WAIT ON YOURSELF

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 6, 6 February 1908, Page 37

WAIT ON YOURSELF

' Where's my hat ? ' cried Kate ; ' I can't find it.' 1 Why can't you ? ' asked Mrs. Gordon. 4 No , one wears your hat but yourself.' ' But I must have mislaid it.' ' Then find it. . Your eyes are as good as mine or your brother's.' 'I think someone might help me,' complained Kate. ' I do not agree with you,' replied her mother firmly. ' I think you are old enough and big enough, to wait on yourself.' ' Why, I'm sure I do, mamma,' cried Kate, remonstratingly. 'I do all of my own sewingj and I take care of my own room.' . ' Yes, and every morning you ask Mary to ibpng you the dust-pan or the broom, you send, Harry after needles and cotton, and someone in the house is continually running errands for you.' - ' It -doesn't do any harm to be obliging, I'm sure,' said Kate, with a fretful shrug. ' I do favors for other people.' ' You occasionally do a service for one of us that' we cannot very well do ourselves,' replied Mrs.. Gordon, drawing Kate to her side ; ' but that is not what we are talking about. We should all be~ agreeable and obliging, but that is no reason why you should call on. others to do a service you can do as easily yourself. If you grow up depending on others, you shall lose that self-reliance which renders life successful. Do you remember your cousin Louis ? ' ' The one lost at sea ? ' 1 Yes. I am sorry to say he was a very bad boy. He was pampered so that he came to. regard every one as little better than a servant, and he finally became so helpless that he could hardly do the simplest thing without assistance. When he was left an orphanhe led a miserable life. He could not earn a living, because no employer would stand his idleness and impudence, and had he not been drowned, I thinjk he would have turned out dishonest.' ' O, rr other, and do you think— I — ' ' By no means, dear, I am only putting the' lesson in its strongest light. Don't forget it, and— wait on yourself.'—' S.H. Review.'