What Shall I Do? 343 



cannot do the physical labor in these days of inefficient help, you 

 will be better served if you know how to direct. 



Need the wife of the grocer be any less womanly because ho 

 has taught her to judge between first and second-quality goods, 

 where he buys certain articles, how much of each thing is usually 

 ordered to meet the trade demands, which articles it pays best to 

 handle, whom to trust and whom not? 



If poultry raising furnishes the family support, make poultry 

 raising your study too. If it be violets, do not be satisfied until 

 you know everything that canj)e learned about violets. If it be 

 truck gardening, make yourself an expert in that line. 



While branching out in any new line of work might bring to 

 you unsought notoriety, taking up in this way what might be 

 called an inherited business will bring you only the respect of the 

 community and a certain feeling of pride in your courage and 

 success. Your business training mil protect you against impo- 

 sition, and, with the knowledge of your fitness for the work, there 

 Avill come a habit of self-reliance and a content that nothing else 

 can bring. You will be indeed fortunate if you never have to 

 face the world in this way, but I pity the woman who has to face 

 it with no adequate preparation. 



There is another reason beside necessity why you should interest 

 yourself in something outside the run of your household duties, 

 and that is for its effect upon your own characters. A woman's 

 work is largely made up of little things and constant attention to 

 petty details and economies, to the never-ending round of house- 

 hold duties that has a tendency to dwarf and narrow the mind, 

 especially when for days at a time there may be no contact with 

 the outside world, nothing to take you above the dead level of 

 everyday life. 



An interest in something outside your special duties will keep 

 your mind active and will be an incentive to give your hours of 

 leisure to some real purpose, and I would beg of you to-day to 

 look this question fairly in the face, and so to fit yourself for the 

 possibilities of life that you can look into the future without fear, 

 secure in the knowledge of your own powers. 



