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Then Ben, aged six, began to tell,
In elder-brotherly way,

How very, very good she must be

If she went to church next day.

He told of the church, the choir, and the crowd,
And the man up in front who talked so loud :
But she must not talk nor laugh nor sing,
But just sit as quiet as anything.

And so, on a beautiful Sabbath in May,
When the fruit-buds burst into flowers,
(There wasn't a blossom on bush or tree
So fair as this blossom of ours),

All in her white dress, dainty and new,
Our baby sat in the family pew.
The grand, sweet music, the reverent air,
The solemn hush and the voice of

prayer

Filled all her baby soul with awe,
As she sat in her little place,
And the holy look that the angels wear
Seemed pictured upon her face.

And the sweet words uttered so long ago
Came into my mind with a rhythmic flow:
"Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," said He,
And I knew that he spake of such as she.

The sweet-voiced organ pealed forth again,
The collection-box came round,
And baby dropped her penny in

And smiled at the chinking sound.
Alone in the choir Aunt Nellie stood,
Waiting the close of the soft prelude
To begin her solo. High and strong
She struck the first note clear and long.

She held it, and all were charmed but one
Who, with all the might she had,
Sprang to her little feet and cried :
"Aunt Nellie, you's being bad."

The audience smiled, the minister coughed,
he little boys in the corner laughed,
the tenor-man shook like an aspen leaf,
And hid his face in his handkerchief.

And poor Aunt Nellie never could tell
How she finished that terrible strain,
But says that nothing on earth would tempt
Her to go through the same scene again.
So, we have decided, perhaps 'tis best,
For her sake, ours and all the rest,
That we wait, maybe for a year or two,
Ere our baby re-enter the family pew.

MINNIE M. Gow

AUNT JEMIMA ON THE WOMAN QUESTION.

AUNT JEMIMA gave a real old-fashioned quilting party the other day in honor of a niece who was visiting her, and freed her mind in this little lecture to her guests, who were all young girls:

"We are livin', galls, in a fast age-a progressive age they call it, when women are a-puttin' on airs and a-settin' up to be the equals of man. "Twan't so when

I was a gall. Women didn't then pretend that they'd a right to vote and sing bass, and speechify in public. Galls didn't go galivanting off to colleges and universities, and rack their brains over ologies and furrin' lingos till they was turned inside out.

"Do you suppose that, if I'd a ben one of that sort of young women, Solon Pettibone would ever have took a fancy to me, and chose me out of twenty other galls that was just a-dying for him? For Squire Pettibone, whose weepin' relict I now am, was a great man in his day, a member of the school committee, a justice of the peace, head of the board of selek men. He served two terms in the State Legislatur, and was even talked of for Congress !

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"He was a man of deep larnin' and great powers of mind. He read a good deal, but it was mostly in science books too deep for me. Whenever in his weekly newspapers he come to a artikel headed Women's Spere,' 'Advice to Wives,' and sich like, he'd insist on readin' it to me, even if I had to leave my salt risin' a-runnin' over, or the dinner-table a-standin' on the floor, to listen. Sometimes of an evenin', arter the children was all asleep, and I sot in the chimbly corner a-darnin' stockins or doin' up my week's mendin', he'd take dauwn some larned volum from the book-case that he allers kep under lock and key, and if he come acrost anything suited to my needs or capacerty he kindly read it to me. E'enamost all the larnin' I ever got came in this way.

"I remember jest as if it was yisterday how kinder pleased-like he'd look over at me and the work I was a-doin', while he read some lines from Sheridan Knowles, beginnin'

'Women act ther parts

When they do make their ordered households know 'em ;'

-or these words from another great poet,-Shakspeare or Martin Farquhar Tupper, I disremember which

'What I do most admire in woman

Is her affections, but not her intellek.'

"One line of Vargil was a pertikelar favorite of his'n. He said it in his sort of hectorin' way to me so often that, though I don't know no Latin (I should hope not), I larned this lingo by heart, and can repeat it naow:

Varium et mutabile semper fæmina.'

