—— 
although it Is 
sweet sounds. And to- 
OOZE’S BUBAL NEW-YOBHEfi. 
A WISH. 
'Twkrs vain to write the sweet though olden story, 
80 often told by gallant, knight to a lady fair,— 
Whose changeless lovo should bo the crowning glory 
Of a life u rut I earned by toll or oaro. 
For always, Just the same, round cot or palace, 
Bright roses must- the thorns enshrine,* 
Nor can, in Joyous youth, Life’s golden ohalloe 
Be ever tillod with rarest wine. 
But not for FfiTs need roses sweet ba wasted, 
If we But turn the thorns aside 
Nor must we leave the purest joys untested, 
Because some til beneath may hide. 
Oold Winter’s storm* wifi come, but nil the brighter 
When they are past the sunshine seems ; 
And hearts, though sometimes sad, will beat the 
lighter, 
For having known what sadness means. 
And so, dear friend, I trust that ne’er a sorrow 
Will be too great for then to bear;— 
That Hope may gild tho dawn of every morrow 
With hues that brightest rainbows wear. 
May homo, and friends, and all the fullest measuro 
Of dearest onrthly gifts, be thine; 
But when thy work Is done, mar nil thy richest treas¬ 
ure 
Be garnered in a holler clime. b. 
WHAT IT IS. 
In a recent number of the Rural New- b 
Tourer is a paragraph in regard to the “ care- e 
worn faces, sunken eyes and comprossod Ilpa" n 
of farmers* wives, and then somebody (the a 
editor, I suppose,) asks, “What is it?” I am b 
glad If somebody is at last enough intore*ted f 
in humanity to aak what it Is that make* a das* a 
of women who ought to bo the strongest, heal- b 
thlest, most cheerful and happy of their kind, o 
the poor, pale, nervous, worn-out beings that « 
they almost universally are; and I had hoped M 
that some one having wisdom and experience t 
would have feeling enough in regard to the d 
matter to spotlit out, for tho good of ail, in a 
reply. But, from lack of Interest, or from fear f 
of bringing to the light some dark thing that t 
they would rather leave hidden, silence reigns l 
upon the subject. t 
Though I have not wisdom, nor experience ns 
a farmer's wife, ever since my eyes first opened 
to the light of t his world I have lived upon ft 
farm and among farmers; ever since I could 
know and think anti reason l have looked upon 
and studied thorn, their lives, Chair ways and ] 
doings, and I think I can tell what It Is, If no | 
one else will. It in drudging like slaves -not ; 
working like free and Independent human be- 1 i 
ings—eighteen hour* or more out of the twenty- i 
four; rising and retiring at all sorts of irregular ( 
and unreasonable hours, year In ami year out; i 
bolting meals In nervous haste, with a nursing I 
child in their arms, usually giving it nourish¬ 
ment and waiting upon their husbands and i 
older children in tho meantime; spending the 
few hours alio tied to rest in tossing and worry- i 
ing with the cross, sickly little one that igno¬ 
rance and want of Judicious care deals sadly 
with (often there wilt ha u young child and 
another not yet out of it:, babyhood claiming 
the mother's care and attention at the same 
time), while their lords and masters are soundly 
sleeping and being rested and refreshed from 
the labors of the day, not one-half as hard for 
them as for their overtasked wives. 
It is spending their Uvea In hot, close, poorly- 
lighted, soven-by-nlne kitchens, situated in tho 
farthest back and meanest part of the house, 
without ever stopping out of doors, excepting 
to get a pail of water or an armful of wood ; 
with nevor a ride, except ing It lie necessary for 
them to go to the village tor family supplies, and 
then so perplexed and anxious as to how they 
are to purchase all the articles needed with the 
scanty allowance of money in their possession, 
that they have no eye for seeing, nor car for 
hearing aught of Naturo's beauty arid music; 
working in cold, damp, unventilated cellars, 
going into them from overheated rooms In a 
state of unnatural warmth and perspiration: 
wearing tight - waisted dresses; dragging up 
stairs and down stairs, wherever they go, long, 
heavy skirts, that usually rest wholly upon the 
hips and lower part of tho body; wasting time 
and strength, desecrating themselves and their 
surroundings, by just such phases of life os 
Sally Teazel has described—for I declare her 
words to be too true, though ’* the whole world 
sweep down upon her” and endeavor to prove 
them false. 
