San Antonio light. [volume], June 05, 1911, CITY EDITION, Image 6

About San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993

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A Home Magazine Page for Women Readers of the Light
SORROW THE GREAT TEACHER
THAT SOFTENS THE HUMAN HEART
It Is the Man Who Haa Been Poor and Hungry Hlnuelf Who PiUes Ute
Fallen.
(By Dorothy DU.)
A correspondent asks me this
gVMtion:
“Does joy soften more hearts than
sorrow, as the French proverb says?
Which is the better educator, laugh
ter or tears?"
In my humble opinion, trouble is
the greet teacher to whom we are
compelled to go to school if we ever
, acquire sufficient wisdoih even to be
gin to comprehend the great problem
of life. It is only from having suf
fered ourselves that we learn to pity
and forgive, and without this
knowledge all other knowledge is tno
folly of fools.
Joy teaches us nothing but arro
gance and egotism. Those who have
never been anything but healthy and
prosperous all their lives have no pa
tience with those who are not as wen
off as themselves.
This is what makes the judgments
of the young so hard and cruel. They
have had no experience of sorrow to
teach them that our misfortunes are
not always of our own making, and
how often we can do our best and yet
fall. They are untried soldiers, who
have never smelt the smoke of bat
tle, yet who cry out •‘Coward!" upon
all who come limping In. bloody and
wounded, from the fight, instead of
rolling in on a flower-decked chariot
of victory.
The Old Who Have Suffered.
It is old people, those whose eyes
have been washed clear by tears,
those who have stumbled and fallen
and picked themselves up again and
again who know from experience how
In the conflict, the bravest heart often
falters and the strongest hand grows
weary, who have no word of reproach
for the vanquished.
We have a phrase for this. We say
of a man or a woman that he or she
is "mellowed by age," and by this we
simply mean that sorrow has taught
her or him what joy never could.
The man who inherited a fortune
or who was born with the money
making Instinct seldom has any pa
tience with the man who does not get
along. Any man who isn't an idtot or
laxy, he thinks, can make money. As
for not being able to get a job, he
scoffs at the idea, and so when a
poor beggar comes around he turns
away from him with withering con
tempt
It Is the man who has known the
pinch of poverty himself, who has
been hungry and cold, and has felt
the awful sickening disappointment
with which he turned away from a
door where even work was denied
him, who has his whole soul melted'
MARRIED LIFE THE SECOND
YEAR; HELEN’S STRATEGY AGAIN
In Which She Resorts to WillteLies to Conceal Warren's Neglect
(By Mabel Herbert Urner.)
Right after breakfast Helen went
upstairs and came down with her hat
and coat.
"Mother, Tm going to the postof
fice this morning. I want some pearl
buttons for Winifred's dress, and I
might as well get the mail while I'm j
out."
“And you'd better get some white
thread number eighty. We haven’t
anything finer than sixty—and that s
too coarse for that, thin mull."
It was a bright, clear morning, with
the freshness of dew still In the air.
Helen hurried through the village to
ward Main street, on which was the
'postoffice, the bank. Wood s Dry
Goods “Emporium ’ and the “Palace
Hotel."
Helen stopped first for the buttons
and cotton. She was almost afraid to
get the mail—afraid lest there should,
after all, be nothing from Warren.
The last had been only a brief note
dated eight days ago! She had writ
ten three letters since—anxious, lov
ing letters —and still he had not an
swered.
But there would be a letter this
morning! With all the positiveness she
could command she told herself that
A letter was there in the office await
ing her now! All that she had ever
heard of the power of belief, of mental
science, she now brougnt to bear on
this. There would be a letter this
morning! She knew there would be.
It Was Fall of Mall.
When she entered the postoffice
her glance at once fell on her father's
box —No. 148. Her heart leaped. It
was full of mail.
She tapped lightly on the box, and
the postmaster, with a genial “Good
morping.” handed her out the mail.
