THE MORTGAGED MOTHER
The home was located in an isolated and lonely spot, with hills on two sides of it and a ragged woodland in the rear, and the front side leading into a deep ravine that grew wider as it neared the valley far below. The road came up the steep ravine, passed the house and wound over the hill in the rear. It was so steep that few people traveled the road unless going to call on the owner of the home, Jack Wier.
Jack was sitting on the porch as we drove up to the house, and looked the picture of despair. Children came running out of the house to see who was coming, and the open doorway was filled with frowsy heads, besides the bolder ones who hung over the rail of the porch and gazed at us like so many startled rabbits. We counted nine, and Jack said the youngest was sleeping in the cradle.
“Ten children, after a marriage of twelve years!” he said, with a melancholy tinge in his voice.
“Surely there is no race suicide here!” I exclaimed.
“No, there is no race suicide, but there has been a mother sacrificed,” he said, and there was a sob in his throat. “Two days after the birth of our last baby girl the poor worn-out mother died. Nature could not sustain her frail body after so many years of torture. Common sense should have taught me that my wife was making a sacrifice of herself, but I was blind. Suddenly I was awakened. I was left with a family of ten children, and the eldest only eleven years old. Of course, I am fond of the children, but the price paid was too much—twelve years of painful sacrifice, and then an eternal rest in the bosom of mother earth.
“And what am I to do with my children? We have been getting along, after a manner, but the children are now showing the effects of neglect. It may require another sacrifice before the children are all pulled through. Bessie, my eldest girl, has never had any childhood. She has been forced into womanhood before she fairly tasted the joys of happy girlhood, and she is growing into that peculiar condition where the overburdened body takes on the appearance of age, and the dream-light no longer shines in the hopeless eyes.”
“You take things too seriously,” I said, by way of cheering him up.
“That may be,” he replied, “but God knows how seriously things are taking me! I love my children and would educate them all, if possible, but it looks now as though I will never be able to educate any of them. This poor hillside farm is all I have in the world, and debts accumulate much faster than crops grow. When a man gets so far in debt that release seems hopeless, the future looks uninviting to that man.
“And it’s all owing to my blind ignorance! So long as my wife lived I was proud to be called the father of ten children. It put me in a class with those patriarchs of old, who gloried in their many offspring. I forgot that these same old patriarchs gloried in their many wives, as well.”
Then pointing down the valley he asked: “Do you see that white house over yonder? That man has two children. They are now attending high school over in the city. He is able to give them both a good education, and no doubt the two will accomplish more good in the world than my ten, who must grow up in ignorance and be fit to only perform menial and poorly paid labor.
“And that’s not all, nor the worst: Growing up without a mother’s care and loving hand to guide them, I often tremble for their safety. The pitfalls and traps set to catch the unsophisticated girls are numerous and temptations lurk in every dark corner. Race suicide may be a sin, but mother sacrifice is a barbarous outrage. Outraged nature is taking revenge out of me. I painted this picture myself, with living pictures, but the face of a martyred mother is in the background.”