her face. She saw no prospects of relief from care for herself in the future; nothing but increasing poverty, homelessness, and not a cent in the savings-bank. Yet she never complained. No one heard her denounce her shiftless husband, the real cause of all her sufferings. She literally gave up her life to her family, until there was nothing left but the ashes of a burned-out existence, nothing but the shell of a once enchantingly beautiful and noble woman.
Ah, this is heroism—to see all the dreams of girlhood fade away, nearly everything of value go out of the life, and yet to bear up under it all with sublime courage, heavenly patience, superb dignity, a wonderful mental poise and optimism. If this is not heroism, there is none on this earth.
What is the giving of one’s life in battle or in a wreck at sea to save another, in comparison with the perpetual sacrifice of a living death lasting for half a century or more? How the world’s, heroes dwindle in comparison with the mother heroine!
Who but a mother would make such sacrifices, drain her very life-blood, all her energy, everything, for her children, and yet never ask for or expect compensation?
There is no one in the average family, the value of whose services begins to compare with those of the mother, and yet there is no one who is more generally neglected or taken advantage of. She must always remain at home evenings, and look after the children, when the others are out having a good time. Her cares never cease. She is responsible for the housework, for the preparation of meals; she has the children’s clothes to make or mend, there is company to be entertained, darning to be done, and a score of little duties which must often be attended to at odd moments, snatched from her busy days, and she is often up working long after every one else in the house is asleep.
No matter how loving or thoughtful the father may be, the heavier burdens, the greater anxieties, the weightier responsibilities of the home, of the children, always fall on the mother. Indeed, the very virtues of the good mother are a constant temptation to the other members of the family, especially the selfish ones, to take advantage of her. If she were not so kind, so affectionate and tender, so considerate, so generous and ever ready to make all sorts of sacrifices for others; if she were not so willing to efface herself; if she were more self-assertive; if she stood up for and demanded her rights, she would have a much easier time.
But the members of the average family seem to take it for granted that they can put all their burdens on the patient, uncomplaining mother; that she will always do anything to help out, and to enable the children to have a good time; and in many homes, sad to say, the mother, just because of her goodness, is shamefully imposed upon and neglected. “Oh, mother won’t mind, mother will stay at home.” How often we hear remarks like this from thoughtless children!
It is always the poor mother on whom the burden falls; and the pathetic thing is that she rarely gets much credit or praise.
Many mothers in the poor and working classes practically sacrifice all that most people hold dearest in life for their children. They deliberately impair their health, wear themselves out, make all sorts of sacrifices, to send a worthless boy to college. They take in washing, go out house-cleaning, do the hardest and most menial work, in order to give their boys and girls an education and the benefit of priceless opportunities that they never had; yet, how often, they are rewarded only with total indifference and neglect!
Some time ago I heard of a young girl, beautiful, gay, full of spirit and vigor, who married and had four children. Her husband died penniless, and the mother made the most heroic efforts to educate the children. By dint of unremitting toil and unheard of sacrifices and privations she succeeded in sending the boys to college and the girls to a boarding-school. “When they came home, pretty, refined girls and strong young men, abreast with all the new ideas and tastes of their times, she was a worn-out, commonplace old woman. They had their own pursuits and companions. She lingered among them for two or three years, and then died, of some sudden failure of the brain. The shock woke them to consciousness of the truth. They hung over her, as she lay unconscious, in an agony of grief. The oldest son, as he held her in his arms, cried: ‘You have been a good mother to us!’ ‘Her face colored again, her eyes kindled into a smile, and she whispered: You never said so before, John.’ Then the light died out, and she was gone.”
Who can ever depict the tragedies that have been enacted in the hearts of American mothers, who have suffered untold tortures from neglect, indifference, and lack of appreciation?
What a pathetic story of neglect many a mother’s letters from her grown-up children could tell! A few scraggy lines, a 'few sentences now and then, hurriedly written and mailed—often to ease a troubled conscience —mere apologies for letters, which chill the mother heart.
There are plenty of wealthy men in this country who owe everything to the mothers who made all sorts of sacrifices for their rearing and education. When they became prosperous, these men neglected their devoted mothers, but came to their senses at their funerals. Then they spent more money on expensive caskets, flowers, and emblems of mourning than they had spent on their poor, loving, self-sacrificing mothers for many years while alive. Men who, perhaps, never thought of carrying flowers to their mothers in life, pile them high on their coffins. There is nothing which pains a mother so much as ingratitude from the children for whom she has risked her life, and to whose care »and training she has given her best years. '
I know men who owe their success in life to their mother; who have become prosperous and influential, because of the splendid training of the self-sacrificing mother, and whose education was secured at an inestimable cost to her, and yet they seldom think of taking her flowers, confectionery, little delicacies, or taking her to a place of amusement, or of giving her a vacation, or bestowing upon her any of the little attentions and favors so dear to a woman’s heart. They seem to think she is past the age for these things, that she no longer cares for them, that about all she expects is enough to eat and drink, and the simplest kind of raiment.
These men do not know the feminine heart which never changes in these respects, except to grow more appreciative of the little attentions, the little considerations, and thoughtful acts which meant so much to them in their younger days.
Not long ago I heard a mother, whose sufferings and sacrifices for her children during a long and terrible struggle with poverty should have given her a monument, say, that she guessed she’d better go to the old ladies’ home and end her days there. What a picture that was! An old lady with white hair and a sweet, beautiful face; with a wonderful light in her eye; calm, serene, and patient, yet dignified, whose children, all of whom are married and successful, made her feel as if she were a burden. She had no home of her own, not a single piece of furniture, or any of the things which are so dear to the feminine heart. Think of this old woman, who, in order to bring up and educate and fit for successful careers half a dozen ungrateful, selfish children, had made sacrifices that were simply heartrending, receiving, in her old age, only a stingy monthly allowance from her prosperous sons! They live in luxurious homes, but have never offered to provide a home for the poor, old rheumatic, broken-down mother, who for so many years slaved for them. They put their own homes, stocks, and other property in their wives’ names, and while they pay the rent of their mother’s meagerly furnished rooms and provide for her actual needs, they apparently never think what joy it would give her to own her own home, and to possess some pretty furnishings, and a few pictures.
I know a mother whose children are in easy circumstances who is obliged to ask them for everything she has in the way of clothing. She is so sensitive, and feels so humiliated because of her dependence, that she waits just as long as she can before she asks for anything; waits until her own sense of decency and self-respect forces her practically to beg from her children.
In many cases men through thoughtlessness do not provide generously for their mothers even when well able to. They seem to think that a mother can live most anywhere, and most anyway; that if she has enough to supply her necessities she is
