A BIT OF OLD GREENWICH.
A man ranking high in the intellectual world once took for his theme, when preaching to a company of wage-earners and their wives, "Home Life." It was a rare inspiration that moved him to point out how much was lost to the home where the verbal expression of love was never heard. He said no higher inspiration to work his best could be given a man than his wife's good-bye kiss in the morning; nor a charm that would drive away care, worry and exhaustion more perfect than her welcoming kiss when he returned from his work at the close of the day. He pictured the feelings of the man who found his wife silent and unresponsive when he entered the house; who answered his query as to what was the matter with "Nothing." In his audience was a wife whose faithfulness and intelligence had made her husband far more than he could ever have been without her, a fact of which he was fully conscious; he was not allowed to forget it. This wife was deeply impressed by what she heard. She was ignorant because of lack of opportunity, untruthful because she was ignorant; she could not see the relations of things. Vindictive, because in her moral code you must resent any wrong, real or fancied, by an action that goes far deeper than that of the offender in its effect. Anything else would be an evidence of weakness. She expressed her contempt for one who would forgive an injury, and prided herself that she never did. She had enthusiasm, could inspire others, and proved herself as capable in leading them to do wrong as to do right. She was the power in her home, and established its standard of right and wrong that gave motive to the lives of her children. This night the speaker lifted the veil. There was something that belonged in the home that she alone could put there, and she had not. She resolved that she would part from and meet her husband with a kiss. It is best to let her tell her own story:
"I just made up my mind I'd do it." No girl of eighteen giving a confidence of a love affair could have shown more embarrassment than this mother of wage-earning children. "I did not know how I would do it, or what —— would say, but I just made up my mind I would kiss him when he came home. I thought about it all the next day. Late in the afternoon I made up my mind. Of course, I could not kiss him before the children. When it was most time for —— to come home, I sent them each on an errand that would keep them away until long after —— got home. I had the table all set and the supper cooking. At last I heard him come up the stairs. My land! How I trembled! I stood so that when the door opened he would not see me, and then I just kissed him before I had a chance to think. He staggered back, he was so surprised." She waited while an expression that should have been habitual changed her shrewd, hard face into a loving woman's. "But I never saw him look so happy," she continued. "I made up my mind I would kiss him every day when he came home. I could not kiss him in the morning, for the children were all there," she added decidedly; "but I can always send the little ones on errands at night."
Perhaps it was three weeks later that she told of the climax. "I had a toothache all day; I was tired and cross, for I had been washing. I stood by the fire, making the hash. Kittie was setting the table, when —— opened the door. I did not look up. He stood in the door a minute; then he asked, 'What's the matter, Jennie?' 'Nothing.' I knew I said it cross. I looked up then. —— looked so disappointed that I thought he'd cry. I just forgot the children, and right before them I kissed —— twice. I wish you could have seen his face. I burst out laughing when I looked at the two children. They stood staring at us with their mouths wide open. Do you know what I did? I kissed each of them. I don't believe I've kissed either since they were babies. I think they told the big ones in the front room when they came from work." This experiment in love-making did not continue. —— came home drunk one night, and for punishment the experiment was dropped and never resumed. While it lasted, it had a most harmonizing effect on the whole family, and one wondered if it had been begun earlier, when the habit could have been easily fixed, what would have been the result.
The mother, from a worldly point of view, has been most successful. The children are in positions where skill is required, and wages seem to depend on health only. Yet they are not popular; are selfish and unsympathetic. They point to their own success as the reason why every family should succeed. The family has moved into new environment, establishing relations that have placed it several rounds higher than the level at which the home-making began; but it has no fixed place in the social world. The combined income of the five wages equals at times two thousand dollars a year.
Not every wife in this world of silent love is encouraged as this wife was. Another, a gentle, quiet woman, without children, thought she would try. "He sit so still when he came home. I bought a flower and put it on the table. I have what he like best for supper, and I wait. I listen over the banister. When he come near our flight, I slip back and wait in the room, leaving the door open so he can see. When he close the door I go up to him, put mine arms around his neck and kiss him. He take my arms, shove me back and say: 'What the matter mit you? You crazy?'" The woman was crying. The three friends sat silent a moment, and then one said: "You haf no children," and the wife nodded. That was her explanation, and theirs.
Perhaps no greater charm prevails in this world of wage-earners than the attitude toward motherhood. There will be found here and there the young woman who rebels against it, who may risk life rather than assume the care of a baby. When one goes back of this rebellion there is always found the influence of some older woman who has other ambitions, clothes, pleasure; who influences, or tries to influence, the young married women she meets; a woman who will even talk freely to girls against motherhood. There is in this world of workers the strong active public sentiment against childless women that more than counteracts this influence, and babies are welcomed when there is nothing but love to greet them, not much more to feed them or clothe them; but they are welcomed. The training of the children—natural, not acquired—to be fathers and mothers has doubtless a far-reaching effect in keeping this natural attitude of mind toward parenthood.
We get up a lot of wasted sentiment about the little mothers and fathers, not seeing that the offices are fitting them to meet a future when all that they learn in the care of baby brothers and sisters will make their lives easier as fathers and mothers. Often the only opportunity they have for expressing affection is the little baby given to their care.