The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1870-06-08
RECREATION IN SUMMER.
A WOman's Views of Both Sides Of
the Question.


The cool nights of the country in sum-
mer we must have. The days there,
We acknowledge, are sometimes as hot
as summer days in the city, but always
there is to be remembered as an offset
to the trouble of moving" Husbands
sometimes say, "Why should we 90 into
the country, when we are Just as cool in
town. That is looking at it from a
husbands point of view. 1t is mainly
the relief from housekeeping cares dur
ing the dOg-days, that wives need and
want This pinch does not affect the
masculine boot; hence the inability to
see the necessity of moving" Then,
again, husbands do not have to devise
amusement for the children during the
long languid, hot days, when they must
be kept off the burning pavements, and
when five-foot square brick city yard
is the only alternative in the way of a
playground, save the nursery.
Clearly man in this case, rs in many
other similar ones, looks at the subject
only through his own spectacles. If he
says honestly, 81 cannot afford it, that
is another thing; but even then, per-
haps it would be as cheap to go to a
sensible inexpensive place in the coun-
try, as to pay the doctors bill in the
autumn. Nobody can fail to see the
difference in children who are turned
out to grass for the summer, and revel
in the natural and healthful delights
which are included in that phrase, and
the city child, who must look at a dan
delion with one eye on policeman,
after dragging through stretches of hot
streets to reach park.
Watering places and the like are, OF
course no places for children. That is
understood by all who best understand
them. The slavery to dress, for both
parents and children, which such places
involve, is too absurd for further COM
ment, when the ostensible object in
going to the country is rest Rest
with ones head in trunk all summer
Rest pinned to piazza and a long
train dress Rest! when ones pillow
is not reached till twelve or one o clock
Rest when ones bones ache just look
ing at the loads Of dry goods other wo-
men carry round on their backs
If wife means to tell her husband
that this is going t0the country, don
wonder that the good man shifts at it.
| don't wonder he himself prefers being
solus at home. But really to go to the
country! to wear any old dud one likes
TO sit down on a stone fence, or on the
grass or walk in proper shoes through
lonely road, without once thinking OF
ones clothes; but only the birds and
the bees, and the waving grass and the
shifting shadows, and to thank God for
the gift of life at every sweet breath
ah! that is quite another thing, a. even
a man might see!
And then the children-in clothes
made the rest" How rapturous are
the bugs, and the pigs, and the chick,
ems, and the toads, and frogs Crying
dolls and Noahs arks are nothing to
these. And how the childrens educa'
ton is silently going on, with wise
Nature for q teacher Never a ferule,
or rod, or fools capl No whim-
pers, or sulks, or pouts She whispers
softly with blade of grass, or bright
leaf, and they listen, oh more reverent,
" than YOU know. She spreads a soft
carpet when the little limbs give out,
and entices them to try, it, with. little
flowers cunningly tucked in here and
there! Oh she understands children.
No stiff benches for her!
And what wealth Of sweet recollec,
tons the little ones lay up for winter
Hear them talk about the barn and
Towser and the old horse, while the
snow beats against the window panes
How can wonderland them of all these
innocent delights for all the fine clothes
that were invented for human torture
Ii is mainly because you, madam, are
so umwise, that husbands hate the farce
of going to the country"
- FANNY FERN.