“A farmer’s wife, who really does her own work, or faithfully oversees its being done, which is by far the most trying part, has no easy task; but we would ask for her only what is justly her due. If there is any standard by which her services can be rightly estimated, we would like to know it. We wish to know whether there be any surplus in her favor; whether, when she asks for a few dollars for some purpose not strictly necessary (a book, for instance), she ought to feel that she is asking for her husband’s hard-earned means, or whether she has a right to feel that it is her due? How much must a wife credit to her husband’s generosity; how much use with a free conscience as her own faithfully earned portion of their joint labors?” Young men will do wisely to give this matter a serious thought, lest they make the mistake of taking a wife’s labor and attentions as a matter of course, as a right, instead of feeling that in taking his name, his wife claims, not only an equal right to his cares and labors, joys and sorrows, but also an equal right to a proper use of the money which she has done her part to earn or to save. A wife, a farmer’s wife particularly, has too much toil and perpetual watchfulness to make her life desirable, if with it all she is to be considered a beggar, a recipient of charity, instead of a joint partner with her husband in all that he has. XX. TEACH LITTLE BOYS TO BE USEFUL. HOW often, when anything has been said of teaching little boys to be useful, have we heard mothers exclaim, “What an idea! Teach _boys_ to be useful! I wish you would tell me how; for of all the restless, awkward, mischievous, troublesome comforts on the face of the earth, I do think boys are the most trying. I am sure I love my boys just as much as I do my girls; but it is so much harder to manage them, to keep them out of mischief, to know what to do with them. They were vexatious enough when we were boarding; but now, when, with four children on my hands, I am but just entering upon my novitiate as a housekeeper, feeling my way step by step, they fret me woefully. They are under my feet all the time. Too young to be sent to school more than a few hours a day, or to be turned out unattended, to play with chance companions, they hang about me, uneasy, restless, fractious, teasing for something continually. I often think it would be a comfort could we put them on a shelf to sleep through the unquiet, turbulent period of childhood, to wake up full-grown men. My little girls can always find something to do, but the boys--_make boys useful, indeed!_ It would be a true benefactor who could teach mothers how to accomplish such a marvellous thing!”