Mother’s Dues

770 IMPR0VEMEN2 ERA. tude and recognition within him could not run dry. His wife always remained to him a sort of mystery of goodness and helpfulness. Some time ago this good man died. It was Christmas time. I felt that one of my very best friends was gone, for he had been an inspiration to my soul. His life was pure from beginning to end. He proclaimed and preached Christianity by living it. He may never have entered a church, nor sung a hymn, but his spirit dwelt at home with his Maker. To know this man was to look at life more nobly. He once tutored me. I cannot help but love his memory. "His soul was like a star and dwelt apart." His great strength lay in his moral value, and wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty and sweetness, there will he find his home. The great men living immediately about us deserve our worship and emulation. There is always something good, noble and true in every human soul if we will but try to "feee it. We do not have to go back to the eternity of the past for a world of heroism and courage and virtue. The present is full of the better angels of life, and it is holding out its hands, full of the peace, joys, and heroism of a great age. MOTHER'S DUES. If mother would listen to me, dears, She would freshen that faded gown; She would sometimes take an hour's rest, And sometimes a trip to town. And it shouldn't be all for the children. The fun, and the cheer, and the play; With the patient droop to the tired mouth. And the "Mother has had her day!"

MOTHERS DUES. 771 True, mother has had her day, dears, When you were her babies three, And she stepped about the farm and the house As busy as ever a bee; When she rocked you all to sleep, dears, And sent you all to school, And wore herself out, and did without, And lived by the Golden Rule. And so your turn has come, dears; Her hair is growing white. And her eyes are gaining the far-away look That peers beyond the night. One of these days in the morning Mother will not be here; She will fade away in silence. The mother so true and dear. Then what will you do in the daylight. And what in the gloaming dim? And father, tired and lonesome then, Pray, what will you do for him? If you want to keep your mother. You must make her rest today, Must give her a share in the frolic, And draw her into play. If your mother would listen to me, dears, She'd buy her a gown of silk. With buttons of royal velvet. And ruffles as white as milk; And she'd let you do the trotting, While she sat still in her chair; That mother should have it hard all through. It strikes me, isn't fair! Selected.