p. 12 | Make Your Home Beautiful by Mrs. I. H. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1916

Make Your Home Beautiful

By Mrs. I. H. E.

THERE is a time between the passing of winter and the coming of spring—a brief pause—when the dreariness of this old world, especially around the habitations of men, seems its most prominent characteristic. Last year's leaves, sodden and unlovely, mingled with straw, twigs, scraps of paper, bits of pasteboard, shreds of cloth, and other rubbish, disfigure the fence corners. Tin cans that have outlived their usefulness are scattered here and there, with empty bottles, broken china, and other odds and ends. There is no tint of green on the earth, no hint of spring's revivifying breath in the air. The outlook affects the inlook—and discouragement is apt to creep in. Old sorrows add their weight to later troubles in overburdened hearts.

But it is always a mistake to look on the dark side, and never more so than at this particular season.

“The skies may meet in sadness, The blustering winds may blow, But if our hearts are cheery, There's sunshine where we go.”

The time for every one of us to look persistently on the bright side is the time when things look darkest. The coming days will bring the warming sun and refreshing rain. The bare branches of the trees will be clothed again, the earth will be carpeted with green. Nature will do much, it is true, but let us not leave nature to work alone. Instead of yielding to depression and gloom, get busy with rake and bonfire and rubbish cart. Use spade and fork and muscle until your own little patch of earth is ready and waiting for the beautiful renewal of the coming weeks.

No matter how poor the home, how thin the purse, there are few who cannot have tidy surroundings, and, for a portion of the year at least, make their home and grounds a little reminder of heaven.

A small town in Pennsylvania has become famous for its chrysanthemums, not because large greenhouses are given over to growing these flowers, but because the women of the town love them and care for them,—“look after them,” as they say. Against each house a low, “homemade” framework is built, with removable curtains, where, when the cold weather comes, the plants are protected from the biting frosts. It is said that the beautiful “globes of white, of soft pink, of ivory and lemon and bronze,” raised in these sheltered spaces, fully equal in beauty those of a prominent commercial florist who does a flower business of well toward half a million dollars a year, and who has twenty acres under glass devoted to chrysanthemums alone.

A large amount of money is not needed in order that the home surroundings may be attractive, or that the children may have flowers to brighten their lives and to sweeten their memories when they are older. One of the earliest pictures imprinted on my mind is of a little girl placing sturdy red peonies—very short-stemmed, and innocent of foliage—about the home on a quiet Sabbath morning. Never since that day have those plebeian posies failed to awaken tender memories of that long-past spring and of “grandmother's garden.” So, too, with the spicy perfume of June pinks. They have held their own sweet message since a sunny morning long ago, when my eager fingers helped to place them in welcoming readiness for the coming of a beloved member of the family. So may you, mothers in poor and humble homes, make fragrant memories for your little ones.

Begin now, if you have not already done so, first to “clean up,” then to prepare the soil, and plant, “keep,” and train a few flowers, vines, and shrubs. Let the children help; and both you and they will find happiness and health in this God-appointed work.

MRS. I. H. E.