Order and Disorder.
“A placefor everything, and everything in its place; that is my motto,” said Miss Steady.
“What stuff!” said Miss Thoughtless. “What is the use of being so precise and old-maidish?”
Miss Steady is a very orderly little girl, and so I must give you an account of her habits.
She is very remarkable for her neatness, and for the nice order in which she keeps her room and her clothes. She has had a very pretty little chamber all to herself since she was six years old; and you may go into it at any time, and not find anything out of its place. If you open any of her drawers, you will find everything laid out smoothly and sorted. There is a separate place for her prayer-book, another for her fan; and, as to her clothes, they are all doubled and folded in the neatest manner.
At eight o’clock Miss Steady goes tobed by herself. She folds up all her clothes very neatly, and puts them in a chair near the bed, with her shoes and stockings always laid by her. She puts all her chairs in order, places all her lesson-books and playthings carefully in her closet, undresses her doll, and folds up her doll’s clothes, and puts her to bed.After saying her prayers, she lays her every-day prayer-book and Bible on the table, where she keeps it.
All this she does by herself; and when she is ready to get into bed, she takes good care to place the extinguisher over her candle.
On Saturday night, she takes her clean clothes out of her drawer, and puts them all in their places; and she can go in the dark, and get anything she may happen to want. At any time, on any occasion, she always knows where to lay her hand on anything. She is also exceedingly polite.
She never asks questions out of order at breakfast or dinner-table. She knows when little girls may speak. She knows there is a place for her questions; by this means she never interrupts the conversation of others.
When she comes home from school, she always puts away her books, and her bonnet and shawl, and thus has never any trouble in hunting for them, as many persons have.
It is, however, very different with Miss Thoughtless; for she is so idle, and disorderly, and negligent, that sometimes she forgets to clean her teeth in the morning, and would, I believe, forget to wash her face sometimes, if she were not told of it.
Then, as to her playthings, they are all crammed together; what you would call higgledy-piggledy, or scattered about in various places. On one occasion her dolls were stuffed into the kitchen drawer, along with greasy dusters, corks, black-lead, whiting, shoe-brushes, and hearthstones.
Then, as to her clothes. At night she slips them off in a bunch, and just as they came off, so they lie; sometimes on the floor, or they are thrown on the bed.
Sometimes she leaves the candle burning after she gets to bed, and on one occasion, she set her bed-curtains on fire.
She is continually calling out to Mary; “Mary, where is my bonnet? Mary, have you seen my shawl?” Once or twice in the morning she came down stairs with only one stocking on, because she could not find the other. She had gone to bed with her stockings over her heels, and one had got wrapped up in the bed-clothes.
Miss Thoughtless rarely does anything for herself. She wants Mary, on all occasions, to pin her tippet, to tie her shoes, or to put on her India rubbers. When she proceeds to do anything, she wants the servants to wait on her.
What a difference between these two young ladies! If you were to see them, you might soon tell which was Miss Thoughtless; because you would see something disorderly in her looks, something disorderly in her dress, and something disorderly in her manner of speaking.
Wisdom from a Jester.—Bishop Hall tells us, that there was a certain nobleman who kept a fool or jester, (a thing common in former days in the families of the great,) to whom one day he gave a staff, with a charge to keep it till he should meet with one who was a greater fool than himself. Not many days after, the nobleman was ill, and near death. The jester came to see him, and his lordship said to him, “I must soon leave you.” “And where are you going?” asked the fool. “Into another world,” replied his lordship. “And when will you come again? within a month?” “No.” “Within a year?” “No.” “When then?” “Never?” “Never!” said the jester; “and what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there where thou goest?” “None at all.” “No!” said the fool, “none at all! Here, then, take my staff; for, with all my folly, I am not guilty of any such folly as this!”