"I am, Father."
"Why, my child, he has no trade, no money, and very little education; what are you going to do for a living?"
She replied: "Aunt is going to give me a hen for a wedding present. You know, Father, it is said one hen will raise twenty chickens in a season. The second season, twenty each, you see, will be four hundred; the third season, eight thousand; the fourth season, one hundred and sixty thousand; and the fifth season, only five years, twenty each will be three million, two hundred thousand chickens. At twenty-five cents each they will bring eight hundred thousand dollars. We will then let you have money enough to pay off the mortgage on the farm and we will move to the city."
To a girl in love, every hen egg will hatch; not a chicken will ever die with the gapes; they will all live on love, like herself, and everything will be profit.
The college girl cannot marry at this impulsive, air-castle age. She must wait until she gets through college. By that time she is old enough for her heart to consult her head, and her head inquires into the character and capacity of the young man. Beside this, it has been the custom for women to look up to man, and when the college woman looks up, quite often she doesn't see anybody. Young man, if you want the college girl you must "get up" in good qualities to where she will see you without looking down.
I believe this higher education for women will tend to arrest the recklessness by which life is linked with life at the marriage altar. There is a legend among the Jews that man and woman were once one being; an angel was sent down from Heaven to cleave them into two. Ever since, each half has been running around looking for the other, and the misfits have been many at the marriage altar.
These misfits remind me of an experience when I lectured for the Colfax, Iowa, Chautauqua, some years ago. Frank Beard, the famous chalk talker, was there and on Grand Army day he was on the program for a short talk. I was seated by Mr. Beard while the speaker who preceded him was telling war stories of his regiment and himself. Frank Beard said to me: "Well! I guess I can exaggerate a little myself." It was evident he intended to measure up to the occasion. After getting his audience into proper spirit for the manufactured war story, he said:
"I was in the war myself and had a few experiences. At the battle of Shiloh, I was lying behind a log, when I saw about forty Confederates come dashing down toward me. My first impulse was to rise, make a charge and capture the whole forty. But I knew that would not be strategy; generals did not manage a battle that way with such odds against them, so I determined to make a detour. Perhaps some of you young people do not know what a detour means. It means, when in such a position as I was, to get up and go the other way. So I detoured. The chaplain of our regiment detoured also; he could detour a little faster than I, and was directly in front of me when a shell caught up with me and took my leg off just above the knee. You may notice I walk very lame." (Which he did just then for effect). "Well, the same shell took off the chaplain's leg, and we tumbled into a heap. The surgeon came up, and having a little too much booze, he got things mixed; he put the chaplain's leg on me and my leg on the chaplain. We were in good health, and the legs grew on all right. When I recovered, I concluded to celebrate my restoration to usefulness, so I went into a saloon and said to the bartender, 'Give me some good old brandy.' He set out the bottle, and I began to fill the glass, when that chaplain's leg began to kick. The chaplain was a very ardent temperance man, and the first thing I knew, that temperance leg was making for the door, and I followed. But what do you think? As I went out, I met my leg bringing the chaplain in."
That's a very absurd story, a rather ridiculous one, but if the surgeon had made the mistake Mr. Beard charged, he would not have made any greater than is made every day at the marriage altar. Young women, I would not silence the love songs in your hopeful hearts, but I would have every betrothed girl demand of her lover not only a loving heart, but a well rounded character and a reasonable store of useful knowledge.
A writer on this question said: "This progress of woman lessens mother love in our country." Is that true? Before the opening of a southern exposition, a mother of four boys applied for and was engaged as chime bell ringer. Perhaps some saw in the selection a woman as brazen as the bells she would ring. On opening day she played, "He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps"; on New York day she played, "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia;" on Pennsylvania day, "The Star Spangled Banner;" on Kentucky day, "My Old Kentucky Home;" on Maryland day, "Maryland, my Maryland;" on Georgia day, "The Girl I Left Behind Me;" on colored people's day, the airs of the old plantation; on newsboy's day, "The Bowery" and "Sunshine of Paradise Alley;" then "Nearer, my God, to Thee," "Rock of Ages, Cleft For Me," soothed the tired Christian heart. One afternoon she took two of her boys into the belfry-tower; one seven, the other about three years of age. When they tired of the confinement, the older boy said: "Mother, can we go out for a walk?"