Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-01-27
YOUNG MOTHERS TRIALS.
All JOY While the Nurse Remains, Appre
henslOn When She Denarts.

An JOY While the Nurse Remains. Appre-
henslon When She Departs.
Here is what a woman who has
brought up large family and is grand
mother to many children said the other
day: There is no one in the world to
whom all the sympathy in my nature
reaches out as it does to a woman who
is mother for the first time, especially
young woman-one who has always
depended upon some one else, usually
upon her own mother-when she finds
herself Left alone with the awful re-
sponsibility in the cradle"
She was gray-haired, with face full
of soft lines that wrote her life history.
She was turning over the contents of q
bureau drawer that had been for long
years closed and locked
She took up tiny gown yellow with
time and perfumed with lavender.
How well / remember nv first ex-
perience," she went on. 1.-The baby
was very welcome, and such fine boy
Every body praised him. His father was
justly proud of him-and his mother
cried for joy"
She turned the little gown over and
seemed lost in meditation.
1T was all joy while the nurse re-
NAMED" she continued. Il can see her
now gathering up her things to 60 to
another case. l can see the young
mother, pale, faint-hearted, forlorn,
watching the kind soul who had been
more than mother to her, as she folded
up the long apron and rolled it around
I 20
them and beg her not to leave me. She
knew the struggle that was going on.
She never once looked. She had been
there before.
1.-THE girl-mother's heart was in her
throat, swelled to bursting. When it
became normal it had become the heart
of woman-well launched upon the
sea of maternity The young mother
who had so short time before shed
tears of joy over her first-born, now
cried in earnest because she didn't know
what to do with him.
1.-THE first ordeal was the bath. 1t
seemed so easy in the hands of the
nurse, SO dreadfully difficult in mine.
Next came the visitor with advice.
Everyone who called came for the ex-
press purpose of supervising, making
suggestions, correcting mistakes and
inspecting the flannels. They asked to
see his feet-a mere pretext to find out
what he had on, and how much en-
broidery adorned his garments
zone said: You pin him too tight
he can hardly breathe In an agony
OF fear his clothes were all loosened.
Whereat the next inspector who hap
pened in would exclaim: You pin him
SO loose-he will be pot bellied.' This
last horror was of all calamities to be
avoided, and again his clothes were
frightened.
1.-THE next good soul would recon-
mend saffron tea for rash. | would no
sooner give it than some well-disposed
caller would rehearse the benefits of
peppermint and aniseseed tea.
''When he needed to be fed 1 was SIM
ply swamped. Everybody had an ex-
perience to relate, and no two expert
ences were alike. One good angel said:
You make his food too rich;' another,
You don't make it rich enough One
said: Give paregoric;' another said:
Don't One said: Look out for Group
another said: Measles are in the next
house.
Then his father would make sugges-
tions. L told you so three weeks ago
he would say when a new experiment
was under way. You wouldn't be-
ieve me, but when some oil hen comes
in and caclIles you take her advice
when you scorned mine
$50 we learn to be mothers as we
learn everything else by experience"
went on the woman with gray hair and
the wrinkles.
"And sometimes, when l meet pale,
weary-looking young mother trundling
a baby-carriage, I feel like saying to
her: Come, my dear, let me take your
baby and keep it for you tonight, SO
you can get good-night's rest, for you
need it,"
Then she folded up the little gown,
yellow with time and perfumed with
lavender, and laid it away in the draw
er. Then She wiped her specialization
they were moist.-N. Y. Recorder.
HUMOROUS.