Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1902-06-21
AGED HEARTS LONGING.
Mother Becker, Resident of the Battery
in Gotham, Prefers Home,
Sweet Home.
JOSEPH DCNNIYAN.

Now that the little pink daisies and
the pansles. yellow and purple, ripple
into laughter, like rows of children with
their faces upturned; now that the long
afternoon shadows upon the turf are full
and leafy, and the winds blow in warm
little gusts from the South, and the
waves sparkle in the spring sunshine.
Mother Becker has reappeared in the
park
For many years now the habitues of
the Battery have known her. The spring
is not ho i TO have arrived, no matter
what the calendar and what the blossoms
say, until the morning dawns when she
hobbies along the winding paths to the
sunny row of benches that look straight
upon the FURNISHED water.
The policemen know her, and if she
should nod at her station they would
never touch harshly her bent old Shout
ders or bid her wake. Her fellow idlerS
know her and give her respectful salu-
tation as she comes. The children who
crawl under the swinging iron chains
that pretend to keep them from the
swad know her, and the little ones
come up shyly and Slyly behind her to
tWeak at her skirt and to Scurry with
delighted peals of JOY when she turns
her laughing face in mock threat upon
them.
She smiles gently as she comes along
the paths When she reaches the I'M
shaded benches along the water front
she selects the one with the most unob-
structed view and there she seats her
self Her blue eyes have faded and
are half lost in the wrinkles that radi-
ate around them. but even yet they are
capable OF looking kindly upon mankind
and gratefully upon the beauty about
her.
She sta and looks and dreams and
doZes. If You speak to her, as neigh
Dor to ncighbor. she will answer yon with
gentle, self-respecting humility, whether
| You are Il great parsonage, policeman
an apple vehler. a visitor, or a mere
ragged tramp or Il poor tawdry woman
waking suddenly from stupid sleep be
| side her 1t is as though she felt her
: self the least of all the human race, and
vet, because one of it, not altogether lit
| tie.
| Sometimes she arises and hobbies t
| the sea wall and looks straight ahead
| There are the green islands of the bay
| breaking her vision. The picture is
! crowded with sails and masts and smoke
| stacks. She looks at the statue shining
| green ana bronze against the blue sky
| or black against the molten glory of the
| evening sun. and then she looks afar. as
! though her dim eyes pierced the wood
! and hills and saw again the straight
| stretch of waters. Then she comes
slowly back. and her place is Away,
| empty for her
If you ask her, by look or word, sh,
will explain gently to You why she leave:
| the bench and walks 10 the sea wall.
so il seems 10 me sometimes that
my old home can see, she says. ii
! will he nov forty years since | have
come here. Then was | young woman
thirty yearS-and | came with my man
and my FIVE children. yeS-princenthal i
was called; have YOU perhaps been there
In the dooryard of my sisters hous,
there Is n lilac tree: and there are onions
planted and many things. II was N!
house also until We have come here
She signs little.
| when ! young woman and busy
| housemo;her was. the heimweh-wha
! call you it:-the homesickness-ofteI
came upon me. But now-my man. h,
is dead. my children they are men, They
take care of me: have the time TO com,
| here, and here is the nearest place il
| Princenthal ] am an old woman; maybe
| should think on heaven. But | lov,
| better 10 think of my old home. AnC
| God is good. He has given us this 81
| wonder-lovely place to sit and looI
toward home. He win not mind the ole
woman that she does not think on heay
en-, think you Anne O'Hagan in New
| York Daily News.