354 
MAY 25 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
of embroidery wrought by Lorea Standish. 
The oldest State paper in existence in the 
United States is also here—the first patent 
granted to the Plymouth colonists by the 
New England Company; also the original 
manuscript .of Mrs. Heman’s well-known ode, 
“The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast, etc.,”— 
and a copy of Eliot’s Indian Bible of which 
but three or four copies are believed to be ex¬ 
tant. Some of the furniture was loaned to 
the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, of 
which one piece was Peregrine White’s 
cradle—he having been born in the Mayflow¬ 
er, and named Peregrine from the peregrina¬ 
tions of the Pilgrims. 
FEMALE FINANCIERING. 
MBS. S. H. ROWELL. 
44 T WISH you would let me have the 
X privilege of managing the family 
finances this year, Mr. Clark. I hate this an¬ 
noyance of bills as much as you can; and I 
really think we could live cheaper, and better 
too, if we paid cash when we buy things,” 
said Mrs. Clark, as her husband sat with a 
clouded brow, opening the monthly due bills, 
that were handed in the previous evening. 
“Why, Carrie, what could you do? Wom¬ 
en don't understand how to use money; you 
would make a perfect muddle of it! ” he re¬ 
plied, as he took out his pocket-book, and laid 
it on the table. 
“ I might not. Mrs. Shelly does not. She 
has $25 each week to support the table and 
clothe herself, and they are never bothered 
with due bills. Her husband buys the fuel, 
and pays the rent, and she manages the rest.” 
“Twenty-five dollars! why, it would not 
half defray our expenses! Why, Carrie, it 
costs us over $300 a month, aside from rent 
and coal. What’s the use of talking ?” and 
he gathered up the bills and put them in his 
coat pocket, and took his hat. 
“ Over $300 a month I Impossible ■’ she ex¬ 
claimed. 
“ Look over the bills yourself! It costs like 
thunder to keep house!” and he threw the 
bills on the table beside her plate, and went 
away. 
“Goodness! He must be mistaken! But I 
will look them over. I know I am not extrav¬ 
agant in dress; and we live no better than I 
used to at home; but mother always bought 
things herself, and we never used to buy on 
credit either. I wish my husband would let 
me try for awhile. It is horrid to have to pay 
such heavy bills.” 
Mrs. Clark was a young house-keeper. For 
18 months after her marriage, they had 
boarded in a fashionable hotel, but she did 
not enjoy it, and finally coaxed her husband 
to go to keeping house. He rented a fine 
house, in a good location, and her father gave 
her money to furnish it; but Mr. Clark was 
not content with simply nice furnishings, but 
must have the most elegant and latest style 
of everything. Of course, it took money, and 
then, his wife must not work but have ser¬ 
vants to wait upon her and do the work. He 
was in a lucrative business, and never talked 
over his affairs with his wife; but she had 
noticed for some months that he seemed wor¬ 
ried and troubled, and thought perhaps they 
were living beyond their means. He was 
really cross when she laid the bundle of house 
bills before him that morning, and as soon as 
the breakfast things were cleared away, she 
took a sheet of paper and pencil, and com¬ 
menced looking over the amount. A frown 
gathered on her smooth brow and settled into 
a real scowl as she proceeded with her task. 
“ We have not had six turkeys within a 
month! Here are 20 roasts of beef too! and 
oysters, and fish, and dear knows what be¬ 
sides! And fifty pounds of sugar a week! 
Goodness! I should think it was time to look 
over the matter. Now for the milliner’s bill. 
My winter hat $25! And she told me it was 
only $18! A dozen yards of lace and a box 
of gloves! $15! and I had neither. I 
will just see the Madam myself this day! I 
think I will go down and look over the sup¬ 
plies in the kitchen first! It is impossible 
that we have used such an amount of gro¬ 
ceries in a month. There are only six of us 
in the family, and here are bills charged 
enough to feed a regiment.” 
