THE UNTRAINED GIRL! 
How Can She Earn Her Living’? 
HKR DISADVANTAGES ! WHAT IS THE BEMEDY ? 
Make the Best of Opportunities. 
In the first place, the untrained girl must be what 
she is, then become what she can. She must look 
about her for employment. There is generally some 
one thing each one can do and likes to do better than 
anything else. Each one has a gift ; no two have ex¬ 
actly the same gift. God has given us these gifts to 
make our own way in the world, and if it is not possi¬ 
ble just at present to use them, we must make them 
the aim of life and use them whenever the opportunity 
presents itself. It is right to conceive a purpose and 
pursue it with all the energy of our beings, conquer¬ 
ing all difliculties, seizing every opportunity, and 
creating one if there be none. Thus did Harriet 
Martineau and Jennie Lind. 
The most common mistake among girls and women, 
who must earn their own living, is that they choose 
those vocations in life which are already overcrowded. 
They hear of the large incomes some are earning by 
writing or painting, and they do not think of the long 
years of toil these apparently favored ones passed 
through before they were able to command such in¬ 
comes ; so they flood the market with unsalable arti¬ 
cles. Had they turned their attention to some work 
which would bring in ready money to supply their 
present needs, and spent only their leisure moments 
on what they considered their talent, they would in 
time find that they were more competent to support 
themselves as they had desired. Why not choose 
more humble and quiet occupations ? It is not the 
labor one does that degrades, for it has been said : 
“ We are made little or great by our will and deter¬ 
mination.” Never by the work we are compelled by 
necessity to do to earn our own living. 
If it be a girl living in the city or town who must 
earn her livelihood, why not try to get a position as 
companion or maid ? There are a great many women 
of ample means who would be glad of such a compan¬ 
ion. In many instances they would like some one 
to read to them, and, if they are society women, there 
are many things they would find for one to do for 
which they would be willing to pay. 
Another occupation somewhat neglected is that of 
mending for different families, and if the work were 
well done, and the charges for services rendered not 
too high, it would furnish a good reliable employ¬ 
ment, because there are many families in which the 
housewife almost despairs when she beholds her 
mending basket. 
In the rural districts, women are becoming success¬ 
ful farmers. I have in mind one young woman whose 
father was a gardener. The father became unable to 
work through ill health, and the income without the 
lather’s labor was not sufficient to support the family; 
so the daughter saw that she must do something, or 
their beautiful home must be sold. This seemed 
almost more than the girl could bear, to see her 
parents leaving the home they loved and had worked 
to obtain. There were about seven acres of land 
which the father had under good cultivation. It 
occurred to the daughter that she might go on with 
her father’s business. Of course, this untrained girl 
did inot expect great returns for her first venture in 
farming. Two cows, one horse and about one hundred 
hens constituted all the stock. The cows, from butter 
sold, netted $115 ; the hens, from eggs sold, $125, and 
the land in small fruits and vegetables, about $150. 
Besides supplying the family with these articles, and 
paying hired help, she had made $300. As we look 
about us and see all that woman has accomplished, 
and how capable she has shown herself in every 
position of honor and trust, we cannot help thinking 
that Victor Hugo is right in calling this “ woman’s 
century.” josik smith. 
Onondaga County, N. Y. 
Keeping Summer Boarders. 
When the farmer came in to dinner at noon, he gave 
his family a piece of news: “Worden has sold his 
mill and is going to Elden to take charge of a lime 
kiln and plaster mill there ; so he wants to sell or rent 
his house to me, but 1 have no use for it. It’s too good 
to put a common tenant in, and, besides, he doesn’t 
want Tom, Dick and Harry in it.” 
“ Do you think he’d rent it to me to keep summer 
boarders in ?” asked Jessie, eagerly.” 
“ For you to take summer boarders in ! ” echoed her 
father. “ What in the world do you mean ? ” 
“Just what I say,” said Jessie, with determination. 
