SIX¬ 
THS RURAL WEW-YORSCER. 
SEPT 17 
Woman’s Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY I'HE WAY. 
“They say!” What a moan way of putting 
unpalatable things that is ! Hilt the woman 
who never tells us what others say. ami never, 
neve?’gossips, is a greater rarity than a black 
swan. But there is really no harm in good- 
natured chat about our friends and their do¬ 
ings. It is very easy to say that we need not 
talk about people, but we can’t always live 
up on an intellectual mountain top; we can¬ 
not always talk about science, art, Shakes- 
pero and the musical glasses. 
* * * 
There is gossip And gossip. It is one thing 
to say that Mrs. Brown is away on a visit, 
and quite another to say that Mrs. Brown is 
gadding about and neglecting her children, as 
usual. If we cannot speak of our friends 
good-uuturcdly, it is best to leave them alone. 
In a good many quiet country neighbor 
hoods, people get into a habit of gossip simply 
because they have nothing whatever to talk 
about. They are too busy to have many in¬ 
terests outside of their work, and when they 
meet they arc pretty sure to talk of one an¬ 
other. The trouble is that such talk is very 
apt to become exaggerated by the mysterious 
“ they” who say everything. 
* * * 
It is hard to find interesting topics of con¬ 
versation, when one lives in some quiet little 
nook, “exempt from public haunt.” Miss 
Woolson bits this otT very cleverly in her 
sympathetic story “ For the Major,” where 
all the social personages of Far Edgerh-y had 
some pet topic for intellectual conversation, 
while they ignored such vulgar subjects as 
their poverty and seclusion. Theirs was not 
such a bad plan, either; we might follow it to 
a certain extent, to the great improvement of 
our conversational powers. 
* * * 
Fashions in manners change, like every¬ 
thing else. The slight and poetic miss of 80 
years since has been followed by many a dif¬ 
ferent. type, not always an improvement. 
Take, for example, the seaside girl. The 
newspapers say that the pale, aesthetic, sun¬ 
flower-worshipping girl has been laid on the 
shelf, never, perhaps, to be taken down again. 
She has wrapped the drapery of her couch 
around her and lain dowuto pleasant, dreams, 
and years may roll over her head before her 
Hip Van Winkle slumber is disturbed. The 
girl who walks, rows, swings, shoots, rides, 
plays tennis and cricket—who, in short, is a 
perfect, counterpart of her brother and who 
imitates him in everything, has taken her 
place and bids fair to keep it. At the seaside 
fashion, or ralher fancy (for fancy appeai-s to 
be responsible for the change 1 ), has gone a step 
further and stamped the sqal of his approval 
on the tomboy and the hoyden Unless she 
can romp about like a kitten or an untamed 
colt; unless she can play leap frog on the 
beach and shout like a Comanche, she is pretty 
sure to be outstripped in the race for escorts 
by the girl who possesses these accomplish¬ 
ments (if they can be called by that. name). 
At the seashore, or at. least at Atlantic City, 
all restraint seems to bo thrown to the winds. 
There is no parlor here, and no parlor girl is 
wanted. Etiquette on the beach is almost 
unknown, and the girl who is freest from the 
restraints which it imposes .wins the race. 
Perhaps it is unmannerly, almost unladylike, 
to romp about as the tomboy does at Atlantic 
City, but by the sounding sea and under the 
twinkling stars she is a very delightful com¬ 
panion, and it. will take more convincing logic 
than stern, frowning, society-bred Miss Prim 
possesses to keep the young man away from 
her. lie is there for fim and ho is going to 
have it. The girl who has the most of it in 
her composition is the girl for him. When she 
gets back to the city he may forget her, per¬ 
haps, but while she is there be ls her devoted 
slave and admirer. 
PHYSICAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
Farm, Field, and Stockmau says that Dr. 
Mary Taylor Bissell is interested in the pro¬ 
ject of a College of Physical Training for 
girls. The design of the new school will be to 
dispel the popular notion that the ill-health of 
women is natural—that, (hey are the victims 
of functions whose exercise necessarily consti¬ 
tutes a sort of invalidism. The girls enter¬ 
ing will be treated according to Dio Lewis's 
old theory that the microscopic misses who 
swarm about our schools and chatter in our 
streets are the curiosities of a “high civiliza¬ 
tion,” and that women who give free play to 
their lungs and stomachs, ought to grow near¬ 
ly as large as men. 
