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