The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-12-04
The Old Fashioned Girl.

She houlished 80 or 40 years ago
She was a little girl until she was Is.
She used to help her mother wash the
dishes and keep the kitchen tidy, and
she had the ambition to make pies SO
nicely that papa could not tell the diff
ference between them and mamma S, and
yet she could fry griddle cakes at ten
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 en-
joyed 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 val
liable to her as the $40 wax doll and
elegant doll furniture the 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 upstairs
and down on an errand, because she had
not been brought up that way. Obedi-
ence was natural with the old fashioned
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 chick
ems and hunted the eggs for breakfast.
We do not suppose that 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 to sew by making patch
work, and we dare say could do an
''over-and-over" seam as well as nine
tenths of the grown-up women nova
days.
The olj-fashioned little 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 accomplish
ments as she grew up. She was taug ht
the art of cooking and housekeeping.
When she got husband she knew how
to cook him 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 Maidens Prayer
and "Silver Threads Among the Gold
twenty times a day on the piano, but
we have no doubt she made her family
quite as comfortable as the modern lady
does hers.
1t may be a vulgar assertion, and we
suppose we are not up with the times,
but we HONESTLY believe, and our opin-
ion is based on considerable experience,
and no small opportunity for observa-
ton, that when it comes to keeping a
family happy, a good cook and house
keeper is to be greatly preferred above
an accomplished scholar. When both
sets of qualities are found together, as
they sometimes ale, then is the house
hold over which such woman has con-
troll, blessed.
The old-fashioned little girl was mod
est in her demeanor, and she never
talked slang or used 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 re-
spect for elders, and was not above list
ening 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 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 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 lit
tie girl in the world to-day, may heaven
bless her and keep her, and raise up
others. like her.-New York Examiner.