Idle Hands

Mr. Thornton carne home fis usual at mid-day and as he went by tho parlor door, he eaw his daughter, a young lady of nineteen, lounging on the sofa with a book in her hands. The vvhirr of hia wiie's sewing machine struck on his ear at the same moment. Without pausing at the parlar, he kept on to the room l'rom which came the sound oí industry. Mrs. Thornton did not observe tho entrance of her husband. She was bending close down over her work, and the noiso of her machine was louder than bis footsteps on the fioor. Mr. Thornton stood looking at her a mo without speaking. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed the tired woman, letting her loot rost on the tread!e , andstraightening horself up, "this pain in my side ia almost beyond endurance." "Then why do you sit killing yourself there?"said Mr. Thornton. Mr. Thornton's aspect was unusually sober. "What's the matter? Why do you look f?o eerious?" asked bis wife. "Bacause I feel serious," ho answered. "Haa anything gone wrong?" Mrs. Thornton's'countenance grew slightly troubled. Things had gono wrong in her business more than once, and she had learned to dread the occurrence of disaster. "Things are wrong all the time," was replied, with some impatience of manner. "In your business?" Mrs. Thornton spoke a little faintly. "Np, nothing epecially out of the way there; but its all wrong at home." "I don't understánd you, Harvey. - What is wrong at home, pray?" "Wrong for you to sit in pain and exbaustion over that sewing machine, whilstan idle daughter lounges over a novel in the partor. That's what I wished to say." "It isn't Effie's fault. She often asks to help me. But I can't see the child put down to household drudgery. Her time will come soon enough. Let her have a little ease and comfort while she :nny." '■If we saicl that of our sone," replied Mr. Thornton, "and acted on.the word, what efficiënt men they would make for the world's work! How admirably furnished they would be for' life'a trials and duties!" "You are wrong in this thing - all wrong," continued thehusband. ''And as to ease and comfort, as you say, if Effie is a right-minded girf, she will have more true enjoyment in the consciousness that she is lightening her mother's burdens, than it is possible to obtain from the íinest novel ever written Exciteraent of the imagination is no substituto for that deep peace of mind that ever accompanies and succeods tho r:ght discharge of daily duties. It ia a poor compliment to Effie's moral sense to suppose that she can be content to sit with idle hands, or to employ thetn in light frivolties, while her mother is woru down with toil beyond her strenght. Hester, it must not bel" ':And itshall not be!" said a quick, firm voice. Mr. Thornton and his wife started, and turned to the speaker, who had entered the room unobserved, and been a listener to all the convursation we have recorded. "It shall not bo, father!" And Effie carao and Btood by Mr. Thornion. - Her face was crimsoned; her eyes fiooded with tears, through vvhich l'ght was flashing; her iorm dravvn up erectly; her manner resolute. ''It isn't all my fault," she said, and she laid her hand on her iather's arm, "I've asked mother a great rnany times to let ine help her,but she puts me off, and says ït's oasier to do a thing herself than to show another. Maybe lama little dull. Bat every one has to learn, you know. Jotiicr did not get her hand in fjairly with that sewing machine for two or three weeks, and I am certain it wouldn't take me any longer. If she'd only teach me how to uee it, I could hulp her a great deal. And indeed, father, I am wil ling!" "Spoken in the right spirit my daughter," said Mr. Thornton, approvingly "Girls should be usefully employed as well as boys, and in tho very things most repon.sible position of wives and mothers. Depend upon it Effie, an idle girlhood is not ihe way to a cheerful womanhood. Learn to do, now, the very things that will be required of you in after years, and then you will have a roquired faculty. Habit and skill make easy what might come hard, and be feit as very burdeneiome." "And would you have her abandon all self-improvement," said Mrs. Thornton. "Give up rnusic, reading, eociety ij "There are," replied Mr. Thornton, as his wifo paused for another word, "sorne fifteen or sixteen hours of each day, in which mind or hands sbould be rightly employed. Now let us see how Effie is Bpending these long and ever recurring periods of time. Come my daughter, sit down. "We have this subject fairly before us. It is one of lifflloncr importance to you, and should bc well conidered. How is it in regard to the employment ofyour time. Take yesterday. for ir.stance. The records of a day vvill help ua to gat toward the result after which wo are now scarohing. Effie sat down. nnd Mr. Thornton drew a chair in front of his wife and daughter. "Take yesterday for . Dstance," said tlie father. ''IIovv wns it spent? You rose at seven, I thmk?" "Tes, sir; I carao down jast as (he breakfnst bell ruogy" said Effie. :And your roother was up at half pass five, I know, and feeling' so weak that she could hardly dress herself. - But for all this she was at work until breakiast time Now, it you had risen at six, and shiared your motlier's work until seven, vou vvould have tfiken an hour f rom her day'a burdens, and