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GIRLS, what are you going to do with life? Develop it, make the most of the talents God has given you and accomplish something for the world, or sit calmly down and wait for the impossible to happen, or dream idly of what you would like to be if your surroundings were only different?

Madame Ristori stated once in answer to a question asked by a young girl, that "having too many talents is as bad as not having any." Not but what it is a thing to be thankful for if one is blessed with many talents, but that one should develop the single talent in which perfection may be reached, and which may perhaps bring the success of a lifetime. I once heard an old farmer say of his son:

"I'm kind o' puzzled what to make o' my Bedford. Sometimes I think he'll make a minister, and then ag'in his gift o' gab sort o' recommends him for a lawyer. So I d'no' what to make of such a smart boy." "Well," answered a neighbor, "if I were in your place I'd try, first of all, to make a man of him. Sometimes I think we need good men more than we need ministers and lawyers." The remark impressed me very much at the time, especially as this same Bedford had not seemed to his young companions as a very promising youth.

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When he grew up to be a man he went into a bucket factory, where he has since been working at day wages, although I am told he is a good man, if not a great one.

Do we not need good women to-day more than we need brilliant women? But the world needs us more than ever before in some line of effort which shall really count toward the sum of human happiness and real accomplishment. Did you ever stop to think what fortunate girls you are to have been born just when you were and to be girls just now? Fifty years ago a girl could do nothing beyond teaching a dame school, and was not even allowed to attend a high school, or to study anything beyond the primary branches. If she failed in school teaching, possibly she might be allowed to keep a small thread and needle shop--although this was hardly deemed respectable--and a girl could only depend on her nearest male relative for a living.

To-day girls in almost every position in life are wondering what they shall do for a living. Shall a girl go into business, study for a profession, go on the stage, take up art, or strike out on some new line into paths hitherto untrod? Like their brothers, the girls of to-day want to be something, do something, accomplish something. Now, then, how shall they go to work to do this? Not by dreaming all day long, although as long as girls are girls, doubtless some dreaming will be done. Dreaming is the poorest of all grindstones on which to sharpen the wits. There is only one thing to do: have a fixed purpose and stick to it. Around this you will soon find your dormant ideas, hopes and possibilities anchored. You will find in your cranium that a resolute aim takes the place of an aimless reverie.

No man has ever yet succeeded who did not have a definite aim in life. From the dawn of thought in his sturdy young brain he has been taught that, if he ever meant to be a living power in the world, he must settle on a definite purpose and stick to that one thing if he would reach the pinnacle of success. In the past, girls who are quicker of wit, swifter in mental process, less unwieldy in judgment, and every bit as active in mind, have not been taught the power of concentration. They have been allowed to sit down and wait for the handsome prince to descend upon them, lay all his fortunes at their feet, and carry them off in a golden chariot to some castle in Spain. To-day this is all nonsense. In fact, it always was, only to-day we are finding it out. "Paddle your own canoe," has come to be just as much the motto of the girls as of the boys, only you want to be sure that you are paddling it into the swift current of your strongest and noblest inclination.

First of all, remember one thing: that a "jack of all trades" is good at none. I would rather see a girl of mine possessed by a steady purpose and a plodding, thorough disposition, than to have her one of those brilliant creatures who can paint passable pictures, sing fairly well, write a poem or an occasional story, talk readily on any subject that is offered, do a bit of artistic fancy work, and yet excel

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in nothing. Of the two, give me the girl with one talent and the patience to cultivate it to its utmost possibilities, and I will back her at the age of thirty-five against any of your brilliant girls with a smattering of every possible gift except a gift of plodding, patient application.

Select your specialty, then, and cultivate it. The world wants your best and needs it. You can make for yourself a place which shall command the respect and honor of the world, and possibly may shine in the galaxy by whose light centuries take their places in the firmament of history. There is no more practical form of philanthropy than this because every girl who makes herself a high place in the world's roll of workers leaves a place lower down for some woman who, but for this chance, might be tempted into wrong paths, or to let go her hold on right endeavor. Whoever fits herself for some employment involving good pay and higher social recognition, graduates from the lower grades and leaves them to those who cannot advance, and so helps the world of women in a substantial way.

"Be not simply good; be good for something;" said Henry D. Thoreau. Remember, when going forth from the garden of your early dreams into some avenue of honest hard work, that "the world is all before you where to choose." Will you select an esthetic calling like drawing, engraving, designing? Will you be an editor, an architect, an artist? Will you be a lawyer, a minister, a physician? Have a real searching talk with yourself before you decide. Don't take the advice of admiring friends alone, who will be sure to tell you that you can do anything and do it well without a preliminary course of preparation. Decide seriously which gift you will cultivate, and then stick to the development of that one. If you choose the ministry or the bar, plan all your studies to that end just the same as your brother would. If you are to be a musician, study music, particularly that of the best masters, and don't stop when you can entertain your friends, but only when you can so charm the public that they will pay and pay well for your music. Remember that for any profession it takes a long course of study before any real and substantial success can be looked for. It is not what comes to you, but what you come to that determines whether you are to be a winner in the great race of life.

If you decide on chemistry or mathematics or stenography or farming, make up your mind that you will be the best chemist or professor or stenographer or farmer that it is possible to be. Nowadays a girl may be anything, from a college president down to a seamstress or a cash girl. It depends only upon the girl what rank she shall take in her chosen calling. Set the goal of your ambitions, and then climb to it by steady, earnest steps. In this way you cannot help accomplishing something in the end, and instead of dreaming and hoping and longing indefinitely for a life of romance wherein impossible heroes shall give all

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and demand nothing, you will become a strong factor for good in the sum of human happiness. Even when this impossible hero does appear in the background of your dreams he will resemble the actual man; and when you marry--for surely girls will go right on marrying and becoming good wives and mothers in the real old-fashioned way which the Lord designs for girls--you will marry not an impossible man, not the hero of the silly girl's dream, but a man whom you will love and respect, and who will cherish you all the more because you have a practical knowledge of the world's needs and have not been afraid to demonstrate it by earnest endeavor.

I believe that each one of you has a "call" to some specific work which is indicated by God's gift of heart or hand or brain to you.

"The world owes me a living," is a common expression. You owe the world much more than a living; you owe it a duty. You owe it the best part of your life either in one way or another. In the evolution of your powers do not think of yourself alone. If you acquire, let it be that you may share your talents with others; if you achieve, let it be that others may enjoy the glow of your prosperity. The soul, like the sun, should radiate every particle of light it contains. We are human spirit lamps designed by Providence to light up other lives by our own unceasing purpose. Do not forget that there is one indestructible material which nothing in the way of adversity or discouragement can ever overcome, and that is character.

Have that good searching talk with yourself; decide what you will be; then say to yourself--say it early, say it oftenFail me not, Thou.

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THE girl just from school and standing on the threshold of womanhood with life stretching out before her is apt, in her ambition, to pass by the duty nearest to her and look far afield for her life work. Jennie June says, "Distance lends enchantment to work, as to other things; and the girl who sits idly at home or has to face the problem of having no home to sit in, idly or otherwise, feels most of all the necessity of flying from her present surroundings and making a new departure elsewhere away from existing scenes and circumstances. The unwisdom of the step she will not consider. It presents itself to her as a necessity. She does not realize how much of the seemingly imperative nature of the case is born of desire for change."

I want just here to say a word to girls outside the large cities who think the career for which they so ardently long may be seized at a grasp within the boundaries of the town. There can be no fallacy more fatal than this. The city is no place to come, expecting to find employment, unless one has friends who can use influence in her behalf, and befriend her when she comes, friendless and strange, into the midst of a new life.

Workers are plenty in the cities. To find this out one has only to go into the office of some merchant who has advertised for extra help. If fifty are wanted, five hundred will come. Four hundred and fifty have to be disappointed, of course. All these applicants are from the city or its near suburbs, and with all this army to choose from, what chance does the girl stand who is unused to city ways?

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I have heard country girls talk of coming to the city for employment, giving as one reason that they wanted more social life. They will not get it, for the woman of business is not the woman of leisure and she has no time for society. She will find more social life in her own home than she ever could have in the city, and there is no lonesomeness more absolute than the lonesomeness of the stranger in a crowd. Salaries are not large enough to permit much relaxation in the way of entertainment, and after an absorbing day's work, one is too worn out to go in search of enjoyment. In the country home in these days the daily paper and magazine keep one in touch with the world, even if it be far away from the bustle and confusion of city life. The fashion articles tell the girl how to dress her hair and make her gown and give her the latest notion in small toilet details. No town is so small that it has not its public library where the new books come, and the lecture and concert are not infrequent in visits. Railways and telegraphs have brought the corners of the earth together so that one is never very far away from the centre of things. There are plenty of occupations for the girls who stay at home if they will only seek for them.

I can see the impatient frown which will come upon many faces as this is read, but all that I say is absolutely true.

Of course, if a girl has a special talent in any one direction, if she feels it so borne in upon her that only in the exercise of this talent can she find happiness and reward, then by all means let her cultivate it. That is her duty. She has no right to neglect any God-given heritage. But it is not to this girl that I am talking. She will find her way and make it if, besides her talent, she has perseverance and a belief in the possibility of her own success.

