Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories; Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
IF you please, now, go back with me to the early summer in which the
first spasm of interest in regard to the library took hold of the young
people. The new superintendent, unwittingly, perhaps, set the ball to
rolling, by remarking that the library had been closed and locked by
vote of the executive committee of the school, until such time as there
were found to be any books worth giving out. Then, among those who had
looked at each other and shaken their heads in disapproval of such a
state of things, were the young ladies in Mrs. Jones's class,—ten of
them. They occupied the corner down by the door, between the door and
the east window; a corner that was cold in winter and warm in summer;
a corner that other classes shunned. Perhaps that will give you a hint
in regard to Mrs. Jones's class. They were young ladies belonging to
a certain clique. None of them wealthy, none of them even well-to-do,
in the sense which you probably mean by that term. They represented
comfortable homes, where the fathers worked hard, daily, for daily
needs, where the mothers took their share of daily burdens, where the
daughters did what they could to help lighten the burdens of both.
For instance, one was a sewing girl, and went every day among the fine
houses on the fashionable streets to do plain sewing. Another was a
milliner's apprentice, and in the busy season worked over bonnets
from seven o'clock of a Monday morning often until twelve o'clock
of a Saturday night. The fact was, she knew some of the Penn Avenue
Sabbath-school teachers who had their bonnets sent home in the gray
dawn of the Sabbath morning, because they must have them for that day's
worship. Another managed the entire culinary and kitchen department
for a large family, in order that the mother might sit all day, and
sew (on the many garments which were brought to her, to cut and fit,
and repair and make). Still another was clerk in a fancy store, and
knew much about the pretty things that less busy girls than she were
fond of making. Two were teachers in the graded school and spent
their Saturdays in helping with the family ironing, to relieve an
over-burdened mother. Workers they were, every one; not a drone in the
hive. By common consent they were almost entirely counted out of the
"fancy department," as they had named the young ladies' society. They
had not time for fancy work, neither did they move in the same circle
with the fancy workers. Oh, they attended the same church, and were on
friendly enough terms with the young people, at least with those whom
they knew sufficiently to exchange bows when they met on the street;
they met nowhere else save in church. I am sure you know all about
those subtle, oftentimes mysterious, yet plainly defined, society
distinctions. They are to be found in every village, however small, as
well as in our largest cities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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