Club Minutes: Mutual Improvement Association, 1909-1914

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of Rockville asking aid to purchase the historic Hungerford Tavern of that town, but there did not seem to be much enthusiasm in regard to the matter. Sarah Willson exhibited a fine bunch of cranberries which in their growing state, were new to some of us, though the exhibitor, who was born near a cranberry bog, is on such terms of intimacy with the fruit she eats it raw by the handful with pleasure she said.

Elizabeth T. Stabler accepted our invitation to become an associate member.

The Sentiment was from the pen of George Sand, "Guard within yourself that treasure, kindness - know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness - Know how to replace in your heart by the happiness of those you love, the happiness which you, yourself might have missed."

Mary G. Colt also gave a sketch of the woman light keeper on Robbins Reef, near Staten Island, who has lived there for 23 years, and is rarely absent for one day - Since the death of her husband she has been in charge of the light house almost continuously. Mary E. Gilpin from "The Worlds Work" read of the "Social Order of the Garden Hoe." A man in Kansas City transformed his home backyard into a beauty spot where fine vegetables vied with fine flowers. On a plot 12ft by 35 in extent he gathered 90 quarts of strawberries. His next door neighbour caught the fever and soon the whole square was spending early mornings and late evenings in wielding

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hoes and pulling weeds, an exchange of the products of the industry was one result, and a great increase in friendliness another, not to mention the transformation of those dreadful city abominations, backyards into use and comeliness from which they are not likely to relapse.

We were informed that the grand daughters of Charles Dickens are in such need they are to become the beneficiarys of a friend for the families of authors in their sad condition, a striking example of the injustice of copyright laws whereby a man can reap nothing from the possession of superlative mental gifts if foreign publishers do not choose to remember him. Elizabeth S. Iddings told of a mail route in Vermouth by which a letter that could have been tossed across the necessary 10ft had to go to Quebec and be returned a distance of 544 miles - She also gave this little squib;

"We prayed for rain, and the rain came down In torrents from the sky And then we decided twas' gettin' timeWe was a prayin' for dryIt parched the earth and it cracked the sky So we held a meetin' and laid them prayers conveniently on the shelfAnd we carried a motion to let the Lord Run the weather to suit himselfFor we all concluded, from Spring to Fall,

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What we know of the weather's just nothing at all!"

Fanny Snowden read of Ellen Flagg Young of Chicago, Superintendent of Public Schools in Chicago at a salary of $3000.00 a year and glad to get her at that! President Harper, of the University, who was at first opposed to having a woman fill the position became an enthusiastic supporter after she appeared before the board of Education for two hours and answered questions in regard to her proposed methods of reform.

Margeret G. T. Moore's offering was upon the importance of doing something well. The girl who has not been trained in any direction and does not see why she should be especially skilled in anything, may become a burden to the sympathy of her friends should she be compelled to support herself. The acquisition of one talent, natural or toiled for, places the doer at once in the ranks of the competent - Why not take a lesson from Germany when a noted statesman said that if need be he could support himself making brushes! Helen S Stabler brought a rhyming description of two familiar styles of time pieces;

"The grandfathers's clock, it ticks away "Slowly! Surely! "it seems to say"Take your time. Take your time, don't hurry, scurry!" And upset the world with your senseless flurry, Tick-tock, tick-tock, you know, Life is young, love is young, go

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slow go slow."

The little French clock it ticks away "Faster, faster "it seems to say; Life is fleeting, and love is too. Hurry, or time will not wait for you. Tick-tock, tick-tock- Autumn won't last! Twill soon be winter - go fastgo fast."

Ellen Farquhar amused us with the woes of a mystical Billy Hicks who was cured of one disease, only to contract another in the process, until like the woman in the story, "he took so much care of his health he had none at all."

Mary T. Bond's selection warned her sister women of the tyranny of small things - the absence of pockets from the dictates of Dame Fashion was instanced, also the weary burden of carrying ones skirts and the heterogenerous mass of small articles many of which are neither useful nor beautiful accumulated by the housekeepers of to- day. The writer thought there was wisdom in the line "Blessed be nothing", if it brought emancipation from the useless things of life. Martha Holland's article assured us that Americans were no longer borrowing all their patterns and ideas on the subject of dress from the French, but were originating more sensitive and pleasing modes every year. Let us hope they are not responsible for the hats we wondered to see pass safely through the street cars of Baltimore a few days since.

Alice Tyson read a few verses from our Maryland Poet the Bentztown Bard, who has written at least 1000

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such for the Baltimore "Sun" - We cull a portion of "The Quiet Life;" -

"Far wandering from the murmur of the crowd, The tides of time and circumstance I found, A blossom blushing where the mountain bared, Its' crest to feel the storms that swept it round, I thought how vain, how useless was the sphere, Of beauty and of fragrance where none go, Through the swelling circle of the year, To care how sweet these fair, frail petals blowThus with the souls that dwell amid the storm, Too weak for service, and too soon to give, For all unknowing, they may still perform, Some tender mission when they merely live."

Eliza N. Moore said Fanny B. Snowden had already given her principal article, but she found another in the same magazine, which was equally acceptable apparently, in the song of "Home Again"-

"It's home again and home again, America For me! My heart is returning home again to God's countryWe admire the crumbling castles and the monuments and kingsBut soon or late we have enough of antiquated things, Oh Europe is a fine place, yet something seems to lack, The past is too much with her, and