cortainly lost nothing from your rnusic self improvement or social intercoume. - How wasit after breakfast? How was the morning spont?" "I practiced on the piano an hour (kfter breakfnst." ' So iar so good. What then?" "I read 'The Cavalier' until eleven o'clock." Mr. Thornton shook his head and asked - "After eleven, how was the time spent?" "I dressed myself and went out." "At wh'at time did you go out?" "A little aftsr tweive o'clock." "An hour wus spentin drossing?" "Yes, sir," "Where did you go?" "I called for Hoien Boyd, and we took a walk down Broadway." ''And carne homejust in time for dinner? I tbink 1 niet you at the door." "Yes sir." "How wosit after dinner?" "I slept from three untü five, and then took a bath and dressed myself. - From six until tea time, I sat at the parlor window." "And aftur tea?" ' Read 'Cavalier' until I went to bed." "At what hom-?" "Eleven o'elock." "Now we can inake up the account," said Mr. Tbornton. "You rose at seven and retired at eleven. Sixteen hours. And from your account of the day, but a single hour was spent in anything useiul - that was the hour at your piano. Now, your mother was up at hall past five, and went to bed from sheer inability to sit at her work any longor, at half past nine. Sixteen hours for her also. How tnuch reading did you do in that time?" And Mr. Thornton looked at his w;fe. "Keading! Don't talk to me of reading! I have no time to read I" Mrs. Thorntoi) answered a little iinpatiently. The contrast ol her daughter's idle hours with her own lile of exhausting toil, did not affect her. very pleasantly. "And yet,"6aid Mr. Thornten, "you were always very fond of reading, and I can remember when no day went by without an hour or two passed with yourbooka. Did you lie down after dinner?" "Of course not." "Nor take a pleasant walk on Broadway? Nor sit in the parlor with Effie? How about that?" There was no reply. "Now the case is a very plain one," continued Mr. Thornton. "In fact, nothing could be plainer. You spead frota fourteen to nixteen hours every day in hard work, whüe Effie, taking yesterday as a sample, epends about the same time in what is little better than idleness. Suppose a new ;.djustment were to take place, and Effie were to be employedin helping you for eight hours every day, she would still have eight hours lelt tor Belf improvement and recreation, and you, relieved from your present overtasked condition, migh't get back a portion of the health and spirits of which these too heavy household dutios have rabbed you." "Father!" said Effie, speaking through tears that were falling over her face, "I never saw things in this light. Why haven't you talked to me before? I've often lelt as if I'd like to help mother. But she never gives me anything to do and if I offer to help her, she says, 'Ycu can't do it,' or 'I had rather do it myself." Indeed, it isn't my fauit !" "It may not have been in the past, Effie," replied Mr. Thornton. "But it certainly will be in future, unless there is a new arrangement of things It is a false social sentiment that Iets daughtersbocome idlers while mothers, fathers and boqb take up Mie da ly burden of work, and bear it through all the busy hours." Mts. Thornton did not come gracefully into the new order of things propused by hor husband and acoepted by Effie. False prido in her daughter, that future lady idea, and an inclination 10 do all herself, rather than totake the trouble to teach another, were all so many impediments. Jiul Effie and her lathor were both in earnest, and it was not long before the mother laco began to lose its look of weariness, and her languid frame to come tp to an erect bearing. She could find time for the oíd pie asure in bookn, now and then for a healthy walk in the etreet, and a eall on sotno valued friond. And was Effie the wurse for the change? Did the burden she was shanng with her mother depress her shoulders and take the üghtness from her step? JN'ot so. The languor engendered by idleness, which had begun ' to show itself, disappeared in a íow weeke; the color catne wanner iato her cheeks; and her eyes gained in brightness. She was growing, in fact more beautifu), íor a mind cheerfully con kcíous of duty was moulding every lineament of her countenance into a new expression. Did self-improvement stop? O, 110! From one to two hours were given to close practice every day. H r mind beooming vigorous in tone, astead of enervated by idleness, chose a better order of reading than had been indulged before, and she was growing towards a thoughtful, cultivated, intelligent womanhood. She also found time, amid her home duties, for an hour twice a week with a Germán teacher, and she Jegan, also, to cultívate a natural taste or drawing. Now that sho was em ploying her timo usefully, it seumed wondeiful how rnuch time elie found at her disposal for useful work. How cheerful and companionablo abe giew! She did not Heem liko tho Effie Thornton of a few months before. In fuet the sphore of the entire hmisohold ivas changed. As au idler, Effio had boen a burden to all the rest, and the weight of that bnrden had been suffiuient to depress, through weariness, the spirits ot all. But now that she was standing np, self-sustained, but a sharer in the burden of each, all hearts cnme back to a ligttter measure, beatin rythmically and in couscious enjoyrnent,