1913. 
THE KURA Lv N E W-YORKER 
1 363 
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s THE MOTHER AT HOME 
Whenever I stand before a group of 
agricultural students, I am conscious of 
• the places whence they have come and of 
the sacrifices that have sent them to col¬ 
lege or to school. I see the farms on 
many plains and hills. I see cattle in 
the fields, men and boys plowing, children 
going to school on long highways, the 
barn floor on Winter days, hard labor in 
growing crops, the chores at morning and 
at night; and I see homes all over the land, 
separate, each one the center of a little 
world of interest and activity, and every¬ 
one full of labor. And I think how 
fortunate is the people that has these 
farm homes far in the background, set 
close against the bosom of the earth, and 
everyone of them forced to develop a 
serious purpose in life. 
And I think of the father and mother, 
what it means to them to have sent these 
boys and girls away to school. It has not 
been simple or easy. The farm standards 
are not the city standards. The farm 
is a place in which to live rather than an 
opportunity to make money; if it were 
not so, the farms would not make the 
contribution they are now making to the 
good of the world. And results come 
slowly and they sometimes come very 
hardbut sooner or later they come, and 
they mean the more because they are the 
result of waiting and of effort. We do 
not know what things mean when they 
come too fast. 
The coming to college of many 
of these boys and girls has meant real 
denial to more persons than one. In both 
country and town I see fathers and 
mothers planning for them and working 
for them through many doubtful days. 
And my thought goes often specially to 
the mother, who may have had no good 
advantages herself, who has had little 
actual contact with the world but who 
has had knowledge of it as a thing far 
off and who desires that her children 
shall have every useful opportunity. Pa¬ 
tiently and carefully she has planned and 
worked and saved, and has steadfastly 
overcome prejudice. The savings may 
may have been small, sometimes a few 
cents here and a few more there; she 
has foregone clothing that other women 
are proud to wear; she has remained at 
home when she might have gone; she 
has raised chickens, guarded the returns 
from butter and garden stuff and canned 
fruit; and she has brought up the chil¬ 
dren thriftily, to be moderate in their de¬ 
sires and careful of their expenditures. 
And finally the proud day comes when 
the boy or girl goes to college. And what 
a product she is able to send 1 A boy 
or a girl who will work ! 
The seed is always small. The whole 
process of nature is to grow from small 
things to big ones. The oak tree is in 
the acorn and the perfect ear of corn is 
in the kernel. The sacrifice of the 
mother is in the boy and the girl: the 
little things make the life. Nothing is 
too small to be of consequence if it ex¬ 
presses itself in a living product. It is 
a great thing for us that so many mothers 
are willing to make these denials for the 
succeeding generation ; I should fear for 
the generations if it were not so. 
Not only is the seed small, but it is 
mostly hidden. No mother complains of 
these sacrifices, and for the reason that 
to her they are not sacrifices but a duty 
rendered cheerfully even if laboriously. 
She has no thought of praise: she is 
giving herself for the sou and daughter. 
But those of us who know may give the 
credit and bestow the praise. It is our 
duty to give this recognition to the moth¬ 
ers who stand behind these boys and 
firls. Perhaps it is not well to praise 
too loudly, for no one should become self- 
conscious in service such as these mothers 
render. The fine spirit of it is a mighty 
power. It is a power that school or 
college or organization or social move¬ 
ments can never render. The mother’s 
savings and the mother’s care make a 
powerful contribution to the common 
good. 
I have been impressed with the confi¬ 
dence of these mothers in their plans. I 
have known them to work for years to 
the one end, unfalteringly and tirelessly. 
There is no doubt as to the wisdom of it: 
the purpose is clear and the end must 
be gained. This is worth more than many 
brilliant but short-lived efforts. 
In my dealings with these students 
I am often conscious of the mother’s 
work standing behind them constantly. 
They feel it and they appreciate it. The 
long years of steady and careful labor 
have sunk deep into their natures. It is 
not a question of precept and preaching, 
but the actual self-denial and love that 
have given them the opportunity. It 
may not have expressed itself in much 
outward sentiment, but it has strained 
the sinews and taxed the resources; and 
therefore it is real and beyond dispute. 
The boy who goes out to strange condi¬ 
tions and to untried situations does not 
forget. I think that the old home goes 
with him till the end; and he desires that 
father and mother shall have their re¬ 
ward. 
The homes back on the farms, and the 
labor of the persons in them, and the 
patient homely work to give a child an op¬ 
portunity, auo very real forces in the 
world. The mother and the father make 
these homes. l. it. bailey. 
“THE BEST MEAL/’ 
Mother’s Baked Eeans and Bread. 
