Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1897-12-09

upon the affections
You wouldn't have any use FOL
this new rag carpet, would you
daughter ?"
None in the world, mother"
"l didn't know but you might put
it in the back part of the house.
took heap Of rains With this carpet,
and nearly the last thing father did
was to bring it home from the weav,
er's. He took such an interest i'm il
when | was making it, father did
You don't think you'd better put il
down In my room, do you, Sally?"
"Oh, no, mother; it wouldn't bc
in keeping with anything in the room
And then I've just put down new
body Brussels. I don't feel that
there is anything too good for my
mother" affectionately.
Mrs. BascOm smiled back bravely
but she looked wistfully at the car.
pet, after all.
| And so it went.
The things were all sold and when
Mrs. Bascom started for st. Louis
with her earthly belongings packed
in q new trunk, she was as stripped
and desolate an old woman as ever
swallowed her tears and smiled. II
was as If grapevine had been pre-.
pared for tranSplanting by carefully
shaking the earth from its roots and
clipping its tendrils neatly away.
They did not hear from her often
Sally had said she would have all the
time there was now to write letters
but letter-writing-fo for pleasure-had
| Inl
try life, and when leisure came she
was too old to form new habit.
Mrs. John Bascom went down &c
st. Louis at the time of the fair,
nearly year after the breaking up
She stayed three weeks.
The night she came back she hal q
plain talk with her husband.
"John," she said, in answer to his
inquiries. "mother is dying Of home.
sickness She never makes a com.
plaint, but she is just as unhappy as
she can bel know she is"
Why, Lizzie!' John Bascom
raised shocked face. "You don't
mean that Sally isn't good to her !"
Sally is just as good to mother as
she can be; that is, she is as good to
her as she knows how to be. But,
John, Sally has no more understand.
ing or old peoples feelings than |
have of-FrenCh art! 1t is like this
Sally wants mother to have an easy
time; so she takes her out Of an active
country life, full of cares for other
people, and puts her in her own far.
away city home, where there is not a
familiar object and where she has alb
solutely nothing to do. Then she ex-
poets her to be happy. And it isn't
in human nature to beat least it
isn't in old peoples nature.
i wish you could see mothers
room, John-Brussels carpet, lace
curtains, elegant rugs and folding
bed. And mother is horribly afraid
of that hed-thinks she is going to be
folded up in some night. She wants
Sally to give her a bedstead, but
Sally said this matched the set and
was perfectly safe. So poor mother
goes to bed in fear and trembling
every night.
Then, of course, it has a mattress
and mother says she gets so cold in
the night that her bones Just ache
and she lies there and thinks how
good it would feel to have the feath.
ers come up around her back. Isn't
that pitiful, John? You know she
always slept on feathers. | spoke tO
Sally about it, and told her l would
get you to send her a feather bed
right down. But Sally was quite
stiff about it-said she didn't think
it best for mother to sleep on feath.
ers--it was not healthy.
And then the next day she went
down town and bought a down quilt
for mothers bed-paid twenty dol.
lars for it Wasn't that more like
her? Sally wants mother to be
happy, but she wants her to be happy
in her way"
John Bascom got up eXcitedly.
"I'll send that feather-bed to
mother Tomorrow" he said, land
write to Sally to get her decen,
Christian bedstead to match her sci
and I'll pay for it -
"Oh, no, you won't, John. Mother
wouldn't have you do it for the world
But she misses her things, 1 know
We were on the street one day and
, passed by second hand store. Ino.
ticed that mother had stopped and
went back. She was standing there
looking at sheet-iron stove, and the
tears were running down her cheeks
'Oh, Lizzie,' she said, 'this is jus,
like my old Evening STAR"
John Bascom blew his nose vigor.
ously.
"But, john" continued his wife
lit isn't just the home things that
mother misses-it is the home feel.
ing. Without meaning to do it,
Sally never let's her lose sight of the
fact that she is living in her house
Old people like to potter around and
feel that they are of use. Sally new el
will let mother do a thing. She says
the servants are there 70 do the work
and she wants her to rest. And sc
she rests till she is tired to DEATH
She says she just longs sometimes tc
get hold of dishpan full of dishes
Sally had told me before abou,
mothers putting on gingham apron
and going into the kitchen the first
Monday morning to do the dishes
and let the girl go at the washing
and how she had had to tell her
plainly that she never let anybody
intervene with the servants work
Think Of making her feel that she
was interfering, when she wanted t.
help!
One day l was sewing in her room
She began cutting the scraps into
arpet-rags-from sheer force OF
habit I could sea GI,ye bean do.