Ottumwa weekly courier., 1878-07-31
Female BorrowAra.

Female Borrowers.
| In the last number of the Rural
Ne,c Yorker, Mrs. A. T.. Story has
the following sensible remarks on
female borrowers, which many rural
readers will heartily appreciate:
Does 1t ever enter into the mind of
the woman who complains Of the
borrowing propensities of her neigh
bors that the lenders are themselves
in a great measure responsible tor
the borrowing? Certain it is that
borrowers would soon "cease from
the land" if there was no one found
to encourage the thriftless habit. The
habit of borrowing grows upon one
as habits generally do, whether good
or bad, and the woman who begins
by borrowing an occasional drawing
OF tea, or hank of thread, will soon
ask you for your latest magazine, and
that before the leaves are hardly cut,
or your best table-cl 9TH when she has
company" as coOlly as tho hough she
thought you must feel it privilege
to lend them. Her table-cloths are
always "in the wash" at such times -
She is always forgetting to send to
the store for tea, sugar, starch, and a
dozen others such things, and the rea-
son she forgets is, she knows you
have them and will lend them to her.
| If her aunt's cousin is going to be
married and she is going to the we'd
ding, she is sure not to have time to
get ready for so grand and particular
an occasion, and so you are asked to
ransack your boxes and drawers for
something that will SGT off her old
dress and make her fitting wedding
guest. She will remind you while
you are doing this that her complex
ion and style of features are peculiar,
and that only certain things-which
she mentions, and which she knows
you have-will become her.
You have been years, it may be,
getting the cOnveniences of house,
keeping about you, and your neigh
Dor, who has been too slack or thrift
less to do the same for herself, uses
them. She let's her tub fall to pieces
in the sun and then does her washing
in yours. She runs her candles in
your molds, twists her stocking yarn
on the wheel your grandmother left
you, sifts her pumpkins through your
colander, and grinds her spices in
your mill, and you may count your
self fortunate if, when these are want
ed by yourself if you do not have to
60 after them.
"Please, mann, will you lend me a
little ,salve? Tommy has cut his
thumb.
"Mother would like to borrow q
little Kerosene, if you have it TO
spare"
"Pa has famed his back so he can't
work, and ma wants him to read to
her; could you lend him paper?"
"We want to 60 visiting this after
noon, and would you let us take the
baby's carriage ?"
| This is the way you are pestcred,
almost daily, If you belong to the
great army Of lenders and are so un-
fortunate as to live next neighbor to
q chronic borrower. You bear il
with meek submissiveness that has
become habitual with you, until Mrs.
Slack comes in some day and re-
quests the loan of your switch, as she
is going west on visit to her mother
and her hair-which is getting thin
couldn't have been nearer the color
of yours if it had all grown on the
same head" and "while she is there
and thinks of it she will take fine
tooth comb if you have one handy
An ominOus flush leaps into your
face at this, and your neighbor goes
home empty -handcd, doubtless 10 call
you the meanest woman alive, but
she comes back next morning for
your traveling-bag, and you lend it,
thankful that the woman has moth
er out west, and hoping that her visit
may be long one.
Now some Of these troublesome
pc ople will read this article. They
will borrow the paper to read il, and
so sponge both on the publisher and
subscriber who has paid for it, and
unless the heading should provoke
their ire as suggesting something
personal" they will want to see
whether some woman they know OF
''catches it,"
My dear friend if you are habitn-
al borrower this is for you. Don't
you know that the tea you get from
your neighbor 10 better than what
| ou tdhc DdCk Dou YOU KNOW t0At
you don't always return quite as
much as you got? And don't you
know too, that it is possible for the
neighbor to get out Of tea while she
is waiting for yon to pay her what
you owe her? And don't you some
times forget to pay it at all? Don I
you know that you burn her brass
kettle every time you have it to make
up your 'preserves? and that on
dull the knives of the sausage grind
er and then tail 10 sharpen them p
Have you never thought what trouble
you cause your neighbor when you
oblige her to send to your house for
her fiat irons every time she wants to
use them? And has it never occur
red to you that you are doing her an
injury, not only in the wearing out
of the various conveniences which
her forethought has provided, but in
appropriating to your own service
time which belongs to her and to her
family, and to which you have no
manner of right?