Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-04-16
CHAPTER vi
In Which At Last We Come to Know
What Is Meant By the Greater
Glory Which Often Comes to Wo-
mankind When tho Sun of Life Is
Setting.

A day-and-a-half later the Purse
boys began arriving. There came a
moment that evening that l can
never, never forget.
On the rich bed lay the frail body
of Il broken-down old woman. She
was sallow and spent and her life
was cbbing. And about that bed
stood six stalwart, full-grown, manly
mcn-strong men, men who were do
ing the work Of the world, clean-cut
wcll-born, firm-jawed fellows.
First there was Tom, who stood at
the head of the bed and held his
mothers hand. Daily through his edi-
torial page he spoke to a quarter mil
lion men and women and impressed
great truths upon them with a pres
tigc and power cxcrted by no pulpit.
Next came Fred, who occupied Il
chair in an agricultural university.
He taught men how to grasp the
great forces of nature provided by
the Creator, and with aid from them
bring forth scientifically the food
whcrcwitl to feed the race.
Beside him was Theodore, the man
who wrestlcd with other forces of
nature and subdued them and COM
PEELED them to do his bidding. He
SPAWNED streams for human COM
mcrcc. He laid the rails that brought
civilization into tho far places. He
carried to success great irrigation
projects so that water was brought
to arid lands and the desert through
his hand and brain was made to bios
som like Il rose.
On the other side of tho bed were
Richard and George and Dexter. Each
man was on his way toward success.
But most of all, they were first of all
mcn-rcsourceful, honest, forceful
men, expanding their lives and their
talents for the bcttcrmcnt of the
race.
And there on the bed, broken and
frail and worn-out and old, lay the
one to whom they owed their being.
From her loins they had sprung; from
her travail they had felt that first
sharp sting of life in their nostrils,
by her ministrations they had been
nurtured into mature life until they
stood-the completed product of wo-
man and the Almighty.
She was only poor old woman,
spent and worn and almost done with
life. But she was not a failure. No
woman who raises one child-or a
dozcn--and spends her life to bring
other lives to maturity and into the
image of the Crcator--no such wo-
man is failure, regardless how hum
bic may have been her lot or dark
and cruel the pathway she has trod-
den.
At length the boys withdrew into
Dcxtcr's bedroom across the hall. In
silence, with looks shccpish and
ashamed, they grouped themselves in
different attitudes about their eldest
brother At length that eldest BROTH
CT spoke. His voice was husky.
"A grateful bunch of fat-hcads we
six arc, aren't wc?"
"What do you mean, 'gratcful'?"
GLOW long since you did,"
mother last or sent her any money!"
"a couple of months, I guess"
"A couple of months! Sufferin'
Moses! Call yourself son. BAH"
"How long since you did,"
"Threc MONTHS" replied Tom hon
cstly.
"Call yourself SOM" mimickcd
George.
"No; q skunk!" said the eldest son
equally honest.
In his slow, thoughtful, precise
way, Frederick spoke up.
81 guess it hasn't been that we
think any less of mother or were I'M
grateful. But mothers always APP
peared so self-reliant and self-sup-
porting and efficient that it's never
come home to us hard enough that
she was human and could grow old
and get played out. l don't know
as ever gave it much thought"
"To say nothing" added George,
"-of being so blooming concentrate
cd in making good at our jobs that