beautiful girlhood

Front matter

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Foreword

Every worthy book has a reason for its existence that is founded upon true purpose and desire. Whether the writer does justice to her subject or fulfills her purpose, it is the liberty of others to judge; it is her joy, however, to know that her purpose was true and her efforts sincere.

This little book is born of a desire to help and encourage our girls who are struggling with the problems that come up in teens. Youth has its problems, its heartaches, and disappointments. It is not always a smooth path to the perfection of womanhood.

If what I have written should help some girl to a nobler life and truer ideals, then I shall feel that it has accomplished the task I have set for it to do.

Contents

When a Girl Goes Out LS DOSS De GM ee ee

Chapter One Opening Flowers

“Rejoice... in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth’

AVE you ever watched the development of Hl a rose from the tiny bud to the open flower? The bud held little more promise of beauty than the foliage about it; but day by day it grew until it was full and round. One day you saw a thread of color, promise of the rose to be, peeping through the covering of green. Each morning saw the thread of color widening until the bud burst asunder and the flower was revealed. You looked upon this bursting bud with admiration and delight, though yet you did not see the rose in its full size and beauty. You had to wait until it was full grown and fully open, till it had reached its maturity, before you could behold the complete flower. But in the opening blossom you had the beauty of the mature rose blended with the grace and charm of the bud.

Girlhood is the opening flower of womanhood. It has charms all its own. The wonderful change from the child to the woman, the marvelous blossoming of young, healthy girlhood, will ever be God’s great miracle in life’s garden. Like a half-open rose is girlhood. We are charmed, both by the beauty of the bud and by the wonderful coloring of the rose. We behold the familiar traits of childhood that have always charmed us and held our affections, but blended with these in ever-changing variety are the graces and powers of womanhood.

Do you, dear girls, appreciate the golden days in which you are living? You have your perplexities and vexations, of course, yet you are enjoying the merry, care-free days of youth, which are generally the happiest days of the whole life. You are standing ‘“‘where the brook and river meet,” where childhood’s days and childhood’s toys are put aside for the greater things of womanhood.

Girlhood’s days are happy days. The blush of youth is on the cheeks, and the rich, red blood of youth in the veins, while the cares of life have not yet settled upon the heart. Nature is now tuned to catch every note of music, to respond to every pleasurable emotion and fancy. Life to the normal girl is full of song and laughter. She looks forward with a magic view that hides all the sorrows and terrors and reveals in bright hues all the joys and blessings. Her heart beats with eagerness to begin the conquests that will certainly be hers. From her point of view there are no defeats, no failures, no disappointments. Every thorn is hidden and every rose revealed. So contagious is her joy and optimism that her presence will cheer the dullest household and

OPENING FLOWERS 15 set its pulse beating with hope and laughter. Older heads, who know that life is not all joy and sunshine, come under the spell of her charms and smile with her. With songs of hope and joy upon her lips she goes forth to meet life joyously and unafraid.

Laugh and play now, for this is your day. Dream your bright and happy dreams, and aspire to your lofty heights. I should be a pessimist indeed, if I saw evil in the radiant dreams and fair hopes that now brighten your skies and make your path light.

But girlhood is not without danger. The rose may be blighted and never come to perfection, even though the bud burst open with the fairest promise; and the girl with the brightest prospects and hopes of womanhood may fail to reach her goal if she is touched with the blighting force of sin. Her Godgiven inheritance is a pure and beautiful maturity full of usefulness; but there is that which would ruthlessly rob her of it. We guard our bud-laden rose-vines lest they be trampled upon, and we guard our precious daughters lest they be robbed of that untouched purity which is their own.

Girlhood is the time of making ready. Maturity and independence come later. For another period our gitl must yet be under teachers and guardians who carry the burden and responsibility which would ill fit her young shoulders. In a few short years, oh! so few, these guardians and burden-lifters will all be taken away, and your girl will step into life’s harness and feel the care and pain that have been the lot of womanhood since the beginning. So laugh and play and rejoice in your youth, dream your glorious daydreams, sip the honey and nectar from every passing hour: but guard well your feet that they do not slip into one of the snares and pitfalls along the way. Be pure, be true, be sincere, be earnest, and life will bring you peace and happiness.

