Mrs. Peary, wife of Lieutenant Peary, accompanied 
her husband on his arctic expedition, and comes home 
with a little daug'hter a year old, who was born in the 
arctic regions. So the little one enjoys a distinction 
quite rare ; and Mrs. Peary has won additional laurels 
for her sex. By and by, the limitations of being a 
woman will be so few that they will not be worth men¬ 
tioning. Then we shall begin to appreciate the privi¬ 
lege of being a woman, which is of no small import¬ 
ance and not so evanescent as to disappear in changes 
of custom. „ „ 
« « € 
The opponents of woman suffrage are making much 
of the defeat of W. C. P. Breckinridge. They claim 
that it proves that women have sufScient influence 
without being allowed to vote. According to all ac¬ 
counts, it took mujh harder work on the women’s part, 
and a much smaller plurality was secured, than if the 
women had held the power of the ballot in their own 
hands. It appears to us that in making their influence 
felt without having the ballot, the women Lave to do 
a great deal of campaign work—to the neglect of 
their homes, is it not ? After denying women the fran¬ 
chise here in New York, the citizens who are working 
in the interests of good government, are looking to 
women for help, and even Dr. Parkhurst, who has 
been quoted, “ Hang woman suffrage,” sees the neces¬ 
sity of appealing to the better half of mankind. The 
situation reminds us of the old song, where a husband 
and his wife could not agree and the husband decided 
to drown himself. So he had his wife tie his hands 
and feet securely so that he could not get out if he 
changed his mind. Then he stood on the brink of the 
river, and she was to run down and push him m. He 
stepped aside, and she fell in, of cou-se ! 
Oh, save me, save me, Johnny Sands 1 
Then cried his loving spouse. 
I can't, my dear, though much I wish. 
For you have tied my hands. 
With their hands tied, the suffragists may feel very 
much inclined to let the reformers flght the battle 
alone. 
A LOST ART REGAINED. 
ELL, I declare, if I ain’t beat out! To think 
that a girl of mine should bring up her girls 
so foolish ! There’s Maud, the eldest, married to as 
fine a young man as you ever see, and they’ve got the 
prettiest baby, my little great grand-daughter. They 
all say Maud’s husband is a rising young man, but his 
income ain’t very big yet (young lawyers’ fees ain’t 
apt to be), and his family expenses are pretty heavy, 
although Maud does the best she knows how ; but she 
doesn’t know how to manage very economically, and as 
for sewing she was as ignorant as a child six years old. 
John bought her a new sewing machine, thinking that 
would help her out some, but she didn’t know how 
to sew by hand, or like to, either, and as for cutting 
and fitting the baby’s clothes—she didn’t know the 
first thing. Before she was married, she was always 
at school, and she is educated up to the top notch, but 
that didn’t seem to help her a mite to keep the bread 
from burning, or to make a dress or petticoat for the 
baby. John says that some day he hopes to be able 
to hire all of that sort of work done, but at present 
he can’t see his way clear to do it. So she was strug¬ 
gling along as best she could with a cheap girl, hiring 
her washing done, buying her own clothes and baby’s 
ready-made as much as she could, and hiring a dress¬ 
maker to come in by the day and do the rest, and all 
of the while blaming her mother for not teaching her 
to sew and keep house better. 
“ Maud,” says I to her one day, “ you ain’t too old 
to learn now,” at which she brightened up wonder¬ 
fully and inquired, “ Do you think I could ? Will you 
teach me. Grandma Pettingill ? I don’t even know 
enough to buy the material to make up, and I have 
lets of time that I might be sewing if I only knew how. 
Why, I cannot make a decent buttonhole, and baby’s 
clothes require so many,” she said with a sigh of dis¬ 
couragement. “Of course, I will, dear. I’ll write 
home to-day that I shall stay a month longer, and I’ll 
spend that month teaching you to sew.” And I did. 
First thing we looked over her clothes and baby’s, 
and spent a couple of days repairing and mending. 
