37& 
AMERICAN AGRIC'CLtCtRIST, 
No. 155 . 
YOUNG NURSES — Fbom a Painting bt W. Hemsley. 
{Engraved for the American Agriculturist.) 
A rather odd picture this, young friends, but we shall be 
disappointed if you do not like it better and better, the 
longer you look at it, and the more you study its details. 
Before you read further, examine every part of it, and 
make up a description of your own—a mental one if not 
a written one.The mother is away just now, and 
these children are playing house-keeping in earnest. That 
coarsely dressed boy makes a pretty good nurse, does he 
not ? He looks very serious. He has set down his spade, 
turned the turnips out of his basket, which makes a good 
seat. He holds the baby just as if he knew how, and we 
guess he does. He grasps the wooden spoon firmly, lest 
it should be moved by the little hand thrown up. His 
sister perhaps thinks she could do the feeding better, but 
she appears contented to let her stronger brother try it, 
though she is anxiously watching the result, as if half in 
doubt whether this is exactly the way the thing should be 
done. That chubby little boy looking on, enjoys the fun 
very much, and well he may—we enjoy it too. How 
pleasant it is to see these poor peasant children exhibit so 
much love for and so much interest in their baby brother, 
and this is the great charm of the picture—love and affec¬ 
tion are always beautiful. Boys generally have an aver¬ 
sion to “tending baby ”—it is beneath their dignity. A 
great mistake this, when they will spare no pains in 
nursing and rearing a puppy, or other animal, and esteem 
it quite manly. What is a puppy, or calf, or colt, com¬ 
pared with a little baby-man or woman ? Not long since 
we heard a mother, who was herself weakly, say to a 
friend she was visiting : “ I get along very well with my 
work alone, my boys help me much.” How much better, 
we thought, than if she had been compelled to say: 
“ I am almost discouraged, my boys are so much trouble.” 
This single expression, carelessly dropped in a conver¬ 
sation, gave us a very high opinion of those boys, and we 
could not but feel that they would grow up to be useful 
men. They helped their mother! Noble boys ! They did 
not wait to be asked to do this or that, or grumble about 
it when asked, but they watched for every opportunity to 
lighten her labors.. That's the way to do, boys, and girls 
too. Your parents are toiling, day—and night too peihaps 
—to provide you a home and its comforts, and to lay by 
something that you may need in sickness, or in a day of 
trouble. By and by they will be taken from you, and 
you will fill their places. You will soon be full grown 
men and women ; you can scarcely imagine how much 
pleasure it will then give you to think over the efforts you 
have made to lighten their labors. Our own parents, 
wearied out in life’s long and toilsome journey, have laid 
down to rest in the grave, and how many times have we 
desired to call them back 
that we might repay in some 
measure the ten thousand 
cares and anxieties they en¬ 
dured for us, and to make 
up, by redoubled kindness, 
for every negligence of our 
boyhood days. And so you 
will all feel when you grow 
up, and your parents are tot . 
tering with age, or quietly 
slumbering in the chambers 
of death. Remember this 
now, and do what you can 
for them. Boys, don’t let 
your selfishness, or your love 
for play, or any false notions 
of dignity, keep you from 
helping your father, and 
your mother too. Always 
keep in mind that the high¬ 
est praise that can be given 
to a boy or man is to say: 
“He is kind to his mother!” 
BOYS EABNINO $5 A DAY 
Yes, $5 a day—and no hum¬ 
bug about it either. One of 
the lovers of boys and girls, 
who sometimes writes for 
these columns in the Agri¬ 
culturist, thus figures out 
how a boy can make $5 a 
day while attending school, 
oreven studying at home this 
Winter : A man can general¬ 
ly make money at farming 
as well as in the various pro¬ 
fessions, in proportion to the 
knowledge, and the well dis¬ 
ciplined mind he has. It is 
almost certain that a man 
able to think and plan well, 
can make $1000 a year more 
than the one who has not 
this faculty. Now close study 
is just the thing to make one 
skillful in thinking and plan¬ 
ning. Or, we will say that 
the thoroughly educated man 
can make $1000 a year 
while the uneducated man 
gets but $400. But $600 is a 
low interest on a capital of 
$10,000. So the educatedman 
has, in reality, a capital of 
$ 10,000 more than the unedu¬ 
cated one. Well, to get this 
capital (this knowledge and 
thinking power) may require 
a boy to study from the age 
of S to 18, or 10 years, say 
five days a week, and forty 
weeks in a year ; that is 2000 
days in all. Now then, his 
2000 days of study give him 
what is equal to an invested 
capital of $10,000, or $5 for 
each day. Remember that 
this result is just as certain if 
you live a farmer, as if you follow any other profession— 
indeed we think a good education, a good thinking power 
pays on the average, quite as well in farming as in any 
other occupation. Talk this over with your father and 
mother, work over the problem with them, and then all 
keep in mind that everyday of absence from school, or 
frittered away in idleness, or useless occupation, is $5 ab¬ 
stracted from your future capital in life—is so much irre¬ 
trievably lost. But this is only the money part of the cal¬ 
culation. The pleasure a man may derive from learning, 
the nobility it gives him, can not be estimated in figures, 
for “ wisdom is more precious than much fine gold.” 
-_--•«*——- 
Showers.— A clergyman met a little boy of his ac 
quaintance on the cars, and said to him : 
“ This is quite a stormy day, my son.” 
“Yes sir,” said the boy, “ this is a very wet rain.” 
The clergyman, thinking to rebuke such hyperbole, 
asked if he ever knew of other than wet rain. The boy 
answered that he had read in a certain book, of a time 
when it rained fire and brimstone, and he guessed that 
was not a wet rain. 
The Chinese say a drunkard’s nose is a light-house, 
warning us of the little water that passes underneath. 
