Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 80, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1909 — ORNAMENTAL OR USEFUL? [ARTICLE]

ORNAMENTAL OR USEFUL?

Glancing out on the lawn we noticed a robbin feeding a daughter, we guessed, judging from the calico looking dress it had on. It was fully as big as its mother, that is, we judged it was the mother because the bird was working—the old man doubtless pirouetting around somewhere showing off, or up town on a dry goods or wet goods box advising the government. A poultry bird we can sex alright but all robbins look alike to us, hence our -judgment by actions. - _ The number of worms that robbin yanked out of the ground and placed into that capacious maw* seemed countless. All the young robber did was to take a few occasional hops to jolt down the worms and issue pre-emptory demands for more, holding its head in high disdain and never casting an eye downward toward the soil from which its food came. We failed to see any of the fat worms going down mamma’s throat —just like a mother when her loved ones hunger—but we thought, if that mother bird would start a worm out of the rl ground and then give the haughty miss a few pecks on the ear ib'thht vicinity as we can’t recall seeing ears on birds) , and say^'dig!” . t)f .course, like all conceited persons, we have lived long enough ‘"‘to have seen all there is” and have seen mothers bring up girls in the boudoir who couldn’t do a creditable stunt in the kitchen —in .fact considered it a mark of distinction to.make it known she was never “brought up to it.” If there are any such nowadays they had better “get down to it.” This is a practical age, and those that think they are “some” bv professing ignorance of domestic matters, are summed up for just what they are —ignorant. The worst gold brick a man is up against these days is one of these “la de das” whose household education is limited to the looking glass and curling irons. A womanly woman is man’s citadel—the fashionably arrayed numbskull, liis Waterloo. The lady of today to be accomplished, informs herself in all things domestic. Only then can she be queen of the dearest of all earthly spots —the household.