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EARNING HER OWN LIVING from...... "STORIES FROM HOME AND HOME FOLKS" Author:  Mrs. M.H. Villars

MRS. WILLIS  was paying a visit to her old friend and schoolmate, Mrs. Danely. The ladies had been friends in girlhood, and had made it a rule to visit each other once a year, at least, though residing in cities some distance apart. Mrs. Willis had only arrived a couple of hours before the date at which the conversation I am about to record began. Having changed her traveling dress for a fresh one, and partaken of some refreshment, the two ladies were soon busily engaged in talking over old times and home news.

"Where is Annie?" Mrs. Willis asked between one of the brief pauses in the conversation.

"She is at the office. Did I not write you that Annie is book-keeper for the firm in which her father is partner?"

"Why, Helen! You are surely joking," a look of incredulity taking the place of the surprised one which her friend's answer had called forth.

"No, Annie. I am serious about it. She has been in the position for three months, and seems to be very much pleased with the business."

"But why is she doing it? Mr. Danely is not in financial difficulty, I hope?" and Mrs. Willis looked at her friend with evident anxiety.

"No, indeed. The firm has never been more prosperous than now."

"Then why do you allow her to do such a thing?"

"She wanted the place, and the firm gave it to her, after a month's trial," responded Mrs. Danely, quietly.

"But I thought you were going to make a lady of her?"

"That is the intention still, but not one of the helpless kind, I hope."

"But what do the ladies of your  set' say about such a step?"

"Not much now. They were very much concerned at first, and some went so far as to inquire into our bank account, but when they found that satisfactory, they seemed to feel a little easier; but they evidently think us either  queer' or  stingy.'"

"But if Annie was so anxious to be independent it seems to me there are other kinds of work much more suitable for a young lady than keeping books in a factory."

"I don't know about that. Annie seems to enjoy real business. She doesn't care particularly for music, that is, not enough to make it a special study, and at her own request she has quit taking lessons, though you know she plays and sings very well. She dislikes millinery and dressmaking, and has felt as if she was without a mission since she is out of school, so when her brother Henry was appointed superintendent of the factory, the firm had to look up a new book-keeper, and Annie asked her father's permission to apply for the situation. We had some little doubts about the  propriety' of the step, but she seemed so anxious for it that we consented to the trial if the other members of the firm were willing. They had doubts about her ability at first, but now, after three months, they seem perfectly satisfied."

"Some way a factory seems so out of place for Annie," persisted Mrs. Willis.

"It seems more suitable for her than any thing else, just now. If she were clerking in a store or at work in a shop, she would have to mingle with people whose society would not be beneficial. Where she is now her father or brother can accompany her home every day, and one of them is always in the establishment, and I feel that she is much safer than if she were with strangers."

"Well, that may be; but how could you consent to it? I have always wanted to be proud of my namesake, and now the idea of her being a book-keeper in a woolen factory is not at all to my notion. If you were poor and Annie was obliged to earn her living, it would not seem so absurd; but for a man who is worth sixty or seventy thousand dollars to set his daughter   an only daughter at that   to earn her own living, seems hardly fair," 

"We may not always have so much money, and it is well for Annie to know how to take care of herself, and I am sure we do not feel ourselves disgraced by it," Mrs. Danely answered, pleasantly.

"Well, Helen," replied her friend, "I presume it's all right; but you didn't talk like this during our school days. Do you remember how you used to talk about the sphere of woman?" The two friends joined in a hearty laugh at the remembrance of some of their school girl talk about the dignity of woman.

"Yes, I remember all about it; but, my dear Annie, I have learned a good many things in the past twenty years, and my ideas have undergone a change. I have seen the wheel of fortune cast off a good many who once had an abundance of wealth. And because of their wealth they had never considered it necessary to teach their daughters any practical lessons. But poverty came, and these daughters must go out to earn their own living. A false notion of dignity prevented their seeking a position where manual labor was required, and the only alternative was to eke out a sort of half existence teaching a private school, or trudging from house to house teaching music to girls who take lessons because it is the fashion, and not because they have a talent for or love music for itself. Then, again, I have seen women left with a family of helpless children to support. Perfectly ignorant of business, their little property slipped from their hands into the pockets of unprincipled men, who are always at hand ready to take advantage of their ignorance, and they are left to earn a livelihood for their families by the needle or the wash-tub.

"That is, no doubt, true," replied Mrs. Willis, slowly; "and yet it hardly seems worth while for you to borrow trouble as to your future or Annie's."

"I know, so far as present appearances go, nothing seems more unlikely than that we should be poor, but if such should be the case and Annie sticks to business as she does now, I will not be under the necessity of urging her to marry for fear she will be burdensome to us."

"But, Helen, you surely wouldn't want Annie to stay single all her life, would you?"

"By no means; I think every woman would be happier for having a home and a family about her; but I want my daughter to choose for herself, and not feel obliged to accept the first offer, whether suitable or not, for fear she will be left to die an old maid. I would like to see the day when every American boy and girl will be compelled to learn a trade that will stand them in the hour of need; when such is the case, our list of suffering poor will be lessened very considerably."

Mrs. Willis sat silent for some moments; at length she said: "If you are right, then I am afraid I have made a mistake in training my own girls; my boys are learning their fathers business, but I doubt whether the girls could be persuaded to undertake what your daughter has taken up of her own accord."

"I would not advise them tod o that unless under favorable circumstances; and then there are but few like Annie in taste and disposition. But I would have them learn some business or trade, something for which they may seem to have an aptness, and that will not seem to them mere drudgery. There come Annie and her brother, now; watch her, and tell me if you think se seems less a lady than she did a year ago.

Annie gave her mother's friend a cordial greeting, and Mrs. Willis could not help being pleased with the dignified, yet earnest, warm-hearted girl.

At the close of her visit, she said to Mrs. Danely:

"I believe you are right, after all; and I only wish my Helen took hold of life and its duties as fearlessly and with as much relish as your Annie does. I don't want to hear a word against  business women' after this. It is perfectly wonderful what an influence she has over her brother, too; why, he defers to her opinion as if she were ten years older, instead of two years younger, than he; and she seems to understand business full as well as he   without being mannish, either."

"I am glad you are not displeased with Annie," answered Mrs. Danely. "I think the fact that their education has been so near alike has saved Henry from much evil influence; he is inclined to be wild, but she loves the same kind of books that he does, and they enjoy them together, and she has held him back and shielded him from evil, while the restraint has been a pleasure to him. Take my word for it, my dear friend, it will be better not to make too wide a difference in the education of our sons and daughters; and you will find, too, that both will be happier for having something to do besides amusing themselves or being amused. Poor men's children are not the only ones who need to be busy."

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