Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-01-27

% we nave 10 minute ana particular
description of the palace at whose win
dow our glorified mother sits, but there
is so 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
candlesticks that we know the heaven
ly residence of our mother is superb, is
unique, is colonnaded, is domed, is en-
powered, is fountained, is glorified te-
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 a family. in
the old time way, with but little or no
hired help, except perhaps for the wash
ing day or for the swine slaughtering.
commonly called the killing dayl'
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 OF two visits 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 AID
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 earaches and all the infantile
distempers which at some time swoop
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
go hour after hour for tho 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 bhnches of peppermint and penny
royal and catnip and mustard and cam
omile 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 a 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 We're 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
faisehood, for bravery or cowardice, for
religion or skepticism Suddenly start
out from behind a door and brighten
the child, aud 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 l3 at the table, or see
the moon over the left shoulder, and he
will never recover from the idiotic So
perstitions. You may give that girl be-
fore she is 10 years old Il fondness for
dress that will make her mere dunn
my frame" or fashion plate, for 40
years. Ezekiel xvi, A, AS is the mother
go is her daughter. Before one decade
has passed you can decide whether that
hoy shall be Shylock or a George
Peabody. Boys and girls are generally
echoes of fathers and mothers. What
an incoherent thing for mother out of
temper to punish a child for getting
mad, or for father who smokes TO shut
his boy up in dark closet because he
has found him with an old stump of
cigar in his mouth, or for that mother
to rebuke her daughter for staring at
herself too much in the looking glass
when the mother has her own mirrors
SO arranged as to repeat her form from
all sides! The great English poet
loose moral character was decided be
fore he left the nursery, and his school
master in the schoolroom overheard this
conversation: Byron. your mother is
a fool, and he answered, Il know it. ;"
You can hear through all the heroic life
of Senator Sam Houston the words Of
his mother when sae in the war of 1912
put musket in his hand and said:
There, my son, take this and never
disgrace it, for remember / had rather
all my sons should fill one honorable
grave than that one of them should turn
his back on an enemy. Go and remem
Der, too, that while the door of my cot
tage is open to all brave men it is al
ways shut against towards. Agrip-
pima, the mother of Nero, murderess.
you are not surprised that her son was
a murderer. Give that child an over
dose of eatechism, and make him recite
verses Of the Bible as punishment.
and make Sunday a bore, and he will
become a stout antagonist Of Chris
tianity. Impress him with the kindness
and the geniality and the loneliness of
religion, and he will be its advocate
and exemplar for all time and eternity.
A few days ago right before our ex-
press train ON the Louisville and Nash
vile railroad the preceding train had
gone down through a broken bridge, l2
cars falling 100 feet and thee con
sumed, | saw that only one span Of the
bridge was down and all the other spans
We're standing. Plan good bridge Of
morals for your sons and daughters,
but have the FIRST span of 10 years DE-