Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-04-09

either en- maSSe or as an lndlVldua
he commences to feel that he doesn'
give Il dam, Mibb. And when a ma
gets to the point that he doesn't Civ
Il damn, he isn't Over-careful abou
his relations in other matters. It's al
Il miXed-up and lamentablc mess AM
God only knows who's responsible
But it's coming over al society, Mibl
rore and more every year and
we'll, the kids that are growing VI
today are showing it,"
Again the woman did not know
what to say. She felt as if Dick Rob
inson had waded off beyond her deptl
and if she tried to follow him sh'
would founder. If she had beer
where she had been thirty years be
fore, up in Gold-Piece cabin, sk,
might have tried to follow him. Blu
she had dissipated the heritage thai
had once been hers. She must pa!
The penalty, the penalty of silence
silence more than the mere 81
lcnce of speech.
"Mibb," he concluded in a hollow
voice, what this old world needs
today more than it ever needed il
before, isn't women to run business
and make governments and all that
rot. suppose it's all right in its way
to have women leavening up things !;
trifle but they've gone and over
done it, Mibb; they're OVERRIDING it
already they need to get back to
first principles back to the good
old-fashioned family idea of home in
terest and unselfiish devotion to the
heartaches of little kids and the solid
substantial fundamentals that the
family is the basis of society and
there's not a place on Gods earth
where a man can learn to be a square
business man, a decent citizen, a Gre
dit to his creator, that beats his
mothers knee, Mibb. Bring on your
damned old arguments about the up
lift of society and publication of
government and the refining influence
of women in business. Talk your
head off! That won't take from the
heart of q man the ache after some
thing he can't express the feeling
that he's all at sea somehow, or
it won't put into his soul the whole
some love and generation and respect
that he had for his mother who was
Il woman and a wife first even ii il
cost her her life and her rcaso,.
Mothers? The worlds hcaltsick for
them, Mibb. God, wish had one .
right now!"
Finally the woman spoke.
"Well, don't suppose I can say any
thing on that score, Dick. Some
times I've felt something wa wrong
in my own life, I've had son,e
fcarfully lonely moment :, Dicl. when
/ wondered if what the matte, with
me was was"
go ahead and say it,! order ed the
man. "Its nothing to be ashamed
of! -Kids!-that's it, isn't it? And
why didn't you have the.n, do you
suppose if loc1 Herb had had three
or four kids he'd gone off the way
he did? Why didn't you nave them,
Mibb? Because of the way You was
brought up. Your mother kept try
ing to save you from what she called
the drudgefy of the home. l know;
| remember She put pretty clothes
on you and did all she could to dis
courage you from becoming ! mother
Why did she do it? Because she
wasn't a mother herself. Oh she
may have gone through hell and
brought you into the world. But
that's only an incident in mother
hood, Mibb. She wasn't living natur-
ally in her own home herself; she
was the pants and the checkbook and
the wageearner of your homc---I re-
how your dad sat around
Will Seaver's store in the old days
rather than smoke his pipe with his
feet on his own sitting-rook stove AT
home. And you had motherhood and
homchood ironed out of you the same
as millions of young girls are getting
it roned out of them today"
"Then you admit I wasn't to blame
wholly, Dick"
"But I hold it was up to you when
you reached maturity and age Of
reason yourself, to correct the
trouble, just as it's up to the women
Of today to do it. Lord, the men
rant do it; the women have got to
10 it for themselves"
"But you'll admit that the drudgcry
Of the home is"
"Drudgery of the home hell!
There's no drudgery of the home on
" what women make for themselves.
There's drudgery everywhere. All OF
US have got to sweat our clothes for
The things we make the world hand
over to us. It's all in the way you
look at thing; what your mental at
titude is. l suppose saving wood is
one of the hardest kinds of labor.
Yet don't you remeber old Bill
Fletcher up home? He said the Lord
sent him into the world apurpose to
saw wood and he was made to saw
wood and he was going to saw wood
md saw wood he did. The man was
happy in saving wood. It's
the same with anything and every
thing. It's all in your mental atti-
tude. If you're woman and hate