We are all tired of reading of “ new ” as, skimmer still in hand, she beamed 
women ; but the little women will never upon her dainty Clara. “ If ever our 
cease to be attractive to their elders. To 
see the most womanly instincts govern¬ 
ing the actions of the little girls, gives a 
throb of encouragement to replace the 
weariness the newspapers have pro¬ 
duced with their satire and slur on 
woman. We have not met the “ new ” 
woman, despite the many announcements 
of her arrival, and have about come to 
the conclusion that her picture is only 
the result of a kind of delirium tremens 
which is overtaking intemperate intel¬ 
lects. There is a class of people who 
take their daily bracers of falsehood, un¬ 
reason and conservatism in order to keep 
up their false standards of morality. 
The mental collapse has come at last, 
and these unfortunates, instead of retir¬ 
ing to a cell and burying their horrors, 
rush into print and give the public the 
phantoms of their disordered minds. The 
only people who are convinced that the 
“new” woman as caricatured is real, 
are the people who don’t understand 
jokes, and the credulous ones who know 
there’s such a thing because they’ve 
seen the picture of it. 
* 
But the little woman is just as real 
and as admirable as one could wish. J ust 
now, she is a very business-like little 
body in New York. By the half-dozen 
one finds her engaged on the sidewalks 
holding “ fairs ” to get money for the 
sick baby fund. She is, perhaps, more 
enterprising than her mother was at the 
same age. Yet who will stop to criticise 
her ways or motives in the self-imposed 
task of coaxing pennies for the benefit 
of poor, sick babies that she has never 
seen ? Will not the world be better when 
its citizens learn at so early an age that 
it is more blessed to give than to receive? 
Blessings on the little women ! The 
health and happiness of the babies is of 
more importance than the silver ques¬ 
tion, the tariff, and a half dozen other 
political problems, not to mention mili¬ 
tary training for the schoolboys. If the 
little women begin so young to give their 
attention to matters within woman’s 
province, we need not fear that they will 
forget or wander away from w’omanly 
duties, even though they may tread 
paths untraveled by their mothers. 
AN EVENT IN THE FI FIELD HOME. 
ELDOM had such excitement agitated 
the well-ordered Fifield family as 
prevailed there one morning in June 
when the second daughter, Clara, unex¬ 
pectedly appeared behind a hired horse 
from the village, accompanied by a 
young man, a stranger. It would have 
happened otherwise if Tommie had not 
loitered two hours the night before at 
the brook to catch lampreys on his way 
home from school, in consequence of 
which he reached home so full of mis¬ 
givings that he forgot to deliver the 
letter a neighbor had handed him at the 
schoolhouse. 
“Oh, Tommie, how could you ?” Clara 
gave the little fellow a look of tragic re¬ 
proach along with her kiss when she had 
conducted the stranger into the sitting- 
room, and then rushed to the kitchen 
where the available members of the 
family were to be found at that hour. 
“And there was no one at the station to 
meet me, and I thought something 
had detained you, and went to Cousin 
Emma's, and no one came, and 1 had to 
stay all night. I detest your lamprey 
eels ! Though 1 did use to love to wade 
in the brook and lift stones with them 
myself !” 
“ When we have electric cars on the 
turnpike, such annoying combinations 
—” began Fannie, but no one had a 
chance to finish a sentence just then. 
“ Electric cars !” protested the mother 
taxpayers are foolish enough to let their 
highways be spoiled, and their own 
vehicles be crushed into the gutters by 
a money-making nuisance that will en¬ 
danger their lives and not spend one 
cent to build a • bridge or grade a hill, 
and will spoil our driving without a by- 
your-leave, or an excuse me—” 
“Oh, mamma dear!” Lottie broke in 
plaintively. “If you please, could you 
wait till Clara has time to tell us whether 
it is Theron Huntoon she has in there, 
and whether they are engaged—” 
“ We did not mean it to happen this 
way.” Clara’s cheeks were red, and see¬ 
ing her approaching, Mrs. Fifield provi¬ 
dently laid down her creamy skimmer 
mindful of the pretty gown. “ I was to 
tell you the news last night, but there 
was no way but to meet him at the train 
this morning and come out together. 
