Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

10 A mother’s love —how sweet the name, What is a mother’s love? A noble, pure, and tender flame Enkindled from above, To bless a heart of earthly mold; The warmest love that can grow cold, This is a mother’s love. To bring a helpless babe to light, Then, while it lies forlorn, To gaze upon that dearest sight THE SUPREME OFFICE—MOTH ER MOTHER —one of the noble Saxon words that go with home and heaven! It is the dearest of all words to humanity—even in its ruder condi tion. All the world respects motherhood. Deep in the heart of the most hard ened criminal is a lingering affection 'for the mother that bore him, even though she be not a good woman. A veteran preacher, who was a chaplain in the Southern army of the Civil War, told me that nearly every boy in gray whom he had seen give up his young life on the field or in the hospital, sent a last message to mother. “Give my love to mother. Tell her I died try ing to do my duty.” The most affecting representation of human life I ever saw was in wax in the New York Eden Musee. It was one of a series of figures depict ing the real story of a criminal, who was executed in that state. One of the two figures represented the mur derer on his way to his death —a hard, defiant face with scarcely anything human in its lines. The other figure was his old mother, who had come a great part of the way on foot from a distant state. She had her arms about him, her face was convulsed with grief and love. No matter what he was or had done, he was her boy. Looking at her, you knew she would have died for him. Another Kind of Mother. Motherhood stands for the most un selfish and devoted love of earth, yet all mothers are not loving or self sac rificing. Some women are deficient in the maternal instinct. You can tell them by the shape of the head. The heads of such women come nearly straight down from the crown, with scarcely any protuberance. These are the mothers who find children a bur den and a nuisance, and rebel bitterly against bearing them. The children never know the sweet, intimate affec tion which the children of true moth ers enjoy. Their mother may be proud of them in away, dress them well and look after their manners, but tender affection is lacking and the child misses it. A young Alabama doctor, who for merly wrote for the Sunny South, told of being called in to see the child of a woman, who was one of the lights of society. He found the little boy very sick and the mother in evening costume. Her first words were: “Doctor, Henry is not very ill, is he?” I replied, “I consider him a very sick child, Mrs. T. His temperature is 104.” “But you don’t think him danger ously ill, do you?” THE HOUSEHOLD A DEPARTMENT OF EXPRESSION FOR THOSE WHO FEEL AND THINK EDITED BY MRS. MARY E. BRYAN. A MOTHER’S LOVE. And feel herself new-born, In its existence lose her own, And live and breathe in it alone; This is a mother’s love. To mark its growth from day to day, Its opening charms admire, Catch from its eye the earlest ray Os intellectual fire; To lend a finger when it walks; This is a mother’s love. —James Montgomery. CHAT “Not necessarily so, Mrs. T.” “Don’t you think the nurse can wait on him and give the medicine as well as I?” “I —suppose so, Mrs. T.” “I have an engagement to play pro gressive euchre tonight, and if I don’t go the others will be disappointed. And the ladies prize for this evening is perfectly lovely—a silver mounted shell comb. I have set my heart on winning it. Goodbye, mama’s little man. Don’t cry. I shall be back pres ently.” She stooped and kissed the child’s hot brow. “Mama, don’t go; Mama please stay with me,” pleaded the boy, but his weak voice was not heard or heeded as she swept out of the room. Mama had gone—gone to indulge in idle chatter and try to win a shell comb. Later, the child became delirious, and called for her again and again. I stayed with him and watched his symptoms anxiously, rendering all the relief in my power. It was past mid night when his mother returned. The remedies that had been given him had produced relaxation and he was asleep. She looked at him and said lightly: “Oh, he is all right. I felt sure he wasn’t very sick. Well, I won the prize,” and she held out the silver mounted comb. Wholly Devoid of Mother Instinct. There are some women —usually among the erring class, who seem to feel a positive hatred for their ba bies. In a maternity (charity hospital) on Blackwell’s Island in New York I saw an instance of this. The large, long room was filled with the cots of mothers —mostly unfortunates, young girls with their infants beside them. The nurses were sweet-faced young women whose solicitude for the ba bies and the tender way they handled them made me feel they had mother hearts. One of them was talking to me, telling me of a peculiar case, when I noticed that she often glanced around the room. She said: “We have to be watchful; some of these women are capable of doing their babies a hurt.” The next minute I saw a very young pretty girlj leave hear bed and go towards the water at the other end of the room. The nurse went quickly to the vacated bed and I followed her. On reaching the bedside, we saw that the girl had put the pillow over the baby’s face. Its little face was purple and it was half smothered. The nurse said sternly to the mother: “This is the second time you have tried to kill your baby. Another attempt, and I will report you to the police.” Another instance was one I saw in The Golden Age for May Bth, 1913 an emergency hospital in New York. In the emergency hospital the women patients are dismissed after three weeks and they must take their ba bies with them. As I entered, I saw a young nurse kneeling beside a bas ket that was placed near the radia tor. The basket contained the very smallest mite of humanity I ever