The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-21
VANISHING THE WORRY HABIT.

The worry COW might have lived till now
 If she hadn't lost her breath;
 But she thought her hay wouldn't last all day,
 So she worried herself to death.
 T OR years this bit of doggerel, let .
 s tered on a card, has been tackled up above my desk, where my eyes
 could rest upon 1t whenever lifted
 them from my work. Ihope shall not be thought irreverent when say that the trifiing rhymes have been associated in my mind with something far greater and deeper-a verse from the revised version of the New Testament: "Be not anxious for the morrow
 Is there woman or @ 11ousekeeper who does not know what 1t is to be the prey of worry? am not talking now of what might be termed legitimate anxieties caused by the illness or misconduct or sorrow of some one near and dear, or Of those other burdens Of financial uncer tainty and distress which 30 few of us are able to escape. Even these we might Tighten little, now and then, by looking at them in a different way from that in which most of us view them.
 But there are the other worries and especially that variety known as cross ing bridge before we come to it." Can any one of us declare that she ia free from this fault? Am l harsh when I speak of it as fault? Granted that many persons are born with this predis- position to worry. can any of us deny that it Is tendency which can be checked or encouraged by the effort Of the victim? Consider some of our most fertile sources of worry-those we love. Do we not give way to needless self-torture on their behalf?
 wish my mind would not run wild in the way 1t doesT'' said a woman to me the other day. You know there have been two or three cases of scarlet fever in our neighborhood. Last night when my husband came in little late my youngest boy reused up and asked for drink Of water and said his throat was sore. Be- fore his father could strike match and look at ths child's throat had him i'll with scarlet fever. worse. dead, had ordered my mourning. and seen myself go sorrowing for years!"
 "Was anything the matter with the throat?" inquired. with much solicitude. She laughed shamefacedly.
 "Not thing. The child had probably been sleeping with his mouth open and the thrsoat was a little dry and unoom- Sortable. There was not g. sign of infian- nation. But couldn't get to sleep for an hour afterwards, thinking of what might have been"
 Where is the mother who could not parallel the experience? We take our worries in all quarters. If the child is late coming home from school we do not, as general thing, suggest the natural explanation that he has loitered on the way or stopped to play-at least. never did. To my mind it was mucn more likely that he had met with some accident or. at the best. been kept in" If he has gone on an excursion with his mates even a trifing tardiness spells disaster, especially if the outing has been made by water or if there have been guns, or horses. or trains, or any other means of casualty connected with the trip.
 The best could hope for in those condi- dons was to keep to myself the anguish underwent and not to make the innocent causes of my woes sufferers for my folly. have known women who had less self restraint, or perhaps less perception of their own idiocy. who would fall upon the necks of their returning offspring with a recital of the anxieties undergone which entirely plotted out in the children's