Where is father ?” 
No one thought to reply, for Mrs. 
Fifield was wiping her eyes and kissing 
the blushing girl ; Lottie beaming her 
sisterly approval, Fannie waltzing about 
the kitchen swinging her dish towel above 
her head and caroling, “A wedding, a 
wedding, what fun, what fun,” while 
little Bess danced up and down for very 
joy over the liveliness of it all. Only 
Tommie l-etained any presence of mind. 
Eager to repair his fault, he was off 
cavorting toward the barn in search of 
his father, and shouting the moment he 
caught sight of him, “Clara is married, 
and he is in the parlor ! ” 
Of course, things soon settled to calmer 
measure, and the girls, after a little 
preening, went in to meet the prospective 
brother-in-law. And, of course, they soon 
slipped out again to talk the matter 
over by themselves. 
“So that is her wonderful Theron Ilun- 
toon ! Why, he would be as homely as 
any country rustic I ever saw. if it were 
not for the fit of his clothes, and his sit¬ 
ting up straight and speaking so po¬ 
litely,” was Fannie’s comment. 
“ Y r ou do cherish such exorbitant ex¬ 
pectations, Fan,” said the practical Lot¬ 
tie. “1 never supposed he was half as 
nice as my Joe. But,” and she made a 
mincing mouth, “Mr. Huntoon and Miss 
Clara and Miss Lottie ! Pshaw ! Joe and 
1 said ‘ Joe ’ and ‘ Lottie ’ as soon as we 
called each other anything.” As Lottie 
had worn an engagement ring nearly 
half a year, she spoke as one entitled 
to hold opinions. 
Mr. and Mrs. Fitield's opportunity to 
talk the matter over, did not come till 
evening, when Fannie and Clara and Ned 
had gone in the new surrey with Mr. 
lluntoon to see the latter on board the 
7:30 train for New York. “ Oh, yes, Hor¬ 
ace, I have seen from the moment he got 
up and offered you his hand in that def¬ 
erential, let-us-be-friends way of his, 
that you were all for Clara’s marrying 
him.” 
This accusation from Mrs. Fifield was 
in response to her husband’s remark, re¬ 
peated for the fourth or fifth time, that 
“Huntoon seems a likely sort of a young 
man.” 
“ I suppose you are dead set against 
him. Janet,” queried Mr. Fifield slyly. 
“ 1 have nothing against him person¬ 
ally; but I am opposed to girls marrying 
out of their station in life.” Mrs. Fitield’s 
tone was calm and judicial. “ Yes, I 
know,” she added, seeing the father rouse 
himself to protest, “ Clara is well edu¬ 
cated and refined ; but you will see, Hor¬ 
ace, if this thing goes on (and I see it 
will have to or leave Clara all broken up 
and miserable) you see how it will affect 
the rest. There was Fannie coming 
down in her very best dress just to drive 
over to the village to-night, and wanting 
to have fresh plates three or four times 
in one meal, and the table brushed, and 
all the meats and vegetables carried off 
before the dessert. I don’t like such 
affectations. I feel awkward, and forget 
to keep up conversation trying to drink 
my coffee after dinner is over, and if we 
have got to have fresh cream to season 
everything we eat and drink, you will 
see how little butter I shall make.” 
Mr. Fifield interposed something about 
letting young people have their day ; 
but his wife was not to be led from her 
theme. “ It is their peace of mind I 
tremble for most,” she resumed. “ As 
long as my daughters were little girls 
and went only to district school and to 
church, they were pleased with whatever 
I made for them, and thought a 10-cent 
print nice and pretty. Now they talk 
about French ginghams, and linen lawns, 
and expect fresh ones every summer. 
Lottie will be wanting her house fur¬ 
nished to match Clara’s, and Joe Thay¬ 
er's $3 a day will not stand such notions 
along with his own extravagant ways. 
