THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
There never was a woman who made a more loving mother, nor a mother more proud of her son than Mrs. Taylor. Tom was a boy that any mother might be proud of, so obedient and affectionate. But Tom was going to get married and bring his wife to the old home, and the widow Taylor assured me that she was going to be such a model mother-in-law that there would be never a cloud of discontent hover over the Taylor home. Tom’s girl was such a sweet little soul that anybody could get along with her; and even if she was not, Tom would not let his mother be abused or slighted or made discontented in her own home.
I didn’t return to the Taylor home for ten years, but I noticed at once a change in the Widow Taylor. There was a look of sadness in her white face and she seemed to have grown old very fast since I saw her last. I knew she couldn’t be more than sixty, but she looked to be easily seventy-five years old. When I found myself alone on the wide porch with the sad faced woman I made bold to inquire: “Well, Mrs. Taylor, did you succeed in playing the part of a model mother-in-law?”
She smiled at me with a look of pain in her face, and slowly said: “I don’t believe there could be such a thing. Perhaps a mother could be a model mother-in-law to a son-in-law, but she couldn’t be one to her son’s wife, and live in the old home. When Tom brought Bessie to this house it was my home. My word was law. You well know that I couldn’t be a tyrant if I tried, yet it was a satisfaction to arrange the house to suit my taste and run things after the style I had practiced for years.”
Then, in answer to my startled look, she continued: “No, Bessie and I have never quarreled. I wouldn’t allow myself to do so. She is Tom’s wife, and he loves her to devotion. If I quarreled with Bessie Tom would have to take one side or the other. I wouldn’t want him to decide against his wife, and if he turned against me it would break my heart. So I try to bear my lot without complaining, but I can hardly help the feeling that I am a stranger in my own home. I have no longer any authority about the house. The pictures are no longer arranged as they were ten years ago. The portraits of the family no longer grace the walls of the downstairs rooms. Bessie says it is not fashionable, so the pictures of Tom’s father and my own, are banished to the narrow confines of my own bed room.
“And my bedroom has been changed, too. I no longer sleep over the parlor, facing the public road. Bessie thought it would make such a pleasant spare room for visitors, so I was removed to the east room over the kitchen. When Bessie’s mother visits her she occupies my old room, while I must go off to my den over the kitchen. I may be selfish, though I pray God to keep me from thoughts that are narrow; but it does hurt an old woman to be thus set aside in her own home.
“And no longer any callers or visitors come to see me. I’m a back number. Even you came to see Tom, and not me. I am a deposed ruler. My kingdom has been handed over to another and my own son is a subject of the new ruler. I never complain to Tom, because he does not understand. He thinks that I ought to be satisfied with things as they are, and maybe I should, for I have nothing to do. Well, nothing to do is the hardest life a person can live. I can go and come at will, but that is not enough to satisfy a woman. I long for the old home in which I was once an entity, a moving force, a working energy.
“Where nothing is expected of the mother-in-law, she can expect nothing in return. I am reduced to an eating, drinking, sleeping non-entity. I once overheard Bessie tell a caller that I was getting queer. Maybe I am, for I certainly feel queer under present conditions. Neither responsibility nor authority rests on me. I am on the scrap pile, an unwilling supernumerary.
“But oh, Mr. Haiden, I am so much more fortunate than some mothers-in-law I know of! I know a poor old mother who is obliged to live with her son’s wife in the home that belongs to the daughter-in-law. And the poor old mother is told of this every day. The daughter-in-law is an unnatural, ungrateful tyrant, and she plays tyrant all the year ’round. And the son is obliged to take sides with his wife, for the sake of peace. When I talk to that poor old mother I feel that I ought to be thankful, and that my daughter-in-law is a saint; but she ought to consult me now and then on household matters. She ought to give me some of the responsibilities and cares. She should at least make me vice-president of the home, since she usurped the presidency. Two women can not live happily in the same house unless they share the cares and responsibilities, and the honors. Every young woman going into her mother-in-law’s home should be taught this fact. It would save many a tear and heartache on the part of the poor old mothers.”