Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1875 — A Story for the Girls. [ARTICLE]

A Story for the Girls.

Sit down on the porch, children, and let me tell you about Aunt Rachel and the story she once told me. One day, when I was about twelve years old, I had planned to go after strawberries, but Aunt Rachel said to me: “ A girl of your age should begin to learn how to do housework. Take off your hat, roll up your sleeves and help me to do the baking.” I pouted and sighed and shed tears, but was encouraged by the promise that I might go after the baking. Under good Aunt Rachel’s direction I mixed a big loaf of bread, placed it on a tin as bright as a new dollar, and was rubbing the flour oft my hands, when she called out: “ This will never, never do, child; you haven’t scraped your bread-bowl clean.” I shall never forget the picture she made standing there, her eyes regarding me sternly, one hand resting onher hip, while in the other she held the untidy bowl. “It will never do, child,” she went on; “it is not only untidy, but it makes too much waste. To be a good housekeeper you must learn to be economical. You have heard the story of the young man who wanted an economical wife?” , “ No,” I answered, and I might have added that I didn’t wish to hear It, either. “ Well,” she continued, “he was a very likely young man and he wanted a careful wife, so he'thought of a way he could find out. One morning he went to call upon the different girls of his acquaintance and asked them each for the scrapings of their bread-bowls to feed his horses. You see, they all wanted him, so they got all they could for him. Finally he found a girl who hadn’t any, so he asked her to be his wife, because he thought she must be economical. Now,” said Aunt Rachel, triumphantly, “ suppose a young man should ask youT'or the scrapings of your breadbowl, what could you say?" “ What could I sav?” I repeated, scornfully, “why, I’d tell him if he couldn’t afford to buy oats for his horses they might starve; I wouldn’t rob the pig to feed them.” f \ 1 suppose Aunt Rachel thought that lesson was all lost on me; but, as true as you live, I never knead the bread to this day without thinking of her lesson in economy. —Detroit Free Frets. „ —Old maids should remember that misfortunes never come singly/