CHAPTER Two FROM THE CHILD TO THE WOMAN

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies’

NE day I had a great surprise. I had been O watching a young girl grow through what had been for her, awkward, changing years.

She was not pretty, nor was she very attractive, but she had a good, true heart hidden away under her blundering ways, and I loved her. I had not seen her for a few months, so one day I purposed to call upon the family and learn how they were prospering. It was a pleasant spring morning which I chose for this walk, and I tapped lightly on the door. Her mother opened for me and pressed me to stay with them for dinner. While we talked, I heard the sewing-machine humming in another room, and presently her mother said, “Clara is doing the spring sewing for the children.” I was surprised to hear that, for I thought of Clara as a girl too unskilled to undertake such a task. But my surprise gave place to wonder when a little later the door opened and Clara came in to greet me. It was Clara’s voice and face indeed, but otherwise I shouid “ever have recognized my little friend in this graceful young woman before me. How such a change could have taken place in the few short months of my absence I could not understand. My little Clara had blossomed into a young woman.

Childhood is a wonderful thing. The little baby in its mother’s arms, a tender plant dependent upon mother for all things, holds in its little body, not only the possibility, but the sure promise of manhood or womanhood. The infant mind now so imperfect and undeveloped possesses powers of growth and development that may sometimes make it one of the foremost persons of the world. Every name, though ever so great, and every record, though ever so inspiring, can be traced back to an infant’s crib. Even our Savior was once a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

Childhood holds untold possibilities and promises. While it is true that many men never reach their childhood’s promise, never become noble characters, but remain mediocre and dull, it is not always because there was in them no possibility of better things. We must admit that circumstances and environments, as well as heredity, have much to do with the nature and development of children, but much more depends upon their individual disposition and effort. God meant that every child should grow into a noble, upright person, and there is in every child that which may be brought to the fullness of manhood or womanhood. Those who fail to be such have somewhere along the way wasted that which God had given them.

FROM CHILD TO WOMAN 19

Womanhood is a wonderful thing. In womankind we find the mothers of the race. There is no man so great, nor none sunk so low, but once he lay a helpless, innocent babe in a woman’s arms, and was dependent upon her love and care for his existence. It is woman who rocks the cradle of the world and holds the first affections of mankind. She possesses a power beyond that of a king on his throne. There was the ancient Jochebed, who received the infant Moses from the hand of Pharaoh’s daughter, and in a few short years she had taught him so to love his people and the God of his people that when he came to man’s estate he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the honor of being the grandson of the king. Womanhood stands for all that is pure and clean and noble. She who does not make the world better for having lived in it has failed to be all that a woman should be.

Childhood holds its promises, womanhood its fulfillments, and youth, those golden days of girlhood, the transition. This change is almost too great for us to comprehend. We marvel when we see the tiny, green bud develop into a mature rose of brilliant hue; how much more wonderful is the change from the immaturities of childhood to the beauty and grace of young womanhood! We see this miracle performed before us continually, yet we never cease to wonder at the sweetness, charm, and beauty of every woman newly budded forth.

Wonderful changes take place in the body of a girl in this transition. She takes on a new form and new symmetry. Organs that have been dormant during childhood suddenly wake into life and activity. She becomes, not merely a person, but a woman. And with this change in her physical being comes just as wonderful changes in her nature. She has new emotions, new thoughts, and new aspirations. She has a new view of life and takes a new course of action. It is as if she were in another world, so completely does she change.

The awakening comes suddenly. Not that she will know the day or the week when the change comes, nor will she be conscious of the miracle in her nature, but the things of childhood will slip away from her. The little girl loses interest in her play-world. She who did play whole days with her dolls now leaves them in their little beds weeks at a time. And one day she will say, “Mother, I do not play with these dolls any more, and I have a mind to put them away, for they take up so much room.” Then Marguerite and Rosemary and Hilda May are dressed nicely and, with a last loving pat, are tucked away in a box or old trunk in the attic and left to themselves while their little mother is hurrying away to the land of “grown-ups.” Mother looks on with dismay as she sees these changes, for she knows that her little girl is getting away from her, and that she must make room in her heart and life for the young woman developing before her eyes. She would put it off a little longer, for she will miss her little daughter, her baby girl; but even mother-love cannot stay the hand of time.

