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Show ...Oar Soys and dirts.., i EDITED F.Y AUNT BUSY. Thts department Is conducted solely tn th Inter sts of our girl and boy readers, I Aunt Busy 1 glad to hear any ttmo from th 1 meces imd nephews who read this pasre. nnd to civ ; Ihem ell the advice and help In her cower. 1 Write on one Bide of the paper only. Do not have letters too lone V Original stories and verses will be cladJy received f tnd carefully edited. receivw The manuscripts of contributions not accerted win be returned. . . i : 1 J "The Mother and the Child." : The convent stood on the only hill for miles i around. It had been an old-fashioned country-seat until twenty years after the civil war. Then its i owner had been unable to pay the interest on the X mortgages, and go the Sisters bought it. The gold j cross on its chapel shone over the cool-looking ; clusters of aspens and locusts in the hot summer sunlight 1 he daughter of this former owner stood on her doorstep, and looked, shading her eves with JV haiuls at tlie chapel spire. Her babv a flaxen- haired httle boy of two lay asleep in the grass j under thojhick hedge of blossomless lilacs. . Warton's angular form, covered by a large j -white parasol, had just passed down the garden I path into the road; she' was a very thin woman po thin, the negroes said, she was obliged to carry a big umbrella in order to make a shadow. Mrs. ? Warton and her constant umbrella were not beloved I in the neighborhood. She was a slave of duty to her neighbors; her husband, a placid, silent man. I was the village postmaster. The couple had no ! children, and this fact helped to account for Mrs. ; "Warton's ceaseless activity outside her own home. where, apaprently. she had no duties. She had founded the Social Visiting club Devoted to True ; Economic Principles. There were other members, j but she herself did most of the work and all the ! talking. The work was to visit the poor and help ' them to economic principles. i "While Alice Leslie stood looking at the glitter- ing cross on the chapel, with many doubts and fears in her heart. Mrs. Jeff Warton continued her way along the dusty road, borne up against the heat by . I indignation. She had had what she called a "tiff" with Alice Leslie. And the effect of this on Alice had evidently been disheartening; for, having 0 looked at the cross a little while longer, she went k y.-jf'' back to her baby and wept. , Mrs. Jeff Warton was not of the weeping kind: she wept seldom, and then only when her temper was aroused. She swept into the postoffice with violence. Jeff,- rotund, placid, was sorting letters behind the screen which separated him from the general public. ' "Shiftless!"' cried Mrs. "Warton, folding her urn- hrella. ''I should say so! She's only fit to be one of those Sisters up at the convent, who spend their time within four walls, instead of getting into the open and doing the world's work. Shiftless !" '"Mary Ann," said Jeff "Warton, with the slow (Georgia drawl. "I ain't got nothing against the Sisters. I didn't think much of them at first because be-cause pop used to read Maria Monk's book to us when we were children; but I've learned better since. They're a sensible lot of women, and I reckon reck-on their letters have about quadrupled the earnings of this postoffice." ''Jeff." said Mrs. "Warson. fanning herself with n large advertisement bill of a popular excursion. "I say that Alice Leslie is shiftless. She can't pay the rent; she has to live on what truck her garden can give; and she simply won't part with that baby, though Mrs. Ingelby will give her a place in Charlotte, Char-lotte, in her own home, but she must go alone." "Seems to me," said Jeff, "that if I was a baby. I'd want my mother to stick to me, right or wrong." Mrs, "Warton smiled indulgently. She was never severe with Jeff as she was with the rest of the world. Even when her engagements at meetings kept her out late and he failed to have a hot sup-, sup-, per waiting for her, she seldom reprimanded him, though this was trying. "It is not economic," she went on; "it's unscientific; unscien-tific; the best thought of modern times demonstrates demon-strates that children who can not be brought, up as they should be ought to be taken from their mothers. moth-ers. A mother like Alice Leslie a widow without resources ought gladly to give up her child to an institution and go to work. But she'll starve first!" L "No she