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Can. you forget that long past hour,
We watched the summer moon
alone ?
The time, the spot, the subtle powei’
Os night o’er our young spirits
thrown ?
The wind among the boughs o’erhead,
The mossy bank about us spread
The rpses over-blown.
The mocking-bird that far away
Among the trees poured out his lay,
And you, low-leaning by my side,
In some absorbing dream,
Your tender blue eyes roaming wide
O’er hill and dale and stream,
And I, who watched you, musing there,
And thought you never looked so fair
As in that moon’s pale beam.
CHAT.
“Thank the good Lord for the bless
ing of a home,” she exclaimed, drop
ping into an easy chair and looking
around at the cool, pleasant room she
had left for a three-weeks’ stay at a
so-called health resort, where she had
a small, stuffy room, and was obliged
to dress twice a day and listen to the
gossip and twaddle of half a score of
women as idle, and bored as herself.
“Tommy!” (to one of her children
who was turning somersaults in his de
light at getting back home), “throw
these pennies out to the organ-grind
er’s monkey. The man is playing
‘Home, Sweet Home.’ I never before
realized how sweet home was. San
cho Panza said, ‘Blessed is the man
who invented sleep.’ I say, ‘Twice
blessed is he who invented home.’
Who was he, anyhow?”
Home was not invented. Like
everything else, it evolved —it grew
gradually from the crudest of begin
nings. In remote ages our ancestors *
dwelt in caves and hollows in the
rocks. In tropical countries they in
habited trees. An immense banyan
tree, which covered acres o.f ground —
being in fact, a collection of many
trees —was made into a town, with
many individual dwellings, construct
ed of sticks and moss, not even so
well built as a beaver’s abode or an
eagle’s nest.
, Then came the era of tents. Man
—or rather woman —had learned how
to weave, and stout tents of woven
grass or bark were used in some lo
calities, while in others the tents
were of hides. Such were the homes
of the Bible patriarchs. When the
grass around them grew too short for
cattle grazing, they folded their tents
and migrated to another spot.
Then, after ages had brought in
creased skill and ambition, men be
gan to build. Even while part of the
earth’s population was dwelling in
tents and earth-covered huts, the
other part had begun to erect tem
ples, palaces, triumphal monuments
and tombs. The building of these
great structures was made possible by
using the labor of thousands of slaves
and captives. Only in this way could
be carried out the magnificent con
ception of the great architects and
sculptors of that day.
But though Egypt reared her im
mense pyramids, Assyria her walled
cities, and the Greeks and Romans
their temples and palaces, enriching
these with statues and mosaics,' the
home, to our modern ideas, was any
thing but an ideal abode. It had no
THE HOUSEHOLD
A department of Expression Tor Those Who Teel and Think,
CAN YOU FORGET?
Till my heart leaped up warm and
glad
For God’s best gift, I held and had.
Well, years a half a score have fled,
Romance is done for such as we.
It seems an age since you were wed,
And I have children round my knee,
But sometimes in some lonely hour
I see that ivy-covered bower.
Your sweet face turned to me,
And hear you whisper soft and low
The name you gave me long ago;
And on my cheek there lingers yet
The tears with which they then were
wet,
In the old days that were.
And in my memory yet there dwell
Your last dear kiss, your last fare
well.
lack of sculptured columns and pic
tured walls, but the rooms were ex
tremely small, the windows mere
apertures, the floors damp and bare.
Indeed, judging from the sleeping
rooms of the houses exhumed in Pom
peii, the builders must have gone for
their models to that insignificant in
sect, the dirt-dauber.
There was an entrance hall, and in
the center of this a deep depression in
the stone floor forming a basin to col
lect the rains which came through an
opening in the roof, and closed when
the basin became quite full. This
hall, with its rain-basin —pluvium it
was called—had mosses, grasses and
large-leaved water plants growing
about it, making a refreshing-looking
spot, btu also a choice breeding nest
for malaria and the much-dreaded
Roman fever.
These stone floors must have been
dreadfully uncomfortable to the san
daled feet of Cleopatra, or Aspasia.
True, the floors were sometimes
spread with rich silken tapestries,
but this was possible only to the
wealthy. The floors of the middle
class and the poor were of earth or
rough stone strewn with straw or
rushes. A ledge ran all around the
living room, and on this shelf —used
also as a seat —were the rolled-up cov
erlids that did duty as beds, and the
earthen vessels for daily use.
In England there were no carpets,
and the beds were uncomfortable. A
feather bed was such a costly lux
ury that Shakespeare, in his will, par
ticularly disposed of his two beds, giv
ing the “second best feather bed” to
his unloved wife. Anne Hathaway.
The plainest living folks of today have
infinitely more comfort in their homes
than had the great Queen Elizabeth
with her stuffy feather bed and her
stone floor strewn with rushes.
No wonder she prized the gift of a
pair of silk stockings above a neck
lace of pearls, though the stocking,
which had lately been invented, was
a clumsy, ill-fitting affair, not to be
compared, with even the hose which
a shop girl holds up on bargain days,
announcing, “Two for a quarter!”
Just imagine how Cleopatra, the
Queen of Sheba, Queen Bess, or any
of those imperial, luxury-loving dames
of history would open their eyes
could they be reanimated and shown
through a modern home! A home in
which beauty and comfort unite,
warmed or cooled artificially, accord
ing to the season, richly carpeted,
aired and lighted by many large win
dows, furnished with built-in, glass-
The Golden Age for September 1, 1910.
fronted cupboards, and with closets,
bathrooms, stationary tubs, cold and
hot water, and beds the acme of com
fort and wholesomeness, not to speak
of electric bells, pipe organs, billiard
rooms, etc.
