--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Palmer, Annie D. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 22 number: 9 published: 1919-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Palmer, Annie D., "Their Children’s Children," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 9 (July 1919): 765–773.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2209unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2209unse start_page: 765 end_page: 773 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2209unse publication_year: 1919 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Their Children’s Children THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN 767 ******** "So my children are 'riffraff'," she said to herself. " ''Riffraff -riffraff'!" "Mama, Fontella was out by the gate when I came by, crying as hard as she could because her papa is dead! And Fontella was nearly frozen, too, and she wouldn't go in the house!" Teddy Cram spoke excitedly and with much feeling for a boy of ten years, and his mother gave ear at once. "And who is Fontella, dear? And why wouldn't she go in the house?" she asked. "Why, Fontella Jackson. She says her mama cried all night, and they're goinghave a funeral tomorrow and to — mama, can I take Fontella a cookie? a hot one, mama, to warm her hands?" "Sure, you may. You may take some for the little brothers and sisters, too." "They haven't any brothers, mama." "No?" — "No only Rhea and Maud are the biggest, and girls. Fontella in my grade in school, and Celia is the of is size Elsie, and— can't remember the baby's name, I such a funny it's one. Mamma, our grade is going to send some flowers. Can I have a dime?" "Yes, dear; and you would better take over the whole pan of warm cookies. I can make some more for you and Elsie," answered Mrs. Cram, whose mother heart was sadly touched by the interest of her child. When he had gone out with the cookies she went to the telephone and rang her husband's office. "Fred, do you know the Jacksons that live in this neighborhood?" The man died yesterday afternoon. A happy relief, "Yes. too. He has been in the hospital for three months, and I have known all along that there wasn't a ghost of a show for him." "They are very poor, aren't they, Fred?" "Seemingly, yes. I suppose I shall have to make a reduc- — tion cut the bill in two maybe — and it's doubtful that I'll ever get the other half. Why did you ask about them?" "Teddy seems so sorry for one of the little girls, who is a classmate of his." "Oh, I see. Well, they seem to be very nice people, and they are neighbors. Suppose you order up a nice bunch of carnations or roses and let Ted present them." Whether from an impulse of generosity or from a desire to give pleasure to her boy, or from both combined, the idea met 768 IMPROVEMENT ERA with the hearty approval of Mrs. Cram. Hastily she closed the conference with her husband and called up the florist. She had never bought roses before at the price the florist now asked for them, but it was so near to Christmas they were sure to be high. She glanced out at the window and saw Ted — coming up the snowy path her beautiful, manly Ted. Mentally she added to the picture an armful of American Beauty roses, tied with a big bow of white satin ribbon; and before Ted opened the front door the order was given. Three days after the funeral Mrs. Jackson received a bill for the hearse for five dollars. That set her thinking, and she began to figure. The figures that presented themselves were ap- palling. How could she ever meet all those obligations? Why had she been forced into a debt that she could not pay in ten years? Oh, how foolish it was! And yet how could she have avoided it? Ben had had so many friends, and they had expressed their love, in gifts of flowers. Her own kind friends, in the sympathy of their hearts, had sent flowers. The children's teachers and schoolmates had sent flowers. And when so many beautiful tributes had been brought, it had looked ridiculous that she should wear a shabby dress and her old brown hat. So she had ordered new ones. Rhea's coat, which might have served through the winter for school, would not do to wear to her father's funeral with all those flowers. The two little girls would have to have shoes and hoods; they always stayed at home and had nothing to go out in. And then, the casket! — What would the friends think -the friends who sent such beautiful flowers— what would they think of the plain, pine coffin which had been ordered? It would not do. The order was cancelled and a plush-covered casket with silver trimmings, that cost four times the price, was purchased, with the understanding that it could be paid in monthly installments. Mrs. Jackson could see it all now, the hollowness and the folly of it, now that she was facing life alone with five helpless little children. And the flour bin was empty, and there was coal for only two or three days. It did not take her long to sum up her resources. She could wash and she would begin at once. Perhaps Dr. Cram would let her pay his bill that way. "I suppose that is what 'riffraff' is for," she said, bitterly. Just then Mrs. Pierson was ushered in by one of the girls. Mrs. Pierson was the wife of one of the richest farmers in the country. What could Mrs. Pierson want at the Jackson home? The fine lady was not there long before her errand was made known, nor long after, either, for