“ If he’ll rent it reasonably, I’m going to take some 
boarders this summer.” 
“ How’ll you get them ? ” asked her mother. 
“ I know,” she said; “ you wait and see.” 
Soon after dinner, she went to see Mr. Worden 
about renting the house. He would let her have it, 
all furnished, for $10 a month. It was almost new, 
with furnace, hot and cold water, bath-rooms, etc.; 
but it stood on the railroad about a quarter of a mile 
from the highway, between the big, ungainly plaster 
mill on one side, and the woods on the other. The 
next day, Jessie started for the city to get her boarders. 
She went first to her cousin’s offije and asked him to 
write her a recommendation and give her a list of names 
of people that would be likely to want a quiet country 
home for the summer. He applauded her plan, gave 
the desired list and recommendation and some good 
advice into the bargain ; then she started on her quest 
for boarders. Her fresh face and quiet, business-like 
manner must have inspired confidence, for, to make a 
long story short, she persuaded the heads of four 
families to come and see the house, and, in the end, 
secured six boarders for two months, July and August. 
A semi-invalid widow and her companion, a girl of 
Jessie’s age, paid $6 a week ; a man and his wife who 
brought their horse and carriage and kept it in the 
barn at Jessie’s own home, paid $8 a week and a little 
four-year-old and his mother paid $5 a week ; every 
Saturday night the four-year-old’s fathei; came down 
from the city and stayed until Monday morning, and 
added another dollar to the weekly income. 
Jessie was a good housekeeper for she had been 
used to work ever since she cou’d remember. She 
gave the washing to a woman near by and got along 
nicely with the help of her mother once in a while. 
All the vegetables came from her father’s garden and, 
with the strawberries and other fruits in season, the 
expenses were comparatively light. A baker’s wagon 
came around two or three times a week, a meat man 
put in his appearance Mondays and Thursdays, and, 
once in a great while, fresh fish were brought around. 
Jessie owned a dozen Plymouth Rock fowls that she 
attended to when at home, and these she brought over 
to the “ boarding house” and fresh eggs delighted the 
city people who were used to limed ones. 
When September 1 came, Jessie parted with her 
boarders with real regret, but her full pocketbook 
reconciled her in part to the separation. Jessie has 
made up her mind that keeping boarders is her forte, 
and next summer hopes to have as many as the 
Worden house can accommodate. e. c. b. 
Madison County, N. Y. 
Follow Natural Inclinations. 
At first thought, one would say that an untrained 
girl can do nothing, and another would say, she can 
do anything—in time. Mark Twain says: “ Training, 
training is everything ; training is all there is to a 
person. We speak of nature ; it is folly, there is no 
such thing as nature. What we call by that mislead¬ 
ing name is merely heredity and training. We have 
no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own ; they 
are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is 
original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or dis¬ 
creditable to us, can be covered by the point of a 
cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed 
by and inherited from a procession of ancestors that 
stretches back a billion of years.” Of course, we do 
not take the humorist quite seriously, but isn’t he 
right about our training having begun ages ago ? 
We learn easily, have lightness of touch and versa¬ 
tility, because our grandmothers had to turn from 
cooking to sewing and knitting, and rock the cradle 
with one foot while they turned the spinning wheel 
with the other, and perhaps read from a favorite 
book at the same time. That was versatility. That 
was training that has already been done for our 
lucky fin-de-siecle girls. 
A cheerful woman declares that an untrained girl 
can take hold of the domestic machinery of a house¬ 
hold and run it if she has to. This cheerful woman 
has trained a good many green girls (just come over) 
unable to speak English or she able to speak their 
tongue ; yet she managed to make them understand. 
But this optimist thinks that anybody can do any¬ 
thing that he wants to do. There’s the rub you 
know—wanting, wishing, willing to do. 
In one of the Southern industrial schools for colored 
girls, they have taken in pupils who had never known 
what it was to sleep in a bed, yet in two years some 
of them were able to cut and make their own dresses. 
