Mother Passes Through the Shadows

Mother Passes Through the ShadowsA Good "Home Evening" Story

BY ELIZABETH CANNON PORTER

"Mother, won't you fix my girdle for the party tomorrownight? I've tried all afternoon and I can't make it look decent,"said eighteen-year-old Mabel.

"Yes, dear," answered mother.

"I think, mother, I'll bring the children over to practice to-morrow night. They don't know that song half well enough,"announced Maud, who taught in the country school. She wasanxious that her "room" show off well at the coming school enter-tainment. Mother assented, though the constant clanging at thepiano made her nervous and the children tracked mud all overher parlor carpet.

"Say, ma, do you know where my sweater is? I've hunted allover for it, and we play Jordan High tomorrow afternoon." Six-teen-year-old Ned was one of the basket ball team at the highschool.

"I'll see if I can find it after supper," said mother patiently,then sharply as a little boy emitted a surreptitious little cough,"Bob, are your feet wet?"

"Not very," evaded the youngster, as he shuffled the offend-ing members under the table.

"You take your shoes right off and get your feet up to thefire," ordered mother, but just at this point baby Roy choked, hav-ing nearly swallowed his spoon along with his bread and milk,and rescuing the spoon distracted mother's attention.

The Miller family was seated around the long supper table.The meat on the big platter disappeared and the mound of mashedpotatoes diminished under the onslaught of healthy appetites.

Father Miller, a large, bony, silent man, sat at the head of thetable. He noticed that mother's eyes were unnaturally bright andher cheeks flushed. She looked almost as young as her daughters.Unlike many farm women, mother had retained some of her goodlooks. But then she had been unusually beautiful to start in with,as no one knew better than father.

Half a dozen times mother had to get up from the table toget things. By the time she finally settled down, the food on herplate was cold, and she didn't want it. So she rocked baby Royand fixed him for bed. Just as she had got him to sleep the mencame in from their "chores." stamping the snow off, and woke

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him up. Although Roy was a good little sleepy fellow ordinarily,he did not like to be disturbed and he set up a roar.

"Here, father, you take him and see if you can't quiet himdown in bed," suggested mother, taking a mental inventory of allthe things she had"to do that night. Father Miller, noticing hertendency to "catch up" with night work, had long ago taken theattitude that he wouldn't go to bed without her. Many was thenight he had drowsed over his farm paper while she finished herhoueshokl tasks. The big, tired man had not cuddled baby Roymore than ten minutes tonight, however, before he fell asleepacross the bed with all his clothes on.

Mabel had piled up the supper dishes and then apologizedthat she would "just run over to Nellie's to borrow a book" whilethe water heated. The girls had giggled and whispered togetherand it was not till the clock struck ten that she started guiltily forhome.

In the meantime, Mrs. Miller mixed the bread—she had tobake thirteen loaves every other day. Then as Mabel was stillmissing she made little Dora do the dishes. Dora agreed to"wash" if Bob would "wipe," which he did—under protest. Afterwhich he soaked his chilblains in salt water and fell asleep on thelounge. Mother unearthed an enormous stocking bag, sorted outBob's and darned them. Then she roused their sleepy owner andhelped lug him to bed. She got his cough syrup and made himtake it. Bob hated to take medicine as much as most boys, butthis had honey in it and he took it—when he didn't forget.

Mother dragged wearily up stairs and went through twoclothes closets and a rack in the search for Ned's sweater. Shefinally found it in the dirty clothes bin in the basement. Whenshe sat down to fix the belt on Mabel's party dress it was nearlymidnight. She was dead tired, but the thought of her girl's dis-appointment if it weren't ready goaded her on. It was after onewhen she stumbled out to see if the back door was locked. Shenoticed that there was no dry wood in for the morning. It wasBob's work to get in the kindling, but in the ertra exertion ofdoing the dishes he had neglected his own "chore." So mothergroped her way out to the woodshed. A piercing blast blewaround the corner of the house and seemed to go right throughher. She shivered as she crept into bed.

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Maud the next afternoonas her eye swept the disordered kitchen.

"Mother isn't very well. She's lying down," answered Mabel.Her hair was disheveled and she had flour down the front of herapron.

