Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-05-31
BY MARGARET E. sANGsTER.


Copyright, 1906, by Joseph B. Bowles.)
Every one knows how exactly the
cook and housemaid are about their
m~uch-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 a very high-handed and
independent mistress who ventures
and then to suggest a 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. ven when
they are allowed a good deal of free
dom in the evening when the days
work IS over.
There is an aspect of home life far
too little considered in the numerous
households where the presiding
genius is a 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-
fly 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 100 hour the
brighter for her boys and girls. When
the husband leaves for business the
wife waves a 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 a monarch who cannot alb
dictate 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 evel
so short a time under stringent penal
ties. Habit and routine have bounc
this wife and mother with letters Of
silk that are strong as iron. Nobody
gees any particular goo'ness or viz
tue in the mothers devotion since il
is only what is expected of her, ant
the sort of thing that has been ex
pected from mothers for many a gen
GRAFTON.
1 am not alluding to the fashionable
mother whose days are a round o.
brilliant functions and who delegates
her individual responsibilities tt
nurses, g~overnesses and needy rela
tives. Nor am l thinking of the heed
less mother to whom duty is merel.
a name and whose s~elfishness lead
her to shirk any claim that she can
In our country the vast majority O
mothers are self-sacrificing to a fault
forgetting and effacing themselve:
that their children may have the RICH
of way in every department, il
amusement, in study, in comfort ant
ease, in dress, and in the small lux
uries that are the embroideries on thu
cough garment of daily usage.
Q
There are thousands of womel
growing old prematurely, losing
health, beauty and elasticity becaus'
they almost never have any relaxation
apart from their own households.
Once a week at least, the mothe
should have her afternoon out. Sh
should take it as a part Of her re