Newspaper Page Text
10
K 1H E H OUSEHOLD &
H Department of “Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think.
i
-
IN HIS CML
Paraphrase of the Tlvaity-thira Psalm. (
My Shepherd is the Lord. His care
A pasture doth for me prepare
A place of plenty —green and glad,
With vitas cool and welcome shade.
My fainting soul doth He restore
In sorrow bids me hope once more
And when I tremblingly transgress
He leads me back to righteousness.
Yea, though I w T alk in Death’s dark
vale
My heart shall neither faint nor fail
CHAT.
MR. ORTON’S views about mat
rimony and the cost of living
are conservative and sensible.
And, yet, I have known a number of
instances where young people married
in accordance with the scriptural
injunction—“ Take no thought for to
morrow,” and began house-keeping as
if they were a pair of sparrows. Yet,
somehow, they got along, tnough they
soon had a nestful to provide for.
One of the best little men I ever
knew, Colonel Whidby—so long an at
tache of The Atlanta Constitution —
married in this way—on faith —and
reared a family of honest, industrious,
intelligent children. Once, when we
were both residents of Stone Moun
tain, he lost his situation with the
paper. He had not been able to lay
by any money and he would not bor
row or ask for credit. He and his
family—there were four children—
lived for a length of time on a dollar
a week.
How did they do it? Well, he told
me how they did it. He bought half
ka bushel of corn meal for fifty cents,
Bnd his wife made nice “corn dodg
and sometimes egg bread, as
w had two hens. With the bread.
B drank fresh, rich buttermilk,
■|t for ten cents a gallon and they
Bever hungry a minute. I i’o got
B it was in blackberry time,
berries around Stone Moun-
Be nearly as plentiful and lus
they are around Clarkston,
Ks so famous for its wild black
■patches, that, a poor felluw- -
||ter— who han lost his job. i
Bl can take my young ones to
Bston, bell them and turn them
B like rabbits in the blackberry
■th.”
Bl knew a married pair without child-
Bdren. who lived in Atlanta, paid rent
r for a front room and a little back
room, unfurnished, and lived on the
man’s salary of twenty dollars a
month. They pinned their faith to
oatmeal and graham bread —which
the wife cooked, with, occasionally,
eggs and bananas. Ten cents worth
of rich, sweet cream three times a
week went farther than butter.
A Southern girl, who went to New
York with the manuscript of a book,
which she fondly hoped would make
her fortune, was swindled out of the
five hundred dollars she had paid a
publisher to bring out the book, ft
was never brought out; the pub'isher
failed, or pretended to, after cheating
many poor authors, and the manu
script. was lost. The g'rl was
left nearly penniless and with
out friends in a strange city. She
w;s found dead in her room in a
For Thou art with me, O Lord God, j
My comfort is Thy staff and rod. )
For all mine enemies to see (
A lordly feast Thou spreadest me, )
My head of Thy anointing knows (
My cup with blessings overflows )
Surely whatever wrong prevail (
Thy love, Thy mercy will not fail, )
And in Thy holy dwelling place j
I shall behold Thee, face to face J
ARTHUR GOODENOUGH. J
respectable lodging house. Her story
found its way into the newspapers,
and during an investigation by re
porters to discover whether she came
to her death by starvation or suicide.
It was found that she had a loaf of
bread on her shelf and a dollar in
her purse. A young woman who had
a room adjoining the unfortunate girl,
told the reporter that a dollar was
quite sufficient to live on for a week.
He incorporated this statement into
his newspaper story and the editors
immediately offered the girl twenty
dollars an article to tell the public
how she managed to live on a dollar
a week. She told them in three ar
ticles, and the way she contrived to
keep nourished on a dollar a week
was as ingenious as the plot of a
detective story.
Another Southern girl—a friend of
mine—who is now a well known writ
er and commands a good price for
everything she contributes found
herself in the beginning of her
career stranded in New York,
with only twenty dollars to the good.
She lived on it for nearly two months,
paying rent for a little sunny room,
and the oil for the kerosene lamp, and
the tiny stove on which she cook
ed her oatmeal and grits. I dined
with her once. The menu w r as a lit
tle more varied than General Lee’s
dinner of roasted sweet potatoes. We
had grits and gravy (the latter made
of onions cooked in cotolene), toma
toes served raw, looking like roses
the scalded skin having been peeled
o"f smoothly—bananas with a spoon
ful of ere:in and a little lemon juice,
over them; graham bread and tea. It.
v as a perfectly satisfactory meal—of
course a little more elaborate than
usual, as 1 was “company.” For a
ye r and more this courageous young
woman struggled cheerfully to gain a
foothold in New York—with almost
everything against her, for she was
shy and reserved. She wrote an al
most indecipherable hand, she had
no money to pay for type writing—
and she had not acquired tAe Ic
of writing then in vogue. Fashions
change in literature as in dres- a~ | i
to succeed one must take note of
this.
Without doubt it is an unwise and
risky matter for two inexperienced
young people to mate and go to house
keeping on faith like the birds. Every
young man should have some money
invested or in the bank before he
takes unto himself a wife, and every
young woman should have what the
French call her “dot.” The daughter
of even poor parents in France has
a little store of money and house
hold belongings laid by in view of her
The Golden Age for March 31,1910.
marriage. As soon as she comes
into the world, the little dot begins
to form. Parents, God-parents, rela
tives and friends, contribute to it in a
small way, and the little contributions
go on —a few sous at a time —until,
when the girl is of marriageable age,
her “dot” amounts to a nice little
sum.