FROM CHILD TO WOMAN 21

Youth cannot stand monotony. So rapid are the changes in those eventful years that nature has tuned the mind and spirit of youth to seek and desire change and variety. Even a few days of sameness become wearisome to the girl. The more full life is of excitement and change, the more happy she is. Life to her is a succession of glad surprises.

The child becomes a woman at last. She slipped into girlhood naturally, and just as naturally will she lay off girlish ways and settle into womanhood. Life will take on a more sober look, and she will see things more distinctly. Many of the admonitions and reproofs that she received in her girlhood, and which seemed hard and unnecessary at the time, will now appear in their true light, and she will thank her guardians who gave them. Her cheeks will glow with embarrassment when she thinks of some of her girlish escapades, and become redder still when she thinks of some of the things she wanted to do but Mother would not permit. She will talk more quietly and laugh less boisterously. New feelings of responsibility will press in upon her. Life will look more earnest and serious than it used to do. She will wonder how she could ever have been so careless of consequences. Our child is now a woman, and her nature craves something more real and satisfying than the fleeting pleasures of youth.

You, my dear girls, are now in those busy, changing years. I can have no better wish and prayer for you than that you may arrive in due time into the glorious state of womanhood with hearts pure and hands clean. Good women are needed everywhere, and the call for them will never grow faint. There will always be responsible places in life to be filled by women who are true and noble. Their price is above rubies; that is, their worth is more than all the riches of this world.

Chapter Three Keeping Up Acquaintance

“Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee”

ID you ever have a friend with whom it was

if) hard to keep acquainted? You parted on

good terms and thought of her as a friend

all the time, but when again you met you found that

once more you must become acquainted. I have had

such experiences and found them unsatisfactory. I would have a friend be a friend all the time.

Nellie confesses that she often cries herself to sleep because no one understands her; while Marie acknowledges that she sometimes gets very angry with her mother because she cannot make Mother understand what she wants. It seems that everyone, even your mother, fails to comprehend the importance of the very things that to you seem the most momentous. It is especially grievous to you that your mother does not understand, when you used to think she knew and understood everything. She appears to be getting out of touch with young folks.

It may be a queer way of putting it, but your real trouble is that you have lost acquaintance with almost all that is around you. First, you are not acquainted with yourself. You change so fast that you are a stranger to yourself. You cannot keep up with your notions. You want a thing, and before your desire can be fully granted you want something else. It seems to you that nobody really tries to please you, and you get restless and dissatisfied. You think that everyone is crossing you, when you are really crossing yourself.

Watch the changes in your body. The dress you liked so well last summer did not fit you at all when you got it out this spring. You looked almost comical in it, and you wonder why you ever liked it. The dress is just as it was, but you have changed. You have grown taller and taken on a new form. Clothes must be cut by a different pattern now to fit you.

You are changing just as fast in your likes and dislikes. Mother has been planning a special pleasure for you, possibly has begun your new dress. She explains what she is going to do and how she is going to do it, and when you have a chance to speak you break her plans all to pieces. She has not pleased you at all, though Mother knows very well that what she intended to do was the very thing you wanted only a short while ago. She looks at you perplexed, and you are almost angry that she should have supposed you would have desired such a thing. Perhaps you speak saucily, and Mother reproves you sharply and calls you an ungrateful girl. You go away and cry real, hot tears because you are so misunderstood. You, my dear, have changed and

KEEPING UP ACQUAINTANCE 25 do not know it. It is not Mother, but the girl who lives in your body that so misunderstands you. When I was about fourteen Mother was making me a new dress, and I wanted the sleeves made very full at the hand and open from the elbow down. They were very ugly and very unhandy, and always falling into everything, and it was winter and very cold: but I wanted my sleeves made that way no matter what was said to me. Mother set her lips together and said, “Well, you shall have them.” Her look called me to my senses, and I began to back down, but she said, “No, you shall have them just as you want them,” and I had to drag and dribble those sleeves around till the dress was worn out. I found out that it was just a notion, which lasted but a short while, that I wanted such sleeves, and that my real self despised them. Mother knew that all the time. I am not blaming girls for being changeable, but I want them to see that they are changing, and not to expect everyone to change with them. Again the girl finds herself feeling very awkward. It seems to her that she is always splashing or spilling something and bringing down upon her head admonitions that nettle her. The fact is that her arms and hands have grown so fast that she cannot measure the length they will reach nor the force with which they will seize a thing. She has failed to keep acquainted with her own body. She need not be discouraged if she has trouble with awkwardness, for everyone who is growing fast has the same experience. Father himself would be just as awkward if he were suddenly to gain a few inches in his height.

