Dear old Mrs. Kensett was so smitten, so amazed to find that her other self had gone—where she could not follow, that for days it seemed as if she sat waiting, expecting the summons to go herself.
"Surely, Ephraim would send for me," she thought in her sorrow and bewilderment. It mattered little to her, then, how or where she lived; all places were alike, since he was not in any of them, and she mechanically assented to any proposal that was made her, though she did cry out as one hurt, when John proposed an auction for the sale of household effects. "Oh, I can't," she moaned. "Your father made some of that furniture with his own hands," but the worldly-wise son, who had outgrown "foolish sentimentality," over-ruled her. It all went, the cradle in which they rocked, the old clock, the table they surrounded so many years. The rage for the antique had not yet shown itself, or John's wife and Maria, would have secured some of the old-fashioned furniture. As it was, they could not think of having their houses lumbered by it. The other two daughters were not well-to-do, and prized money more than mementos. Benjamin protested most earnestly at this sacrilegious disposal of the dear home things. He could do but little himself, as he was still pursuing his law studies, though he did bid in his father's armchair and a few other cherished articles. John touched him on the shoulder, and said, "Ben, are you crazy? What in the world will you do with a lot of old furniture?"
"You'll see," said Ben quickly.
If John could have seen his brother's next proceeding he would certainly have pronounced him a hopeless lunatic. He took the sum that fell to him and placed it in the bank to his mother's credit. "The interest money won't amount to much, mother," he said, as he handed her the certificate of deposit, "but I shall enjoy thinking that if you want some little thing you can get it without asking anybody."
Mrs. Sinclair was a woman who lived for society; she had long ago cast aside as Puritanical the wholesome restraints that had governed her girlhood. What with parties, operas and theatres, she was a very busy woman. Her young family was much neglected and she was only too glad to transfer to her old mother what little care she did give them. The restful days were gone, one would have supposed that Mrs. Sinclair had engaged, in her mother, a maid and seamstress. "It's so nice," she told her friends. "Mother takes the entire charge of them, and relieves me; children are such a responsibility." It was news to her friends, the fact that she was an anxious burdened mother.
It was hard for Mrs. Kensett to take up her life at the beginning again, to be confined day after day in a close room with noisy, fretful children, to go through the round of story-telling, tying shoes, mending tops and dolls, and minister to the thousand small wants and worries of undisciplined childhood. She had gone through all that, those chapters of her life she had considered finished and sealed up.
There is no occupation in this world more soul and body trying than the care of young children. What patience and wisdom, skill, and unlimited love it calls for. God gave the work to mothers and has furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it and be guiltless.
It was not unusual when there was a heavy press of work in the house, calling for all the forces, for baby too to be bundled into grandma's room and left for hours. This worked very well while all were in good humour, for grandma loved children, but when baby writhed and fretted with aching teeth and would not be comforted, and Master Freddy resented the least correction by vigorous kicks from his stout little boots, and Miss Maude lisped, "I shan't! You ain't my mamma!"—what wonder that grandma, absorbed as she was by sad memories, should lose her patience too, and speak the sharp word that did not mend matters, while she sighed in spirit for the days that would not come back again.
The daughter remembered, too, that mother was cunning with her needle; how very convenient it became to send the mending basket to her room, "just for some work to pass the time away," and in time numberless little garments were sent there too, aprons and dresses, and she sat and stitched from morning till night when she was not tending baby. Nobody suggested a ride or a walk for her, or invited her down stairs to while away an evening when there was company.
"Mother isn't used to it," Maria said; "besides, she can't hear half that is said. She enjoys herself better alone; I suppose all old people do." This course of reasoning seemed to soothe Mrs. Sinclair's conscience when it proved troublesome, but in truth she would not have enjoyed introducing her plain-looking mother to her fashionable friends. "So old style." The old ladies she was accustomed to meet wore trail and puffs and dress caps; she might have searched long, though, to find another old face of such sweet placid dignity as her mother's.