Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1894-01-20

or slate or book or overshoe is lost, I'M
til at night, all outof breath, the young
ssters come in and shout until you can
hear them from cellar to garnet and
] from front door.to the back fence of the
back yard, Where's mother?' In
4 deed child's life is SO full of that
question that if he be taken away one
of the things that the mother most
atmisses and the silence that most op-
Z presses her is the absence of that Ques
i tion, which she will never hear on earth
isagain, except she hears it in dream
! which sometimes restores the nu yery
Isjust as it was, and then the voice comes
jsback SO natural, and so sweet, and SO in
lznocent, and SO inqui1ing that the dream
lsbreaks at the words, Where s niother?"
IS If that question were put to most of
us this morning, we would have to say,
IF we spoke truthfully, like Sisera's
mother, she is at the palace window.
/ She has become queen unto God for
sger, and she is pulling back the rich
folds of the kings upholstery to look
down at US. We are not told the par
/ ficulars about the residence of Sis
erals mother, but there is in that scene
sinfthe book of Judges so much about
eshhroideries and needlework and ladies
ii waiting that we know her residence
must have been princely and palatial.
So we have no minute and particular
description Of the palace at whose win
dow our glorifed mother sits, but there
issso much in the closing chapters OF
the good old book about crowns, and,
pearls big enough to make gate out of
one of them, new songs and marriage
suppers, and harps, and white horses
with kings in the stirrups, and golden
caDdlesticks that we know the heaven
lyresidence of our mother is superb, is
unique, is colonnaded, is domed, is en-
powered, is fountained, is glorified be-
yond the power of pencil or pen or
tongue to present, and in the window of
that palace the mother sits watching
for: news from the battle. What con-
trast between that celestial surrounding
and: her once earthly surroundings!
What a work to bring up family. in
theold time way, with but little or no
hired help, except perhaps for the wash
ing.tlay or for the swine slaughtering,
commonly called the killing day!''
OLD FASHIONED MOTHERS.
There was then no reading of elabo-
rate treatises on the best modes of rear
ing children, and then leaving it all to
hired help, with one or two visits a day
to the nursery to see if the principles
announced are being carried out. The
most of those old folks did the sewing,
the washing, the mending, the darn
ing. the patching, the millinery, the
mantua making, the housekeeping, and
in hurried harvest time helped spread
the hay or tread down the load in the
NOW. They were at the same time ca
terers,. tailors, doctors, chaplains and
nurses for a whole household all togeth-
er down with measles or scarlet fever,
or round the house with whooping
coughs and groups and runround fin
gers and eareches and all the infantile
lsdistegpers which at selie timsswoop
upon every large household. Some of
those mothers never got rested in this
world. Instead of the self rocking era
dies of our day, which, wound up, will
20 hour after hour for the solace of the
young slumberer, it was weary foot on
the rocker sometimes half the day or
half the night rock-rock rock
rock. Instead of our drug stores filled
with all the wonders of materia med
lea and called up through telephone,
with them the only apothecary short of
four miles ride was the garnet. with
its punches of peppermint and penny
royal and catnip and mustard and cam
omiie flowers, which were expected to
do everything. Just think of it! Fifty
years of preparing breakfast, dinner
and supper. The chief music they
heard was that of spinning wheel and
rocking chair. Tagged out, headachy
and with ankles swollen. Those old
fashioned mothers-if any persons ever
fitted appropriately into good, easy,
comfortable heaven, they were the
folks, and they got there, and they are
rested. They wear no spectacles, for
they have their third ,sight-as they
lived long enough on earth to get their
second sight-and they do not have to
pant for breath after going up the en-
erald stairs of the Eternal palace, at
whose window they now sit waiting for
news from the battle.
But if any one keeps on asking the
question where's mother?" answer,
She is in your present character. The
probability is that your physical fea-
lures suggest her. If there be seven
children in household at least six of
them look like their mother, and the
older you get the more you will look
like her. But | speak now especially
of your character and not of your looks.
This is easily explained. During the
first 10 years of your life you were al
most all the time with her, and your
father you saw only mornings and
nights. There are no years in any life
so important for impression as the first
10. Then and there is the impression
made for virtue or vice, for truth or
falsehood, for bravery or cowardice, for
religion or skepticism. Suddenly start
out from behind a door and brighten
the child, and you may shatter his nerv-
Gus system for lifetime. During the
first 10 years you can tell him enough
spook stories to make him coward till
he dies Act before him as though Fri
day were an unlucky day, and it were
baleful to have IS at the table, or see
the moon over the left shoulder, and he
will never recover from the idiotic Sill
perstitions. You may give that girl be-
fore she is 10 years old fondness for
dress that will make her mere dun
my Frame" or fashion plate, for 40
years. Ezekiel xvi, "A, LAS is the mother
60 10 -bar douohta ., Rnfora one decade