of some kind to take her mind off —
A quick step upon the walk ; a glimpse of blue uniform ; a
sharp ring — O heaven, this is the fatal tele^^ram! Staggering
to her feet she nerved herself to open the door. A blue-coated
messenger threw a startled look at her, then: "Mrs. Grayson?
This note's for you. Sign here please."
With trembling fingers she opened the letter. This is what
she read: "Clara, dearest, a great disappointment awaited me at
headquarters. Please don't feel too badly, dear, but the fact is.
/ failed to pass the physical test required for military service.
Dear girlie, it can't be helped, so we mustn't fret over it. I know
you'll feel as chagrined as I do, but — we'll take in the big show
tonight and for,get our troubles for the time being. I'll be home
just as soon as I get the tickets. Devotedly, Paul."
How Betty Helped.
By Elsie Chamberlain Carroll.
"Dad, I need fifty cents to help buy a base-ball outfit. Us
fellers is organizin' an' maybe they're goin' t' put me in captain
an' we're goin' t' send off fer the things to-morrow so they'll git
here by the time the ground's dry 'nuff t' play." Ten year old
Bobby just off to the afternoon session of school, intercepted his
father at the front door as the latter reached home tardily for the
mid-day meal.
Robert Benton's brow contracted into the anxious lines which
were becoming habitual, as he looked into the eager, expectant
face of his son.
"I don't know about it, Bobby. There seems to be so many
places for the fifty cent pieces to go these days."
"But, Dad," the freckled face lost its animation, 'T jist
got t' have it. The fellers is all a throwin' in, an' — maybe they're
goin' t' 'lect me captain." The man's hand went slowly to his
pocket. It was very hard for Robert Benton to deny his loved
ones. He took out a small handful of loose change.
"All right, son, here you are. But remember that father
c'oesn't get his money so easily," and he dropped a quarter, a
couple of dimes and a nickel into the outstretched hand. The
young office-seeker bounded out of the door with a gratified
whoop while the father turned down the hall with a sigh.
"Well, we waited dinner until everything was spoiled. What
made you so late?" he was greeted by his wife as he came in
to the dining room.
"I had to stop and see about some business," he replied non-
committingly as he went to the kitchen to wash.
"Nellie, take up some fresh potatoes for your father and get
some more bread." Mrs. Benton did not leave the machine where
she was busy with some soft blue material and creamy lace.
As Mr. Benton sat down to his delayed dinner he reached
for the Semi-weekly Nezvs on the window seat.
"You'd better eat your dinner and not sit reading. Nellie
must wash the dishes beforei she goes back to school. She is
going to have a party for her Sunday School class tonight and
she'll have all she can do when she gets home. I have my hands
full with this dress. I'll declare I dread the sewing worse all the
time. I did hope that by the time the girls were grown we'd be
able to hire it done." Mrs. Benton gave vent to her feelings in
an aggrieved sigh.
"Where's Blanche?" the father inquired.
"She's over to the hall rehearsing. They've decided to put
HOW BETTY HELPED. 607
the Mutual play on tomorrow night after all. I don't see how
I'm going to get this costume done. O, yes, she says she'll have
to have a new parasol. It calls for a blue silk parasol in the
third act and her old one is green and is too shabby anyhow. It
will do for Nellie this summer."
"And, Dad, I need some money for my party. I've got to
liave some paper napkins and a lot of pencils for one of the
games, and two prizes? Can I have a dollar?" Mr. Benton had
let the paper fall to the floor and he was eating his soggy potatoes
and cold meat absently as he listened.
"Well, I don't know where all the money's coming from.
Newman sent me word today that he'd have to have something
more than the interest on that note before long or he'd foreclose
the mortgage."
"That's just like Ike Newman," Mrs. Benton put in bit-
terly. "He can't bear to see a man in a tight place without pinch-
ing him still harder."
"He has really been very lenient," her husband defended. "It
has been nearly three years now since we paid anything except
the interest and it seems harder all the time to meet that," and the
man drummed on the table mechanically as a cloud of anxiety
shadowed his face. Fifteen years before, the Bentons had given
their note and a mortgage for money to pay for their home. The
terms were good and they had expected to be able to pay ofif the
note in a few years from what they could save from the salary
the husband received for his work in the local freight office.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know how we can get along on any
less," Mrs. Benton complained. "Goodness knows that I've done
nothing but scrimp ever since we were married."
