The Topeka State Journal

This is a true story with fictitious names. It is about Old Gorgon Gregory and his three sons. It is complimentary to the sons but not to Old Gorgon, who has lived in Topeka for 30 years and the town is no better for it. Neither is Old Gorgon, in fact he would be no better in 30 years time if he spent all that time in Utopia, for his snarl and his meanness would flourish and thrive in any surroundings and the tiger in his blood would crop out.

Old Gorgon was mean to his wife before the boys were born. He was mean to the three boys, each in turn, as soon as they were big enough to cry at night. How he ever courted the woman he married and secured her consent to the marriage ceremony is more than the neighbors can figure out. He must have been mighty deceitful or he must have changed to the bad mighty quickly after he got married.

The wife of Old Gorgon is afraid of her life, poor thing. She has to supply Old Gorgon with things to eat, a place to sleep. clean clothes and a warm room but he growls at the grocery bill, he objects to the coal bills, he thinks the rent too high and the laundry bills exorbitant. Still, Mrs. Gregory has been doing all the washing. except of his white shirts, his collars and a few starched articles. She has worked her spine into a rainbow curve and her face into a caricature of a motherly countenance.It's a wonder she has survived all these years living in the atmosphere polluted by Old Gorgon.

If it hadn't been for the boys; first little Jamie, and then Willie and then Charlie she would have given up long ago and if it hadn't been for the mother the three boys would have assaulted, beat, bruised and flayed Old Gorgon years ago. They hate him. "Honor thy father and mother" to them has been amended by leaving out "father." They do honor their mother and they love her too with that genuine devotion which makes a mother a saint in the eyes of her children.

It was the mother who cared for Jamie and for Willie and for Charles through their days of infancy. It was the mother who scraped together money enough to dress them properly to go to school. Old Gorgon was too stingy to buy them good clothes. It was the mother who made the same winter dress do for five years that she might have money with which to buy them clothes without being abused, more than usual. by her husband.

It was the mother who bought them their school books with money she earned. It has been the mother all through their lives who has been good to them: who has looked after them: who taught them their Sunday school lessons: who wanted them to be big, manly boys and wanted them to be good boys.

It was Old Gorgon who didn't care what became of them. just so he didn't have to spend any money on them. It was he who objected to their going to Sunday school because they might be working in the garden or about the house on Sunday.

It was he who thought they should go to work before they were through the graded schools. It was old Gorgon Gregory who turned each boy away from home when he was 16 years old and sent him adrift despite the pleadings of the mother.

Jamie was the first to go. Old Gorgon gave him $2.50 and told him to make his way in the world. He went to work on a farm that summer and saved enough money to buy clothes and books and go to school in the winter. He worked during the winter as chore boy. Then he worked in the harvest fields the next summer and finally worked his way through college. He didn't get a kind word nor a cent from his father. He visited his mother as often as he could, but he always called when his father was away from home.

When James Gregory passed the competitive examinations in New York and won the scholarship at Oxford and $2.500 in money, against more than a hundred other students, Old Gorgon Gregory took a notice to the newspapers announcing that "James Gregory, the son of George Washington Gregory. had won the Oxford scholarship."etc.

When Old Gorgon turned Willie away from home he didn't give him as much as he had given Jamie. Willie had a new pair of shoes. so Old Gorgon cut his allowance down to $2.25 and sent him on his way fore him and finished college. Then he enlisted as a private in the regular army.

He kept on studying and in two years had passed a competitive examination and was commissioned a second lieutenant.

Then came the Cuban war and four years more he was Captain Gregory. Then Old Gorgon went to the newspapers with the news that "William Gregory, son of George Washington Gregory, in six years had risen from private in the ranks to be a captain in the regular army." etc.

Charley was the last. It would have softened the heart of any but Old Gorgon to have seen the parting between Charley and his mother when he followed the will of his father. like his brothers before him, and set 'out to face the world. It was Willie who worked his way through college and won the state oratorical contest the year he graduated. Then Old Gorgon took the announcement to the papers that "Charley Gregory, who won the state oratorical contest. is the son of George Washington Gregory," etc

Not in one of those notices did the name of Mrs. Gregory appear. They did not read "son of Mr. and Mrs.Gregory."

She was not to be counted according to Old Gorgon's theory.

Poor soul! She is patiently waiting for the day when one of the boys can take her to his own home.