Evening star., 1925-08-23

ing, and mother was in the
hall when they flew off. She
Il never offered goodbye or
greeting embraces herself; she
simply was there, casually, if any one
happened TO feel like it. Mona and
Betty always felt like it, being gen
erous OF embraces. They tumbled out
the usual warnings:
Mother, do be careful when you
go outI"
And don't try to read. muddie!
Pussy Meadows adores to read to
YOU"
And if you do have to cross the
"Oh, go along with you!" Good
mothers voice. You'll miss your
train-
She opened the door and they flew
out like birds from a cage. How
pretty and how dear they were with
their robin brightness, their quick
Squabbles and their little murmurs
and grunts of pure love! Flying
daily from the old cage TO the vast
sky of the city, into the glorious sun
of success. yet faithfully flying home
at night lest the cage should feel
itself deserted, reading aloud some
body's Life and Letters" with little
consciousness of what the words
said. They We're leading life them
selves and writing letters-what did
those dead histories ma tier to Mona
and Betty, But mother mattered.
Not for their own sakes just then
no one needs a mother very much at
y and 22-but they wanted her TO be
happy, wanted 1t with passion. \
reasonable mother viii accept that
as success
Their fervor for work was her sue
cess, too. All their lives she had
planted for Just this-enthusiasm
ambition, anything that would glorify
hard work and keep them from try
ing to do it on charm, like her poor
Lawrence.
And it was mother who had sug-
gested that they leave the old home
for the city. The girls had been CON
cerned about roots.
-. You'll miss your church, mother!"
My church." said mother strong
1y, has bored me for 35 years.
go because. if 1 don't, DR.. Oracle
comes and calls, and that bores me
even worse"
They loved her for that: but
You'll miss your old friends they
warned.
Some of them" she admitted. But
I can do without Flora WiIley's gos-
sip and Mrs. Van Dykes symptoms,
and it will be a relief not to have to
shrek at Pussy Meadows. She says
1 am the only person who takes the
trouble to speak distinctly to her, but
she means who's willing to yell the
skin off her lungs"
They loved her for that, too. Queer
why the average mother will go on
being so moral. when it is her immoral
impulses that bring her children
closest. But
You've lived in this house for 50
years" they reminded her.
Mother looked about the living room
with a judging candor. She had come
there as a tall wisp of a bride with
dropping blond tendrilS and fine, high
nose to give her an air of romance and
mind as fresh and pungent and home
ly Is the radishes she grew behind the
barn. DR.. Tudor had always found
roars of laughter in the contrast be-
tween how his wife looked and what
she said If he could have laughed
over Lawrence, too, they might have
saved their first-born; but he had fall
en- under the Child's spell and could
only worship, like every one else. No
one but his mother ever criticized
Lawrence, ever held him up in a clear
light for his own inspection: and so
he had built wall on the side toward
her. There was no possible way for
her to have his love and yet keep her
truth. When the smash came and in
that very room Lawrence had had to
face the cold daylight of judgment, he
had known how to make his father
break down and forgive him and his
employer offer him another chance,
but he had no way past his mothers
tragic silence. He could not forgive
them for having seen him stripped of
his splendor, so he had walked out of
his home never to return. His father
presently died of 1t all, and his funeral
was one more scene stamped on the
old room.
We'll, if we'd had any money to
spare, 1 guess we'd have tried a few
other homes" mother said. Now,
with you girls getting raised every
Christmas. it won't hurt us to pay
little rent"
!; 4
GO 1t had been joyously settled. And
then mothers eyes had begun to
blur and falsify distances and change
an approaching horse into some vague,
vast terror, and the idea of her alone
in the city streets was inconceiVable,
so the move Was put off until she
should be cured. One of the old family
friends was an oculiSt-getting little
vague about the eyes himself. but full
OF encouragements and pattings. A