Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-02-18
WORN OUT.
Pathetic Story, With a Lesson for Hum
dreds of Husbands.

AA~D-~esA4S>cs
No, she was not strong, she had never
been very strong. Farmer Grey knew
it when he married her. Eight children
called her mother. She made all their
clothes and did her own homework, and
yet ''mother was not strong"
Farmer Grey said it often, and always
regretfully. Perhaps he was unselfish
enough to wish that she were stronger
for her own sake, but fear not. He was
very robust, active man, and exceed
ingly anxious to ''get along" in the
world. Therefore, fear that his regret
for mothers feebleness was simply a
regret that she could not do more to aid
him in his "getting along" schemes.
She herself regretted that she was not
stronger.
s.Father works so hard" she would
say, 81 feel that am not as much help
to him as might be If. I were real
strong woman"
What more would she have doneP
What more could she have donep And,
most of all, what more should she have
donep
She kept the house in order. She did
a loving. God-fearing mothers duty by
her children. She was up early and to
bed late. She was busy every hour of
the day. She MIXED and made butter,
worked in her garden. cooked for
''hands," raised and sold chickens, but
never had dollar of her own.
She could, and did, "when father was
rushed" go out into the fields and drop
corn for half day, and then come into
her hot, stuffy little kitchen and get din
ner for fourteen people, and yet
'::mother was not strong"
She often wondered if she would ever
be strong. She would sit down on the
kitchen doorstep some nights long after
all the others were in bed dreading the
coming of the morrow, and hoping it
wouldn't be SO very hot. She was
afraid she might s.give out She
would lean her aching head against the
implanted door frame, cross her tired
hands listlessly in her lap, close her
ewes. and s'wonder' about many
things.
Some of her neighbors, with families
only half as large as her own, kept a
strong hired girl in the kitchen the year
around.
She often wondered vaguely how it
would seem to have a girl in her kitchen;
she wondered how it would seem for her
to be away from home over night.
The fondest hope of her life for ten
years had been that she might visit her
mother who lived taUo hu,adred miles
away She said she wouldn't be afraid
to 60 ''such a long ways alone, and
father had often said she should 90
if ''such and such a thing turned out
well'
These things often s'turned out well, -
but mother never made that visit, no,
aeUer.
Zone thing and another she said,
sskept her at home;'' and one day a
message came bringing the news of her
mothers death. She would have liked
to 90 even then to see once more that
beloved face even though it was cold in
death.
But father said that, ''seeing as she
couldn't do any good there was no use
wearing herself out making the trip, ="
so she stayed at home, grateful to father
for his thoughtfulness in not wanting
her to ''wear herself OUT
But she was so utterly worn out one
day, so worn out in body and mind and
soul, that when she clasped her tired
hands over her breast in sleep they were
never unclasped again in this world,
There was no response of: eyes, I'm
coming" when father called her in the
gray dawn of November morning.
One Father who had truly loved her,
and who had helped her bear her heavy
burdens through all these twenty years,
had called her in the night, and think
she was Glad to saw. eyes Father / M
coming "-Detron Free Press.