The Central Presbyterian

Mothers and Sons.

I knew a mother years ago who, living in a place where hired help was simply not to be had, even if her means had allowed her to engage it, did her own work, with the aid of her husband and her boys, and in addition prepared the sons for college. I used to receive long, bright, chatty letters from the little far-away inland town where her home was a haven of peace to my thoughts, oftentimes written by snatches as she waited for the loaves to brown in the oven, or taken up when she laid aside her mending for a moment's rest. She sometimes told me of the blue-eyed laddie at her knee reciting his Latin grammar, which was propped up before her as she washed dishes and made bread, or explained an incoherent sentence by the fact that her husband had called her into the study to listen to a report he was about to send to a ministerial committee, in the very mid-current of her friendly letter.

The mother who would have her sons grow up worthily must count not her life dear in the years when they are under her molding hand. She must take an interest in whatever engages them, from the era of balls and tops to the era of falling in love. Never to lose a boy's confidence is the wisest counsel which can be given a mother, but how is she to attain this end? Only by putting her boys first and keeping them first. Only by subordinating other engagements, of pleasure, of society, of church work, of philanthropy, to the more important engagement she has in the nursery, the playground and around the evening lamp. Her boys' associates and comrades must be hers too. She must share his life and know his aims and keep with him hand in hand.

A woman whose sweet face rises before my thought has done this thing for her boy, though she has been handicapped by continual bondage, literal bondage, to a couch of pain. During the long years when she has been unable to walk a step, or to turn in bed without assistance, her indomitable will has kept her from casting a shadow on the wholesome sunshine of her boy's youth. She has kept pace with him in his studies and in his games, has been able brightly and constantly to stimulate him in the best ways, has given him a saintly ideal of what womanhood may be when tried in the furnace and seven times refined.

If a woman worn with bodily pain and spent with weakness may do so much, what may not one accomplish whose life is unfettered and who may go and come as she chooses? Under God, a mother may make her boy what she will.—Margaret E. Sangster, in The Congregationalist.