Mrs. Clark was an energetic little woman, 
and when she determined to do a thing, she 
accomplished it, and it did not take her long 
to decide that her corps of servants were not 
very trustworthy, or that her cook had taken 
a large share of the supplies as her per¬ 
quisites, and had almost supported her sister’s 
family from the Clark larder. When her 
husband came to dinner, he nad a friend with 
him, so she waited till evening before she 
laid the matter before him. He was just 
furious! She had never seen him in such a 
temper before. “ I wish you would let me 
have the cash to settle the Madam’s bill my¬ 
self; I am not going to pay her charges,” she 
said. 
“You shall have it; and if you wish to try 
your hand in catering a month or two, I am 
willing you should try it. Your father came 
into the office to-day, and I had a talk with 
him, and he says a woman can manage house¬ 
hold affairs better than a man. The times 
are hard, and business is dull, and we really 
have been living beyond c ur means. 1 do not 
blame you, of course, but I would get rid of 
that cook as soon as possible.” 
“ You may be sure I will, and I really 
think that if I have the money to pay for 
things, I can get them cheaper and better.” 
“ How will Mrs. Clark like going to market 
herself?” he asked. 
“Oh, I shall take Will along to fetch the 
small things, and the rest will be delivered, of 
course; never fear, I am all right.” 
And so she was, and at the end of the next 
month, she had not only kept her table well 
provided with every luxury, as heretofore, 
but had a new spring suit for herself with a 
hat, and $50 left of the $200 that her husband 
gave her at the commencement of her ex¬ 
periment. She dismissed two of the servants, 
and saw to the arrangement of her work her¬ 
self, and was happier and healthier for the 
labor. Mr. Clark was delighted with the 
change, and never again thought that a wo¬ 
man could not manage money matters if she 
had the opportunity to do it, and the means 
provided for her. 
“ Your father was right when he said 
women were better managers of household 
matters than men. If you want more cash 
for pin-money, you have only to ask for it, 
for I know you will not waste it in extrava¬ 
gance, and I do not believe it will be an easy 
matter for merchants or trades-people to 
cheat or impose upon you.” 
WORRY AND WORK. 
AN INVALID. 
S PRING and house-cleaning time with all 
their trials and perplexities have come 
again. Oh! the worry and confusion, the 
ceaseless round of woman’s work! But, sis¬ 
ters, do not be worried if your house-cleaning 
is not all finished the first week it is begun, or 
if some of your thrifty and ambitious neigh¬ 
bors get theirs finished (with the addition of 
bad colds,) before yours is barely begun. 
Above all, take care of your health. Ah! how 
well I remember the last work of any account 
that I did! —the work that I foolishly thought 
must be done just then, another and another 
task that I thought must be performed that 
week, until weary limbs and aching back re¬ 
fused to do their mission longer. Then fol¬ 
lowed long months of pain and uselessness, 
and, for aught I know, I may never again 
be able to take up life’s work. How often, 
on my coucn, I have wished that I might again 
live over those days wherein I sinned against 
my beiDg and my Creator, before disease 
claimed me for its prey. 
You who have health and strength left you, 
take care of these blessings while you may. 
No work is positively necessary when you are 
tired, for were you sick you could not do it. 
Over-work and carelessness are the causes of 
half the sickness in the world. Remember 
how those common tasks of life would sink in¬ 
to insignificance if death faced you. 
How tiresome woman’s work is, day after 
day doing the same things over and over 
again! How often we long to throw aside our 
aprons and take up books or the pen. But 
“ Let us be content to work 
To do the thing we can, and not presume 
To fret because ’tis little.” 
Let us do our best in whatever duty calls us 
to do. Let us stop and look about us on the 
green fields, spring flowers and blooming 
fruit-trees, and to the blue sky above us, and 
thank God for the beautiful place He has given 
us to work in. Cultivate the habit of looking 
at the bright side of everything, and in count¬ 
ing our mercies forget about the dark hours. 
We must endure trials, for no life was ever 
free from them, but remember that 
“From hours of grief and saddened face, 
True wealth of heart we borrow; 
And heavenly wisdom oftenest conies 
Clad in the guise of sorrow.” 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
S IR WILFRID LAWSON says that there 
is an old saying of which he is fond. 
