The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1910-05-27
4 WORD TO MOTHERS.

scribers to "talk things over thal
are of general community interest,"
while the suject of good ana
bad children is being talked over |
want to tell you of four that | knew
/ we'll, whom good mothers through
love and pride neglected until too
| late. The first two, sons, many years
apart, We're allowed to be out on the
streets nights, as little boys, to play,
| AS they grew up, play wasn't the
thing any more. They learned t.
smoke as the first step. in secret OF
course Then they left Sunday
school, their mothers saying: They
are getting most too old for Sunday
school now, so we let them rest on
Sunday, after all week in day school
They spent they Sundays where ana
with whom they pleased They were
called tough boys by all who
knew them A kind friend went to
the father and in private talr
|
est boy was doing of nights. Every
one knew it but the father in the
little town where they lived. The
father took the warning as it was in
tended, thanked his old friend and
intended to have that boy at home.
But strange to say, after the moth
er talking with the boy, he, OF
course, denying all the bad things
he was accused of, he was still al
and his mother, through love and
pride in him, never questioned his
word. Anything amisS done nights
that get to Lis parents knowledge,
he always laid to the other boys. He
was never in the crowd at all ana
would bring others up to tell the
same story. Things grew worse and
at 20 he was arrested the first time.
Still telling the stame story that he
was not to blame, working on their
love. he first gained his mother !:
word. to bring the father to believe
as she did, so the father went int
court and defended his son. the sor
promising never to be seen in thai
crowd of boys again. But again TIL,
mother was afraid the boy wouiG
lose love for them if they were tor
strict with him. SO again the oil
habit won. BY this time he hat
learned to drink and the next time
he was arrested it was for beint
drunk. Once more through the mo
theirs influence his father helped hin
out. The younger boy was heard t.
tell his own boy friends that Char
ley knew how to work the old folk
: all right" The parents often dis
Their always came out ahead, for sh
always believed all her boys sale
while the father did not.
The younger son initiated his bro
Their and Charley was a cute" 81
hero to him. Time and again tn
, older boy was in some bad scrape.
: last he was sent up two years fc
d robbing a store and his fathers mo,
r ey could not save him. At this tim
g TIE father died very suddenly.
d The younger boy grew up just ;
Is his brother had. ran through h
o mothers home and property and t
d day is a drunkard. But strangest I
n all that mother, old, broken
e health, poor and unhappy, sti
. 3lames every one but her boys al
le led.
AS The two children I knew MAI
n years later and in another tow
t. They were two girls, only daughter
bright and pretty; always to geth
It. night or day. Their downward pa
We also began by their being out night
al no one knowing where they were.
lie the age of IA and 5 l have hea
TT their mother tell how many dffere
Z DOyS Nuct udu bttii ohl WIN W itiI
d. a week Bad stories and reports we
told of them from time to time, t
de mother always UNFOLDING the gil
o, and blaming others. The father
st one, being an influential busine
he man. got his daughter into one
h, the public schools as teacher aft
u She grew to womanhood The 9th
on ohum had by this time become
"a low that she finally left town
DIV lead her own life in the city f
in reports still came of the new teac
IN er's life. At last the school boa
IL had her watched. SO much had COZ
re- to their knowledge. and when Il
really proved that she was leadinl
ed double life she was turned out
Use school then and there Poor, misqU
I'VE ed. proud and silly mothers----b
he to blame than their innocent you
Is girls, for they knew the pitfalls
the life, while those girls did not. 60
en- loving mothers of this Home Cir
an don't be 80 blind to the faults