The girl I mean is the average girl; she who has no special predilection for any branch of work, but feels that she must do something. She is not content to be an idler, but as yet has no definite idea of the sort of worker she would like to be. And unless she has definite purpose, it will be worse than useless for her to undertake to do battle with the world and expect to be victor.

This girl should look about her, find the needs of the community in which she lives, and endeavor to fill one of these by her own work. Most of these needs are apt to be homely ones, but none of them unpleasant; they bring the girl into kindly, helpful contact with her neighbors, and she not only enjoys the social intercourse which she thus obtains, but in addition, she earns for herself an income sufficient to meet all her modest needs and possibly, leave something over for the little luxuries which every girl covets and which it is natural that she should desire.

A clever newspaper woman has made some very bright suggestions for this very class of girls. In every community there are mothers of children who are always needing patterns of little garments. These patterns are expensive and

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[image: WHAT MY HAND FINDS TO DO.]

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many a mother is compelled to hesitate before buying a pattern which costs twenty-five cents and which, perhaps, will be used but a single time. Let one of my girls come to the aid of these perplexed mothers. Begin by securing a number of large sheets of wrapping paper and a few simple patterns of children's clothing. Many of these you can borrow from obliging friends, or, if you are a clever girl and have made clothes for your own dolls, you may make the patterns for yourself. You will find that you can design more original, more artistic and more becoming things than you can buy, and you will thus have an opportunity of exercising whatever gifts you may have in this direction. Cut patterns of boys' short trousers; blouse waists and jackets; of girls' underclothing, dresses and aprons, and all sorts of dainty baby clothes. Then put a short advertisement in your local newspaper, stating that you are prepared to sell these home-made patterns, or to cut the garments themselves for ten cents each; and you will soon find many a silver dime coming in from this source as soon as mothers find out the convenience and economy of this arrangement.

Can you make a pretty bow? Twist the brim of a hat into all sorts of impossible shapes? Make the most impossible bonnet becoming to its wearer? Then you've got an income right at your fingers' ends. Become a home milliner. If you have a knack of doing this sort of thing all your friends know it and they will be glad to employ you, especially if with the knack you have originality in design and sufficient artistic taste to know what will suit each taste. I know a family of girls all but one of whom owns her inability even to tie a bow; they can do all sorts of other things, but a bit of ribbon is a poser to them all. The one exception, however, makes up for the lack of the others, and she can do anything with a piece of ribbon, a bit of lace and a bunch of posies. She makes all the family bonnets and so pretty are they that she is often begged by friends outside of the family to trim a hat or bonnet for them. At first she did this with only thanks for pay, but she found her time so taken up that she felt she could not afford it; so she began by telling her friends that while she was willing to give them the benefit of her artistic taste and her clever fingers, she must have some pay for her time. Now she makes enough money to at least buy her own materials and many coveted articles for her wardrobe.

The value of the home milliner to her patrons is, that she doesn't disdain to make use of the materials at hand. The professional milliner would disdain even to use them, to say nothing of suggesting any use for them. It is because the home milliner is willing to be economical, because she is interested and anxious to help out, that she becomes valuable to her patrons. In place of having them come to her, she goes to them; she looks over the contents of their boxes and sees the possibilities; she will steam and brush the matted velvet until its pile is restored and it looks almost as fresh as new. She knows how laces can be restored

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and how ribbons can be cleansed; she can curl straightened feathers and do all such little, but important things, and is interested to do it. She saves her patrons many a dollar and in this way proves herself invaluable.

The girl who can cook well can easily form a cooking class among her friends, or even among older women, which shall meet once a week in the kitchens of the different members; have a course of six or twelve lectures comprising the making and baking of bread, muffins, rolls, the preparation of soups, salads, oysters, and above all, the making of rechauffes, as the French call the delicious dishes made from the left-overs of some meal, which American house keepers are likely to throw away or to waste by not understanding the appetizing way of preparing them. The teacher may, if she likes, add a supplementary course which shall include elaborate desserts, fancy ices, and many of the decorative dishes which all women like to know how to prepare and which they take great pride in using on special company occasions. In making the price of your course of lessons, you will have to take into consideration the cost of materials which you use, as well as the value of your time. If your class numbers eight or more you can well afford to give the lessons at $2.00 a course for the simpler dishes, and at $3.00 for the more elaborate ones. This is assuming that you have twelve lessons in the course. If you wish, you may at the conclusion of each course give an exhibition and food sale, which will add to your profit and increase the interest of your pupils.

I don't know whether the girl in the country is still taught to do up fine laces and muslins as a part of a gentlewoman's accomplishment, but if she is, many a girl can make a good income by washing fine laces, muslin embroideries, as well as flannel and bed blankets. If you were near a large town you would be almost overwhelmed with work of this kind, particularly during the spring and autumn months during house-cleaning time, for every housekeeper is unhappy in sending these things to the laundry or trusting them to the tender mercies of the washerwoman.

Delicate home-made candies are always in demand. Children are fond of sweets, and doctors have decided that confectionery made from pure sugar is not harmful when taken in small quantities, and may be in certain cases really beneficial. The girl who can make these candies will find a ready sale for them in any community, but especially in one in which there are school girls or shop girls. She must take care to put them up daintily so as to make them attractive, and she can easily sell them for twenty-five cents for a half-pound box. During the holiday season she will find it profitable to solicit orders for special candies which may be used in decorating Christmas trees, in putting up in bags for Sunday-school festivals, or in dainty boxes as holiday gifts.

I know a young woman who paid her way through college by the preparation of meat for mince pies, and also by furnishing a specified number of pies for one

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of the college houses each week during the cold months. In summer she made fruit pies to take the place of the mince.

The girl who is fond of her needle may find occupation by making pretty things to sell for Christmas, birthday or wedding gifts. Hemstitched linen or lawn handkerchiefs with lace edges, embroidered doylies, tray cloths, centrepieces, and five o'clock tea cloths will always find buyers. By studying the fashion and the taste of the hour she will know what to add to her list of articles, which should always be perfectly fresh and quite up to date.

It is possible that in some small communities a girl could start a little business for herself by keeping for sale, or obtaining on order, things not usually found in a country store, but which all women buy more or less according to their means: embroidery silks and linens, crochet threads, fine perfumeries and soap, the newest but not the most expensive materials for art needlework; standard qualities of stationery in the newest colors and designs; pins for the hair and the toilet; in fact, all the things coming under the head of "trifles," that are nevertheless absolutely necessary to the cultivated, refined woman, but which she is usually compelled to send to the city in order to obtain. This would not require a large capital; what is most needed is an intelligent perception of other women's wants, judgment in furnishing them, and quickness in filling orders. You would not need a large stock of articles; indeed, your success would largely lie in the fact that your small stock was choice and constantly replenished with the best novelties which the market could afford. This little business could be carried on in your own home so that it would not involve large expense, nor would it place you in the class of merchant. You would be a medium of supply between the shopper and the shop. A business like this would occasionally take you outside the limit of your own town and give you in the pleasantest possible way, as a business woman, that contact with the world which you so much desire.

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A YOUNG woman was unexpectedly left in a position where self-support became imperative. For a time she was bewildered. She could play the piano, she could paint, both somewhat better than well; she was a graceful letter writer, with a pleasing knack of expression which some of her friends took for talent. But she could make none of these accomplishments available. She could not obtain pupils enough to pay her either for her time or her trouble. The editors of magazines and newspapers did not find the peculiar charm about her work which her friends declared that she had. She was almost at her wits' end and was really beginning to think there was no place in the world for her, when she suddenly found her vocation.

And what do you think it was?

Simply this: frying potatoes. Humble enough, wasn't it? And evidently unpromising, but a good deal came of it. She could fry potatoes in a special fashion, called "Saratoga chips," deliciously, and among her friends her fried potatoes were even more famous than her letters. One day it occurred to her to take orders for them and see what she could do. Her friends were glad enough to avail themselves of her willingness to serve them, and she had very soon a small but paying business. Then her fame went out into the large city near by, and she

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supplied families there. The business increased so that she was obliged to take in an assistant, and she is now on the high road to prosperity, just because she could do one thing, though a very simple one, better than her neighbors.

In one of the large Western cities is a young woman who goes to eight different houses and writes letters. She is paid a dollar for each visit. To some of the houses she goes once a week, to others twice a week, and there are two houses where she goes every day. She writes plainly, spells and punctuates correctly, and is past mistress in the art of letter writing. One has but to give her an idea of what is wanted and in a few moments a charming letter or note is written. In these busy days many women who have innumerable social duties to perform and are, besides, engaged in charitable or philanthropic work, require the services of a young woman who acts as private secretary. There is one requirement above all others that this young woman must meet. She must be a good letter writer. Girls, those of you who have talent in this direction, cultivate it, for you don't know of how much use and profit it may become to you.

A young girl who chanced to know a great deal about a certain country in Europe decided last winter that she would try at an entertainment given for a charitable purpose to tell her friends what she knew, and see how they enjoyed it. The experiment was a success; such a success that after a while she was asked to repeat it oftener than she could afford to, so she decided to ask a fee for her evening's talk, and she got it without any difficulty. Her profits during the season were enough to enable her to go to Europe and have a number of photographs of the country taken to be used in her lectures. There has already been a demand for her lectures for the coming season, and it has been great enough to justify her in doubling her fee, and even at that rate she already has many engagements--enough to make her feel that her success for the winter is assured. She is a pleasing girl, with an engaging manner and a sweet voice, and her lecture consists in reality of nothing more than a series of anecdotes agreeably told. She began the work as an experiment, and her success shows how unexpectedly a woman may find employment of an agreeable and profitable kind.

