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X I THE HOUSEHOLD X
A Department of Expression For Those Who Feel and Think.
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A MESSAGE TO ONE ON HIGH
Mar^aret A. Richard.
I know by the wondrous thrill
1 feel, here alone and still,
That a spirit is passing by
To happier realms on high;
A spirit ascending from earth
In heaven to have new birth.
Heed, Spirit, ere passing away,
The plea of a heart, I pray;
To him whom I dearly love,
Who dwelleth with God. above,
Upbear but a word from me,
And dally I shall bless thee.
CHAT.
This has been a “truly" spring
day—all blue and gold. The birds
proclaimed "Winter is over." ana tne
yellow daffodils and jonquils an
nounced “Spring is at hand.’’ We
will hope it is so, though it is not a
bit unlikely that Jack Frost may give
John Quill a knock-out blow tomorrow
night.
But down in fair Florida spriug has
truly arrived. On my desk there is
a big crystal bowl filled with gor
geous pink and variegated camelias
and pink and white hyacinths. Though
they seem to be freshly gatnereu,
they came all the way from Chipley,
Fla., from the gardens of those
charming florists and artists, Mr. and
Mrs. C. E. Pleas, who, in the Sunnj’
South Household family, were known
and loved as “Grandpa and the
Missus’’ —noms that made those smile
who had seen the youthful looks of
these alleged grandparents. Mr.
Pleas does not neglect his beautiful
flower garden for the wonderful
Kudezu that now engages his atten
tion. Kudezu, you know, is the
Japanese legume, supposedly the
original bean on which Jack the
Giant Killer climbed to the moon. It
has given up such ambitious climbing
in these practical days, and now oc
cupies itself with the more useful
stunt of covering acres of land in “no
time” with a rich growth of foliage
that can be cut four times a year,
yielding tons of the juiciest, most
nourishing hay for cattle and horses.
Mr. Pleas and his clever wife, who
first discovered that Kudezu was the
finest of forage as well as the most
prolific of ornamental vines, are busy
as bees filling orders for roots from
farmers all over the country. Yet
they do hot forget to send their lonely
little Household Mother the first of
ferings of spring, always remember
ing that the single white hyacinth is
one of her prime favorites.
No lovelier flower has spring
chosen as her herald than this grace
ful stalk, with its dainty burden of
perfumed bells, white as if carved of
snow. Today, while wandering in an
old cemetery, I came across a tiny
grave snowed over with white hya
cinths. Close by the little mound
were marble shafts marking other
graves, but the pure, living whiteness
of the flowers put the cold beauty of
the marble to shame. A monument
like this would have pleased the poet
Bryant, who asked that his grave be
made a pleasant place of flowers and
shade, that those who had loved him
and his friends, the birds, might like
to linger there.
Say. though I sometimes smile,
I'm sorrowful all the while;
Companioned, am lonely all day,
With him in high heaven away;
Beloved, and yet unto me
None’s half so precious as he.
Hold, Spirit, ’tis true.' —and yet
That whisper, I pray you, forget,
Nor carry a word of woe
To him from the world below:
Just say I rejoice that we
Were made for eternity.
“I know. I know, I should not see
The season's gorgeous show;
Its brightness would not beam for me
Nor its wild music flow.
But if around my place of sleep
The friends I love should come to
weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs and music, light and bloom.
Might keep them lingering near my
tomb.”
William Cullen Bryant’s grave is at
Roslyn, L. I. —Roslyn, which he pro
nounced the most beautiful spot he
had seen in his extensive wander
ings over the globe. There the low
hills, with their quaint cottages, in
green setting, fall in a natural terrace
to the centre of the town, where a
little lake is embedded in green
banks, on which stand mossy-roofed
houses, that look down into the min
iature lake to see their gray walls
reflected in its waters. In June, all
the woods and meadows about Roslyn
overflow with the richly colored wild
rhododendron, the mountain laurel of
our Georgia up-country streams and
rocky ravines, which, alas! like our
beautiful wild azalias (honey suckles),
are being so ruthlessly destroyed that
in a short time their glorious beauty
will have ceased to light up our
Southern woods.
“The flowers of the spring time” are
hardly brighter and prettier than the
cover designs of the spring magazines
and the pictures that illustrate them.
How various and attractive are the
magazines of today! What a vast
improvement on the monthlies of fifty
years ago! I have some old Peter
son's Magazines and Godey’s Lady’s
Books I bought in the queerest, most
rickety old shop in New York, away
down on the bay—a shop filled with
old books and stacks of ancient,
musty-smelling magazines. The month
lies I bought bore date of 1856 and
'•57. The illustrations were crude
wooden creations, the fashion plates
were stiff and hideous, but the fash
ions themselves were not more pre
posterous than some of the styles of
today. The stories were extremely
sentimental, the heroines given to
fainting and dropping their eyes when
spoken to —delicate, die-away girls,
with none of the spirit and backbone
that characterize the ideals of mod
ern story writers. The verses in
these old magazines struck a uni
formly plaintive note, breaking
hearts, cruel fate and secret grief be
ing the chords played upon—feeble
Imitations of cynical Byron, who was
then the idol of the devotees of the
Muse —Byron, whom nobody reads
nowadays, though he was undoubted
ly a poet.
The Golden Age for March 10, 1910.
Among the magazines on my desk
lie two little books, in plain brown
paper binding, whose contents are
worth being read by everybody, as
they are true, unadorned transcripts
of minds that are fettered by extreme
body limitations. They express the
triumph of mind over body. One of
these little books records the life and
the thoughts and emotions of a young
shut-in boy.
