The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-05-22

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mothers heart from aching and her
eyes from weeping, and says: you !
need not bear the excruciation any |
longer. Go and sleep. will put the |
defense of marble slab between you !
and that boys outrages. Go now where
the wicked cease from troubling and the |
we ary are at fest?'' At the departure
! OF such mothers let the music be an an
them instead of a dirge. While you
and I hear no sound, yet there are at
this moment tens of thousands OF par
entail hearts breaking. All care was
taken with the boys schooling, all good
counse1s given, and the equipment for
a sober and earnest and useful life was
provided, but it has all gone, and the
foolish son has become the heavines of
his mother.
Much of the poignancy of the parental
grief arises from the ingratitude of such
behavior. What an undertaking it is to
conduct family through the ailments
and exposures of early life! Talk about
the skill demanded of sea captain
commanding a ship across the ocean!
That requires less skill than to navl-
gate young soul in safety across the
infantile and boyhood years. The sick
nesses that assault, the temptations
that entrap, the anxieties that are ex-
cited! Young man, you will never know
what your mother has suffered for you.
You will never know how your father
has toiled for you. You have been in
all their thoughts, in all their plans,
in all their prayers, from the time
your first breath was drawn to this
moments respiration. What they
could do for your health, what they
could do for your happiness, W hat they
could do for your mind, what they could
do for your soul, have been absorbing
! questions To earn livelihood for you
has not always been an easy thing for
J your father. By what fatigues of body
and what disturbances of mind, and long
years of struggle, in which sometimes
the losses were greater than the gains,
he got bread for you, paying for it in the
sweat of his own brow, and the red
: drops of his own hearts blood! He looks
J older than he ought to look at his years,
for it has been work, work. work. Many
J time he felt like giving up the battle,
but then he looked at your helplessness
} and the helplessness of the household,
and then he nerved himself up anew
( and said:
by the help of God I will not stop;
my children must have home and
education and advantages, and COM
Portable starting in the world, and
must get little something ahead, so
: that if am taken away these helpless
s ones will not be turned out on the cold
charities of the world"
| Yes, your father has been good friend
r to you. He has never told any one, and
r he never will tell any one, of the sacri-
g fees he has made for you. And he is
d ready to keep right on until that
l. hand that has been toiling for you all
s these years shall come the very numb
o ness of death. You can not afford to
9 break his heart. But you are doing it.
e Yes, you are. You have driven the
s dagger clear in up to the hilt
l. And your mother-I warrant she has
l. never told you much about the nights
n when you were down with scarlet fever
Y or diphtheria and she slept not wink
e or falling into drowsiness, your first cry
o awakened her, and brought the words
# 'tWhat is it, my dear?" Oh, if the OLD
l. rockingham could speak! Oh, if the
n cradle could only tell it's story of years
d And when you got better, and were fret
d full and hard to please, as is usual in
n convalescence, she kept her patience sc
is well, and were as kind as you were IN
IS reasonable and cross, Oh, midnights o.
k motherly watching, how can you keer
e silence? Speak out and tell that wan
1t dering young man the story he so much
e needs to hear.
n By and by, wonder what has become
/, of our old cradle in which all of US chill
1t dren were rocked! l must ask my siste1
l. when l see her next time. We were
Is large family, and that old cradle wal
e going good many years. remembel
D. just how it looked. It was old fash
h toned and had no tapestry. Its TIVE
e! sides and canopy all of plain wood, bu
g there was great deal of sound sleep
st ing in that cradle, and many aches
le and pains were soothed by it a
1 it moved to and fro by day and night
It Most wildly I remember that TIN
r, rockers, which came out from under TIN
l. cradle, were on the top and side YER
S, smooth, so smooth that they actual,
le glistened. They must have been worl
s, smooth by foot that long ago ceases
a it's journey. How tired the foot tina
ur pressed it must sometimes have got
as But it did not stop for that. It wen
r. right on and rocked for Phebe the frs
and for Dewitt the last. And it was
"a cradle like that, or perhaps c
" modern make and richly upho
Mt stored, in which your mother rookie
es you. Can it be that for all that car
on and devotion you are paying her bac
ar with harsh words, or neglects, or
or wicked life? Then l must tell you tina
as you are the foolish son who is th
ng heaviness of his mother" Better g
,e- home and kiss her and ask her forgive
a ness. Kiss her on the lips that have s
ot often prayed for you. Kiss her on tn
ey forehead that so often ached for yol
tn Kiss her on the eyes that have SO ofte
off wept over you. Better go right ava,
le- for she will be dead before long. An
!