"Don't Feel Like It."


"LAURA, did you write as I asked you,

to your grandmother, yesterday?"

"No, mother."

"Why not? I told you I was too busy;

and she will be troubled if she does not hear

that the baby is better."

"Well, mother, I didn't feel like writing."

"And so your grandmother is to have a

worried, anxious day, because you didn't

feel like doing your duty," said her father.

"Go up stairs and stay there till I call you

down. I am disgusted with your selfishness."

Laura went crying out of the room, thinking

herself dreadfully abused. How could

any one say she was selfish? Had she not

taken a class in a mission school half a mile

away, in a low neighborhood. She forgot

that she had done so knowing that her father

would object; though he would not

allow her to break the promise after she had

made it. She also forgot that her attendance

had been so irregular as to break up

the class; for Laura had only gone "when

she felt like it."

So it was with all her doings. She took

home work from the sewing society; but

she never finished it in time, for she wouldn't

work unless she felt like it. She might have

added a good deal to the slender income of

the family, by coloring photographs, which

she could do beautifully; but her employers

lost patience with her, because she never

sent the pictures back in time; for she only

used her brush when she "felt like it",

that is, when she wanted to amuse herself.

Laura prided herself on her fine feelings

and heroic aspirations. She liked to think

what fine things she would do for the world,

if she were only rich; to build, in fancy, the

"homes" and "asylums" she would establish

and superintend, if she only could. It

never occurred to her that these philanthropic

labors would need to be done sometimes

when she did not "feel like it." She liked

to picture herself as a missionary, teaching

and converting the heathen, and finally either

coming home in triumph or dying of her "heroic

exertions." She rather preferred the

latter conclusion to her romance. It did

not occur to her that the men and women

who do such things work when they do not

"feel like it."

Laura is not very likely to kill herself in

"heroic exertions" for others' benefit, for

people generally cease to "feel like it"

sometime before they come to the dying

point.

Whether the girl will ever be good for

anything seems to be doubtful. Certainly

she never will unless she finds some better

rule to guide her daily conduct than mere 

inclination.




Child's World.