By Helen Campbell

"The point is," said the young woman, "never to spend any time in self-pity and never mention one of whatever afflictions may have been apportioned to your individual self. The first takes your strength and spoils any good work you might do. The second is a bore to your friends and destruction to self-respect. In the first grip of things it is possible one may send up a howl. But at that or any other time, no matter what the impulse, Don't!"

Was she a young woman after all? For, as she brought out the "Don't!" staccato, I looked again. Really she seemed more like a nice boy, well up in athletics, and as far on in general college work as athletics permit. Her hair was short, cut close to her head, yet curly, and though rather a dark brown, yet showing gold where little tendrils had their way, here and there, behind an ear or on her slender neck. Her hands were small, of course, for she was a Southern woman, generations of whom had no need to use their hands in any coarsening work, yet could and did use them in delicate cookery, preserving, and the like, and knew every secret of cutting and generally overseeing the garments for a plantation. Delicately formed, straight as a dart and with the alert expression of a champion tennis player, she stood at the gate into the chicken-yard, and smiled a delightful smile.

"I shouldn't tell you one word," she said, "if you hadn't come from so old a friend. Oh, privately I would tell anyone interested, but printing is another matter. It will help, you say. I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps, but I somehow seem to think most find out for themselves, perhaps by a good many experiments, just what to do. But I will tell you just how it began with me. Nellie has told you, I don't doubt, that I was left a widow with three children. We had lived in town, after my marriage, in a rented house. When my husband died and I presently summed up my capital, it was, first, the children, then, not quite two hundred dollars left in the bank after the expenses of the long sickness and the funeral were paid. Added to this were nine hens and a rooster that I had kept at the end of the little garden at the back of the house, our cat and dog and about a fortnight's supplies in the pantry. Our clothes, too, were in fair amount and order. That was all. Lots of people came to condole with me and tell me what to do, but not one made what seemed to me a really practical suggestion. I knew what I could do, or thought I did, which amounts to the same thing, if you really go ahead and do it. I did it.

"The first thing was to move into the country, where I had longed to have the children. It isn't country now exactly, for the station is not far away, but the house was out of repair, and I had the option of buying it at the end of the year, if I wanted it then. The owner couldn't do much and was glad to think it might be off his hands, and I took it for eighty dollars a year—this to include a few repairs.

"There was a big garden, not tended for years, not a fruit tree, and the four acres outside the fenced-in garden one mass of brush. My next neighbor was a farmer from the North, come South for his health and getting it, and he took an interest from the beginning; he ploughed my land for me, and agreed to go over it with the cultivator when it was necessary, but I must first manage to rake up and burn up all the weeds and sticks, etc. The children helped me and we made a spree of it. I bought a cow of him, a good one, and, as one of my hens had begun to set on a box of nails, decided she should have eggs. He had some fine, pure-blooded Plymouth Rocks, and mine were Wyandottes, just as good and no fear as to crossing breeds, and so I started in. What I was after was broilers, and if broilers wouldn't support us, why there was something else that I felt sure would, and that was chicken pies. You smile, but let me tell you they weren't everyday chicken pies. Our old Dilly on my father's plantation was a champion chicken-pie maker, in demand for every wedding and general church entertainment, and she taught me just how, swearing me to secrecy long as she lived. So I watched her many times, realizing, at last, that it meant using the very choicest material straight through. No old hens simmered all day long to make them tender. On the contrary, she demanded the choicest broilers, and she made, not exactly puff paste but the most delicate order of pastry to put them in. To season to a turn and with no variation, and to have the gravy smooth and rich, these were her secrets, and I learned them so thoroughly that after once sampling them there was no further trouble as to orders. I sent little individual pies to every hotel and restaurant in the city I had left. I had bought a good cow, as I said, and soon bought another, to have plenty of cream, for that was one important item in the pies, and as the work got too much for me alone I presently had a girl to help, and at last another, all of us doing steady hard work, but liking it. I raised the chickens, you see, though I often hated to have them killed, and by this time we had small fruits, and all that grows in a well-kept garden. The children helped as well as went to school and were rosy, healthy creatures, my comfort and joy, and they always have been. I never have cleared over five hundred a year, but what more do I need? I make ten cents clear on each individual chicken pie and fifteen on the larger ones. Specials I make as large as people want them, but I prefer the little ones. Three sizes are made every day, and some families, who go away for the summer, have their chicken pies expressed to them each week and won't do without them. Some people fuss and say they are too rich. Others want me to charge less and say, if I would use lard instead of butter in the pastry, I could sell cheaper. But I answer that it is my business never to fall below the standard. Aunt Dilly would turn in her grave if she thought her rule was to have lard used instead of butter. I made some experiments and found it was distinctly best to stick close to the old original text. You can buy cheap pies anywhere and they taste cheap. These melt in your mouth. And you ought to know that two other women in the neighborhood have specialties, too, and I taught them, for my mother used to make a delicious chicken jelly for sick people and one woman does that and has a big market for it at the Woman's Exchange, and another makes cornbeef hash for three restaurants and has all she can do. The gist of it is good cooking can always be made to pay. Keep to the best form you can find, never vary, and a living, and often much more, is certain. When women learn that, perhaps more of them will turn in this direction. Here is the home paid for, trees growing and yielding, children growing too, and Tom almost ready for college, and chicken pie has done it, and will keep on doing it, perhaps as long as I live. At any rate I should never stop doing something as perfectly as I could for that is half the fun of living. Don't you think so? We keep the evenings for as much of a good time as possible. I keep a little of my old music and play accompaniments, for Tom has a fine baritone voice and we all sing, and Edith and her violin take the kinks out of any day's work. We have a fair little library and do not mean to fall behind or forget what quiet progress means. It has been a happy life, thank God! How could it help being so, with such children and a certain sure thing to do?"

Yes, how could it help being thus with such a spirit at work to bring it about? That was the thought as I looked at the mother, and wished that all dolorous and uncertain women might have the same chance. Joining the Sunshine Circle or the Harmony Club might be the first essential. After that things would take care of themselves.