It is hard for even a mother to keep acquainted with growing children. While she may misunderstand to some extent the present whim or fancy of the boy and girl, she does understand conditions much better than they do and can see when their desires and impulses would lead them into wrong. A girl is not able “to be her own boss” until she has passed these changing years. Not till then can she look upon things with a settled gaze. It would be very hard to judge a garden if one went by it on a run and it is just as hard to judge as to what is best as long as these swift changing years are on. If the girl can only be patient and obedient until she gets fully acquainted with herself she will save both her own heart and her dear parents many hours of trial and anxiety.

Strive to keep acquainted with your parents and teachers, so that you can understand their point of view. Look at things from their side. Because they do not agree with you, do not go off pouting and keep to yourself, but listen and really try to see. I could not keep acquainted with anyone if I never sought her company, or if when I was with her always insisted on having my way. And you cannot keep acquainted with Mother if you are always contending for your own way. When you contend with anyone you come up against his most unlikable side, and if you are continually contending with Mother about this and that you will find yourself thinking only of her most unkind ways. Just a little of the deference

KEEPING UP ACQUAINTANCE 27 and courtesy given to strangers would help you better to understand your mother.

Mother has many things to think about, and her mind is often full of perplexing problems which you know nothing about. It may be that just at the time when you are most persistent about something or other your contention is the last straw which wears her out, and she answers you more sternly than you think she ought. You feel abused and hampered. You think of Mother as being unkind and possibly unjust. She thinks of you as being stubborn and ungrateful. Both of you would see things differently if you took time to keep acquainted.

Keep acquainted with Father also. Too often he is not counted into his daughter’s life at all other than to provide the money she needs. He is a great blessing in the girl’s life if she will only give him a chance to know her. He is busy and can hardly be expected to take the initiative in a hearty acquaintance; but he will appreciate the kind advances of his young daughter if she comes to him smiling and seeking to know him.

To keep acquainted with herself or her parents a girl must be considerate and thoughtful. She cannot give way to every fancy or whim, but must consider what is best for her and for others.

When a girl is just entering her teens she must watch carefully indeed if she keeps from being selfish. So much is happening in her life just then, such great changes taking place, that she is almost certain to become self-centered and to think always of herself first. It is such a task for her to keep up with her thoughts and feelings and desires that everybody else is forgotten. There is something about the tumultuous condition of her nature that makes her see with crooked eyes, so that things are not in their right proportions. Just a little reasoning on her part will help her to see that she is making a mistake.

It is selfishness that would make a girl think it a cross to help with the ironing because it might hurt her pretty hands, when her mother has to work hard all day long. Or, again, it is selfishness that would cause her to spend a whole hour dressing her hair in the morning before she is off to school, leaving her no time to help with the dishes. And when evening comes and someone must stay with the little ones while the rest go out, it is selfishness if she feels abused when her turn comes.

It is selfishness that makes a girl think that she ought to have better clothes than her mother has, or that would have her want better than her brothers and sisters possess. She has kept her mind so full of her own desires that she has forgotten that others have wants or rights. It is the most cruel kind of selfishness that will cause a girl to speak crossly and saucily to her parents when they must refuse her some of her notions. They who have done most for her of all the world, who are working week in and week out for her happiness, who are denying themselves many pleasures that her life may be more full, they who because in their wisdom see that she should

KEEPING UP ACQUAINTANCE 29 be denied—they must have her become cross with them!

The great foe of these years is selfishness, and the girl who comes to the most perfect womanhood learns soon to fight it with all her might.