And, more than all, it Is living in and under 
this wearying, wearing burden of toil and care, 
with never a word of praise, sympathy or en¬ 
couragement—with ncyer a loving look or a 
tender caress from those who have sworn to 
“ love and cherish,” hut only a cold Indiffer¬ 
ence that says, “ You are only doing your duty, 
madam —you ore only what a farmor’s wife 
should be," or a harsh severity that soys, “ Why 
don’t you do more?—why don't you bring me 
more and save me more?—why don’t you get 
my meals earlier and cook them better?—why 
don’t you keep the children out of my way, and 
make my path clear for me?” In other words, 
“Why isn’t there more of you? why haven’t 
you more strength, more tact and ability that I 
can absorb and use for my own gratification, 
and purposes?”—and that has the same sort of 
“pity” for a «ick, broken down wife that it 
has for a horse that fall* devm in the harness, 
and can go no further. Living on with nothing 
to look back upon but, blighted hopes and with¬ 
ered (lowers—with nothing to look forward to 
but the same old, never-ending trend-mill— 
nothing but toil and drudgery, heat- and hurry 
and discouragement; with never a moment for 
rest or mental culture ; with never a chance to 
grow higher or better; with ever the same tired, 
•despondent worn-outness. 
I do not denounce husbands as brutes or 
tyrants. They arc human, as women arc hu¬ 
man : but when a man becomes more interested 
in raising crops and breeding horses and cattle 
than la his wife and children ; when he will 
ohiige or even allow a woman naturally deli¬ 
cate and sensitive, overburdened with the tax¬ 
ation and cares of constant motherhood, and 
that woman hi* wife— tor perform or endeavor 
to perform tho work of two strong, healthy 
worneu ; whan he becomes so absorbed in 
money-getting and land-accumulating that, the 
tender plants of love and kindness that were 
made to bud and blossom in the human .heart 
become ashes upon the marriage altar, there la 
great wrong somewhere i And woman is to 
blame, though in a lesser degree, for she is 
taught from hor childhood to look upon man 
as her rightful ruler and protector as her sov¬ 
ereign and superior that to live with and for 
him, to attend to his wants and do his bidding, 
is her highest privilege and prerogative. And, 
with thin prevalent idea deeply instilled in and 
over uppermost in their minds, farmers’ wives 
will weai- to a wreck their bodies and starve to 
the dregs their souls—will shut therusclves up 
in slavery, darkness and seclusion until they 
become Ignorant, penurious and narrow-mind¬ 
ed, will drudge on, regardless of every law of 
nature, health and reason until all of sweetness 
and Juclnoss are sapped out of them, and they 
become wrinkled, sallow, hollow-eyed, peevish, 
fretfut, unlovable—blindly and mistakenly im¬ 
agining that they are working for their hus¬ 
bands' Interests when they arc depriving them 
of all that is most desirable in a wife, and must 
go down to their graves with Love's hunger 
gnawing at, their hearts In Consequence,—that 
they are tolling for tho welfare of their chil¬ 
dren, when they are robbing thorn of health 
and strength, of intelligent, patient, thought¬ 
ful, happy, cheerful mothers, which are the 
greatest and most precious gifts that earth can 
I hold, and that which makes tho life which they 
give thorn worth the having. 
Geraldine Germane. 
Ufai 
hm 1 
{or the 
* 
Jottnn. 
O' . 4) ) 
l ^ 
BUTTERFLY BLUE AND 
YELLOW. 
