The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1894-03-10

one of them, new songs and marriage
suppers, and harps, and white horses
with kings in the stirrups, and gold
en- candlesticks, that we know the
heavenly residence of our mother
is superb, is unique, is colonnaded
is domed, is empowered, is foun tanned,
is glorified beyond 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 contrast between that celes-
tial surrounding and her once earthly
surroundings. What a work to bring
up family in the old-time way. with
little or no hired help, except, perhaps
for the washing day, or for the swine
slaughtering. commonly called kill
ing day." There was then no reading
of elaborate treatises on the best
modes of rearing children, and then
leaving it all to hired help, with one OF
two visits day to the nursery to see il
the principles announced are being
carried ont The most of those old
folks did the sewing, the washing,
the mending. the darning, the patch.
iag, the millinery, the mantua-
making, and housekeeping and
in hurried harvest-time helped spread
the hay or tread down the load in the
NOW. They were at the same time
caterers, tailors, doctors, chaplains
and nurses for a whole household all
together down with measles or scarlet
fever, or round the house with whoop-
and groups and run-round
fingers and ear aches, and all the in
fantile 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 cradles of our day, which,
wound up. will go hour after hour for
the solace of the young slumberer, il
was weary foot on the rocker, some
times half the day or half the night
observation-disclosures. Instead OF
our drug stores filled with all the
wonders of materia medica, and
called up through a telephone
with them the only apothecary
short of four miles ride was the
garnet, with its punches of peppermint
and pennyroyal and catnip and mus
tard and camomilc flowers, which were
expected to do everything. Just think
of it. Fifty years of preparing break.
fast, dinner and supper. The CHIEF
music they heard was that of spinning
wheel and rockingham. Tagged out,
and with ankles swollen.
Those old-fashioncd mothers-if any
persons ever fitted appropriately into
a good easy, comfortable heaven, they
were the folks, and they got there and
they are rested. They wear no spec.
tacles, tor they have their third sigh,
las they lived long enough on earth
to get their second sight-and they dc
not have to pant for breath after going
up the emerald stairs of the eternal
palace, at whose window they now
sit waiting for news from the battle.
But If anyone keeps on asking the
question: where's mother?n / an
swer, she is in your present character.
The probability is that your physical
features 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. Dur.
ing the first ten years of your life you
were almost 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 ten. Then and there is the inn
preston made for virtue or vice, for
truth or falsehood, for bravery OF
for religion or skepticism.
Suddenly start out from behind q
door and brighten the child and
you may shatter his nervous sys-
tenn for a lifetime. During the
first ten years you can tell him
enough spook stories to make him a
coward till he dies. Act before him
as though Friday were an unlucky day,
and it were baleful to have thirteen al
the table, or see the moon over the
left shoulder, and he will never re.
cover from the idiotic superstitions.
You may give that girl before she is
ten years old fondness for dress that
will make her mere dummy brame, ,
or fashion-plate for forty years. Eze.
kiel, xvi, A. ''As is the mother so is
her daughter" Before one decade has
passed you can decide whether that
boy shall be Shylock or George
Peabody. Boys and girls are general.
~ echoes of fathers and mothers.
What an incoherent thing for moth.
er out of temper to punish child for
getting mad, or for father who
smokes to shut his boy up in
a dark closet because he has
found him with an old stump of a
cigar in his mouth; or for that mother
to rebuke her daughter for staring al
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
poets loose moral character was de-
cided before he left the nursery, and
his schoolmaster in the school room
overheard this conversation: 'sBryon,
your mother is fool" and he an.
swered: 81 know it." You can hear
through all the heroic life of Senator
Sam Houston the words of his mothe-,
when she in the war of 1912 put 4
musket in his hand and said; There,
my son, take this and never disgrace
1t, for remember had rather ali
my sons should fill one honorable
grave than that one of them should
turn his back on an enemy. Go. and
rer,na,u her too that while The d<o,