New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-09-28

consider that at all in the question. She
stitches and frills and flutes the girls Clothes
as she cannot put costly embroidery on them
While the children were babies, ana
there was a hard fight week by week to keep
the pot boiling, the house began to look very
bare and empty; nobody took any heed that the
wallpaper was dirty and the old furniture
shabby. Life itself began to be bare and shabby
to the father and mother, and the house to re-
solve itself into mere shop and kltchen-
a place to work for food in and to eat IT,
But now that the girl is growing into maiden
hood, there is curious tightening and soften
ing of the homo atmosphere; the house is
daintily kept; there are prints on the WALL
vines over the window, q glass OF roses on the
breakfast table. There is piano, with her
music scattered over it; the girl has sweet
little voice of her own, and sings for her
father in the evening old-fashiOned BALLADS
which he knew when he was boy; his VIE
finds his old flute and he screws it together and
tries ga second" with his daughter. and comes
out triumphantly only o note or two IN ad-
vance, while the old lady listens delighted
and assures him that he plays as
well as ever he did. and that Nehy
has inherited her musical talent from him.
and then they try it again, the girl as enthu,
siastic as he, until the old people go 10 pea
declaring that this Greatly is music. very dr.
{" fcrent from your foreign caterwauling y
talking, when they are alone, of the serenades
and picnics and love-making of their youth.
The old man soon grows tired OF such folly
and goes to sleep, to dream of the shop or pO-
tato bugs but his wife lies awake, her gray
head full of sweet, long-fOrgotten mem
cries and busted, too, with anxiety about the
Young fellows who have begun to hang about
Nelly, child as she is. She knows precisely
the manner of man she would choose for the
girl-when it is time. Her eyes grow wet and
her thin cheeks flush as she thinks OF her
daughter, loving and beloved.
So one year slips by after another, ana tne
little girl serves the purpose OF the late red
September rose at the window. She sweetens
the air of the dull house and brings color ana
fragrance into it. Nobody notices that she
serves little other purpose; it is enough that
she makes life pleasant for the old people, takes
her brother into the society of other girls and
40 keeps him from cards and whisky; is pretty
object in every picnic or party. She knows
q little (or, if she be clever girl, great
deaD about geography, literature, science, all
in q general way, and uses her scraps OF
knowledge with an arch, nimble wit that Is
irresistibly charming. AS for work, being an
average American girl, she is apt to know a
good deal about housekeeping; also, in
general way, is skilled in cake-making,
and in turning and trimming old dresses,
besides an infnity of smaller fine
nhot ffnr- do Inpr
Turkish embroidery, and pressing ferns. While
she is at her work her thoughts, no matter
how clever or learned she be- run in the same
current, toward some real or ideal companion
who is not her brother. The Advanced Woman
would call her fancies silly and puerile, but to
all the rest of the world they are gentle and
innocent and sacred They give life and
meaning to the picture of the blue-eyed girl
sitting waiting behind her September rose.
Perhaps the herO-whO is not her brother
comes some day and puts the roses aside and
finds the warm, friendly hand within. Then
there is an end of the picture. The daughter
begins where her mother began, and presently
the baby Nelly comes and the story redupi-
Gates itself, happily or unhappily. as God and
men choose.
But suppose the hero does not come The
old father dies, and the shop or the potatoes
fail. and the brother takes to drink, or marries,
or does not marry because he must support his
mother and ssterf The girl finds that she is
as pretty and pleasant an object as ever,
CHEEKY as the rose, but somehow the world
does not give her place, az it does the rose,
gratis. When it comes to daily meals and
clothes she is by no means her own excuse for
being. She knows she WAS born to be wife
and mother, but nobody wants to marry her.
She takes stock of herself; her capital is
frightfully small to carry into the market.
Her brother was educated to earn his bread and
butter; beside the education, he had physical
strength, the habit of friction with the crowd,
something which he himself calls "cheek."
Her cake-making, Turkish embroidery, pressed
ferns, all go for nothing, when she comes to
put money value On her requirements; the
chances are that her knowledge of literature
or music is too general to fit her to teach. If
she should teach, her salary, exclusive of
board, would not, nine cases in ten, amount
to a sum more than sufficient to clOthe Ter
cheaply and stability If she goes into
store as saleswoman she is paid less than was
the cook in her fathers kitchen; and in both
these occupations there is no chance
Of advance, no career such as is ready
for her brother in every trade or profession,
unless she have great energy or skill in trade,
and the probability is that she has not par
ticle of either. She is sure to try authorship;
sends poems and tales to magazines with
request to know how much she can make per
annum if she pcrsevcres. They come back
with thanks in big yellow envelopes. She
goes out as book agent-sclls chromos.
silver-polish, heaven knows what not.