Recently, our government, following
the paternal policy encouraged by
Col. Roosevelt, has begun sending out
a little booklet, telling house-keepers
how to prepare the cheaper cuts of
meat so that they shall be as palat
able and nourishing as the more ex
pensive cuts. The pamphlet contains
also fifty recipes for savory cheap
dishes and a good deal of information
valuable to housekeepers. It can be
had free by requesting it on a card
addressed to tne Secretary of the
Department of Agriculture, at Wash
ington, D. C.
I hope, dear friends, that you will
contribute something now and then
to the Reading Ciass column, which I
have begun this week. Our brilliant
Julia Coman Tait is the one on whom
we most depend to tell us what is
new and interesting in the book
world, but many of you may help out
the class by sending a short quota
tion from, or a comment on something
you have read in a book, magazine or
newspaper.
Also tell us about your garden—
flowers and vegetables. I have simply
lived out of door for a week, plant
ing and watering lovely plants and
trees from the Pleas Nursery at Chip
ley, Florida. Mr. Pleas has everything
in the way of plants and shrubs,
though, of course, his specialty is
“kudzu” —the new Japanese forage
vine.
Witb ®ur aorresponbents
GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
Dear Kind Friends: —I can not ex
press to you how happy you made me
ty responding so kindly to my earn
est wish to hear from you by letter or
card. I received a number of kind
messages and little tokens. Your
sweet sympathy was balm to my
heart and the favors were most ac
ceptable. The cards were lovely,
grandmother and I so much enjoyed
looking at them and reading the
sweet messages. You have enabled
me to finish making up the five dollars
I so much wanted and needed. In
some future letter, I will tell you just
what I did with the money and you
will see that indeed it came most op
portunely. I must tell you that I have
no more of my little booklets left.
Only a limited number was printed—
and the printing was not well done;
there were many mistakes. I was only
sixteen when I wrote that little ac
count of my life. I have studied and
re id and thought since then, and I
can write better now. I am sending
Mrs. Bryan a story, which I hope she
can publish in The Golden Age. -She
once published a serial story of mine
in The Sunny South. It is quite pain
ful and tedious for me to write. I am
afraid there is a serious growth in
my side, for it hurts sharply when I
bend over to write. This is the rea
son, dear friends, why I am thanking
you in the Household instead of by
personal letter. But as soon as I get
some stationery and stamps I shall try
to send a letter or cpr<J of personal
thanks to each of you, if my side gets
better.
These lovely spring days fill me with
the sense of beauty and the longing to
be out in the woods among the birds
and squirrels. I have been out only
once since last August. I attended the
funeral of a noble old man—a friend
of our family. It was a calm, beauti
ful day, and the face of the dead look
ed so full of peace and dignity that I
could not feel it was such a sad thing
to be lowered into Mother Earth —to
the singing of sweet hymns. I al
most envied the dead his peaceful rest.
But it is surely a hard thing to give
up our friends. It was heartbreaking
to grandmother when she had to part
last year with her good and true life
mate. I think people, who are mar
ried and who truly love one another,
to be almost one —and the shock
of being torn apart is dreadful.
Not all married couples love thus
truly. No indeed, for the papers are
filled with accounts of separations and
divorces. My little story which I am
sending Mrs. Bryan is to illustrate the
true love that grows stronger with
time and adversity.
Once more sending you heartfelt
thanks and wishes for your health and
good fortune, I remain,
Your little Arkansas shut-in friend,
MATTIE BEVERAGE.
Dabney, Ark.
THE READING CLASS.
Under this head I would like to have
from our Household members and
readers, short extracts from books,
magazines and newspapers of pleasant
unusual and instructive kind, together
with comments on these by the read
er. MATER.
My Day Reminiscence of a Long
Life is a recent autobiography written
by the widow of the famous Confed
erate General (later the successful
lawyer) Roger A. Pryor, Mrs.
Pryor was a noted belle in her youth
and in her mature life one of the so
cial leaders in New York’s solidly good
society. She is now eighty years old,
but her book is written with great
charm and without bitterness. It is
brimful of anecdote, and tells of her
exciting life during the wai- and of her
trials and struggles after the end of
the tragic drama had left her and her
husband penniless. She says poverty
was much harder to bear in New York
than it was in Virginia where every
body was poor but courageous.
Through the energy and genius of her
husband, helped by his loyal wife, Gen
eral Pryor achieved distinction and
fortune at the bar in New York city.
Cicely Hamilton, in her new book,
“Marriage as a Trade,” paints the
darkest and most discouraging picture
of marriage that has yet been given.
She says most women marry for mon
ey reasons, but they get the worst of
the bargain. They are simply slaves,
who work for victuals and clothes. She
pictures man as merely animal, and
sneers at his chivalry and tender con
sideration for women. Os the higher
soul attachment, loyal devotion and
unse'fishness that enter into the true
marriage, Cicely Hamilton says noth
ing; and the joy of motherhood is out
of her count.
Mr. James Milne, in a London Let
ter, says that the public libraries show
that people are reading less fiction
than in former years. They read biog
raphies and books of travel; also of
science. Autobiographies are found
