The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-06-29
SUMNER FESHICS,
What Mamma Wore When She Was
Girl

Girl.
Thirty years ago, when | was a
girl" says mamma. musingly. Il had a
! gown like this in tint, in fabric. in
sheer softness, The prettiest, dainty
thing. | wore t the summer | met
your father;
Into the soft sweet elderly ewes there
steals the far-away look which the chill
dren interpret as half of memory. half
of yearning. For their father is away
in the sweet fields beyond the swell
ing flood" of which the hymn tells so
tenderly, and mother has never
worn anything but sober black. re-
lieved now and then by bit of Opaque
white, since she took up her journey
alone
Yes alone. though the children are
still with her. and most fond and con-
siderate. But they belong to later
generation. She was first" and only
with her husband. and half of herself
was left out of the world when he left
it.
Think of mamma in a giddy gown
like mine, ripples dainty Sue, with her
blond head rising from the foamy cir
conference of her tiny clustering
rutfles, pure as Aphrodite's from the
sea. Mamma in rose-colored lawns,
and filmy muslins, and diaphanous
gauzes, with roses and daisies and
knots OF ribbon all over her tlounces
and furbelows.'
why not, pray?" interposes Irene,
the stately, a girl whose statuesque
pose and grand outlines need neither
rutfies nor tuclls, and who has enough
artistic feeling to choose for herself
styles which accentuate her beauty
rather than belittle its charms: "Whv,
not, pray? One would fancy that YOU
thought mamma had never been girl ="
Mamma seems jNst-mamma." Susie
answered. But | can imagine how She
looked that radiant summer when her
cheeks We're pink and her hair was
brown, and she wore these light pretty
stutfs which have come back again in
time for me. I'm SO glad they have.
I'm so glad the streets in town and the
piazzas at the shore and the mountain
inns will bloom with real rosebud gar
dens of girls this year, and that grave
and Sombre hues have made their eXo-
dus for the present. Mamma. when you
wore organdies and mulls, were you as
silly as your daughter?''
SILLY? l hardly like that adjective
in connection with you. dear heart. I
was noted far and near for my love Of
fun and for my ready laughter. I'm
afraid | giggled "a good deal. The first
question a friend asked on meeting me-
after twenty years, was, Do you laugh
as much as you used TOP
Sues apple-blossom face looks
thoughtful for an instant. Not long,
however. The summer is before her,
and the dainty summer toilets awaited
planning and fashioning, and the in
terest she took in this was the wide
awake, healthy interest of girl whose
heart had not yet been touched by an
absorbing outside element.
She and Irene had made a tour of the
shops, admiring the novelties, scan
ming their possibilities, comparing the
fragile and airy stuffs of the season
with the deeper tones and thicker tex
lures of the last season. The mother
was glad that her girls were still 50
entirely her own, knowing as she did
that for them, as for her, the Eden
gate would one day swing wide, the
Eden rose break into bloom.
In some far-of future day one of
them she beheld, as in "A vision, musing-
ly lingering some delicate product of
the LOOM and speaking to girls of her
own as she had herself done, of the
summer | met your father. "-Har-
pers Bazaar