Oh! honest, faithful little John,
If you will lay aside your duds
And take a sea of soap and suds
And wash out dirty Washington;
If you will be the Hercules
To cleanse our stables clean of these
That all such follies fatten on,
There’s fifty million souls to-day
To bid you welcome, bid you stay
And calmly keep on washing.
—The Independent.
CHILDREN’S PAGE.
THE LITTLE DINING-ROOM.
BY MRS. T. N. CHASE.
Often just before breakfast I hear a tripping step in our hall, then a light tap at the door, and our little John exclaims, “You’re ’vited, mamma.” As I answer the knock, happy Hennie’s voice rings out the welcome words, “You and Mr. Chase are invited to breakfast in the little dining-room.” Now, as the “big dining-room” is filled with about 150 students and teachers, and as board is eight dollars per month, the little dining room offers the most quiet, to say nothing of the superior variety and quality of the food.
Well, now, there has of late been rapidly growing what some of us staid teachers think is an industrial craze. I suppose any day the girls at the North may have to give up one of their studies for the old-fashioned patchwork. Oh! I don’t mean old-fashioned. Isn’t it funny that old-fashioned things are the newest-fashioned things? I suppose, too, any day our grandmother’s beautiful samplers may again take their æsthetic places in the schoolroom to teach “marking stitch” from “sure enough” antique letters, and the boys may march into a recitation room, where they will learn to drive nails and shoe pegs. Well, this is a great question, and none but a parent can be more interested than the faithful teacher that the best methods should be used in developing their precious charge.
About two years ago the matron of Atlanta University selected two little dormitory rooms that opened into each other, and turned them into dining-room and kitchen. An old Stewart cook stove used in the big kitchen long ago, before the range was a necessity, was a large part of the little kitchen’s outfit. The clothes press was easily changed to cupboard, and an old flower stand was made into a tidy closet for pots and kettles. In the dining-room the floor was stained in alternate strips of dark and light color; a fly screen put in the window, a few pictures and a rough shelf covered with a pretty lambrequin brightened the walls; and, best of all, while this revolution was going on, an old friend happened to drop in, on her way to Florida. She was so delighted with the matron’s idea that she filled the China closet of the little dining-room with such pretty things that the dainty tea table at once put on airs in its new home. Well, in these two little rooms the two highest classes of girls are honored with practice in household arts, with the matron for their teacher. At first gatherings in the little dining-room were quite rare. The birthdays of the senior class were celebrated there, and guests sometimes entertained, but the girls are so proud of their housekeeping that now they are allowed all the practice they have time for. Absent graduates must remember the room with pleasure, as they send beautiful bouquets for the table. The senior girls take turns in being responsible for the breakfasts and teas, and in presiding at table. In addition to the two girls who preside, there is room for about a third of the teachers. So, as we cannot all go, there can be no general invitations, but each visit there has all the charm of a special invitation out to breakfast or tea. But the best of it all is the encouragement it gives the girls to practice the too often neglected art of good cooking.