Of course you all wish to know how it came out. The reason for my
telling you this story, is, that I was made very happy yesterday, on
dropping in at my friend's store, to see, that he had three new
clerks, and, after a warn hand-shaking, I congratulated them, from
the bottom of my heart, on having gone into business. At this moment
the father called me to the rear of the store, where he wished to
consult me about a new window; but all he had to say, was, that I
must not drop a word of my acquaintance with the history of certain
changes.
"All right, my good friend;" but the caution was quite unnecessary.
Of course the public must understand that it was of their own brave
hearts, that they have gone into this thing.
The father dropped in last evening to tell me all about it. He wrung
my hand, laughed, cried, and, in fact, almost went into some of
Fanny's hysterics.
"Oh!" said he, "it's all right. I can see the light. And you don't
know how happy we all are. The girls spend their time in singing
about the house, and asking my forgiveness. It seems to me that we
never knew each other before. Oh! I can see the light now, I can see
the light! Give me one year, and I can shout victory!
"But you ought to have been concealed where you could have overheard
our council. It lasted till near morning, and the first half of it
was stormy enough. Fanny declared she would die first. Mattie said
she would put on an old dress, and go round begging cold victuals.
Angie proposed that they should go into the attic, and give their
rooms up to boarders, and have it understood that they had just
taken a few friends for company. But, before we retired, we were all
of one mind; we all saw that everything but the store was likely to
prove a weak, temporary dodge.
"It is just as you told me,--that their life of indolence and
selfish indulgence had brought every mean trait to the surface; but
that when the depths were stirred I should find they were true
women. Yes, thank God, they are true women, as brave girls as ever
lived. I can't tell you how happy we all are. They kissed us on
coming to the breakfast table this morning for the first time in
their lives. We are entering a new life. They already begin to
wonder how they could have lived such a life of idleness and good-
for-nothingness.
I can't thank you enough. When the girls are quite settled in their
new life, I will tell them all about it, and they will invite you
down to spend an evening, and then they will thank you themselves."
"Save yourself that trouble," I replied. "The fact is, the idea is
not original with me; half the men in town feel just as I do about
this fashionable idleness among fashionable women. In thousands of
families it involves a system of studied, mean pretence, fraud, and
final ruin.
"Besides, we all see that, under its baneful influence, women sadly
deteriorate.
"Without a regular occupation, no person, male or female, can
preserve a sound mind in a sound body."