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Thank God for books! The sick man’s
health,
The student’s joy, the poor man’s
wealth,
The slave’s release, the sage’s store,
The dreamer’s gladness evermore.
Thank God for books! When want and
care
And disregard are everywhere,
And doubts and debts both hedge and
hem,
We still can lose ourselves in them.
The hand that wrote —the hand and
brain,
□ □ CHAT □ □
For days I had let the germ of worry
gnaw my brain. I seemed just unable
to help worrying. A w T rong had been
done me, resulting in financial loss
that I was ill able to bear. Worse
still, it was a treacherous wrong, done
by working on my sympathies in a
deliberate, persistent fashion. I was
at fault for giving in, but it doesn’t
comfort you any to know you were to
blame. So I worried, sleeplessly, and
had my eyes shut to the green resur
rection of the trees and the hardby
hope for the return of a pair of mock
ing birds to an old apple tree not far
from my window.
Scientists tell us that worry acts in
the same destroying way as does a
living germ. It slowly eats up the
vitality of brain and nerves,—wears it
out, as the steady dropping of water
wears out a rock. It is surely a dan
gerous parasite, and I felt myself giv
ing way under it. One night, as I lay
sleeplessly watching the grand proces
sion of the stars, I began to think of
the immensity of the Universe —and
what minute grains of sand we are in
the mighty scheme of creation. And
yet w r e are a part of it; we have our
place in it, and we have in us the ca
pacity to fill that place and to enjoy
the wonderful drama of life going on
around us and the beauty that every
where meets our eye. And shall we
shrink up and cease to fill our appoint
ed place properly because of a little
hurt —that injured no vital point of ns
—that did not hurt the soul, or lessen
its privileges?
In the morning came a letter from a
gifted, lovable and lovely girl, who has
been an invalid for years, and fears
she is going blind. She is poor, and
dependent on her pen for an income.
Thinking of her far greater trouble,
my burden of worry dropped from me,
and last night I slept calmly, while the
stars —every one a glorious sun to un
seen worlds —looked in upon me
through the window.
Do you ever read that masterly old
allegory—Pilgrim’s Progress? Then
you remember the man with the rake
—his eyes fixed upon the ground, in
tent on raking up the trash, while the
jewels of heaven hung above his head.
We all need to make ourselves look
up—to gain strength by enlarging our
view, and to gain sanity by ceasing to
be one-idead —dwelling on a griev
ance, a memory or a dream —until
presently monomania spreads its mil
dew over the mind.
With the eternal patience and hope
fulness that belongs to Nature, the
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of 'Expression Eor Those Who Teel and Think.
BOOKS
Sy Arthur Goodenough.
Have vanished, still his thoughts re
main
And help and joy and comfort give,
And teach us how to die and live.
The w r orld will change; not so with
books,
They wear their old familiar looks;
Men man be false and women, too,
But these grand friends are ever true.
I claim in Fame’s immortal choir
No place; to no great Self aspire,
But ever more the bliss of books
To charm when Fortune overlooks.
Brattleboro, Vermont.
rose vines and trees are beginning to
bud once more after having twice re
ceived an icy wound from the Parthian
dart of Winter. The Parthians, you
know, after turning and running in
battle, always wheeled round and shot
a parting arrow with such terrible ef
fect that the “Parthian dart” has pass
ed into a proverb.
Friends, did you not feel the pathos
of that death in darkest China two
weeks ago—the death of the grand
young missionary worker, Mrs. Ada
Beeson Farmer, of Meridian, Miss.,
who fell a victim to the fever-breeding
filth of the big interior city, just as
she was realizing the success of the
purpose for which she had striven so
hard —that of establishing a training
school for native teachers and Chris
tian workers. The building was near
ing completion. In its upper story
she and her husband and faithful co
workers were at last to have com
fortable lodging (for years she had
lived in a hut no better than an aver
age American cow stable), when
death called her from her earth
ly work to some higher field of
labor. She and her husband, who
had been brought up in com
fort amid friends and elegant sur
roundings, who bore three diplomas of
graduation from different colleges, had
left all to live in hardship and lone
liness among hostile aliens, for the
sake of helping these benighted peo
ple.
Isn’t this a noble refutation of Mr.
Tom Watson’s claim that foreign mis
sionaries are mercenary and self
seeking, and that they live in fine
houses and enjoy an indolent, useless
existence?
Easter is near at hand, and two dif
ferent readers have written me con
cerning the significance of presenting
eggs at Easter, “Is it not a custom
growing out of the resurrection of
Christ and symbolic of this great
event?” asks one of the querists. No;
it is a Magian, or Persian, custom, and
bears allusion to the “Mundane” or
Egg of this Earth, for which, accord
ing to the religious myth, Ormuzd and
Ahriman, the angels of good and of
evil, are to contend for until the end
of all things. The custom of present
ing eggs at Easter prevailed not only
among the Persians, but also among
the Jews, Egyptians and Hindoos.
Christians adopted the custom to sym
bolize the Resurrection of the seem
ingly dead. The egg is usually color
ed red to signify the blood of redemp
tion.
The Golden Age for April 6, 1911.
News comes that the South’s sweet
est song-bird—gifted Margaret Richard
—is slowly improving in health. This
will gladden many hearts, for “Maid
Margaret” is like the maiden of old—
“ None know her but to love her,
None name her but to praise.”
