The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-12-25

PATERNAL
INSTINCT
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Il Story of Great
Devotion
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BY Fannie Hurst
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maternal instinct, his chill
'dren, particularly his daughters. had
formed sort of unspoken compact
TO retort with unanimity: "What's
the matter with paternal instinct?
Aside from being the best mother
alive, he's the best father"
1t was their subconsciOus way of
protecting Hester from innGendo. AS
II innuendO could have attached itself
TO the enOrmOus-ShOuldere six-foot
parent of the brood of five youngsters
who clustered about his tall knees.
whenever those tall knees hove in
sight.
kester would not have minded had
there been innuendo. Life was too
big. too busy, too harassed, too de-
hghtful an affair. for fancied hurts or
pricks to flourish. Well, if he had ma
ternal instinct he hoped it was a jolly
good one. Man with FIVE growing.
hungry, boisterous young ones needed
pretty nearly every instinct there was
Lordy. what a gang! Five hungry
mouths yawning up at him when he
came home evenings, for all the world
like beaky birds in their nest. Fellow
got so he treated them precisely that
way. Night after night. it was his
RI th hnO of
one kind of fruit or another. in what
the children called his surprise peck
et." Cherries, berries. plums. fruit
balls. which he dropped into the lit
tie upturned mouths.
A blessed gang of ruffians was what
Mrs. McMurtry, who tended the brood
all day, called them. A blessed gang
of ruffians and their daddy no better
than the rest, f1inging them around
from the minute he entered the house
That scarcely held. because when
Mrs. McMurtry accused their daddy
of bOisterousness that matched his
children's. her eyes were r;diculously
out of key with her speech.
Her idolatry of Kester verged al
most on the absurd. She used to cry
over him while relating his various
attributes to friends. Hes saint:
the man is, disguised in an overgrown
boys clothing"
1t was rather on the basis of an
over-grown boy and his younger play.
mates that Kester reared his children
A man left at twenty-eight with FIVE
have time to work out a system"
At least Kester didn't. With the prob
lem Of earning their living. keeping the
home together. educating them along
the most economical lines possible and
above all. keeping them happy. Kester
plunged in without theory.
So. in rearing his family. Kester
was just himself. Easy. indulgent,
ridiculously sentimental, unexactly.
playful, the adOring parent, and vet
withal so much the idealst where his
children were concerned that their
shortcomings, when they became seri-
|, Gus, could actually unnerve him to the
extent of making him physically ILL.,
For instance. Myron. the second boy
and his cruelty to animals: The scene
between Kester and his son the eve
ming his father found him in a group
of boys tying cans to the tail of a
wretched street dog was one that Mrs
McMurty. to the day of her all-too-
premature death. was to relate with
her face smeared with pallor.
For moment 1t looked as if Kester
were going TO beat his son: batter him
across the sides of the head with his
fists. Miraculously that did not hap
pen, but a talk took place up in the
fastness of Myron's room that was
devastating in its consequences. All
night MYron sobbed in his bed and
Kester did not appear at breakfast
The evening following. Myron fell
asleep in Kester's arms. listening to
a jungle story which he had asked
his father to repeat. He was
strange hoy and man. Hester was.
father and a mother. too.
His brood grew and thrived. AT sew
enteen the eldest boy was high
school graduate and already
draughtsman apprentice. Myron chose
medicine, and Kester somehow, on his
newspaper photographers salary, be-
gan to make that possible. Two of his
three girls moved along into quite con-
siderable beauty and the youngest
gave promise of something more than
even that.
OF course there were set-backs. in
cubus of debt, worry of illness and oc-
casionally the need of discipline of one
sort or another When she was four
teen. Leila. the second girl. developed