Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1905-08-16
TEACHING OF THE
PATCHED TROUSERS
From Denver Times
From Denver Time.

A common experience is touched on by a writer who,
going back to his boyhood days, recalls a boy in school,
a son of poor parents, who wore a pair of trousers
patched by pieces of many colors. He recalls the fun
had at his expense by the boys schoolmates and how
patch after patch was added to the trousers, much to the
amusement of the other boys. And then he adds:
How ashamed | am today Of the laughter! 1t was,
of course, not meant to hurt the poor fellows feelings,
but only stupid and thoughtless. We only saw the
patches, but not what those patches told.
They told of a whole world of motheriy love and
care, night work, perhaps many tears, to accomplish such
painstaking patchwork-only to have her son made the
laughing stock of his rude playmates.
with what little money had the household expenses
to be met, and how anXiously she may have piled the
needle to make the trousers last into the next year. A
thousand times more valuable were those breeches than
the handsomest fashionable garment with the nice seams
and faultless finish"
There are few who were once boys and have now
grown to manhood who cannot recall similar experiences,
and who do not feel their cheeks crimson with shame at
the recollection. And there are not a few boys still
living, with heads whitened by the SHOWS of many win
tiers, who, while they may not have been obliged to wear
patches of many coiors, were for the same reason com
PEELED to wear clothing made over from that which
father had discarded, and often pieced out in places
where it would be least noticed.
1t cost more to clothe a boy in the old days, before
"hand-me-downs" had come in than today when they are
in, and sweatsSops have become so large a factor in the
clothing industry. Those were the days when the mother
was both tailor and seamstress for the family. And into
the clothing which the children wore was sewed the
Thought and care spTinging from the unfailing fount of
love within the mother heart. AS the writer quoted mas
said: The patched trousers were a work of art and any
having the care of children could afford to pay money
for them if they could be offered for sale, that they
might be hung up on a blackboard like a map as a dem
on stration of the wonderful ingenuity of mother love"
The ability to sympathize with and to understand their
fellow man, this is what the children need to be given,
and this it is, lacking which, ability in no other direc-
ton can compensate. There are men and women whom
the world calls successful; they have large bank &C
counts and live in mansions, yet in their youthful days
they wore garments made by mothres' hands. And to-
day, after the lapse of years and a lifetime of varied eX-
perience, they have come to understand and appreciate
all there was in human affection worked into those gar
ments by mothers needle. Broadcloths, silks, satins In
richest texture and most fashionable style, all these
would be cast off if they could only again don one of the
old-time garments made by mother and wear II where
her eye might see that now they know and understand.
The boy or the girl compelled to wear clothing made
by mothers hands ought to be prouder than king or
queen, for into such garments are woven a mothers love,
the finest and most precious of earthly loves.