"I know you have, Laura, and that is one of the things I had
hoped you would not have to do." Mr. Benton looked across at
the woman who bent with a nervous, irritated pucker in her fore-
head over her sewing. He might have added that many women
in her place would have 'managed' more and 'scrimped' less, but
Robert Benton was not addicted to such sallies. Instead he took
his checkbook from his pocket and said :
"How much will that parasol cost?"
"You'd better make the check for five dollars. I'm afraid
I've spoiled the overskirt of this dress. I tried to cut it from the
picture to save buying a pattern. Nellie will have to go by the
store on her way from school and get some more cloth."
"Oh, I forgot. Here is a letter for you," and he handed it
across to his wife.
Mrs. Benton put down her sewing and opened the letter.
"It's from Mabel," she said shortly, looking, womanlike, first
at the signature. Mr. Benton arose from the table and went into
the hall for his hat.
608- RELIEF SOCIETY MAGAZINE. â–
"Rob, come and listen to this," his wife called to him. "Mabel
wants to send us her Betty for the summer. She says Betty has
been working so hard in college she is threatened with a nervous
breakdown, and the doctor had ordered her to the country. She
says she can't afford to send her to a regular country sanitarium,
and she wonders if we would mind letting her come here. She
cculd afford giving up living in the country to send Betty to
college" (Mrs. Benton spoke with ill-concealed disgust), "then
asks us to keep her when she is through." She never had ap-
proved of her brother's wife. Much less since her brother's death,
and her sister-in-law, disregarding her advice, had persisted in
giving her daughter a college education.
"She wants to send her right away," Mrs. Benton continued.
"As if w.e didn't have about all we could do for now."
"Why, Laura," chided the husband, "I'm surprised to hear
you talk like that. Goodness knows poor Mabel has had a hard
enough time. Of course, we will be glad to have Betty come."
"Well, then you had better write and tell them so, for I
â– haven't time today and they want to know right off," she replied
with a sigh.
** *********
Betty Newport had been in M a little more than a
fortnight. She was well aware of her aunt's half-hearted wel-
come. Still the enthusiastic reception she had received from
Blanche and Nellie and little Bob, and her uncle's sincere kind-
ness, almost made her forget this one little shadow.
Besides, she had discovered that there was a thorn beneath
the surface of the Benton family life and her college trained
mind had ferreted out the place it lay.
Here was a mission for her, she told herself over and over
trying to decide on a plan of action. It had not taken her long
to learn that her uncle's shoulders were weighted down with a
load of debt. It had taken her a still shorter time to see the
cause of his inability to lift that load.
A few visits to her aunt's kitchen had made her realize the
truth in the old saying that "A woman can throw out with a tea-
spoon more than a man can bring in with a shovel."
The old truism, "Waste not, want not," had been grounded
into the girl not only by her own thrifty mother, but by four
years of careful training in the home economics department of the
finest college in the state. It made her heartsick to see the uncon-
scious extravagance in her aunt's household management — or
rather her lack of management.
"If only I could talk to Aunt Laura," the girl sighed, "and
show her the advantages of the other method. But she won't let
me," and she smiled grimly as she recalled the frquent rebuffs
HOW BETTY HELPED. 609
she had already received. However, a few moments later she
was carefully leading her conversation around to the topic which
was of so much importance in the solution of the problem she
had discovered.
"Aunt Laura, have you ever tried the new household budget
system?" she asked sweetly. Mrs. Benton regarded her with
superior indifference as she answered curtly :
"I'd think you would know, Betty, that a) woman with a
family and house to look after and all her own sewing and wash-
ing and ironing and mending and canning wouldn't find much
time to sit around and figure. I've read a little about that non-
sense in the magazines, but it's for folks with more money and
time than I have. Why, there's to be so much for food and
shelter and clothes and education and emergencies and benevo-
lence and savings and I don't know what all. It's discouraging
to even read over the list when you don't have money for half of
the things you feel like you really have to have. We have a
simpler system of bookkeeping than that. We know it takes all
your Uncle Rob can earn to feed us and keep us in decent clothes
with all the scrimping I can do, so what's the use of wasting time
on the rest of that nonsense when it doesn't apply to us in the
least."