Maud led her gang of school children into the parlor. In-stead of the expected fire in the grate, the room had a still andforbidding chill. She hurried the children through two songs and

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dismissed them. When she went back to the kitchen the rangewas red hot and a sickening odor of burnt bread permeated theentire house. Just as Mabel went to rescue the bread, baby Roy,who had been wiping up all the mud tracks on the kitchen floorwith his white dress by means of crawling back and forth, fell flatin a mud puddle at the door. Mabel frantically turned out threedrawers before she found the clothes to make him warm and dryagain.

"I think you might set the supper on the table, Maud, sinceI'm going to the dance tonight," suggested Mabel. "There's somecold ham and cheese. It's too late to cook anything now."

"It seems to me after I've drudged in a school room all weekwith fractious young ones I ought to have a little peace Fridaynight. I wanted to try that new song. Never mind, run alongand I'll tend to it," said the elder sister.

Mabel spent so long primping that she had very little timeto eat anything. She went with Nellie and Mrs. Wallace and thewhole evening was a disappointment. She wore her last year'sparty frock and the first thing she saw when she entered the housewas Bessie Morehouse in a pink messaline covered with silverspangled gauze. Mabel was at an age when pretty clothes meanta great deal to her and she felt envious. Then the handsomestranger from the city, about whom she had been weaving ro-mantic dreams since the first time she met him, scarcely noticedher, but danced three times and sat out two more with that dollVera lones who had as much brains as a rabbit, Mabel reflectedlatterly. She decided that he wasn't as interesting as she hadthought him. Then Sam Thomas, whom she had snubbed twomonths before, made a point of not asking her to dance. Not onlythat but he emohasized it by asking every girl in the neighborhoodof where she happened to be sitting or standing, to dance withhim. The by-play reached its height when he actually carried offViney Crabtree, who was like a withered up old apple, and whonever danced, simply because Mabel happened to be talking withher.

"I never knew a grown man could be as mean as that," shethought contemptuously.

Her one comfort was good old Pete Johnson, whom she hadknown all her life, and whose eyes followed her with dog-likedevotion all evening.

When she reached home a little hacking cough issued fromher mother's room. She stopped at the door.

"Are you awake, mother?"

"Yes, dear. Did you have a nice time?"

"How are you feeling?"

"As if I were going to smother. Will you bring me a drinkof water—?"

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As Mabel stooped to kiss her mother good night she ex-claimed, "Why, mammy, how hot you are!"

It seemed to Mabel as if she had just got to sleep, and shecertainly hadn't got warm, for, thanks to her silk hose and thinpumps, her feet were like two chunks of ice, when there was agreat opening and shutting of doors, and she heard her father'shavy tread along the hall. Could it be morning already? Shelooked out. The night was blank, but then she was used to risingby lamp light. Her father stopped.

"Is it morning?"she asked sleepily.

"Only four. Your mother is very ill,—burning up withfever and seems to be going off her head. Ned is going for Dr.Stockton. I've started the fires. Perhaps you had better comedown and see what you can do."

Mabel slipped into her clothes and down the stairs. Maud,looking very slim and graceful in her long night gown, was stoop-ing before the fire with a glass of hot milk. Their usually placidmother was tossing wildly among the pillows, fighting for herbreath.

When the doctor came he took the sick woman's temperature.He looked at the thermometer and ejaculated. He put his ear toher chest and listened. When he looked up, his face was verygrave.

"It's pneumonia—double pneumonia. I'm afraid both lungsare affected. Fever running a hundred and four. You'll have tohave a nurse. I will send Miss Sampson out." He gave instruc-tions for the poulticing and took his departure.

The next two weeks, to the occupants of the Miller house-hold, seemed like a nightmare. Hitherto each had followed hisown bent and taken the machinery of the home for granted. Mr.Miller was considered a prosperous farmer and a good provider.Although his barn was big, his house was several times largerand every foot of space meant additional work. He used modernmachinery, but he provided his home with conveniences. As Mrs.Miller sterilized the refrigerator, washed the intricacies of themeat grinder and turned the patented churn its hundreds of times,Mrs. Miller had thought, "Modern people are getting 'conven-ienitis'. We spend so much time looking after our conveniencesthat we have no time for ourselves." She had read the Tehuan-tepec Indians lived in mud huts, bathed in the river every day, puton clean cotton clothes, and spent hours combing their long glori-ous hair in the sunlight.

On Mabel, who stayed home from high school, fell the bruntof the house work. It seemed to her as if the days stretched outinto interminable messes of ugly tasks. Yet she never had timeto finish anything. The children left their things around. Thehouse was alwavs in a muss. The children wouldn't mind Mabel.

