The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1879-10-24
THE OLD-FASHIONED GIRL.

/ She flOuTished thirty or forty years
| ago. She was little girl until she was
/ Is. She used to help her mother wash
/ the dishes and keep the kitchen tidy. and
| she had an ambition to make pies SC
| nicely that papa could not tell the differ
| ence between them and mammals and
! yet she could fry griddle-cakes at 1C
years of age, and darn her own stockings
before she was y, to say nothing of knit
ting 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 little bureau and chair that
/ Uncle Tom made were just as valuable
to her as the $50 wax dol and elegant
doll furniture the chill dren have now
adays
She never said ''I'can't, = and II 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 a cardinal virtue in the old fashion
ed little girl.
She rose in the morning when she was
called. and went out into 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
in curl-papers or crimping-pins, or had
it BANGED over her forehead, and her
tlOunces were no trouble to her.
She learned how to sew by making
patch-W ork, and we dare say she could
do an ''Over-and-OYer' seam as well as
nine-Jenths of the grown-up women now
adays.
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 fancy
ing a hero in every plOwbOy she met.
She learned the Stolid accomplishments
as she grew up. She was taught the art
of cooking and housekeeping. When
she got a husband she knew how to cock
him a dinner.
She was not learned in French verbs.
or Latin deClenSiOnS, and her near neigh
bOrs were spared the agony of hearing
her pound out ''The Maiden's Prayer
and ''Silver Threads among the Cold
twenty times a day on the piano, but we
make no doubt she made her family
quite as comfortable as the modern
young lady does hers.
1t may be a vulgar assertion, and we
suppose that we are not exactly up with
the times, but we honestly believe. and
perience. and no small observation, that
when it comes to keeping Il family hap
py. a good cook and hOusekeepcT is to bc
greatly preferred above an accomplished
scholar When both sets of qualities
are found together, as they sometimes
are, then is the household over which
such a woman has control blessed.
The old-fashiOned little girl was
modest in her demeanOT, and she never
talked slang or used bywoTds 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 re-
spect for elders, and was not above
listening to words of counsel from those
older than herself.
She did not think She knew as much
as mother. and that her judgment was
as good rs her CrandmOtheT's
She. did not go to parties by the time
she was 10. and stay till termidnight,
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 capa-
bic of giving happiness.
And if there be an Old-fashiOned girl
in the world to-day, may Heaven bless
her and keep her and raise up others like
her.-Nelc York Examiner.