All pupils in this school will be subjected to 
a daily regimen, with carefully apportioned 
exercise, with a view of determining the pos¬ 
sibility of improving their bodies as tlie bodies 
of young'men are improved in the German 
gymnasia. A full curriculum of studies, 
probably of the aoademic or college prepara¬ 
tory grade, will be, it is thought, adopted, 
covering four years time. Some restrictions 
as lo dress it is proposed to adopt, not amount¬ 
ing to uniform, but making short., loose, light, 
attire, with no pressure whatever about the 
waist, and hygienic shoes compulsory, leaviug 
the girls all day long a« much at liberty as 
boys in their gymnasium dress. Pupils will 
be measured on entering, and an average 
gain of two and a half inches about, the chest, 
five inches about the waist, one and a half inch¬ 
es about the arm.and an inch about, the fore¬ 
arm is what is looked forward to as the do- 
sirable result of the first year’s bodily train¬ 
ing and exercise of the typical slim girl of 17. 
CONFESSIONS UFA COUNTRY GIRL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
How much a lonely girl suffers through the 
want of congenial companions! Truly coun¬ 
try life is not all the poet’s dream, when one’s 
home is dropped ten miles from every where, 
with woods and swamps and salt marshes for 
sole companions* And the evory-day, petty 
trials of a half-grown girl are every whit as 
painful as the great troubles that come after. 
They seem ridiculous now, but how sharp 
they were while they lasted. Perhaps the 
greatest of all troubles to a girl of 14 or 15, is 
the thought that she is not appreciated. She 
is looked on as an awkward, hull-grown girl, 
afflicted with freckles and out-grown frocks, 
when she feels within her ambitious breast all 
the heroism of Joan of Arc. She feels the ca¬ 
pability of distiuguishingherself, if only kind¬ 
ly fate would show her how, und she salts the 
butter with her tears, as she thinks of her 
lonely lot, and wishes that she might eud her 
life with some heroic action, aud then be 
quietly laid away in a daisy-covered grave. 
Poor little maid, they are morbid fancies, but, 
we all pass through such a stag©; itisasinevit- 
able as measles. 11 sou nds drefti 1 fu I ly material 
to say so, but there is no doubt that fresh air, 
exercise, regular habits and wholesome food 
will do all the good in the world as far as the 
correction of morbid fancies Is concerned, 
Goethe’s Werther would never have made such 
a sentimental goose of himself if he had been 
well trained physically, and there is little 
doubt that cruel Queen Mary’s excessive 
rigor against the Protestants was largely 
caused by her extreme biliousness. 
But what has this to do with the fancies 
of a half-grown girl f Much; exercise her 
mind and body—give her physical and mental 
health,and she will be lesslikely to suffer from 
unhealthy moods. A woman who has a sound 
digestion and a sunny temper will conquer 
adverse Pate; she is armed with the most ir- 
resistuble of weapons. And youth is the time 
to acquire them. 
It never does to enter so fully into the im¬ 
aginary woes of a half-grown girl that she is 
more than ever persuaded of their reality. 
But it is really most cruel to inflict a sort of 
snubbing; it. makes the poor girl think she is 
like that poetic hero who never had a dear 
gazelle. Wo know whereof we speak; haven’t 
we experienced all these fancies ourselves if— 
and assuredly the best, thing in the world is 
occupation for mind and body—the practical 
outcome of that modern school wo term mus¬ 
cular Christianity. 
A WOMAN’S LETTER. 
HOW TO KEEP THE CHILDREN HAPPY. CHRIST¬ 
MAS! GIFTS IN SEPTEMBER. 
Now that the summer is drawing to a close, 
mothers find it hard to keep the children 
amused ami busy. 
Take au imaginative child, and his or her 
resources are Innumerable. 1 know of one 
who was always surrounded by imaginary 
people, invisible to common mortals, but as 
real to her eyes, as if they were actual llesh 
aud blood. These she called her “ pretending 
people,” and with these around her she was 
independent of all playmates Her mother 
never could quite believe that the yard was 
not half full of children. In summer she 
played all kinds of games with these “dream- 
folks.” in winter she rode her favorites on her 
sled ’till her arms ached. (Sundays she gathered 
them into a Sunday School class, or into a 
Church congregation, and installed herself as 
teacher or preacher. Her sister who was for 
years an only child, had a playmate in the 
large silver-leaf tree, which she called Koturah, 
a name no one knew she had over heard. 
