The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1893-10-14
Thibodatx Sentinel.
WHEN SHE IS OLD.
How OFTEN Does Age Disilluslont the Fond
and Ambitious Mother.

How OFTEN Does Age Disilluslon the Fond
and Ambitious Mother.
Grown old, the mother is sometimes
sorrowfully clear-sighted and freed
from the blessed illusions of youth.
When her children were little things
playing about the door, and tucked
into bed at night, all safe and sweet
and rosy, she had her dreams of their
future. There was nothing too bright.
too brave. too beautiful, for her imagi-
nation and her hope as she looked at
her darlings, sleeping or waking. As
they grew older, went to school, and to
college, or into the shop and the count
ing-room, the mother still dreamed
and planned, still wove her enchanted
stories, in the center of which she saw
her children, heroes, professors, schol-
ars, ~benefactors, champions of the
weak, defenders of the helpless,
ments of the age, and renowned-to-be.
Her Frank, her Charles, her Sydney,
whatever others might do, they were
bound to excel, to stand in the van, to
reap the rewards, to scale the heights,
to discover the long-hidden secrets.
But there dawns a day upon the
mother when, grown old, as wrinkles
and grey hairs testify, she renew the
wonderful keenness and acuteness of
childhood; she sees the dropping of
many masks; she comprehends things
as they are. Past the hour of dream
ing and of castle-building, past the
clouds and the mirage, her vision is
like that of one of Gods angels.
She sees her children not remarkable
in any way above others, not specially
endowed with gift or grace, not grand
or noble beyond the common lot of
men. They are respectable citizens,
honest, Woodworking and patient.
With a wonder half-touched with awe.
the mother beholds the dark hair of
her irst-born streaked with gray, thin
in patches, and notes his early stoop-
ing shoulders and the lines of care on
his forehead. His children are grow
up around him, and his wife is thought
less; she makes many demands on the
silent toiling fellow.
The mother, wiser and tenderer than
once, does not sympathize with her
middle-aged son in spoken words, and
she hints that he is in any way a
disappointment to her. Perhaps she
was to blame. At some turn in the
road, at some critical point, the thing
she did or did not do might have
changed everything. Who can tell?
The mother grown old has a harder
fate than this sometimes. Her chill
dren are not merely comfortable, COM
mOnplace. kindlv-eved neonle doinp
their duty quietly in the state where
God has been pleased to place them.
They are not a credit to her. nor to
their name II their upbringing. Hard,
narrow, selfish, possibly mean, cring-
ing. dishonorable, sordid, the mother
who bore them stands aghast and
shame-stricken at the sight of the men
and women whom her young arms
Graded.
Even then she is pitiful, and when
others turn away in anger or disgust,
she patiently watches, hoping that the
winnowing winds of fate will drive
away their chaff and show some grains
of wheat. The mother in her never
tires, never ceases to love, never for
gets to pray, and it is to her that they
turn when all the world turns against
them; and the children, wandering and
wellnigh worthless. are kept from ut
ter failure and receive their latest OBJ
portunity for repentance and rehabili-
tation through a mothers unfailino
goodness and undying fdelity.-Har-
per's Bazaar.