that matter. She had heard of the death of Ben Jackson, of the poverty of the familv, of the well-behaved little girls. As she had no children of her own THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN 769 and could give such a good home to one of the little girls, she felt sure the mother would be glad to give her the light-haired one "What do you mean, Mrs. Pierson?" The mother had listened in blank amazement until she could listen no longer, "What do you mean? Is motherhood so light a thing that it can be shifted from one woman to another?" "But would you not rather see the little girl in a good home, well cared for? You will not be able to get bread for so many." "Mrs. Pierson," said Martha, rising up in the full dignity of her motherhood, "God gave these blessed little girls to me, and he will provide some way for me to take care of them. It is true that you have every luxury that wealth can buy, but you couldn't buy one of my children for all you possess —-not while I can lift a hand to work for their support. And you can take that as final from Martha Jackson. Good-bye." "You are a strange woman. Good-bye." Mrs. Pierson went grandly on her way, and Mrs. Jackson gathered her little family literally "as a hen gathereth her chickens." She must needs put her arms about them singly and in group that she might feel their warmth and love for her support. She sat thus in her one rocking chair, holding them all close about her, when the Relief Society visitors came to inquire about her needs and see if they could render assistance. "No, thank you," stoutly answered the brave little woman. "We shall get on. I can't think of accepting help from the society, not so long as there are nails on my fingers. I can work, and if the kind Father in heaven will give us health I can take care of my children." "But, Sister Jackson, what will vou do?" the visitors asked. "I shall wash at present, till I find something better. Perhaps you can find some regular patrons whom I can serve in that way. I will bring washing home and so be able to take care of my little ones at the same time." And so they left her, resolute and brave to the last degree. Ten years went by. Ten years of prosperity and happiness for Dr. Cram and his household, ten years of toil and hardship and incessant struggle for the Jacksons. But the little mother could now look back upon it all and feel that the worst was really over. She had paid up all the debts and could now laugh about what she called "the tragedy of the flowers." She had kept the children in school until the two older eirls were able to earn good salaries, Rhea as a teacher, and Maud was bookkeeper in a large store. And thev had weather-boarded and painted the shack, and built an addition of two rooms and a bath. True she had many times washed and mended the children's clothes after they went to bed at night when she, too, should have been in 770 IMPROVEMENT ERA bed; and many times she had given them a piece of bread and sugar or molasses for breakfast and again for supper. But they rarely went without a good warm dinner, and they were well and grew in spite of the hardships. Only once in all these years had Martha Jackson spoken to Mrs. Cram, and that was to ask if she might not do the family washing to pay for the medical treatment given to her husband. After that, for two years, one of the little girls went for the clothes regularly every week, and took them back when they were dry, always with the same injunction not to stay one minute after the errand was done. Mrs. Cram must never have a chance to call them "riffraff" again. School days were nearing their close, their real close for Fontella Jackson, the year's close for Ted Cram. The girls were busy and excited in the preparation for their party. Girls' Day in the Grant High School always came about six weeks before the close. On that day one of the girls was crowned queen, and she had a veritable reign of popularity from then till the close of the year. The girls always chose partners for the ball in the evening, and so for this one time in all the year expressed their preferences freely. Happy, indeed, was the young man whose — "best girl" invited him to this dance it was considered about as good as answering "yes" to a proposal of marriage. It was five o'clock on Friday afternoon, two weeks before Girls' Day. The girls were in the assembly room talking over business and electing their queen by secret ballot. The boys stood about the halls in noisy groups. Finally a loud applause was heard in the assemblv room. Then the door was flung open and the girls poured forth. "Fontella." The word was given by one of the foremost girls, and repeated bv several of the boys. Immediately the veil master got in and led in shouting that made the great building ring from basement to roof. "Rah, rah, rah! Rah! rah! rah! Rah, rah, rah! Fontella! the aueen!" Before the echo of the shouts had died away, Ted Cram was on his wav home. Ted was a popular young man at school and he was afraid of his popularitv. There was but one young woman among the students that he wanted to go to the girls' dance with, and he did not want to hurt any one else. His onlv refuse was Elsie. Her he hailed excitedly when she came home a half hour later. "Invite me to the dance, will you, sis?" "Oh. I don't know. Why?" "So I can say I've had an invitation." "What if some one else invites you?" "I'm hoping some