St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1901-07-06

the room. Johns mother was not In
the parlor, and Valerie wandered
about the house looking for her.
II shall be nice to her always, re-
gardless-if perish in the attempt"
she heroically resolved. Valerie's
ideas of order were perhaps chaotic,
but her sweetness of nature was as
fixed as the place of her mother-in-
laws silver teapot.
Johns mother was sitting in the
dining room, hemming an apron. Her
face looked tired and pale, and Valerie
hesitated little as she suggested the
arranging of her wedding gifts. you
look little tired" she said, gently.
''Perhaps you'd rather not.''
She was seized with an impulse to
sit in her mother-in-law's lap and kiss
her. Her own mother found such
treatment refreshing when she was
tired; but Valerie feared that a
mother-in-law might not find it even
proper.
Yet the mother-in-law, who had
seen Valerie with her own mother,
was wishing that the girl would sit in
her lap and kiss her. She was coming
little nearer her daughter-in-law,
and she reflected that Valerie might
have committed greater crime than
the putting of the sugar bowl into
the ice chest. Johns mother was
very gentle, and Johns wife was very
sweet-natured. They were doing their
best to sur1nount their unlikenesses
and Eleanor's warnings. It was not
easy, but it was less difficult than
they thought.
They unpacked the wedding gifts
and brought the majority of them
downstairs. Valerie had expected to
scatter them about the house. She
had expected to display the cups, the
little silver dishes and the pretty em-
broideries on an afternoon tea table;
she had a college girls fondness for q
tea table. She mentioned tentatively
her expectation, but her mother-in-
law said:
''They will get so dusty, my dear.
Wouldn't it be better to keep such
beautiful things carefully in the china
closet and the silver drawers? She
made the suggestion kindly; she re.
membered that Valerie did not APP
preciate the degree of care needed by
silver and glass and china; and
Valerie's gifts were too fine, she
thought, to be dulled and furnished
by dust.
The girls disappointment was keen.
The wedding gifts were such cher
ished possessions, she wanted them in
familiar confusion. She had deter
mined, however, not to be a typical
daughter-in-law, and she smilingly al
lowed them to be arranged in order
ly, straight lines, in places in which
they would belong-perhaps for IS
years! The occupation lost it's inter-
est, but it helped the fight of time.
"John will soon be here" thought
Valerie. "If it were not for John, I
would go straight home-without
waiting to dress. simply don't know
how to be orderly, and I'm really
afraid that Johns mother will never
get used to me-"
In spite of this reflection, she
thanked Johns mother very charm
ingly. and went slowly away to dress
for dinner. Johns mother looked
after her. The girls step seemed
listless; her face, even with it's smile,
had been too wistful to escape her
notice. She remembered other things
that Eleanor had said. Suddenly she
that Valerie was a girl
"a little girl, she gently amended
her remembrance.
"Valerie," she said, "come here, my
dear child
Valerie gazed at her in surprise.
She went quickly to her side. Johns
mother took her hand and looked at
it's bright new wedding ring She
looked up at the girls sweet face, at
The disordered hair with it's dropping
rose. She remembered that she was
older than Valerie's mother, and she
smiled, partly at Valerie and partly
1T the recent dismay caused by this
.angle-haired, womanly little girl.
''My DEAR" she said, very gently,
are you tired?"
Valerie quite forgot that this was
Ter mother-in-law, who was precise,
who had kept her silver teapot in the
same place for 35 years. She remem-
oered that she was Johns own
mother, her own new mother. She
lat on the arm of her chair and put
Ter arms around her neck.
"No, I'm not tired; I'm only afraid
Il will be an awful trial to you. I've
lever kept anything in the same place
or IS years."
It was foolish little explanation,
tut it had a pleasant effect upon
Johns mother. She laughed and
'atted Valerie's rosy cheek. Il hadn't
so, my dear. I am reason
bic woman, and as you are only 30
he interrupted herself and said more
eriously: "But, my dear, you may
,eep your silver teapot in as many
faces as you like. You know this
) your home now, too, and you must
e happy in it. I don't know how
iris are accustomed to keeping
Kings. was a girl so long ago"
IF you will keep me in your heart,