The Brookhaven leader., 1890-03-27

mothers heart from aching and her
eyes from weeping, and says: "You
need not bear the excruciation any
longer. Go and sleep. l will put the
defense Of a marble slab between you
and that boys outrages. Go now where
the wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest?" At the departure
of such mothers let the music be an an
them instead of dirge. While you
and / 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
counsels 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 a 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
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
older than he ought to look at his years,
for it has been work, work, work. Many
a 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 will not stop;
my children must have home and
education and advantages, and a COM
Portable starting in the world, and l
must get little something ahead, so
that if am taken away these helpless
ones will not be turned out on the cold
charities of the world"
Yes, your father has been good friend
to you. He has never told any one, and
he never will tell any one, of the sacri-
fees he has made for you. And he is
ready to keep right on until that
hand that has been toiling for you all
these years shall come the very numb
ness of death. You can not afford to
break his heart. But you are doing it.
Yes, you are. You have driven the
dagger clear in up to the hilt.
And your mother-I warrant she has
never told you much about the nights
when you were down with scarlet fever,
or diphtheria and she slept not wink,
or falling into drowsiness, your first cry
awakened her, and brought the words:
"What is it, my dear?" Oh. if the old
rocking chair could speak! Oh, if the
cradle could only tell its story of years!
And when you got better, and were fret
full and hard to please, as is usual in
convalescence,s she kept her patience so
we'll, and were as kind as you were un-
reasonable and cross. Oh, midnights of
motherly watching, how can you keep
silence? Speak out and tell that wan
dering young man the story he SO much
needs to near.
By and by, I wonder what has become
of our old cradle in which all of US chill
dren were rocked! must ask my sister
when see her next time. We were a
large family, and that old cradle was
going good many years. l remember
Just how it looked. 1t was old fash
ioned and had no tapestry. Its two
sides and canopy all of plain wood, but
there was great deal of sound sleep
ing in that cradle, and many aches
and pains were soothed by it as
it moved to and fro by day and night,
Most wildly / remember that tho
rockers, which came out from under the
cradle, were on the top and side very
smooth, so smooth that they actually
glistened. They must have been worn
smooth by foot that long ago ceased
its journey. How tired the foot that
pressed it must sometimes have got!
But it did not stop for that 1t went
right on and rocked for Phebe the first
and for Dewitt the last. And it was
cradle like that, or perhaps OF
modern make and richly uphol-
stored, in which your mother rocked
you. Can it be that for all that care
and devotion you are paying her back
with harsh words, or neglects, or
wicked life? Then l must tell you that
you are the '.foolish son who is the
heaviness of his mother" Better go
home and kiss her and ask her forgive
ness. Kiss her on the lips that have so
often prayed for you. Kiss her on the
forehead that SO often ached for you.
Kiss her ON the eyes that have so often
wept over you. Better go right away,
for she will be dead before long. And
how will you feel then after you
realize it is your waywardness that
killed her? Romuius made no law
against patricide or the Staying OF
father, matricide, or the Staying OF a
mother, because he considered such
crimes impossible, and for six hundred
years there was not crime of that sort
in Rome. But then came Lucius Ostitus,
and slew his father, proving the crime