There were two newspapers and a
number of letters. She held them
tight, rigidly keeping her gaze fixed
ahead of her. She would not look at
them until she reached home.
If she waited until then, one of the
letters in her hand would be from
Warren! It was a relic of her childish
fancies of propitiating fate, of "mak
ing a bargain with the gods."
It was the same Instinct that used
to make her walk all the way to
school without stepping on a crack —
in the hope that she would then pass
her examinations. And when at the
end of the quarter her report card
was given her, she would hold it close,
not looking at it until she reached
home—believing that If she did this,
the mark w-ould be a high one.
And once she even kept her report
unopened until the next day, firmly
believing that If she could endure this
suspense, if she could only wait until
morning, all the marks would be good.
And they had been!
Curiously enough, she thought of
that now
with pity at the right of every mendi
cant or every derelict of life on a park
bench.
The Great Charity of the Poor.
Of course, it will be said that the
rich are often very generous, and that
when a man makes a few millions ho
builds libraries and churches and
schools and hospital* That is true;
but all the benefactions of the rich,
the great monuments they build to
their charity and blason with their
names, sink Into absolute nothingness
even when measured by the dollar
standard with the unrecorded charity
that the poor extend out of their pov
erty to one another. *
It is the poor man and woman who
have seen their own children pale
with wpnt who divide their last loaf of
bread with their neighbors' hungry
brood. It Is the family that has been
evicted because it could not pay i’s
rent that takes in the people next
door whose poor sticks of furniture
have been thrown out on the side
walk.
The gifts of Rockefeller and Carne
gie combined tore doubled and trebled
and quadrupled by the aggregate of
the charity of the poor to one an
other every year.
It is only those who have suffered
who understand the sacredness of
sorrow. When you hear a man or a
woman tajk of the folly of some
mother who is grieving over a deed
baby, you may know that there is no
vacant little chair In his or her house
hold. None talk of the morbidness of
sorrow except those who have never
loved and lost.
Their Hour in Gethsemane.
Let the little white hearse stand
once In front of the door of a man
and a woman; let them lay a waxen
figure with its tiny hands folded over
its little breast in a coffin, and you
never hear them rail again at the
folly of unavailing grief. Their hour
in Gethsemane has taught them more
than all the years of happy security
la which they derided other people's
sorrow as weakness because they had
never felt any themselves.
It is strange and: sad, but ♦rue.
that we never learn ahythlng oxoept
from our own experience, and that we
can only understand what others
must endure through having but no
the same things ourselves.
This is why the soul Is born In the
travail of sorrow, and why our tears
make the rain that must water ail th
beautiful and tender flowers th«t
spring up about life. Unbroken pros
perity makes an and desert if the
heart in which they parch and dl»
While she would not look down at
the addresses, she felt the envelopes
with easy fingers." There was one well
filled and about the size and feel of
the paper Warren always used. There
were two other envelopes which seem
ed to contain only one sheet of pa
per, a long, commercial envelope, and
two others which were unsealed,
plainly circulars. Besides these, there
were a pamphlet and two papers.
Still without looking, she separated
the three possibilities from the oth
ers. One of these was from Warren!
She repeated.lt over and over. The
thought that she was mixing mental
science and childish pagan super
stition did not occur to her.
The Superstition of Childhood.
A big gray cat sitting on a gate
post arched its back and stretched It
self lazily as she passed. Whatever
her absorption, Helen could never go
by a cat without stopping to pet it.
And now she rubbed its arched back
and murmured:
"Oh, kitty, kitty-cat one of these
letters must be from Warren.”
And the cat blinked and purred at
her sympathetically.
Just three more blocks—now two
more, and now she was at her gate.
Martha was sweeping off the front
porch. She hurried around to the side
door and up to her room without
ipeetlng any one. She closed and
locked the door and went over to the
window, the mall still held tight in
her hand.
Now she would look! No, no, not
just yet—she was afraid! Her heart
was beating painfully. Then, sudden
ly, with a catch in her throat she
spread out the letters before her —and
looked!