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After several bitter quarrels, Mabel decided that it was easier todo things herself than waste her strength to make the others do,so she tried to do it all. Her father avoided the uncomfortablehouse and spent more and more time out among his sheds. Neddidn't get home from school until night-fall. The children com-plained of her cooking. Ned openly ridiculed it. The baby wasneglected. It seemed at times to Mabel that the whiteclad nursein her spick and span cap and gown was the only clean thing inthe house. Yet at night she was tired. Her feet ached so with thepain that she could have screamed when she took off her shoes.

Her humiliation reached its height about two weeks after hermother was taken sick. George Morse, Maud's beau, was therefor supper. Mabel began the meal by washing a great stack ofdishes that had been left from dinner. The oven wouldn't heat.Everything seemed to go wrong. Finally, an hour late, a flusteredMabel called them to the table. Her heart sank when her fathercut into the leg of mutton. It was bloody. Had she not heardher father say that he did not mind rare beef, but mutton—no.The biscuits were so bad that little Bob used one as a missile tohit Ned's ear. The gravy was lumpy. Even the canned peas, thatMabel had opened at the last minute to save the meal, were sour.In her hurry she had poured the milk on them from the wrongpan. Ned, who was in a disagreeable mood because his basket ballteam had lost the game that afternoon, remarked, "Gee, I feel sorryfor the fellow that gets Mabel."

"If some of the rest of you helped a little more instead offinding fault with me all the time, things might be better," criedMabel angrily. "Father is getting to be an old man because hehas to do three men's work, and you do nothing but play, play, playall the time." A pained silence followed this outburst.

Gravely Mr. Miller spoke, "Mabel is right. I have got-toomuch work to do. I had thought of making you a proposition.If you'll hurry home from school and help me more evenings, I'llgive you half the calves that are born this spring. They'll go alono- way toward paying your way when you start to the uni-versity."

Ned swallowed hard. The baseball season would soon beopening and the boys had talked of making him Captain of theteam. But it may be that his defeat had had a chastening effecton his spirit that afternoon for he gulped, "All right, I'll do it,

dad."

Mabel glanced at Maud, whose lips were pursed over thechocolate blanc mange. She tasted it. It was burned. Thenshe remembered that just as she was stirring the pudding, babyRoy had nearly swallowed a marble. While she prevented himfrom choking to death, she had smelled something scorching, butshe thought it was just some milk that boiled over onto the stove.

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The little troubles of these days were soon over-shadowed bythe catastrophe that followed. Mother had a relapse. In theravings of deleriurri they all heard the things that mother thoughtbut never said. In the broken sentences they overheard, each hada guilty feeling.

"John has bought six more cows. That means more work.We are swimming in milk now."

"Maud wants to get married. Why can't she wait till Georgegets ready?"

"I wish Mabel would be serious. She thinks of nothing butboys and frivolity."

"Ned's clothes smell of cigarettes.""Rob, be quiet. You always bang the doors.""Little Dora doesn't grow like she ought to.""Where is the babv? Run quick or he will drown in thetank."

Or again it would be petty household matters that she wouldmutter over, "Eight men for dinner and only two loaves ofbread!"

"The children have got to have new underwear." "Wheredid I put my thimble ?" Or again, "I am so tired. I want to goto mother and rest. She says it is almost spring in Dixie."

Mrs. Miller's mother lived in St. George, and she had notseen her for five years.

Worse than the fevered mutterings were the times she laystill, and they bent over her to catch her labored breathing. Maudfelt ashamed of her mother's patched old night gowns, and broughtone of her own embroidered trousseau ones, but the nurse wiselvpreferred the old, warm coverings. The doctor came oftener.Maud hurried home from school. Mr. Miller haunted the house,helpless, as only a strong man with nothing to do can be. MissSampson demanded more help and they took turns keeping watchby the sick woman's bedside during the long vigils of the night.Even Ned volunteered for duty, and they found him two hoursafter he had gone on guard sound asleep with his black headburied in the white counterpane at the side of his mother's bed.