You want to know the best meal I ever 
ate. To appreciate it one should have 
been a boy brought up on the hills of 
Worcester County, Mass., and been com¬ 
pelled (I use the word advisedly) by his 
parents, who were more or less influ¬ 
enced by public opinion, to attend the 
Orthodox Church, located on one of the 
bleakest hills of the county. It was a 
bare, white church, with a tall steeple, set 
up on high foundation walls, thus afford¬ 
ing a dark, dank vestry underneath. The 
church inside was plastered in white; 
had a gallery running around three sides 
and was heated by two large stoves in 
the ante-room, with pipes running through 
the auditorium to two chimney-holes back 
of the pulpit. The pulpit was a tall ma¬ 
hogany affair, or imitation, that towered 
“like a pulpit” above the congregation. 
It was then regarded, and I think it still 
is. as a sacred place which one could not 
enter unless one had been consecrated ter 
the ministry. In my day no woman ever 
spoke from it. It was the fond hope of 
my mother that one of her sons should 
preach from that pulpit, or go as a mis¬ 
sionary to Turkey, but they never did. 
The Turks have some things to be thank¬ 
ful for. 
In the rear gallery the singers sat. It 
also contained a squeaky organ which 
would sometimes pipe up on the wrong 
key. or groan in' the midst of the long 
prayer, to the amusement of the young 
folks. The half-witted fellow who 
pumped the bellows, and the pretty or¬ 
ganist who played the organ, were al¬ 
ways in a row about the queer perform¬ 
ances of the organ, but I have a sus¬ 
picion that some of the bad boys in the' 
congregation used to bribe the organ 
blower with pink eheckerberry lozenges 
to pipe her up occasionally. 
When the hymns were given out, and 
they were long ones to take up time, we 
all stood up and faced the pretty girls 
sitting in the choir, including some old 
young men who supported them on either 
side, and who sang tenor or bass, prin¬ 
cipally bass. This was a relief, especially 
to the boys, who usually had someone in 
the choir whom they liked to look at; 
but it was a distinct hardship to many 
a hard-worked farmer, for it broke up 
his much coveted nap. 
To a boy who was compelled to get up 
at his usual hour on Sunday morning, 
milk his quota of cows, do his usual 
chores, and get into his Sunday best, 
which was made by “Aunt” Lucinda 
Pike, the tailoress of the town, and be 
punctual at quarter of eleven (it was a 
disgrace to be late, Deacon Smith, one’s 
uncle, and Deacon Sanderson who sat 
opposite, always frowned upon it), then 
to go down into the damp, half-lighted 
vestry at noon after you had kicked your 
feet around the “boss” sheds for 15 min¬ 
utes to keep them warm, munching mean¬ 
while cold apples and dry crackers, and 
there sit through a dreary Sunday School 
lesson presided over by a Sunday school 
teacher, a wood butcher, who drove his 
oxen and his men for all they were worth 
week-days; and after the Sunday school 
lesson to go up into the church again for 
another service in the afternoon; and 
listen to a sermon, a continuation of the 
morning one, on Noah’s Ark or the Atone¬ 
ment—I want to tell you that after you 
had been through all that as a boy, and 
found yourself turned towards home, 
mostly down hill for three miles, the old 
horse galloping up to his limit, mother’s 
baked beans and brown bread, and mince 
pie or pumpkin pie or both, with some hot 
coffee, served at four p. m. on a Winter 
Sunday afternoon, tasted mighty good. 
It was the best meal I ever ate. The 
beans were baked in a big earthen pot 
the night before, in an old-fashioned brick 
oven, and the rye Indian bread was baked 
in a shallow dish, and had a crust an 
inch thick. With the meal was served 
apple sauce made with boiled cider. Was 
it good? Ask a Worcester County boy 
of the early sixties! 
How times have changed, with their 
one service in the morning and Sabbath 
school at noon, and vesper service in the 
evening, in the modern church with its 
club parlor where Sunday school is now 
held, and where concerts, dances, and 
even plays which were taboo in my day 
are now given. w. h. bowker. 
Companionship for Dessert. 
[This is from a scientist who has 
turned all sorts of food inside out in liis 
laboratory and has tested human nature 
as well.] 
“I don’t believe I can help you. There 
is no dinner which stands out as the 
best I ever ate. There are a few of the 
other kind which linger in my memory 
as tragedies and nightmares, either by 
reason of the fellow-diners or of the food. 
To one who has a perfect digestion like 
mine the last dinner is generally the best. 
There is no more call to remember it than 
to recall the collars and cuffs you have 
worn. The few dinners which a healthy 
man—no worshipper of mere food—re¬ 
members, are memorable to him rather 
because of the fellow-diners, the conver¬ 
sation and the good fellowship, than be¬ 
cause of what he ate. 
“Of course there was that time when 
I came home from a tiresome journey, 
full of trouble, and She met me at the 
door and with Her was the incense of 
one of Her dam chowders. She led me 
to the table. She didn’t ask me if I was 
tired, or if things had gone wrong, or if 
I was cross. She just set things on the 
table and Herself close to me at the 
(Continued on page 1356 .) 
