The Washington herald., 1912-10-25
BY FRANCES sHAFFER.

Just now there are ten boys and girls
in the family of Miss Mary Hildreth.
whose roomy summer home is attrac-
| lively perched on a New Hampshire
hilltop. far away from village streets.
and right in the midst of country pleas
ures and opportunities. All told. her
family has numbered fourteen. but now
1t is down to ten. and their ages range
all the way from six to nineteen years.
They are not brothers and sisters,
neither kinfolk nor boarders-just
stranger boys and girls whom she has
mothered and given a home, because
she happens to be one of the women
to whom nature gave a mother love big
enough to take in little folk not her
own and to care for them Just as IL
they were.
Her Children I'm Every Sense.
"Butternut Farm they call it. and
these boys and girls. widely different
in character and in parentage, live to-
gether with their foster-mothe- as con-
tentedly and as harmoniously as II
they were children in very deed. as
they are in name and by right Of law.
For. as each child has been added to
the growing family, Miss Hildreth has
made 1t legally her own. and she says
she could not have loved them more
had she been their own mother.
Indeed. 1t was her love for children
and their need of her care that prompt
ed her to gather first one and then an
other under her kindly protection until
tie Farm was sheltering al that she
felt she could provide for and educate.
And then she stopped. with a family
Of ten robust. active boys and girls.
1t goes without saying that Miss
Hildreth Is not stinted In money: that
she has a big heart and knows how to
make her fortune yield fund Of hap
piness to herself and to some little folk
who might not fare SO well in other
hands.
Prepared to Eradicate Them.
She hopes they will all want to go
to college. boys and girls alike. and is
prepared to educate them along the
lines OF their natural fitness. But one
thing she insists upon for all-they must
be trained for self-support-
And upon another thing she is equally
insistent. Her boys are trained to the
making Of good husbands. She evidently
has looked about a bit and has run across
some situations that she believes might
have been improved. She says that many
times when sickness or other unusual
happening incapacitates the wife md
mother. the head" of the house sits
around utterly helpless. useless, and for
lorn. waiting for a kindly neighbor to
neglect her own duties and help him out.
She does not mean that her boys shall
develop into the helpless species. for she
believes that a man, with all his boasts
and all his powers. should be ashamed to
prove useless in such an emergency. So
she is teaching them some Of the duties
usually reserved for girls alone, and is
them with tho intricacies of
management. Great husbands
Ia the making. those little New Hamp-
shire boys!
And one more thing-she is very par
t;cular about teaching them the basic
truths Of physiology.
Have . Happy Time.
But there is q lot Of pleasure and q lot
Of play in that hillside home. for there
are seven ponies for as many OF the
young folk as are old enough to ride
them; and there are all the pets, all the
and all the motherfng that any
child could wish. When the spirit moves,
they cook their supper out on the rocks, |
play with dolls, enjoy more romping |
sports. and love each other with all the |
oyalty and eviction Of sure-enough broth |
srs and sisters.
The strangest, most significant feature /
II all In that just one of the fourteen L
;hildren mothered BY Miss Hudreth was