The Secret of a Happy Home (1896)

Secret of a Happy Home (1896), The

Project Gutenberg's The Secret of a Happy Home (1896), by Marion Harland This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Secret of a Happy Home (1896)
Author: Marion Harland
Release Date: October 4, 2005 [EBook #16800]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF A HAPPY HOME (1896) ***

Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE
Secret of a Happy Home

BY
MARION HARLAND

PUBLISHED BY THE CHRISTIAN HERALD, LOUIS KLOPSCH, Proprietor, BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.

Copyright, 1896, BY LOUIS KLOPSCH.

Dedication.
To My Children, "The Blessed Three," Whose Love and Loyalty Have made mine a Happy Home And my Life Worth Living, The volume is Gratefully Dedicated.
MARION HARLAND.

The Secret of a Happy Home.

INTRODUCTORY.
An Open Secret,
CHAPTER I.
Sisterly Discourse with John's Wife Concerning John,
CHAPTER II.
The Family Purse,
CHAPTER III.
The Parable of the Rich Woman and the Farmer's Wife,
CHAPTER IV.
Little Things that are Trifles,
CHAPTER V.
A Mistake on John's Part,
CHAPTER VI.
"Chink-Fillers,"
CHAPTER VII.
Must-haves and May-bes,
CHAPTER VIII.
What Good Will It Do?
CHAPTER IX.
Shall I Pass It On?
CHAPTER X.
"Only Her Nerves,"
CHAPTER XI.
The Rule of Two,
CHAPTER XII
The Perfect Work of Patience,
CHAPTER XIII.
According to His Folly,
CHAPTER XIV.
"Buttered Parsnips,"
CHAPTER XV.
Is Marriage Reformatory?
CHAPTER XVI.
"John's" Mother,
CHAPTER XVII.
And Other Relations-in-Law,
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Timid Word for the Step-mother,
CHAPTER XIX.
Children as Helpers,
CHAPTER XX.
Children as Burden-bearers,
CHAPTER XXI.
Our Young Person,
CHAPTER XXII.
Our Boy,
CHAPTER XXIII.
That Spoiled Child,
CHAPTER XXIV.
Getting Along in Years,
CHAPTER XXV.
Truth-telling,
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Gospel of Conventionalities,
CHAPTER XXVII.
Familiar, or Intimate?
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Our Stomachs,
CHAPTER XXIX.
Cheerfulness as a Christian Duty,
CHAPTER XXX.
The Family Invalid,
CHAPTER XXXI.
A Temperance Talk,
CHAPTER XXXII.
Family Music,
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Family Religion,
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A Parting Word for Boy,
CHAPTER XXXV.
Homely, But Important,
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Four-Feet-Upon-a-Fender,

INTRODUCTORY.

AN OPEN SECRET.
Some one asked me the other day, if I were not "weary of being so often put forward to talk of 'How to Make Home Happy,' a subject upon which nothing new could be said."
My answer was then what it is now: Were I to undertake to utter one-thousandth part that the importance of the theme demands, the contest would be between me and Time. I should need "all the time there is."
Henry Ward Beecher once prefaced a lecture delivered during the Civil War by saying: "The Copperhead species chancing to abound in this locality, I have been requested to select as my subject this evening something that will not be likely to lead to the mention of Slavery."
"I confess myself to be somewhat perplexed by this petition," the orator went on to say, with the twinkle in his eye we all recollect--"for I have yet to learn of any subject that could not easily lead me up to the discussion of a sin against God and man which I could not exaggerate were every letter a Mt. Sinai--I mean, American Slavery."
Likening the lesser to the greater, allow me to say that I cannot imagine any topic worthy the attention of God-fearing, humanity-loving men and women that would not be connected in some degree, near or remote, with "Home, and How to Make Home Happy."
The general principles underlying home-making of the right kind are as well-known as the fact that what is named gravitation draws falling bodies to the earth. These principles may be set down roughly as Order, Kindness and Mutual Forbearance. Upon one or another of these pegs hangs everything which enters into the comfort and pleasure of the household, taken collectively and individually. They are the beams, the uprights and the roofing of the building.
The chats, more or less confidential and altogether unconventional, which I propose to hold with the readers of this modest volume have to do with certain sub-laws which are so often overlooked that--to return to the figure of the building--the wind finds its way through chinks; the floors creak and the general impression is that of bare homeliness. House and Home go together upon tongue and upon pen as naturally as hook-and-eye, shovel-and-tongs, knife-and-fork,--yet the coupling is rather a trick learned through habit than an act of reason. The words are not synonyms of necessity or in fact.
Upon these, the first pages of my unconventional book, I avow my knowledge of what, so far from humiliating, stimulates me--to wit, that nine-tenths of those who will look beyond the title-page will be women. This is well, and as I would have it to be, for without feminine agency no house, however well appointed, can be anything higher than an official residence.
Man's first possession in a world then unmarred by sin was a dwelling-place--but Eden was not a home until the woman joined him there. Throughout the ages and all over the world, as mother, wife, sister, daughter (often, let me observe in passing, as old-maid aunt) she has stood with him as the representative of the