The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1880-01-21
The Old.Fashioned Girl.

A writer in the Examiner and Chronicle
saws that the blessing of heaven may
fall upon any "old- fashioned girl" He
once knew such girls, and sketches a
portrait of one of them as follows:
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 diff
ference between them and mammals.
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 enjoyed
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
lust as valuable to her as the twenty
dollar wax doll and elegant doll furni-
ture the children have nowadays.
She never said, /" can't" 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
OCCh O1OhSAb u IA bAOO
Obedience was cardinal virtue in
the old-fashioned little girl.
We do not suppose she had her hair
it q banged" over her forehead, and her
fGunces 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 we'll as nine
tenths of the grown-up women do now
a-days.
The old-fashioned little girl did not
grow into d young lady and talk about
beaux before she was in her teens, and
she did not read dime-noVels, and was
fancying a hero in every plOw-boy
she met.
She learned the solid accomplish
ments as she grew up. She was taught
the art of cooking and housekeeping.
When she got husband, she knew how
to cook him a dinner.
She was not learned in French verbs
or Latiu declensiCns, and her near
neighbors were spared the agony of
hearing her pound out "The Maiden's
Prayer" and "Silver Threads Among
the Gold" twenty times day on the
piano.
But we have no doubt she made her
family quite as comfortable as the
modern young lady does hers.
It may be vulgar assertion, but we
honestly believe that when it comes to
keeping a family happy, a good cook
and hOusekeeper is to be greatly pre-
ferred above an accomplished 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
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 her 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 slept
the sleep of innocence, and rose up in
the morning happy and capable of giving
happiness.