"But it does apply to you, Aunt Laura. You do spend for
those other things, most of them. You pay so much for tithing
and fast offerings ; you buy books and ma,gazines ; you have den-
tist bills, and the girls give parties, and Bobby has some money
to spend. The thing is, to know what you are spending your
money for. To see if you are using it with a proper standard
of values." The girl was warming to her subject, but she was
cut short.
"Well, I'd naturally suppose that twenty years of experience
in spending and scheming and skimping would be worth a little,
but I suppose that nowadays it doesn't count for much compared
with a few high falutin' college theories," and with this parting
shot, Mrs. Benton left her blushing niece to go into the kitchen
and see what she could find to prepare for supper.
The case looked hopeless, but Betty Newport was not one to
be easily defeated. Besides, her uncle's worried, anxious face,
with its deepening lines and hopeless expression, made her all
the more determined to win against the unconscious foes battling
against him. Anything else would have been easier. But to
open Aunt Laura's eyes seemed to be the one remedy. She was
aware that her aunt had many excellent qualities and she felt
sure that if once she sensed her great fault, amends would im-
mediately follow.
(to be continued.)
A Child's Record
By Maud Baggarley.
Often when compiling genealogy for my family record I
have paused in my occupation to muse about the bearers of the
quaint, old-fashioned names — bearers long since dead and turned
to dust. I have wondered if they were dark or fair, had good
teeth or bad. were patient and sweet, or lazy and "cranky," and
a hundred and one other things of a like nature. As a rule not
even the cause of death is given.
This desire of mine to visualize the persons, who are only
names to the living, has led me to insert brief descriptions in my
record for the benefit of posterity.
I read somewhere recently that genealogists elsewhere are
beginning to awaken to the fact that there is a mass of material,
awaiting their examination in Utah. It is true that mere names
are necessary to us in our work for the dead, but a fuller record
would answer our purpose equally well, and also afford a vast
fund of information to those who study eugenics, heredity, and
the influence of environment upon character.
Science is hampered in its research work in the field of child-
culture because of a lack of authentic data. This data, the mem-
ory of various mothers cannot fully and perfectly supply.
The condition can only be remedied by an intelligent observa-
tion of the physical and mental development of many children,
with an account of their surroundings and the people with whom
they associate, carefully and promptly recorded.
This duty must of necessity devolve upon the mothers. Al-
though you, yourself, may not believe in pre-natal culture it will
interest your child to know what you did and thought and read
before his birth. Then why not keep a record especially for
him?
I believe that one who keeps a record of a new life, would be
ashamed and afraid to bear an unwelcome child.
If you feel that you must have an expensive book in which to
keep a journal the result will be: good intentions but no record.
A good, strong book with an imitation leather cover may
be procured from the nearest grocery store for ten cents, and
an excellent kodak may be purchased for about two and a half
dollars.
These with pen and ink and a trifle of "stick-to-it-iveness"
are a sufificient equipment. You can even dispense with the kodak
if you get good pictures two or three times during a child's life.
Write your baby's name on the first page and leave space for
its picture. When the babe is born, record its birth, weight and
A CHILD'S RECORD. 611
any other details that you wish to remember or which might be
good to know in after years. Measure and weigh it once a week,
note any Httle ailments, its first conscious smile, appearance of
teeth, when it first sits erect, its disposition, when it begins to
creep, to stand and to walk, and record everything immediately.
When the little one begins to talk and develope mentality, jot
down its cute sayings. The humor and wisdom of the little
things will astonish you later. Take kodak pictures of them as
often as you can, and have them as artistic as possible, and paste
them in the book or books. Have formal pictures taken by a
good photographer, frequently if you can afford it. You should
have at least one each year, according to Sir Francis Galton, the
.scientist. Paste in pictures of the house wherein the child was
born, the schoolhouse and meetinghouse where he first attended,
Sunday school, and pictures of his teachers and playmates. You
can also put in pictures of his pets.
I give my little kodak pictures titles and date each one. For
instance, one picture I have is that of a little girl standing on a
sort of pedestal and this I call "A Modern Venus de Milo." Above
the picture of her birthplace I have written these lines from
Wordsworth :
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.
