Happy Days for Boys and Girls

You can, if you will, from the place where you stand,
Reach downward to help them; the touch of your hand,
The price of one jewel, the gift of a flower,
May waken within them, with magical power,
A hope that was dying. O, don’t be afraid
The poor and the desolate spirit to aid.
The burdens are heavy that some one must bear,
You dear little girl with the flowers in your hair.

    Ellen M. H. Gates.

LACE-MAKING

SEE, mamma what is the woman doing? She looks as if she was holding a pin-cushion in her lap and was sticking pins in it.”

“So she is, my dear,” Ellen’s mother remarked. “But that is not all she is doing. There is a cluster of bobbins hanging down one side of the cushion which are wound with threads, and these threads she weaves around the pins in such a manner as to make lace.”

“I never saw anybody make lace that way. I have seen Aunt Maria knit it with a crochet-hook.”

“This is a different kind of lace altogether from the crocheted lace. They do not make it in the United States. The woman whom you see in the picture lives in Belgium in Europe. In that country, and in some parts of France and Germany, many of the poorer people earn a living at lace-making. The pattern which in making the lace it is intended to follow is pricked with a pin on a strip of paper. This paper is fastened on the cushion, and then pins are stuck in through all the pin-holes, and then the thread from these bobbins is woven around the lace.”

“Can they work fast?”

“An accomplished lace-maker will make her hands fly as fast as though she were playing the piano, always using the right bobbin, no matter how many of them there may be. In making the pattern of a piece of nice lace from two hundred to eight hundred bobbins are sometimes used. In such a case it takes more than one person – sometimes as many as seven – at a single cushion.”

“It must be hard to do.”

“I dare say it would be for you or me. Yet in those countries little children work at lace-making. Little children, old women and the least skilful of the men make the plainer and coarser laces, while experienced women make the nicer sorts.”

“What do they do with their lace when it is finished?”

“All the lace-makers in a neighborhood bring in their laces once a week to the ‘mistress’ – for women carry on the business of lace-making – then this ‘mistress’ packs them up and takes them to the nearest market-town, where they are peddled about from one trading-house to another until they are all sold.”

“Do they get much for them?”

“The poor lace-makers get hardly enough to keep them from starvation for their fine and delicate work; but the laces, after they have passed through the hands of one trader after another, and are at last offered to the public, bring enormous prices. A nice library might be bought for the price of a set of laces, or a beautiful house built at the cost of a single flounce.”

“I think I should rather have the house, mamma.”

“So should I. But the people who buy these laces probably have houses already. There is over four million dollars’ worth of lace sold every year in Belgium alone.”

Ellen thought she should never see a piece of nice lace without thinking of these wonderful lace-makers, who produce such delicate work and yet are paid so little for it; and while she was thus thinking over the matter, mamma went quietly on with her sewing.

HELP YOURSELVES

MANY boys and girls make a failure in life because they do not learn to help themselves. They depend on father and mother even to hang up their hats and to find their playthings. When they become men and women, they will depend on husbands and wives to do the same thing. “A nail to hang a hat on,” said an old man of eighty years, “is worth everything to a boy.” He had been “through the mill,” as people say, so that he knew. His mother had a nail for him when he was a boy – “a nail to hang his hat on,” and nothing else. It was “Henry’s nail” from January to January, year in and out, and no other member of the family was allowed to appropriate it for any purpose whatever. If the broom by chance was hung thereon, or an apron or coat, it was soon removed, because that nail was “to hang Henry’s hat on.” And that nail did much for Henry; it helped make him what he was in manhood – a careful, systematic, orderly man, at home and abroad, on his farm and in his house. He never wanted another to do what he could do for himself.

Young folks are apt to think that certain things, good in themselves, are not honorable. To be a blacksmith or a bootmaker, to work on a farm or drive a team, is beneath their dignity, as compared with being a merchant, or practising medicine or law. This is PRIDE, an enemy to success and happiness. No necessary labor is discreditable. It is never dishonorable to be useful. It is beneath no one’s dignity to earn bread by the sweat of the brow. When boys who have such false notions of dignity become men, they are ashamed to help themselves as they ought, and for want of this quality they live and die unhonored. Trying to save their dignity, they lose it.

Here is a fact we have from a very successful merchant. When he began business for himself, he carried his wares from shop to shop. At length his business increased to such an extent, that he hired a room at the Marlboro’ Hotel, in Boston, during the business season, and thither the merchants, having been duly notified, would repair to make purchases. Among all his customers, there was only one man who would carry to his store the goods which he had purchased. The buyers asked to have their goods carried, and often this manufacturer would carry them himself. But there was one merchant, and the largest buyer of the whole number, who was not ashamed to be seen carrying a case of goods through the streets. Sometimes he would purchase four cases, and he would say, “Now, I will take two, and you take two, and we will carry them right over to the store.” So the manufacturer and the merchant often went through the streets of Boston quite heavily loaded. This merchant, of all the number who went to the Marlboro’ Hotel for their purchases, succeeded in business. He became a wealthy man when all the others failed. The manufacturer, who was not ashamed to help himself, is now living – one of the wealthy men of Massachusetts, ready to aid, by his generous gifts, every good object that comes along, and honored by all who know him.

You have often heard and read the maxim, “God helps those who help themselves.” Is it not true?

    William M. Thayer.

THE STORY OF JOHNNY DAWDLE

HERE, little folks, listen; I’ll tell you a tale,
Though to shock and surprise you I fear it won’t fail;
Of Master John Dawdle my story must be,
Who, I’m sorry to say, is related to me.

And yet, after all, he’s a nice little fellow:
His eyes are dark brown and his hair is pale yellow;
And though not very clever or tall, it is true
He is better than many, if worse than a few.

But he dawdles at breakfast, he dawdles at tea —
He’s the greatest small dawdle that ever could be;
And when in his bedroom, it is his delight
To dawdle in dressing at morning and night.

And oh! if you saw him sit over a sum,
You’d much wish to pinch him with finger and thumb;
And then, if you scold him, he looks up so meek;
Dear me! one would think that he hardly could speak.

Each morning the same he comes tumbling down,
And often enough is received with a frown,
And a terrible warning of something severe
Unless on the morrow he sooner appear.

But where does he live? That I’d rather not say,
Though, if truth must be told, I have met him to-day;
I meant just to pass him with merely a bow,
But he stopped and conversed for a minute or so.

“Well, where are you going?” politely said I;
To which he replied, with a groan and a sigh,
“I’ve been doing my Latin from breakfast till dinner,
And pretty hard work that is for a beginner.”

“But now I suppose you are going to play
And have pleasure and fun for the rest of the day?”
“Indeed, but I’m not – there’s that bothering sum;
And then there’s a tiresome old copy to come.”

“Dear me!” I replied, and I thought it quite sad
There should be such hard work for one poor little lad;
But just at that moment a lady passed by,