p. 238 | Girls, Help Father

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 2, 1877

"Girls, Help Father."

“My hands are so stiff I can hardly hold a pen,” said Farmer Wilbur, as he sat down to “figure out” some accounts that were getting behind hand.

“Can I help you, father?” said Lucy, laying down her bright crochet work.—“I shall be glad to do so if you will explain what you want.”

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder if you could, Lucy,” he said reflectively. “Pretty good at figures are you?”

“It would be sad if I did not know something of them, after going twice through the arithmetic,” said Lucy, laughing.

“Well, I can show you, in five minutes what I have to do, and it’ll be a wonderful help if you can do it for me. I never was a master hand at accounts in my best days, and it does not grow any easier since I put on spectacles.”

Very patiently did the helpful daughter plod through the long lines of figures, leaving the gay worsted to lie idle all the evening, though she was in such haste to finish her scarf. It was reward enough to see her tired father, who had been toiling all day for himself and dear ones, sitting so cozily in his easy chair, enjoying his weekly paper.

The clock struck nine before her task was over, but the hearty—“Thank you daughter, a thousand times,” took away all sense of weariness.

“It’s rather looking up, where a man can have such an amanuensis,” said the father. “It’s not every farmer that can afford it.”

“Not every farmer’s daughter that is capable of making one,” said the mother, with a little pardonable maternal pride.

“Nor every one that would be willing, if able,” said Mr. Wilbur, which last was a sad truth. How many daughters might be of use to their fathers in this and many other ways, who never think of lightening a care or labor. If asked to perform some little service, it is done at best with a reluctant step and unwilling air that robs it of all sunshine or claim to gratitude.

Girls, help your father! Give him a cheerful home to rest in when evening comes, and do not worry his life away by fretting because he cannot afford you all the luxuries you covet. Children exert as great an influence on their parents, as parents do on their children.