-The soul that rises with us — our life's star —
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And Cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness
Nor yet in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."
I have also in each child's book the names of its progenitors
for several generations back. You may think that such a small
book could not hold so much, but — just try it! When a book is
full call it Vol. I, and lay it away in a safe place.
Do not forget that the more pictures you have, the more inter-
esting your book.
And another thing, the color of the child's hair is, as a rule,
constantly changing, and in order that he may have some idea
of how he looked at different periods of life, cut a lock of hair
at least once a year and put it in a tiny envelope, label it with
name and date, and paste in your book.
I occasionally let each child lay his hand oil a page of his
journal and outline it with a pencil then go over it with ink.
Let me say once more that if each young mother would de-
vote a few minutes, now and again, to making a record such as
I have described for each of her children, during the first few
years of its life, she would live to see the day when she considered
its price far above that of rubies.
Their Thanksgiving
By Ida S. Peay.
"It's mother, kids, let 'er in," piped Joey, the youngest, from
the window; so Tom took his back from the door, and Mary,
guarding the knob, ventured to turn it slowly and take a peep.
There was a gentle push from without and a shabby, frail-looking
woman in black entered. The baby, as they still called Joey,
though he had attained the boastful age of five, went and hugged
her around the knees, whining dejectedly,
"I want me supper."
"Yes, dear, going to have something right away," promised
the mother, letting her hand fall in listless abstraction on the
child's light curling hair as she looked despairingly around the
bare room.
"We let some wimmen in," Tom owned up quickly sharing
the blame with his sister and, having thus freed his conscience,
letting his eyes and imagination dwell upon the small parcels in
his mother's arms.
Mary looked regretfully sorry but she, too, was keenly aware
of the paper bag and bundles the parent was now depositing on
the rough table.
"I couldn't help it, mother," she deplored with honest concern,
"I never heard 'em. We was playing Eskimo and the quilt was
our snow house." (It was no wonder they played Eskimo, the
mother thought, a desperate ache in her heart, with the snow fall-
ing outside accompanied by a stiff north wind and no sign of
fire in the tiny stove in the corner.) "It was kind 'a warm under
the quilt," the child went on, "and I started telling Joey a story,
then all of a sudden I heard a noise an' looked out and there stood
two wimmen in the door." The tears gathered in her eyes and at
sight of them Tom offered a word in defense. "We kept out all
the others," he declared gravely.
Mary began to cry, and the woman who had been looking
a hard, yet absent-minded, disapproval, softened.
"O, well, it doesn't matter so much as all that," she told them,
her voice hopeless ; "T just didn't want any one to come in, or get
acquainted with us till we could get fixed up a little decent."
With their feelings thus relieved the children brightened.
"They was awful kind-looking ladies," Tom hastened to as-
sure her, with almost a sparkle in his eye.
THEIR THANKSGIVING. 613
"Yesser, they was!— they looked jes' like gradmas," chimed
Toey showing new life, even without his supper ^
"Well, hurry and tell me all about them and then we 11 eat,
encouraged the mother. ,
Huno-ry as Mary was, real interest lighted her face as she
began to relate : "As soon's I saw them I jumped up an says,
'^^ 'Thatdsn'''t"exac% polite," interrupted the listening parent.
Mary's face fell and Joey confessed his behavior proudly
"But I says to 'em, 'have some chairs -cause I thought they
was grandmas-" he lingered over the word-' an I handed em
the seats an' they set down."
"They was as kind as grandmas," Tom volunteered.
"You bet they was sure good ladies," Mary had recovered
her.ellTnd continue.^1, "One of them says 'Where's your ma?
\i d savs 'Gone to work !' And she wanted to know where, and T
tc^ he% thTfactory. And then the other one says, 'An where s
vn.ir na?' And I savs. 'We ain't got one now— at this there
l^a^moment of silence, and all eyes softened as with some sor
rowful memory, soon Mary went on : , They asked how lon„
weM been living here, and when I said a nionth they both gasped
and looked around as surprised an' says. You have,
and '2°^^^l^.^ ^,^j^^^ J^ that kind 'at I was sorry when they d
^"'"■•■Did"the5to'vI°en- they'd found out all that," sneered the
woman. thongh\er bitter tone was weakened by a sort of don t-
"""TeT'trey said thev was just going 'round 'bout something
_I forget. rSw, what i't was-and would eome agam when you
""' Ma"ry finished her recital an<l gazed with longing towards the
''""''^te°lt nTother puzzled frownii^gly <- a mon^ent, then
said briskly, with a faint suggestion of anticipation. Well. now.
we'll have supper." ,
"Goody goody! This is bread, aint it, mother? chanted
Toey in suppr?ssed'tones, touching with a pathetic gesture of af-
fection the small package in brown paper.