The three letters were for her fath
er! The rest were circulars!
A sparrow came and sat on the
roof of the porch just underneath her
window, chirping cheerfully. With its
head on one side it hopped trustfully
toward her. She gazed at it with burn
ing eyes.
"Helen —Helen!” called her mother
from the hall below. “Didn't you get
the mall? Was there anything for
your father?" .
She gathered up the letters and pa
pers and ran out into the hall.
“Here they are." going half way
down the stairs and • handing them
through the banister to her mother.
"I was just reading Warren’s letter
and forgot to give father these.”
“Oh. I’m glad you’ve heard from
him. How is he? I was afraid he was
sick.”
The While Lie She Told.
“No, he says he’s just been very
busy and neglected to write, and that
he misses me very much and wants
me to come back.”
"But you’re not going yet?”
anxiously. “You haven't had your visit
out.”
"No, I'm not going yet. I'm writ-
E®AUTDES W HELL mNKLEY
Copyright, 1»1L Nationri Nows Association.
As a chap, by the honey-drip of her voice, And how the sweet-voiced siren at the other
imagines “Central” to be. end of the wire really looks.
A BOUQUET
FOR TEACHER
(By Winifred Black.)
They're on my de-sk right now—•
syrlnga, lemons, lilies, bridal wreath
—so sweet, oh, so spooning sweet!
And the tall building outside the
window is gone as I close my eyes
and breathe the fragrance of the old
fashioned bouquet. Gone the street
of noise and dirt and hurry and ex
citement, gone the street cars, silent
even the honk, honk of the raucous'
horn of the speeding machine, gone
the city, gone the care of life, gone
the anxieties that sap our hearts, and
I stand, there at the gate of the little
old school house waiting for "Teach
er ”
I'm carrying a bouquet in my hands,
a great, tall, nodding bouquet—yellow
llllies, syrlnga, bridal wreath, bleeding
hearts, "pineys" pink and red and
white—all for Teacher.
Teacher came from the next town
to teach, and teacher had long, black
hair that shone like satin, and some
times when you had been vary good
•he would let you take it down in
school and braid it while the infant
class said their letters. \
And she wore a buff linen dress to
school in summer—no not yellow, no
not cream-colored buff. There's no
such color now and there oughtn't to
have been then, by all the canons of
beauty, but there was. and Teacher
wore IL
And on very hot days, fche wore a
striped delaine with a little lavender
sprig In it. and there was lace on the
yoke of that striped delaine; and she
wore a white rose in her hair some
times, and, oh! if you could have
dreamed that you would ever grow
up to be a glorious, beautiful being
like Teacher, you'd have died of luv
right then and there.
Teacher, not up in all the fads of
modern education, not strong on na
ture work or child study—but what a
voice she had when she sang, and
what a way- she had when you were
ing him that now. I'll be down in a
little while when I finish the letter.”
And she went hack into the room,
locked the door and flung herself on
the bed, smothering her sobs in the
pillow
THE SAN ANTONIO LIGHT
fired, and your throat ached, and you
couldn’t "get" your arithmetic, and
the big girls laughed at the way yotK
hair was cut.
And how brave she was. Why, she
ran right out into the yard and made
one of the big Hogan boys stop teas
ing a cat one day. She was pale and
she trembled from head to foot, you
saw that, but she went just the Same,
and the next day, when old Mr. Hogan
came to the school, you saw Teacher
turn first red and then white, and
you were sick with a hot defense of
her. But old Mr. Hogan said he'd
come to thank the Teacher for teach
ing his rough boys to be kind, and he
Stayed and heard the fifth reader
class and the physical geography class
and made a kind little speech, and you
and Teacher were very happy.
Dear Teacherl How many bouquets
came to her little, shabby desk —wild
flowers, spring beauties and shooting
•tars and Dutchmen's breeches.
They were wilted and withered
when they got to the di |k, but Teach
er always knew how to revive them.
