Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1886 — The Old-Fashioned Girl. [ARTICLE]

The Old-Fashioned Girl.

Much praise is bestowed upon the old-fashioned girl. Her admirers are never tired of telling how she got up at 3 o’clock in the morning, milked seven cows, and got breakfast for half-a-dozen hired men before she sat down to her own, did a big day’s work at the spinning-wheel or loom, with no recess except the ones she took to help get in a load of grain before a sudden shower, or to drive the cows out of the potato patch; spun and wove as well as made her own dresses, and thought she was doing well if she got seventy-five cents a week and her board for doing all this in any home beside her own, where she did it for board and clothes and the fun of the thing. No one would deny to any of these young ladies, many of whom are young ladies yet, if a brisk step, a sparkling eye, and the ability to do a big day’s work are qualifications, the full amount of credit due them, but why should their virtues be so often sung as an implied reproach upon their grand-daugh-ters? If the last-named do not work sixteen hours a day, they can at least earn more in one day than their grandmothers could in a week. Does any one suppose that the girl of fifteen years ago would be satisfied with homespun dress if all sorts of pretty materials had been as plenty and as cheap as they are now ? Why don’t we hear more about the girls of to-day, who are teaching school week days, playing the organ Sunday, giving lessons after supper, learning to paint on embroidery Saturday afternoons, doing lots of fancy work, trimming their own hats, reading all new books, and finding time for lawn-ten-nis and croquet in the bargain ?—Lewiston Journal.