struggling, and though life meant very much to her, though her work was waiting for her, giving the little new baby to her oldest girl, she stopped living. This oldest girl, like many another girl, scarce grown, stepped into her mother's place. She washed and combed, dressed and prayed over the little ones. She managed on narrow margin to keep the large family together, with a fair amount of the happiness and good times that always come to large families, even under the most distressing pressures. And when her little charges were well on their way: when the older ones were prepared to begin life's work — to swell the little margin to comfortable appearances a big, lonely, homeless man came and begged her to help him gather Household Gods. Then the Little Mother took the helm. Somehow, it seemed natural. For ever so long, "the boys," now big brothers, had been coming to her for sympathy for advice, which was mostly so good that it was seldom acted on for comfort, when misfortune followed failure, to be advised. And they never found her wanting; because being what she was, she could not help herself. She often scolded them with righteous indignation, and then relented of her cruelty in tears. How those brothers loved her of all the sisters; how they pained her most, is only a repetition of what always happens to her kind. One by one the brothers and sisters married, started new circles, named new babies for this well-beloved sister, and had her godmother the new-comers. While she just struggled on trying to make ends meet as a reduced gentlelady only can, by teaching petted darlings of the moneyed people in the world; and by giving readings and lectures to small seekers after culture. At last one day a cold gripped her with a merciless hold, and she, having nothing left to struggle forno more mothering to do- had not the strength to fight it off. When they had buried her by her father and mother, and left her forever, to go back to their world of husbands and wives and babies, then this family realized, for the first time, that God had sent them a "Little Mother" and they had not known it; had taken her for granted until she was gone - and her life had been only half lived. But that is the way with "Little Mothers." You will find them the world over, in the tenements and the alleys, in the palaces and mansions. They give all they have. They worry and they grieve, comfort and scold, shield and protect, and when they have nothing left to mother, they mostly die. For, after all, they are blessings thrust upon us, and we simply take them for granted-accept them as our right— and think no more about them, giving them belated appreciation when they are gone. *By courtesy of the Overland Monthly. MATRES DOLOROSAE BY ROBERT BRIDGES * Ye Spartan mothers, gentle ones, Fal'n, the flower of English youth, O what a delicate sacrifice! . Unequal the stake and costly the price They rode to war as if to the hunt, Proud and spotless warriors they Ah, weeping mothers, now all is o'er, May 20, 1902. From the one volume edition of the Works of Robert Bridges. Oxford University Press, by permission of the author. MATERNITY BY ANNE P. L. FIELD Within the crib that stands beside my bed A little form in sweet abandon lies I know how Mary's heart was comforted. O world of Mothers! blest are we who know "MOTHER" A REVIEW BY GEORGE MIDDLETON Occasionally there comes along a book which for sheer beauty demands merely a record of its recognition rather than an extended review that might contain presumptive criticism. Mrs. Norris in Mother has produced just such a little story: its charm of treatment dignifying the old theme about which it is written. It seems only a frail story in outline yet it reflects so much observation of the tiny facets of human nature that it will, no doubt, float happily by a long stream of readers. Boss Tweed said he did not care what was written about him only he could not stand the cartoons. Mother suggests, in its picture of what is thought to be old-fashioned motherhood, more by the persuasion of its own beauty, the necessity of such an ideal, than all the theoretical discussions of motherhood from the statistical and sociological standpoint. And yet, granting this, we cannot help feeling while it moves us to tears and so serves its purpose of spiritualizing our innate love of all mothers, that it remains only a picture-something we would wish to hang in the gallery of our dearest wishes, possible to realize only in certain tempera 66 ments, not a conclusion or final statement of what should be or can be brought about in our economic scheme. Mothers are and are not made: motherhood is so often functional, accidental, and not a profession, as Mrs. Paget makes it. The restlessness of so many women, under modern conditions, cannot find its expression in family life, like the Pagets, and we are not sure the forceful utterances of men against race suicide" and unbearing wives, or the more subtle delicate protests of such writers as Mrs. Norris, are not a bit unjust and uncomprehending. The boy of this large family is due to an idealized mother, but, unfortunately, successful motherhood, like wifehood from which it so often differs, is a distinct vocation, and if this story be the protest it seems at our own apparent lack of such mothers and families, the answer lies in the region of each feminine temperament backed and altered as it has had to be by our varying environments. But certainly Mother does reveal the deep chasm which exists between the real homespun mother, like Mrs. Paget with her seven children, and the satinlined mothers who waddle talkatively amid trained nurses, bridge-tables, and a stray Fauntleroyed boy. Margaret, Mrs. Paget's daughter, whose experiences form the thin line of the story, discovers there is a lot of social inconvenience in bringing children into the world, and we are glad such mothers as Mrs. Carr-Boldt limit the supply; only when she returns to her own mother, with a man's love awakening her own instinctive reach for children, does she get her |