Again: some mothers are so busy about the temporal wants of their children that they are wholly unacquainted with them spiritually. You are very careful of your daughter's dress; you attend personally to its purchase and fit. You go with her to see that her foot is nicely gaitered; and you give your milliner special instructions as to the make and becomingness of her bonnets; but do you ever ask yourself, what she is thinking about? In other words, do you know anything at all of her inner life? Many who are esteemed most excellent mothers, are as ignorant on this all-important point as if they had never looked upon their daughters' faces. They exact respectful obedience, and if the young creature yields it, and has no need of a physician's immediate services, they consider their duty done. Alas, what a fatal mistake! These are the mothers, who, never having invited the confidence of those young hearts, live to see it bestowed anywhere and everywhere but in accordance with their wishes. Is it, can it be enough to a mother worthy the name, to be satisfied that her daughter's physical wants are cared for? What of that yearning, hungry soul, that is casting about, here and there, for something to satisfy its questionings? Oh, give a thought sometimes to this. When she sits there by the fire, or by the window, musing, sit down by her, and love her thoughts out of her. Cast that fatal "dignity" or indifference to the winds, which has come between so many young creatures and the heart to which they should lie nearest in these important forming years. "Respect" is good in its place; but when it freezes up your daughter's soul-utterances; when it sends her for sympathy and companionship to chance guides, what then? A word, a loving, kind word, at the right moment! No mind can over-estimate its importance. Remember this, when you see the sad wrecks of womanhood about you; and amid the sweeping waves of life's cares and life's pleasures, what else soever you neglect, do not fail to know what that young daughter of yours is thinking about.
How strong sometimes is weakness! When a very young child loses its mother, before it has yet learned to syllable her name, we are generally struck with pity at what we call its "helpless condition;" and yet, after all, its apparent helplessness is at once its strength and shield; for is not every kind heart about it immediately drawn toward it in love and sympathy? Do not the touch of its soft hand, its pretty flitting smile, the "cuddlesome" leaning of the little head, the trustful innocence of its eyes, do more for it, than could all the eloquence of Demosthenes? I was struck with the truth of this not long since, upon going into a shop to make a purchase, where I found the young girl who usually waited there, with a little babe in charge, whose mother had just died. Looking about the shop, and remarking the many calls upon her time and attention, as she moved quickly around with this pretty little burden upon her arm, I said, this child must be a great care for you. Yes, said she; but oh, such a comfort, too. And so playing with the baby and talking the while, I learned that before its mother died, it was taken in every night for her to kiss it, before it was put to sleep. After the mother's funeral, as the young girl was passing through that room with it, the little creature stretched out its hands toward the empty bed for the accustomed kiss? Tears stood in her eyes, as she again kissed the baby. I knew now how it was that the "comfort" outweighed the "care." No voice from the spirit-land could so effectually and solemnly have bound up her future with that orphan baby as that mute reaching out of its loving arms to that empty bed. Now had that young girl a soul for labor; a motive for living. Now there was something to repay toil. Something for her to love—something to love her. Every customer who came in, was so much toward a subsistence for little Annie. Ah, the difference between plodding on for cold duty's sake, and working with one's heart in it! The little shop looked bright as heaven, that cold November afternoon, and I went out of it, wondering what people could mean when they spoke of "infant helplessness;" since all New York might have failed to do for that little one, what it had accomplished for itself by that one unconscious, touching little action.
THOUGHTS ON SOME EVERY DAY TOPICS.
OMEN boarders are often called troublesome; but it must be remembered that all a man wants of his room is to sleep and dress in, but it is a woman's home; and alas! often all she has. She would not be a woman did she not desire to make it tidy and habitable. This—her landlady contracts to do. The fruitless ringings for fresh-water, towels, coal, lights and a clean carpet—and she is not allowed to go down stairs after them herself—are not unknown to any woman who has worn life out in boarding-houses. It is not, as I remarked, in the nature of a woman to be comfortable in Babel; nor does its owner fancy a cloud of dust, raised in the middle of the day, upon her nicely smoothed hair, or clean collar, because the chambermaid has an appointment with John, the waiter, in the entry, or because she enjoys lolling out the front window on her elbows an hour in every room she is "righting," instead of attending promptly to her business, and getting through with it.
Now, man is by nature an unclean animal. I doubt if he would ever wash his face, were there no women about who would refuse to kiss him if he didn't. Well—he clears a hole in the middle of his room, and gets ready for breakfast; which he swallows, and then bolts through the front-door, (dining down town,) not to return again till evening. What possible difference, then, does it make to him, whether his bed be made, and his room swept at ten o'clock in the morning, or four in the afternoon? His home is in the restaurant, in the store, in the street, anywhere and everywhere, that temptation and inclination may lead him; four walls don't bound his vision. He can afford to be philosophical about brooms and dust-pans.
But let Biddy take them into his counting-room. Let him stand round on one leg while she—having moved his desk and displaced his ledgers and papers, preparatory to a sweep—runs out into the street half an hour, under pretence of getting a broom, to gossip with an acquaintance. Let him, getting impatient, sit down in the midst of the hub-bub, and drawing up his inkstand, commence writing. Let Biddie re-enter, just as he gets under way, with a frisk of that wretched, long-handled duster, which tosses on more dust than she ever takes off. Let him rise again and make way for her, and then—let her bob off again—after a little water, and stay another half hour,—and all the while the merciless clock ticking on, and the perspiration standing on his forehead at this unnecessary waste of his time and temper, and the work he hasn't done, and let Biddy repeat this in that counting-room, to that man, every morning in the year, (365 mornings). How long do you suppose he would stand that?