Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1879-11-13
The Old Fashioned Girl,

She flourished thirty or forty years
ago. She was little girl until she
was fifteen. 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 difference between
them and mammals, and yet she could
try grindle 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 rag doll and little bureau and
chair that Uncle Tom made were Just
as valuable to her as the $40 wax doll
and elegant doll furniture the children
have nowadays.
She never said 81 can't" and "I
don't want to, to her mother, when
asked 10 leave her play and run up
stairs or down or on an errand, be-
cause she had not been brought up in
that way. Obedience was a 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 or crimping-pins, or had
it banged" over her forehead and her
tlounces were no trouble to her.
She learned to sew by making patch
work, and we dare say she could do an
"over-and-over" seam as well as nine
tenths of the grown-up women now-a-
days.
The old-fashioned little girl did not
grow into young lady AMI 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 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
ncighbors were spared the agony of
hearing her pound out "The Mai lem s
Prayer" and "Silver Threads among
the Gold" twenty times a day on the
piano, but we have no doubt she made
her company quite as comfortable as
the modern young lady does hers.
1t may be vulger assertion, and we
suppose that we are not exactly up
with the times, but we honestly be-
lIeve and our opinion is based on con-
siderable experience, and no small
opportunity for observation, and when
it comes to keeping family happy, a
good cook aud housekceper is to be
greatly preferred above an accomplish
ed 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 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 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 mother, and that her judgement was
as good as grandmother's.
She did not 20 to parties by the time
she was ten, and stay till after mid.
night playing eucher 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 little
girl in the world to-day, NAV heaven
bless her and keep her, and raise up
others like her.