There is in Philadelphia a young woman who has found a way to help herself, and at the same time to be useful to other people. She offers her services to hunt houses, receiving for such service a commission from the real estate man in case of securing a tenant, from whom she also receives a small fee for looking after his interests and saving him much wear and tear of mind and body.

"Women make just as expert carvers as men," declared the head carver in a Chicago hotel, "when they will give their mind seriously to it. I know a woman in a restaurant in Paris who does nothing but carve, and for this she draws a salary equivalent to two thousand dollars a year. She is the swiftest, cleanest, most economical carver I have ever seen."

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A young woman in New Haven, Connecticut, makes a handsome income by hunting up Revolutionary ancestors for women who are anxious to become members of the Revolutionary and Colonial Societies, and who have not the patience to do this for themselves. She is an expert genealogist, and has assisted many families in tracing their pedigree.

Miss Clara Millard, an English woman, has the enviable reputation of having created a new work for women, and of demonstrating that by persistent effort the business may be made successful. She calls herself a book hunter, and whatever the volume is that may be needed to complete some portion of the library, she will find it, and she has shown marvelous aptitude and skill in tracing out rare volumes. In one instance she secured for a New York banker a copy of Browning's "Pauline," of which before her discovery only seven copies were known to be in existence. It is true that the work can by no possibility become one in which many may engage, for it requires some qualifications, such as acquaintance with literature and libraries, which cannot be picked up in a moment; but the fact that she has made her special business so successful is evidence that women do not need confine themselves to stereotyped methods of support, but can find business for themselves if they will have patience and persistence.

There is always a market for good work. People will pay for what they want. Fill a want, and you have a market. The story is told of a farmer's wife who wanted to give her daughter unusual musical advantages, but times were hard and money scarce. She said to her daughter, "There's no one in this part of the country who can make sausage like mine; I wish I could sell some and get money to pay for your music lessons." Now, this girl was so earnest in her desire to study music that she said, "If you will make the sausage I will try to sell it." They put the sausage in little pound packages; the girl took it to town and sold it. People who once tasted that sausage were always anxious to buy it again. To-day the name of that farm on a package would sell almost anything. As a special recommendation for her sausage the mother proudly shows a letter from her daughter, written in Boston, where the girl is now studying music at the Conservatory. It reads like this: "Dear Mother--I am living on the sale of your sausage, but oh, how I wish I could have one nice little sausage to eat!" There is a woman in a New England city who has raised and educated family by making doughnuts. She makes them fresh every day, and she sells wagon-loads of them. Everybody in the city wants Mrs. Hoffman's doughnuts, because they are the best that are made.

Not one of these girls or women would have accomplished anything in life if they had sat waiting until the time came when they could do the thing they wanted to do. They were wise enough to see opportunity and to realize that it comes oftenest in the humblest, quietest and most unexpected manner. Perhaps

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that is the reason why so many fail to recognize it. They are looking for something so much larger, more imposing, and more exacting, that they are apt to scorn the thing that presents itself in a perfectly natural and rather matter-of-fact fashion.

If, instead of sighing for the thing beyond reach, our girls would cheerfully take up the task lying nearest their hands, they would find success crowning present endeavor, and a possible way opening to the larger thing beyond. It is quite true that larger and more important duties are never offered until one has shown her fitness to do the smaller ones which lie close at hand.

Nearly every person in the world excels in some one thing; it may be the very humblest; but whatever it is, she may find some way of making it profitable. Supposing the woman who could fry potatoes had refused to recognize this industry as one which she might make a means of support because it wasn't genteel or artistic, or something else equally nonsensical, wouldn't you have called her an exceedingly stupid and foolish person? Take care that in slighting some homely, but useful occupation in which you may be of service to others and bring remuneration to yourself, you do not write yourself down as one of the stupid and foolish ones of the world.

"My pride would not let me," says some silly girl, when a friend ventures to suggest that she shall enter upon some avocation which does not seem to her desirable. "It is all very well to do this in one's family, or for one's self, but for money and for other people, I should die of mortification at the very thought."

Yet possibly that very thing is the only thing which that girl can do well. It is her only point of excellence. Instead of being too proud to make this a means of money making, she should be proud that she excels even in this. Girls, and particularly young ones, have very mistaken ideas oftentimes of what genuine womanly pride indicates. Instead of revolting at any labor which makes her independent of another, it should revolt at the idea of dependence. Any labor or any task undertaken with the true womanly spirit does not degrade the worker; on the contrary, it is the worker who lifts the labor up to her own level. So long as a woman keeps her self-respect, and the respect of those about her, labor cannot humiliate her.

Of course we all recognize the fact that certain avocations are pleasanter and more agreeable than others, but not every one has aptitude or opportunity to enter these vocations; so to the girl who has her way to make, and to whose knock the gates opening into the broader world refuse to open, I would say, study your attainment, find out the one thing you can do and do well, then do it; not secretly, as if ashamed, for then you will never succeed; but with honest endeavor and womanly purpose, letting the world about you know of your intention so that it

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may come to your help, and when you have made success and have shown yourself ready for the wider duty--if then you still desire it--you may be sure that the duty will present itself. You have served your apprenticeship, have proven your faithfulness and ability, and you will be let beyond the limitations by which you have been held, to meet the larger opportunity because you have proven your ability to grasp and to hold it.

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NO WOMAN can really win in the world's thickening battle who is not, first of all, obedient to the decalogue of natural law, "written in our members." There is no mistaking its utterances as they sound from the ever- radiant Sinai of physiology and hygiene.

1. Let the dress be such as will impose no ligature upon any part of the body, nor in anywise restrict the freedom, naturalness and perfect equilibrium of all its members. Let it be equally distributed over the entire figure, without excrescences or furbelows, and carefully adapted to the season.

2. Let the functions of digestion be normally preserved by the use of the simplest foods, into which enter the elements of nutrition suited to the season, and by a careful, physiological study of the conditions of their healthful maintenance.

3. Let the only drink be water, hot or cold, and milk. Never drink at meals, and never drink ice-water at all.

4. Let the sponge-bath be a daily means of grace.

5. Let God's pure, fresh air have full access to your room, especially at night.

6. Let exercise in the open air be your daily habit, and cultivate athletic sports.

7. Let brain work be dispensed with after tea, and insist on eight hours' sleep in twenty-four.

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8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. In the six days thou shalt labor, but in them do all thy work. If the Sabbath is necessarily a day of brain work--as to public speakers, Christian workers, etc.--take one day in seven for rest or recreation, as the surest means to a useful life and hale old age.

9. Give your soul up to faith. Believe in God, in immortality, in human brotherhood, in the sure triumph of everything pure and good.

10. Habituate yourself to prayer. Let it be the pulse of your whole life; so natural to you that your spirit turns to the Star of Bethlehem as steadily as turns the needle to the polar star.

I am not gifted in divination and will not attempt to cast your horoscope, brave girls of the new America, but I do not fear to predict an absolutely happy, a most winning, and a thoroughly successful life to whomsoever will obey these ten commandments. To write of them severally is not my purpose. But to lay down some simple rules relative to the daily conduct of life, is a part of my scheme in talking to you of "How to Win." For we must build our strong foundations on the solid bed rock of natural law. Though our foreheads are lifted toward the sky, our feet are firmly planted on the earth. This body is, in a sense, the universe to us. We get no light save that which comes through this strange skylight of the brain. The "man wonderful" lives in a "house beautiful," and it is all in all to him. It was meant to be his perfect instrument and not his prison. Perfect obedience to its laws would make him the true microcosm--the mirror of the universe--nay, of its Creator. The blessed word "health" once literally meant "hollness," and that means simply "wholeness." This body of ours was meant to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, but enemies have taken possession of it and dimmed or well nigh extinguished the shekinah. A sound mind cannot exist except in a sound body. The Saxons had a saying that "every man has lain on his own trencher," and it is not only true that "the man who drinks beer thinks beer," but "he who eats swine thinks swine," bristles and all. Good old Dr. Peter Akers--of the Peter Cartwright school of preachers, a saint still lingering with us, I believe--says he would like to offer as a fitting oblation to the devil, "a hog stuffed with tobacco in an alcohol gravy." For my own part I have formed a settled conviction that the world is fed too much. Pastries, cakes, hot bread, rich gravies, pickles, pepper-sauces, salads, tea and coffee are discarded from my bill of fare, and I firmly believe they will be from the recipes of the twentieth century. Entire wheat flour bread, vegetables, fruit, fowl, fish, with a little beef and mutton, and water as the chief drink, will distill, in the alembic of the digestive organs, into pure, rich, feverless blood, electric, but steady nerves, and brains whose chief delight will be to think God's thoughts after Him.

May the high thinking that consorts best with plain living be a well-known "way to win" among the maidens of America.

