, or as wives and mothers?
Mrs. Anna Steese Richardson has written a series
of articles for the Woman’s Home Companion on the
Influence of women In business, and she relates in
cident after incident to prove that it Is deplorable.
But some other equally clever writer could get up
just as many true instances to prove that their In
fluence In the business world is uplifting and re
fining.
It is hardly fair to give only one side of a ques
tion. Why, if somebody were to outline all the
hardships, misfortunes, disappointments, sorrows and
all the toil and pain that come to the average mortal
in life, and were to vividly picture to us only the
dark side of life, It would convince somebody that
It would b© best to commit suicide and give up right
at the beginning.
Mrs. Richardson tells of a railroad company that
quit employing women because they said that the
kind of woman It paid them to employ and train for
service was just the woman that some man wanted
for a wife. And I suppose he usually got her, for
