140 



THE AMERICAN HEE- KEEPER. 



May 



THE DEARESTONE IN ALLTHE EARTH. 



Mother. 

 Ill line or lany;uaRe there is no other 

 Word thut tells so clear a story 

 Of life and love and living glory- 

 Like that s'A'eet word, 

 So often heard 

 And yet so little known 

 Until into our soul life grown, 

 As that wliich names the precious one 

 Who only knows her duty done 

 When she has folded to her breast 

 Her offspring for a longed for rest; 

 She who has fought the prize to win 

 For a noble life and an entering in 

 Through the gates of heaven. 

 By promise given, 

 Of yielded life for life, of love for love. 

 For bringing blessings from above, 

 Lifting her offerings up on high, 

 Ready for tbeni to do and die. 

 And t'iis brief verse 

 Woulu fnin rehearse 

 The virtues and the modest worth 

 Of the dearest one in all the earth. 

 Mother. 



—Good Housekeeping. 



HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 



Miss Vezzis came from across the 

 border line to look after some cliilclreu 

 who belonged to a lady uutil a regular 

 ly ordaiued uurse could come out. The 

 lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty 

 nurse and iiiatteutive. It never struck 

 her that Miss Vezzis had her own life 

 to lead and her own afifairs to worry 

 over, and that these affairs were the 

 m.ost important things in the world to 

 Miss Vezzis. Very few mistresses admit 

 this sort of reasoning. Miss Vezzis was 

 as black as a boot, and to our standard 

 of taste hideously ugly. She wore cotton 

 print gowns and bulged shoes, and 

 when she lost her temper with the chil- 

 dren she abused them in the language 

 of the border line — which is part Eng- 

 lish, part Portuguese and part native. 

 She was not attractive, but she had her 

 pride, and she preferred being called 

 "Miss Vezzis. " 



Every Sunday she dressed herself 

 wonderfully and went to see her mam- 

 ma, who livt d for the most part on an 

 old cane chair in a greasy tussur silk 

 dressing gown and a big rabbit warren 

 of a house full of Vezzisses, Pereiras, 

 Ribieras, Lisboas and CTonsalveses, and 

 a floating population of loafers, besides 

 fragments of the day's bazaar, garlic, 

 stale incense, clothes thrown on the 



tiuur, percicoats nung on strings for 

 screens, old bottles, pewter crucifixes, 

 dried immortelles, pariah puppies, plas- 

 ter images Oi. the Virgin, and hats with- 

 out crowns. Miss Vezzis drew 20 mpees 

 a month for acting as nurse, and she 

 squabbled weekly with her mamma as 

 to the percentage to be given toward 

 housekeeping. 



"When the quarrel was over, Michele 

 d'Cruze used to shamble across the low 

 mud wall of the compound and make 

 love to Miss Vezzis after the fashion of 

 the border line, which is hedged about 

 with much ceremony. Michele was a 

 poor, sickly weed and very black, but 

 he had his pride. He would not be seen 

 smoking a huqa for anything, and he 

 looked down on natives as only a man 

 with seven-eighths native blood in his 

 veins can. The Vezzis family had their 

 pride too. They traced their descent 

 from a mythical plate layer who had 

 worked on the Sone bridge when rail- 

 ways were new in India, and they val- 

 ued their English origin. Michele was a 

 telegraph signaler on 35 rupees a mouth. 

 The fact that he was in government 

 employ made Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the 

 shortcomings of his ancestors. 



There was a compromising legend — 

 Dom Anna, the tailor, brought it from 

 Poonani — that a black Jew of Cochin 

 had once married into the D'Cruze fam- 

 ily, while it was an open secret that an 

 uncle of Mrs. d'Cruze was at that very 

 time doing menial work connected with 

 cooking for a club in southern India! 

 He sent Mrs. d'Craze 7 rupees 8 annas a 

 month, but she felt the disgrace to the 

 family very keenly all the same. 



However, m the course of a few Sun- 

 days Mrs. Vezzis brought herself to 

 overlook the=!e blemishes and gave her 

 consent to the marriage of her daughter 

 with Michdc, on condition that Michele 

 should have at least 50 rupees a month 

 to start married life upon. This won- 

 derful prudence must have been a lin- 

 gering touch of the mythical plate lay- 

 er's Yorksliire blood, for across the bor- 

 der line people take a pride in marrying 

 when they please — not when they can. 



Having regard to his departmental 

 prospects, Miss Vezzis might as well 

 have asked Michele to go away and 

 come back with the moon in his pocket. 

 But Michele was deeply in love with 

 Miss Vezzis. and that hehiprl b^m *^r, ov.. 



