The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1898-05-13


romances, and sighed idly to the winds,
and wept over imaginary songs to the
brooks. No, she knew that work was
honorable, and that every girl ought
to have something to do, and so she
starts with the bleating and lowing and
believing and neighing droves to the
well for the watering.
Around every home there are flocks
and droves of cares and anxieties, ana
every daughter of the family, though
there be SEVEN ought to be doing her
part to take care of the fiocks. In
many households, not only is Zipporah,
but all her sisters, without practical
and useful employments. Many OF
them are waiting for fortunate and
prosperous matrimonial alliance, but
some lounger like themselves VIII
come along, and after counting the
large number of father Jethro's sheep
and camels will make proposal that
will be accepted; and neither OF them
having done anything more practical
than to chew chocolate caramels, the
two nothings will start on the road or
life together, every step more and more
failure. That daughter of the Midi
anitish sheik will never find her Moses.
Girls of America! initiate Zipporah.
Do something practical. Do something
helpful. Do something well. Many
have fathers with great fiocks OF alb
sorbing duties, and such a father needs
help in home, or office, or field. 20
out and help him with the fiocks. The
reason that so many men now condemn
themselves to unbalanced and solitary
life is because they cannot support the
modern young woman, who rises at
half-past ten in the morning and re-
tires after midnight, one of the trash
lest novels in her hands most of the
time between the late rising and the
late retiring-a thousand of them not
worth one Zipporah.
There is a question that every father
and mother ought to ask the daughter
at breakfast or tea table, and that all
the daughters of the wealthy sheik
ought to ask each other: What would
you do if the family fortune should fail,
if sickness should PROSTATE the bread
winner, if the flocks of Jethro should
be destroyed by sudden excursion of
wolves and bears and hyenas from the
mountain? What would you do for
living? Can you support yourself? Can
you take care of an invalid mother or
brother or sister as well as yourself?"
Yea, bring it down to what any day
might come to a prosperous family,
Can you cook dinner if the servants
should make a strike for higher wages
and leave that morning." Every min
ute Of every hour of every day of every
year there are families flung from pros
perity into hardship, and alas! If in
such eXigency the seven daughters of
Jethro can do nothing but sit around
and cry and wait for some one to come
and hunt them up situation for which
they have no qualification. Get at
something useful; get at it right away!
Do not say: eff l were thrown upon
my own resources | would become a
music teacher" There are now more
music teachers than could be supported
if they were all Mozarts and Wagners
and Handles. Do not say: 81 will go
to embroidering slippers" There are
more slippers now than there are feet.
Our friend and Washington towns
man, w. w. Corcoran, did magnifi-
cent thing when he built and endowed
the Louise Home" for the support of
the unfortunate aristocracy of the
south-the people who once had every
thing but have come to nothing. We
want another w. w. Corcoran to build
a Louise Home" for the unfortunate
aristocracy of the north. But institu-
tions like that in every city of the land
could not take care of one-half the I'M
fortunate aristocracy of the north and
south, whose large fortunes have failed,
and who through lack of acquaintance
with any style of work, cannot now
earn their own bread.
There needs to be peaceful, yet rad
ical revolution among most of the pros
porous homes of America, by which the
elegant uO-uOluluSo may NC u dHolOl LII
ed into practical do-somethings. Let
useless women go to work and gather
the fiocks. Come, Zipporah, let me in
troduce you to Moses! But you do not
mean that this man affianced to this
country girl was the great Moses OF
history, do you? You do not mean that
he was the man who afterward
wrought such wonders? Surely you
do not mean the man whose staff
dropped, wriggled into serpent, and,
then, clutched, stiffened again into a
staff? You do not mean the challenger
of Egyptian thrones and palaces? You
do not mean him who struck the rock
so hard it wept in a stream for thirsty
hosts? Surely, you do not mean the
man who stood alone with God on the
quaking Sinaitic ranges; not him to
whom the Red sea was surrendered?
Yes, the same Moses defending the sew
en- daughters of the Midianitish sheik;
who afterward rescued a nation.
See also in this call Of Moses that
God has a great memory. Four hun
bred years before he had promised the |