Elmer: But you haven’t told us what the girls should do.
Mother: Some girls seem to think that if they can have a pale face, white hands, and a slender form, this makes them ladies. But a girl can be healthy, strong, and useful without being rough, coarse, or unladylike. Perhaps you have seen girls who thought it was all right for their mothers to cook, wash, scrub, and do all that must be done in a home, but who seemed to think that their own hands were too pretty and were not made to do that kind of work. Some one ought to whisper to such girls that their hands are no better than their mother’s. Their hands have ten fingers, just as hers have. They were made to work, just as hers were; and they should be trained to be so loving and helpful that those persons for whom they care most will not stop to ask if they are white or brown.
Learning to sew.
Helen: I am not afraid to use my hands, mother. What shall they be taught to do?
Mother: How to wash, to sweep, scrub, cook, and sew; how to make a bed, and sweep in the very best way; how to wash and iron well. It may be that girls who do this kind of work will get tired, and their backs and arms will ache, but it will not hurt them. A night’s sleep will rest the muscles and make them ready for another day’s work. It is right for girls to excel at school; but while studying their books, they should learn to be useful and lighten the burdens at home.
Amy: But should girls work out-of-doors, mother?
Mother: If they live where they can, it is well for them to do so, at least to learn how to do some of the lighter work that comes to father and brothers. They should be able to milk a cow, harness a horse, make a garden, and do some of the lighter kinds of farm-work. Miss Frances Willard was taught this when a girl, and it proved to be a lifelong blessing. But in this, our last talk, we will take just a peep at the rooms in which the master of the body-house lives. In these rooms no one may enter but the master himself.
Percy: But where shall we find these rooms?
Mother: They are in the mind. I must tell you before we go further that they are our thoughts. I can not tell what you think about, and you can not tell what is in my mind, only as we put our thoughts into words. I wish I could help every boy and girl to feel how important it is to have clean, good thoughts. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he;” that is, a person is no better than his thoughts are, and he is just as good. If the thoughts are wrong, the person is all wrong, no matter how good he may appear to be.