one will. Fontella, for instance." THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN 771 "Queen Fontella. I just walked home with her. "Did she say anything about — "About inviting you? Well, not exactly. She spoke about Frank Sharp." "Frank Sharp be hanged." "He probably wouldn't care for it." "Some one of the girls will be sure to invite me tomorrow. May I say I have had an invitation?" "What if Fontella should—" "Then I am to be free to accept and you will invite some one else." "I see, you want to hold me as a sort of screen to dodge behind in case of danger. Well, if you'll buy me three yards of light blue ribbon five inches wide, I'll do it." "It's settled. Buy your ribbon and I'll pay for it." The Jackson girls had heard of their sister's popularity and eargerly awaited her arrival from school. "Isn't it splendid, Fontella?" said Maud kissing her as she came in. "Rah, rah, rah! Fontella!" shouted Rhea. "The Jacksons! the Jacksons!" yelled the younger girls in chorus, as the whole family, mother included, surrounded the high school's favorite in the old time "Bunch of rags." "Whom will you choose for prince, Fontella?" asked Maud when they had caught their breath. "There is only one real prince among my friends. He is — "Teddy Cram!" said Rhea. "Have you invited him?" "No, I haven't, not yet." "He is a perfect figure for the part," suggested Maud, "and so clean, and so gallant!" "I wish you would not invite Mr. Cram," Mrs. Jackson spoke quietly, but in a decided way. "Why, mother, why not? asked Fontella in disappointment. "Sit down, girls, and I'll tell you," said the mother, and when they were seated around her she related the story of the visit tothe "slide" as it happened in the days of long ago. "I determined then that she should never again have a chance to say 'riffraff' about a child of mine, concluded Mrs. Jackson, and I don't want you to give her the chance now." The girls felt somewhat indignant, but it was so long ago, that much of the force was lost by time; and the Crams had been so good to them that more was lost by kindness. So the old hurt which still seemed so cruel to the mother was of very consequence to the younger generation. little "I might invite Joe Jarvis," mused Fontella. "He is a good student and deserves more notice than he gets." 772 IMPROVEMENT ERA "Or Sam Butler," said Maud. "Either of them would spoil the queen's dance by awkwardness," said Fontella. "Ted dances so well." Mrs. Jackson said no more. Experience had taught her that the best way to govern her girls was to make known her desires and leave the working out of it to themselves. Conversation drifted to the details of the party dress. The party was two weeks off anyhow, and it was perfectly legitimate for the queen to wait until the last day but one to invite her partner. During the first week Teddy Cram kept up his spirits by sheer force of will. But when Monday of the last week had come he began to grow miserable. He had a right to expect this courtesy of Fontella, if she cared for him at all, and he did so hope she cared. "You see, mother," he confided that morning, "I never can ask her to go out with me again if she takes someone else on Friday. It amounts to a regular 'turn down' and everyone understands it so. I have taken her out off and on ever since we entered high school, and it certainly hurts to be treated this way at the last." "Have you offended her in any way?" asked his mother. "Can't think of a thing. Sis says Fontella just intimated that her mother is concerned." From that time Ted became uncommunicative, sullen. On Thursday morning he said: "Get another partner, sis. I can't attend the ball. I have a splitting headache and — "But the ball is not tonight. Your head will be better." "No, it won't. It will be worse. I can't go." Elsie knew and she sympathised deeply. She felt like asking her friend to come to the rescue. But the Crams as well as the Jacksons were proud. For four days, Mrs. Cram had been trying to figure out what Mrs. Jackson's objections might be. Now she decided to visit the Jackson home and try to find out. As a pretext for the visit she would ascertain what were Fontella's favorite flowers in order that she might send her a bouquet for girls' day. Timidly Mrs. Cram knocked on the frame of the wide open door of the Jackson home. In all the years they had been neighbors she had never before crossed its threshold. She did so now on a secret mission seeking to find relief from the pain that was rending the heart of her son. Mr. Jackson met her cordially and gave her a chair. "You will think my visit strange, Mrs. Jackson, but I want, because of the friendship of our children, to present your daughter with some flowers for her coronation. I am desirous of THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN 773 giving the kind that will please her most. Can you tell me what — Mrs. Cram hesitated. Her eyes were fixed on a photograph that lay on the table before her. "I really do not know, Mrs. Cram. I think she would like any flowers you should send." There was a dead silence for three minutes. Mrs. Cram kept her eyes on the photograph, while her frame shook with emotion. Mrs. Jackson looked on in wonder and surprise. At last the doctor's wife recovered herself. "Excuse me, Mrs. Jackson," she began, "who are these men?" "The one on the right," answered Mrs. Jackson, "is my father. The other— "The other is my