The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1912-05-28

condition in life and attitude to-
wards his mother is similar to that
suggested in the article
These words are written for some
one particular man who reads this
page. do not know his name, but
( l know his story.
He is middle-aged man. married,
prosperous. He is good man, high
ly respected and hasn't an idea but
that he is doing his full duty by his
old mother. who lives in his home
and whom he supports. He supplies
her wants. She eats at his table,
is sheltered by his roof, is warmed
by his fire. is decently clothed by
his hands. but that is all
He neglects her.
He never says word OF affection
tn her.
He never pays her any little at
tentions.
When she ventures an opinion, he
cuts it short with curt contempt.
When she tells her garrulOus old
stories. as old people will, he does
not even try to conceal how much he
is bored.
Under this GOODNESS and neglect
the poor old mothers heart is
breaking and a letter written in a
trembling and feeble handwriting,
she asks me If cannot say some
thing that her son will read and
may make him think.
All, If | only could!
II could only say to him:
Man. man, give love as we'll as
duty to your mother. Give her the
wine of life as well as the bread.
Don't forget the woman who never
fOrgets you"
OF course the man will say, and
truly. that he is busy. Overworked,
care burdened: that he has the
claims of wife and children upon
him. that he is often irritable
through sheer physical WEAKNESS
and Overstrain
Granted. But your mothers life
has not been easy. Your father was
a poor man and from the day she
married him she stood by his side
fighting the wolf from the door with
her naked hands as woman must
fight.
She worked not the eight q ten
l.Our day of the union, but the twen-
ty-fOur- hour of the poor wife and
mother.
She cooked and cleaned and she
scrubbed and patched and nursed
from dawn until bedtime, and in the
night was up and down getting
drinks for thirsty lips, covering rest
less little sleepcrs. listening for
croupy coughs.
She had time to listen to your
stories of bOyish fun and frOlic and
triumph.
She had time to say the things
that spurred your ambition on. She
never forgot to cook the little dishes
you liked.
She did without the dress she
needed that you might not be
ashamed of your clothes before your
fellows.
Stop. man. and think what would
life have been to you if she had
treated you in your childhood as You
are treating her in her old age.
Suppose there had been no warm.
.aressing mothers love.
Suppose there had been no soft
breast on which you could weep out
your childish sorrows. no cliny,ng
arms TO enfold you and comfort Won
when the things OF your little world
went wrong.
Would ii not take away from ,ou
tie memory of all that is best and
sweetest in life? Is there ANYTHING
else SO pitiful on earth as the lit-l,
child that is motherless-that is an
alien in strange home-that has
TO one 10 love it?
Yes. there is just one other ticpre
nore forlorn than the little unloyea
child and that is the old mother VIII,
Is unlosed by the children She has
raised and who is doomed to spend
the last years of her life in a glacial
atmosphere of neglect; her devotion
her labors. her sacrifice forgotten
omar Gray, in the Sturgeon tNo