Then, too, their Cousin Emma has seemed 
to be gi-owing fond of Jack Eliot, but I 
will warrant she will be all off of the 
notion of marrying a farmer after seeing 
Clara’s city man.” 
“ Pooh ! Janet; girls have more sense 
than you give them credit for.” 
“ It is not the girls alone who get their 
heads turned. When Joe Thayer pro¬ 
posed to Lottie, they settled the matter 
between themselves, and no fuss. Now 
here comes this young lawyer, and must 
see you alone, and then 1 must be called 
in, and there must be more hand shak¬ 
ing and waste of time and words. I 
would like well enough to see his people, 
but 1 don’t know what to say to his re¬ 
grets that they cannot call. 1 don’t 
know what he said to you, but I see it 
has made you all for him.” 
“I’m for a young man’s stating his 
prospects and ideas of life if he has ideas 
or prospects to state,” protested Horace 
Fifield. “ I never realized till now what 
it was for the old folks to give away a 
daughter and take a stranger in to be 
one of the family. Huntoon is not rich, 
but he will do all he can for Clara, and I 
like his speaking up like a man about 
it.” 
“ You don’t much object to his being a 
lawyer, either, I see, for all you have 
been so down on them all these years ! 
Time and again I have heard you say 
that the world would be vastly better 
off if all the lawyers in it were put to 
some useful labor, instead of being al¬ 
lowed to make it their business to incite 
people to quarrel and break wills, and 
go into litigations that end in feathering 
the lawyers’ nests and leaving everybody 
else the poorer. Haven’t you said that 
the famous criminal lawyers and their 
triumphs in response to princely fees, 
were what made men dare to commit 
crimes? And when you were in the 
legislature, did you not declare that the 
lawyers were the curse of the country, 
fixing everything to work into their own 
hands, and ready to tangle up the feet 
of an honest man not used to their tricks, 
till the few farmers there might as well 
have stayed at home ? And now, Horace, 
here we are welcoming with open arms, 
one of those very pests into our own 
household ! Really, I do feel thoroughly 
ashamed of myself for feeling so pleased 
with Clara’s prospects. I wonder what 
Willis will say ! He half wanted to study 
law, but thought you would be set 
against it.” 
“Yes, j'es. You must write and tell 
Willis. Isn’t it time we heard from the 
boy again?” inquired Mr. Fifield, for 
once diplomatic. “ He is probably wait¬ 
ing to hear from us. You haven’t writ¬ 
ten him yet; what do you think of his 
giving up the idea of ever being a min¬ 
ister?” p. T. PRIMROSE. 
PATIENT TEACHING IS NECESSARY. 
MOTHER once said of her children, 
“ I don’t believe they ever do a 
thing just to please me. I can’t help 
but scold and complain, for they are so 
very careless,” says a writer in the 
Ladies’ Home Companion. 
She seemed to have forgotten the time, 
before she became so “nervous” from 
overwork caused by her desire to be 
known as the best cook and housekeeper 
in all the country around, that her chil¬ 
dren were loving, obedient and possessed 
of a strong desire to be helpful. In her 
zeal for immaculate housekeeping, she 
repulsed their efforts at helpfulness, tell¬ 
ing them in no softened terms, but in 
the plainest of language, that until they 
had learned to do things well, they were 
more trouble than help, and she did not 
want them in the way ; she had no time 
to bother with them, or to do things 
over after them, and all she asked of 
them was to keep out of the way and let 
her work in peace. 
Unfortunately, her children could not 
know instinctively how to do things, 
and could only learn by practice, accom¬ 
panied by painstaking care on the part 
of some one to teach them. Denied this 
by the mother—she whose chief pleas- 
49 
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4 ? 
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4 ? 
4. 
4 ? 
4 ? 
4) 
4? 
4 ? 
4? 
4 ? 
4* 
4? 
49 
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Absolutely 
Pure. 
The 
Careful 
Housewife 
uses 
no other. 
ROYAL BAKING POWDER 00., 106 WALL 8T., NEW-YORK. 
