No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 297 



little boy said when asked about his mother ''Oh, she's all right, 

 but she's worrying awfully about the crops; she thinks they're going 

 to be a failure this year; but then mother's never happy unless she's 

 worrying about something." I hope none of us derive our pleasure 

 in this way. There are housekeepers who worry over their work, 

 and I want to tell you, worry is the enemy of work. It enlarges it, 

 and distorts it, and makes it appear so prodigious, to what it really 

 is. Take, for instance, the attic, which is such a bugbear to most 

 women at house-cleaning time. It is not half the job to clear up 

 that attic as they imagine, if they would only get at and do it, and 

 not think about it and worry over it. The same may be said of all 

 what we call "hard jobs." A good neighbor of mine was visiting 

 one spring. When I went to the cellar for something, she went 

 along, and as I opened the door she exclaimed, ''Oh, my! you have 

 your cellar all cleaned and white-washed, and I haven't touched 

 mine yet, and it's just as dirty and moldy as it can be; I've been 

 worrjdng about it for weeks." She is a strong, healthy woman, who 

 does her own work. She took time to go visiting, but how much 

 better it would have been for her, for her peace of mind, and per- 

 haps for the health of the family, if she had first cleaned her cellar, 

 and then gone visiting, with no thought of its dirt or mold to worry 

 her. 



Another trouble with many housekeepers is, they try to do too 

 many things at once; they get too many irons in the fire, and the 

 result is they do not accomplish as much as they had expected, and 

 then they worry. Every housekeeper should make it a rule to do 

 the most important and necessary things first, and do them well, 

 and throw overboard from their minds the forty odd things that 

 can wait until they have time to do them, and let them go without a 

 thought until that time comes. Ordinarily, work in itself never 

 killed anybody, but when it is performed to the accompaniment of 

 nervous worry, work which in itself is a blessing, degenerates into 

 drudgery, which is a curse. 



I have been speaking only of what we call little worries, or worry 

 over little things, but friends, it is most important that we avoid 

 this. It is not so much great trials or troubles, but rather the little 

 "daily dyings" that cloud the sunshine of life. 



Unavoidable trials and troubles and sorrows of various kinds come 

 to all, to every one, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, who 

 live an average lifetime. No one is exempt. Sorrow, it hath been 

 said, is the soul's gymnasium, making us stronger, and enabling us 

 to bear more bravely whatever may become our burden. I would 

 not tell you, as so many lecturers and writers do, to always look on 

 the bright side of trouble — that every cloud has a silver lining, 

 for the reason that our mental vision may be so blinded by the 

 shock of contact with that trouble, that v/e are unable to see any 

 bright side, any silver lining. The only thing for us to do, when 

 trouble of any sort presents itself in our pathway, even though it 

 threaten to overwhelm us, and we feel as it bursts upon us, as if 

 the very heavens are crashing round our head, is to rise in our 

 spiritual strength and face that trouble squarely and bravely as a 

 fact, as but an incident in our lives, and not allow it to overcome 

 us either mentally or physically, doing the best we can under the 

 circumstances. 

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