Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1879-09-17
THE OLD-FASHIONED GIRL.
[selected for the Citizen.l

The old-fashioned girl that fourished
thirty years ago was little girl until
she was fifteen. She used to help her
mother to wash the dishes and keep
the kitchen tidy, and she had an ambi-
tion to make pies so nicely that papa
could not tell the difference between
them and mama's; and yet she could
| fry griddle cakes at ten years of age,
and darn her own stockings before 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 baby doll and little bureau and
| chair that Uncle Tom made, were just
as valuable to her as the $50 wax doll
and elegant doll furniture the children
have nowadays.
She never said II 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 that way.
Obedience was cardinal virtue in the
old-fashioned little girl
She rose in the morning when she
was called, and went out into the gar
den 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, crimping pins,
or had it banged" over her forehead,
and her flowers were no trouble to her.
She learned to sew by making patch
work, and we dare say she could do
an cover and over" seam as well as
nine-tenths of grown up women do
nowadays.
The old-fashioned little girl did not
grow into young lady and talk about
beaux before she was in her teens, and
she did not read dime novels, and was
fancying hero in every plow boy she
met She learned the solid accom-
plishments as she grew up. She was
taught the arts of cooking and house.
keeping. When she got husband
she knew how to cook him dinner
She was not learned in French verbs
or Latin declensions, and her near
neighbors were spared the agony of
hearing her pound out "The Maid
ems Prayer" and "Silver Threads
Among the Gold" twenty times day
on the piano, but we have no doubt
she made her family quite as comforta-
BILE 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 our opinion is based on
considerable experience and no small
opportunity for observation, that when
it comes to keeping family happy
a good cook and housekeeper is to be
crafty preferred to 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 demcanor, 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
girls doing the other day. She had
respect 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 her mother, and
that her judgment was as good as her
grandmother
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 hap
pened to be present.
She went to bed in season, 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
little girl in the world to-day may
heaven bless her and keep her, and
raise up others like her.