saw. It was not as long as one’s hand and looked like a small doll. Os course it could not be dressed. It was wrapped first in soft carded cot ton, then in wool. The nurse was feeding it by means of a small syr inge which contained, she told me, warm, sweetened water with a drop of whiskey in it. As I looked on she raised her head and exclaimed delightedly: “It is swallowing, don't you see? Oh, I wish it would live!” ‘‘Will it —can it live?” I asked. “I am afraid not,’ she answered sadly. She pointed out the mother to me and I walked across to the cot she indicated. A young, hard face looked at me from the pillow. Thinking to please her, I said, “I have been seeing the nurse feed your little baby and it is swallowing the food.” She frown ed and made a gesture of impatience. “Is that thing still alive!” she ex claimed. “Why dont’ they let it die?” A Baby Shelter “Mother.” But the most perfect mother I ever saw was unmarried and had never had a child. She was a young Southern woman superintendent of one of the high class Baby Shelters under the auspices of wealthy church people. The children, ranging from early ba byhood to six years old, were all born in wedlock, the offspring of poor par ents, and were either orphans or half orphans, fatherless with mothers who were obliged to do out-of-home work. What that Virginia girl did not know about the care, management and disposition of children was not worth knowing. The children did not cry. Often as I visited the pleasant place, I never heard one of the thirty little ones cry. To be sure, they had noth ing to tret them. They were carefully attended to as to clothing, bathing, sleeping (each in a snow white enam eled crib), exercise and play. They had a large play room with all kinds of toys and a piano. This Shelter was also a training for mothers out side, as nearly every child had a “lit tle mother” among the young daught ers of the rich patrons, who brought it fine toys she had tired of and good out-grown clothing—and took it to drive twice a week. The little moth ers were very solicitious about their children, and brought fruit and flow ers to those who fell sick (a rare oc currence) and were transferred at once to the pleasant hospital room. Mothers in the Foundling Homes. Not all unfortunate mothers are wanting in maternal instinct. In the New York Foundling Home, where there are several thousand babies, I saw a young woman of splendid phy sique, nursing at her breast two thriv ing babies —one of them her own, the other one of the many unmothered lit tle ones. She was looking down at them and smiling affectionately. “I hardly know which one I love hest,” she said. The mothers of these unfathered children who can be induced to stay and care for their babies for a year at least, are encouraged to do so. In the smaller foundling homes estab lished and kept up by charitable or church societies, the mothers (who are always first offenders, none others are admitted) are required to stay a year in the home where they may re ceive training in their duties as moth ers and also instruction in all kinds of domestic work. Every facility is given them. In the summer, children and mothers are taken to summer homes with beautiful and wholesome environments. One of these summer homes which I visited, near New Ro chelle, had green pastures in which cows were browsing, vegetable gar dens and large shady yard surround ing the cool and comfortable build ings. The mothers of the babies help ed do all the domestic work, milking, butter making, cultivating vegetables, laundering, cooking, etc., and they were trained in domestic work as well as in the care of their children. Training to be Mothers. Speaking of training for mother hood, this should be an important part of every girl’s education. So many marry without any due sense of the responsibilities and duties of a moth er. As a consequence the children are unwisely managed in babyhood and badly trained from the beginning. There is just now an epidemic of boy and girl marriages, which should be stopped by the law. No girl should be allowed to marry until she is eighteen and has received instruction in the duties of wife, mother and home keeping. The newspapers are giving unwise prominence to the crude utterances of child wives who declare how happy they are and what ideal homes they intend to make. The next thing heard of them is in the divorce court. In our little town there is a child wife who married at fourteen and is now a mother before she has seen her fifteenth birthday. A friend of mine, hearing the baby was ailing, went to see her. They are poor, and the hus band works hard at a trade for a small income. The writer found the tiny baby badly neglected as to suit able clothing, bathing and other nec essary attentions. The windows were fast closed; they were kept so all the time the child wife told her. “He” had said they must not be opened for fear of taking cold. So the sweet, fresh air was excluded from the close, stuf fy room. The child mother talked of her big, beautiful doll and had the visitor take it from the trunk and admire it. “I teased him into getting it; it cost two dollars and I have had lots of fun dressing it and playing THE SPREAD OF TYPHOID FEVER and other infectious diseases to other mem bers of the family and to neighbors can be safely prevented by dissolving a tea spoonful of Tyree’s Antiseptic Powder in two teacupsful of boiling water, adding this to each stool and keeping stools pro tected from flies. A similar solution in tepid water makes a grateful sanitary sponge bath for the patient. Get a 25c box from any drug store (or by mail). If not pleased return the empty box and get your money back. J. S. Tyree, Chemist, Washington, D. C. Mr. Tyree will mail a liberal sample of his powder and full di rections, free, to any who write mention ing this paper.