The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1892-12-23

intense worry is, as | have frequently
noticed, to give the object of it the sense
of having suffered for length of time
beyond the'power of computation. The
phrase, "an eternity Of VICE." is by no
means a mere poetical trope, but very
real experience, as l fear too many Of
you who read these lines know from a
bitter experience, while, on the other
hand, the hours or days of real happi-
ness dotted along through life seem
SO brief and so far away when once they
are passed that we almost doubt if we
ever actually experienced them, or If in
deed they were no more than one OF
those morning dreams apparently COW
ering hours, but which waking reason
tells us only filled the half minutes be-
tween the servants first and second
knock upon the bedroom door.
Again, the poets have, as indeed they
| generally do, seized upon the true in
wardness of the situation when they
speak Of "dream of delight" "vision
of joy" Just think of it! "An eternity
of woe" and ''dleam of delight" and
yet both events may, by the measure OF
the clock, have occupied the same length
Of time.
But to return little to our muttons.
Take the case of girl at homeland l
dare say some girl reading this will
think l mean her, and somebody not
girl will Immediately fit the cap to the
head of some friend of their own, but
really mean no girl in particular, but,
alas, great many girls in generals
girl, we will say. whose parents are in
very moderate circumstances, and yet
not poor enough to allow their daughter
to go out into the world to earn her own
living. She must stay at home and "be
subject unto her parents"
She must do the work which if it
were done for q stranger would bring
her in a solid income, while at home she
is paid in food, not such as she could
fancy perhaps; in clothes, each garment
of which represents separate pang Of
modification and disappointment, and
in good deal of scolding and fretting
at from a sickly or overworked mother
and a harassed father. The girl feels,
bitterly feels, that the days of her youth
and good looks are passing by; that she
| is losing those chances of untold pros
perity and joy which every girl believes
oh, sweet Jacksonville within her
reach if only she could get her hands
free to grasp at them. She knows that
unless some new opportunity is offered
to her before long the day will come
when she, too, will be peevish and sickly
and fretted into wrinkles and sallow-
ness as her mother is now, and it may
we'll be without her mothers solace Of
having fulfilled woman's destiny and
taken rank as wife and mother.
Perhaps it is even worse than this;
perhaps the girl is actually i'll used; per-
haps the father drinks, and the mother
Is a vixen, and the rough boy brothers
are allowed to tease and tyrannize and
bully their sister as only rough boys can.
| In either case here Is a life being
spoiled and crushed, and yet capable Of
being saved by the Intervention of some
strong hand and masterful will. But
if this good girl is of Lotty's way Of
thinking, and considers that NUNS the
word" is the best rule Of life, she will
| simply refrain from trying to summon
that hand and will to her rescue, and
will, after some years of desperate strug-
gle, go under the waves and add one
more to "the noble army of martyrs"
each one Of whom adds her little item to
the account mankind is scoring up
against fate-an account probably to be
repudiated in the end, since it can never
be paid off.
but perhaps the girl, having stuck to
her motto of "Mums the word" finds
her release comes through some William
or Thomas or Jack or Joseph, who offers
her marriage. Naturally the poor child
grasps at any means of escape from her
dreary life and does not too closely
scrutinize what it offers instead. She
marries in haste and, alas! repents at
leisure. Jack or Joseph turns out to be
different from the father from whose
grumbling she has escaped, but not, on
the whole, any better. He does not
grumble or growl so much certainly,
but he laughs and sneers, which is
| worse. The father dealt out his money
| sparingly for the new gown that could
not be refused, but the husband, if
urged too far, swears angrily that he
has none to give and bids her make
over her old things or buy them out of
the magnificent dowry she brought him,
when, poor child, she knows that he
knows the price Of her wedding gown is
not yet scrimped out of the poor house.
hold she has left.
Perhaps, on the other. hand, Jack or
, Joseph is foolishly careless of money,
spends what he can get as soon as it
comes to hand, and lives for the rest of
the month on credit, as she is also well
come to do if she can get anybody to
give it to her, for a Jack or Joe of this
kind had as lief be in debt for hun
dred dollars as for ten, since he never
intends to pay either. We all know the
end of this career-debt, failure, pro-
cesses at law, bankruptcy, ruin, misery
of every sort. The children come, and
their mother remembers in shame and
vain regret her resentment against her
own poor mother, now that she finds her
self also growing neevish and comnlaiD-