Little Mother

( Originally Published 1922 )

IN almost every large family there is one devoted girl who stands ready to take the mother's place and to whom the younger ones turn with a sure trust and affection. Of all the household virtues—the sacred incommunicable things of hearth and home—I know of nothing quite so beautiful as this.

All deep and genuine love is of the essence of sacrifice. Who has not suffered the martyrdom of the heart has never known love. But how touching is this abnegation, this heroism that springs from we know not what depths of human nature, when seen in one whose eyes still look at you with the candid innocence of childhood! Oh, men and women, tell me not that Heaven itself can show a lovelier thing. . .

And musing on it, there rises before me a little face and figure, most dear from all the woven ties of race and blood and memory;—a little face that you might deem plain enough, but which is beautiful to me with its quiet brow and steady, thoughtful eyes still misted with the hopes and dreams of youth.

She puts a small hand in mine and leads me back over the years—years of which, God knows, I took but little heed in their passage. And I see her always the same yet always younger, hushing to sleep other little faces strangely like hers, mothering one tot after an-other, lavishing upon them the artless love and praise she should have given her dolls—alas, these were the only dolls she ever really knew; coaxing them over the first pitfalls of infancy, caring for them with a pitiably premature wisdom—aye, and sometimes bravely battling for them with the urchins of the street, forgetting her tears until the peril was past.

I see resting his pale cheek on her young breast—a child nursing a child !—one that too soon grew weary and left us. But her arms are empty only a moment, for even as I look, another babe is there. And I wonder, with a painful sense of ingratitude, that I should never have reckoned this treasure at its worth; that I should have been blind to so much that was beyond price in the little humble world about me; that there was a heavy debt against me on behalf of this child which I could never repay.

Something of this I try to say to her in stumbling words, nor caring to keep back the tears. But she hushes me with a touch on the cheek and an intensity of the quiet look habitual with her. And now she leads me back through the long nursery of years; past little beds where rosy health slumbered, clasping its toys, or pale sickness lay feverishly awake; past all the scenes wherein her brave young heart was schooled and she became a woman whilst yet a child; past the lightly regretted dolls and her childish air-castles always tumbled topsy-turvy by those tiny baby hands —back into the present where, almost a young woman now, she smiles joyously at me, holding up the youngest in her arms ! . . .

Oh little mother, blessed be you and all your sisters the wide earth over that worthily bear the name ! Your tears are reckoned in Heaven, where the Innocents sing ever your praise; and when you die, having known only the maternity of the heart, God calls you unto Him, very near the Throne !