The record-union., 1897-08-01
THE COTTAGE MOTHER.
Her Duties at Seaside Home
What Care of Children Entails.

When Josh Billings described the
'skulemarm' he described me, too said
! the plump little woman. for | am the
Stepmother of everybody's children
Children are my business in winter
when 1 am doing church work. looking
/ after delinquent Sunday-school pupils
and admonishing mothers that their
babies should be baptized, and children
/ are my business in summer when | am
at our seaside home. And SO you think
me a matron? Don't make that mistake
Our matron wears spectacles and is old
enough to be my mother. | am only
one of her assistants. Some people call
me the Traveller because / conduct so
many squads of children from the city
to the seaside and back again. but usu-
ally l am called the Cottage Mother,
on account of my having charge of one
of the cottages and the dozen children
who sleep there. Besides the main
building it requires some five or six
cottages to hold us all, as we have a
hundred children or more from the mid
ole of June till the middle of September.
1T is no vacation for me, I can as
sure you. In winter / have my regular
hours for district visiting, but in sum-
mer I haven't an hour that I can call
my own. When I think my children are
all sound asleep, and am beginning to
write a letter or read a newspaper in
my own room, / am sure to hear one or
two of them come tumbling out of bed.
and then | have TO go and settle them
again | myself am hardly ever asleep
before II O'Clock at night, but then |
sleep without dreaming until o'clock
in the morning, when my work begins
again l am the only grown person in
my cottage, but that does not make me
nervous, as there is no likelihood of
burglars.
Sickness among the children? None
worth mentioning. Occasionally some
of them are over-excited at night from
too much play, and then, as they do
not go to sleep the minute their heads
touch their pillows, they begin to
fancy themselves sick and cry for their
mammas, but if 1 sit by them for a
while they will quiet down. and be all
right in the morning when l wake them
up to get them ready for Breakfast. 1
make the big ones help dress the little
ones, but for all that | have some trou-
BILE in getting them into line by the time
the bell rings. Good appettes? l
should say So You wouldn't believe
me if I We're to tell you how many slices
of bread and butter / have seen some
of those children make away with at
one time to say nothing of oatmeal and
milk. They always have meat for din
ner and often they are helped twice to
it. Some of them can hardly wait for
grace to be said. They are not accus-
toned to it, poor little heathens!
appreciate what is done for them? :?
No. you can hardly expect that of chill
dren under - The fact is, they do not
realize how much is done for them
never yet heard child complain of the
heat in a crowded tenement house, and
have often seen bare headed children
playing on the sunny side or the street.
with the mercury in the eighties. How
ever, they certainly enjoy having a
large playground and plenty of trees
to climb and sand to dig in They en-
joy bathing, too-that is, in the ocean;
they do not care for it in a tub or ba-
sin. Every bright day, when the tide
his right for it, they are taken into the
the surf and allowed to splash and dash
to their hearts content, or rather, un
til it would not be safe for them to stay
in any longer No; bathing them is not
one of my duties. 1t is done by the
chaplain of the home, and some days
he has a time of it in getting his flock
of young ducks back to land again.
Rainy days are what I most dread,
as they always mean a headache for
me, with so many little ones cooped up