Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-10-23
The OId.FaShiOned Girl.
New York Examiner.

The OId.FashiOned Girl.
New York Examiner.
She fourished thirty or forty years
ago. She was little girl until she was
10. She used to help her mother wash
the dishes and keep the kitchen tidy,
and she had an ambition to make pies
so nicely that papa could not tell the diff
ference between them and mammals;
and yet she could fry griddle-cakes at
10 years of age. and darn her own stock.
ings before she was II, to say nothing of
knitting them herself.
She had her hours of play, and enjoy
ed herself to the fullest extent. She had
no very costly toys, to be sure, but her
rag doll and bureau and chair that I'm
Gle Tom made were just as valuable to
her as the 20.wax dolls and the elegant
doll furniture the children have nova
days.
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. Obedi-
ence was cardinal virtue in the 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 chick
ems and hunted up the eggs for break
fast
We do not suppose she had her hair
in curl-papers or crimping-pins, or had
it Changed" over her forehead, and her
founces were no trouble to her.
She learned how to sew by making
patchwork, and we dare say she could
do an "over-and over" seam as we'll as
nine-tenths of the grown-up women
nowadays.
The old-fashioned girl did not grow
into a young lady and talk about beaux
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 accomplishments
as she grew up. Shew taught the arts
of cooking and housekeeping. When
she got a husband she knew how to cook
him dinner.
She was not learned in French verbs,
or Latin declensions, and her near
neighbors were spare the agony of
hearing her pound out ''The Maiden's
Prayer" and 'Silver Threads among the
Gold'' twenty times a day on the piano,
but we have no doubt she made her fam
lily as comfortable as the modern young
lady does hers.
It may be a vulgar assertion, and we
suppose that we are not exactly up with
the times. but we honestly believe, and
our opinion is based on considerable ex-
perience, and no small observation. that
when it comes to keeping family hap
py, a good cook and house-keeper is to
be greatly preferred above an accom-
plished scholar. When both sets of
qualities are found together, as they
sometimes are, then is the household
over which such woman has control
blessed.
The old-fashioned little girl was mod.
est in her demeanor, and she never used
slang or by-words. She did not laugh at
Old people or make fun of cripples, as
we saw some modern little girls doing
the other day. She had respect for ell
ders, and was not above listening to
words Of counsel from those older than
herself
She did no think she knew as much
as her mother, and that her judgment
was as good or better than her grand
mothers.
She did not go to parties by the time
she was 10, 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 slept the sleep of innocence and rose
up in the morning happy and capable of
giving happiness.
And if there be an old-fashioned girl
la the world to-day, may Heaven bless
her and keep her, and raise up others
like her.