CHAPTER FOUR CHARACTER-BUILDING “Let every man take heed how he buildeth”

HE most precious earthly treasure a girl can JS have is a good character. Her character is what she really is. If she will look beyond what she appears to be, and what people think of her, and look at her heart fairly and honestly, judging herself by the standards of right and wrong to which her own conscience gives sanction, then she can know whether she has a good character. When a girl is misunderstood and misjudged, it is comforting to know that deep in her heart she has been true; but it will rob even her friends’ praises of the real pleasure if in her heart she knows she has been untrue. Character is not given to us; we build it ourselves. Others may furnish the material, may set before us the right standards and ideals, may give us reproof and correction, may guide our actions and mold our thoughts—but after all we build our own character. It is we, ourselves, who take of the influence about us, copy the ideals, reach the standards, and make ourselves what we are.

Youth is the building-time. From infancy, throughout childhood, material has been brought together 30

CHARACTER-BUILDING 31 which we may use in our building. There are home influences and teachings, moral and intellectual instructions received in school, religious precepts and counsels of church and Sunday school, the moral standards of our childhood’s playmates, the characters of the men and women we know, and countless other avenues by which instruction has come to us bringing material which we may use in our building. The girl who has been reared in a Christian home, and by careful, watchful parents, has a far better opportunity to build a good character than she whose life has been less guarded. It is in the days of youth that this assembled material is built into character. The nature is then pliable, and habits are more easily formed and much more easily broken than in later years. Day by day the girl, whether conscious of what she is doing or not, is taking of the material which she has about her, and is putting it into her character. Truth or falsehood, honesty or deceit, love or hatred, honor or reproach, obedience or rebellion, good or bad, day by day the building is going on. Through her infancy and childhood her parents have been responsible for her conduct; but now, when she has reached these important years, their responsibility is lessening and hers is increasing. Sometimes girls who have been quite submissive and obedient through childhood become independent and rebellious at this period, building into their characters that which is a lifelong regret. But contrariwise, others who have been unruly as children now wake to their responsibility and begin laying into their building those things that are good, upright, honest, and noble.

But more often she who has learned to obey in her childhood builds the better character. Character-building is a serious undertaking. You would never guess it by watching the foolish behavior of some girls. Sometimes I have wondered that to youth should be given the responsibility of laying the foundation of life’s character just when the heart is the gayest and the thoughts the least settled; but if the responsibility came later it would be at a time when the help of parents and teachers is not to be had. The builder would then have to work alone, while now she has many helpers. And since to youth is given such a serious undertaking, ought not our girl to take earnest thought to what she is doing, that no wrong material is placed in her building? Can she afford, for the sake of present fun and frolic, to place in her building that which will give her weakness all through her life? Character-building goes on every day. There is not a day that does not tell for good or bad. Each sees another stone in the building, hewn straight and true, or all misshapen and crooked. If temptations have been resisted and obstacles overcome, if evil thoughts and feelings have been quenched, and kind and noble thoughts encouraged in their place, then a stone has been hewn for victory and right; but if temptations have been yielded to, and evil thoughts and feelings have been harbored and cultivated, if wrong motives have been allowed, then the stone is unfit for a good building. So as the days go by the

CHARACTER-BUILDING 33 builder sorts out and uses of the material at hand that which is put into the character which shall be hers through life.

A pattern is needed. No dressmaker would undertake a garment without some idea of how it should look when finished. She must by some means form in her mind the picture of the dress as it is to be when it is done. Nor would she undertake a lady’s cloak by a kimono pattern. She would ask for a perfect pattern to work by. A carpenter would not start a building until he first had a draft which made clear to his mind just how the finished edifice should look. More than that, he would ask for a perfect pattern of every part of the building, so that he might have it correct all the way through. No character is built good and true if the builder has not in her mind a picture of the woman she wants to be. And the pattern for a good character must be chosen carefully. The carpenter will not undertake a pretty cottage from the print of a barn, nor can a girl build a good, true character if she patterns after those whose lives ate not good and true. She who has an ideal character is first of all pure and true, then earnest and sincere, patient and gentle, and more ready to serve than be served. It is easier to build a bad than a good character. One can always go down hill with less difficulty than up, and glide with the current than row against it, and it is easier to drift with the crowd than to stand for the right. The bad character grows without effort. Just to be careless and indifferent to consequences may be the cause of downfall in one who would like to be noble. They who fall have been weak, for good character is strong.