The Secret of a Happy Home (1896). Marion Harland

CHAPTER XVI. "John's" Mother, 152 CHAPTER XVII. And Other Relations-in-Law, 161 CHAPTER XVIII. A Timid Word for the Step-mother, 169 CHAPTER XIX. Children as Helpers, 177 CHAPTER XX. Children as Burden-bearers, 186 CHAPTER XXI. Our Young Person, 192 CHAPTER XXII. Our Boy, 200 CHAPTER XXIII. That Spoiled Child, 209 CHAPTER XXIV. Getting Along in Years, 217 CHAPTER XXV. Truth-telling, 224 CHAPTER XXVI. The Gospel of Conventionalities, 233 CHAPTER XXVII. Familiar, or Intimate? 241 CHAPTER XXVIII. Our Stomachs, 249 CHAPTER XXIX. Cheerfulness as a Christian Duty, 257 CHAPTER XXX. The Family Invalid, 264 CHAPTER XXXI. A Temperance Talk, 272 CHAPTER XXXII. Family Music, 283 CHAPTER XXXIII. Family Religion, 289 CHAPTER XXXIV. A Parting Word for Boy, 297 CHAPTER XXXV. Homely, But Important, 306 CHAPTER XXXVI. Four-Feet-Upon-a-Fender, 312

INTRODUCTORY.

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AN OPEN SECRET.

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      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