But Lake au active, ordinary boy or girl 
and many days the query arises: “What shall 
1 do now*” For either, but especially a boy, 
work with the incentive to earn money is cer¬ 
tainly the best of all. One boy of 12 had a 
small garden of onions and radishes this sum¬ 
mer, which, while school lasted, he was glad 
to work hi before breakfast every morning. 
In their season he tied them up into bunches 
and sold them, and with t he proceeds almost 
paid fora nice but not expensive watch. This 
same boy earns money weeding pavements 
and cleaning gutters for his mother and her 
friends. With work of this kind half of the 
day he comes with fresh vigor to his play or 
book the rest of the day, and the habit of in¬ 
dustry, the pleasure of having one’s own 
money not only keeps hoys out of mischief, 
but teaches them lessons quite as beneficial as 
those learned iu books during the winter. 
Sometimes children ran become greatly inter¬ 
ested in collecting bugs and butterflies, or 
making a cabinet, of odd and pretty stones 
and shells. With this pursuit try and get 
them an elementary hook on natural history 
and geology, and get them into the habit of 
frequently consulting the eyclopredia or dic¬ 
tionary for information. 
There are many simple games that can ho 
played out-of-doors. One is Peg and Ring. 
Drive a stake in the ground, then stand at 
sortie distance from it, and throw either au 
iron ring or old horse-shoe. The hoy who 
succeeds in encircling the peg the greatest 
number of times is the winner, or it may be 
played by one only. There are several nice 
books telling of different games both indoors 
and out. One is “Every Boy’s Book.” A 
trapese put up in the back yard, if not carried 
to excess, is an excellent thing for a boy’s 
muscles und makes him strong and wiry. 
Children always enjoy swings, and if a tent 
Can be put up in the yard It is a source of the 
greatest enjoyment. Where a child can huvo 
a hay mow to play in—especially rainy days— 
half the battle is won. The writer knows of 
one child who passed so many happy hours in 
an old hay mow that they could hardly lie 
counted. One day it was divided into separ¬ 
ate rooms, and “Mother” or “Housekeeping’’ 
was the play. Another day au impromptu 
curtain cutoiT one end, and with other play¬ 
mates, a “show,” varied in its character, was 
the order of the day. Again, the curtain 
vanished and a store und restaurant kept up 
the most nourishing trade with weak lemon¬ 
ade, licorice and soda water, crackers and 
home-made butter-scotch for the nourishing 
refreshments. 
When a boy can have other children to 
play with, it is always fascinating to form a 
company of soldiers and train them. A girl 
can be taught to cook or sew with her doll 
for an incentive and companion, so that it 
seems play to her, und a boy can have certain 
duties to perform each day that prove a 
great help to others as well as himself. 
For mothers this is a nice time to prepare 
Christmas gifts for “pick up” work. Pretty 
scarfs of some thin material, and aprons, al 
ready stumped for outline work, can be 
bought at the city stores. While scrim or 
linen cun be bought by the yard, and with 
Briggs’ transfer patterns, one can do their 
own stamping with very little work. For 15 
or 25 cent a good sized book of illustrated 
patterns (Briggs) can be bought and from any 
variety of patterns, initials, etc., can be se¬ 
lected und ordered at a very low price, and 
as they are transferred by simply passing a 
warm iron over them, the labor is nothing. 
Equat es of scrim, with threads pulled out. one 
way the required width, and made to form a 
square while within this spaeo run narrow 
ribbons of two shades of the same color, or of 
contrasting colors, and this makes the duinti 
eat of pinebusion covers. The edge is either 
ravelled for fringe, or hemmed and trimmed 
with narrow torchon lace. The ends of ribbon 
overlap each other at the corne rs.and are plait¬ 
ed iu and out, and fastened by a few 
stitches. These ribbons are easily removed 
when luuudried. For the cushion part it is 
prettier to make two small square cushions 
of bright-colored pongee or silk, und fasten 
one comer of each together, diamond-shape, 
when made. Colored linens and cottons that, 
will wash are pretty for outline work on wash- 
goods, now that all kinds of bags are used 
one can easily make several if begun iu time, 
laundry bags of brown linen outlined in de¬ 
signs or appropriate mottoes, fancy silk bugs 
outlined insilksand trimmed with gay ribbons 
bags of ticking covered with narrow velvet 
ribbon ou the blue stripes, and the white eov- 
ered with feather stichiug in different colored 
zephyrs, make receptacles for fancy work to 
carry, or scent-bags for one’s room. Hand¬ 
kerchiefs worked in outline or heavy embroid¬ 
ery make pretty substitutes for Christmas 
cards. You may smile now at thoughts of 
Christmastide before the fires are built, but 
when the rush comes, how delightful to open 
a drawer half full or pretty gifts and think— 
“there I’m nearly ready, and I don’t know 
when I’ve made them.” 
