Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1875 — The Old Slate. [ARTICLE]

The Old Slate.

“ I’ve a great mind to break this stupid old slate,” said little Charles Fidget, one morning, as he sat over his sum in subtraction. “ Why, what has the poor slate'Hone?” asked the pleasant voice of his sister Helen, behind him. “ Nothing; just what I complain of. It' won’t do this hard sum for me; and here it is almost school time!” “ What a wicked slate, Charles!”“So it is. I mean to fling it out of the window, and break it to pieces pn the stones.” “Will that do your sum, Charles?” “No; but if there were no slates in the world I should have no good-for-nothing sums to do.” “Oh, ho! that does not follow by any means. Did slates make the science of arithmetic ? Would people never have to count and calculate if there were no slates? You forget pens, lead pencils and paper; you forget all about oral arithmetic, Charles.” “Well, I don’t love to cipher; that’s all I know.” “And so, you hasty boy, you get angry with the poor, harmless slate, that is so convenient when you make mistakes and want to rub them out. Now, this is the way with a great many thoughtless, quicktempered people. They try to find fault with somebody or something else, and get into a passion, and' perhaps do mischief; when, if they would but reflect a little, it is their own dear selves who ought to bear the blame. Now, Charlie, let me se® what I can do for you.” So Helen sat down in her mother’s great easy-chair; she tried to look grave and dignified like an old lady, though she was now but eighteen. Charlie came rather unwillingly, laid the slate upon her lap, and began to play with the trimmings on her apron. “Why, what is all this?” said she. “ Soldiers, and cats, and dogs, and houses with windows of all shapes and sizes !” Charlie looked foolish. “ Oh, the sum is on the other side,” said he, turning it over.

“Ah, silly boy!” said Helen, “ here you have been sitting half an hour drawing pictures instead of trying to do your sum. And now, which do you think ought to be broken—you or the slate ?” And she held it up high as if she meant to knock his brains out with it. Charlie looked up with his Lands at his ears, making believe he was frightened, but laughing all the while, for he knew she was only playing with him. Presently, however, she put on a serious face and said: “ Now, my little man, you must go to work in good earnest and make up for your lost time.” “Ok! Helen, it wants only twenty minutes of nine ; I shall be late. What shall Ido ? Miss Fletcher will certainly punish me if it is not done. Can’t you do it just this once, Helen?” “ No,” said Helen. “ Oh! do, there’s adear, good sister ;j ust this once.” ► “ No, Charlie; there would be no kindness in that; you would never learn the arithmetic in that way.” “Just once,” still pleaded Charlie. “ No,” answered Helen, in a kind but resolute tone; “if I do it once you will find it hard to be refused to-morrow; you will depend upon me and sit playing and drawing pictures instead of ciphering. I will do a much kinder thing; I will keep you close at it till the job is over.” So she passed her hand gently around him, and though Charlie pouted at first and could hardly see through his tears she questioned him about his rule and then began to show him the proper way. to do his sum, yet letting him work it oiu himself, in such a pleasant manner that he was soon ashamed of being snllen. First she held the pencil herself and put down the figures as he told her to do; and then she made him copy the whole nicely on another part of the slate and rub out her figures. After all this was finished patiently and diligently Charlie was surprised to find he should still be in good season for school.

“ Now to-morrow, Charlie,” said Helen, “don’t waste a moment, but to your lesson at once, whatever it is, ana you will find it a great saving, not only of time, but of temper. You won’t get into a passion with this clever old state of mine then. It went to school with me when I was a little girl, and I should have been very sorry if you had smashed it for not doing your work. Half the time, Charles, when you see a person fidgety and angry and complaining of things and people, you may be sure he has either done something he ought not to do or left undone something he ought to do.” " Away ran" Charlie to school, thinking to himself: “ Well, I suppose I was wrong both ways; I ought not to have been drawing soldiers and I ought to have been ciphering.’’ - —The art of nursing is being elevated. The average pay of monthly nurses in New York is said by an intelligent correspondent to be fifty dollars, and sometimes more. Male nurses demand from twentyfive dollars to forty dollars per week, and there are nurses in the city who receive ten dollars per day. Bo.it is a favored class after all. No creature in this world makes less account ofnmney than the New York millionaire when the shadow of death is hanging overhim. —Let’s chip in and raise SIOO fbr the Boston physician who says it is unhealthy to rise before the sun lias dispelled the morning fogs. —Free Press.