And Teacher as just as pleased
with your bouquet as she was with the
ones the big girls brought, and she
wasn't afraid to let them see it.
either.
And, oh, what a wonderful being
TVacher was when the last day of
school was coming!
She knew how to make wreatKk
of oak lea\jes, and of maple leaves,
and she could twine Indian paint
brushes together till they looked like
a great splash of scarlet there against
the wall. And she could write lovely
things on the board in colored chai k,
things Ive "Welcome,” "As the Twig:
Is Bent the Tree's Inclined,” and -
"Dhre to Do Right, Dare to Be Irue." I
“Dare to do right, dare t 0 be true.” '
Oh. Teacher, Teacher, I wonder if you i
knew what a foolish thrill ran all
through that little room when we
made out that splendid motto. The
red-headed boy across the aisle slap
ped’ another boy for laughing at It,
and I wanted to hug the red-headed
•'boy then and there.
“Dare to do right, dare to be true,"
I wonder how many of us who went 'o
the little school in those long days in
happy June so long ago have dared—
and kept on daring?
Not much of a Pedagogue, dear
Teacher, no great science in your
methods, I m afraid, but, somehow,
there was love in your soul and quick
understanding of the mysterious heart
of a child, and I wonder whether In
Daysey Mayme’s
New Society
(By Frances L. Garside.)
Daysey Mayme Appleton rappel on
the table for order.
“As president of the Organization
for the Purpose of Giving Aid to
W eak. Defenseless Woman,” she said,
“I have called you together in ses
sion extraordinary to have you bring
your burdens here for solution.
"There are many among you who
have heavy crosses to bear; tell y<sur
troubles to the club, and we sister
numbers will lighten your load.
"There are problems to solve; much
that is occult to penetrate; our sou is
falter and grow afraid of the dark
future ahead, and we stumble and
fall.
"Psychical research, and a blind
groping into our own future and other
women’s pasts, do not always result
in the real, tangible, the seen. We
grope and ponder and study far into
the night, and read learned booksand
find with all this exhaustive efiort
that we -are still stumbling where we
started.
“I have called you together, sisters,
weak, defenseless women, that we
may lay our brows together, and, mind
to mind, solve for each other the one
great problem of every sister's Ilfs. Is
there any one who has such a heavy
burden to bring forward?”
There was a pause, but only for a
moment, when there arose in a back
seat a woman whose pale, impassioned
face and nervous tenseness showed
her great need of sisterly advice and
encouragement.
Coming forward rapidly, as one
who realized that she had olrr:
delayed too long, she reached the
speaker's platform, and, without pre
liminary bow to the president snow
ing her stress was oo extreme to
brook further delay, she said.
“Sisters, I bring the great problem
of my life to you. The question that W
eating like a canker into my soul, and
fretting my life away, is this:
"What Shall I Get for the N«xt
Meal?”
the last examination that won't count
—just a little?
Syrlnga, lily, lemon, bridal wreath,
they're on tny desk in the busy room
right now. How sweet how swoon
ing aweet, they are*
WOMAN AS THE GREATEST '
INVENTOR IN THE WORLD
It la FoUy, to Thia Day, for Any Maa to Argue About the Inferiority of
the Female Sex.
(By Dorothy Dix.)
I have a letter from a man whs_
takes many pages of good paper to try
to prove bow superior man la to wom
an, illustrating hie remarks, no doubt
by himself.
Nothin*. It leems to me la more fool
lab than to argue the relative supe
riority of the sexes. Man excel tn one
way, women in another. Man have
one admirable oharacteriatlc, women
another. Men were created for one
purpoee in life, women another. But
which aervee the better purpoee in the
world no human being knows. No
hand la strong enough In which to
hold the ecriee and weigh the two
aexea
Taking them altogether it aeema
to me that they were cut . n lu
bolt of cloth, with pretty much the
same amount of brains, the same
amount of weakness. -
The great contention of the suf
fragist la not that women are auperior
to men—the asinine conceit of supe
riority we leave to the male donkey—
but that we are equal with them. We
ask for the ballot not because we are
like men and have masculine charac
teristics but because wo are entirely
different from men and have feminine
characteristics. That is why It is not
possible for men to represent us at the
polls
One Foolish Argument.
