Make Every Minute Count

By Mrs. A. J. Wilder.

Spring has come! The wild birds have been singing the glad tidings for several days, but they are such optimistic little souls that I always take their songs of spring with a grain of pessimism. The squirrels and chipmunks have been chattering to me, telling the same news, but they are such cheerful busy-bodies that I never believe quite all they say.

But now I know that spring is here for as I passed the little creek, on my way to the mail box this morning, I saw scattered papers caught on the bushes, empty cracker and sandwich cartons strewn around on the green grass and discolored pasteboard boxes soaking in the clear water of the spring. I knew then that spring was here, for the sign of the picnickers is more sure than that of singing birds and tender green grass, and there is nothing more unlovely than one of nature's beauty spots defiled in this way. It is such an unprovoked offense to nature, something like insulting one's host after enjoying his hospitality. It takes just a moment to put back into the basket the empty boxes and papers and one can depart gracefully leaving the place all clean and beautiful for the next time or the next party.

Did you ever arrive all clean and fresh, on a beautiful summer morning, at a pretty picnic place, and find that someone had been before you and that the place was all littered up with dirty papers and buzzing flies? It you have and have ever left a place in the same condition, it served you right. Let's keep the open spaces clean, not fill them up with rubbish!

It is so easy to get things cluttered up, one's days for instance, as well as picnic places—to fill them with empty, useless things and so make them unlovely and tiresome. Even tho the things with which we fill our days were once important, if they are serving no good purpose now, they have become trash like the empty boxes and papers of the picnickers. It will pay to clean this trash away and keep our days as uncluttered as possible.

There are just now so many things that must be done that we are tempted to spend ourselves recklessly, especially as it is rather difficult to decide what to eliminate, and we cannot possibly accomplish everything. We must continually be weighing and judging and discarding things that are presented to us, if we would save ourselves, and spend our time and strength only on those that are important. We may be called upon to spend our health and strength to the last bit, but we should see to it that we do not waste them.

"Oh I am so tired that I just want to sit down and cry," a friend confided to me, "and here is the club meeting on hand and the lodge practice and the Red Cross work day and the aid society meeting and the church bazaar to get ready for, to say nothing of the pie supper at the school house and the spring sewing and garden and—Oh! I don't see how I'm ever going to get thru with it all!"

Of course she was a little hysterical. It didn't all have to be done at once, but it showed how over-tired she was and it was plain that something must give way—if nothing else, herself. My friend needed a little open space in her life.

We must none of us shirk. We must do our part in every way, but let's be sure we clear away the rubbish, that we do nothing for empty form's sake nor because someone else does, unless it is the thing that should be done.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Make Every Minute County." Missouri Ruralist,  (March 20, 1918): page 13.

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