The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1905-07-01
BY KATE uFsoN CLARK.

Sister of the Harem.
BY KATE TYSON CLARK.
tAuthor Of Bringing Up Boys" Etc,
President Of the Wheaton Club,
New York;
! Copyright, 1905. by Joseph B. Bowles)
| A young girl from the south came to
visit some northern friends. They
were well-to-do, and the girl was pref
ty and had four trunks full of clothes,
SO there was succession of elegant
entertainments given in her honor.
Isabel is q lovely girl said one of
the relatives, musingly, after the ''en-
lertainings' had been going on for a
fortnight or more; "but she has a sort
Of worn and worried look. She has
been out a good while, but she ought
not to begin to look old yet
s'She has nothing to do suggested
another. She wants to get married
and the right man does not come
along. Those southerners are too
proud to let the girl work for a living,
and yet she would be twice as happy
# she had something really strenuous
to occupy her mind
s'Oh, she keeps busy" protested the
first speaker. II have been in her
home good deal. Isabel sews and
embroiders. She oversees the house
keeping when her mother is gone
There is considerable social life in her
toWn-almost always something going
on
But that is different from having
something important that you have got
to do-something that you are inter
ested in. Now here are two women
who have just had statues erected to
| their memory. One was Frances Will
lard. She never married, but she didn't
wait around for some knight to come
along and pet her and support her
She saw that the world needed work
| ers, and she determined to put her
hand to the ploW. Just think how
much she accomplished Then there
was Mother Biekerdyi1e What a lot
Of good she did"
''Oh, yes, but those were exceptional
cases.
They were not exceptional because
there is not work enough to go around!
There is an appalling amount of work
to be done-and it must be done large
| " by the leisure women. The great
mass of women are bowed down under
| the care of their homes and families
Or they are bread winners, and have
to toll day after day until they are
| used up. 1t is to these cultured girls
| like Isabel that the world must look
| to do most of this unpaid work among
| the poor. Now our minister told us
last Sunday that our Jail was in a
| frightful condition. He said the better
I class Of prisoners preferred to sit up
| all night rather than to sleep in it's
foul cells. Who is going to study up
the subject and agitate it? Somebody
ought to do it, but the men are all too
There are plenty of women who have
the time | personally know of dozens
| Of women who spend hours of each
day just in the pursuit OF so-called
| pleasure Many Of them are young,
| highly educated and in good health.
In a general way, they know there is
work to be done. Such noble women
as Grace Dodge and Helen Gould and
Jane Adams have shown them some
thing of the Joy and the other high re-
wards which come from working to
help their fellow beings, and yet these
| butterflies do not try to hunt up this
work, nor try to till even one little
corner Of the great vineyard. .
''Wen, what would you advise Isabel
to do?"
81 should say: Keep as much as you
can from thinking about a husband.
Above all, do not stand around wait
| ing for one to come He will come
| just as quickly If you do not wait for
him. You have no special work to do
in your own home, but in your town
there is an abundance. Study the
schools, the charitable institutions. or
| the municipal government. It was a
shrewd and faithful woman who I'M
earthed some Of the worst abuses in
the school system of the great city of
| Chicago and forced d reform After
| you have become acquainted with one
or more of the different fields, choose
which one you will labor in. Get in
terested in it, Work in it, and induce
your friends to work in it. Allow
yourself to get tired every day in it.
Then go to bed and sleep soundly-
and go at it again
THAT is what / should say to Isabel
and to every other girl who is situated
as she is This hanging around, wait
| ing for a husband, is unworthy bust
ness for a conscientious, intelligent
| young woman. If only the unoccupied
young girls in the community would
try to search out work that ought to
| be done, and ways of doing it, / be-
| lieve the problems which 'feaze' US now
| in social and civil life would be half
solved. Certainly that worn and wor-
ried look which is on the faces of
many Others besides Isabel would dis
| appear"
But you wouldn't have our very
young girls so into these evil places ?"
.sOh, let the older ones take the lead.
Then they can set the younger ones
| 10 work. There is enough that is suit
able for each kind. The main thing IS
to have something useful to occupy
the minds Of these young women 2
This reasoner had gTasped a great
4 truth
There is no girl less likely to be
married than the girl who acts as if
she wanted to be. It might seem as