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THE GIRLS’
COMPANION.
2 JuLy 13, 1907.
protested. “I shall have to do every mite anxiously. She stepped to the door, meas- | ‘* Now, dear, it is not impossible that your life
myself. Is it hard?” uring cup in hand. may broaden out by and by into opportunities
“Not hard at all,” laughed her aunt.
“You will not need any ‘help. I will see
that you make no mistake, that’s all.”
Aunt Elizabeth and Betty had the
kitchen to themselves that afternoon, and
the macaroons were a success. The birth-
day girl was sure that they would add
much to the fun of the party.
“Betty -made these macaroons,’ Annie
Jarvis announced to the guests, “and we
are to guess what they are made of.”
Instantly the critical tasting began, and
seventeen foreheads were puckered over the
little cakes
“All I know is, they’re good,” said Rob-
ert Doolittle.
“ Cocoanut,” ventured Polly Tryon.
“No,” answered Betty.
“Englisk walnuts,’ guessed Mary How-
ard.
Betty shook her head, with another “* No.”
“T think it’s just flour and eggs and
sugar and vanilla flavoring,” declared An-
nie Jarvis.
Betty smiled gleefully. ‘There isn’t a
speck of flour in them,” she said.
“ Why-ee!” ran around the table.
“T thought everything was made with
flour,” spoke up Walter Cowles. “ My
mother always puts it into bread, I know.”
Eiverybody had to laugh then, though
Walter couldn’t see why he had said any-
thing so very funny.
There were wild guesses after that, but
nobody hit right.
“You'd never dream what it
Betty at last. “It’s oat meal!”
“Oat meal!” they shouted.
“Oat meal!” squealed one little girl.
“Why, I never will eat a bit of oat meal
at home; but these are beautiful!” And
she munched her third macaroon in great
content.
“Can I have the recipe?’ Polly Tryon
asked.
“And 1?’ “And 1?”
used the other girls.
“Of course, you can all haye it,” Betty
answered, * Aunt Elizabeth says*ene good
thing about them is that we can eat all
we want and they won’t hurt us, like some
rich ‘macaroons.” .
When Betty went to get pencils and
paper for copying the recipe, she found that
her aunt had the copies all ready—seven-
teen of them,
“T knew they would want them,” she
explained; “‘and the boys will like them
for their mothers.”
“That’s just like Aunt Elizabeth,” Betty
told her guests. “She always thinks of
things.”
“T’m glad she thought of these maca-
roons,” Robert Doolittle said; “ they’re
fine! I shall want my mother to make
some to-morrow.”
This is the recipe that the seventeen
carried home:
BETTY’S MACAROONS.
Two and one-half cups of Quaker Oats,
Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder.
One-half cup of sugar.
Two well-beaten eggs.
Two teaspoonfuls of vanilla.
Mix thoroughly, and drop in half-tea-
spoonfuls on buttered tins. Bake in moder-
ate oven until crisp and lightly browned.
——e-—
is,” said
“ And I?” chor-
“DON'T TELL MOTHER.”
A young woman who had led a wayward
life was brought to a hospital to die. She
steadily refused to give her real name.
“Mother might find out about me,” she
said, ‘‘and don’t want her to know.- 1
don’t want mother to know.”
Don't shut mother out of your confidence.
It is certain to be the beginning of a career
that may end in your crying out in the ut-
most bitterness of spirit and the keenest sor-
row, “Don’t tell mother! Don’t tell
mother !”
—_.-—__
The number of girls now receiving a school
education in Japan is more than eight times
the female attendance of ten years ago. In
fifteen years the percentage of males and fe-
males admitted to the training school for
teachers has been completely reversed. Fif-
teen years ago the females preparing to
teach were scarcely one-fifth of the total.
To-day the men are less than one-fifth of the
applicants.» These facts go far to account
for the remarkable progress of this Eastern
empire and its rise in the scale of nations.—
Christian Intelligencer,
Saturday morning, and Mistress Sun-
shine, wiping the last of the breakfast
dishes, sang gayly to herself for very joy
at seeing the lilac bush blooming outside
the kitchen window:
“Spring has come, spring has come, spring
has come,
Hark! the merry, merry birds are singing.”
“Tt’s too bad for anything, Kitty Ben-
son!” interrupted an indignant girlish voice
as the owner bounced into the kitchen, her
black eyes flashing. ‘ You know you prom-
ised we'd go after violets this morning,
and now you're going to stay home and
wash dishes and do things, just because
Nora wants to go and see her mother.”
“Sh! Rosalie, dear!” Mistress Sunshine
glanced apprehensively at the door of the
back stairway, up which radiant Nora,
freed for the day, had vanished haif an
hour ago. “I’m happy I found out in time
that it is Mrs. Maloney’s birthday. Think
of your mother spending her birthday with-
out you, or mine without me! We'll go
next Saturday morning to the woods, and
really, deary, I believe we'll find nicer
violets then. I’m going to make a nut
cake. Don’t you want to stay and help?”