Then, the lightning of the modern
home! Think of the days when the
banquet halls of queens and million
aires were illumed only by smoky
torches in the hands of tired slaves,
while the bed rooms were lighted by
tallow “dips” or rush lights. I can
remember the days of tallow dipped
candles and smoky whale oil lamps.
In the modern city home, just press
a button and the room is flooded with
the rich white light of electricity.
In the country home there has been,
of course, a vast evolution from the
days of log cabins, but much remains
to be done for the family in the way
of making the home beautiful and
comfortable. The means lor doing
this are every day becoming more
and more within the reach of the mod
erate purse; and soon it will be so
that every home can be warmed,
lighted and furnished with water,
with stationary tubs and bathrooms
at little expense. When this is done
for the country home, then living in
it will be indeed a delight. The now
hard-worked housewife will have leis
ure to read and take the recreation
that averts the too-frequent breaking
down, known and dreaded as nerv
ous prostration. Also, there will be
an end to the problem of how to keep
country girls and boys at home.
A reader of The Golden Age, sign
ing his letter “An Unfortunate Batch,”
asks Ben Ivy for a rule regarding the
choosing of a wife. He adds, “I have
somewhere read an old rhyme that
gives direction for selecting a help
mate. I have forgotten it, but I re
member that it advised against red
hair. I wonder if Mrs. Bryan knows
this old rhyme?” I imagine that Batch
has /reference to this quaint old song
by Sir John Memmis, entitled, “How
to Choose a Wife”:
“Good sir, if you’ll show the best of
your skill
To pick a virtuous creature,
Then choose a wife as you love your
life,
Os comely grace and feature.
The noblest part, let it be her heart,
Without deceit or cunning,
With a nimble wit and all things fit
And a tongue that’s not always run
ning.
The hair of her head, it must not be
/red,
But fair or brown as a berry,
With forehead high and a clear, bright
eye,
And lips as red as a cherry.”
I don’t think the red hair is an ob
jection, particularly the rich, dark,
rosewood red. It is said to be a sign
of temper, but temper, when under
good control, is not a bad trait. One
who has no temper is apt to lack
strength of character. A red-haired
girl is usually brimful of vitality—the
red hair indicating plenty of iron in
her blood.
Mr. Ivy, now a fortunate benedict,
should be able to tell his bachelor
brother how to select a wife. He and
his bride return thanks in a letter to
The Golden Age today to those who
have expressed good wishes and con
gratulations. In several private let
ters I have received there have been
expression of friendship and good
will for our two newly-wedded house
holders, also praises of Muriel from
two who knew her.
I have heard good news from dear
Julia Coman Tait. She is much bet
ter and will soon send a letter to the
Household; also a review of Mr.
Neale’s remarkable novel, “The Be
trayal,” which I sent to her.
Another of our favorite friends,
lovely and gifted Margaret Ricnard,
has been silent too long. I have read
a manuscript story of hers, “The Child
of His Father,” which to me was full
of intense human interest. It will
probably appear in the Uncle Remus’
Magazine. I know you always look
for something from Muda Hetnur,
and you are rarely disappointed.
Never was there a more faithful con
tributor, nor one who knew better
how to interest all classes and ages.
MATER.
Clarkston, Georgia.
Wttb Correspondents
A WOMAN’S BRAVE PRESENCE OF
MIND.
Some time ago, in the Sunny South
Household, Lomacitu, of Texas, (what
has become of that wonderfully gifted
girl?) told us of some of her expe
riences with snakes —the old enemy of
woman, who wrought woe to mankind
through mother Eve. I have had some
adventures with snakes myself, but
the little story I am going to tell you
was related to me by my mother. It is
one of her experiences as a settler in
a wild section of the country. She
said: “My husband and I were not
long married, when we moved to an
unsettled part of the country and had
for our home a very primitive log cab
in, sealed with rough boards and with
a number of cracks, through which the
sun and moon could peep as sociably
as you please. It would have been
well if only sun and moonbeams came
through those cracks, but there were
less we’come visitors that found en
trance there. Behind the bed was a
crack wide enough to admit a squirrel.
As the bed had foot curtains —(val-
ences, we called them then, and I see
these are once more in fashion), this
crack, low down in the wall —was lit
tle thought about. There was also a
hole in the door at the bottom, for the
cat to come in to her kittens and go
out. One night, she brought in a snake,
and she and the kittens ate part of it,
leaving the rest —a grewsome sight for
newly opened eyes to see. A little la
ter in the day, I happened to raise the
bed valence and I was startled to see
under the bed a large, live snake. For
tunately, it had its head out through
the crack, where it was watching the
chickens, that were uttering the alarm
sounds they make when they see a
snake.
My husband was off in the field. I
had never killed a snake, but I deter
mined to try to put an end to this in
truder. I found an old axe handle, and
going outside, I struck the protruding
head of the snake a hard blow, causing
the reptile to draw its head back quick
ly and coil itself for fight just outside
the bed valence. I ran inside and
hastily dumping my children in the ba
by s crib I got up on the bed and put
ting one end of the axe handle on the
hissing head of the snake I pounded
the other end with a hammer until the
creature was dead. When my husband
came to the house and I showed him
the dead snake, he said it was a High
land Moccasin, extremely poisonous;
also he told me that it was no doubt
the mate of the snake the cat had kill
ed and brought in the night before,
