Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1906-09-29
MOTHERS
KEEPS SAKE

ey HAROLD AVERY

We turned it out the other day, the
top drawer of our old bureau.
Similar pieces OF furniture are to
be found in nearly every home-house-
hold pensioners which have done their
work, and, being replaced by some
thing more modern and up to date, are
put away in corner to be kept clean
and looked at. The bureau has long
been on the retired list, but in the days
of active service--days when the hand
that rocked the cradle. rather than the
hand that thumped the tub, was sup
posed TO rule the world-the mother of
the family always used this old-fash-
Toned contrivance as her desk.
1t was at the bureau that she always
sat to write to us when one by one we
left home and went away to school,
and there it is that think | see her
tonight, with the light falling on her
face from the little oil lamp that the
servants would grumble at now IL it
were given them to use In the kitchen.
The top drawer was especially hers,
and remains exactly as she left It,
though in the eyes of stranger the
contents would appear but double
handful of rubbish. To her, however,
every trifie was a precious treasure,
and as we turn them over 1t seems as
though, instead of the bureau drawer,
her own dear heart lies open before US
with all its loving secrets revealed to
our gaze.
Here is a bundle of photographs,
taken in the days of head-rests and
studied positions, when gentlemen
stood with one arm akimbo and the
other resting on table or marble coll
umn, while the right leg was accurate
ly crossed in front of the left, and
when the moment which preceded the
taking off of the cap was solemn
enough to render 1t well-nigh impossi-
BILE to put on that pleasant expression
which the artist vainly implored one
to assume.
But these pictures are all of chill
dren; some frowning, some smiling.
others with look of patient endur-
ance, while on the faces of few APP
pears an expression of interested ex-
pectation, which shows that they were
still the victims of a wellmeaning
fraud, and believed in the tabled bird.
which. If they watched closely. would
be seen to fly out of the lens.
What an immense amount of time
and trouble she and Mary Jane must
have taken in arranging those bows
and sashes, and in producing those as
tonishing curls and top-knots! The
photographs of that era were subject
to attacks of jaundice and measles; In
course of time they grew yellow and
spotted, and some of these have suf-
fered in the manner described, but
drawer and have remained there to
this day in the same old cloth-lined en-
velope, frayed and crumpled from fire.
quent handling.
On this silver rattle, with a handle
of red coral, verify believe that the
whole family in turn cut the greater
number Of their first teeth. Whether
the rattle was in any responsible for
the articles thus produced | do not
know; If so it can hardly be regarded
as a family treasure. for we all were
martyrs to face-ache. She used, with a
great deal of coaxing and persuasion,
to inspire us with sufficient courage to
accompany her to the dentists. We
started with a vast amount of swagger
and then kicked and screamed for a
quarter of an hour before we could be
induced to sit back in the fatal chair
and open our mouths. On returning
home she always said we had behaved
like heroes, and told such an exagger-
ated story of the size of the tooth and
the courageous manner in which we
had borne the extraction that for my
own part | felt inclined, had such a
thing been possible, to have fallen on
my own neck and wept at the recital
of my sufferings, and the fortitude
with which they had been endured.
She was immensely proud of us, and
thought that in the future we should
all distinguish ourselves and do great
things, though what should have given
rise to this belief it would be difficult
to say, for we were very ordinary chill
dren. Here, however, under the photo
graphs are some of the works of art
which were, at all events in her eyes,
so full of promise. A water-color
daub representing a brown monstrosi-
ty with yellow spots, which, from the
word Polly" appearing beneath it,
recognize as horse; a gaudy scrap of
wool work left half unfinished by little
hands that soon grew weary of the
work, and rough, lopsided paper
knife, carved out of bit of cherry
wood, and with an edge SO blunt and
uneven that it would be perfect butch
cry to use it on the uncut leaves of any
book or magazine.
So we pass from one relic to another
until, in the same envelope which con-
tains a small paper book, on each leaf
of which is a lock of hair, kept in posi-
ton with a stitch of silk, and care
fully named and dated, we find little
picture. That was the girl who died.
In another corner of the drawer is a