GRASSHOPPER 
Butterfly Blue, nnd Grashopper Yellow, 
A gay little fop. anil a sprncc little fellow ! 
A sauntering pair. 
In the soft summer air. 
With nothing to rto, either .ancient or new. 
But to I,ask In the sunshine, or pleasure pursue. 
Or fatten on honey, or tipple on dew ; 
And constantly, when 
Thoy're through with it, then 
To basic ami to eat-, and to tipple again ! 
Butterfly Htuo, nnd Grasshopper Yellow, 
The guy young sprig, and thn Juunty young fellow ! 
They’re always arrayed In the top of the fashion, 
For Butterfly Blue for dress has a passion ; 
And Grasshopper Yellow, 
The fust little fellow, 
His very long whiskers and legs cuts a dash on ! 
And so, aa they go, 
They make a line show. 
And each thinks himself the most exquisite beau I 
Is there any nne here like Butterfly Blue? 
Not you. little I,aura, nor you, little Sue ! 
la there any one here like Grasshopper Yellow ? 
It couldn’t be Jack, the nice littla fellow ! 
And yet 1 have hoard— 
I givo you my word— 
That somewhere are little folks, quite as absurd ! 
Who gase at their clothes with admiring eyes, 
And would rather be showy than useful nnd wise; 
Who love to bo idle, and never wtllthlnk 
Of anything else hut, to sat nrjd to drink I 
Net you, dears, oh no ! 
It couldn’t be so; 
This moral to some other country must go, 
For all of our children are splendid, we know ! 
[Our Young Folks. 
-—♦♦-*-- 
WHAT MAGGIE AND I HEARD. 
WOMEN FOR RULERS. 
In a lengthy article on “ Public and Private 
Morality,” by Mr. Howard A. Freeman, pub¬ 
lished in the English Fortnightly Review, the 
author, in speaking of tho honesty and frank- 
neB6 of Queen Victoria, saysIndeed, I 
should be perfectly ready to accept the oxperl- 
#nce of the present reign a.n proving that for an 
offic-e Of a constitutional sovereign, women are 
better fitted than men. An office which, if a 
pageant. Is yet someth ing more than a pageant, 
an office which needs not only uprightness of 
purpose, hut a large shore of tact and good 
sense, one in which a genius an 1 a fool would 
be equally out of place, seem* to me to be ex¬ 
actly suited i o a female holder. And the ex¬ 
pressions and ceremonies of devotion, which 
are ridiculous and degrading when done by one 
man to another, become in the cause of a wo¬ 
man little more than ordinary politeness carried 
farther than usual.” 
-♦-*-*- 
PLEASANT LACONICS, 
A a heat fortune is a great slavery. 
The sun-dial only counts the bright hours. 
An ounce of help is worth a pound of pity. 
May not a hermit call his cave a manshun ? 
A quilting party is now styled a “piece" 
jubilee. 
Sense must be very good indeed to be as good 
as nonsense. 
War is love like a canal-boat? Because it is 
an internal transport. 
For what port is a man bound during court¬ 
ship ? Bound to Havre. 
Tue craving for sympathy is the common 
boundary line between Joy and sorrow. 
Can u gentleman who sees a lady home under 
an umbrella be fitly designated as a rain-beau? 
“ Well, vlfe, you can't say I ever contracted 
bad habits I” “ No, sir. You geuerally expand 
them." 
A lady calls the little memoranda her butch¬ 
er sends in with the meat- “penciling# by the 
weigh." 
Fish sensibilities are like woodbine*, delight¬ 
ful luxuries of beauty lo twine round a solid, 
upright stem of understanding; but very poor 
things if allowed to creep along t.hc ground. 
A lady asked her doctor If he did not think 
the small bonnets the ladies wore had a ten¬ 
dency to produce congestion of the brain? 
“Oijl no,” replied the doctor, “women who 
have brains don’t wear them.” 
