"Charlie," she said, plaintively, to her youngest boy, "what would you do if poor mamma were to get very sick?"
"Send for the doctor."
"But, Charlie, suppose poor, dear mamma should die! Then, what would you do?"
"I'd go to the funeral!" was the cheerful response.
To my mind this mother had the son ordained for her from the beginning of the world.
Many boys are all love and sympathy for their mothers. Mamma appeals to all that is tender and chivalrous in the nature of the man that is to be. The maternal tenderness ought to be too strong to impose upon this sacred feeling.
Perhaps one of the prettiest of Bunner's "Airs from Arcady" is that entitled, "In School Hours," in which he thus describes the woe of the thirteen-year-old girl when she receives the cruel letter from the boy of her admiration. The poet tells us this sorrow "were tragic at thirty," and asks, "Why is it trivial at thirteen!"
"Trivial! what shall eclipse
The pain of our childish woes?
The rose-bud pales its lips
When a very small zephyr blows.
You smile, O Dian bland,
If Endymion's glance is cold:
But Despair seems close at hand
To that hapless thirteen-year old!"