The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1906-06-01
BY MARGARET E. sANGsTER.

BY MARGARET E. sANGsTER. = !.
Copyright, 1906, by Joseph b. Bowles.) .
Every one knows how exactly the
cook and housemaid are about their
much-prized privilege of an afternoon
out. Very few household emergencies
seem to them of sufficient Importance
to justify the slightest concession, SO
far as this pleasure of theirs is con-
cerned. Illness in the family or af-
fiction seldom interferes with the
regularity of. the maids visiting her
own people on the day that belongs
to her, and it is very high-handed and
independent mistress who ventures
now and then to suggest change in
the programme of the people below
stairs. Indeed one cannot blame
Norah for insisting on her vested rights
In this matter, for there is undoubted
monotony in kitchen work and domes.
tic servants get little opportunity for
fresh air and sunshine. even when
they are allowed good deal of free
dom in the evening when the days
work is over. 80 ..5
There is an aspect of home life far
too little considered in the numerous
households where the presiding
genius is woman whose tastes in
cline her to stay much indoors, and
whose ideal of duty compells her to
feel that whoever is absent, she must
always be on duty. When the chill
dren, go to school the mother is at
the door to see them off and to watch
them as they tramp merrily and sturd-
lily down the street. When they rush
in at the noon recess eager for lunch
con, mother is on the spot and her
presence makes the noon hour the
bri ghter for her boys and girls. When
the husband leaves for business the
wife waves CHEEKY hand to him from
the window. and when he turns the
latch key at night and she hears its
click, she Is ready to receive him with
a smile and a greeting. Her position
Is that of monarch who cannot alb.
dicate and who may not leave the
precincts of his realm. In another
phase, it is like that of the soldier
who cannot desert his post for ever
SO short time under stringent penal
ties. Habit and routine have bound
this wife and mother with letters of
silk that are strong as iron.- Nobody
sees any particular goodness or vir.
tue in the mothers devotion since it
is only what is expected of her, and
the sort of thing that has been ex-
pectedt from mothers for many gen.
GRAFTON. =
I am not abiding to the fashionable
mother. whose days are round of
brilliant functions and who delegates
her individual responsibilities to
nurses, governesses and needy rela-
tves. Nor am thinking of the heed
less mother to whom duty is merely
name and whose selfshness leads
her to shirk any claim that she can.
In our country the vast majority of
mothers are self.sacrificing to fault,
forgetting and effacing themselves
that their children may nave the right
Of way in every department, in
amusement, in study, in comfort and
ease, in dress, and ir the small lux
uries that are the embroideries on the
rough garment of daily usage.
! = >2s%
There are thousands of women
growing old prematurely, losing
health, beauty and elasticity because
they almost never have any relaxation
apart from their own households.
Once week at least, the mother
should have her afternoon out. She
should take it as a part of her re-
Hgion and should conscien iously in
sist!E for that time on being away from
the loved ones who are So precious
and yet 80 burdensome. Were the
mother snatched from her darlings
and laid to rest under the spring vic.
lets, the children would be obliged to-
live on without her incessant care and,
brooding. X - 20
Homes rise before me in thought in
which few brief months ago the
mother was at once chief ruler and
servant chief. She is 6one. The
catastrophe of a sudden sickness and
q swift death has wrecked the joy OF
the place where the mothers smile
=