The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1895-04-19

Miss Susanna, sententiouslv.

| loss HOW W cAcCutc lleIu
Begin at the beginning" said Miss Sus-
anna. Begin this minute, and call to Ned
to give up going swimming, and cut the
wood for your fire tomorrow morning,
while Tom draws the water and puts the
salt fish in to soak and grinds the coffee,
and Jack waters the vegetables. They are
over there at the wood-pile, making rab-
bit-traps. this minute. William John can
give up cleaning his gun, and weed the
vegetables his father planted, instead of
your breaking your back over them, as I
saw you doing yesterday. And when you
get up in the morning, do you set the twins
to sweeping and making beds. Andteach
them all to sew, Anna, the last mother
daughter of them. If there is a thing l de-
spise to see, it's a man that can't sew on a
button for himself in Nova Zembla with a
threaded needle put in his hand, waXed
and knotted. They are poor creatures at
best; but they were never meant to be the
sticks that some of them come to. 1t is
we women that take all the man out of
them, and make them helpless, selfish, and
rough and grasping, and overbearing, and
cantankerous cumbers of the earth! We
spoil them by doing everything for them.
I'm for making them do everything for us.
They never will be worth much. no mat
ter how you fix it, but they can be made
useful-under direction. Now you take
my advice. You are a delicate woman,
and you are sort of woman that likes to
slave for her men-foik. But don't you do
it-for their sakes. They'll be twice the
boys they would otherwise be if you make
girls of them. And you'll live to green
old age, in clover, better loved and more
respected by them than if you were to
make hash of yourself every day and serve
yourself up on toast. Mother will be
everything with them, you'll see."
Thus encouraged, Mrs. Morgan made a
great departure and aphorically popped
her seven lads into petticoats and pinafores
from that moment. The boys were nice
boys to begin with, it is true. Miss Su-
sanna, too, talked each of them into the
firm belief that he was to take his fathers
| place, and convinced each one that he was
the prop and mainstay of his mother
At first Ned, who was as lazy and as
proud as Spaniard, felt inclined to sulk
when he was required to do certain dis
! tinctly menial offices, and said it wasn't
boys work. and not fit for HIM
Pooh! Nonsenser' said Miss Susanna
cheerfully looking over the fence at him.
You amt a boy now; you are girl.
Remember that. If it isn't fit for you, it
certainly isn't fit for your. mother 1t is
you or she who must do it, and know you
are too much of a man to put rough work
off on woman. And when you've done,
Ned, step in. There's a cold apple-tart on
the pantry shelf waiting for a good girl
to eat it,
Miss Susanna knew human nature; more,
she knew boy-nature. She made light of
the whole matter with infinite good nature.
She backed up Mrs. Morgan whenever she
showed symptoms of relaxing, or giving
up the new system. And it was astonish-
ing what an influence Miss Susanna gained
and kept over her girls" by her hearty,
cherry, kindly counsels-astonishing how
often good things were left over" or
spoiled in the baking" or lin danger of
moulding" at Honeysuckle cottage, two
doors below the Morgans; requiring I'M
peratively from three to five girls" to re-
store the domestic balance of affairs there.
At first, too, Tom was disposed to draw
the line at bread-making; but what did that
artful Miss Susanna do but offer watch
as prize for the best loaf of bread from
that household? Which set all the boys
fermenting like their own yeast, and sent
them all head over heels into the flour bar
rel, and inaugurated series of "larks' that
almost took the roof off the house, but re-
suited in two loaves of bread that French
upon Miss Susanna came down handsome
" with two nice silver watches that were
much appreciated, and henceforth bad
bread was a thing unknown in that house
hold. BY devices like these the ball was
set rolling, and, once set rolling, rolled on
with momentum of its own. In a few
years the Morgan girls were the pets,
the pride, the standing joke of Winnville.
They could take sewing mac hine to pieces
and put it together again like a profess
ional. They ran it altogether under Mrs.
Morgan's supervision, and sewed, and
pressed their own suits and worked their
own holes like so many little tailors,
having, indeed, taken lessons from Mrs.
Shearer, the tailor of the place. The most
notable housewife could have found moth
ing to quarrel with in the perfect cleanli-
ness, order, and propriety of the Morgan
menage, and the twins, in sweeping, dust
ing, and bed-making, might have put to
the blush most Milesian maidens of much
experience At church fairs and bazaars
Charley's cakes were actually respectfully
canvassed for by committees of married
ed and gossipped over the well-known cul
mary triumphs of the lad. At the State
fair it was Charley who got a handsome
silver water-pitcher for his fruit cake.
and, not content with these successes, the
BOYS took to wood-carving, to cabinet
making, to jig.sawing. Arthur in odd
hours, learned shoemaking, and was turn
ing out in two years oXfords for his moth
er with patent leather tips and fancy stitch
ings and black bows, of which she was so
vain that the boys declared she kept her
foot stuck out all the time ever afterward.
The elder boys had their regular work as
machnists, and in a telegraph office; the
younger ones went to school; but all the
same, they found or made time for all these
other trades, accomplishments, occupa-
tons. And it was the pride and JOY of
their hearts to dress, protect, support, and
pamper their mother. The lads grew daily
o1avar marc manly moro rapt Ia md