The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-10-28
.NosLy Done.
The Good Accomplished BY . Thosghtful
a HAI and Devoted Young LADY.

bn0 SOOd Accompanies " TnOoentIul
ION and Devoted YOune. Lady.
About ten years ago a gentleman liv.
ing In New York took his family to the
mountains of North Carolina TO spend
the summer. The northern visitors ut
the hotel where he aud his family
stayed were in the habit of inspecting
the mountaineers n their cabins with
amused curiosity, IS they might have
looked at wild beasts in a menagerie.
The women Of the mountains could
not read, write nor sew; they knew
how to cook nothing but the coarsest
food. Many of them had never been
inside Of a church. A prayer-meeting
held once or twice year in the hills
was the only religious service which
they had ever known.
The city visitors were Interested in
them for day or two; talked of them
with pity, or with contempt, and won.
dered how such ignorance could exist
anywhere in the United Stairs Then
they turned to the scenery. or their
hunting and fishing, and thought moth.
ing more Of the people with whom they
had so little in common.
But the daughter of the New York
merchant. girl of seventeen, went
often to their cabins, and made friends
with them. She found them anxious to
be like the women from town." She
wished to help them, but felt incapable
of doing so.
That winter, al home, she went into
the kitchen of her fathers house and
learned to make bread and to cook
meats. She learned also, from her
dressmaker, how to cut out, st and
make simple gown.
Her father the next spring buir cot
tage in the mountains, SO that the
family could remain all summer. She
invited several of the mountain girls of
her own age to form a sewing and cook
ing club. They met twice each week
at the cottage, when she taught them
what she herself had learned. The
club increased; many middle-aged
women joined it, eager to ''learn town
ways"
Not only were they taught to sew and
cook, but unconsciously they learned
from their young teacher many comedy
and healthful habits hitherto unknown
to them. The men of their families
highly approved the work which
brought comfort into their cabins.
The next summer the city girls
classes were larger. She opened school
in the cabins among the hills, and taught
the women to read and write, as we'll
as to sew and work. Her family and
even some of her pupils regarded her
work as girlish frolic, but came to a
different conclusion as she persisted IN
it year after year, and its good results
became apparent.
The ambition to be clean, to wear
decent gowns, to bake good bread and
to be able to read spread from cabin to
cabin. When she taught class in the
farther ranges, where even the itinerant
preacher never came to hold ''pra-ar, y
she read from the Bible, or sang a hymn
with her pupils, doing it as simply and
naturally as she taught them to make
bread.
| Naturally the girl became a pei
among these lonely mountaineers
They taught her, in turn, to fish, tt
shoot, and to ride their shaggy ponies
AS time passed they built one or two
school-houses at her suggestion, ant
then church.
What was the result? Religion ant
civilization have now spread through
two counties of that state. But tn,
people, as whole, were probably neve
, conscious that they owed their frs
push forward to the hand of their youn!
: northern visitor.
She died year ago. Her name viii
never be enrolled among the missiona
, ries Of any church, yet she was one o
, Gods messengers.
, The Companion tells this true story
, in the hope that at least some Of it
, readers may ask themselves whethe
; they, too, are not His messengers.
7 Neither age, nor ordination, nor cere
, mony of any kind is necessary to set u
apart for this work. We can begin te
/ day on the simplest, homeliest wa
which offers itself to bring the brothe
/ who is more needy or ignorant tina
ourselves up to a higher plane OF life
| Vn,,tL,.