The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-08-01
The Old.FashfOned Little Girl.

ago.
She was little girl till she was iif-
teen.
She used to help her mother wash the
dishes and keep the kitchen tidy, and
she had an ambition to make pies SO
nice that papa could not tell the differ
ence between them and mammals, and
she could fry grjddle-cakes ut ten years
of age, and darn her own stockings by
the time she was twelve, to say nothing
of knitting them herself.
She had her hours of play, and en-
joyed herself to the fullest extent. She
had no very costly toys, to be sure, but
her rag doll, and the little bureau and
chair that Uncle Tom made, were just
as valuable to her as the twenty-dollar
wax dolls and elegant doll furniture
children have nowadays.
She never said 81 can't" and 81
don't want to-" to her mother, when
asked to leave her play, and run up
stairs or down on an errand, because
she had not been brought up in that
way. Obedience was cardinal virtue
in t..le old-fashioned little girl.
She rose in the morning when she
was called, and went out in the garden
and saw the dew on the grass, and if
she lived in the country, she fed the
chickens and hunted up the eggs for
breakfast.
We do not suppose she had her hair
Ill curl-papers, or crimping-pins, or
banged over her forehead, and her
tlounces were no trouble to her.
She learned to sew by making patch
work, and we dare say she could do an
'over-and-Over'' seam as we'll as nine
tenths OF the grown-up women can do
one nowadays.
The old-fashioned little girl did not
grow into a young lady and talk about
beaus before she was in her teens, and
she did not read dime novels, and was
not fancying hero in every plow-boy
she met.
She learned the solid accomplish
ments as she grew up. She was taught
the art of cooking and of keeping
house. When she got a husband, She
knew how to cook him dinner.
She was not learned in French verbs,
or Latin declensions, and her immedi-
ate neighbors were spared the agony of
hearing her pound out "The Maiden's
Prayer" and "Silver Threads Among
the Gold,' twenty times day on the
piano, but we have no doubt she made
her family quite as comfortable as the
modern young lady does hers.
1t may be vulgar assertion, and we
suppose that we are not exactly up to
the times, but we honestly believe (and
our opinion is based on considerable
and no small opportunity
for observatory that when it comes to
keeping family happy, a good cook
and housekeeper is to be greatly pre-
ferred over an accomplished scholar.
When both sets of qualities are found
as they sometimes are, then
is the household over which such a
woman has the control blessed.
The old-fashioned little girl was mod
est in her demeanor, and never talked
slang or used by-words. She did not
tlirt. She did not laugh at old people
or make fun of cripples, rs we saw
some modern little girls doing the
other day. She had respect unto her
elders, and was not above listening to
words of counsel from those older than
herself.
She did not think she knew as much
as her mother, and that her judgment
was as good as her grandmother's
She did not go to parties by the time
she was ten, and stay till after midnight
playing euchre, and dancing with any
chance young man who happened to be
present.
She went to bed in season, and doubt
less said her prayers before she went,
and she slept the sweet sleep of inno-
cence, and rose in the morning happy
and capable Of giving happiness.
And if there be an old-fashioned little
girl in the world to-day, may Heaven
bless her and keep her, and raise up
others like her.-Kate Thorn, IN n. Y.
Weekly.