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Again, without beauty it is impossible to win. The plain-faced girl who has a pretty sister commands my inmost sympathy; for just there I have been, and in a soul most sensitive and timid have hidden away the pathos of that evermore difficult and unspoken situation. To have beside you, nearer than any other human being, a sister fair and winsome, whose ribbons always "match," whose hair takes kindly to the latest style, whose gloves invariably fit, and whose bonnet cannot be unbecoming; to know yourself for a creature awkward and unadorned, upon whom this gracious, loving comrade at your side vainly expends all the skill of fingers deft and delicate--this is not what a girl's heart would choose. But the "ripe, round, mellow years" have given me glimpses of that open secret, most ineffable and blessed, "How to be Beautiful." It is not in paints and powders, not in ruffles, ribbons, or false ringlets, and not in the use of any soap, or "Balm of a Thousand Flowers." For one learns, after a while, that this face and form we wear about are but a mask, a thin, almost transparent veil, through which the spirit looks, coyly at first, but later on, with calm and steady gaze. Every seven years the veil must be renewed; with time come wrinkles, where the soul breaks through, and our whole history is written in them for those who have learned to read. What is behind this changeful face, moulding and making it forever new? It is one's own true self. Nay, more, the face itself is as clay in the hands of the potter to the spirit that lies back of it.

There are scientists who teach that it is possible to modify the outline of an eyebrow, the bulge of a forehead, the protuberances of a cranium, by the slow processes of an education which shall develop memory at the expense of perception, or conventionality at the expense of reason. For myself, I believe the day is not distant when the schools shall teach these principles, and in that day the physical basis of character, the expression given by outward form to inward grace or gracelessness, how to overcome the one and cultivate the other, shall replace much of what the schoolmen of our time are serving up under the name of "Knowledge."

Perfect unity with God's laws written in our members, obedience to the decalogue of natural law, and the ritual of this body which was meant to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, would have made us all beautiful to start with; would have endowed us by inheritance with the fascinating graces of Hebe and Apollo. But generations of pinched waists and feet, of the cerebellum overheated by its wad of hair, the vital organs cramped, the free step impeded, and the gracious human form bandaged and dwarfed, all these exact from every new-born child the penalty of law inexorable, law outraged and trampled under foot through long and painful years.

The desire to be beautiful is instinctive, because we were all meant to be so, and may all claim our heritage upon this spiritual plane, even though so ruthlessly defrauded of it, on the material plane, by the ignorant excesses of our

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ancestors and the follies of our own untaught years. But while I would beg American girls to make a special study of the sacred laws of health, I would still more urgently impress the importance of the spiritual law of beauty upon their sensitive young hearts.

Aside from all that I have said about the insanity of fashion, about hygiene, and outward adorning, about the possibility of modifying both "bumps" and features, let me emphasize the highest method of acquiring that beauty which is the result of one's own inner life. Behind everything there is a thought. As a man thinketh so is he. Expression is the loftiest and the final charm in every human face. While it is right, indeed a heavenly intuition, to desire beauty, and while attention to the laws of hygiene, good taste and good behavior mightily conduce to it, heavenly thoughts are the only sure recipe for a countenance of heavenly expression. St. Cecilia heard the music of the upper courts, and hence her face mirrors its ethereal loveliness. It is not only true that prayer will cause a man to cease from sinning, even as sin will cause a man to cease from prayer; but it is also true that no heart can be lifted up toward God, as a lily lifts its chalice to the sun, without the face beaming with a light which never shone on sea or shore, but which reflects the shekinah of the upper sanctuary. The ever-welcome, ugly face of a beautiful soul is vastly more endearing and endeared to wistful human eyes than the classic brow of Eugenie, the sparkling eyes of Patti, or the statuesque pose of Mary Anderson. Their beauty is on the material plane, and evanescent, but this is on the spiritual plane, and beauty of expression shall endure and grow forever if we but keep on thinking thoughts of peace, purity and tenderness.

Be true to the dream of your youth. Hold fast to the highest ideals that flash upon your vision in hours of exaltation. But no guest can ever keep you company, so rare and radiant as the Holy Ghost (miscalled a "Ghost" in theological nomenclature), and He comes to us as the present Christ, the only antecedent of a present Heaven.

None but the beautiful can win, since beauty is the normal condition of us all, and whatever is abnormal is in so far a failure. But let us not forget that while this law of physical beauty holds in full force, its application is no less exact when we emerge upon the broader consideration of our theme. For there are so many kinds of beauty after which one may strive that we are bewildered by the bare attempt to number them. There is beauty of manner, of utterance, of achievement, of reputation, of character, any one of which outweighs beauty of person, even in the scales of society, to say nothing of celestial values.

Cultivate most the kind that lasts longest. The beautiful face with nothing back of it lacks the "staying qualities" that are necessary to those who would be winners in the race of life. It is not the first mile- post, but the last, that tells the

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story; not the outward bound steed, but the one on the "home stretch," that we note as victor. The loom of life turns out many different fabrics. Is the beauty that you seek the gossamer of a day or the royal purple of a century? Beauty of manner, tender considerateness, reverence and equipoise, will make it impossible for you ever to be desolate, and will insure your always being loved. No physical defect, however irremediable, bars you from this choicest of all exterior attractions. Beauty of utterance has a fadeless charm; opens all hearts whose key it is worth while to wish for; and makes those once obscure, the favorites of fortune, the heroes of society, the peers of kings.

Beauty of reputation is a mantle of spotless ermine in which if you are but enwrapped you shall receive the homage of those about you, as real, as ready and as spontaneous as any ever paid to personal beauty in its most entrancing hour. Some sort of reputation you must have, whether you will or no. In school, in church, at home, at work, or in society, you carry ever with you the wings of a good or the ball and chain of a bad reputation. Resolve to make it beautiful, clear, shining, gracious. This is within your power, though the color of your eyes and hair is not. But reputation, after all, is but the shadow cast by character; and beauty, in this best and highest sense, commands all forces worth the having, in all worlds. Every form of attractiveness confesses the primacy of this.

Beauty of character includes every good of which a human heart can know, and makes the women who posesses it a princess in Israel, whose home is everybody's heart, and whose heaven is everywhere. The dullest eyes may reflect this beauty; the palest cheek bloom with it; the most unclassic lips may be enwreathed with its smile of ineffable good-will and heavenly joy. For beauty of character comes only from loving obedience to every known law of God in nature and in grace. Lovingly to learn and dutifully to obey these laws of our beneficent Father is to live. Anything less is but to vegetate.

Dear younger sisters, "let us keep our Heavenly Father in the midst," let us be beautiful, for we were meant to be; let us not only desire but determine to be winners, but most of all let us remember that "the King's daughter must be all glorious within."

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WHAT can I do to earn money? Where is my chance?"

There is scarcely a day passes that one does not come face to face with this question asked by a woman.

It is not always the young woman with health and strength at her command who asks this the most earnestly. There is always enough for her who is young and unburdened to do. Avenue after avenue opens to her imperious knock and her summons to be let in to the mysteries beyond is hardly ever denied her.

The most that one can do for the girl is what this book is trying to accomplish; you can see that she is set in the right way--the way that is best for her--and that she has the right ideas regarding the work she is going to take, and her own attitude toward the world while she does it. Usually unencumbered and having only herself to care for, she is comparatively independent and may go wherever the way opens.

But when the necessity of bread-winning comes, as it so often does, to the woman who has a family of her own, or some relative depending upon her who is bound to some locality by ties that she cannot break, thus having opportunity circumscribed, the outlook is sad indeed; and who shall wonder if at times it seems utterly hopeless? What can such a woman do? It is quite evident that she must do pretty much what she can with all her limitations, regardless of her own desires or her own tastes. Money earning with her is not a pastime in which she indulges simply to add some luxuries to the comforts she already possesses; it is a stern and inexorable necessity before which everything else goes down utterly.

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She cannot go out into the world to do her work, for duty holds her where she is, and there she must stay. Consequently her choice of occupation is circumscribed; she can only do what comes to her to be done.

The suggestion made to her in this chapter is embodied in the personal experience of one woman. Many may draw counsel and help from the story. But I want to say just this, first: look over your stock of accomplishment and see what you can do best, and try to turn that to your advantage; see if you cannot make it pay you something.

You will take notice that I say accomplishment and not accomplishments. This means literally the something that you have done and done well, no matter how small or humble it may be, not the showy veneer that passes current under the name of "the accomplishments." No; the literal definition of the word must be insisted upon in this case.

The great trouble underlying the whole system of wage earning is that, as a rule, many girls, as well as women, are not willing to do what they can. Their ambitions have a fashion of outrunning their abilities, and then follows a series of mortifying failures, that make the workers feel that they are not appreciated, and they grow bitter and discouraged and complain that they are not well treated and that the hand of the world is raised persistently against them. This is nonsense. There is something they can do in the line of useful art and you know it is quite impossible that the whole world shall be purely decorative, or even the entire feminine half of it. It is better to set a patch nicely than to paint a china cup badly, or to make a good loaf of bread than to do inartistic "art needlework."

This especial story is for the young woman who lives in the country, and who has an opportunity to get berries and small fruits; perhaps lives on a farm where they are raised, or may be with work and care. The woman in the story lives on a pretty little home farm of a few acres, just outside the busy city of Pawtucket in Rhode Island and not far from the still busier city of Providence. She had been a bookkeeper in one of the Pawtucket mills at a large salary and had married and settled down on the home farm. Accustomed as she was to a busy life, and, above all, to being the mistress of a pocketbook of her own, she soon found herself missing both and wishing she had something to do. Like another woman whose story will be told by and by, she found her vocation quite by accident.

