The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 11 August 1921, Page 45

The Family Circle

GRANDMA’S ROSARY AND MINE. When Grandma goes to say her beads For all our family and our needs, \ She sweetly says to me, “My dear, Play nicely with your dollies here

Until I call. Then come to me And bring your little Rosary.” I help her (Grandma says it’s true)

With Aves ten, when she’s most through.

She lays her hand, her gentle way, Upon my head. “When children pray,” She says, “the guardian angels take The whispered Aves, and they make (They do, indeed, right then and there) The loveliest rosebuds of each prayer. Some rosebuds white, some rosebuds red, Red as the lips the Aves said;

Then with the posies off they fly, Those happy angels, to the sky.

And all that Grandma says is true, I see it in her eyes so blue

And clear and deep and kind, That look right into mine and find Those thoughts that cannot see a way To get out in the words I say.

I see her sitting over there

In her old-fashioned rocking-chair, The place (so I’ve heard father say) She taught her babies how to pray. And now the rosy altar light (She keeps it burning day and night), Sends rays that give the softest kiss To her grey head—like this and this. •

CHEERFULNESS A GREAT TREASURE.

There is no gift of human nature more fortunate to the individual and to mankind than a cheerful dispositionthe happy faculty of looking on the bright side of things, disdaining to be influenced by circumstances, however untoward, holding our own manfully, and laughing in the face of fate. “Angels and ministers of grace defend us” against the saturnine, atrabilious member of society who obtrudes his gloom upon his fellows! We all know it, the funereal mood, paralysing wholesome thought and laying its pall upon us like a foretaste of death. What if rheumatism or toothache afflict us—shall we visit upon others the misery we endure? “Is life worth living?” * i

LAMPS AND CANDLES.

a Lamps iv ere employed long before candles were invented. As tar back as recorded history goes we hear of their use. In some languages indeed there was but one word for both. The first light was simply a torch. Then men improved upon that, and devised the scheme of obtaining light from porous fibre soaked in some animal or vegetable oil. Lamps* of brass, bronze, and stone have been found in the Pyramids, as well as in old East Indian temples; and common terracotta ones were in general use for domestic purposes m Greece as early as the fourth century 8.0. The earliest candles of which we have any record were those used by the ancient Romans, and were made of rushes coated with f at or wax. The first Christians made constant use of candles, and in course of time the Church adopted them the ar f gI T “•. N °ther light may be used on the altar for the celebration of Holy Mass v tW We who obtain a brilliant - light by turning a little umbscrew find it hard to realise the difficulties under which our forefathers labored. Many of the masterpieces P f S + l aU l h TV° f antlquit y .' were written with no other nf l!n that ,, from the fireplace or the uncertain flicker of a tallow-candle, or even the flame of a dried rush ' i £

THE OLD IRISH MOTHER.

■ I wonder if she is still in the old land, the blessed Irish mother, who put a cap around her comely face between the twenties and thirties and covered her brown waves from sight. '

To her simple soul marriage meant consecration the man who chose her need not concern himself about the little tendernesses; her affection was as fixed as the stars. He might be unreasonable, exacting, but her faith in the divine right of husbands was unshaken. She would have the children reverential to their father, even if she should have to lomance a little to effect it, and with what loving sophistry she explained away his weaknesses. She never understood constitutions,, political or physical but when sickness was in the family the pathetic care made the poor broth strengthening and the bitter medicine sweet. No sleep, no rest, no peace for her, while the shadow of death lay across the threshold; and how hard it was to die under her searching eyes I But if a summons had really come, she would hold a crucifix to the dying lips, and the beloved son or daughter would carry the sound of her voice with them to heaven, for what Irish mother but could say prayers for the departing soul . Not even the story of her country’s wrongs could emitter her guileless nature. The mantle of her charity covered even the bloody “Sassenach,” and sometimes secretly not daring to let it be known, she recommended them to tho Virgin Mary.

If her belief in her husband was strong who could measure the confidence she reposed in the brave boys who overtop her. at sixteen; anything evil in them, her glory and delight? Impossible. They are always white boys in their mother’s eyes, however dark and desperate in the sio-ht of those who dwell in palaces. Her unquestioning trust and earnest teaching kept mm pure and honest in their early days, and later when they discovered that their mother was only a simple, illogical unlettered woman, their loyalty and devotion deepened, to find what wonders she had worked with her few talents.