DAISY RHODES CAMPBELL. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
To suffer in patience tho crosses which wo 
cannot understand, the thwartings which 
seem to have no end or aim, the humiliations 
that do but seem to break and scatter the spir¬ 
itual mood of the soul—to endure t hus is to of¬ 
fer the best the soul lias to give. 
He that; has something to do has less tenp- 
tation to doubt than the man who has nothing 
else to do hut to doubt. Heresies in tile Chris¬ 
tian church come never from the city mission¬ 
ary, never from the faithful pastor, never 
from tho intense evangelist; lair, always from 
tho gentlemen at ease, who take no actual 
part in our holy war.. 
One of tho finest qualities iu a human be¬ 
ing Is that nice sense of delicacy which ren¬ 
ders it impossible for him aver to lie an in¬ 
truder or a bore.... 
Do nothing but work and smile, work and 
pray, work and give work and never fear 
what men shall do or say; for God has prom¬ 
ised to be with his working, obedient follow¬ 
ers always, even unto the end of the world... 
Usefulness is greatness. As the title of a 
book has it, there are “celestial objects for 
common telescopes.” So there are high 
spheres of usefulness for the common minds 
when touched with a profound desire to do 
good. No one is incapable of such greatness. 
Whenever you find a man down on the 
rolls of the church, and you do not find 
him standing shoulder to shoulder with the 
opponents ol tho rum traffic, yon can put 
it down that he has deserted Christ and sold 
out to the devil... 
The warm sunshine and the gentle zephyr 
may melt the glacier which has bid defiance 
to the howling tempest; so the voice of kind¬ 
ness will touch the heart which no severity 
could subdue. 
HiNa \vi* the morning's opening ray 
The Lord will lend me forth today; 
His presence murk the path I go 
Aud shield my soul from every foe. 
Whether I wulk o'er arid sand, 
Or through a fat and fertile land. 
My Joy. my boast, my song shall lie 
Of God who bears me company.,.... 
Domestic Ccononu} 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES K. M. CARMAN 
PITHS. 
Enjoy the present. To one who does not, 
the futurocannot bring happiness. 
When school opens, have your children 
ready to attend. 
Give the cellar another coat of whitewash 
before cold weather sets in. 
The flour barrel should rest upon two cleats 
or a rack so as to raise it. two or three inch s 
off from the floor. This prevents the barrel 
from being wet when the floor is cleaned 
and also allows a circulation of air under it. 
Never lie guilty of punishing a child by 
boxing its ears. 
Avoid fall colds by having heavy clothing 
in readiness when needed. 
If you would prolong t.he tomato season, 
pick oil - the green fruit before the first frost 
and store in a cool, dry place. While tomatoes 
ripened in this way lack the flavor of sun- 
ripened fruit, they are very palatable and are 
especially liked in our family because out of 
season. 
One of the pleasant memories brought back 
with us from a recent outing is that of the 
attentive, courteous, almost lover like care of 
a young man for his mother. It is a pity 
that devotion between members of a family 
towards one another, should ho so rare that one 
is left to admire it. as the exception, while tho 
rule is that we seek the companionship of those 
between whom and ourselves no natural tiesof 
t Headship or love exist. We rarely see tho polite 
consideration, tho ready courtesy, the affabili¬ 
ty between members of the same family that 
are shown to comparative strangers. This 
strange idiosyncrasy of human nature is also 
forcibly and frequently shown by mothers 
and fathers, who, stern and impatient with 
their own children, are full of caressing kind¬ 
ness for other people’s little ones. 
ONE SUMMER—VI. 
PREPARING FOR AN “OLD FOLKS’ PARTY;” 
SAVING THE TOMATO CROP. 
ANNE THRIFTY. 
Mother came home from town one morii- 
When Baby wus sick, we gave her Castorla 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castorlu, 
When she became Miss, she clung to CusUirla, 
When she had Children, sh' gave them Caatorla 