As the days went by and Miss Sampson reported, "Just thesame," a shadow settled upon the house. The day of'the bigsnow storm the realization came to them that not only was mother"no better," but she was worse. The nurse worked steadily overthe sick woman's bed giving sharp, curt orders for the things shewanted. Father stood at the front window looking out at thestorm saying nothing, seeing nothing. The children spoke inwhispers. The very wind seemed to shriek at the calamity aboutto fall upon the house. At the supper table the older ones atelittle and spoke less, as if each dreaded to voice the fear that

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lurked at all their hearts. They all strained their ears to catchevery sound in their mother's room. I

That night as they knelt at family prayers when their fathergot to the place, "We ask thee to bless our mother and restoreher to health—" his voice broke and he could not finish. Mabel,in wild hysterics rushed up to her room and flung herself on thebed. There Maud found her a few minutes later sobbing into thepillow. "Mother is dying and we can do nothing for her." Withher own eyes welling with tears, Maud went down the stairs andalmost into the arms of the old family doctor.

"Do you think she will pull through?" she asked.

"There is a hope, my girl, or I wouldn't have come."

He went into the sick woman's room. At the end of thehour he asked for Mr. Miller. "I think, sir, if your wife lives tillmorning she will get well. The crisis is at hand. I can do nomore. She has a good constitution and that is in her favor." Dr.Stockton left shortly after that, and Mr. Miller sat with bowedhead praying as he had never prayed before. No one undressedand they flitted through the house like specters. Mabel, with herheart bursting, had to feign cheerfulness as she tucked the young-sters into bed. Midnight came and went. After an interminableage the clock struck one. Finally two, when all nature wakes andseems to turn over and settle itself for its morning nap—two, thedread hour when most spirits wing their way to the great un-known. Three, and the woman still lived,—nay she seemed tobreathe more easily. At last the gray dawn shone murkily in theeast. To Mabel, who always hated the dark, it came as an angelof light, and in an ecstasy of joy she clasped her father's hoaryhead.

As soon as she was strong enough they bade Mrs. MillerGod-speed to St. George. Clad in a blue broadcloth suit, the giftof her eldest daughter, and with her second daughter's purpleand azure bathrobe in her suit-case, "to sleep in because it was socomfy," and with baby Roy tumbling about her feet (she had re-fused flatlv to leave him behind), she started for the sunshine towork the final cure.

As Mabel turned back to her uncongenial household tasks,her father touched her on the shoulder, "I see, my girl, that youare learning the meaning of true greatness."

"Greatness?" She stared blankly. Shoveling ashes andscrubbing floors seemed as far removed from greatness as any-thing she could imagine.

"Yes, true greatness lies in doing the task that lies nearest(lie hand, and doing it well."

Mabel learned that good housekeeping consists in not tryingto do it all oneself. She put out part of the washing, and got

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a woman to come in and iron one day a week. Each child was re-quired to do some part of the household work.

"It takes as much diplomacy to run this home as it does theGerman embassy," she remarked. Although it was not as well runas in her efficient mother's hands, conditions gradually improved.

Mrs. Miller, in the southern part of the state, was also learn-ing something. When she saw how some other people lived shefelt a great sense of security in her big comfortable home, andher toiling husband who provided it. The piles of vegetables,the pans of cream, the quarters of beef, that she had looked on asburdens to be looked after now seemed as the horn of plenty. Shemet a little woman who had buried as many children as Mrs.Miller had reared, and a great surge of thankfulness swept overher for her living, demanding, eight. She felt that she had neverknown what trouble was. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectantly,she went home.

After they had all hugged their thin but radiant mother, Mabelasked, "How did you happen to come back so soon ?"

"Why, I got so worried over Maud's wedding, I just had tocome."

"Why, mother, didn't you know we had given it up ?"

"Given it up ?" repeated her mother dazedly.

"Yes, the reception, you know. We thought we would justgo quietly to the temple and be married and then go out to ouriittle home."

"Well," said her mother, decisively, "we'll have a weddingsupper anyway, for his folks and yours."

That night, as they all gathered in the sitting room, the homecircle complete, once more, their father said in his grave, quietvoice, "We put too heavy a burden on mother, and we almost lost.Through the blessing of the Lord, she was restored to us, and Ihope we will all prove worthy of it by doing the things we havelearned in our necessity."

And each one in his heart decided that he would.

"It is true," severely said the lady of the high ideals to thesuccessful writer, "that you have gained much prosperity by yourwritings, but you have written nothing that will live."

"Perhaps not," returned the author; "but when it comes to aquestion of which shall live, myself or my writings, I never hesi-tate."—Ladies' Home Journal.