The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1909-04-02

Outlying district. w. y. DAVIS
A Change for the Better.
There was once good woman who
WAS tired. Now one would thiLk
that any ne would know enough to
rest, when she was tired But no,
this woman did not once think of
resting In fact, the more weary she
grew, the harder she worked She
never could get done. ner work was
always pushing her, driving her like
a cruel master. She grew nervous,
her family called it cross, she lost her
good looks. She never had time to
put on pretty dress, much less make
one, tut were ugly dark things shat
were not even clean and tidy. She
scolded her children, she argued with
her husband, she neglected her neigh
oors. Well, poor thing! Did her
family appreciate her service? Did
they love and honor her because she
was weary for their sakes? Were
they happy? Did they yearn to be
with her, and try TO tighten her
burdens? Not they! They sulksd
when she scoded, they were angry
when she argued, they left home as
soon and as often as they could, and
when they were at home, they were
all wretched together.
AT last, one day, the tired woman
got an idea, Where ii came from, or
how it came, l know not. But she
dropped her broom and dust cloth;
she shut up her sewing machine, aRd
. hung up her scissors. Then, being a
woman and very tired, she lay down
and cried. But as she rested she grew
calm, and presently her poor minS,
which was really more weary than her
body, at last began tu be rested, toe.
And it opened to the beauty OF the
day. She heard even through the
closed windows, the song OF the robin
and saw the flash of the red birds
wing in the bare trees. She went to
the door, and against her will, she
was tempted out. The pure quietness
Of the air struck her like tonic. She
caught the thrill of awakenig life
which filled all the word. And after
little, when the sky and the clouds
and the birds and the grass had filed
her heart with sense of beauty, she
turned and went back into the house.
Some impulse lead her to the mirror,
and she locked at her reflection with
eyes that saw. The untidy hair, the
soiled 2ress, the discontented mouth
she licked at them all, with eyes that
saw. She was half minded to cry
again, bu1 courage had come to her
from that breath out-of- doors, and
she tried to smile, to see if the wriuk-
les would not run upward instead of
downward around her mouth aud
eyes. She took down her straegly
hair and combed it carefully. She
found an old dress that was never.
theless clean and rather pretty. She
IdOnned a white apron, aud then, with
courage in her heart, she smiled, and
went back to her work.
When evening brought the mel
back from their WORK, and the chill
dren from school, she spoke to them
cheeriully ard gently. She smiled at
her husband when he started an argu-
ment, she offered the boy a cookie
when he was cross with his sister,
and when fierce quarrel s1rang up
midst the young people, she told them
a story which she remembered from
long ago.
When she went to bed that night,
she was weary, aud some work was
undone which she had planned to do
But she was happy aud at peace with
herself and all the world. For the
children had come to her with arms
outstretched for q goodnight kiss,
and the girls had offered to help with
the fishes, and best OF all, her has
baRd had said, my dear, you are
prettier than you were when 1 mar
ried you."
After that, she looked at the birds
and the sky and the trees every day
af heF life and uvad haunflw avar