The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-06-27
American Mothers.


cred girl in the world might conceive
an unWise passion, but the maternal
instincts, if properly alert would be
aware of 1t, and the maternal synpa-
thy and solicitude would avert it's Gull
minating in a tragedy.
L confess that a good, strong senti-
ment of disgust mingles with my pity
when read Of some distressed mother
of an erring daughter who declares
that she was not aware that her
daughter even had an admirer.
Why do parents SO quickly forget
their own youth? 1t is incredible that
the sweetest and most romantic part Of
life should fade from memory so wholly
as it seems to do with the majority Of
married people. It is because the pas
sion Of youth in sort Of intoxication
which, like the drunkenness of wine
blurs the memory.
L have observed that it is not infre-
quent for men who have sowed a full
crop of wild oats to show both amaze.
ment and indignation when daughter
even indicates a propensity to admire
the opposite sex. Yet the laws of ma
tUre are constantly proving that daugh-
tiers more frequently than sons resem-
bic their fathers. One would think
that man who had passed through
the WhlrlW1ndS of passionate youth
might consider it a sacred duty to care
fully guide and tenderly protect his
children through a similar period. not
by keeping them under lock and kew
but by giving them well chosen associ-
ates and talking with them freely and
wisely regarding these associations.
Really, the American fathers and
mothers are droll beings. One would
ma them very amusing We're it not
that the farce they play so often ends
in a ira gedy.
met beautiful and highly cultured
young woman not many years ago who
impressed me as a girl with a secret
or a history. She lived alone with
her mother, who confessed to me that
Marie mad always been strange girl
who was hard to understand She
fancied she had passed through some
love affair while at school which had
prematurely saddened her, though she
had never mentioned it,
One day 1 invited the young lady to
dine with me. | was quite alone when
she came. Before she had been fifteen
minutes in my warm rooms L discover
&c that she was too intoxicated to sit
up. Several hours passed ere she re-
covered her senses sufficiently to tell
me her history A kind-hearted but
unwise old lady where she boarded
while at school taught her to take a
hot whisky "toddy'' when very tired
with her studies She had acquired the
become a fixed one.
Il think mamma suspects that I take
stimulants at times" she said. but
she has never spoken Of it to me. and
[ have never had the courage to tell
her about it or to ask her to help me
to overcome the habit"
The girl made me promise solemnIv
not to tell her mother of the occurrence
in my rooms, as it would unnecessarily
nlortify her. I gave the promise only
after the girl gave me her oath not to
touch stimulants again. 1 lost sight
Of her for nearly a year. Then she
drifted across my path again, ruined
desperate creature, crushed with the
most awful tragedy that can come into
a young woman's life-a tragedy di-
rectly due to her habit of using slim
ulants. Of course, 1 was sorry for the
mother. And yet is pity due a mother
who could live under the same roof for
two or three years with a daughter who
was a victim Of drink without suspect
ing it, or, if she suspected, who felt the
matter was too delicate a one to men
ton?
Another young girl whom 1 knew fell
i'll of terrible complication of liver
maladies.
How could you let your daughter
get into such a state?' asked the ply
stefan of the mother.
Really, DOCTOR the mother replied
with great dignity, II brought up my
daughter to be too modest to talk to
any one-even to me-of Stomachs, liv-
ers and digestive organs"
So the daughter died, but the modesty
of the family was sustained.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.