father," interrupted Mrs. Cram." David and Johnathan my mother has told me they were always called." "Were you Priscilla Daniels?" "Yes, and you were Marilla Moore, (Martha Marilla) the little girl I used to play with in that first sad summer after the explosion. Do you remember the large locket my mother used to wear?" "Yes, and the links of the odd chain on which she wore it." "That locket contains her picture in one side and that of her dearest friend, your mother, in the other side. Come home with me, I will show it to you." They forgot about the flowers, they forgot about the injuries, they forgot everything except the old days when they — played together the old happy days before the awful accident, the old sorrowful days after it, when both were fatherless. "And to think we have lived so near and have never renewed that friendship," said Mrs. Cram, "what pleasures we have missed that should have been ours." "The children have been trying to unite us," said Mrs. Jackson. It has been hard to keep them apart." "Why should we try?" asked Mrs. Cram; and emboldened now by the warm friendship they had renewed she added: "Nothing on earth could afford me more pleasure than to have my son attend the girls' ball as escort to the beautiful queen, Fontella." "She only awaits my approval to invite him," admitted the other mother. "So, if you desire it, we will let the friendship of our fathers be renewed and grow to the completest measure of friendship— in their children's children. Provo, Utah Mrs. Betsy Smith Goodwin, of Beaver, Utali The Tired Mother: Pioneer Recollections By Mrs. Betsey Smith Goodwin [Betsey Smith Goodwin was born March 7, 1843, in Dundee, Scotland. On December 1, 1859, she married Isaac H. Goodwin, who died about twentyfive years ago, during which time Mrs. Goodwin has been a widow. She was president of the Beaver West ward Relief Society for upwards of eight years. They lived at Lehi, at Cache Valley, having moved there in 1862, then to Escalante in 1876, to Wayne county in 1883, and she to Beaver in 1893. Her husband died at Thurber. They had nine children, five of whom were dead and four were living at the time of her writing, in 1916. She is at present a resident of Beaver. Editors.] How well I remember when my mother, Marjorie McEwan Bain Smith, said: "Girls, let us try to go to the Valley next season with the hand earts. I have a letter from your brother Robert A. Bain." Robert, by the by, was the eldest son of my mother. We lived in Scotland, but he had been a traveling elder in England and had worked his passage as cook over the sea. He drove a team across the plains and had arrived safely at Salt Lake City, so my mother told us. Furthermore, she said: "He is located thirty miles south of Salt Lake City at a place named THE TIRED MOTHER 775 Lehi, and has taken a farm to work on shares, whose owner has gone on a mission to Europe. He says he is trying to raise as much as he can for our comfort. He bids us exert ourselves to emigrate, next season, and says he will pray while we work." We girls laughed at what mother said, as girls would, and exclaimed that he had "the easiest job." But the spirit of gathering to Zion was strong upon us, and we worked at our looms by day, our fancy work by night, and saved the proceeds. By this means, we gathered enough in six months to pay our passage across the sea; and in many ways we realized that God helps those who help themselves. In view of all this, we finally took a last farewell of the sacred graves of our dead, the Govan braes and the heather hills of Scotland, and on the third day of the beautiful month of May, in 1856, we embarked on the ship Thornton, from Liverpool, England, leaving the steam loom mills, the shores of Great Britain, our beloved native land, and dear old Scotland, for the gospel's sake. After six or seven weeks' sailing, seasickness, and stormy weather, we landed in New York City, registered at the Castle Garden, and in a few days we reached Iowa, by rail. There we camped for weeks, waiting for the handcarts to be completed for the journey. While there, I was so sick with scarlet fever that I could not open my eyes. I heard Sisters Henderson and McPhail say, "I am sorry she is dying; another death in camp soon!" One baby had just died. I seemed to know that they were speaking of me, and when mother came -in from the camp-fire, with warm broth, she saw the tears in my eyes. "Are you worse?" she asked me. "Mother, they think I am dying; I want to live and go to the Valley." My dear mother, at that time in her fifty-second year, then went and brought the elders, who administered to me and rebuked the disease, commanding it to leave both me and the camp. My recovery was rapid. I was able to travel, and on the 15th day of July, 1856, we rolled out of the Iowa City camp, on our way to cross the plains with handcarts. Our captain was James Gray Willie, and his counselors were Millen Atwood and Levi Savage. There were 120 handcarts and six wagons, and about five hundred people, sixty-six of whom died on the journey. We soon became accustomed to traveling twenty and twentyfour miles a day. My little brother, six years of age, used to travel that distance, by me taking his hand to encourage him, and by telling him stories of the future and the good things in store for us. Around the camp-fire we had very good times. There was Brother Burt, Brother David Anderson and others, and our girls,