She sends us one of her tender lit
tle love poems for the next issue of
the Golden Age.
Another noble poet, whom the South
loves and would be proud to claim—
Arthur Goodenough—has had an ele
gant gold medal awarded him by Ed
ward Markham.
TOttb ®ur OcrcesponbenSß
A JOY DASHED WITH TEARS.
A True Incident of Pioneer Days.
In the cave in which the mother and
her two youngest children were hiding
from the Indians it was growing quite
dark. The hoot of an owl was heard
outside, then the bird’s wild, maniacal
laugh.
Little Polly began to cry. “Hush,
dear,” said the mother, softly, “baby
sister is very sick. She is asleep at
last; don’t wake her. Come here to
the mouth of the cave and watch the
stars come out.”
Polly looked at the stars for a mo
ment, but she trembled and pressed
close to her mother.
“Where is farder and Jenny, and
what makes Tige growl so? Oh, I’se
afraid, marmsy; I’se afraid!”
“Polly, you must keep quiet. If you
make a noise they will hear it and
come and kill us.”
“Who, marmsy —the Indians?”
“Yes, they are going along the path,
not a hundred yards from us. Father
and Jenny are watching them out
there. Hush, Tige,” as the dog growl
ed. “Keep still —good dog.”
Then as the dog continued to growl,
deep but low, she laid Polly on the
blanket by the baby and took her sta
tion by the mouth of the cave, gun in
hand, to defend her children to the
death.
Moments went by. The suspense
was terrible. Only that day a family
of sixteen persons, ten miles away,
had been massacred by the Indians.
Every moment she looked, with agon
ized dread, to see the same band dis
cover their refuge in the small cave
hidden among the rocks and under
brush.
Suddenly she heard the rustle of a
step. Her hand sought the trigger of
the gun, then dropped as she saw her
daughter—a slender dark-eyed girl.
“Mother, we are saved! Thank God,
they have gone by. There must be a
squad of our soldiers after them.”
The father came up and confirmed
the good news. Then he asked,
“Where are the children?”
The mother took up the tallow can
dle that had been screened from giv
ing a betraying light, and approached
the two children lying together on the
blanket, Polly’s arm around the baby.
They seemed to be both asleep, but
the mother’s quick eye discerned the
change in the baby’s waxen little
face. “She is dead!” she said, as she
bent over the little creature, then
lifted her tenderly and pressed the
tiny form to her bosom, weeping si
lently, with the restrained emotion
that was taught to those pioneer wo
men by their life of stern self-sup
pression and hardship. The father
bowed his head. “The Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken away,” he said.
He lifted the sleeping Polly in his
arms, wrapped the blanket about her
and, bearing the living and the dead,
the husband and wife returned to their
log cabin home.
The story of that night was told in
after years by Polly, then a mother
and a grandmother.
ANNICE LYBARGER.
Kingston, Tenn.
SOME SEEKERS OF FORTUNE IN
THE CITY.
Every now and then something oc
curs to jar my belief in those tales
told of honesty and industry inevitably
leading to success. This is not saying
that they do not pay, for every person
ought to be so constructed mentally
that the sense of well-doing is suffi
cient reward for good conduct. It is
only fair to say that the man who in
sists on having his reward for virtue
paid to him in the coin of the realm
may as well get a smooth lawyer care
fully to outline for him the borderland
between punishable and unpunishable
criminality, and go ahead.
I am reminded of this through my as
sociation with a man of perhaps fifty,
who is working for a salary which,
even to my modest mind, appears de
plorably small. He told me not long
ago of how he came to New York fresh
from Harvard, a generation ago, and
standing on Sixth Avenue and watch
ing the fine carriages which then
thronged that thoroughfare, he be
thought himself that this was the city
for him —a place where so many men
could win wealth enough to let them
ride out in style, or at least permit
their families to ride out thus, must be
just the place for him.
Perhaps he lacked the proper pro
portion of energy. I suspect that if
he had not been lacking in this re
spect he would take present conditions
less philosophically. He has what is in
all probability a permanent position,
at a small salary, and being a single
man he has no occasion to worry. But
all his boyhood dreams of success, as
the world counts success, have vanish
ed. He is typical of the ninety and
nine, who come to the city and do not
achieve success, of which the world
does not hear. Os the other one, long
stories are written in the magazines,
and when the reporter goes round to
interview the successful one he says,
as did the newly chosen head of the
Steel Corporation: “Why, certainly;
any boy can do what I have done.” The
Steel Corporation has only one head,
however, and material for the job is
sufficiently scarce to make it worth
while to pay the right sort of individ
ual as big a salary as the President of
the United States receives.
F. L. ORTON.
WHAT IS DOING IN KANSAS.
If it will not crowd the chairs in the
Household too much I will, after a long
delay, come in and tell you something
more about the great state of Kansas.
In the year 1910, Kansas only had a.
death rate of 7.5 per thousand as
against 13 to 23 per cent, in some of
the eastern states.
Not a great deal more than one-third
of the state is under cultivation. The
assessor in one county, away out in
what is known as the arid belt, found
600 automobiles and nearly all of them
were owned by farmers. Kansas is a
prohibition state and prohibition is
here to stay. No political party would
dare put a resubmission plank in its
platform. The increase in populat’on
In Kansas in the last ten years was
greater than in either Missouri or Ne<
