St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-11-29
PRAISE FOR MOTHERS
Bill Arp Says They Are the Hope of
the World.
II Fathers Would Stay Home Nights,
the Song "Where IL My Wandering
Boy To-Nixht:" Would Never
Have Been Written.

| copyrighted by the Atlanta Constitution.
and reprinted by special permission.l
Goldsmith, in short and pretty
preface to the Vicar of Wakefield y
says: There are hundred faults
in this thing and a hundred things
might be said to prove them beau
ties. A book may be amusing with
many errors or it may be dull with
out a single absurdity. The hero in
this story unites in himself the three
greatest characters on earth-the
priest, the husbandman and the faith
er of & family Strange that the
author could write such a charming
story about the very three charac-
ters he knew least about, for he had
no fitness for nor experience in
either. 1t is not recorded that he
was ever in love or sought the COM
pany of virtuous young ladies, yet
his ballad of the Hermit in the
vicar of Wakefield is admitted to
be the tenderest and most perfect
love poem ever written. My father
made me commit it to memory when
I was young and there are at least a
dozen verses in it that l can cry
over now and it does me good.
1t is a sad comfort to
weep over those sad, sweet
things. Langhorn wrote a verse about
poor woman with babe at her
breast hunting over the battlefield
Of ha nf
band, and when she found him she
knelt by his side and wept and the
big tears fell upon the face of her
child and mingled with the milk he
drew. "a child of misery baptized
in tears A painting was made of
it, and Walter Scott says the only
time he ever saw Burns he was look
ing at that painting and crying like
a child. To read the lines and inn
agine the painting is enough for me.
But if l had been Goldsmith I would
have set down the mother of a fam
lily as greater than the father. Evan
Howell said he would not vote for a
curfew, for his observation was that
if the fathers would stay home at
night the boys would, and that song
of Where Is My Wandering Boy To-
night?" would not have been writ
ten. But the fathers can't all stay
home at night. They are wanted at
the store, the Office, the counting
room. for on them depends the sup
port of the family. But many a tired
mother can sing, "Where is my wan
dering husband tonight" Alas, too
many can be found at the club, at
the poolroom or at the hotel, while
the mother is straining her mind to
untangle that hard sum, IF A and 3
can build house in thirty days and
B can build it in As days, how long
will it take A to build it?'
Take it all in all, it is the mothers
who are the hope of the world-the
saviors of the children. They GER
tainly save the girls, for nobody has
yet sung, "Where is my wandering
girl tonight" II the fathers would
do their half to save the boys it
would be all right. Oh. but for the
mothers and wives and sisters, what
Since I have been sick, sometimes
away in the silent, watches of the
night, when, as Job says, "Deep
sleep falleth upon man." it does
not fall upon a woman, for I feel
her gentle touch arranging the cover
and feeling whether l am breath
ing or not. Since have been
sick I have never caught her
fast asleep, and the other night she
got hurt with me because I slipped
out in the hall and called the girls
down to make a fire and heat some
water, for 1 was sick and suffering,
and there was no hot water in the
boiler. 1t is just as Scott wrote:
when pain and anguish wiring the brow,
A ministering angel thou"