They tell of one Boston mother who says of 
her baby that “as It couldn’t be handsome like 
its papa, it’s going to be good like Its mamma." 
This Is the first baby on record that Ib not the 
prettiest that ever wan— to its mother. 
“Did you ever go to a military ball?” asked a 
lisping maid of an old veteran. “No, my dear,” 
growled the old soldier. “ In those days I once 
had a military ball come to me. And what do 
you think it did ? It took my leg off I” 
Last week little Rosa Harmon came to see 
me, Rosa is taking music lessons of Mis* Hale, 
so of course 1 asked her to play for me. She sat 
down to the organ and played n few chords, 
then sang an exercise that she had learned in 
ber Curriculum . Rosa is a neat little singer, 
and tho song was a gem. The closing lino was : 
“ C)h! glad Is the forest this fair summer day.” 
Those words came to me this morning as I 
opened my window, and heard the birds Singing 
in the grove. It was :> little after sunrise; the 
prairie hens were “boo”-lng across the lake, 
and our little grove was full of sweet sounds. 
Catching up my hat, I called to Maggie (n come 
to the concert with me. “A concert?” "To be 
sure.” “ But. where is It? and in it Niliaon or 
Kellogg we are to hear?” (Maggie Is our 
city-bred, cousin.) “Both,” I replied, “with 
several entirely new stars.” 
So we went into the grove and sat down on a 
log, very quiet and attentive. Of course, the 
first piece on the programme, and the last, and 
the one that, continued right through, was the 
black bird chorus. There they sit I- os numer¬ 
ous, ns black, arid as sweet-voiced as the cele¬ 
brated Nashville chorus of the Jubilee—in the 
branches of an elm, chattering, twittering, chir¬ 
ruping ns though their very lives depended 
upon their energy. Thc/lnging master (“Pro¬ 
fessor” as Maggie called him,) sat- alono on the 
highest bough, watching, liBtonlDC, now throw¬ 
ing in a few notes by way of example or help, 
and now breaking out sharply with a scolding. 
Yes, I am sure it was a scolding, by the crazy 
way In which lie hopped about and vociferated 
angrily at. those unlucky pupils who chanced to 
make a false note. 
Maggie, to whom such scenes are new. was 
perfootly charmed, and “Oh I what Is that?” 
was continually her cry as a new, sweet note, or 
a merry trill gushed from the musical throats 
of the hidden songsters. The blue bird’s happy 
song and the robin’s sweet notes we were never 
tired of hearing. The soft, clear, liquid note 
of the meadow lark, Maggie declared to be 
unsurpasslngly sweet. But when the sweetest 
of singers, the brown thrush, warbled Its lay 
from the hidden depths of the woods, we felt 
that words were useless. “ But,” said Maggie, 
“if angels make sweeter music, what can_it be 
like?” 
“I’nniB, 1 ’heub!” called sharply, a voice not 
far away. “Mnrnmu has lost, her little girl,” 
said I. "Or the servant- Is a gadding," said 
Maggie— and we laughed and mimicked her. 
Hut still the little voice called on, and no 
Phkbk answered, but me. II seemed as if every 
bird of tho forest was out to join In one grand 
chorus. We could hear the cheery call of “ Bob 
White," now and then the blue jay’s “kee,” 
nnd down by the shore of the lake the clamor¬ 
ous “ quack,quack” of the wild ducks. A flock 
of wild geese went over, and their loud cry, 
»* honk, honk,” proclaiming that, winter is over 
and spring has come, never lacks music to my 
ears. A hawk sailed lazily by, and a flock of 
pigeons flew over. In a hickory tree a pair of 
mourning doves cooed their sad, mournful notes 
to each other. 
“What is that?" cried Maggie. “I never 
hoard such a noise. It's like a door swinging 
on rusty hlngea, or the creaking of a pump- 
handle, or a musical wheelbarrow.” 
“Only a sandhill orane, my dear. Quite an 
elegant bird. In his way, and some people do 
say he is good eating.” 