That seems wonderful doesn’t it ? And how encour¬ 
aging it ought to be to girls who say : “ I can’t do any¬ 
thing ; I’ve never been taught.” See how easy it is 
to learn I 
If there be some one thing you reahy wish to do, 
try to teach yourself a little—oh ! just a little—to 
start on. The Lord helps those who help themselyes, 
you know. But it is very hard to help one who doesn’t 
start, for how on earth could any one ever have known 
which way a bean would run, or given it a pole if the 
bean had never started ? docia dykens 
Ohio. 
Willingness Will Win Success. 
First of all, one must be willing to accept a respect¬ 
able position which enables her to earn her bread, 
even though it may not be quite up to the standard of 
the work she really desires to do. She must remember 
that our schools are annually graduating many girls 
who have been thoroughly trained in that which she 
has not, and that the higher positions are sought, and 
generally obtained, by these girls. But, on the other 
hand, in comparison with the vast number standing, 
diploma in hand, only a few rise to prominence in 
science, literature or art; and only a small number 
become successful, practical business women. Often 
we are led to believe that the best education is that 
which develops faculty as well as seeks to make 
accomplished ladies. “Accomplishment embroiders 
the toe of a slipper and paints daisies on the bowl of a 
soup ladle; faculty neatly repairs the torn garment 
and compounds the hunger-appeasing soup.” 
The education that makes us all wiser and better is 
that which enables us cheerfully to perform with 
alacrity and ease that which comes to us in life. A 
woman writer of note in relating her experience, tells 
us that hers had been a carefully sheltered life with 
no thought of how she should earn her daily bread 
until sickness and misfortune in her family suddenly 
threw her on her own resources. She had reason to 
believe that she could earn a livelihood with her pen, 
if she could find a place where her literary work 
would receive notice ; so she accordingly applied at 
the office of an editor. “ What can you do ?” was the 
question addressed her. “ I will try anything,” was 
the ready answer. “ Have you had any practical ex¬ 
perience in literary work ?” again questioned the 
editor. “ No, sir; but if you’ll allow me to sweep 
your office I’ll sweep it better than it was ever swept 
before.” The editor gave her a surprised look as he 
evidently expected she would ask at once to write an 
article or report news. “ Very well,” said he, naming 
a small sum ; “I will try you for a week; be here 
promptly in the morning.” 
“ I took more pains with that room than, it now 
seems to me, I ever did with any other work ; ” she 
related to a friend years afterward. In a few days 
she heard the editor discussing with his assistant the 
sickness of his leading reporter, and querying who 
should be sent to report an important meeting. “ Will 
you try me ? ” asked the persevering woman. “ You ? ” 
he said. “ Yes, me. Give me a chance.” He looked 
curiously at her, evidently admiring her pluck and 
said, “Yes, try it.” She tried, and has never lacked 
literary work since. This is, of course, an exceptional 
case ; but it shows that a willingness to accept any 
respectable work goes a great way sometimes. 
Another who has a good position and reached it by 
stepping stones, recently said: “You would be sur¬ 
prised to know the number of girls and women who 
think they can assume a difficult position at once. 
Scores say to me : ‘ Miss A, you have such a desirable 
position. Can you tell me of one similar ? ’ I always 
say to them : ‘ Are you willing to begin over there in 
that dingy little office doing night work on a daily 
paper, reading proof or setting type ? Are you will¬ 
ing to go to any respectable place to report news, no 
matter how tired you are ? To be always ready for 
emergencies and not complain ?’ To these questions, 
I invariably receive the answer, ‘ Oh ! I did not know 
that you commenced in that way. No, I could not do 
A crcam-of-tartar baking powder. 
Highest of all in leavening strength.— 
Latest U. S. Oovernmeiit Food Report. 
Royal Baking Powder Co., 
100 Wall St., N. Y. 
/ 