However, my correspondent's argu- 1
ments to prove the superiority of man'
over woman are sufficiently humorous ’
to bo worth repeating here. ।
The first one Is that men are au-।
perior because they have been the!
great inventors and have shown the i
greatest creative power.
Not at all, dear sir. You forget that
woman creates man, and that in every '
little squirming, red-faced baby that
she produces she turns out the most
marvelous piece of mechanism that
the world has ever seen. Men have
made many ingenious and useful
machines but outside of the legend
ary Frankenstein no man has ever
been able to construct a creature that
lived and moved and breathed and
talked and walked. Yet any kind of a
little simple woman can do that
Probably women never will invent
things that will be the counterparts ;
of the telephone and the telegraph. ।
They will always give their great cre
ative energy to the manufture of the
human race; but does that prove them
the inferior of men? Is the machine
greater than its maker?
Once I heard another man hotly de
bating the same subject, and, as a
clinching argument of the superiority
of his own sex. he cried out: "The
female sex has never produced a
Shakespeare, a Milton, or a Napoleon.”
"Who did, then?” quietly asked one
of the inferior sex.
Never Had a Chance.
The contention that women ,show
their lack of ability and intelligence
because they haven't been world lead
ers as men have been is ridiculous be
cause this present generation of wom
en is the very first that has ever had
even the ghost of a show at doing
things. You might as well try to
prove that women are inferior to
HOW TO TREAT IN-LAWS
(By Winifred Black.)
Why. you foolish, foolish, little wom
an. you! Give up jour husband, your
home, your happiness to please a med
dlesome old woman and some inquisi
tive busybodies of “in-laws ?”
Never while the sun shines and
while the man you love loves you.
What shall you do, then, to keep
from trouble? Move, little sister;
move, and move as far as you can.
Get away from the whole family and
start life alone with the man of your
choice. Dop't move too near your
own family, either —they'll be just as
bad as the others.
Of course, you are used to them and
their funny little ways, and they don"
seem so queer to you as the ways of
the other family, but your husband
isn't usel to them, and he would be in
trouble all the time trying to undur
slund them.
Get away—get as far away from all
the "kin" as you can. You are start
ing a new family; don’t be handicap
ped with all the prejudices and little
old-fashioned fads of the old fam
ilies
Your “in-laws” probably aren't half
as oad as, you think they are. Of
course, people of real refinement nev
*r ask personal questions of any sort
at all. but a great many people of real
kindness of heart do ask them and
mean not the least harm in the world
by it.
"What rent do you pay?” "Where
did you get that hat?” "How much
did It cost?" "Didn't you have one
summer hat before you got that?"
"How does he like it?” “Who does
vour laundry work?” “How much does
it cost?" “What do your bills coms
to in the housekeeping?”
Yes. I've known perfectly gooct, per
fectly kind people who asked these
'cry questions and thought not one bit
of harm in it
They are not trying to pry into
vour affairs; they just want to talk
and don't know what else to talk
about That's all they know —money,
and rent, and bills, and hats, and
clothes. k
"I can’t remember the price," “I
don't know what rent we pay. I never
can think," “I never pay my laundry
bills till they’ye so big 1 have to, so I
never know 'what they are. really,"
"Veg, 1 had five new hats this sum
wo r and two of them cost fifty dollars
apiece.”
I know you feel like saying things
June :,a®u.
men by saying we have never bad A
GREAT WOMAN PRESIDENT, when
women-haven't even the right/to roe.
for one. /
It was long argued that women had
not the ability to take n good educa
tion when every college door was shut
to th 4m, and it was even considered
that It would render them unfemlnlne
to be taught geography.
