The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1899-01-28
An Ideal Mother.
(By a young girl.)

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Madonna faces. There is certainly
something divine in the face Of
mother with her baby in her arms, but
it is almost impossible to define what
this something is. Her eyes and smile
are full of love and gentleness, and the
very atmosphere about her seems to
be radiant with these attributes.
An ideal mother is one who lives for
her family, but who is not their slave.
She is patient, too, but there is limit
to patience. It is perfectly exasperat-
ing, and it must be extremely hard for
the mother to be patient when crowd
OF children, her own and somebody
elses, come trooping into the house
with mud on their shoes an inch thick,
and almost as much on their hands
and faces. But the ideal mother does
not scold: she simply takes a deep
breath and quietly asks the young par
ty to scrape their feet out of doors, and
if she wants their shoes to be very
clean she will give the children knife
to do it with. Then the children want
to come in and play fighting the Span
1ards or the Indians with their blocks,
or else they want to play emigrants
With every chair in the house for a
horse and the most elegant shawl they
can find for cover for the wagon.
1t is Saturday morning, too, and the
baking must be done and the house put
IN order for Sunday. But what can the
ideal mother do? If she sends them
away, heaven only knows what sort OF
mischief they will do or what kind OF
company they will associate with. So
outWardly calm, but with very ruff1ed
spirit within, she allows them to stay.
And they play happily until noon. But
during the morning about every fifteen
minutes they pop into the kitchen to
see II the cookies are not nearly done
and If they may have ''just one apiece"
An ideal mother is sympathetic and
reliable. Two-year-old baby May with
the tears trickling down her fair little
face, can go to mamma" with her
broken dolly, and there she will be
comforted and consoled to her hearts
content. And the great college fell
low, who always wants advice but
who is either afraid or too proud to
ask for it, cannot help telling mother
all about his trials and tribulations
He knows that she will neither scold
nor laugh at him, and he starts of
again with light heart because there
is one woman in the world who trusts
and relies on him.
I know rontbor 1,vho ,>,o1v1. -
point to be around while the children
are getting off to school. AS each
starts off she kisses him good-by. from
the college student to, the primary
scholar, and her last words, Good
luck to you, DEAR" rings in their ears
all day long. Another thing she does
is to mend gloves and mittens at the
last moment, and in the greatest DOS
sible hurry.
Children, as we'll as adults, like tc
be praised and appreciated. When
children have tried hard to be good,
they like to have their mother tell
them that she appreciates their efforts.
And when daughter tries not to use
slang, because one of her special
friends does not approve of it, she
feels greatly rewarded when mother
says that she is improving in that re-
spect. The college boy, when in the
depths of despair about his examina-
tons, feels inspired to work harder
than ever when mother says that she
knows he can do anything he under
takes, because he is his fathers son
and his father always carried every
thing before him.
These are a few of the characteris-
tics of an ideal mother. Such a moth
er is an inspiration to the child to be
as nearly like her as possible, for she
is perfect in his eyes.