Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1898-01-06

is anything too good for my mother,
affectionately.
Mrs. Bascom smiled back bravely,
but she looked wistfully al the carpet,
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
new trunk, she was as stripped and
desolate an old woman as ever swal-
lowed her tears and smiled. 1t was
as if grapevine had been prepared
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 writing-for pleasure-had
been crowded out of her busy country
life, and when leisure came she was
too old to form new habit.
Mrs. John Bascom went down to
st. Louis at the time of the fair, near
ly year after the breaking up. She
stayed three weeks.
The night she came back she had
plain talk with her husband.
John" she said, in answer to his
inquiries, mother is dying of home
sickness She never makes com
plant, but she is just as unhappy as
she can be-I know she is.
why, Lizzie" John Bascom raised
shocked face. "You don't mean that
Sally isn't good to her -
sally is just a. 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 of 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 coul=
try 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 absolutely
nothing to do Then she expects her
to be happy. And it isn't in human
nature to beat least it isn't in old
peoples nature.
81 wish you could see mothers
room, John-Brussels carpet, lace cur
tains, elegant rugs and folding bed.
And mother is horribly afraid of that
bed-thinks she is going to be folded
up in it some night. She wants Sally
to give her 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 feathers 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 feather-bed right down. But
Sally was quite stiff about it-said she
didn't think it best for mother to sleep
on feathers-it was not healthy.
"And then the next day she went
down town and bought down quilt
for mothers bed-paid twenty dollars
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.
"Tll send that feather-bed to moth
er tomorrow" he said, "and write to
Sally to get her a decent Christian
bedstead to match her set and I'll pay
for it p
"Oh, no, you won't, John. Mother
wouldn't have you do it for the world.
But she misses her things, l know.
We were on the street one day and
passed by a secondhand store. l no
ticed that mother had stopped and l
went back. She was standing there
looking at a sheet-iron stove, and the
tears were running down her cheeks.
oh, Lizzie, she said, this is Just like
my old Evening Star. "
John Bascom blew his nose vigor-
ously.
But, John" continued his wife,
at isn't just the home things that
mother misses-it is the home feeling.
Without meaning to do it, Sally never
lets 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 never will let
mother do thing. She says the SER