Perspective

"Children will not trouble you long. They grow up- nothing on earth grows so fast as children. It was but yesterday and that lad was playing with tops, a bouyant boy. He is a man and gone now. There is no more childhood for him or for us. Life has claimed him. When a beginning is made, it is like a raveling stocking: stitch by stitch gives way til all are gone.

The house has not a child in it-there is no more noise in the hall- boys rushing in pell mell; it is very orderly now. There are no more skates or sleds, bats, balls or strings left scattered about. Things are neat enough now. There is no delay for sleepy folks; there is no longer any task, before you lie down, of looking after anybody and tucking up the bed clothes.

There are no disputes to settle, nobody to get off to school, no complaint, no opportunities for impossible things, no rip to mend, no finger to tie up, no faces to wash or collars to be arranged.

There never was such peace in the house! It would sound like music to have some feet to clatter down the front stairs! Oh, for some children's noise! What used to ail us that we were hushing their loud laugh, checking their noisy frolic, and reproving their slamming and banging of the doors? We wish our neighbors would only lend us an urchin or two to make a little noise in the premises.

A home without children. It can be like a lantern and no candle, a garden and no flowers, a vine and no grapes, a brook and no gurgling and gushing in its channel. We want to be tired, to be vexed, to be run over, to hear children at work with all of its varieties."

T.L. Haines, and L.W. Yaggy, The Royal Path of Life: Aims and Aids to success and Happiness, Eastern Publishing House, Philadelphia, PA, 1882