Tnen we went shopping and bought cambric, muslin, 
flannel, etc. I helped her cut out some of the plain 
things first, some part of which she could sew on the 
machine alter they were basted, though there were a 
good many stitches to be taken by hand in order to 
finish them off, and Maud found that she could do 
nicely with me to show her a little. “ Where there’s a 
will, there’s a way,” and she was anxious to learn. 
After she had practiced a little, we made dresses for 
baby, shirt waists and morning dresses for herself, and 
we cut out a good supply of sheets, pillow slips, etc., 
which she laid aside to make after I went home. She 
soon discovered that she could buy better material at 
half the cost of ready made garments ; and that while 
it might be economy for those business women who 
buy such things ready-made, it certainly was not econ¬ 
omy for a young housekeeper or any other person with 
small means and time at their disposal. Her stitches 
were pretty long and uneven to start with, but before 
I left she could sew nicely, and was wondering if she 
could not make her better dresses, and reckoning up 
how much money she might save to help buy the little 
home she and John were planning for. 
When I kissed her good-bye she said, “I always 
knew there was something lacking about my education, 
and now I have decided that the most important study 
was omitted.” The next time I vi-ited my daughter 
Clarissa I didn’t say much for a few days, but I kept 
my eyes open, and one of the first things I found out 
was, that there wasn’t any sewing done in that house, 
excepting what she did herself; the remainder she 
hired done outside. As for teaching Elsie-and Clara 
to sew, the idea seemed never to have entered her 
head. When they were not at school, they were p'ae- 
ticing their music, playing tennis, or riding their 
bicycles. At last I spoke to her about it, and told her 
how I had taught Maud to sew. She hesitated a 
moment, then said apologetically, “ Girls are so busy 
nowadays, they have to study out of school hours, and 
I feel as if they needed the rest of their time for 
amusement and exercise in order to keep in good 
health.” Just then Clara came running in with one of 
those hateful three-cornered tears in the skirt of her 
dress for mamma to mend, and that reminded Elsie 
that she had stepped on her dress going upstairs last 
Dust Brush and Catch-All. Fig, 174. 
night and ripped the skirt off from the binding, and 
would mamma fix that “so she could have it this after¬ 
noon ?” 
When the girls had left the room I inquired, “ Clar¬ 
issa, do you think it would injure the health of those 
girls to do their own mending if they knew how ?” 
She had to admit that she did not think it would, and 
added, “I am so thankful that you taught me how. I 
remember how I used to have my stint in sewing every 
day just as regular as my lessons. One day it was 
hemming, another backstitch in g, or sewing over-and- 
over, and I don’t think it injured my health at all; 
anyway, I used to enjoy my playtimes all the better 
for feeling that my task was done. I presume my girls 
would think it pretty hard if I should require it of 
them, and I don’t see how I am to set about it at this 
late day. I ought to have commenced earlier.” 
“ You just leave it to me, Clarissa,” said I. “ Give 
Elsie permission to come home with me for a good 
long visit and I’ll teach her first, and then it will be 
Clara’s turn.” 
“ But she would have to neglect her studies, and 
would fall behind her class.” 
“ Bother her class!” I interrupted impatiently. 
“ You’ll find that she will be way ahead of the other 
girls when she is in Maud’s position.” 
“ You’re right, mother,” she said, and a few days 
later we started for home together. 
As Elsie was 16 years old, I concluded that we better 
not begin on patch-work or darning, so I got some 
bleached cotton and the first rainy day I asked her if 
she did not want to make mamma a pair of pretty 
hem-stitched pillow slips for a birthday present. 
“ Why, I should love to, 
grandma,” she said, “ but 
I don’t know how. I can’t 
sew.” 
“ I’ll teach you Elsie,” I 
replied. 
“Will you?” she asked 
as pleased as could be. 
“ Hem-stitching is so fash¬ 
ionable I would like to 
learn ; and how surprised 
mamma will be.” 
