Part 42

The house we live in was not made for us simply to look at and admire its beauty. It was made to be useful, as well as beautiful. We have brains, to think and plan. We have eyes, to see what needs to be done, and ears, to hear what we are told to do. We have two hands, with ten fingers, which makes it easy for us to handle different objects; and they must be taught to be skilful. We also have two feet, to carry us wherever work needs to be done. A doll may be pretty, but it is not very useful, for it can not do anything.

PERCY: And there seems to be plenty of work to be done everywhere.

MOTHER: There certainly is! Just think of how many houses must be built, how many clothes must be made, how many breakfasts and dinners must be cooked, how many schools there are to teach, how many fields to plow, sow, and reap, how many books and papers to be made that we may have something to read, and ever so many other kinds of work to be done to make ourselves and others comfortable and happy.

AMY: Can we children help?

MOTHER: Yes, indeed; there is something for every boy and girl to do in lifting burdens, and making the world better and brighter because they have lived in it.

ELMER: What can boys do?

MOTHER: One of the best things which can be said of any boy is that he is a real help at home. Of course he should go to school and learn many things there; but he should also learn to work. A boy can learn to drive a team, plow, hoe, plant, rake, and do the different kinds of work to be done on a farm or in a shop. He should learn how to use tools, the hammer, saw, plane, and others; for almost every man at some time in his life needs to have knowledge of this kind.

PERCY: Should boys ever do housework, mother?

MOTHER: It is no disgrace to them to know how to wash dishes, make a bed, sweep a floor, or to set the table. If they can do such things they will be a help to mother as well as to father. They may bring in the wood and coal, and so save many steps for mother and sister. Nothing that a boy can do in the house makes him unmanly. It rather marks as a true gentleman one who is able and willing to do whatever needs to be done, no matter what it is. There is one other thing that he should not fail to learn.

HELEN: What is that?

MOTHER: To keep his own room in order. He should hang up his clothes, and have a place in which to keep his things, and see that they are kept there. There is no reason why a boy’s sister should hang up his coat and hat, put away his books, or keep his room in order. He can do all these things for himself. I once went into a boy’s room after he had dressed to go for a visit. It looked as though a small cyclone had passed through it. Soiled clothes were on the table and under the bed. A muddy boot was on a chair, and his jacket and trousers were thrown in a heap in a corner. The bed was unmade. Dirty water stood in the wash-basin. The comb was on the floor. All was confusion and disorder. A dis-or´der-ly boy makes a dis-or´der-ly man.

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.

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.

HELEN: I found a little poem about our thoughts and put it in my scrap-book. May I read it, mother?

MOTHER: Please do; I know we all want to hear it.

HELEN: Here it is:—

“There were idle thoughts came in at the door, And warmed their little toes, And did more mischief about the house Than any one living knows.

“They scratched the tables and broke the chairs, And soiled the floor and wall; For a motto was written above the door, ‘There’s a welcome here for all.’

“When the master saw the mischief done, He closed it with hope and fear, And he wrote above, ‘Let none Save good thoughts enter here.’

“And the good little thoughts came trooping in, When he drove the others out; They cleaned the walls, they swept the floor, And sang as they moved about.

“And last of all an angel came, With a kindly, shining face, And above the door he wrote, ‘Here Love has found a dwelling-place.’”

MOTHER: That is very good. Let us all take for our motto, “Let none save good thoughts enter here.” Now I think you understand that as we are talking of passing through different rooms, we mean that we are in the “chambers of the mind,” and we imagine that we are looking at a person’s thoughts. We will look inside of just a few rooms, and from them we can form an idea of the rest.