won't," said Jeff, turning aside to bite J off a "chaw" of tobacco. "I sent a leg o' mutton and some of that barley we got from Lowe over r. this morning. And I've a good mind to speak to 1 , the Sisters when they come for the letters, f Mrs. "Warton bridled; it was Mrs. Warton's habit to bridle; that is, she struggled to produce an expression ex-pression of extreme haughtiness and disdain. "Jeff "Warton, I'm ashamed of you." she remarked, re-marked, "encouraging idleness and thriftlessness !" Jeff shrugged his shoulders in a lazy way. He rrpected his wife's superior education she had . l.ppn one term at Delaware Female College and ihe consequence of it, which gave her great volu-J volu-J bility of speech; but he always held silently to his ' own opinion. "She'll have to give in and let the baby go to the institution in Charlotte. She can't earn enough i keep a roof over her head and hold on to that baby. too. It's ridiculous! It should not be allowed. al-lowed. I'll see to it. The rent is due on Monday, end she'll have to go. It sounds cruel, hut it is the best thing for the child and her the very best. Ixlie, her husband, was shiftless, and he left .'. shiftless widow." "Poor Leslie was all right till he caught cold helping in the railroad wreck on that winter night; and I reckon Eve herself didn't feci so desolate about the loss of Paradise after her baby came." "Blasphemy!" said his wife. "After supper, I go mi the train into Charlotte and see that a place is kept for that wretched baby." Jpff Wharton merely grunted, and his wife walked rapidly over to their dwelling in the oak grove. Jeff watched her. t "I wish liir wife wasn't so masculine," he thought, wistfully. "She's a gond wife and an ed- ucatcd one, but the more scientific bhe grows, the harder she gets;. If I were a woman, I don't think $M uive up my rh'M to anybody to raise. When I f think of. mv old mother and the hard times we lad, I wouldn't cut out the hard times and lose the armory of that mother." . . Jeff took out his pine and watched the binls in the dmtv locust trees for a time, lie thought of tV Etruinrles his mother, a widow, had made for him end he actually smiled at the remembrance of th dav when he had surprised the little woman by doing 'her ironing, while she had dropped tours over the tak of rnendine his only pair of S.,n-dav" S.,n-dav" trours. which he had torn in a thoughtless , game of football. "If it's mother and hard times k or no mother and good times," he thought, give me moth!'' oo rathe flushed, and carrying a folded i-hawl on her ""''Jeff' ehe said, "I've had some cold things on the table in the kitchen. I couldn't wait for supper; sup-per; I've got to have this iniquitous business finished. fin-ished. The idea of Alice Leslie's expecting to. bring up that child in poverty, when there's an institution institu-tion that will take it and raise it in the best possible pos-sible manner!"' "I wish," Jeff said, with as much irritation in his tone as he ever showed, "that you'd let Alice Leslie alone. She'll make out somehow. My own mother did, and there were five of us. I wouldn't give up the memory of those old days, when we had to sew newspapers together for quilts and when a nickel was riches, for life iu any rich institution in-stitution in the world; and Alice Leslie's boy will say the same thing when he grows Up." "Your mother wasn't an educated woman." answered an-swered Mrs. Warton, calmly. "What did she know about economics?" "She knew how to make a home!". retorted Jeff. "I tell you that!" "My dear old man," said his wife, indulgently, "it is seen she brought you up. Dear! dear! I must see Alice first, and tell her to have the child ready, and then catch the train for the institution. Goodbye!" Good-bye!" Jeff frowned. "A remarkable woman!" he thought. "But too well educated. I'd like to help Alice Leslie to keep her child, but I'm afraid I can't fight against my wife's education. I wish some of the Sisters would drive down in their buggy for the mail before the thing is settled. They're so fond of the picture of the Virgin and the Child, I reckon that they'd somehow see the real, human point of view." In the meantime Alice Leslie was alone with her thoughts, and they were wretched thoughts. For her the cud of the world had come. There was no use in going over the past. Mistakes had been made by both her father and her husband. Irs. Warton had roughly pointed them out in her frank way. But Alice did not care. She