554 
TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
little bird skipping about in the shallows, 
and immediately raised his gun. But just 
then the confiding little songster began to 
sing, and after listening to his rare summery 
melody, he turned away, saying, “ Bless 
your little heart, I can’t shoot you. not even 
for Tom.” 
The species is distributed all along the 
mountain ranges of the Pacific coast from 
Alaska to Mexico, and east to the Rocky 
Mountains. Nevertheless, it is as yet but 
little known, even among naturalists. Au¬ 
dubon and Wilson did not meet it at all. 
Swainson was, I believe, the first to describe 
a specimen from Mexico. Specimens Were 
shortly afterward procured by Drummond 
near the sources of the Athabasca River, 
between the fifty-fourth and fifth-sixth 
parallels; and it has been collected by 
nearly all of the numerous exploring ex¬ 
peditions undertaken of late through our 
western states and territories; for it never 
fails to engage the attention of naturalists 
in a very particular manner. 
Such, then, is the life of our little cinclus, 
beloved of every one who is so happy as to 
know him. Tracing on strong wing every 
curve of the most precipitous torrent, from 
one extremity of the Californian Alps to 
the other; not fearing to follow them 
through their darkest gorges, and coldest 
snow-tunnels; acquainted with every water¬ 
fall, echoing their divine music; and 
throughout the whole of their beautiful 
lives interpreting all that we in our unbe¬ 
lief call terrible in the utterances of torrents, 
as only varied expressions of God’s eternal 
love. 
TWENTY-SIX HOURS A DAY. 
I.-HOW TO 
\ 
\ 
“ W ELL,” 'ejcclaims tired Mrs. Motherly, 
“ if anybody needs twenty-six hours a day, 
I am sure I do, and ten days a week into 
the bargain. The days are not half long 
enough, and when night comes, the thought 
of the things I ought to have done but 
couldn’t, tires me more than all I have- 
done. This very day, when I expected 
to do so much sewing, has slipped away, 
while I have trotted around after the chil¬ 
dren, washing faces, brushing tangled hair, 
putting on rubber boots and taking them 
off again in fifteen minutes, and pick¬ 
ing up blocks and playthings, scarfs and 
mittens over and over again. I have 
mended unexpected tears in jackets and 
dresses, put court-plaster on ‘ skatched 
finders,’ settled twenty quarrels between the 
baby and the next older, threaded needles 
for ‘ make-believe sewings,’ and all the 
time been trying to sew, or dust, or sweep, 
or make gingerbread, till I feel as if I were 
in a dozen pieces, and every piece trying to 
do something different. At night I am so 
tired that all I ask for is a place to crawl 
into and sleep if I can, and even that must 
be with one eye open to see that the baby 
doesn’t get uncovered. Yet there are peo¬ 
ple so unfeeling as to say I ought to try to 
get time to read and all that! ” 
Not so fast, my little mother. It is all 
true, every word of it, but let us see if it isn’t 
GET THEM. 
possible to save a little time out of even these 
busy, wearying days for something higher 
than mere physical needs. 
In order to find out how to save it, let us 
see what we do with it. Suppose we sort 
over our work as we do our work-baskets, 
and see if we cannot make a little time by 
saving it. 
The first and most important of our 
duties is the care of the children, including, 
of course, their physical, moral and intel¬ 
lectual training. ' 
Next comes the housekeeping, i. e., the 
literal keeping the house in order, looking 
after its cleanliness and general pleasantness. 
Then, cooking or preparing and serving 
the food, including the care of the table and 
all that pertains to it. This is really another 
part of the housekeeping, and perhaps ought 
to be included in it, except that in some 
households the details are given over en¬ 
tirely to servants, while in others they are 
in greater or less degree the work of the 
lady of the house. 
And lastly, the sewing. 
As regards the care of the children it is 
almost impossible that there can be any 
superfluities. To every true mother, their 
welfare is first and foremost. Better that 
cobwebs festoon our parlor-walls, and dust 
lie inch deep on our books, than that 