As intimately as if these were told
to a priest in a confessional, James
Stanhope Love, whose pen name is
“Ben Hope,” shared with Mattie
Beverage the honor of being the baby
member of the old Sunny South
Household. He is still quite young,
and his picture shows him to be more
than good looking. He is eager for
self-development. If those of us who
are not handicapped like this crippled
boy would only make the most of our
large opportunities as he does of his
limited ones, how much we might
achieve! He is self-educated, and says
he gathers knowledge from every
thing he sees, hears and reads. For
a while his only diversion was whit
tling with his jack knife, making out
of the soft wood his friends brought
to him, chains, cups, toys, etc. Then
he learned to play on a French harp
tunes for the neighbor boys and girls
to dance to at their little parties,
thus earning a little money. He con
fesses that he loves to dream and
build air castles about the “dearest
girl,” with whom he could not help
falling in love. “I knew my love
could never reach fruition.” he says.
“Nevertheless it has been good for
me; it has made a man of me.”
The other little brown book is by
our old friend, that cheery philoso
pher, who looks at life from a “mat
tress grave,” yet looks at it with
bright interest and sympathy. This
is his latest book, “Cheerful Chats
With Far Away Friends,” and in some
respects it is his best. It is made up
of short, practical talks bearing on
every day experiences, each one full
of kindly feeling. Sound common
sense and a spontaneous, bubbling
humor that would provoke a smile
from a cynic. Many of the talks are
answers to the letters of some of the
hundreds of thousands of readers of
the popular daily paper for which
these letters were originally written.
This little book, the price of which
is fifty cents, will be enjoyed by every
one who reads it. Tom Lockhart’s
postoffice is Wellington, Mo., and that
of James Stanhope Love (author of
the little booklet, “My Life and My
Work,” price twenty-five cents) is
Filbert —Rural Route No. 1.
Thanks, dear Muda Hetmur and An
nice, for welcome Household letters
and other favors. Always your
friends, widely scattered over the
Southland, are made glad by reading
what you write. We hope to bear
from many more of our old and new
friends, now that the “winter of our
discontent” is over and the sun and
the sweet south wind are with us
once more. Some of our correspond
ents ask for a picture of Arthur Good
enough to be given in The Golden
Age. I know that many who admire
his beautiful and exquisitely finished
poems will be glad to see his pictured
face. We gave it once in the old
Sunny South. Face and verse cor
responded in expression. One of Mr.
Goodenough’s latest poems sent us—
“Jerusalem”—was so grandly beauti
ful that The Golden Age editor has
captured it that he may make it a
special feature. MATER.
Clarkston, Ga.
Mitb @ur Correspondents
Dear Cousin Fineta:
The very air seemed filled with the
spirit of “Merry Christmas,” and one
could not help absorbing the feeling of
good cheer. Since Thanksgiving the
stores had made a perfect “wonder
land” of their show-windows, exhibit
ing* their holiday wares. Even the
undertaker’s shop was made gaudy
with festoons of evergreen and bright
red ribbon decorations, which, as Es
ton said, looked right uncanny.
The Saturday before the 25th, El
oise let me help her finish some of her
hand-painted china presents—-the set
of rimless plates, with their wild-rose
border, was beautiful Thursday, the
teachers dismissed us earlier, and I
came home in time to help wrap and
seal the many packages that w r ere to
be sent off in Friday’s mail. I notic
ed that one of h*e pretty linen bags
Eloise had made were copied from the
design you sent to her in the fall.
Though Christmas dawned chill and
cold, the warmth and brightness with
in dispelled all the disagreeable sen
sations the “Weather-man” would have
had us entertain. Even Zephyr seemed
to realize that it was an unusual day,
and to imagine that something unusual
was expected of her. She was scratch
ing at the door earlier than usual
and barking “Merry Christmas” before
anyone came down stairs. When
finally admitted, she went into ecsta
cies over each one of us, and kept me
romping in the hall until breakfast
was announced.
Oh, how pretty the table was! I al
most believed the fairies had been at
work—-for how else did that beautiful
little tree, with its now laden branches
glistening in the artificial light, its
weight of shimmering balls, dazzling
blue, golden, crimson, and vivid
green, get into place without my
having one time suspected its exist
ence? The frosted tinsel almost hid
Old Santa's jolly countenance—a doll
head doing duty for the übiquitous
saint—but from the capacious pockets
of his north-pole looking packet there
streamed yards of pretty pink ribbon,
extending to each plate, the ends of
which we found underneath, attached
to a dainty little gift, with “Evie’s
Compliments.’
“Did you ever?” exclaimed Eloise
looking up. and as much surprised as
the rest of us. “Did you ever see any
thing to equal it! Isn’t Evie a treas
ure of a servant though?"
“Indeed, she is,” 1 answered, I
think she must surpass the traditional
black mammy—in fact, I’m sure of it,”
I continued, as I examined the pack
age at my plate and found the cutest
little work box. Evie was delighted
with our appreciation, and was quite
jubilant over the success of her sur
prise—for she had arranged every
thing in her room the day before, and
so had escaped detection.
After breakfast she was so busy ad
miring the many things Eston had
given Eloise, she declared,
"I don’t see how I is ever goin’ to
quit looking at all these beautiful
presents in time to get through with
my morning’s work. Law chile, don't
Mr. Eston make de best husband you
ever see, in dis world! His mamma
ought to had a dozen sous, jcs to
make good husbands out of. I know