Now that women have boon gtvefi a
chance at the higher education the
complaint is not that they can’t study
like men, but that they dig so hard
and grind at their books so persist
ently that they carry oft ail of the
honors in ths 00-efiucatlonal institu
tions.
My correspondent thinks the fact
that there are no women Rockefel
lers or Morgana shows the superiority
of man over woman, end that woman
can’t grasp ths mighty principles of
high finance.
How should they be able to do so'
when, until less then fifty yeare ego, a
woman never had any property rights,*
and the day she was married the law
gave every cent she had to her hus
band to do with as he chose?
To know how to make money you
must handle money, ahd the woman
of the past nevsr had a dollar that
sho could call her own, much less
money with which to finance anything.
To the Front in Business.
The average woman poesibly couldn't
run a trust, but If you give her twenty
live dollars to spend she can get more
out of it than her husband can get out
of fifty. Moreover, the business wom
sn of today—and don't forget women
haven’t been in business for twenty
five years yet—are giving a pretty
good account of themselves. They
have been sufficiently successful to
make a lot of men v-ry sore at ths
idea of competition with women.
In actual achievement we have had
our George Eliot and George Sands,
our Mrs. Browning, our Rosa Bonheur,
our Mary Proctor, our Mme. Curie, our
Anna Shaw and our Hetty Green, and
what these women have done is mar
velous when you consider that every
step of the way they have had to fight
for even the bare rights to do what
they have done.
More, what they have done is
merely the prophecy of what many
women will do In the larger liberty
of the future.
Men had not accomplished much,
either, in the days before they were ‘
granted an education, freedom to work
। and the right of self-government.
They Do Not Excel Here.
Of course, men are superior In some
1 things, and always will be. Pritt
fighting, for instance. No woman will
I probably ever be a champion, though
Barnum & Bailey’s strong woman does
i gymnastic exercises with an average
i sized man instead of a dumbbell. Nor
i will women ever show their superior
ity by paying fifty dollars for a seat
to see men hammer each other Into
pulp.
But, as I said in the beginning, it’s
silly to argue with man about his su
periority. It’s an Innocent and harm
less vanity, and makes him very, very
easy for woman to work.
like that and saying them fast, too,
when the question mill begins to
grind, but I wouldn't. I'd smile and
ask questions, too—oh, all kinds ot
questions. Ask them so fast that there
is no chance to ask you any, and keep
laughing to yourself all the time.
It's all a game, this pleasing people;
a very simple, rather Interesting game.
I'd learn to play it if I were you—
until moving day came around, and
when that day did come I'd say good
bye and tell them all how well you
wish them and get away in the best
possible good humor and the best poe
slble friends.
When you get to the new place,
pick out people of your own sort, peo
ple who are “queer” in the same way>
vou are, and then some time when you
are ill or in trouble you may find
voufself wishing for a few of the queer
question-asking kin to come and ques
tion the cook about what she’s doing
while you are ill and helpless, and to
question your husband as to what he
Intends to do for you and your recov
ery. and to ask you if you have money
tn the bank to pay the doctor’s bills.
Life is a funny jumble of good and
evil, and so are people. You’ll find
this out, little bride, and maybe your
"queer” kin won't seem so queer to
you after all, then.
The Morning Salute.
Cyrus Curtis, the publisher of the
Ladles' Home Journal and the Satur
day Evening Post, tells about a beau
tiful, statuesque blonde who had left
New York to act as stenographer to
a dignified Philadelphian of Quaker
descent. On the morning of her first
appearance she wont straight to
desk of her employer.
“I presume,” she remarked, ."that
you begin the day over here the same
as they do in New York?"
"Oh, ..yes," replied the employer,
without glancing up from a letter he
was reading.
“Well, hurry up and kiss me, then."
was the startling rejoinder. “I want
to get to work.”—Human Lire.
”If I take the place, mum,” inquired
the prospective cook, “kin I eat with
the family?’
"I should say so,” replied Mrs. Sub
bubs. "Why, I’ll give a dinner in
your honor every week.”—Louisville
Courier-Journal.