Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-07-26
THE PAINS OF FEAR.
THE EXQUISITE TORTURE ENDURED
BY THE TlMlD WOMAN.

| The Night Has Its TerrOrs and the Day
Its Dangers-Mothers Who Make Their
Motherhood Long Drawn Agony.
Peril Everywhere.
Think what that poor. dear. timid
woman undergoes who nightly looks
under her bed for the burglar she be-
heves to be secreted there; who goes
round the house after the servants are
abed to see that all is safe. and that no
ticket-of leave man Is profting by his lib
erty to do her harm. With what sense
of dread she locks the doors of those dark,
| underground places into which she dares
not peer Ghosts and robbers-she turns
| the key on both with quick throb and
| trembling hand. then beats a retreat with
| ever the same feeling of nameless terror,
| the same sensation of being followed by
| some vague horror. which she has not the
| courage to turn round and confront.
Night after night this torment is re-
| newed, as unfaiGngly as that which the
old bag inflicted on the merchant Abudah.
If the night has its terrors so has the
day its dangers. Such person as this in
the country dies thousand deaths in
necessary as the other A tramp lettering
assassination after A few harmless COWS
going home to be milked, and driven by
child, are as dangerous as stampede Of
buffalos, heads down and tails aloft. Cat
tie in field. however well worn the pub
lie way across, make that field taboo; for
is not each dull. slow, grazing OK, each
mild eyed milky mother Of the herd"
each tangle poned yearfng calf, as dan
gerous as wild bull. ''man mad, and to
be approached only with caution and in
forceY That distant, barking collie; that
restless. neighing horse prancing up to
the gap IN the hedge. through which he
thrusts his sociably inquisitive nose; that
wayside encampment Of travelling gypsies
all the circumstances of the country are
30 many causes Of fear to the timid Pc
destrian. beating along the public road
for constitutional, and taking no pleas
ure in what she sees.
In carriage she fares no better Up
hill she is sure the horses will jib; down
hill they will slip and fall. or the pole will
break. and then heaven have mercy on
her soul! On the plain road, put to q
sharp trot they will run away; indeed,
they are running away. Ii they whisk
their tails they are about to kick; if they
cock their ears they are sure to shy She
screams at the smallest difference between
them and their driver; and when they
have to meet another carriage. or pass q
numbering cart, she pinches her compan-
Ion black and blue in the spasm of her
fear
The torment Of fear is hard to bear
when it Is centered on ones self What
Is 1t when it spreads itself abroad and in
cludes others-the beloved-in its meshesf
h Ill I'll l.
Every railway journey includes a smash
every sea voyage is a foregone shipwreck;
II an epidemic touches the outside fringes
of the district. it is sure to make leap
into the home where the dear ones live.
The smallest cold is bronchitis; and when
the little people cough they have whoop-
ing cough. no less.
Some mothers make their motherhood q
long drawn agony by the fears with which
they encompass their young Is the nurse
quarter of an hour beyond her usual
timer Straightway the grave is opened
and the cherished and adored lie therein
stark and cold Wild wanderings to and
fro, wild surmises as to what can have
happened, angry rejection of any common
place explanation as to longer walk than |
usual. a longer session under the trees |
than was calculated on, passionate tears |
OF frantic despair. passionate outbursts of |
as frantic wrath; when lol the nurse |
comes quietly up to the house door with |
her charge as fresh as flower and as gay
as lark, and that voluntary descent into
Hades proves itself as futile as it was un-
necessary.
These fears accompany mother of this
uneasy kind all through life When her
boys 60 to school she is sure they will be
mauled by the bigger rufians of their
class MANNED for life in the playground,
overworked, underfed, put into damp
sheets and morally corrupted She suffers
more than they from the dire necessities
Of learning, and wishes that there was a
royal road to knowledge where her dar-
lings could bowl along at railroad speed,
with never a hill to climb nor valley
to descend She thinks the mas
ters cruel and the curriculum inhuman,
and wonders how so much can be ex-
pected from such young brains and grow
ing bodies
All through life it is the same CITY Of
evil The fortunes of war take her sons
here and there and the mother frets over
The possibilities of disaster, as if that pos
,ible event were proven fact and chance
had no side alley for escape. And when
t comes to matrimony the whole thing is
renewed under another name; for surely
vas there never the girl born who was a
it wife for the son of such mother,
While the finest mar extant makes but q
,oor kind of a care taker for her daugh-
er! So she perverts the great gift of love
md the divine glory of maternity into
'courge and not blessing, and weeps
,ehind her mantle of self made mourning
,ecause she has not the courage to believe
lor the common sense to hope.-The Fs-
um. 1