“T’d love to!” impulsive Rosalie cried,
with evident delight. She looked up loy-
ingly at her cousin, adding: “ When I’m
eighteen, I hope I'll
be just as nice as
you are.”
“You have eight
years in which to
grow much nicer than
am,” Kitty an-
swered with-a merry
laugh. “Now, while
I’m dusting father’s
study, you
this fat cooky;
just full of plump
raisins.¥
The ‘Reverend Mr.
Benson looked up
from his desk as the
study door opened
noiselessly. from with-
out, and shook his
head smilingly, de-
spite the preoccupied
look in his eyes. Rare
indeed were the occa-
sions when the minis-
ter had not a smile
for his daughter.
“No, no, Mistress
Sunshine! You can’t come in now w
your duster,” he id. “Perhaps later.
I’m busy with my Sunday-school Institute
report.”
“Why, father, I helped you last month
to get it off!” cried Kitty. Mayn’t I help
you now?”
“T am pressed for time, but your mother
said you were taking Nora’s place and—”
“Tl be back in a minute,’’ Kitty inter-
rupted,
Rosalie had finished the last delectable
crumb of the fat cooky, and was swinging
her legs to and fro beside the kitchen table
when her cousin appeared with a bowl and
a paper bag which she laid on the table.
“You'll find the cracker in the table
drawer, Rosalie;. you'll crack the nuts,
won’t you, dear? By the time you're ready
for me, I’ll be ready for you. I'm going
to help father for a while. It’s lovely you
are going to help me.” And Kitty smiled
so brightly that she was verily Mistress
Sunshine, as her loved ones often called her.
The report was finished, the minister on
his way to the meeting of the Institute,
and Kitty, assisted by Rosalie, was’ busy
measuring flour and sugar in the kitchen,
when a wail of anguish rent the swee
spring air without.
“Tt’s Teddy Marsh!” Kitty exclaimed
“you CAN’T COME IN NOW.”
ith
“Oh, oh! I frowed my ball over there!”
lamented Teddy, at sight of his neighbor.
“Into the alley? Don’t ery, Teddy, boy.
T’ll get it for you.” And Kitty, again
Mistress Sunshine, set the cup on the win-
dow-sill and hurried of down the garden.
Teddy followed on the other side of the
fence. But though Kitty looked high and
low, the ball could not be found. Teddy’s
grief, loud and vigorous, brought his mother
on the scene.
“T don’t know what to do with him
this morning, he’s so fretty, and I’m so
busy getting ready for company. I guess
he isn’t well,” she confided, with a trou-
bled little air to her neighbor.
“Lend him to me,” Kitty pleaded, her
face aglow at the thought 6f comforting
Teddy. “Rosalie and I are making a
cake. IIe shall have a tasting-bit, too.”
The measuring was accomplished, the
mixing about to be begun, when Mrs. Ben-
son entered the kitchen, a long envelope in
her hand.
“Witty, dear, your father has forgotten
to take his report,” she said in dismayed
tones.
“That’s because he has so much on his
mind to-day,” Mistress Sunshine promptly
replied. “I’m glad I haven’t started mix-
ing yet. I’ll take the report and make the
cake after I come back.”
“Tt’s such a long walk,” her mother de-
murred.
“And such a perfect morning for walk-
ing,’ Mistress Sunshine smiled back. “I
guess Rosalie would like to go, too. And
if you’ll ask Mrs. Marsh to put Teddy in
his cart while I’m slipping into my shirt-
waist, I’ll take him for an outing.”
Within a very short time Mistress Sun-
shine, Rosalie and Teddy set off on their
~ errand. Mrs. Marsh
watched them till
they turned the cor-
ner, When they were
lost to sight, she said
softly to herself, as
she went back to her
interrupted duties:
“No wonder folks
eall you Mistress
Sunshine, little
neighbor.”
—.—
A LITTLE LESSON,
BY MARY F, BUTTS.
“Tf I could go about
the world and do as I
d
Mildred dis-
contentedly. ‘Here I
am working away in
this humdrum place,
and Helen Chase is go-
ing off to boarding-
school.”
Mildred had run in
to her next-door neigh-
vor’s for a moment to
have a chat with young Mrs. James. There
was a three-months-old baby there, and the
girls of the neighborhood who loved babies
were often attracted by her sweetness.
“iow: odd!” said Mrs. James. “ Helen
has just been here to say good-by. She seemed
very discouraged and sorrowful.”
“elen discouraged and~sorrowful !”
peated Mildred in amazement. ‘ Why,
should think she would be the happiest girl
in the world.”