Her mother had been a notable New England housewife, whose cooking, and, above all, whose pickle and preserve making were famous in the neighborhood. Her daughter had inherited this peculiar ability and was as proud of her store closet as her mother before her had been of hers. It happened one autumn day as she was making a special kind of pickle which was liked by all her friends who had the good fortune to taste it, one of her neighbors ran in for an informal

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[image: PRESERVING AND PICKLING]

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call. The new-comer commented on the pickles, bewailing her own ill luck in making them, and ended by saying how she did wish it was possible for her to obtain some. It was at this instant the money-making idea came into Mrs. Thornton's head.

"I will make some for you," she said.

"You!" replied her friend.

"Yes; why not? You want pickles, I want occupation."

And so the thing was settled, and so soon as others heard that she was willing to undertake the work they came to her with orders, and she found plenty of pickling to do. Then came requests for catsups, sauces and relishes, and she filled these orders.

Her neighborhood success set her to thinking seriously, and during the winter she laid further plans. She interviewed friends in Providence and took personal orders for jellies, preserves, pickles, and things of a like nature, and she made arrangements with the Woman's Exchange to send her any orders they might get, and also to take what she might have to spare on sale at their rooms. As soon as the spring opened she began her work; she looked after her strawberry beds and her raspberry and blackberry vines; she was careful to see that her fruit trees were in condition; she personally tended her cucumber vines and tomato plants. Her garden had come to mean something more than merely an appendage for family comfort, it was to be the basis of supplies for the new business.

All summer she worked; as the fruit ripened she "put it up." The strawberries, most frail and delicate of all fruits, she picked herself, allowing no other hands to touch them, hulling as she picked, so they need be handled but the once, and taking care that they should not be crushed. She also picked her own raspberries; she says, and truly, that much handling spoils the flavor of the fruit and that it injures both the taste and the appearance of the preserve. Currants she allowed others to pick for her, and so with the hardier fruit which would not be harmed by the handling. She used the greatest care in making her jellies and preserves, and the results were most satisfactory. From the time the first fruit ripened until the last pickles were made in the autumn she was constantly employed. It proved, too, to be a remunerative employment. The second year her business almost doubled and now she has all she can do. She might enlarge it, but she doesn't care to undertake to do more than she can do herself, as she fears that if any one undertook it with her the results would be less satisfactory than they are at present. Like a sensible woman, she concludes that enough is as good as more, and she makes sufficient money during the busy months to last her all the year through, to let her do what she likes in the way of improvement of her place, of journeying about in her leisure season, and of being able to help others who have not been so fortunate. She has a room fitted up in the cellar of her house well

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lighted and cool, opening out on to the garden, and here she does her work. The boiling of syrup and jelly is done over an oil stove because she can get a perfectly steady heat from beginning to end of the process in that way, and such absolute evenness of temperature is not possible even with the steadiest coal fire.

There is many a woman living in the country who, although not the owner of a farm, has a "garden spot" which she might devote to the growth of small fruits and turn these into money by making preserves and jellies that will find a ready market at good prices. Of course not every one who lives in the country, even, can do this. One must have patience and the natural aptitude for cooking, to be successful in this business. It never follows that any one can do a thing well simply by wishing to do it, but there are enough who can do just this thing well to make it worth their trying. It is not very difficult to find customers; the women who are never successful in putting up fruit will gladly avail themselves of the skill of those who are. Nearly every one has friends in town or city who will be glad of the genuine country fruit well prepared, the fruit fresh, the sugar good, and with the whole care that makes the difference between the work well done with good results, or carelessly done with indifferent results. Then, too, the business does not last all the year through and there is well-earned leisure for study and other work. It is absorbing while it does last and it takes the time in the summer, the pleasant part of the year, when one feels the least like exertion. But one is willing to work to reap such results. It is a good plan if one lives near a large town to make an arrangement with some store to keep the goods on sale, if one has more than enough to fill private orders. People in cities buy preserves and canned fruit in quantities from the stores; would they not prefer, if they knew it was obtainable, the carefully prepared home preserve rather than that prepared in bulk at some factory and put up wholesale in haphazard fashion? Of course they would.

The girl who undertakes this must not be afraid of small beginnings. One girl started out with an order for one dozen glasses of quince jelly. This was followed by an order for half a dozen bottles of tomato pickle. That was the whole of her first year's work. But the two friends who were her first patrons took special pains, when jellies and pickles were served, to mention the name of the maker, and in a casual way, remarked that she was ready to take orders for other sweetmeats. Not a person who was recommended to her failed to respond with an order for the next season, and now she makes yearly a sufficient income to pay her way through the art school where she is a pupil during the winter. She sometimes wonders which will pay better in the end, making pictures or preserves.

If any girl who reads this is impelled to undertake such work for herself, there are some things which she must not fail to remember. It is better to attempt

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small quantities even after she has become an expert, since if by any accident her preserve should be spoiled or fall short of the mark so that she would not wish to deliver it to the customer, the loss to her would be small.

"Do you never fail?" asked a curious visitor of Mrs. Thornton one day.

"Sometimes I do, for success is never certain, especially in jelly making. I would rather do a thing several times and have it right every time than to make a failure with a large quantity of fruit and sugar, trying to do more than I can manage."

Buy only the best of sugar, see that your fruit is fresh, keep your patience and don't hurry, and be satisfied if your beginnings are small. When your reputation is once made, you will find you will have all you can do.

Here is a practical way in which money can be earned, and that it is a possible way is shown by the fact that many women are already making a living by it. It is a pleasant way, a quiet way, and certainly a sheltered way, since one need not go beyond the home walls to do it. Perhaps it is not the ideal career you have marked out for yourself, but if you want to become a world worker, you must learn the first lesson, which is, to do with a thankful heart and cheerful mien the work that the world brings you to do.

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EVERY little while the newspapers chronicle the story of some woman who is engaged in an occupation so foreign to any heretofore undertaken by her sex that one wonders how she came to undertake it. When at last curiosity is satisfied it proves that the undertaking was the most natural thing in the world, and that in place of seeking the position which she occupies, it was, by some stress of circumstance, forced upon her. For instance, when one hears that Miss Clara M. Stimson, of Houlton, Maine, runs a saw- mill, she wonders whether it was the fascination of the occupation that induced her to venture into it, or what the reason is that she devotes herself to making boards, planks and shingles.

It comes to her as a natural heritage. Her father was a lumber manufacturer. When he died some years ago his daughter took up the business where he left off, and since then has handled it, along with other speculative operations, with such energy and rare good judgment that she is now reckoned with the solid manufacturers of Aroostook County. Her lumber and shingles have earned a reputation in the markets now, but the plucky little woman found many discouragements at first. When she went away a few years ago to sell the products of her mill, dealers seemed afraid of her; they couldn't understand the situation. The idea of a woman operating a shingle-making establishment inspired them with apprehension. But she had samples, and she knew how to talk plainly, directly and in an eminently business-like fashion. She said, "No, you don't know me and I don't know you, either; but you're buying shingles and I'm selling them. I back my shingles. I live in Houlton, Maine, but I haven't any

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references. I won't ask anybody for references, and I don't believe they amount to much, either. But my shingles are just what I say they are, and I warrant them to be so on the word of a woman with a desire to develop a business and make an honest dollar. Do you want to purchase?"

The dealer to whom she talked looked at her and said he believed he did. He bought, and has been a patron ever since. Her market now comes to her. Occasionally she makes a trip to the big cities when prices don't suit her, and she never fails to stir the dealers up to an appreciation of the quality of her goods.

[image: MRS. IDA MOOR LACHMUND.]

How do men like to work for the new woman? There are regularly five men around her for every job that she has to offer. She insists on capability and honesty, but she pays well, is punctiliously honorable, and if the man is competent the situation is his as long as he behaves.

"Now, I couldn't make a living at dress-making," she said to a visitor the other day. "I know that the hats I trimmed wouldn't have any sale, and as an artist, I should have to go without either butter or bread. But when we come to shingles and handling a crew of men, I claim, without egotism, I trust, that I know my business. If I didn't, I should have left the trade." Miss Stimson pays her men on the fifteenth of each month, and makes special trips to Masardis, the town in which her mill is situated, for that purpose. Her

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[image: THE "ROBERT DODS" WITH RAFT IN TOW]

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order-blanks are of her own design, not transferable, and a man receiving his money on them signs away all recourse for damages or injuries he may have suffered or claimed to suffer in the mill. Few business enterprises of Aroostook County are conducted more systematically than this mill, operated by a woman who, in spite of her continual active life among men as one of the business world, is yet very womanly. She can trade horses with any man in Houlton who is proud of his shrewdness, yet she can talk on books and chatter on womanly topics with as much gusto as the matron of a household. Besides her various personal ventures, she is bookkeeper for the local beef concern, handling all their cash and business.