“Good eating! Not for me. I should be 
afraid I might swallow some of that voice.” 
We spent a happy hour in the grove, and all 
day long the woods have been fllled with melody 
nearly nine o’clock, I have just heard the clear 
note of the “ Kill-deer" as ho Dew over; and in 
tho distance, loud and dear, is tho answer, 
“ Kill-deer, Kill- deer." Aunt Phebb, 
-- 
A TRUE STORY OF BIRDS. 
Oun old house stood in an orchard, *>r rather, 
we had set small fruit, and shade trees what 
then seemed a proper distance from it; but 
they hiul grown so tall, tuid stretched their long 
arms so far, they could shake hands over the 
low roof—only they had no hands to shake, so 
t,luy nodded to each other and held out the 
sweetest of blossoms before the open window. 
They bad beautiful boughs, and as wo allowed 
no sly cats to drive them away, the birds sang 
sweet songs, built nests and reared their young 
among llumi. 
For several years a pair of golden robins had 
used a nest hung from the limbs directly over 
the path that lad up to tho door, bringing tow 
from a neighbor’s to weave it of, nnd there old 
Mrs. Robin would sit, with only her bead visi¬ 
ble, while Mr. Robin brought food and sans 
songs to cheer her. Then, when the nest seemed 
fllled only with open mouths, how they would 
hurry around to find food to Oil them, and 
1 ow happy they were when they were grown 
large enough to hop out of the nest, on the 
branches. One spring an old chipping bird 
came before them, and spying the nest, took 
possession of it, and after lining It with soft, 
wool, laid her eggs and began sitting on them. 
Soon, however, old golden-breast dime back to 
take up hla summer residence when, what 
should he find but that it was already occupied. 
Ho called In his loudest note* to hie mate, 
" Carrie, Carrie, come ere, come ere." And she 
came, and after flying around the nest awhile, 
began pulling It to pieces and building on an¬ 
other tree. We tried to drive them away, hung 
more tow on a limb close by but It was no use ; 
that samo nest win what th ?y wanted, and soon 
poor Mrs. Chippie had nothing to do hut fly 
around and mourn over her eggs. Which lay 
broken on tho ground ; while golden-breast, and 
mato worked and sang as if nothing had hap¬ 
pened, ami made mo think of some people who 
are Just as happy when all other people may be 
lu trouble. And now, If the little Rural read¬ 
ers wilt watch close, I may some day tell them 
where Chippie next built hor nest. 
Auntie G. 
ILLUSTRATED REBUS.-No. 15. 
Answer in two weeks. 
GAME OF WORDS. 
We have a game of words which I think in¬ 
structive as well as amusing. Let several per¬ 
sons get ready with paper and pencils and take 
a word for a heading to choose from —say Mer¬ 
chant, for instance. Each stnrt at a given time; 
take the first letter and write ail the words they 
can, using only the letters to be found In th© 
word—ns Man, Match, Ac. When two minutes 
aro up, let nueread all they have; ana for those 
who have not th® same word, set a credit; then 
let the next read; then take the next letter, 
and so on till all are used, taking a credit each 
time for all words you may have that one or 
more of the others have not; then add up the 
credits, and see who wins. A. R. R. 
ANAGRAM.-No. 5. 
Egtra nveets, ew tofne nfid, 
No lliettghiust peendd; 
Dan yvre Imsal sbeggnnnii 
Vhao fot a ghllDty den. 
Answer in two weeks. Claihxnelle. 
PROBLEM.—No. 9. 
If two-thirds of 12 be 0, in that proportion 
what will be three-fifths of 35. 
pT Answer in two weeks. 
Scholium. 
PUZZLER ANSWERS.-May 24. 
Biblical Enigma No. 1 
bear false witness. 
Illustrated Rebus No 
Greece in Europe. 
1. — Thou shalt n< 
18. — Turkey and 