“Well, strange to tell, Ilelen was envying
ou.”
re-
y
“—Envying me! What do you mean, Mrs.
James?
“Well, she feels that it is a very lonely lot
to have only a guardian and. some money.
he said with tears in her eyes: ‘There's
Mildred in that nest of’ a home—father,
mother, brothers and sisters all around her. I
wish I could change places with her.’
Mildred looked astonished.
“You can’t understand now~ how Helen
feels,” said Mrs. James. ‘“ We are very apt
to undervalue what we have always enjoyed.
But by and by when all the home-friends are
gone, your life may seem to you as much too
wide, as it now seems too narrow. ITelen
feels that she has too much freedom. She
longs for some of the sweet duties that you
rebel against.”
“Sweet duties!” echoed Mildred, remem-
bering the dishwashing and the sweeping,
the stocking-darning and the baby-tending.
“Well, they seem sweet to Ifelen, in her
lonesome leisure,” replied the lady, picking up
the baby and giving her a toss and a hu;
that you do not dream of, but be sure that
trials and losses will come with the oppor-
tunities. The way to make that new time
rich and satisfying is to fill your place well
now. Every time you control a rebellious or
an unkind feeling, you sow a seed for your
future harvest. Be sure that you don’t sow
any thorn seed, deary.”
——__
THE THING YOU CAN DO BEST.
BY MRS. C, E. BENNETT.
The thing you can do best! That is what
you want to look for. Do not be distracted
from your search by a glimpse of the thing
you would like to do. ‘The latter may be
showy and fine. The former may be simple
and commonplace, but it is the thing it will
pay you to cultivate, nevertheless.
When we talk about talent we usually asso-
ciate it with those pursuits for which almost
everyone has an admiration. One may have
a talent for music or painting or for writing
poetry, but some never think of calling the
girl who can make a first-class pie, or keep a
home neat and attractive, “a talented young
woman.” Perhaps that is one reason why
the girl who has the housekeeper's gift often
ignores it altogether, and spends ber time
with the piano.
Some girls can do several things well. But
each can do one thing better than’any other.
It will pay to look for that thing. The girl
whose especial faculty is for trimming hats
should do her best at that work, instead of
trying to write poetry; just as another girl
who really has the literary gift should culti-
vate it, instead of wasting time and strength
on work for which she has no ability. Su-
periority does not consist so much in a differ-
ence of talent, as in the different way that
talents are used.. Whoever finds the thing
she can do best and then does her best at it,
stands shoulder to shoulder with the best
workers in every line of effort. The thing
which ought to cause us shame is the doing
with half a heart that which we can do
only poorly, because we have not the am-
bition to find out the direction of our ability,
or lack the courage to follow it.
——
IN OUR OWN HOMES.
One needs to go very slowly in fault-finding
in the family, writes Margaret E. Sangster.
Girls are often too ready to call attention to
the little flaws in their brothers’ armor.
“Richard Is so clumsy! His’ arms are all
elbows ; he cannot go through a room without
tumbling over himself,” cries an annoyed sis-
ter as the boy, who is big, and a trifle awk-
ward, knocks against her tea-table and upsets
a cup and saucer.
Dick
brusque way of correcting him, he is not the
more at ease in her company, and he is far
readier to escape from it and seek his pleas-
ure away from home in some place where
there may rot be tea-tabies only, and where
there may well be grosser temptations. For
the sake of a gewgaw of a bit of fancywork,
or a piece of china, I would not, if I were a
girl, run the risk of losing my. hold upon my
influence with a dear and precious brother.
There never can be too much sincerity in
our. home intercourse, but there may be too
much outspoken and blunt and unwelcome
candor. In our home life we ought to be
at our best,
velop the very best in each other. Deep
down in our souls there is usually true love
for our kith and kin; there needs also to be_
the daily expression of this love in acts and
words of gentle and affectionate courtesy.
THE DANGER OF CROWDING.
A-real book lover feels the same sense of
discomfort on seeing his book friends crowded
upon tlfe shelves, as when he sees a street-car
crowded with human beings. And the result
to the books is even worse than to mortals,
When a book is wedged into a shelf where
there is scant room for it, the chances are
that it is loosered in its binding before it is
in place. If not, the book is pretty sure to
be loosened the next time you take it down.
Most people remove books from shelves by
slipping the forefinger behind the top band,
and pulling the volume forward. If the book
is so crowded in its shelf that a hard pull is
necessary to start it, there is no need of say-
ing that the results are disastrous. While
there should be books enough on the shelf
so that the line will stand upright like sol-
diers on parade, each one should slip in and
out of its place without any rubbing against
its neighbor.
< here are a few-books in most libraries
does not feel the happier for her-
and our aim should be to de- |
