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SEVEN TIMES SIX. GIVING IN MARRIAGE

BY JEAN INGELOW

To bear, to nurse, to rear,

To watch, and then to lose:
To see my bright ones disappear,
Drawn up like morning dews,-
To bear, to nurse, to rear,

To watch and then to lose:

This have I done when God drew near
Among his own to choose.

To hear, to heed, to wed,
And with thy lord depart
In tears that he, as soon as shed,
Will let no longer smart,-

To hear to heed, to wed,

This while thou didst I smiled, For now it was not God who said, "Mother, give me thy child."

O fond, O fool, and blind,

To God I gave with tears,

But when a man like grace would find,
My soul put by her fears,-

O, fond, O fool, and blind,

God guards in happier spheres ;
That man will guard where he did bind
Is hope for unknown years.

To hear, to heed, to wed,

Fair lot that maidens choose,

Thy mother's tenderest words are said,
Thy face no more she views;
Thy mother's lot, my dear,

She doth in nought accuse;

Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear,

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the father and mother

To-day everything is being done for the child. The child is the hope of the race of the next generation.

The children of the poor though were long left, in the great cities, to grow up as best they could, but now that modern living with its improved conditions of work has given woman a chance to reach out and make the world her household, the little people are claiming the attention of the Mother Spirit that is abroad. Now it is realized how important is the child of the poor and how that life can be nourished and inspired and some joy and childhood given it.

Children love their dolls. The mother instinct is early shown both in girls and boys. The boy is quickly laughed out of it but often a teddy-bear is still allowed him and is as consoling for all hours of the day and night as the doll is to the girl. Alas, if people were wiser, and let this gentleness and love have full play, there might be reared men who would

have a deeper love and responsibility for their children. The father instinct is so often crushed.

Among the poor, dolls and the time to play with dolls, are not to be had. But there is sure to be a baby in the family on whom the devotion that is lavished, by a sister, only a little older, has given these caretaking children the name of "Little Mothers."

One day Mrs. Alma Calder Johnston looking from her window in Stuyvesant Square, saw little girls carrying babies in their arms, all too heavy for such children. She found these little girls were taking care of their baby brothers and sisters while their mothers were away all day earning a living for the family. Here they were, losing all mothering themselves— what could be done to restore to them their childhood?

Mrs. Johnston began by taking small parties of these children, for days' outings, to the country.

So the "Little Mothers' " Aid began in 1899 until to-day we find the Association with four houses, with day nurseries. Classes in cooking, sewing, laundry, hygiene, and dress-making are taught every day to these children cut off from ordinary schools by their home cares.

And not only this, but the workers from the Aid go out into the homes and while the big mothers are gone to work, make the tenement clean and liveable so that the family can be kept together.

In some of these homes are crippled children. Busy doctors give hours every week to relieving their suffering.

Do not the names of these four houses for little girls and babies, suggest the joy that has come into the little mothers' lives? "Happy Day House," "Pleasant Place," "Loving Arms," "Sunny Side."

And for summer where thousands go in relays from week to week "Holiday House."

To these houses kind friends send money, clothing, books, and toys, for all are supported by contributions. Other kind friends serve as officers, teachers, and nurses. And children of all nationalities and all faiths spend hours, of work and play, together under this beautiful charity to "the least of these."

"SHE MADE HOME HAPPY"

BY HENRY COYLE

"She made home happy!" these few words I read
Within a churchyard, written on a stone;
No name, no date, the simple words alone,
Told me the story of the unknown dead.
A marble column lifted high its head

Close by, inscribed to one the world has known; But ah! that lonely grave with moss o'ergrown Thrilled me far more than his who armies led.

"She made home happy!" through the long sad years,
The mother toiled and never stopped to rest,
Until they crossed her hands upon her breast,
And closed her eyes, no longer dim with tears.
The simple record that she left behind

Was grander than the soldier's to my mind.

LITTLE MOTHERS

BY EMMA S. NESFIELD *

Sometimes in this queer old world, blessings are thrust upon us, and we simply take them for granted accept them as our right-and think no more about them. One of the most common of these are the Little Mothers. Nearly every large-sized or even moderately large-sized family, and oftentimes just ordinary little families have one. Sometimes they don't even know they have them, because these precious blessings are born, like every other baby, and by the time they have seriously taken up their lifework, why, they are just one of the family.

Once there was a really large, old-fashioned family of five boys and four girls, and the second girl, who happened to be the third baby, was one of those things I've been telling you about. She wasn't particularly strong in body - very often they are not — but she made up for it in mind, in love, in sympathy, in all the golden abstractions of true womanhood.

In the beginning of the story, the family was very prosperous but like many large, old-fashioned, highprincipled families, each year saw prosperity fading away into the dim and distant "used to be's." So, by the time this Little Mother was well on in her work, the world at large seemed to be one big, struggling, strangling problem.

When the last baby came, the Real Mother of the family somehow did not have the strength to go on

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