Some great man has said: “ I never knew any 
one to get lost upon a straight read.” It is 
only when you try to make short-cuts—when 
you try to dodge a principle—that you get 
into scrapes. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes says that many 
years ago, in walking among the graves at 
Mt. Auburn, he came upon a plain, upright 
white marble slab, which bore an epitaph of 
only four words, but to his mind they meant 
more than any of the labored inscriptions on 
the surrounding monuments: “She was so 
pleasant.” This was all, and it was enough. 
That one note revealed the music of a life of 
which he knew and asked nothing more. 
The Christian Register says that the 
kind of a girl it likes to honor is reported to 
be spending her vacation m giving her mother 
a “rest.” When asked what she was doing, 
she said she was enjoying herself very much 
doing the house-work. “Your mother is 
away on a vacation, then?” “ Ob, no, she is 
at home; but I’m giving her a chance to rest 
in the morning, and to dress up and sit out on 
the piazza when she feels like it. I think it 
will do her good to have a little change.”. 
You go and gossip with your housemaid or 
your stable boy, says Ruskin, when you may 
talk with kings and queens, while this eternal 
court is open to you, with its society wide as 
the world, multitudinous as its days, the 
chosen, the mighty of every place and time? 
Into that you may enter always; in that you 
may take fellowship and rank according to 
your wish; from that, once entered into it, 
you can never be outcast but by your own 
fault: by your aristocracy of companionship 
there, your inherent aristocracy will be as¬ 
suredly tested, and the motives with which 
you strive to take high place in the society of 
the living, measured, as to all the truth and 
sincerity that aro in them, by the place you 
desire to take in this company of the dead ... 
Peabody says that a genuine conscience is 
a growing conscience—one that is perpetually 
becoming more prompt, more keen, more ten¬ 
der. It is in this, mainly, that the growth of 
character consists. Where there is no in¬ 
crease of moral excellence there is always 
danger of decrease. 
The Christian Union reminds its readers 
to the effect that nothing is more expensive 
than penuriousness, nothing more anxious 
than carelessness, and every duty which is 
bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties 
at its back. 
We attain ouf highest possibilities when we 
see clearly the limitations, 'the obligations, 
the conditions, that control them. We can¬ 
not cast them aside by an effort of will as 
powerless; they clog and fetter every move¬ 
ment, they are the ghosts that will not be 
downed. Their warning flngers’change to a 
menace which we cease to see only when we 
have lost sensitiveness and sensibility. We 
grow into a likeness of the Creator when we 
accept humanity and seek not to be gods. 
We are great, not by what we accomplish, 
but by what we overcome. 
The power that determines our career lies 
within, not without; clearness of spiritual 
vision decides our plan of life . 
Emerson advised every man to take the 
place and attitude that belonged to him, the 
world must be just. It leaves every man with 
profound unconcern, to set his own rate. Hero 
or driveller, it meddles not in the matter. It 
will certainly accept your own measure of 
your doing and being. 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
T HE man or woman who is the happiest is 
the most economical. 
The successful housekeeper is always a lit¬ 
tle ahead of time. 
“I haven’t the time,” is the ne’er-do-well’s 
excuse for culpable negligence. 
“It is too much trouble." A short but ex¬ 
pressive sentence and one that accounts for 
many a man and woman’s life failure. 
LIES. 
W HAT is a lie ? This question bus been 
running through my mind all the af¬ 
ternoon. Some people may say that wav¬ 
ering one iota from the absolute truth, the 
uttering of one word not entirely necessary 
in the statement of a fact is a lie. Well, so it 
is. But many people lie without doing even 
so much as that. A gesture, a shrug of the 
shoulders, the uttering of a few words from 
which a double meaning may be taken, often 
do more harm than a deliberate falsehood. I 
have heard such expressions as “Oh ! she’s no 
better than she ought to be,” used when a 
lady’s name was mentioned, or “She knows 
more than her prayers.” 
Of course, they might be true, for no one is 
any better than he or she ought to be, and if 
one didn’t know any more than one’s prayers, 
one wouldn’t know much. But such speeches 
as the above, accompanied with a gesture, or 
the raising of the eyebrows,may do far more 
harm than if a false statement were used. 
