--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Frost, Grace Ingles collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 4 published: 1911-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Grace Ingles Frost, "Take Heart Again," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 4 (February 1911): 328.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1404unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1404unse start_page: 328 end_page: 328 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1404unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Take Heart Again THE WORTH OF A BOY. 329 But the boy is not given time to explain why. You are angry with him. You are not yourself. Wait until you are cool, and know what you are doing. Suppose some giant with a telephone pole in his hand should ask you, "Why did you dull that scythe? What did you talk to Neighbor Brown for, when you should be sowing your own fields. or cutting your own hay?" What would you do? Nine to one you would try to lie out of it. Then don't blame the boy when you, giant like, tower over him with the flame of anger in your face, demanding of him "Why?" and saying, "Didn't I tell you?" Control yourself first, then you may hope to attend to the boy God gave you. Now, what is he worth in the house? What right have you, mothers and fathers, to build a home and lock the boy out? Why put him in the attic to sleep, using the best rooms for faddy fancies of society? Why lock up the best rooms and live in the shanty with your families? What is the house for? What are those beautiful carpets for? What is that organ or piano for? What that beautiful case of books? Those landscape paintings on the walls? Those closed and darkened rooms where "Don't!" meets the boy at the door, and "You mustn't!" ere he enters? Why those costly draperies and curtained windows? Or that upholstered furniture? If anything is too good for the children, throw it out at the back door, and let the children be afc home in the house; and do, for the love of souls, let them be free to have the best the home can afford. No matter what shadows may come to them away from home, let the home be the sunshine of life to them. Let no gilded hall of sin be half so enticing. Chil- dren so brought up have no taste for such places or such a life of confusion, hate and sin, as they perceive in such gilded places. The outside of them is close enough for them. Home to them is like the wings of a mother hen to the brood at night, or on chill days - the warmth of love and oneness is there. Latter-day Saint parents, you must rear these boys. If you doubt the value of this responsibility, leave home for a few months, travel with two thousand of your boys in the world. Go with them among a thousand winds of doctrine, individual ideas and community notions, the popular fancies and creeds of men, the sin