did not care what mistakes they had made in this world if she could only be sure, that she should meet them iu the next, and if she could only keep her baby. To think of parting with him was worse than death. And yet, as Mrs. Warton pointed out, the rent must be paid. She must earn enough to pay it. But how? Mrs. Warton had, with cold truthfulness, truthful-ness, pointed out that there was no answer to this Question. She had two accomplishments: She could play on the piano with a certain dash and precision. She did not smile as she made the inventory. in-ventory. Mrs. Warton had made it for her with a sneer, intended to stimulate her to better tilings. She might give music lessons to small children ; she was careful and exact enough. But where were the children i Mrs. Warton had called up her gift for the making of the flowers, which she hcrsslf had utilized on festal occasions, only. to shatter its value. "I can't I can't give him up!" Alice Leslie said many times during the afternoon. Whenever she approached her door she caught sight of the cross on the convent chapel glittering in the sun. It seemed to beckon to her. Like most persons in the neighborhood she looked at the convent with dislike. It had been the property of her people: but, after all, the Sisters were not responsible for her father's failure to keep it. That was not her reason for regarding the Sisters as intruders, nor was it that they were of a different creed. She was not positively attached to any creed; but she, like most of her neighbors, resented the fact that the Sisters had made their convent an asylum for colored people. It was an industrial school for black boys. To this the best house in the neighborhood had been reduced. It was an insult which the more practical folk had begun to forgive, though it was the general opinion opin-ion that the blacks were being educated above their position. But Alice Leslie was not practical, ller father's dining room filled with black boys, who were not her father's servants! It was too horrible. She avoided the Sisters whenever she happened to meet them. One of them, once seeing her little hoy among the clover in the fields., had given him a little. lace-bordered picture of the Mother and the Child. She allowed him to keep it, but the only excuse that she could find for the preoccupation of the Sisters with the black .people was that "they were not southern ladies." To think of that beautiful beau-tiful old mansion, the pride of the district, with the carved marble mantlepieces, its Louis Seize portico, and its mahogany doors, used by the grandsons grand-sons of her father's slaves! There was a certain jealousy, too, among the poorer white neighbors, with whom she sympathized; these colored chil-ren chil-ren were receiving a' practical education which their children were not given, for the district school was poor and badly taught. Alice Leslie could not. as a rule, see the convent without impatience; but today the gilded cross in the distance seemed to look at her tenderly. "Those Sisters wouldn't help me," she sighed: "and I wouldn't ask them. But" (and she looked at the little picture of Our Lady of Good Coun- cnll "if ftimr lil.-n n nir-tiirr ff that. kind. T alionld think they'd understand better than Mrs. Warton." The cross "-littered; but she turned away, half in disdain, half in longing. About 4 o'clock Mrs. Warton appeared again. Alice Leslie saw her coming and met her at the garden gate. "I want you to ha've that child ready to go to Charlotte at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. I'm off now to make the arrangements. And then you can come to live with me for a while, and I'll have you taught plain sewing. Jeff's just as foolish as you are. He talked of the Sisters helping you, but my sakes! they're so busy with their little niggers nig-gers they have no time for you; so don't get that idea into your head. Besides, you're not a Romanist." Ro-manist." Alice would hear no more; she broke into sobs, ran up the path to the house, and locked herself in. She was, however, not safe with her sorrow. Mrs. Warton came bock and put her head through the window. "You needn't think." she said, "that your little accomplishments will help you in this practical world. I told your father many times that he didn't know how to bring you up. And don't reckon reck-on on the Sisters up there, I say again. They won't help ymi; they probably want to take that child away from you