Such a thing as this, to my mind, is a lie. We 
have no right to insinuate. If we really know 
anything wrong about a person, I suppose we 
have a right to tell of it, but eveu then it 
would be more Christian-like to refram from 
so doing unless we are, or feel ourselves in 
duty bound to do so. Yet many who call 
themselves Ch istians fall into this habit, 
without perhaps meaning to injure another— 
but one never knows where a thing is to end. 
It may be 
“ Only a trifle as light on the wing, 
As the veriest Insect devoid of Its sting,” 
but it may be a mountain before it ends. 
Something I heard while at lunch to-day 
set me thinking about all this. The table at 
which I sat was arranged for four. 
A sweet-faced old lady sat next to me and 
two girls opposite. While the old lady was 
reaching for the butter her sleeve caught her 
cup and upset the coffee all over the table. I 
pitied the poor thing, for she looked half 
frightened to death. We sopped up the coffee 
with our napkins and told her to “never 
mind,” but she seemed so mortified and humili¬ 
ated that she could scarcely eat. Just then 
one of the girls opposite said : 
“I wouldn’t mind if I were you. Such a 
thing as that happens every day.” 
“But I never did such a thing in my life 
before,” said the old lady. 
•‘It isn’t half so bad as what I did the other 
day,” said the girl with a smile. “I 
went into a restaurant up town—a 
regular swell place too—and just as I was 
about to begin my dinner I upset my tumbler 
of water and it smashed all to pieces on the 
floor. I thought I’d die! Then to crown it 
all, in my excitement I knocked my elbow 
against my cup of tea and down it went on 
the other side ” We all laughed at this, for 
she told it with such an expression! Then 
she said “To make it worse I was with a 
gentleman too. Wasn’t it awful? Now if it 
had been here I wouln’t have cared a straw ” 
The old lady was quite reassured and finished 
her dinner with ease. When she went out 
the other girl turned to the one who had been 
talking and said : 
“I suppose that was another one of your 
fairy tales; wasn’t it, Joe ?” 
“Well, not exactly,” replied Joe. “Of 
course, it didn’t happen to me, but I saw just 
what I described one day last week. And 
then I pitied the poor old lady. The tears 
were ready to run down her cheeks, and I 
know I would have felt dreadfully bad if I 
bad been in her place.” 
“Well you’re the neatest liar I ever saw," 
responded her friend. 
“That wasn’t a lie, at all,” said Joe. “Did 
it harm any one ? A lie is a thing said with an 
evil intent; a thing that will injure another. 
Now what I have just said to that woman 
wouldn’t hurt any one 1” 
When I left they were still arguing about 
what was and what was not a lie. I was in¬ 
clined to believe that “Joe” was right. What 
she had said bad really happened, though not 
to her. But by putting it on herself she made 
the unfortunate old lady feel more at ease,for 
she, no doubt, thought that if that dainty, 
pretty little thing could be so dreadfully 
clumsy, a less degree of clumsiness wasn’t 
quite unpardonable in her. 
Of course,! am not advising any one to “go 
and do likewise;” but, then, it doesn’t seem to 
me that that girl lied. If you could have seen 
the sweet, affectionate manner with wnich 
she talked to the old lady, I’m sure you, too, 
would have felt inclined to be lenient with 
her. I hold that a lie is,as she said, something 
said or implied, with an evil intent—some¬ 
thing, be it act or implication, meant to de¬ 
ceive. Of all vile habits that is the worst. 
We can lock our treasures up from a thief,but 
who is safe from a liar? 
What Herbert Spencer says in regard to 
cursiug seems very apropos to lying. He says: 
“If every curse should stick a visible blister 
on the tongue, as it does invisible oues on the 
soul, how many men’s tongues would be too 
big for their mouths, and their mouths as an 
open sepulchre full of dead men’s bones.” 
IttistfUancou# gnUcrtijsinjj. 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Casurrm 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castor!* 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castor!* 
When she had Children she gave them Castor!* 
