A Modern Madonna

by Caroline Abbot Stanley

"If you were going to say that they were doing a great work and could not come down," remarked the small woman with the bright eyes who had a satirical look of having heard this before, "it was Nehemiah, and he said it to Sanballat."

"Yes, yes," said the Senator, who was a trifle weak in the Hebrew prophets,—"that's it exactly. 'They are doing a great work, so that they cannot come down.' That is what these noble women who stay at home are doing—"

"Ye-es," observed Mrs. Pennybacker, reflectively. "This one was having a dog party to-day and eight other noble women who couldn't come down were going to take their dogs to it."

This punctured the Senator's oratorical balloon so sharply that it came to earth with a thump, leaving him not even a parachute to hang to. And while it was in collapse, Mrs. Pennybacker, whose tongue no longer clave to the roof of her mouth, took the opportunity to remark:

"It is dangerous to generalize, Senator Southard, unless you have a good deal of data. I have observed that not all of the women who stay away from public gatherings and committee meetings do so because of their devotion to their children. Some of them haven't any children and won't have. They can't take time from their pleasures to be bothered with babies. Or they are not willing to give up the apartment house, where they can have every comfort, every luxury,—except children. Some of them substitute dogs, and give dog parties.

"But the women we are talking about, Senator Southard," she went on earnestly, "are not of that kind. They are the women who have children, and want to establish their legal right to them. The mother part of this bill is the one I am talking for. It may be that a married woman has no right to her own property—though I will confess that it beats me to see why; it may be that she should not have the right to buy, sell, or convey property. (So far as that is concerned, a good many married men ought not to have that right, having such poor business judgment that their wives should have been appointed their guardians from the start.) And I am not at all sure but I should agree with you that it is not expedient for women to carry on business—I think a good deal may be said on both sides of that question. (You needn't look at me that way, Mrs. Allaine. I said expedient. Of course it should be lawful.) No, there is room for an honest difference of opinion on all these points, but when it comes to the question of a mother having an equal right with the father to the child she has borne, I cannot see how there can be two opinions there. To my mind the question of joint guardianship is the pith of this bill. It touches women at their tenderest point,—and it touches them every one."

Mrs. Greuze nodded slightly to a lady across the room. This was going all right. She motioned with one eye to the Senator, who was listening with respectful attention. It had been a little more respectful, perhaps, since Mrs. Pennybacker had agreed with him as to the inexpediency of a woman's going into business. We are all human—even Senators. Mrs. Pennybacker had lost herself in her subject. These things had been seething in her soul since the night Margaret came to her, a fugitive. Now that her tongue was loosed she was glad, more than glad to give them utterance.

"Think of a mother having to stand and plead for a legal right to the child she has borne," she went on, moving her chair a little nearer to the Senator. "When you come right down to it, who has a right that approaches hers? Leaving out of account all sentiment, all thought of the price she has paid for ownership in her offspring, and looking at it in a purely practical way, who has a right that can be better substantiated? Who is it that risks her life every time there is a child born into the world? The mother. Who is it that the Almighty has fitted to take care of those children? The mother. Who is it that keeps the family together? The mother. When a man dies and leaves a lot of helpless little ones, what does a woman do? Give those children away to this one and that—anybody that can be induced by love or money to take them? Ah, no! She gets out her sewing machine or her washtub and goes to work. She doesn't know any other way. She doesn't want any other way. It may be but a poor little shack that she has to keep them in—it hasn't any of the luxuries of the apartment house—but it has the children. And it is a home. And she makes it. In nine cases out of ten she doesn't ask any help about it either. It is often pretty short commons with them. She gives them meat when she can get it, and bean-soup and encouragement when she can't. But ten chances to one she will make men and women of them. The most worthless men in a community are not widow's sons as a rule. Did you ever think of that, Senator Southard?"

The Senator nodded reflectively. He had often thought of it. This was a hobby. He was a widow's son himself as it happened, and had been reared in just such a school, though he was leagues and leagues away from it now. There rose before him the little bowed mother in black who had struggled for him at her machine. His eyes softened as he thought of it.

"Sometimes," continued Mrs. Pennybacker, "she is a grade beyond the wash-tub and the scrubbing brush. What does she do then? Brushes the cobwebs off the little acquirements the public school or the 'Ladies' Seminary' gave her years ago, and finds a place to teach; or scrapes together enough money to buy a type-writer, and goes to work. She may have to be away from them through the day, but you never hear of her making that an excuse for foisting her children on somebody else. She makes some shift—gets somebody to stay with them while she is gone, or does something—and she keeps them together.