Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1900-11-13


it lasted, and they looked so queer
all rigged out in the same kind of
calico. 1t want no way to do"
"No, it was not"
"Well, Maria did it all the same.
Then they lived on the plainest
things. She hardly ever used an egg
when they had more than a hundred
hensand eggs were bringin' only eight
cents a dozen. They used the cheap
est brown sugar, and l tell you her
children were not pampered with
cakes and doughnuts and turnovers.
Bread and molasses was about as rich
a desert as they ever got, although I
think that they did have pie on Sun
days. | don't suppose that them chill
dren ever got two pounds of candy
all told in five years. ! tell you when
Maria came home from town there
want no runnin' out to meet her
on the part of her children and no
gatherin' round to see what she had
brought 'em. She didn't waste no
money bringin' 'em anything. She
was managin', Maria was"
"Poor little things!"
"That's what | say. La, | remem-
Der as well how when l was a little
girl and my father and mother went
to town that me and my little broth
ers and sisters used to run a mile or
more down the dusty road to meet
them and see what they had brought
us, and they always had something.
Mebbe it was only five cents wuth
of candy, but it made us happy. It
don't take much to make a lot of
little children happy, and what's the
good of livin' if you don't make any
one, not even your own children,
happy? I'm glad my mother didn't
manage so close that she couldn't
spare little money to make her
children happy. Well, when Maria's
two boys were big fellows of II and
18 they never knew what it was to
have a dime of their own to do as
they wanted with. Nearly all of the
farmers round here would let BOYS
of that age 60 to town of Saturday
afternoon and give them so cents for
spendin' money if they worked good
and faithful all the rest of the week.
But Maria Kent said that was all
nonsense, and her boys worked as
hard and as long on Saturday as on
any other day. l remember one
Fourth Of July when we had the
grandest picnic and celebration ever
held in this county in the big grove
just beyond the Kent's cornfeld, and
if Maria didn't make her two boys
work in that cornfeld all day right
therein sight of all that merrymakin'.
She thought that celebratin' the
Fourth was a waste Of time and
money, and l don't reckon that one
of her children ever had frecracker
in all the time they was under her
roof. She was managin' and layin' up
money, Maria Kent was. l couldn't
tell you in a month of Sundays of all
the ways that woman managed. They
was ways that | couldn't have prac-
ticed and kept my self-respect, al
though no one could say that they
was really dishonest, Her whole
household had to work. Why, her
little girl of five had to sew so many
pounds Of carpet rags ev'ry week, and
the little thing never had so much as.
a rag doll in all her life. They didn't
keep Christmas at Maria's. That, too,
was a waste of time and money"
"Well, how did they come out in
the end?"
Just as you might expect Joe,
the oldest boy, didn't answer one
mornin' when his mother called him
at four o'clock to begin milkin' the
ten COWS he had to milk alone before
breakfast. And he want in his bed
when Maria sailed up to rout him out.
He'd skipped out, and it was three
years before they ever heard a thing
from him, and then they heard that
he was away out west and that he
was kind O runnin' wild out there.
should think he would, after escapin'
from the shackles that had been kept
on him at home. The other children
stayed at home until the Oldest girl
run off and married one of our farm !
er bows. and it want long after that