Ann and Her Mother

by O. Douglas

Ann threw up her hands at the mention of the names.

"The Wrights," she said, "were really the frozen edge. The only thing Mrs. Wright had ever been able to teach her offspring was to call her 'Mother dear,' which they did religiously. Davie was no model, but he sat round-eyed at the performance of the Wrights when they came to tea. They mounted on the table and pranced among the butter and jam dishes, and to all their mother's anguished entreaties to desist they replied, in the broadest of accents, 'We wull not, Mother dear—we wull not.' They thought Davie's accent rather finicking—Davie's accent which at that stage was a compound of low Glasgow and broad Linlithgow picked up from the nursemaid—and asked, 'Is Davie English, Mother dear?'

"'No, no, darlings' (Mrs. Wright's own accent was all that there was of the most genteel), 'he only speaks nicely.' Marget used to shake her head over the Wrights and say, 'Eh, I say, thae bairns need a guid skelpin'.'"

"Yes," said Mrs. Douglas; "but the last time I saw the Wright boys they were the most glossy-looking creatures—you know the kind of young men whose hair looks unnaturally bright and whose clothes fit almost too well; don't you call them 'knuts'?—with supercilious manners and Glasgow-English voices, and I rather yearned for the extremely bad but quite unaffected little boys they once had been."

"I know; one often regrets the 'lad that is gone.' Boys are like pigs, they are nicest when they are small. Talking of the Wrights reminds me of a children's party we once gave, to which you invited a missionary's little girl, and two black boys. You had never seen them and thought they would be quite tiny, and when they came they were great strong creatures with pointed teeth. Somebody told us they had teeth like that because they were cannibals, and, after hearing that, it was a nightmare evening. We played hide-and-seek, and every one screamed with terror when caught by the poor black boys. It was terrible to see them eating sandwiches at supper and reflect on what they would have liked to eat."

"Oh, Ann! The poor innocents! They weren't cannibals; they were rescued by the missionaries when they were babies. But I must say I was rather alarmed when I saw how big they were. They didn't realise their own strength, and I was afraid they might hurt some of the little ones. I spent an anxious evening, too."

"Mother," said Ann, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her face supported in her two hands, "you were dreadfully given to spoiling the look of my parties. The boys didn't mind, but I was a desperate little snob. It seemed impossible for me to have the kind of party other girls had, with all the children prettily dressed, and dancing, and a smart supper. At the last moment you were always discovering some child who was crippled and didn't get any fun, or some one who hadn't a proper party frock and hadn't been asked to any parties. You told them it didn't matter what they wore to our house, and insisted on their coming—'compelled them to come in.' Oh, you were a real 'highways and hedges person'! As a matter of fact, it wasn't at all kind to ask those children. They felt out of it and unhappy, no matter how much one tried. If you had asked them when there wasn't a party, and they could have had all the attention, it would have been infinitely better."

"Oh, I dare say," said Mrs. Douglas. "I've spent my life doing impulsive things and regretting them. But, Ann, though you laugh at me about having so many people to the house, the trouble we took was nothing compared to the pleasure it gave. In our church there were so many who needed encouragement: single women fighting for a living and coming home after a long day's work to cook their supper over a gas-ring were glad at times to get a well-cooked and daintily served meal, with people to talk to while they ate; and mothers cooped up in tiny flats with noisy children liked to walk to a green suburb, and get tea and home-made scones and jam; and it does make a difference to boys from the country, living in lodgings, if they know there is some house they can go to whenever they like."

"True, my dear, true, and I don't suppose you ever denied yourself to anyone, no matter how tired, or ill, or grieved you were feeling. You welcomed them all with 'gently smiling jaws.' Do you remember the only occasion on which we said 'Not at home'? We had been at the church hall all afternoon preparing it for a church 'At Home' and had just come in for tea and a short rest, with the prospect of three hours' solid smiling later in the evening. When I found the housemaid going to answer the door-bell I hissed at her, 'Say not at home,' and by sheer bad luck the caller turned out to be a minister's wife from a distance, who had depended on being warmed and fed at our house. She had gone home cold and tealess and, as a consequence, got a bad chill, and we felt so guilty about it we trailed away to see her, and on hearing she had a sale of work in prospect—when has a minister's wife not a sale of work in prospect?—we felt bound to send her a handsome contribution. I sadly sacrificed on the altar of remorse some pretty silver things I had brought from India, feeling it an expensive pleasure to say 'Not at home.' But of course you are right. Now that it is all over and we have long hours to read and write and think long thoughts, it is nice to feel that you helped a lot of people over rough bits of the road and didn't think of how tired it made you."

Mrs. Douglas looked at her daughter with unsmiling eyes. "Do you know what I feel?" she asked. "I feel that I have done nothing—nothing. All the opportunities I was given, I can see now how I missed them; while I was busy here and there, they were gone. And I grumbled when I trudged down to the sewing-class on Monday nights, leaving all you children. I used sometimes to envy the mothers who had no kirk, and no meetings, and could spend their evenings at home. I had to be out so many nights of the week. No wonder poor little Davie said, 'I wish I had a mother who didn't go to meetings.' And it was such a long way home. Standing shivering in the wind and rain at the corner of Bridge Street, waiting for a car, I wondered if there would ever come a time when I would sit at my ease in the evenings with no late meetings to bother about. I didn't know how blessed I was. 'The Almighty was still with me, and my children were about me.' How could I know when I yearned for ease and idleness that when I got them I should sit bereft, and ask nothing better than the old hard-working days back——"