The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-12-18

IN the country. And her grandmother
had such wonderfully good-natured
hired girl in the kitchen that she would
always spread Renie's bread over aga n
for her with more jam, no matter if
Renie came running back as many
as five or six times for every piece of
bread. Renie stayed in the country
about three weeks, and of course she
ate good many pieces of bread and
Jam in that time. But the bread and
Jam I'm talking about is what she ate
between meals, for at regular meal
time she preferred other food.
She had, let us say, five pieces of
bread a day; two between breakfast
and dinner, two between dinner and
supper and one piece at least after sup
PEI And they were all spread, I'll sag
four times piece, so as to be sure and
not exaggerate, though do really think
that good-natured hired girl frequently
spread them more times than that. Now
as one piece of bread spread four times
is equal to four spreads. five pieces of
bread spread four times is equal to five
times four spreads, equal to twenty
spreads of jam a day than she ought to
have hadi
And of course in three whole weeks
OF tlme-but ibid not start out to make
you get the headache over question in
mental arithmetic, so all I'll ask of you
is to just consider for one moment what
monstrous habit that jam off-the-top-
eating habit of Renie must have grown
to be in the three weeks time that she
.-- ~, at her grandmother Her NAM
ma was shocked enough when she found
it out, and no wonder. For by the
time Renie got home, the habit had
taken such deep root, and become such
a regular thing, that Renie herself was
hardly conscious of it. She would eat
the jam off her bread, and leave the
bread without eating it, just as you
would eat the mashed potato off from
your plate, and leave the plate without
eating it
So her mamma set out right away to
cure her, but she found it was not such
a very easy thing to do. For habits are
hard things to cure, especially such a
big one as this one was. She gave
Renie some bread and jam one morn
ing at half-past ten, and she said:
''Now, Renie, if you eat the jam off the
top, | shall put no more on for YOU
You ii have to eat the dry bread, or
go without till dinner-time. Do YOU
hear?'
Renie said Eyes, ma'am," and ran
out to the gate with the slice in her
hand, and then, in about one minute,
she-ate the jam off the top. And
don't you think! She didn't know she
was doing it until the jam gave out!
She was so used to, doing that way!
She started to run straight in, as usual,
to get her bread spread again, and
then she remembered that there was no
good-natured hired girl in he mamma s
kitchen. Only just firm, solemn
looking mamma, and a dreadful cross
John Chinaman. So she laid the slice
of bread on the fence, and left it there.
And the next day she did the same
thing over again. and the next day, and
the next day, and The next day, and
the next day.
The fifth day her mamma was out in
the yard, when she saw the five slices of
bread lying all in a row on the fence.
She felt very much provoked, and she
saw that her little daughter was not
cured yet, by any means, of the jam-off-
Incorporating habit. So she said:
''Renie, you need not ask me for any
bread and jam after this to eat between
meals, for 1 shall not give you any. l
see you don't really need any thing to
eat between meals, anyway, or you
would have eaten this bread. / will
cure you of two bad habits at once; eat
ing between meals, and eating the jam
off the top. 1t will be killing two birds
with one stone, you see"
And so Renie got cured. She could
not help being cured, could she. with no
jam to eat OFF from the bread, and no
bread to eat the jam off from? But |
think she was lucky girl that she had
a mamma to cure her of her habits. +
I'm really afraid she never would have
cured herself. - HOratiG Carlim, 80
Y0stth'S Companion