Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-04-30
ODD BITS OF TIME.


ODD BITS OF TIME.
| The Difference Between Two Girls-Which
Would You Rather Be Like?
"Molly, what have you been doingP"
''Nothing, mamma"
what do you mean by nothing? I
left you sitting by this window half an
hour ago. Where have you been since
then?'
Nowhere, mamma. I was watch
ing the kitten"
"Watching the kitten for half an
hour! o Molly! And you promised to
help me pare the peaches"
'.Shall do them now?''
''They are all done. 1 supposed every
moment that you would come, or I
should have called you
'Tm sorry, mamma, forgot" But
Molly did not look particularly sorry,
and not at all ashamed. There was
nothing new or surprising, l regret to
say. either in the half-hour wasted or
the forgotten promise; they were things
of every day with Molly Lester.
Molly was naturally an indolent
child The blood did not dance in her
veins as a child's blood should: she felt
no quick impulses toward action and
movement. This constitutional slug
gishness of temperament was Molly S
excuse-her only one; but it was not ex-
cuse enough. For none of us are sent
into the world to do only the things we
feel like doing; and the fact that we
have naturally bias against what is
right or dutiful is but reason for fight
ing hard and steadily. and making our
selves do the duty. Scarcely any one
is born persevering, or Industrious, or
prompt, or neat-all these are habits
which must be formed by years of eff
fort; but, when formed, they are the
most valuable part of ourselves: that
which makes our living worth while to
the world and to the friends who belong
to us.
Molly Lester was not fighting with
her Incidence. She made faint resolu-
tions to do SO once in awhile, but when
the moment came for the effort she was
too apt to indulge herself, ''just this
once" or to reflect that ''only twenty
minutes more" or s'only half an hour
could make no difference, unmindful of
the fact that life is made UP of minutes
and half-hours, and that to waste them
means to waste life. A good, hard
study of vulgar fractions would have
taught her the value of parts to their
whole; but, dear me! Molly ''hated''
arithmetic, and could never be induced
to apply her mind to it.
There was another girl in the house
who was exactly the opposite of Molly.
Her name was Lucy-Lucy Lester. She
was Molly's cousin, and about the same
age. Her father and mother died with
in few weeks of'each other of typhoid
fever; and her uncle, Robert, Molly's
father, had taken her home to live with
him, and be a sister to Molly, who had
no sister of her own. The boys-there
were three-had not been at all glad to
have Lucy come. ''Girls are no fun,
they said; ''they are always sticking
about in bedrooms, and saying they
don't want to do anything, ana one is
enough in house, any how. The
boys judged all girls by Molly, but they
soon found that Lucy was of a different
sort. She didn't '.stick in bedrooms"
she liked to go rowing and fishing, to
walk in the woods and ride ON the hay
cart, as much as the boys themselves;
and. though she was always busy, she
could generally make time to mend
gloves, cover balls and be useful and
obliging.
Lucy and Molly got on very we'll
together; they seldom quarreled. Molly |
was good-humored enough. like most
lazy people; but the girls were too I'M
like in character to understand each
other very well, or to grow intimate.
Lucy had been carefully trained by an
energetic mother, who believed in ''sys-
tenn and Molly's dawdling ways were |
always irritatin g to her. Molly seldom
began any new piece of work, and never
finished what she began. Lucy had |
been taught that she must finish. This |
made her cautious not to undertake too |
much. Her impulse was to undertake
everything; but she had learned by ex-
perience that there comes time about |
the middle of all long tasks when peo-
Pile feel inclined to give them up, and |
are half sorry that they began at all. |
These ''hitching' places are like the |
''Thank-y ou-ma' ANS set in the mid |
die of long hills TO arrest the wheels a |
moment as they 60 by; but the wheels |
go all the faster after once they have
passed the obstacle, and so do the
workers who persevere.
Before she went to sleep each night, |
Lucy had pretty mucn decided In ner |
own mind what she meant to do with
ever,y hour of the next day. So much |
time for this, so much for that, each |
following each in regular sequence. |
And though a space was always left for
.'fun." Lucy knew in advance what she !
meant the fun to be. This plan had its !;
disadvantages. 1t fretted her some |
times to be interrupted and called away. |
and to have her nicely adjusted plan |
broken into. Sometimes it made her /
cross; but, on the whole. the good |
overbalanced the evil in this habit of |
hers, and she got a great deal more out |
of her time than if she had employed it |
with no method or plan in her mind.
Molly. on the contrary, began her |
days with no idea whatever as to how |
she should employ them, except the |
unconscious resolve not to do any more |
than she must. She was always late to |
breakfast; and, while Lucy helped her |
aunt to wash the breakfast cups, Molly |
sat at table idly balancing spoon over i
the edge of hers. Too often she went |
upstairs and lay on her bed half |,
asleep, when she should have been !
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