Towing rafts of saw-logs on the Mississippi is the unique occupation of an Iowa woman. She lives at Clinton, owns and operates the steamer "Robert Dodds," and does all the sawing for two big saw-mills. This woman is Mrs. Ida Moore Lachmund. She has been in the business for ten years, and is one of the best examples of what a woman with energy and pluck can do to make any calling a success if she only wills it. Mrs. Lachmund is an Eastern woman, well educated, and comes of the best Pennsylvania stock. She was born in Philadelphia, where she lived until her marriage. After her marriage she came West with her husband, whose business required him to spend much of his time on the river, and he became much interested in rafting steamers. Mrs. Lachmund many times accompanied her husband on the trips, and gradually became deeply fascinated with the work. She closely examined every detail of a trip down stream with a million-foot raft, and soon no man on board was more familiar with them than was this educated young woman of Quakerdom. She has owned interests in half a dozen boats. Some of them went to the bottom, but the mistress of the "Dodds" knew as well how to raise them and put them on the ways as her captain. When the "Robert Dodds" was placed in the rafting trade, Mrs. Lachmund personally inspected hull, boiler and machinery. She, with the assistance of her officers, plans all repairs. She buys all her stores and fuels. She makes her own contracts with the mills and adjusts her losses and differences. In a cosy upper room of the Lachmund home in Clinton is her office. Much of her correspondence is dictated from here. On the down trip Mrs. Lachmund's custom is to leave the boat at some point near home and run in ahead on the railroad. In the interval between the arrival and departure, she gives any needed attention to her home, writes up her business and gets her orders for the next trip. Her friends say of her that she is an accomplished housewife and keeps one of the tidiest homes in Clinton. She has performed her whole part in morally training and educationally fitting her sons for as active lives as her own, and during the trips up stream she finds time to keep herself informed as to what is going on in the busy world in which she is a figure.

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Mrs. Annie Shanivan, of Tulare, Cal., claims to be the only woman engineer in the world, and is proud of the distinction. She has been running the engine for the planing mill at Mountain Home in Tulare County for over a year, and she likes the work, although a great deal of it is of the roughest kind. Mountain Home is a hamlet that exists more on account of the planing mill than for any other reason, and the people there are of the rough, sturdy sort. It is more than three years since Mrs. Shanivan and her husband arrived at Mountain Home. They were from the East, where the husband had charge of the motive power of a big flour mill, with a handsome salary. But his health broke down and so they went to Mountain Home, where he was to take charge of the engine in the planing mill. For a time his health improved in the grateful air of the California hills, but finally he had to give up and let his wife undertake the work. There was nothing else to do, for money was scarce and sickness expensive, and the woman has done the work satisfactorily ever since. She does everything about the engine, from shoveling the fuel under the boiler to making the repairs, and keeps everything in the best order.

Philadelphia enjoys the distinction of having a woman shoemaker. When asked how she happened to adopt a business that men have always monopolized hitherto, she said, I never liked to have men either measure my feet for shoes or fit them on, and I concluded that there must be other women who felt the same way. I was convinced that all such would prefer to patronize one of their own sex, so I learned the trade and went into the business of shoemaking. I am glad I did, for I have made myself independent. This shoemaker is a most practical worker. She does the measuring, draws the diagrams and gives detailed instructions to the journeymen in her employ. She formerly did the cutting up of the leather and can do so still, if necessary. She began in a small way, but has prospered abundantly and now has an establishment that is patronized largely by women of the most exclusive social set.

Another Pennsylvania woman, Mrs. Pollock, of Pittston, mends shoes. Her husband was a cobbler and she frequently assisted him through a rush. When he died and she was left upon her own resources, she bravely picked up the last and awl, and continued in her husband's business. This new departure-- a woman cobbler--created much consternation in the neighborhood, which resulted in a decided decrease in patronage. But Mrs. Pollock knew the way into a woman's heart and offered to mend shoes at a "bargain rates." When she thus cut down the prices fixed by her husband the women ventured to try her. She turned out such good work and the orders were so promptly filled that she soon had a large trade. She now employs a man to assist her and earns from $20.00 to $25.00 a week.

Whether it is because Pennsylvania is more advanced than any other state. or

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whether she boasts of the brightest women, the fact remains that she furnishes the majority of shining examples of what women do in new fields. For instance, in Bellefonte, Miss Catherine Humes Jones, a girl not yet out of her teens, has been regularly elected collector for the Edison Illuminating Company of that place. She won the position over the applications of half a dozen or more men, and although she succeeded her father, who had been, up to his death in June, the collector of the company for years, her selection was made purely from a business standpoint and on her own merits. The wisdom of the choice is exemplified in the fact that never before have the bills been collected so promptly; since Miss Jones has acted in that capacity there is not a dead bill on the list. In addition, she has succeeded in collecting several hundred dollars of old accounts, and effecting settlements that even the officials of the company were unable to make satisfactorily. The business of the company aggregates many hundred dollars a month, and in all her work this young girl collector has never made the mistake of a penny. In addition to her collecting, she has taken the agency for a number of houses in Bellefonte, and in this way her monthly salary as collector is added to until her income is even greater than that received by the average clerk in any mercantile house.

[image: MISS CATHERINE HUMES JONES]

An anthracite coal mine that is almost entirely operated by American female labor is the unusual spectacle that can be seen in the Mahanoy valley, several

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miles south of Shamokin, also in Pennsylvania. The owner and operator of this mine is Joseph Mans, and his four grown daughters and three younger girls assist him in operating the colliery in a manner that would make many mine owners and slate-pickers envious. In the opinion of their father, these women and girls are the best colliery employes in the anthracite region. As he says, they are prompt, willing and expert in the arduous duties assigned to them, and have never yet gone on a strike for either real or fancied grievances. Mr. Mans adds, that were it not for the valuable assistance his daughters have rendered him ever since they have been old enough to work, he would have been compelled to retire from the mining of coal many years ago, as he started in with a very limited cash capital, and consequently pay days were few and far between. The women mine workers are splendid specimens of womanhood, averaging six feet in height, straight as arrows, stronger than the average man, none of them knowing what it is to be sick, and each of them weighing in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. They labor hard six days every week, but seem to be perfectly contented with their lot, as do also their younger sisters and brothers who assist in the colliery. These young women are expert farmers and, in addition to knowing how to run a coal mine, are perfectly at home performing the household duties that are indispensable to all well-regulated homes.

A successful stationery store in Yonkers, N. Y. , is run by the widow of the late proprietor. In the same city the widow of an undertaker carries on his business more successfully than he did. When he died a little over two years ago, he was on the verge of bankruptcy; she took charge and has since then not only paid all that he owed, but put the business on a good basis and is making money.

There is a woman bridge-tender in Chicago. Her husband tended the bridge until he died, when she was left without means of support. The appointment was secured by a charitable man for himself. He paid his own bond, then turned over the work the salary and the fees to her. There has been no complaint about the way in which she performs her duties.

From Maine to San Francisco is a far cry; and yet, from each point comes the story of a woman who, on her husband's death, assumed his business and brought it to new success. The San Francisco woman is a bill-poster; the one in Maine is a stone-cutter. It is only fair to say that these women do not, any more than their husbands did, attend to the practical part, posting up bills and chipping stone with their own hands, but they have a crew of men, well-trained laborers, who work for these women as they did for their husbands.

The wife of a physician in a country village found after his death that, when all the bills were collected and the funeral expenses paid, she had less than a hundred dollars between herself and absolute want. Her two young daughters

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were unable, on account of their youth, to assist her, and she knew of nothing to which she could turn for a livelihood. In the meantime there was the mourning to buy. She was only able to purchase the material for one best gown for each. To supply the others she dyed all the colored clothes black, using the packages of dye which could be bought at the store for ten cents. She had such success in this that all her friends commented upon the freshness and beauty of the dyed material. One neighbor said she had a faded cashmere which she would like to have colored, only it cost so much at the establishment. The woman astonished her by telling her that she had done them herself, and offered to dye the cashmere for her neighbor, if she would trust it to her, at a much less price that would be charged at the regular dye-house. The offer was accepted, and this gave the widow an idea. She acted upon it at once. She advertised in the home paper that she would dye garments at reasonable rates, and she also went from door to door soliciting patronage. What work she obtained she did so well that it brought her still more, and she soon acquired a good business. Now she is at the head of quite a little establishment, employing one assistant constantly, and more during her very busy times.

I wonder if in any of these cases the result was one of mere "happening." Was it not, rather, a direct leading into the way in which success would be found?

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MISS JOSEPHINE JENKINS, one of the cleverest and brightest newspaper women in Boston, who comes through heritage to her recognized literary ability, since she is the niece of N. P. Willis and Fanny Fern, and granddaughter of the Rev. Mr. Willis who established the Youth's Companion, said not long ago in the Boston Herald:

"With all the wish in the world to earn money, girls let many ways of doing so escape their notice simply because they are lacking in practical application. Here, for instance, is one means by which an honest penny, if not an entire support, could be obtained: It is to become a visiting mender. And what does that signify? asks the impecunious seeker of fortune. What is the 'visiting mender?' Nothing more or less than an angel with a thimble, and who is skillful with the needle, who goes from house to house to mend the family stockings, sew on buttons and repair whatever needs repairing in the week's wash. This is the visiting mender, and a much-needed individual in hundreds of households, where the mother would rather pay fifty cents for a quick mornings work than to waste her own precious time taking stitches. A regular seamstress is, perhaps, too expensive, but the visiting mender, deft of hand, comes within the possibility of the average household. Any girl who understands the art of darning and mending would soon find this sort of business paid. Such a vocation may be humble, for it does not demand a 'higher education,' but it is one to command respect, and would certainly be appreciated by many women whose own employments give them no chance to apply the stitch in time that is believed to save nine. Young

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mothers who would like to keep up with the procession, but find the mending basket an obstruction, and the gayer butterflies who have no taste for replacing missing buttons on their boots and gloves, are some of the people who would bless such a visitor as the professional mender."