The mother nodded affirmatively to his question, a queer ook
of hurt in her eyes, but the next instant, dismissmg painful re
flections turned with a show of enthusiasm to Tom.
"Son I wonder if vou could possibly find a few small sticks
"Sausage!" they all cried together, grinning and losing the
last memory of the unwelcomed visitors.
614 RELIEF SOCIETY MAGAZINE.
"Yes, sir, sausage !"
"Well, you can bet I'll do some hunting," vowed Tom stoutly
as snatching up his old, battered cap he vanished through the door.
"O, yum, yum — and buns!" harped Joey peeping into the paper
sack.
"Get your pay tonight, mother?" Mary enquired of the
woman in her craving confidence.
"Yes," replied the parent, "but I didn't dare spend much.
It's only $6 and must last us a week. You children will all need
shoes before you can leave the door, and we will be obliged to buy
a few dishes and something to cook in — " she began to plan with
her small daughter — "I ought to get a big pan as soon as possible
because I want to start to mix bread, it's so much cheaper. But
before I can mix I'll have to buy flour, yeast cakes, salt, a little
sugar, a big pan, a dripper and some coal and a few kindlings
and that's only bread; dear me, however can I do it!" a horrified
look came into her eyes, but she banished it immediately and came
back to the moment's need.
"Mary," she said, "would you have the nerve to run into
that house next door and ask the woman if she would lend us a
tin plate? We'll have to have something to fry the sausage in if
Tom finds some wood — but I do so hate to borrow !"
The thoughts of having cooked sausage after a month of
cold as well as meager fare sent the child flying as fast as she
could go, with one shoe-sole flapping and the other entirely gone,
allowing the moisture from the snow to soak into her already
chilled feet. She returned at once with the plate and as Tom had
found a few dry sticks and a pair of men's old shoes on a rubbish
pile (discarded shoes he had learned in his school of want made
fair fuel) the sausage was fried and eaten from fingers as the
four huddled around the feeble fire in the only two chairs the
room afiforded.
The stove cooled off relentlessly quick and the children, their
hunger appeased, began to yawn sleepily. They soon pulled ofif
their tattered shoes and crawled onto the old thin mattress and
were tucked up by the mother in the only quilt in their possession.
"I'm cold," complained Joey, "colder'n ice."
The woman looked miserable but said nothing. There was
nothing to say or do. She knew Mary and Tom were cold, also,
though they did not think the fact worth mentioning. It is those
having hopes their wants can be supplied who are freest to express
them. Presently, however, the mother knew from the sound of
regular breathing that Joey and his bed-fellows had taken refuge
from cold and hunger and childhood's igalling embarrassments in
the wonderful land of nod.
For a bng time after the little ones were lost in bHssful
THEIR THANKSGIVING. 615
oblivion the destitute widow sat before the cold stove, her feet
on the tiny hearth, her face in her hands and her mind on the
grim battle before her for sustenance.
All at once she bestirred herself to light a candle which she
fastened in its own sperm on the bare table, and taking the stub
of a pencil and a few sheets of note paper from a weather-
beaten old purse began to write. This is what her pen dis-
closed :
"Dearest Mother: I haven't written to you for such a
long time, I'm ashamed of myself. When I did write I took care
not to let you know the true state of our affairs, because I
couldn't bear to burden you with my troubles when I knew
you were in such sorrow and straightened circumstances your-
self. But now that I see a little gleam of Hght ahead I'm goin,g
to make a clean breast of everything.
"When I said we were going to leave ~ Colorado and go
further west because Joe was in poor health I told an untruth —
unless you call the whiskey habit sickness, which is a conclusion
I've come to. Joe was drinking so constantly that he couldn't
get work in any of the mines of that state so we drifted on to-
wards the coast. We got to the Bingham mining camp and Joe