The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1910-10-29
How Mother Sneed Saved the Family
BY w, G. Shepherd.

The Sneed family had got to a
place that many families reach,
sooner or later.
Father John Sneed loved the
comforts Of home, but, like most
fathers, he had an idea that homes
just sort of stick together of
themselves, without effort. Which
Is not true.
David Sneed, the son of twenty
one years, was so busy with the
town pool room and the horse race
dope that he never thought of 60
ing to work.
Ruth Sneed, nine years old, had
not reached the place where she
was discontinued with the toll of
home. The village didn't pail on
her. as it did on Madeline, her
elder sister. Ruth was satisfied
to work with her mother at pick
ling, Telling and housekeeping;
Madeline was tired of it all. Her
father paid little attention to her,
her borther none, though to her
they represented the outside
world she longed to see.
Maybe, when all the missing
girls, of all the long past years,
tell their stories in that final
reckoning time, fathers and big
brothers won't be so scot free of
blame as they think they ire
City Man Comes.
You know how gorgeous is the
drum major in a minstrel band?
Paul Churchill brought his min
lstrels to Alvatown, Mass. The vii
lage thought him perfectly splen-
did, as he led the band down the
lstreet.
He hunted out the Sneeds, be-
lcause his father had known John
Sneed, gave the whole family tick
cts. and condescended, after he
had seen Madeline, to have a
Ichicken dinner at their home.
His voice was deep and full;
his eyes were big and black and
he could talk with them. When
he said Il love you" at the gate
that night, just before her moth.
er called her in, and promised
that he would take her away from
the dead, old village, Madeline be-
lieved him because she wanted to.
And II night at II o'clock she
ran down to the depot. The next
morning she was with her big
eyed, lying minstrel man in New
York.
The heartache settled on the
Sneed family. For the first time
in many years it's members had
something in common. They felt
as mother did. She was the CEN
ter of the home now. Father
Sneed told her all he would do
when he found where his dear
little daughter had gone 1t was
the first time he had called Made
line that in a long, long time.
Brother David forsook his pool
room and his search for his miss
ing dog Roosevelt. David's love
for Roosevelt was n of David's
tredeeming traits.
Mother FOrgiyes.
Sorrow was drawing the Sneed
family together again. And, for
the first time, they realized that
if it had not been for mother
there would have been no Sneed
home.
Then a letter came from Made
line. She wrote that she was
married. Her family went to see
her.
Into the hotel room came
bounding Father Sneed and David.
IL Un6 hnNI fnr hnr Ito -
them, even though they never haG
understood her. Churchill, to
save his own skin, helped her by
telling of the supposed marriage
in The Little Church Around the
Corner. But when mother unex-
pectedly entered, it was more than
a girl, homeless and betrayed,
could stand. Alone with her
mother she told the whole dread
full story, and-was dumbly sur
prised when her mother took her
poor, tired, quivering little body
into the mother arms and kissed
her.
David Awakens.
1t looked darker than eve for
the Sneed family just then. But
Mother Sneed had kept the home
together all those years, and she
wasn't going to let it go to pieces.
She told David. David want
ed to kill. He raved. 1t seemed
that all the interest he had neg
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