Now Miss Jenkins knew what she was talking about; she knew it by experience, just as all women may who lead busy lives and have to let some things go because they can't possibly attend to everything in the world. You and I both know that bright women may do a good deal, may, in fact, almost achieve the impossible, but there is, after all, a point at which even they must stop.

Another clever woman who is the art critic of one of the leading city dailies was looking over all her gowns to find one to put on; something was the matter with every one, and the situation finally resolved itself into the puzzle, which could be made ready to put on with the least outlay of time; as her despair deepened her feeling found expression in words:

"I would give a good slice out of my salary, and so would you," she said, "to find a woman who would come with scissors and thimble once a week and put us in order: who wouldn't ask a single question, but would go through closets and drawers and stocking-bags and shoe-bags and mend the hose and sew on the missing strings and buttons, replace the bit of frayed braid, sew up the rip in the pocket, brush things, and make them all ready to put on. I have suggested this to half a dozen or more women who have come to me wanting something to do and such a sniff of contempt as I received! They all want to be companions or copyists or something genteel, until I am so tired of their mock pretensions that I don't know what to do. They must have something to do; they appeal to tiny sympathy, and then when I take the time and show them the work that lies right at their hand they refuse to see it and make me feel as though I had insulted them by the mere suggestion."

Now here is a suggestion for a clever girl with quick fingers and common sense enough not to be ashamed to become a sort of common-place ministering angel to other women who need just such ministrations as she can give. This may mean absence from home for a few hours at a time, but so much may be done at one point that the other hours don't really count; the work may be a homely one but it is extremely useful and is in the interest of economy. The stock in trade is a capacious work-basket with scissors, thimble, thread, silk and cotton tape, buttons of all kinds and sizes, and all the other little appliances that naturally belong to such an outfit. With this and an unlimited stock of patience, you may set yourself up as a professional mender, and if you manage properly you will soon have a large class of customers and plenty to do.

The occupation, rightly managed, need not be an unpleasant one; to one who loves her needle, it may be even delightful. The art of mending in our day is

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much neglected, but it was one of which our grandmothers were very proud. Fine mending was a species of exquisite needlework and ranked with embroidery in nicety of detail. The old time gentlewoman could mend anything, from household linen to lace; she darned stockings until it was a delight to see the fine stitches, and she set a patch absolutely by the thread. Did the least bit of wear show itself in the table linen, it was taken in hand at once and darned to a new strength. Did body linen wear, a patch was set in so neatly that the garment never had the appearance of being an old one. To mend well was an accomplishment of which every woman was proud. The advent of the sewing machine, while it was undoubtedly a great saving of time to women lessened the respect for hand sewing. Still a few old-fashioned people have always insisted that certain parts of sewing should be done by hand, so that some have kept up the practice. In the cities, the teaching of sewing in the public schools has made good needlewomen of the growing girls, and with the knowledge of the detail of the work has come a revival of respect for it that is one of the most hopeful signs of the times. The girls in the schools of all the large cities are taught to mend and repair as well as to make garments, and many of these young needlewomen may find way to a pleasant support through the medium of her shining implement of industry. The mending is recommended as something well worth thinking of.

It is annoying to a busy woman to have to stop to sew on the missing button and fasten the ripped braid when she is in great haste and her work of the utmost importance. It is aggravating beyond measure, when she is so tired after a hard day's mental labor that she can hardly hold up her head, when every nerve is quivering under the lash of stimulation, to make a long day with the needle in repairing something that must be made ready for the next day's wearing. There is a disinclination to manual exertion that becomes positive physical pain after a day that has been so wearing to brain and nerve. Oh, if the other woman could but be found to meet this woman's needs! And it is the help that should come in ways like this that one is so ready to pay for if she could only get it; that would make the real rest.

There are families who need such work done, as well as women. Many a tired, overworked mother dreads the sight of the weekly mending-basket and would be much relieved if she could get a few hours' help each week from somebody. You and I have heard many a woman say this, but she always ends by declaring she can find no one who will do it. She can get any number of dressmakers and seamstresses by the day, but she can't afford to pay day prices for the work that she wants. If she could only find somebody who would come to her by the hour and who would go away when her work was done and go willingly because somebody else was waiting for her, it would be the greatest possible comfort in the world.

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And there are men who feel this need quite as much as the family mother and the woman worker; young men who live in boarding-houses and have no one to look after their clothing and make needed repairs; they would make a good and willing class of customers; it could be easily arranged that the work for this class could be taken to one's home and returned when it was finished.

One or two women have told me that they tried to do this work, but couldn't get it.

"How did you try?" I asked them.

"Oh, I put an advertisement in the paper, but nobody answered it."

Well, that isn't so very strange, after all; an advertisement of that sort gets easily lost to sight in the midst of all the wants in the daily papers. Personal endeavor is what is needed, and that was what won success for one or two girls of whom I would like to tell you. Last winter a bright young girl found herself wanting some new and expensive books. The family pocketbook was strained to its utmost to meet material needs, and there was nothing left for the "would likes" after the "must haves" had been secured; but did the girl give up her desire for her books? Not a bit of it; she wasn't that kind of a girl. She went to a friend of her mother's, a woman of large wealth, and asked to be allowed to do her fine mending. The friend to whom she applied knew her abilities in needlework and gladly gave her that for which she asked. "I consider it exceedingly kind of you, my dear," she said; "my maid cobbles my silk stockings until it is a disgrace to wear them." So all winter the girl kept at her labor, spending many a pleasant hour with the friend for whom she was working, and at the end of the season she found herself not only the owner of the coveted books, but with a tidy little sum in her pocketbook to meet the next need as it arose.

A young woman in New York who evidently took a sensible view of things, has a very good and paying business among the young business men of the city. Perhaps you would like to know just what she did to establish her business and how she did it. You know, in this world we all build our own endeavors upon the line of some one else's success. It is perfectly natural. Life is, after all, a sort of serious game of "Follow my leader," and what is already done or achieved, it is quite a matter of course that some one else will try. And now for the way in which the girl I have told you of went about her work. She had some cards printed with her name, address and business on them. These she took to the large stores and gave them herself to the clerks, at the same time explaining her project. She then said she would call at a stated time for any work they might be willing to give her. Of course it was an experiment, but she felt it was worth the trying. Her prices were small, from five to ten cents a pair for stockings according to the amount to be done; two cents apiece for sewing on buttons; and prices in proportion for other mending. She came for the bundle at the promised time and

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the very first day she had her large shopping bag much more than full, so that she had to have a separate parcel made. These she returned at the time she had agreed upon, and the next week her patronage had increased to such an extent that she was obliged to have the bundles sent by a messenger boy. Now she has a boy constantly employed to get and return the parcels, and has two assistant menders. What one girl has done, another may if she will only go to work in the right way and with the same spirit of determination.

"I know just what I want to do," a woman once said to me, after detailing a plan of work, and I also know that there is somebody in the world who wants done just what I can do; now, why won't some person set us toward each other so we may meet?

My dear girls, I dare say many of you are asking that same question. It is a hard one to answer but personally I believe that the only "setting toward" is done by the worker, and it must be confessed that even with trying, the result may not come at once. But when once success has crowned effort, you may be said fairly to have won, for, when one gets the first chance, others are sure to follow. So, in beginning your work as professional mender, recognize the value of your first patron, but do not let endeavor cease because you have the first sign of success, for you will find that it requires quite as much endeavor to retain as it does to attain.

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I WONDER how these girls live?" was the thoughtless remark of a young woman, as she wandered through one of the large department stores of a busy city. Her careless words had been overheard by one of the girls behind the counter, and the hot blood surged to her face at this uncalled- for insult. "Quite as well as you do," she muttered under her breath, not daring to speak aloud lest she should be reported for impertinence. And yet there was no thought of unkindness in the first girl's careless utterance. But her own sheltered life had nothing in it to indicate the quality of life of the girls who occupied what seemed to her so public a position. It never occurred to her that in many, indeed in most, ways the other girl was cared for just as lovingly and carefully as she was, but that necessity compelled her to take her part in the actual bread-winning of the family; that while in the store she was the woman of business, occupied by the details of trade, yet in the home she was the bright, clever girl, the graceful hostess, the charming entertainer, with a social influence in her own little circle that was as strongly felt as was that of the young woman who had wondered about her as though she were a sort of curiosity.

This girl was one of many who have recently been trying the plan of making homes for themselves on the principle of co-operation. They have learned its value, and by combining forces, have made comfortable and pretty homes for themselves, where they are quite independent and live in a most common- sense fashion.

In most cases, one will have a mother, an aunt or an elder sister who is so situated that she can keep house for them and give her labor in return for the

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home and small stipend. Little households like this are constantly growing up in modest apartment houses in all the cities, and in the pretty cottages in the suburbs, and the girls constituting them are not merely contented, but supremely happy in having solved the question of how to have a home.

One girl, in describing the way she lives now and contrasting it with the dull, dreary life in a boarding-house, such a boarding-house as her small salary would allow her to patronize, said, "If I only had bread to eat, it would taste sweeter under my own roof than the most elaborate dinner in a boarding-house."

