The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-01
The Schoolgirls Churn.
BY MARGARET E. sANosTER.

Choosing partners sounds as if we
were going to play a game. and. in
fact. that is just what we are doing
every day of our lives Whether we
are in school or at home. busy or idle,
happy or sOrrowful, we are always
playing the great game that begins
when we are babies and goes on till
we are grandmotl1ers.
1t is very funny. isn't it. to think
of ever being grandmother, when
one is only II or Is or NAV he
younger? But have been looking at
the picture of a girl who is a grand
mother, a picture taken when she was
a school girl with dancing eyes and
coal black hair and merry dimpIes,
when she was as gay and light-hearted
as any of you. She wore a yellow
silk frock. and a black silk apron
with pockets and ruffies, a ruffied silk
nlantilla over her shoulders. and she
had a little bonnet tied under her chin.
1T was a droll way of dressing, but
il was the fashion then, and it looked
as pretty as your fashions do now
1t is always the face that matters
most, and fashions have little to do
with the looks of sweet girls. This
girl has never lost her beauty. nor
her trick of smiling with dfmpies that
chase one another over her face. and
she is a bewitching grandmother and
fairy godmOther to a bevy of young
people
Choosing partners was what I
thought of when I looked al her. for
she was one that everybody wanted
to choose. She had her chums, and
her comrades, and generally there was
one a wee bit dearer than the others
On the day that school opens there
may be sixty girls i'm a class, and they
may be total strangers one to another
But very soon they viii drift into
groups and inner circles of threes and
fCurs and finally you will see them
walking home together or strOIIing
about the playground or the campus,
two and two. Nothing is so unnat-
ural in a school girl as to have no
friends. Our friendships mean a
great deal to us when We are growing
up, a great deal more than older peo-
pie dream.
To share ones desk or ones room
with Il disagreeabIe girl. or with a
girl who is not in sympathy with one
is real misery. The next worst
thing is to have a chum forced on
one against her will. Occasionally a
teacher insists on putting together
two girls who belong apart. The re-
suit is seldom bliSSful. Once in awhile
a mother makes the mistake of harp
ing on the grace and the amiability
and the cleverness of Maude to Mary
and Jane, who very probably wish
nothing to do with either of the para
CONS. There is no sUrer way of an
t9POnizing a girl and setting her
against somebody else than the way of
continually praising the somebody,
end showing off her good qualities at
the expense of the other
1 remember two girls who. ought to
have been the best Of friends, but
who We're driven into condition very
much like enmity, because the one
was forever held up to the other as a
bright and shining example.
We have to choose our partners on
the road. We do it in the school
room, do it in the playground. We
do it everywhere. Our partners and
chums are the ones who best suit us [
They do not misunderstood US. We
do not have to talk with them all the (
time, or entertain them. or make any |
particular effort to be pleasing, when |
in their society. They and we may
sit in silence for hours, and yet have |
a very good time.
Our friends are our lest helpers |
They may not always like the same |
studies and the same recreations, but /
there is one thing in which they do /
not differ from ourselves; they will |
have the same standards of honor A
truthful girl cannot make a friend /
OF a hypocrite. nor an honest girl /
associate on familiar terms with one
who cheats. You will never find two
girls united in strong friendship when .
one is coarse and vulgar and the other |
modest and efned.
In friendship like attracts like.
There has to So similarity of principle /
must both be sincere, both try to do
the best of which you are capable,
and both combine to help one another