What a tragedy Shokspere could have woven around her, haunted all her life by a phantom ship at anchor in some harbor waiting till the children of her love were old enough to take passage and leave her forever How sorrowful must have been her joy on seeing them ise to the stature of men and women, l I wonder lf she is still in the old land, stealing out of her lonely homo at nightfall, and looking with her tender eyes always westward, and when no one is by, falling on or knees and lifting up her hands in such intensity of “sup" plication that they touch the hem of His garment and ffis blessing falls on her flesh and blood in the far-off land the if flowers emblematic of their, lives could spring from S:C h m“’ “ "° uM be easy to - the —of

he/ 08 "! ! Uld b . 6 C l UStered on the emerald moss about her ad, violets at the feet, and amongst the sweetest of the clover blossoms there would be lilies—lilies.—Exchange.

, “TABLES.” You see I’m learning S ”-But not the schoolroom way, Just mothers way of teaching. Why, fifty times a day, &hes ask me. Six times seven?” as quick as any wink, And I m supposed to answer without one chance to think?

Perhaps I’m drying dishes when my mother says to me, 1 o aS” BhlM theSo tUmblerS ’ and what " -as eight times Or maybe I’ll be dusting, or teaching Rusty tricks, - Lr “ ls and asks ” e ’ “ Now what "’ as twelre

At school the stupid figures seem hard, and all the same. But here at home with mother, they’re just a kind of I It’s fun to know the answers! I really like to play At learning all my “tables” in mother’s funny way! v . " Res Moines Register.

- .i NOT VERY DEEP. Coining to a river’with which he was unfamiliar a traveller asked.a youngster if it was deep. * * *

“No,” replied the boy, and the rider started to cross, but soon found that he and his horse had to swim for their lives.

When he reached the other side lie turned and shouted, “I thought you said it wasn’t deep “It isn’t,” was the reply. “It only takes grandfather’s ducks up to their middles.”

THE MANAGER’S PRIVILEGE.

The manager of a factory had occasion to admonish one of his employees, whereupon the latter began to find fault with the way the management controlled the works,-

“Are you the manager here, I should like to know?” demanded the official, angrily.

“No, sir,” replied the man. “Then don’t talk like a fool!”

ON THE SAFE SIDE.

“Tell me a tale about an elephant,” demanded the young man of his favorite aunt.

“What, on Sunday? I’m surprised at you. Little boys ought not to want to hear tales about animals on a Sunday.”

The point seemed to be worth considering, and Bobby was silent for a while. Then he asked,

“Is it Sunday now in Australia?” Auntie thought it was not.

“Well, then, tell me a story about a kangaroo.”

SMILE RAISERS.

Teacher: “Swarms of flies descended upon the Egyptians, but there were no flies on the children of Israel,”

Smart Boy: “There ain’t now, either.”

Mollie and Freddy had been to a party, and were just

leaving.

“Good-bye,” said Mollie to .the hostess. “Mother says we’ve enjoyed ourselves very much, thank you.”

“My coat is well made, and a charming color,” said a lady to her dearest friend as she stood in front of a shop window gazing critically at her reflection. “It fits excellently, and yet I look a perfect fright. What’s wrong with it?”

I <>v !’’ was the brutally frank reply.

She never sings the old, old songs She shrieked in days of yore;

She never thumps the keyboard now Until her thumbs are sore.

Alas! upon the latest grand She never more will play;

She failed with the instalments, and They’ve taken it away.

Dugald McTavish, all-round athlete and sportsman, entered his name for all events in the local Highland games. The first event on the programme was the half-mile, and of eight runners Dugald finished eighth. “Dugald, Dugald,” said a fellow-Scot, “why don’t you run faster?”

Run faster!” he said, scornfully, “an’ me reservin’ masel for the bagpipe competition.”

“What is the shape of the world?” asked the village

schoolmaster.

“Don’t know, sir,” piped the class.

“Well, what is the shape of my snuff-box?” “Square, sir.”

“No, no; I don ? t mean that one. I mean the one I use on Sundays.”

“Round, sir.”

“Now, then; what is the shape of the world?” “Square on week-days and round on Sundays, sir!”