and make him a Romanist." "I'd make him a Romanist tomorrow if I thought I could keep him!" cried out the mother. "I want to keep him. and it will just, break my heart to give him up. Something must happen to prevent pre-vent it!" "You've got to face the music," answered Mrs. Warton. replacing the pot of geraniums s:lie had put aside in order to make room for her head in .the window. "As to expecting anything from those Catholic nuns, it's absurd!" Alice Leslie threw herself on the old-fashioned haircloth sofa and clasped her child. "It almost seems as if that woman had a spite against baby!" she sobbed. Mrs. Warton, filled with righteous resolutions, made her way to the train. The mother felt that the ruin of her world had come. She could not live without her child she 'could not live. Was there no help on earth or in heaven? The little picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel was pinned against the wall under the mahogany-framed looking-glass. "She was the Mother of Christ, anyhow," Alice Leslie thought. "Nobody can deny that. And she never left him!"' Alice Leslie did not dare to pray to the Mother. All her traditions were against this. She did not know what to say; she simply extended her hands, holding her baby in them. That was all. And then she waited with a kind of calm; neither expecting ex-pecting nor hoping, but just waiting. The baby slept, and she must have slept, exhausted by trouble trou-ble and the heat of the day. A gentle knock at the door awakened her. She started, terrified. Could it be Mrs. Warton? No; that gentle knock was not hers. She unlocked the door. In the dusk, stood a tall, dark-clothed figure. The neigh of a horse sounded near; in a carriage beyond the gate sat another Sister. The mother started back, half-awakened half-awakened and frightened. "No, no, you shall not take him!" she exclaimed. ex-claimed. "I will keep him if I starve." "You will keep him, of course," said the soft ; voice. "Mr. Warton at the postoffice has. sent us. ' There are many things you can do for us at the ; school, and, if you don't mind, we Avill take you! with us now. Come, and rest for a while." "Then I shall not have to give him up! I sup pose," she added fearfully, "you'll make me bring him up a Romanist." The Sister at the door she had very humorous eyes 'laughed. "Don't worry about that. Come for a few days and see what you can do for us. If you can play a little, you can help in the kindergarten. Wo have too many children and not enough teachers." "Alice Leslie!" called a shrill voice from the gate. "I have made all the arrangements for that child." (Airs. Warton had hurried from the station.) sta-tion.) "Don't you be deluded by these celibates: they have no sympathy with human life." "Mrs. Warton," said Alice, "my baby is to stay with me. I'm sorry you've had so much worry about me, but" "Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Warton. "You can't earn your living." "She 'will help us teach the children in our school till we find other work for her," said the oisier, genuy. "What!" exclaimed Mrs. Warton. clutching Alice leslie's arm. "What! Teach niggers! Alice Leslie teaching niggers! She doesn't know anything, any-thing, in the first place. Your father would turn in his grave, Alice Leslie, to hear of you teaching niggers!" Alice paled a little, and shrank back. Then she heard a suppressed laugh from the Sister at the door. That restored her trust. "I shall be ready in a minute," she said. Mrs. Warton stood scolding at the ga.te. "It's uneconomic," she said; "it's foolish! She ought not to be allowed to live in a fool's paradise." para-dise." Alice Leslie gathered a few things together and wrapped the baby up. Then she entered the buggy and sat between the Sisters. "Oh, I forgot something!" she said. She handed the boy to the tall Sister and ran back to the house to get the little lace-edged picture. pic-ture. "Do you realize," was Mrs. Warton's last appeal, ap-peal, her voice ringing through the damp, heliotrope-scented air "do you realize that they'll make you try to teach niggers V "Little children, black or white, are little children," child-ren," said the Sister, sternly; "and no mother ought to forget that !" "Drive on!" said Alice Leslie, holding her baby tight, with the Sister's arm around her. Mrs. Warton stood, statue-like, in the road. "It's uneconomic!" were her last words uttered there; but, later, she spoke her mind fully to Jeff. Ave Maria. |