She took to it as natural 
as a duck to water, and if 
you’ll believe me, I j ad to coax her to leave it. The 
hem-stitching led 1o sewing. When I wrote to Clar¬ 
issa, Elsie’s father was so pleased that he wrote right 
back, “Keep Elsie as long as she’ll stay,” and inclosed 
a check to buy cloth and thread, adding, “I would 
much rather my daughters learned to sew and keep 
house than to spend their time and health studying 
Greek, and they will doubtless find them more useful 
accomplishments.” Alice e. pinney. 
OVER THE DOUGHNUTS. 
OW, I’m just goin’ to take John some of them 
doughr uts that he used to set such store by. 
I don’t doubt but what Mirandy’s a good cook, but 
mebbe hers don’t taste like these. He always said I 
got a turn to ’em that nobody else didn’t.” 
Aunt Huldah rolled up her sleeves and sot to work. 
These sweetcakes were to be the very finest she could 
make—for John hadn’t tasted any of her “ home 
cooking ” for 10 years. “ My little nevvy, John, that 
I always thought so much of! And to think that I’ll 
see him to morrow. Bless his dear heart! Bless his 
dear heart I ” she kept saying, as she rolled, and cut, 
and twisted, and fried. 
The morning sun peepedfin through the hop-covered 
lattice work at the window, and saw a kitchen that 
would make one's heart glad. The floor was white, 
the table was white, and the little brass ketDe was 
burnished until it made a first-rate mirror. Then 
there was a multitude of drawers, bins, shelves and 
corners. In short, there was a place for everything 
and everything v^as in its place. Aunt Huldah, reign¬ 
ing over it all, was a fitting queen. What a kind old 
face she had, and how motherly she looked as she 
trotted to and fro. But not a chick or child had she— 
only John, who had left her so long before to seek his 
fortune in the Far West. Now he was only 100 miles 
away, and she had made up her mind that she would 
not let another v eek pass over her head without see¬ 
ing him. It was to be a surprise, too. John had 
written that he and his wife would run down and see 
her, and she had made all preparations for the ex¬ 
pected visit. Then, at the last minute, a telegram 
came, saying that it was impossible for him to leave 
his business just at that time, but he hoped to be able 
to come in the spring. And this was only October. 
So she made a sudden resolve—if John couldn’t come 
to her, she could and would go to John. 
The doughnuts were made and stowed away in a 
huge, square box. “Looks like a lot, but it won’t take 
long if he’s got an appetite like he used to hev !” 
Aunt Huldah said, eyeing the box complacently. 
Finally, the cow was sold, and the satchel packed, and 
she was on her way to the depot—a whole hour too 
soon ; but she couldn’t run the risk of being late, she 
thought—not when she was going to see John 1 “Go¬ 
ing to John, going to John !” the cars kept jolting. 
Aunt Huldah was tremulously happy. Would he 
know her ? Such a thought as her not knowing him 
never entered her mind. Could she not see him— 
yellow-haired, freckle-faced, hazel-eyed ? 
Her attention was soon attracted to the occupants 
of the seat opposite. What a sad, sad face the woman 
had, and how patient she was with the little ones. 
When they ate their lunch. Aunt Huldah noticed how 
frugal was their repast, and stooped down and untied 
the cord around the doughnut box. Then she passed 
some of the sweetcakes over the way, saying that 
when her boy was little, there was nothing he liked 
so well. How the children’s eyes danced, and how 
grateful the mother looked. She told Aunt Huldah, 
after a little, that they were on their way to Nebraska 
where “he” had cleared some ground and built a 
house. His crops had done pretty well, and he had 
been able to send them money enough to j oin him. 
But there was one left behind, she said, and her eyes 
filled with tears ; Jamie, the only boy, had died the 
morning the letter came ! Aunt Huldah’s eyes filled 
with tears, too. How sad, how sad 1 She wished she 
could say something to show her sympathy. She 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov’t Report 
AB^LUTEEff PURE 