This girl voiced the opinion of all others who have tried both ways of living. Two people joining interests can live better for less expense to each than she would have when living alone, and when the two became three, four, or even five, the cost of each is proportionately smaller. Every woman likes a home, a place that she can call her own, that represents her individuality and her interests; that gives her opportunity for freedom and lets her down from a constant sacrifice to the conventionalities of life. She likes a place, be it ever so small, that she can fit to suit herself, that she can make a reflection of her ingenuity, an exponent of her taste. She cannot get this place in a boarding-house, and she can only approximate it in lodgings; but in a home all her taste finds expression, and in her freedom she is happy. It is economy of money and nerves alike aid both these need to be saved, the nerves, perhaps, more than the other, since, if the nerves fail, the money will fail too, for the worker cannot go on with the vital forces exhausted. And that is why the sensible working girls are becoming disciples of the doctrine of co-operation.

One may tell all day long how desirable this co-operative work is, but if places are not shown where it has succeeded it is but an idle tale. In one of the suburbs of Boston is a pleasant home where three sisters live together on the co-operative plan. There were four, but one married and went away a short time ago, leaving three to carry on the home. One of these girls is a magazine editor and a writer of fine capacity whose work is growing to be better appreciated every day; another is a teacher, and the third is a stenographer for a large manufacturing firm. The home which these girls make is nearly ideal in its prettiness and coziness. They are artistic in their tastes, and are accomplished; one is a fine pianist, all play better than well, and one of them paints and decorates. It is too great a temptation not to tell how they manage with their furniture. A chamber has to be fitted up. Now, girls who work, can't afford to buy chamber sets, much as they would like to, and heavy furniture would be quite out of place in a little French roof semi-detached cottage. The artist girl made an excursion to a furniture shop--not a warehouse, but a manufactory--and bought some pieces that had not passed through the painter's hands. Then she went to work on them and the result was delightful. The color is the soft blue of the summer sky

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just where the fleecy clouds are blowing across it, and each piece is decorated with field flowers in different designs; one shows a mass of wind-blown daisies, another has pink and white clovers with waving grasses, another shows the golden buttercups; no two are alike in design or arrangement, but the result is exquisite. Not all girls who co-operate can paint posies on their bedroom furniture, but that is no reason in the world why they may not buy the unpainted pieces as this girl did, and finish it in plain colors with the enamel paint, and so get furniture at very little expense. In this family the magazine girl is the housekeeper and she administers affairs very happily. If you were to eat her bread or partake of a dinner she had cooked you would never set her down as "a literary person," though why bad bread and good poetry should always be supposed to go together is an enigma that is not yet solved. It really doesn't, you know, and one makes a great mistake when he believes that a woman who can turn a graceful point to a newspaper paragraph can't make a salad or cook a steak. At any rate, this girl demonstrates every day that she can do all these things. She makes the homiest kind of a home for her sisters, and these girls, accomplished and bright, draw a very pleasant circle of friends about them.

"But," you say, "these are sisters and it is perfectly natural that they should make a family home, but what of the hundreds of girls who are alone, who have no sisters to work with them?"

Still it may be done. Find some congenial friend or friends who want a home as much as you do, and do the very thing these girls are doing. Here is a case: A young girl employed in one of the large stores was anxious to make a home. She and her mother had been left alone in the world, with nothing in their pockets, so both must work. They owned a small house, but they had nothing to keep it with, so they rented it; the mother took a position as housekeeper and the girl went into a store. Boarding was distasteful to her, for she had always been accustomed to the freedom of a home. She found other girls who had known what it meant to live in a home and who were drearily existing in the dull houses which they could afford to patronize.

One day an idea struck the girl; there was the house, there was the mother; here was she, here were the other girls, homesick and lonely. Why not bring here and there together, and make a result that should be pleasant and comfortable for all? She talked with the girls, they were delighted with the idea; she consulted with her mother and found that she, too, was longing for the home again. So the tenants were given notice, and as soon as possible the newly-organized family took possession. That family exists to-day as harmonious and as happy as any you will find. The mother heart is open to take all the girls in and they go to her with their confidences and take her advice. They are pretty, bright girls, and great favorites. They have a church connection and that

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[image: A PLEASANT HOME]

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brings them into social contact with pleasant, helpful people. They belong to the King's Daughters; they have pretty much what the home girls have, and they work for it all. And in spite of the work, perhaps because of it, and the fine independence which it gives them, they have remained genuine gentlewomen through every stress of circumstance. They are not of the class which call themselves "salesladies;" they are too well educated, too well bred, and understand the use of language too thoroughly to permit themselves to commit such a solecism. But they are glad to be good saleswomen during business hours, and gentlewomen all the time.

Some years ago, two young girls went to Boston from a country town in Massachusetts. They were fair specimens of genuine New England girls, and both of them bore names that had been familiar in the old Bay State almost since its first settlement. They were well educated, both had been through the public schools of their native town, and had then taken a course at the Academy, from which they had been graduated with honors. They had been designed as teachers by their families, but unfortunately for the plans of these worthy people, they had neither inclination, or temperament for the vocation. Fortunately, they recognized this fact, and rather than invite failure in a profession for which they knew they were not suited, they packed their trunks, counted the money in their slender purses, and brimful of courage and hope, they turned their faces Bostonward.

They both found positions, one as a bookkeeper, the other as a saleswoman in an establishment where she was virtually forewoman, each one earning about ten dollars a week. At first they boarded, but they soon tired of that; then they hired rooms, and took their meals at a restaurant: that was worse than the first plan. Finally one of them suggested housekeeping. They took a day off, and went house-hunting. In a retired street in the old portion of Boston, they found just what they wanted--a tenement of four rooms with the added luxury of a bathroom, for this was before the era of apartment houses. They sent home for pieces of furniture and bedding that they knew could be spared; a relative hearing of the new determination gave them a carpet for parlor and bedroom, and they set to work furnishing; they had a kitchen which they used also for a dining- room; it had an old-fashioned rag-carpet on the floor; the tiny range was bright as polish could make it. The table standing between the two windows was covered with a pretty cloth when it wasn't in use as a dining table; a bird in his gilt cage hung in the window, and plants blossomed on the window-sill. The parlor and bedroom were furnished simply, but prettily, the carpet was new and cheerful, an old-fashioned sofa was recovered, and with big pillows made a most comfortable lounging place. There were comfortable rocking-chairs, a table to hold the magazines and papers and books from the public library, for the girls kept up

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their habit of reading; the bedroom was jointly occupied by them, and they had still another room which they called their guest-chamber.

The fun they had in housekeeping! It was no trouble to get up in the morning and get the simple breakfast. The baker left fresh rolls, the milkman left milk, and with the rolls, a nice cup of coffee and boiled eggs, or an omelet, or a chop, the breakfast was pronounced better than any they could get at a boarding-house. After a while word came to them of another girl who under the strain of work had broken down nervously and her eyes had failed her; she had no home, and want stared her in the face. The guest-chamber was set in order and she was invited to visit them in their new home. She came as guest and remained as a permanent member of the family. Her physical health was unimpaired; she was one of the girls who have a rare faculty for housekeeping, and she fitted into the place which was evidently intended for her. Restaurant lunches were given up, and in their place were the delightful home lunches, always made more delightful by some little surprise.

When the first year was over the girls took account of stock; apart from the money spent for furnishing, it had not cost them so much to live in this way as it had to board; they had lived better, had been in better health, had added many artistic things to the house, entertained many of their working girl friends at their home, and, above all, had wrested another girl from suffering and given her a home where she felt she was helpful and was needed--the best tonic she could have to restore her to health. And with all this, there was money over to deposit in the bank. They had not denied themselves some legitimate pleasures, either. It was in the days of lectures, and there had always been three tickets for the lecture course, occasionally a theatre ticket when there was something exceptionally fine to be seen and at least two evenings at the opera. To be sure, the seats for the latter were in the family circle, but that did not matter. Nobody enjoyed the music more than the three happy girls, to whom the occasion was a real treat, enjoyed the more because their own money procured it.

I might go on citing instances, but these will do to show you how the home idea has developed among the girls who are wage-earners; how quickly they adapt themselves to it, how fondly they cherish it.

The need of a home is a vital one to every woman. Especially is this true of the woman who works, and above all, of the young woman who, more than her elder sister, needs the shelter and protection of a home roof during a most trying and critical period of her life, when she first faces the world as a wage-earner and before she has learned its ways and found out its rough places. So I would have the girls who are taking their lives in their hands and going out to meet the world, have a home life that shall be so pleasant and restful that it will help make the other life more profitable and more pleasant. You may not be able to

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accomplish all you desire at the very first, but there is one thing you can do, and that is, to bring the home atmosphere into the humblest room. Make it as pretty as you can; put out your photographs and your books and your writing utensils. Whatever speaks to you of home, let it be in evidence.

But keep in mind that this room is only your beginning. As you come to know other girls--those whom you meet in the store or the office or the shop, or in church, you will be drawn to those who are the most congenial, and if they, like yourself, are far from the real home, you can unfold your plan to them and see what they think of a co-operative home. Select those who have tastes similar to your own, and, above all, only those with fixed, firm principles. You must exercise this care that your family life may be a happy and harmonious one.

There should be an elder one, who will take the position as head, and who will give propriety and dignity to the family. Find what your united income is, then settle yourself in accordance with it. You won't appreciate half how nice it is until your friends who are still existing in boarding-houses, begin to visit you.