"(Husband said it meant,' More fickle than the winged winds is woman.')

"At famerly prayers, which he kept up constant, and where he was the most eddifyin' of men, he used to ransack the scripturs for passages improvin' to me and the galls such as

'Wives, be in subjection to your husbands.' "Whose adornin' let it not be that outard adornin' of plaitin' the hair, of wearin' of gold, or of puttin' on of apparel, but the ornerment of a meek and quiet sperit.'

"But the verses he set the most by was them of King Solomon describin' the vartuous woman. I know the hull on 'em by heart. Them books upon woman's spere by Dr. Todd and Dr. Fulton come out jest afore he died, and was the solace of his last hours. How many times when I was a-ministerin' araound his dyin' pillow he quoted to me them lovely words of Dr. Fulton: Woman is God's first gift to man, and to be helper to man is nobler than to be queen of heaven. For this God created you. For this he preserves you.'

"One day the squire added, smilin', 'Jemima, you've ben to me a meek, lovin', industrus, devoted, obejent wife. I shall leave you the income of a third of my estate as long as you remain my widder. No son of my own can bear my name and honors, but the Pettibone name must be kep' up, and tother two-thirds,—the hull when you are done with it, goes to Solon Pettibone, my second cousin's son, who is named arter me. galls gets so uppish and inderpendent in their idees as our galls, they'd better be left scratch for theirselves. I leave 'em jest one dollar apiece.'

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(No, Susan Maria, I don't think that was too bad. Our galls went agin' their par's teechins, and it was his duty to punish 'em.)

"For nigh upon thirty years I was blest with this high, improvin' companionship, and, though a poor cretur at best, I tried in my humble way to be a helpmeet for my husband. The squire was a master-hand for good victuals, and I made his likens and dislikens in this line sich a study, that I ontirely won his heart. (And, galls, the straightest road to any man's heart leads right through his stummick.) From rise to set of sun, my work was never done. I looked well arter the ways of my household. I never ate the bread of idleness. My husband was known in the gates, when he sot among the elders of the land, and that was glory enough for me.

"You ask if the squire was kind to me, Matilda Jane? He made me keep my place; I don't suppose you'd call that kind, but I was content. If I'd gone on the way lots of women in these days is goin' on, he'd a shut me up in a lunatic asylum, and sarved me right. He had a tremenjus will of his own, and I didn't darse to oppose it. I do believe that if he'd a smit me on one cheek I'd a-turned to him tother one also. In all things he was lord and master. I had promised to serve, honor and obey him, and I kept my word. If I'd a sot up my Ebenezer, and tried to have my say contrary wise to his'n, I should a-roused a sperit no power on airth could quell. You have heerd of the iron hand in the glove of velvet. That was Squire Pettibone exactly. He jest quietly took it for granted that his word was law-like unto that of the Medes and the Persians, which changeth

not.

"My galls-there was three on 'em-didn't grow up as they'd orter under such pius teachin's. They used to say to me: 'Mar, you're a drudge and a slave. You don't dare say your soul's your own-you hain't got the sperit of the worm that turns when it's trod upon. Par thinks all women his inferiors, and he's allus weepin' an' bewailin' the heavy cross laid upon him in havin' his children all darters instid of sons.' (It was a heavy cross. I never could forgive myself for loadin' him with sich a burden.)

"Jenny, our eldest, though her par kept a-dingin' into her ears John Milton's words, one tongue is enough for a woman'-Jenny, she went on and learned Latin, French and German in spite of him. He used to call her his polyglot darter. Susanna, she went through college, and then up and studied medicine. Ruth, arter gittin' a high-up edication, graderwated from the Boston School of Oratory, and now reads and elocutes in public.

"Jenny, she's married, and keeps house in a new-fangled, labor-savin' sort of way, and seems to have her say about everything. Her husband thinks there's only one perfect woman on the airth, and seems so dazed and dumfounded like at his luck in marryin' that one that he don't even have sperit enough to manage his own household.

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