84 



HOME AND FLOWERS 



I realize keenly how unable to write I am, 

 but for all that, and having to sit up nights to 

 do it, I can not keep still. 



The above letter was sent to the editor of 

 Home and Flowers, and referred to the depart- 

 ment of The Well-Ordered Household. Truly, the 

 heroic lives in this world are not all connected 

 with battlefields. The difficulty in the life of 



BED MADE UP 



the writer of this letter is that she meets her 

 Waterloo every day. It is very easy for us to 

 propose beautiful and inspiring thoughts when 

 the health is good, the outlook fair for a moder- 

 ate amount of work, and an income large enough 

 upon which to live, but the halo which we would 

 cast about the kitchen sink, the mop, and the 

 stew-pan dies away when we are brought into 

 too close and constant contact with them. Still, 

 work is the more effective for belief that there 

 is a halo to be found and the habit of attending 

 to the duty near at hand and looking forward 

 to better days. 



The darker the way the more light we need. 

 It may be hard to keep it burning, but it must 

 be had. The easy pathway without any ob- 

 stacles does not develop strength. Our strangest 

 men and women are those who have tried their 

 strength and won. Women working in a house- 

 hold with nothing but the humdrum of life pre- 

 senting itself from day to day are living heroic, 

 noble lives, which, while it may not make them 

 illustrious, wins for them a strength which has 

 made wonderful mothers of great men and 

 women. Taken away their life battles and weak- 

 ness would have been the inheritance of these 

 children. 



It would do every one of us good, who try 

 to encourage the life beautiful, to try to live 

 it under such circumstances as are mentioned in 

 this letter. Still the men and women who seem 

 to have less drudgery and less care are fighting 

 their own battles in the busy and professional 

 world. The brain worker and the man who 

 carries heavy financial responsibilities have 



larger worries than those who toil simply by 

 hand. There is no doubt that every person, no 

 matter how hard his daily task becomes, must 

 keep always ahead of him the desire for the life 

 beautiful. What one needs to do in this case is 

 to fold the hands occasionally, relax and rest, 

 and say, "I have done the best I can, I have 

 nothing to worry about, everything will come 

 out all right." There is no place where this is 

 more necessary than in a kitchen where work 

 drives from morning till night. If any one on 

 earth will be taken care of and the struggle 

 made easy to endure, it is the woman who car- 

 ries the burden of rearing children and who 

 strives to keep up the work in a home. It is 

 just such mothers whose children have had suc- 

 cess. Who can say but that the greater heroism 

 is in the life of the mother in her quiet, unevent- 

 ful, but busy life? It would seem that the 

 flowers were made to bloom, the hills were made 

 most beautiful and the valleys most peaceful 

 for just such persons, rather than for those 

 whose lives are so easy that they need less the 

 comforts *of a beautiful world. 



SUGGESTIONS FROM A READER 



An ideal bed for health and comfort should 

 have a metal frame (white enameled, iron or 

 brass), upholstered, spiral shelf spring (if this 



BED OPENED 



can not be had a woven wire, reinforced Wiuh 

 several rows of spiral springs through middle 

 so it T^-ill not sag), a good hair mattress made 

 in tAvo sections, a mattress cover, feather pillows 

 22x30 inches, one pair soft wool blankets, and 

 a lightweight puff for summer (two pair 

 blankets for winter), pillow cases made of 45- 

 inch cloth and finished 36 inches long, sheets cut 



To Cure a Cold in One Day- 

 Take Laxative Bromo Quinine Tablets. 

 All druggists refund the money if it fails to 

 cure. E. W. Grove's signature is on each 

 box. 25e. 



