FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. £89 



ing. that home hfe is to be made cheerful and joyous. Each one must 

 do his or her part to make conversation genial and happy. We are too 

 ready to converse with our newspapers and books, to seek some com- 

 panion at the store, hotel, saloon, clubroom or bowling alley, etc.. and to 

 forget that home is anything more than a place to eat and sleep In. 

 The revival of conversation, the entertainment of one another, as a 

 roomful of i>eople will entertain themselves, is one secret of a happy 

 home. Remember this conversation should not simply occupy husband 

 and wife and other older members of the family but extend itself to 

 the children. Parents should be careful to talk with them, to enter Into 

 their life, to share their trifles, to assist in their studies, to meet them 

 in the thoughts and feelings of their childhood. It is a great step in 

 education when around the evening lamp are gathered the different 

 members of the family, the older assisting the younger, each one con- 

 tributing to the entertainment of the other, and all feeling that the 

 evening has passed only too rapidly away. The time spent thus by par- 

 ents in the higher entertainment of their children bears a harvest of 

 eternal blessings, and the long evenings furnish just the time. 



Another thing to make home happy is to cultivate singing in your 

 family. Begin by teaching the songs you sang in your childhood. Mix 

 them all together to meet the varying moods as in after life they come 

 over us mysteriously at times. Many a time, in the very whirl of busi- 

 ness, amid the splendor of the drive in the park or in the sunshine and 

 gayety of the avenue, some little thing wakes up the memory of early 

 3^outh. At other times, amid the rushing, mishaps of btisiness, a merry 

 ditty of the olden times breaks in upon the ugly train of thought, and 

 throws the mind in another channel; light breaks from behind the cloud 

 in the sky and new courage is given us. 



The honest man goes gladly to his work, and when the day's work 

 is done, his tools are laid aside and he is on his way home, where wife 

 and children, the tidy table, and cheery fireside await him. How can 

 he but have music in his heart to break forth so often into the merry 

 whistle or lively song? 



Mothers and wives do all you can to make your homes pleasant and 

 attractive, by keeping them neat and clean; by having amusements for 

 the evening; by having flowers, birds and all things that will add to the 

 amusement of the father and children, and last but not least, make glad 

 the home by kind words, gentle acts and sweet dispositions. 



Fathers and husbands do your part by spending your evenings at 

 home wita your families, help to entertain them, in place of loafing up 

 town or going to the neighbor's to enjoy yourself while wife and chil- 

 dren are home. Or worse still, spending your evenings till midnight or 

 later, at some place of amusement where you have to pay five, ten, fifteen 

 or twenty cents, or perhaps more for a single game, while your little 

 ones are in need of food and clothing. You will spend this money for 

 a little amusement and then walk into the store and buy your tobacco 

 and groceries on time, and if one of the little ones ask for something 

 they are really in need of you will put them off by saying, "O, you will 

 have to wait a while, I haven't the money now.' Why don't you be 



