"Did you eat the handkerchief, too?"
"No; I froed nashty old handkerchief out the window—don't want dirty old handkerchiefs in my nice 'ittle room."
I was so glad that his burn had been slight that I forgave the insult to my handkerchief, and called up Budge, so that I might at once get both boys into bed, and emerge from the bondage in which I had lived all day long. But the task was no easy one. Of course my brother-in-law, Tom Lawrence, knows better than any other man the necessities of his own children, but no children of mine shall ever be taught so many methods of imposing upon parental good-nature. Their program called for stories, songs, moral conversations, frolics, the presentation of pennies, the dropping of the same, at long intervals, into tin savings-banks, followed by a deafening shaking-up of both banks; then a prayer must be offered, and no conventional one would be tolerated; then the boys performed their own devotions, after which I was allowed to depart with an interchange of "God bless yous." As this evening I left the room with their innocent benedictions sounding in my ears, a sense of personal weakness, induced by the events of the day, moved me to fervently respond "Amen!"
A TRIBUTE TO MOTHERS
Mothers of American boys, accept from me a tribute of respect, which no words can fitly express—of wonder greater than any of the great things of the world ever inspired—of adoration as earnest and devout as the Catholic pays to the Virgin. In a single day, I, a strong man, with nothing else to occupy my mind, am reduced to physical and mental worthlessness by the necessities of two boys not overmischievous or bad. And you—Heaven only knows how—have unbroken weeks, months, years, yes, lifetimes of just such experiences, and with them the burden of household cares, of physical ills and depressions, of mental anxieties that pierce thy hearts with as many sorrows as grieved the Holy Mother of old. Compared with thy endurance, that of the young man, the athlete, is as weakness; the secret of thy nerves, wonderful even in their weakness, is as great as that of the power of the winds. To display decision, thy opportunities are more frequent than those of the greatest statesmen; thy heroism laughs into insignificance that of fort and field; thou art trained in a school of diplomacy such as the most experienced court cannot furnish. Do scoffers say thou canst not hold the reins of government? Easier is it to rule a band of savages than to be the successful autocrat of thy little kingdom. Compared with the ways of men, even thy failures are full of glory. Be thy faults what they may, thy one great, mysterious, unapproachable success places thee, in desert, far above warrior, ruler or priest.
The foregoing soliloquy passed through my mind as I lay upon the bed where I had thrown myself after leaving the children's room. Whatever else attempted to affect me mentally, found my mind a blank until the next morning, when I awoke to realize that I had dropped asleep just where I fell, and that I had spent nearly twelve hours lying across a bed in an uncomfortable position, and without removing my daily attire. My next impression was that quite a bulky letter had been pushed under my chamber-door. Could it be that my darling—I hastily seized the envelope and found it addressed in my sister's writing, and promising a more voluminous letter than that lady had ever before honored me with. I opened it, dropping an enclosure which, doubtless, was a list of necessities which I would please pack, etc. and read as follows:—
July 1, 1875.
"My Dear Old Brother:—Wouldn't I like to give you the warmest of sisterly hugs? I can't believe it, and yet I am in ecstasies over it. To think that you should have got that perfection of a girl, who has declined so many great catches—you, my sober, business-like, unromantic big brother—oh, it's too wonderful! But now I think of it, you are just the people for each other. I'd like to say that it's just what I'd always longed for, and I invited you to Hillcrest to bring it about; but the trouble with such a story would be that it wouldn't have a word of truth in it. You always did have a faculty for doing just what you pleased, and what nobody ever expected you to do, but now you've exceeded yourself.
"And to think that my little darlings played an important part in bringing it all about! I shall take the credit of that, for if it hadn't been for me who would have helped you, sir? I shall expect you to remember both of them handsomely at Christmas.
"I don't believe I am guilty of breach of confidence in sending the enclosed, which I have just received from my sister-in-law that is to be. It will tell you some causes of your success of which you, with a man's conceit, haven't imagined for a minute, and it will tell you, too, of a maiden's first and natural fear under such circumstances—a fear which I know you, with your honest, generous heart, will hasten to dispel. As you're a man, you're quite likely to be too stupid to read what's written between the lines; so I'd better tell you that Alice's fear is that in letting herself go so easily, she may have seemed to lack proper reserve and self-respect. You don't need to be told that no woman alive has more of these very qualities.
"Bless your dear old heart, Harry,—you deserve to be shaken to death if you're not the happiest man alive. I must hurry home and see you both with my own eyes, and learn to believe that all this wonderful, glorious thing has come to pass. Give Alice a sister's kiss for me (if you know how to give more than one kind), and give my cherubs a hundred each from the mother that wants to see them so much.
"With love and congratulations,
"Helen."
The other letter, which I opened with considerable reverence and more delight, ran as follows: