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STANLEY 
 
Note-Book of 
 An Adopted Mother 
 
 Experience in the Home Training 
 of a Boy 
 
 By 
 ELEANOR DAVIDS 
 
 E. P. Dutton & Company 
 
 31 West Twenty-third Street 
 1903 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1903 
 
 BY 
 E. P. DUTTON & CO. 
 
 Published, October, 1903 
 
 ttbe Utnfcftcrbocftcr press, "View H?orft 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I SHOULD like to say a few words of explanation 
 to my readers before they begin my note-book. 
 It is not a novel with a purpose. It is a note- 
 book with a purpose, however, and I wish it to 
 start its career honestly. 
 
 When I was a young girl, studying in one of 
 the most thorough kindergarten training-schools 
 in the country, I was required to keep a journal 
 in which were recorded with unflinching honesty 
 the results of all my teaching under supervision. 
 This journal was handed in to the Director once 
 a week, read, and unsparingly criticised by her. 
 In it I was obliged to tell of the work done with 
 my pupils during each half-hour, what the lesson 
 was intended to teach them, physically, mentally, 
 and spiritually ; whether I felt that it was a suc- 
 cess; if not, where my failure had been and 
 whether I thought I could improve on it if given 
 another trial. I was also expected to write down 
 any especially bright or significant remarks made 
 by the children. The ostensible purpose of this 
 was to keep the Director closely in touch with the 
 work of her unpaid assistants. The great good 
 
 550530 
 
iv Preface 
 
 of it to the conscientious student, however, was 
 the habit of self-examination which it formed. 
 Many a time I have come to understand my 
 pupils and myself much better because of the 
 quiet thought I was obliged to give to our work 
 together, at a time when there were no conflicting 
 calls for my help and no temptation to flurry or 
 impatience. 
 
 It has seemed most natural, therefore, since I 
 left my beloved work of training both kinder- 
 garten children and kindergarten teachers, to con- 
 tinue in my own home the habit of earlier years. 
 A memorandum pad on my dresser and another 
 on my desk have caught the hurried jottings of 
 my busy days, and when my boy was sleeping it 
 has been happy and profitable work to elaborate 
 the hastily made notes. 
 
 All mothers cannot do this, I know, yet all 
 are meeting from day to day many of the prob- 
 lems which come to me. So it may chance that, 
 following my experiences on the printed page, 
 they will find their own perceptions somewhat 
 quickened, and profit, not only by my little suc- 
 cesses, but by my failures as well. It is a great 
 deal to form the habit of looking beneath the sur- 
 face of the day's happenings ; it is a great deal for 
 some of us even to want to do so. 
 
 There is a second purpose to this volume. 
 All over this broad land there are homeless chil- 
 dren and there are childless homes. It seems 
 
Preface v 
 
 such a radical step to take, this bringing into a 
 quiet and well-ordered house a child of strange 
 parentage, and there are always so many ready to 
 prophesy evil consequences, particularly among 
 one's own relatives, who become suddenly anxious 
 for the honor of the family name. But one who 
 has tried it knows that it is not such a startling 
 thing to do after all, and if the laying bare of her 
 own deepest experiences results in the opening of 
 one more home to some friendless child, she will 
 not begrudge the effort that it costs. 
 
 Because these notes are written with such hon- 
 esty and are of such a personal character, I ask to 
 be permitted a nom de plume. The only reserva- 
 tion I have made is in the matter of names. 
 
 ELEANOR DAVIDS. 
 
NOTE-BOOK OF 
 AN ADOPTED MOTHER 
 
 February jrd, 1902. I have been out to the 
 School at last, and think I shall remember the 
 walk as long as I live. I did not suppose I was 
 capable of quite the sort of agitation which over- 
 whelmed me on the way, and it was well that I 
 had about a mile and a half in which to steady 
 myself. Ernest and I had talked it all over so 
 many times before really deciding to adopt a 
 child that I should have become quite matter-of- 
 fact. But somehow, when I had reached the 
 town where the unknown little one was waiting 
 for me to find her, the importance of the step 
 swept over me again and I wondered if it were 
 wise. Perhaps our tranquil home and well- 
 ordered lives were to be placed at the mercy of 
 some child who would give us no happiness in re- 
 turn. Then, too, there was a flood of memories. 
 It is not as though we had always been childless. 
 
 I wondered whether we had been presumptuous 
 
2 . Note-Book of 
 
 to try to understand God's will in the matter. 
 Still, we must do the best we can with our 
 lives, and perhaps He meant to teach us that 
 we ought not to live on in our great house just 
 for ourselves and for each other. Else why had 
 He granted us that father- and mother-love only 
 'to. leave us childless? 
 
 Well, we had discussed it over and over and 
 decided to adopt a little girl, and I was to select 
 the one. It was no time then to go over the old 
 ground. The decision was made and all that re- 
 mained for me was to be very matter-of-fact and 
 cautious in my choice. We wanted a girl about 
 two years of age, healthy, and of respectable 
 parentage. I did not intend to let my judgment 
 be warped by long eyelashes or rose-leaf com- 
 plexions. We did not expect to find a child in 
 this State institution who would prove excep- 
 tional in any way. It would be worth while to 
 bring up an ordinary, healthy one to a normal 
 and wholesome existence. Eventually we might 
 adopt a boy also, but we intended to make sure 
 of having a girl in the home. Then, too, there 
 was a sort of half-confessed jealousy on behalf of 
 the son I had borne. We would have to bring 
 ourselves by degrees to having another boy in his 
 place. 
 
 And now I am back in the home where I am 
 visiting, with my plans all upset and my mind 
 
An Adopted Mother 3 
 
 rapidly adjusting itself to new ones. There was 
 no desirable girl in the School. It seems that 
 such children are in the greatest demand and the 
 supply is never adequate. Only the undesirable 
 scraps of girlhood remain on their hands, although 
 there are some two hundred boys of all ages up 
 to sixteen. A large proportion of these are from 
 five to ten, people seeming to prefer them younger 
 for adoption and older for service. 
 
 The Superintendent showed me through the 
 School. As we looked into the kindergarten I saw 
 a five-year-old boy in the farthest corner of the 
 room who struck me as being especially prom- 
 ising. I mentioned him to the Superintendent 
 and was told that he had to contend against bad 
 heredity. He was called to the door, and with 
 him came his chubby chum, who was recom- 
 mended as being of good birth. I am not impul- 
 sive, as a rule, but the first boy, shy as he was, 
 smiled his way into my heart. I spent the morn- 
 ing there watching him. He attended closely to 
 his work, but whenever he caught my eye he 
 smiled. In the circle game he rolled the ball with 
 more accuracy and less apparent effort than any 
 other child there. Then I visited the office and 
 looked up the records, finding, to my delight, 
 that the Superintendent had confounded the 
 records of the two boys, and that the one I pre- 
 ferred had good heredity. His parents had been 
 working people, but not dissipated. 
 
4 Note-Book of 
 
 Now I shall write to Ernest and suggest our 
 having the boy first and a five-year-old at that. 
 How quickly foolish theories and morbid ideas 
 give way if we open our eyes to facts! Here is 
 my motherly jealousy of another boy pushed 
 utterly to one side by this little stranger who 
 looks and acts so hungry for love, like Mrs. Wig- 
 gins's poor waif who " wanted a home, but not 
 with a capital H." 
 
 And here I am reasoning along a new line. 
 What if a child of two is 'more plastic and unable 
 to remember his old surroundings? Surely I shall 
 be much better able to judge of the traits and 
 general capacity of a child of five, and is n't that 
 more important? 
 
 Stanley is rather too good-looking for my pre- 
 conceived ideas. That is a drawback in my esti- 
 mation. I have known so many handsome men 
 who would have developed twice as fine characters 
 if they had only been freckled or slightly cross- 
 eyed. Still, he may grow plain as the years pass, 
 or he may possibly be kept superior to vanity and 
 self-consciousness. What a good time he will 
 have in the big yard at home ! 
 
 Well ! I think I might better stop this dreaming 
 until I have at least written to Ernest. I cannot 
 settle things alone for the family. I am only our 
 special correspondent on the field. 
 
 February Jth, 1902. A letter from Ernest this 
 
An Adopted Mother 5 
 
 morning and I was almost afraid to open it, fear- 
 ing that he would suggest waiting for a suitable 
 little girl to be brought to the School. Instead, 
 he throws all the responsibility of decision on 
 me, which is rather characteristic, wholly unselfish, 
 and decidedly embarrassing. Now if the boy de- 
 velops into something dreadful I shall be wholly 
 to blame for bringing him into our home, because 
 I have said that we will take him. He is to be 
 sent to us as soon as we return from New York. 
 
 April 23rd, 1902. The boy is here, sound 
 asleep, and I am feeling it a rather awkward situ- 
 ation. Ernest has not seen him yet, and suppose 
 he should not fancy him? I have been consider- 
 ing Stanley's good looks a misfortune, but now I 
 find myself wishing him possessed of even more 
 beauty, so that Ernest might fall in love with him 
 at first sight. They have sent him with his flaxen 
 hair so closely cropped as to be hardly visible, 
 and his big brown eyes won't count for anything 
 when he is asleep. His dimples only show when 
 he smiles, and he really does not look like an at- 
 tractive child at present. 
 
 We have been waiting most impatiently for 
 him, and the advance telegram came only this 
 noon. I went out immediately afterward to tell 
 some of my friends that we were to adopt a child. 
 We have kept our plans very closely to ourselves, 
 thinking that people would be less wet-blanketty 
 
6 Note-Book of 
 
 in their remarks if they knew that we were quite 
 committed to the experiment. In all I told half 
 a dozen of my most intimate friends. The mothers 
 among them were delighted and congratulatory, 
 yet even these I saw casting sidelong glances at 
 their own darlings, as though thinking what a 
 different relationship it would be. Most of the 
 childless ones said that it was a sweet thing to do, 
 but they thought I would find it a great care and 
 interruption to my regular work. They felt sure 
 that I could write no more books now. Only 
 one, and she a primary teacher of long experi- 
 ence, showed no mental reservations. She gave 
 me the heartiest congratulations and prophesied 
 great happiness to us from the new venture. I 
 believe that in some ways she is the wisest of 
 them all and has the broadest outlook, since she 
 is the only one who has for years felt the sweet- 
 ness of doing for the children of others. I be- 
 lieve she feels, as I do, that the mere bearing of 
 the child is a very small part of true motherhood, 
 and that to "help God fashion an immortal soul " 
 is vastly the sweetest and most important duty of 
 all. 
 
 Stanley came on the seven-thirty train, having 
 been travelling all day. He came toward me with 
 one little hand clutching the finger of the State 
 Agent, and so sleepy that he could hardly walk 
 straight. The Agent said, "Here is your new 
 mamma, Stanley," and the transfer was made. 
 
An Adopted Mother 7 
 
 There is something about him so appealing and 
 baby-like that it seemed wonderful to me, the way 
 he slipped his hand into mine and walked off with 
 an utter stranger through the chill and dusk of the 
 cool spring evening. By some mistake he had 
 been sent off without an overcoat, although he 
 had a severe cold. In order to keep him happy 
 on the way he had been allowed to revel in oranges 
 and bananas, and he had been awakened from a 
 sound sleep to get off the train. He was so shy 
 that he would answer only " Yeth, ma'am," and 
 "No, ma'am," to questions, yet he never whim- 
 pered. The one childish treasure which he brought 
 from the old life into the new was a ' ' b'loon kite, ' ' 
 made of a scrap of white tissue paper, tied at each 
 corner to a long string, and with this held tightly 
 in his other hand he trudged sleepily along the 
 short distance from the station to our home. 
 
 There was a dignity about the little fellow that 
 made me almost afraid to caress him, and when I 
 asked if he wanted supper his only reply was: "I 
 want to go to bed." He disdained assistance and 
 undressed himself, as he had learned to do at the 
 School, climbing into bed and lying there silent, 
 scared but plucky, until sleep came. 
 
 Ernest has seen him at last and is rather non- 
 committal, as becomes a business man of long 
 experience and one who "does not believe in snap- 
 judgments. " Perhaps he is wisely conservative 
 
8 Note-Book of 
 
 in reminding me that the child is only on proba- 
 tion for sixty days, and that we must be very sure 
 of it all before we let the arrangement become 
 permanent. He has had no chance as yet to see 
 what so won me in the little lad. And besides, 
 while he is devotedly fond of children, he has had 
 but little intimate knowledge of them and still 
 regards them from a sort of confirmed-bachelor 
 standpoint, rather taking it for granted that they 
 will always be awake, clean, bright, and ready for 
 a frolic. 
 
 April 25th, 1902. These have been busy days 
 for me, but now Stanley's modest wardrobe is 
 almost completed. The State does not seem to 
 have equipped him quite as a mother would. For 
 instance, his small satchel of belongings contained 
 a Bible and a tooth-brush, but no night-dress. 
 Considering the hour of his arrival, I think I was 
 hardly irreligious when I would willingly have 
 traded the Book for one. 
 
 That cheap little Testament is his chief treas- 
 ure, dearer even than the precious nickel which a 
 kindly drummer gave him on the train. And 
 there the School authorities were wise, for they 
 sent him out with the firm conviction that the 
 Bible is the best thing he has or can ever hope to 
 have. He says the Matron told him that he must 
 never, never lose that, and that when he was old 
 enough he should read in it. 
 
An Adopted Mother 9 
 
 We are still letting him call us Mr. and Mrs. 
 Davids, although I think nothing could induce us 
 to give the child up at the close of the probation- 
 ary period. I have an idea that I will let him 
 think he has adopted us and that the new rela- 
 tionship is of his choosing. It seems to me this 
 would put matters on a very satisfactory basis. 
 And if I am to do that, there must be enough 
 time allowed for him to become strongly attached 
 to both the home and its inmates. 
 
 Ernest is already his ideal of all that a man 
 should be, and I am glad of it. If he can grow to 
 be the same sort of Christian gentleman, I shall 
 be more than content. This morning he said, "If 
 I just eat rings what makes little boys grow strong, 
 and sleep whole lots, then by and by I will be as 
 big as Mr. Davids, and then if I have hair on my 
 face wiv white steaks in it, I '11 be the same shape 
 as him, won't I? " 
 
 I have not yet corrected him for misusing a 
 word, merely taking pains to use the right one 
 soon myself. Such matters can wait until the 
 strangeness wears off, but he has already begun 
 to notice differences. Yesterday he said, "Why 
 do you always say ' I lie down ' when I say ' I lay 
 down '? " 
 
 I tried to explain it, an almost impossible task. 
 When I finished he said, "Every boy in the 
 School says ' lay, ' and don't you fink lying is vurry 
 naughty? " 
 
io Note-Book of 
 
 He has asked me if "pants and trousers are the 
 same fings? " I said: "Yes, only trousers is the 
 better word. Mr. Davids always says trousers." 
 
 The instant reply was, "I guess I will say 
 trousers after this." (To be strictly accurate and 
 try to reproduce his almost inimitable lisp, he 
 said, "I geth I will thay troutherth after thith.") 
 
 And that reminds me of his lisp, which I may 
 not have mentioned in these notes. It will be a 
 matter of history presently and should be re- 
 corded. I feel sure that it is only a habit, for 
 once in a great while he gives the correct sound 
 to the letter "s." I mean to take no notice of it, 
 and only hope that he will not be teased and made 
 sensitive. In a few days I shall begin on his Eng- 
 lish, taking one misused word at a time, and 
 correcting him faithfully on that until he has 
 mastered his difficulty with it. Then I shall be 
 ready for the next. "Awful" will be the first 
 word to eliminate. 
 
 April 28tk, 1902. Ernest and I are much sur- 
 prised and touched by the things which people 
 say to us about our taking Stanley. Women 
 whom I had thought decidedly frivolous speak 
 tenderly of him, and seem quite different when 
 they mention some child of their own long dead. 
 And men who have never shown Ernest anything 
 but the hard, commercial side of their characters 
 come in purposely to congratulate him upon the 
 
An Adopted Mother n 
 
 step we have taken. One man has been in three 
 times to ask how the boy is getting along, and 
 every time he says, "I can't tell you what my 
 children mean to me." Once his eyes filled with 
 tears and he turned away. 
 
 But there is another class of people whose com- 
 ments amuse me exceedingly. These are elderly 
 women, whose usual remark is: "Well, you will 
 find it will make a great difference in your life. 
 You can't be free to come and go as you used 
 to. It 's all right now, because it is new, but 
 you wait and see." One of two things is cer- 
 tain, either they think me very fond of my own 
 ease, or else when they were younger they be- 
 grudged the sacrifices incidental to rearing chil- 
 dren. Naturally I rather incline to the latter 
 view. It is more complimentary to myself. 
 
 One thing I notice with pleasure. Whereas be- 
 fore Stanley came Ernest was often reminding me 
 that he was only sent on probation, when I say 
 something of the same sort now, he looks posi- 
 tively reproachful. 
 
 Evidently our little lad has been taught to ap- 
 preciate the advantages of education. I do not 
 believe in forcing children and did not intend 
 sending him to school until the beginning of the 
 fall term. This morning, however, he opened up 
 the subject. "At the School," said he, "I was 
 in the A class in the kindergarten, ahead of the 
 B and the C. Have n't you a school here? " 
 
12 Note-Book of 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Which way is it? " 
 
 I pointed. 
 
 "Is it very far? Can't I walk there." 
 
 "Not far. You could walk it easily." 
 
 "Then why don't you send me to school? " 
 
 We shall enter him in the public-school kinder- 
 garten in a few days and I think he will do well. 
 His English is very poor from having associated 
 exclusively with boys from all sorts of poor and 
 illiterate homes, but his memory and reasoning 
 powers seem good, and he is quick and alert. 
 
 I am glad he came to us before he lost all his 
 baby ways and got past his funny little stumblings 
 on hard words. When he plays with his animal 
 blocks I notice that the camel is a cannibal, the 
 antelope an envelope, and the boa-constrictor a 
 boom-constructor. 
 
 Peter, the cat, is an object of great interest to 
 him, and has now recovered from the intense 
 jealousy of an intruder, which made him growl 
 and withdraw in bristling dignity whenever Stanley 
 entered the room during the first few days of his 
 stay here. When Peter slides the nictating mem- 
 brane over his eyes, Stanley says : "Oh see ! Peter 
 is looking cross-eyed." 
 
 Peter sleeps most of the time on a lambs'-wool 
 rug under my desk, rising occasionally to stretch 
 and turn around. Stanley has puzzled over this 
 greatly, but now says: "Probly pro&z^ly, Peter 
 
An Adopted Mother 13 
 
 wakes up so he can go to sleep some more. Peter 
 likes to go to sleep." 
 
 My old doll is a source of great delight and is 
 spoken of as ' ' him. ' ' Stanley says : ' ' He is a very 
 nice dollie. He wiggles his eyes so nicely. When 
 he gets alive I am going to give him my nickel." 
 
 The eternal feminine hardly enters into his con- 
 sideration. He seems to concede that mothers 
 and those who stand in their place are entitled to 
 feminine pronouns, but all his short life has been 
 spent among boys, and dolls and girls are always 
 mentioned as masculine. 
 
 May ist, 1902. I had just got Stanley ready 
 for bed, with "smelly stuff" on the poor little 
 chest, still racked by the cough with which he 
 came, when the door-bell rang and Ernest found 
 three May-baskets there. Three little girls in the 
 neighborhood had left them for Stanley, and I 
 thought it a lovely thing to do for a child whom 
 they had barely seen, but whom they were ready 
 to welcome. I wish they might have seen his 
 delight. How he giggled and how his big brown 
 eyes shone ! 
 
 When I tucked him into bed the baskets were 
 carefully ranged beside him, and I am sure that 
 never before in his life had he been so enraptured 
 as then. It seemed as though his cup of joy were 
 quite full, but when another peal of the bell and 
 the sound of scampering feet heralded the coming 
 
14 Note-Book of 
 
 of a fourth basket, we found he had more ecstasies 
 in reserve. He sat up in bed to receive it with 
 open arms, saying over and over again: "Oh, 
 ar'n't they thweet ! Oh, ar'n't they thweet! I 
 geth thith ith a thign thoth little girlth liketh me, 
 don't you? " 
 
 All these things make me realize how heart- 
 hungry the child has been, for back of his pleasure 
 in any new possession is always the thought of 
 the love which prompted it, and it is that of 
 which he says most. And who can say how 
 much good has been wrought by these crude little 
 baskets? Some of them showed much patient 
 labor by childish fingers, the last being even filled 
 with brilliant tissue-paper flowers. That was 
 from Anita. 
 
 May jrd, 1902. I am adopted at last. The 
 situation was becoming rather embarrassing and 
 had to be relieved. Stanley came here happy in 
 the belief that he was coming to a new mamma 
 and papa as well as to a new home, and yet he 
 had not ventured to call us anything but Mr. and 
 Mrs. Davids, and I had not suggested his doing 
 so. This morning, while I was making his bed, 
 he sat near and visited with me. He said some- 
 thing about the other boys who had gone from 
 the School to new mammas, and I said: "If you 
 could have anybody you wanted in the whole world 
 for your mamma, whom would you choose?" 
 
An Adopted Mother 15 
 
 I shall never forget the half-shy, half-mischiev- 
 ous look with which he answered: "Somebody 
 what is making my bed right now." 
 
 Of course I was delightfully surprised and sat 
 down beside him for a short cuddle, telling him 
 that I would love to be his mamma, and asking 
 him if he thought that he could take as good care 
 of me as a boy should take of his mother. He 
 felt sure that he could if I would just tell him 
 how. 
 
 Then I asked who he thought would be the 
 dearest father in the whole world, and he promptly 
 chose Ernest, as I knew he would. So we sat 
 and visited and he practised calling me "mother," 
 which I prefer to "mamma," until it came quite 
 naturally. The funniest part of the ceremony 
 was when in his joy over my consenting to be his 
 mother, he gave me a rapturous hug and said, 
 "And we '11 love each other whole lots of piles, 
 and I '11 be your little brother, won't I? " 
 
 He seems quite contented now to be my "little 
 boy," but I find that "brother" is the word in 
 his vocabulary which means the most. And it 
 could hardly be otherwise, since brothers are the 
 only relatives whom he can remember distinctly. 
 It remains for us to make two of the sweetest 
 words in the English language seem sweet to him. 
 He has been planning all day what he will do for 
 me when he is a man, but I tell him that boys are 
 never too little to take care of their mothers in 
 
1 6 Note-Book of 
 
 some way. To his mind the acme of devotion 
 would be giving me six bottles of nice-tasting 
 medicine when I am ill. 
 
 He is so radiantly happy, now that he has 
 fairly adopted us, that I am even more sure of 
 his having felt a certain disappointment and sus- 
 pense in the days since he came, but I think in 
 the end it will be a good thing for him to believe 
 that the new relationship was of his own choos- 
 ing. He says now that he never wants to go 
 back to the School. He is such a baby in his 
 ways and yet so manly. Once he settles a thing, 
 he settles it finally. 
 
 Relationships are evidently a great puzzle to 
 him. He has invited my maid, of whom he is 
 deservedly fond, to be his grandfather. He is 
 also tutoring her, possibly in order to have her a 
 credit to the family. I had suggested his saying 
 "very" instead of "awful," so when he heard 
 her say that a certain fire "was something awful," 
 he said, "I fink you ought to say that it was some- 
 fing vurry." He has begun to consult me on the 
 choice of words. To-night he asked whether he 
 should speak of "undressing quick" or of "un- 
 dressing quickly." 
 
 May 1 2th, 1902. Last week was a truly dread- 
 ful one. I had expected it sooner or later, yet I 
 could never have dreamed it would be so bad. I 
 have been too tired to record from night to night 
 
An Adopted Mother 17 
 
 the happenings of the days, but there has been so 
 little variety that I can easily write them all up at 
 once. 
 
 The trouble has been the waning influence of 
 the strict School discipline before the altogether 
 different discipline of the home has been firmly 
 established. It was bound to come, and I have 
 seen so many children pass through similar trying 
 periods soon after entering kindergarten that I 
 was in no wise discouraged, but I should think 
 those who had not been forewarned to some ex- 
 tent, either by experience or by friends, would 
 utterly lose heart. 
 
 It is evident that Stanley's vulnerable point is 
 his temper, which is very, very strong, accom- 
 panying a strong will. In the School of over two 
 hundred children, Law and Order are so much in 
 evidence that outbreaks would be rare. When 
 twenty-nine other children in the same cottage 
 are yielding to the same rules and trained to the 
 same routine, there is not much danger of a nor- 
 mal child making a scene. Corporal punishment 
 is used there in emergencies, and every child knows 
 that there is a possibility of his being summoned 
 before the Superintendent, a man of most kindly 
 heart and wise management, but whose awesome- 
 ness is greatly magnified in the children's eyes by 
 his stature and the deference shown him by adult 
 employees. 
 
 Stanley came to us a shy, quiet little boy, who 
 
1 8 Note-Book of 
 
 drooped his head when spoken to and seldom re- 
 plied more than "Yeth, thir," or "No, ma'am." 
 This has been rapidly wearing away, and he has 
 naturally taken it for granted that the greater 
 comfort and freedom of a private home meant 
 less discipline. One could hardly expect a child 
 to realize instantly that it meant only a different 
 kind. 
 
 Last Monday morning he was defiantly disobe- 
 dient and I promptly shut him up. I am a great 
 believer in the virtues of isolation. For a long 
 time there were only angry screamings and pound- 
 ings on the door. Then came penitent sobs and 
 a promise to be good. Instantly I let him out, 
 and he went back to his play. It was not many 
 hours before he began experimenting to see just 
 how far he could safely go in the way of wilfulness. 
 When he reached the defiant stage he was locked 
 up again, always in a light room. 
 
 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 
 passed in this fashion, with from two to four 
 scenes a day, each lasting about an hour. Thurs- 
 day morning I concluded that I was making a 
 mistake in letting Stanley go back to his play the 
 very minute that he promised better things, so 
 then I ordained that he should sit in silence in his 
 little red chair for ten minutes after he had quieted 
 down and promised to be good. This was very 
 hard for him, and in the afternoon he protested 
 emphatically. "You used to let me go back to 
 
An Adopted Mother 19 
 
 my toys as soon as I stopped making a fuss," 
 said he. "Why do you keep me in my chair now? 
 I said I would be good." 
 
 "You said so other times," I answered, "but 
 you did not keep your promise very long. Now 
 I want you to take more time to think about it. 
 I shall try having you sit still for ten minutes after 
 each shutting-up, and if I find you are not doing 
 any better I shall change it to fifteen. If that is 
 not enough I will make it twenty, for you must 
 learn to mind and keep your temper." 
 
 "I don't care," he muttered, on the verge of 
 another outbreak, "you 've got to stay in here 
 with me or I won't sit in my chair, and I guess 
 you won't like that." 
 
 "No, I don't like that," I replied truthfully. 
 And then I had a mind to try an experiment. I 
 did not think that the child could appreciate what 
 I was about to say, but he was tearful and upset, 
 and it might be that just hearing somebody talk 
 steadily and reasonably would help to calm him. 
 "Listen," I said. "It makes no difference how 
 hard it is for me, or how much time it takes, or 
 how I have to leave my own work and play, I 
 shall punish you every single time that you act as 
 you have been doing. Even if I never do another 
 thing, I mean to make you a good boy, so that 
 you can grow into a good man. There are a great 
 many mothers who will not take the trouble to 
 help make their boys good. Sometimes they are 
 
20 Note-Book of 
 
 sick and cannot, sometimes they don't know how, 
 and sometimes they are just lazy. I am not sick, 
 I do know how, and I am not lazy. I expect you 
 to mind and to learn to keep your temper. You 
 will never be a good man if you do not, and I ex- 
 pect you to be a good man when you grow up." 
 
 All this and much more I said, and Stanley 
 gave no sign. In fact we had one more scene be- 
 fore his bedtime, three more on Friday, and one 
 on Saturday morning. After that he was very 
 quiet for him, and frequently sat still in deep 
 thought. Once I suggested some rather active 
 game, and he said : "I don't want to. I am fink- 
 ing about the fings I am finking about." 
 
 At two he came in from a romp. "I want to 
 visit with you," he said. I listened attentively. 
 
 "Now, Mother," he began, "some boys has 
 lazy mothers." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And when those boys makes fusses their 
 mothers gives them the fings they want just to 
 keep them still." 
 
 "Yes, they do that." 
 
 "And sometimes they are fings what those boys 
 had n't ought to have." 
 
 "Very often. 
 
 "And then when those boys grows up they 
 keep on making fusses and getting fings what they 
 had n't ought to have, and they are n't any much 
 good at all." 
 
An Adopted Mother 21 
 
 "That is just it, dear." 
 
 ''You would n't have that kind of a mother, 
 would you?" (This very contemptuously.) 
 
 " No indeed." 
 Neever would I. ' ' 
 
 The interview was closed by his hugging and 
 kissing me most rapturously. He has been per- 
 fectly obedient and sunshiny ever since. I know 
 it will not last forever a temper like his is not so 
 quickly subjugated, but a boy who can take in, 
 ponder upon, and make his own, ideas like that 
 is sure to win in the end. Give him the right 
 ideals and time, and stand ready to side in with 
 his better self in every struggle, and the outcome 
 is sure. I know how often I have had to fight to 
 make myself do the hard things which I knew to 
 be my duty fight so hard that I sometimes won- 
 dered if it were worth while to undergo so much 
 for the sake of living up to a certain standard. 
 Sometimes I even thought that I had decided to 
 do the easy and pleasant thing instead. Some- 
 how or other I always find that in the end I do 
 the hard, right thing, but it scares me and makes 
 me humble to remember how difficult it was, and 
 I ought surely to be charitable to children. Sup- 
 pose I had not been given the right ideals and 
 taught self-control? 
 
 May 14-th, 1902. Next to taking children to a 
 circus, I can imagine no better or more enlivening 
 
22 Note-Book of 
 
 experience for blast adults, those who have ever 
 felt a spark of interest in either children or nature, 
 than introducing a little indoor lad, such as mine 
 had been, to life in the open. It is such a con- 
 scious and intense pleasure to him to look at all 
 the green things growing, to listen to the twitter- 
 ing and singing of the many birds which nest in 
 our trees, and to steal cautiously along after the 
 vigilant robins as they hunt the ever-present 
 worms in the lawn. 
 
 Last night's shower and the warm weather of 
 to-day have advanced the foliage wonderfully, 
 and this afternoon Stanley came running in to 
 tell me, "There is two trees in your yard what 
 has so many leaves on them that they dest can't 
 hardly stand it." 
 
 Unfortunately, Stanley is not the only member 
 of our household who is following robins. Peter, 
 our cat, has a deeper and more epicurean interest 
 in them, slaying not only that he may eat, but 
 from sheer love of the chase. Many tiny feathered 
 victims are quietly buried by the hired man, and 
 one must have escaped his eyes for some days. 
 Stanley found it and came at once for me. 
 "Mother," said he, "would you be glad to see a 
 dead bird?" 
 
 "Yes, if there is one around I would be glad to 
 know about it." 
 
 ' ' All right. He is vurry dead. ' ' 
 
 We walked around the house to the nook where 
 
An Adopted Mother 23 
 
 the dead bird lay. Pointing it out to me, he said 
 compassionately, "He is a nice, dear little robin, 
 but he is vurry, vurry dead." 
 
 May iqth, 1902. Now that there is a plainly 
 perceptible fuzz on his head, Stanley has a keen 
 interest in hair. He looks at his own in the glass 
 many times a day, and thinks it quite wonderful 
 that ladies have so much. "If ladies was to cut 
 most of theirs off," he said to-day, "they would 
 look just like me, and if they was to cut it all off 
 Say ! (here he became greatly excited). Did you 
 see that man what was at the kindergarten one 
 day? He stood over by the door, and he talked 
 to me, and he had taken all his hair off on top of 
 him." 
 
 I suspected that it was a friend of ours, and 
 asked: "Did you like him?" 
 
 ' ' Yes, ' ' was the answer. "He was a vurry nice 
 man, but he had n't any much hair on at all." 
 
 I suppose that hair, and in some cases baldness, 
 will soon lose their interest for him. Now he is 
 only a few weeks removed from the condition of 
 that small boy who was joked by his grandfather 
 about being as bald as he, and retorted tellingly : 
 "Perhaps I am, but I 've got more roots." 
 
 May 2ist, 1902. Before school this morning I 
 accompanied Stanley to the dentist, to make sure 
 that his teeth were is good condition and to have 
 
24 Note-Book of 
 
 them polished. Since nothing more was called 
 for, he came away convinced that dentistry is one 
 of the great joys of life. May it be long before 
 he is disillusionized. He thinks "the buzzer is 
 such lots of fun," and is sure that he "can kiss 
 mother better with his teeth shined." 
 
 Of one thing I am glad ; he seems to realize the 
 desirability of starting right in various matters, 
 and of caring properly for his body. I often see 
 instances of his resolution in mastering difficulties. 
 He spent nearly an hour once learningto go up- and 
 down-stairs as adults do, instead of always keeping 
 one foot in advance, as he had done hitherto. 
 
 A week ago he gave most of one afternoon to 
 practising somersaults on the lawn, being de- 
 termined to "learn how to do them backways 
 every time," instead of tumbling over to one side. 
 Yesterday it was whistling which took all his 
 leisure. He kept trying to whistle, but did not 
 get his lips and tongue in the right position. 1 
 told him that if he wanted to whistle he must 
 learn to do it in the right way, and took time to 
 show him the correct method. "I fink I could 
 do it better if I had a glass to look into," he said. 
 So I gave him my hand mirror and he went at 
 it, following me from room to room as I went 
 from one task to another, and frequently inviting 
 criticism. Now he has not only mastered the 
 correct method, but can whistle a line or two each 
 of several familiar airs without flatting. 
 
An Adopted Mother 25 
 
 Perhaps I am fussy, still I cannot see the sense 
 of bungling half the things one does, and I want 
 Stanley to acquire the same feeling. Not only 
 because the fellow who puts thought into his work 
 and does it better than the other man is the one 
 who reaches the top of the ladder, but because 
 thoroughness and accuracy are essential to real 
 self-respect, I mean resolutely to discourage 
 bungling. 
 
 May 23rd, 1902. Stanley was one of a family 
 of three brothers who were taken to the School 
 about fifteen months ago, the youngest being 
 sent out to a home almost immediately. Having 
 loved him devotedly, Stanley's heart is very ten- 
 der toward all babies, and when Mrs. Richards 
 called to-day with hers, he forsook his play and 
 spent the whole time of her call caressing and 
 amusing the child. After she left he said, "That 
 is a very nice one, but not so pretty as my baby 
 is." 
 
 He does not realize that they grow up, seeming 
 to think that babyhood is a permanent condition, 
 and that his little brother is a type of all that 
 babies should be. He says: "Now I will tell you 
 how old fings are. Dollies are one year old and 
 babies are two years old. Little boys are five 
 years old, only sometimes they are more. . . . 
 Was father just five years old at the very first? " 
 
 I suppose we seem very, very old to him, 
 
26 Note-Book of 
 
 while, queerly enough, we still seem rather young 
 to ourselves and each other. Age is such a com- 
 parative, intangible, inconstant thing anyway. I 
 recall my mother's saying that as a child she was 
 sure she did not want to live to be forty, and I 
 remember shedding bitter tears over my own in- 
 creasing age on the morning when I was nine. 
 Give me a fine, sunshiny day now, on which I can 
 go tramping with a clear conscience, and I would 
 be willing to swear that I am not yet sixteen, but 
 when my housekeeper has to forsake me for an 
 ailing relative, and a guest invited for one day 
 brings a friend and two trunks along, two of my 
 guest-rooms being already occupied, and I think 
 I might even concede forty. 
 
 May 26th, 1902. Some of our many relatives 
 in New York City would have been greatly edified 
 by the remarks I overheard this afternoon. Anita 
 has been here to play with Stanley, and they con- 
 verted the sitting-room couch into a railroad train, 
 on which they and their child, the doll, took many 
 thrilling trips. I sat in the room sewing, and 
 helped out the illusion by whistling and choo- 
 choo-ing at the proper times, besides imitating 
 the bell with more or less brilliant success. 
 
 Their favorite journey was to New York City. 
 Anita had never heard anything about the place. 
 Stanley had heard a great deal from Ernest and 
 me. We had naturally dwelt upon what we 
 
An Adopted Mother 27 
 
 thought would most appeal to him, descriptions 
 of his newly acquired relatives and the joys of 
 Central Park, not realizing that the latter might 
 lead to any misconceptions. So I was momen- 
 tarily stunned to hear the following conversation : 
 
 "Here, Stanley, you carry the things and I will 
 hold the baby, 'cause we 're there now." 
 
 "Wait! Wait a minute, Anita! Let me get 
 down first and help you, 'cause I 'm a man, you 
 know, and you are a lady. Oh, wait / Get right 
 back in the cars / There is an elephant coming 
 after us. Let me get my gun. (Play this stick 
 was my gun.) BANG! He 's dead. There 's a 
 lion just coming out of the woods. Ow-w-w-w, 
 Ow-w-w-w ! (That 's him roaring, you know.) 
 BANG ! BANG ! He 's dead. Now get off and I '11 
 help you." 
 
 "O Stanley, I am so 'fraid! Is n't New York 
 awfully scarey? " 
 
 "Pooh! There 's lots of wild animals here, 
 but I '11 kill them all. BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! Now 
 they 're all dead." 
 
 "I wish we 'd played you had n't shot them 
 all. It was such fun to get scared." 
 
 "All right ! I '11 unshoot them. BANG ! BANG ! 
 Now they are all undead. RUN ! There comes 
 a boom-constructor now, and a bear." 
 
 May 2Qth, 1902. Stanley is losing his pallor 
 
28 Note-Book of 
 
 and acquiring a decided coat of tan. At the 
 School, and particularly during the winter, the 
 life is too sedentary and spent indoors. It is un- 
 avoidable where so many children are together, 
 since all must be called in at the same time to 
 make ready for meals, and each must wait for all. 
 The change in Stanley reminds me of nothing so 
 much as that which we see taking place in house- 
 grown plants that are set into the ground. He 
 often says: "Oh, I am having such a lots of good 
 time! I don't believe any fellah has such a good 
 time as me." 
 
 Story-telling, which I have always considered 
 my one accomplishment, does not seem to interest 
 him at all, and I find it rather humiliating to be 
 so unappreciated in home circles. The boy has 
 evidently what psychologists call a motor mind, 
 for only those toys which will go interest him, 
 and he would rather spend an hour in acquiring 
 some difficult motion or learning some hard feat 
 than in listening to stories or looking at the most 
 fascinating pictures. He is remarkably deft, but 
 cannot draw anything. Perhaps he has not been 
 allowed enough material to learn to express him- 
 self easily in that way. Most children of his age 
 can draw. 
 
 He certainly "sets his mind on things above " 
 much of the time, for I have to answer endless 
 questions regarding heaven and angels. Most of 
 them are such as all children ask, but this morn- 
 
An Adopted Mother 29 
 
 ing, he said: "When God takes little boys up to 
 heaven, does He get a doctor to cut their bodies 
 off? " I thought he was grappling with the ques- 
 tion of soul and body, but afterward found that 
 he was wondering what became of the rest of the 
 boy when he was changed into a cherub. 
 
 And that has made me wonder who invented 
 the cherub. Was it some early artist who dared 
 not trust himself on infantile arms and legs, or 
 was it some painter who felt the necessity of 
 showing a multitude of the heavenly host on a 
 small canvas? Colonel Parker used to remind us 
 that "the whole boy goes to school," and I think 
 I have a feeling that the whole boy ought to go to 
 heaven. At least if artists persist in portraying 
 children in their pictures of heaven, I would like 
 them to look a little more normal. The life be- 
 yond would certainly seem more attractive to 
 small boys and girls if they did not fear curtail- 
 ment of activity. 
 
 I once had such a queer illustration of the diffi- 
 culty of the young mind in imagining that which 
 has not been seen. It was in the days when I 
 taught Chicago gamins in a mission kindergarten. 
 Frankie was allowed to draw what he chose, after 
 doing the work allotted to him. He drew a pic- 
 ture of ' ' an angel taking a little boy up to heaven. ' ' 
 It was a most elaborate composition. The ter- 
 restrial settings were drawn first. A garden was 
 there with fruit trees and ladders. A "papa" 
 
30 Note-Book of 
 
 was walking in the garden, and, true to the papas 
 whom Frankie knew best, he was smoking a pipe. 
 
 The sun, the moon, and numerous stars were 
 shown, the latter with rather more than the con- 
 ventional number of points. When everything 
 else was ready, Frankie began on the angel. The 
 wings were drawn first, probably because they 
 were the salient characteristics. Then he pon- 
 dered long over the head. Frankie was a boy of 
 remarkable ability with the pencil and an instinc- 
 tive sense of perspective, but this puzzled him. 
 When it was done it was the sort of head which 
 he had always associated with wings, and strongly 
 resembled that of a stork. A pair of long birds' 
 legs were added and human arms, the latter un- 
 doubtedly suggested by the need of taking the 
 boy heavenward. 
 
 The boy looked much averse to translation, and 
 perhaps it was not strange, for the angel was lift- 
 ing him by the hair. Could there have been a 
 sadder commentary on the life in which that little 
 artist had been reared? Possibly the picture was 
 suggested by his hearing the last verse of one of 
 our standard hymns sung in his mission Sunday- 
 school. If not, then what will it mean to that 
 child when he first hears it? 
 
 " Or if on joyful wing, 
 Cleaving the sky, 
 Sun, moon, and stars forgot, 
 Upward I fiy." 
 
An Adopted Mother 3 1 
 
 In some such way, I fancy, as Frankie's ideas 
 of angels were governed by what he had experi- 
 enced from the mortals who cared for him, our 
 children will form their idea of the Heavenly 
 Parent by what they know of their earthly ones. 
 
 June i sty 1902. Another moral experience, 
 Stanley receiving his first letter by the noon mail. 
 It came from my mother in "a nice little ante- 
 lope " addressed to him. My reading it aloud was 
 punctuated with ecstatic exclamations from him. 
 "Oh, is n't it nice!" "Is n't it sweet!" "Oh, 
 is n't it lovely! " And after I had finished I had 
 to yield again and again to his request to "Please 
 make this writing read again." 
 
 At last, when he had it practically by heart, he 
 said: "Now this is n't a playfing, so I want to 
 pin it up where I can s'ee it, but where I can get 
 it down to hold sometimes." Later, when he 
 and Anita were playing house under the big 
 camper-down elm, I heard him reading it most 
 impressively to their child, the doll. He wanted 
 to take it to bed with him, but was afraid of 
 wrinkling it. 
 
 All this reminds me afresh of my own delight- 
 ful first letter. It was from an artist cousin, 
 printed on one side of a two by three inch card 
 and with the daintiest of landscapes pencilled on 
 the other side. I came across it not long ago 
 among some other treasures of the past, and I 
 
32 Note-Book of 
 
 doubt if any later letter ever gave me such utter 
 happiness as that. The moral of all which is, that 
 I must be careful to pass the kindness on and do 
 as much for other children, particularly sick ones, 
 for "if we make a child happy, we both make him 
 happy now, and twenty years from now in the 
 remembrance of it." 
 
 One other incident I must record. This morn- 
 ing Stanley played that he was a fierce big dog, 
 and barked furiously at me. I pretended to be 
 much frightened, and may have made it a bit too 
 realistic, for he suddenly stopped, patted me 
 penitently on both cheeks, and said: "Poor dear 
 Mother! Don't be so scared. I am really only 
 a vurry little bit of a puppy." 
 
 June jrd, 1902. I wonder if there is any other 
 point in child-training on which young mothers 
 have more trouble than on the matter of truthful- 
 ness. I have been struck by the number of 
 anxious queries in home columns of papers and 
 magazines: "What shall I do with my little girl? 
 She is only five years old and tells the most 
 dreadful lies already." 
 
 Already ! As though truthfulness were natural, 
 instead of being acquired ! Now I do not tell lies, 
 but I confess that there are emergencies when I 
 have to watch myself lest some polite falsehood 
 should slip from my lips ; and I have to hold my- 
 self closely to the original tale when I see that I 
 
An Adopted Mother 33 
 
 could make it vastly more amusing by artistic 
 touches. If any mother thinks it easy, let her 
 watch herself for just one week and see if she does 
 not tell acquaintances that she is glad to see them 
 when she is not, or assure callers that she "is very 
 well, thank you," when she is half ill with head- 
 ache or cold. 
 
 And if she finds herself guiltless of such decep- 
 tion, let her see if she does not use unwarranted 
 superlatives. If a mother tells her son that he is 
 the dirtiest boy she has ever seen, and he knows 
 a dozen ragamuffins who pass the house daily in 
 a state of griminess to which he never attains, he 
 thinks she intentionally distorts truth. 
 
 As a matter of fact, young children have to 
 learn to distinguish between that which is true 
 and that which is not, just as much as a baby has 
 to learn that fire is not a plaything. It is worse 
 than useless, it is both cruel and inexpedient to 
 punish a child for telling what he does not recog- 
 nize as a falsehood. And to develop the recogni- 
 tion of and love for truth is a slow work, requiring 
 much patience and all the tact which parents have, 
 in addition to the best possible example which 
 they can set. 
 
 Children vary greatly in their perceptions of 
 truth. Two little sisters whom I know afford a 
 striking contrast. The elder is very imaginative, 
 and tells as facts the most remarkable tales about 
 her kitten's house, clothing, and habits. The 
 
34 Note-Book of 
 
 younger, in describing a tortoise-shell kitten of 
 hers, declared it was white, black, brown, yellow, 
 blue, and pink. When questioned and reproved, 
 she became tearful and protested that he did have 
 all those colors, his eyes being blue and his nose 
 and tongue pink. This latter was an unusual 
 illustration of the fact that children's ways are 
 not as our ways, and that what strikes us as a 
 falsehood may be strictly true from their stand- 
 point. 
 
 But how about cases like the former? Imagina- 
 tion must not be suppressed, as in the Puritan 
 days, else we shall rear a race of narrow-minded 
 and prejudiced men and women, lacking in that 
 quality which makes our inventors, discoverers, 
 poets, and novelists. Indeed, imagination is es- 
 sential in any walk of life, for without it we shall 
 be content to follow the beaten path, never dream- 
 ing that to the right and left are untrodden ways 
 of richest beauty. 
 
 With Stanley I am following the example of a 
 bright friend of mine, who alternated with her 
 small nephew in the telling of fact and of fiction 
 stories. Thanks to her experience, I am teaching 
 him very successfully to distinguish between the 
 two, and he finds frequent vent for his imagina- 
 tion in telling me fiction, always specifying in 
 advance that it is such. I only hope that he will 
 not repeat the tactical error of that nephew 
 by inquiring of exceedingly entertaining guests 
 
An Adopted Mother 35 
 
 whether the stories they told at the dinner table 
 were fact or fiction. 
 
 It is understood between us that fiction is all 
 right if the hearer is told that it is fiction, but 
 that to tell fiction without specifying is lying. 
 This leads to an occasional piquant situation. 
 Usually he begins in a full voice some tale of 
 thrilling adventure, dropping to a whisper after a 
 sentence or two to say, "This is fiction, you 
 know," and then proceeding as before. Once he 
 omitted the usual parenthesis and told a most 
 wonderful tale, saying at the close, "Do you 
 think that is fact or fiction?" 
 
 "Fiction." 
 
 "Well, there is some fact in it," said he. "A 
 little bit. One cow, you know! " 
 
 Naturally truth has become the subject of much 
 thought with my little boy. I cannot remember 
 ever telling him that it is wicked to lie, but I have 
 tried to show him the mischief which is wrought 
 by falsehood and let him draw his own conclu- 
 sions. The thing which seems to impress him 
 most is thinking how dreadful it would be if 
 fathers and mothers lied, so that little boys could 
 not believe them. I have never forgotten the 
 pride with which a six-year-old pupil of mine once 
 said, "My mamma never fools," and although 
 we have many frolics and I often ask quizzical 
 questions, I mean to say nothing in jest which is 
 untrue. 
 
36 Note-Book of 
 
 I was pleased the other day, when Stanley had 
 to account for too long an absence from home, to 
 have him suddenly slip his hand in mine and say, 
 " Mother, I am afraid I am going to tell a lie." 
 All he needed was somebody to answer as I did : 
 "I am sure you will not, dear, for you know that 
 lies never help. They just make trouble." Then 
 I had the whole truth. 
 
 Next came the hard question of how to punish 
 a child who had just incriminated himself, Stanley 
 having visited where he was forbidden to go. For 
 weeks I used to waver between an inclination to 
 punish on account of the original naughtiness and 
 one to condone the offence on account of the sub- 
 sequent honesty. Now I always ask him what he 
 thinks should be done, and find that he gives the 
 matter careful thought and decides justly, not 
 sparing himself in the least. I suppose this would 
 not have worked at first, however, for a child has 
 to grow into the idea of self-government. 
 
 One day I had such a funny illustration of the 
 longing which even the good occasionally have to 
 see how it would feel to be bad, that longing for 
 the forbidden fruit which has made so much 
 trouble since the beginning of the world. It was 
 when he was going to bed, a time when he seems 
 naturally to think most about the relation of God 
 and man. "Now, Mother," said he, "I want to 
 tell a lie so as to see how it would seem. . . . 
 I fink God will understand. Now I 
 
An Adopted Mother 37 
 
 saw a dreadful great big bear in our yard to-day. 
 . . . Do you believe me, Mother? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, I 'm glad you don't, 'cause you know 
 it is n't true. But God understood." 
 
 He looked so relieved as he said this that I felt 
 sure of his reply when I asked, "Was it really 
 much fun to tell that lie? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I did n't think it would be. You see such 
 things are never fun. People are foolish some- 
 times and think it will make them happy to be 
 bad, but it never does. It just makes them sorry 
 and ashamed, as you would have been if I had be- 
 lieved you, and it is always more fun to be good. 
 I am glad that my boy is the sort that tries to be 
 good." 
 
 I sometimes think that our most helpful 
 "visits," as Stanley calls them, are those which 
 begin with fiction stories or "s'posings." It 
 gives me so much better an insight into the work- 
 ings of that busy little brain than I could get in 
 other ways that I am glad to find him caring for 
 stories. It is now easy for me to "point the 
 moral and adorn the tale " without seeming per- 
 sonal, and it is much easier for Stanley to discuss 
 the failings of a fiction character than those same 
 in his own person. I notice in him the tendency 
 which I nearly always found in my kindergarten 
 children. He has the most abiding interest in 
 
38 Note-Book of 
 
 those stories which deal with his own failings as 
 shown and conquered in others. I wonder why 
 it is? Probably because it heartens him to think 
 that such tendencies can be conquered. 
 
 One of his favorites is about a certain chicken 
 who would not eat gravel because he did not like 
 its taste, although his mother told him that he 
 could not be strong without it. "If I was that 
 hen," he once said, "and my little chicken would 
 not eat gravel, do you know what I would do? 
 I 'd kick down that slanting board and tell him 
 he could not come into the tree to roost until he 
 had eaten a whole stomachful." 
 
 It was this same story which started him on 
 the little end of one of the world's big problems. 
 "Mother," said he, "how did the first chicken 
 get hatched? He could n't hatch his own self, 
 could he? And there was n't any mother hen to 
 hatch him." There was nothing which I could 
 see to suggest this, but of course we ended our 
 visit that time with the story of creation. 
 
 Stanley's fiction stories are usually those of 
 tremendous fishing or hunting adventures in which 
 he is the hero. He has not mastered all the in- 
 tricacies of literary form, and tells everything in 
 the first person as yet. He gets his principal 
 exercise of the imagination by "s'posing," and 
 his interest in natural history colors many of his 
 suppositions. Here are some of his recent flights. 
 
 "If I was a kitten like Peter used to be, and I 
 
An Adopted Mother 39 
 
 was wet and cold and hungry, I 'd just come 
 straight to you and you would take care of me, 
 and I 'd cuddle down in your lap while you were 
 writing, but I would n't 'sturb you. 
 
 "If I was a high-hole, know what I 'd do? I 'd 
 fly right up to you and let you tame me. Then 
 I 'd kiss you on the cheek. Only I don't b'leeve 
 my kisses would feel right, 'cause my mouf 
 would n't be the right kind, you know. 
 
 "S'posing this world was all water. We 'd 
 have to live in a boat. But where would we get 
 the boat? There would n't be any boat. We 'd 
 have to swim. Would n't the fishes eat us? 
 Then we 'd have to go to heaven. But how 
 could God make angels out of us after the fishes 
 had eaten us? He 'd have to kill the fish, I 'm 
 pretty sure. But perhaps He would just put His 
 fingers down his froat. He would have to take 
 him out of the water anyway. ... Is n't 
 it most time for Father to come? " 
 
 June 6th, 1902. Exchanging view-points is 
 not a bad idea for people whose opinions are apt 
 to conflict, and Stanley and I find both profit and 
 mutual edification in it. Our first experiment 
 along this line was suggested by his asking, one 
 day when he was experimenting to see how far he 
 could safely carry some naughtiness, "Mother, 
 what will you do to me if I don't stop? " 
 
 "Suppose I were the little boy and you were 
 
40 Note-Book of 
 
 the mother," I counter-questioned, "what would 
 you do to me? " 
 
 He sat bolt upright with a giggle. It was evi- 
 dently going to be more fun to talk than to be 
 naughty. " If I was trying to make you be good, 
 and you was hitting rings? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, let me fink. I would say, 'Stanley, you 
 will make bad marks on fings if you do that. ' ' 
 
 "But suppose I kept right on?" 
 
 "Then I would say, 'Stanley, you ought not to 
 do that' (but you know reelly, Mother, you would 
 be some bad if you did n't stop the first time, 
 'cause you had n't ought to make marks on 
 furniture)." 
 
 "But suppose I did not stop when you told me 
 that I ought?" 
 
 "Well . . . then I should have to say, 
 ' Stanley, you must not do that. ' And then if you 
 did it another time it would be a big bad and I 
 would have to lock you up." 
 
 "What if I kicked the door and screamed after 
 you locked me up? " 
 
 "I would n't let you out till you was good 
 again. Not anyhow till then. But it would 
 make me feel vurry, vurry sad and ashamed." 
 
 "When I said I was sorry, you would let me go 
 back to my play, would n't you?" 
 
 "Not right off, you know, Mother. If I did 
 you would n't stay good long enough. I would 
 
An Adopted Mother 41 
 
 kiss you and say you would learn to fight your 
 temper better after a while, but I would make 
 you sit still ten minutes just the same." 
 
 I thought that this would close the conversa- 
 tion, but "hitting fings " was no longer a temp- 
 tation, and Stanley wanted to follow out one 
 hypothesis after another to its logical conclusion. 
 He never proposed any more leniency than I had 
 been in the habit of showing, and once, after advo- 
 cating some especially severe retribution, he said : 
 "You just try that on me, Mother, if I am ever 
 that kind of bad again. I fink that would fix me. ' ' 
 
 It was this latter remark which brought the 
 subject up to-day, because he did start in on "that 
 kind of bad " and I reminded him of what he had 
 recommended. He giggled at once, and promptly 
 replied: "You just do it. Some time when I am 
 bad, you know, but I am not going to be to-day." 
 So what threatened to be a scene ended in a joke 
 after all. 
 
 And this reminds me of something which I did 
 not record at the time. It was just after Stanley 
 had tried to kick me in one of his terrible fits of 
 temper. He came home the next day with a long 
 face. One of his favorite schoolmates had been 
 seriously injured, and it was thought could not 
 recover. I asked questions about the accident. 
 
 "He was kicked," said Stanley. 
 
 I looked sympathetic. "Who kicked him?" I 
 asked. "Was it his mother? " 
 
42 Note-Book of 
 
 Such a look of horror as came over Stanley's 
 face! " Of course not," he said. "Mothers don't 
 kick little boys. That would be crool." 
 
 "Do you think so?" I asked, in the most im- 
 personal manner possible. "I am glad that it 
 was not his mother, but I don't know that it 
 would be any worse for a mother to kick her boy 
 than for a boy to kick his mother. She might do 
 it because she lost her temper, you know." 
 
 I went on with my sewing, but my little lad 
 stood conscience-stricken in the corner. After a 
 while he stole over to where I sat. "Do you love 
 me, Mother? " he asked. "I did try to kick you 
 yesterday when I was mad, but I won't ever 
 again. Not ever, ever, ever! But would n't it 
 be dreadful if mothers did kick their little boys? " 
 
 June yth, 1902. More questionings. ' ' Mother, 
 can God do anyfing? Can He ride a bicycle on a 
 crooked rail-fence without tumbling?" 
 
 "I suppose He could, dear, if He cared to, but 
 think how much sweeter and more wonderful 
 things He has to do. Do you suppose He would 
 care about that when He might be finding a home 
 for some little child who had no father or mother 
 or home? You know He has a great many people 
 to love and help, some good ones who have hard 
 times, and some naughty ones who are trying to 
 be good, and He is ready to help them all when- 
 ever they try their hardest and ask Him." 
 
An Adopted Mother 43 
 
 "Course, yes. I did n't fink about that. And 
 then there are the babies the bran-new ones to 
 look after, and He would have to be vurry, vurry 
 careful about them." 
 
 June 1 2th, 1902. I have been so perplexed and 
 distressed over Stanley's swearing that I have not 
 been willing to record it until I could also set 
 down something of encouragement. I have rea- 
 soned that it would be only a passing affair, and 
 reiterated to myself and Ernest, what I knew per- 
 fectly well, that nearly every child, or at least 
 nearly every boy, has to live through this phase 
 of existence, yet it does so take the heart out of 
 one to hear profanity from lips we love, even if 
 they are childish lips. 
 
 Still, I remember going off by myself when I 
 was a little girl and experimenting to see how I 
 felt when I said "damn." Later I read of a boy 
 in one of Mrs. Stowe's novels doing the same 
 thing, and I fancy that if our memories were good 
 enough, and we were unflinchingly honest with 
 ourselves, most of us could confess to something 
 very similar. Yet we are quite respectable now, 
 and ready to be horror-stricken when our children 
 do it. 
 
 Stanley swore knowing that it was wicked, and 
 probably because he knew. It was the fascination 
 of the forbidden fruit. Still, the first time I 
 thought it expedient to assume that he swore 
 
44 Note-Book of 
 
 ignorantly and we had only a very long and very 
 serious talk about it. I said I would not punish 
 him then, because he might not have known how 
 wrong it was. He immediately wanted to know 
 how I would punish him if he did so again. I 
 said I had not decided. 
 
 A few days later he swore experimentally, and 
 at once asked what I was going to do to him. I 
 was very grave and said I did not know just what 
 would be best, that most people gave children 
 very hard whippings for swearing, but it did not 
 seem to me this would make a boy stop. I 
 thought a boy would have to make himself stop. 
 
 "Of course if there were no other way of doing 
 it, I would whip you," I said, "but that might 
 not stop your swearing when you are away from 
 me, or from thinking the swear-words when you 
 do not say them. It is just as bad to think them 
 as it is to say them, and God cares just as much. 
 I believe that if you are not strong enough to keep 
 the swearing-thought out of your mind and the 
 swearing-words off your tongue, I cannot do it 
 for you. Then you would grow up to be a man 
 with an impure heart and lips. The only way for 
 you to do is to fight such things and ask God to 
 help you." 
 
 "But are n't you going to do a fing to me, 
 Mother?" 
 
 "No. There is nothing I think would cure 
 you. But I must take care of my own lips, so I 
 
An Adopted Mother 45 
 
 shall not let them touch yours until you are in 
 bed to-night. By that time, if you do not swear 
 again, I shall feel that your lips are pure enough 
 to kiss." 
 
 Then what floods of tears and what pitiful sup- 
 plications I had to withstand ! He offered to 
 wash them for a whole hour, he asked if I did n't 
 "fink baff-brick would clean them," he showered 
 kisses on my hands, my waist, even the edge of 
 my skirt and the tips of my shoes, and it was a 
 much tear-stained and very sad little boy who 
 finally gave up the struggle. 
 
 Each time that he left me without the usual 
 parting kiss his eyes filled and he hid his face. 
 At night he begged for an early supper and to go 
 directly to bed, so that he might "make the lips 
 right sooner." And when at last he was allowed 
 to kiss me, he seemed to feel it worth the hour of 
 play he had sacrificed for the privilege. 
 
 He has sworn several times since then, and has 
 taken the same sort of treatment for granted. I 
 began to fear he would become hardened to it, 
 but then the profanity ceased, and although I 
 have been an unseen listener to some severe 
 differences with other boys, in which there was 
 cause for great indignation on Stanley's part, I 
 have heard no swearing from him. 
 
 To-night I feel that the battle is won, for he 
 came to me after such an encounter and said, 
 quite without suggestion on my part: "Mother, 
 
46 Note-Book of 
 
 I never reelly meant to swear; but I got to fink- 
 ing about those words, and somefing made me 
 cross, and then it got out. But I tried vurry, 
 vurry hard not to swear, and now, do you know, I 
 don't even fink bad words inside of me any more. 
 I hear other boys say those fings, but I just don't 
 pay any 'tention to them." 
 
 June i jth, 1902. I think I shall yield to temp- 
 tation by recording, lisp and all, something which 
 Stanley said to me this evening. 
 
 Both of us were especially tired, and I am sure 
 he would have quite lost his self-control on ac- 
 count of fatigue, had he not been so concerned 
 for me. He made me lie on my own bed as soon 
 as he was safely tucked into his, in the hope that 
 I might catch a wee nap before Ernest returned 
 from his evening hour at the store. ' ' You blethed 
 lady," he said, " how would you thtand it if you 
 did n't have a little boy to take care of you? 
 Father would be down at the thtore and Nettie 
 would be away, and you could n't thleep a thingle 
 bit." 
 
 June 20tk, 1902. Just back to-night from my 
 first outing since Stanley came! I really think 
 that I would have preferred staying at home with 
 the little lad, were it not that commencement at 
 "our college " is always a previous engagement in 
 this family, so I left him in good hands and went 
 
An Adopted Mother 47 
 
 for three days. Besides, I reasoned that the 
 earlier I began to leave him the easier it would be 
 for all of us, and I live in so small a place that I 
 must go outside once in a while for inspiration. 
 
 He was waiting on the horse-block when we 
 came up from the half-past six train. "I fixed a 
 s'prise for Mother on the door-knob," he said, but 
 he hampered me so with hugging that my progress 
 toward it was slow. Instead of the toy which 
 I expected to find, there was a beautiful great 
 spray of roses from the garden. "O, my sweet 
 Mother," he kept saying, "I am so glad you are 
 home." And once he said, "Your face is so 
 sweet and you have kept it so clean." 
 
 I cannot help thinking how much more the 
 home-coming meant to me because we had "put 
 our fate to the touch " and taken him into our 
 lives. People say to me sometimes, in a sort of 
 prayer-meeting tone: "I am sure it is very good 
 of you to take a child to bring up. I hope you 
 will have your reward some day." As though I 
 did not have my reward every day! Why, five 
 minutes of our bed-time visit is more than recom- 
 pense for the care and trouble of the day. Even 
 when the naughty times come, I know it is pay- 
 ing. It is something to feel one's self a helper in 
 the constant battle between the forces of good 
 and evil, even when one's part at the time is only 
 the tying up of unkind hands and the wiping 
 away of penitential tears. 
 
48 Note-Book of 
 
 June 22nd, 1902. Stanley and I have had a good 
 time this sunshiny Sunday afternoon, and I grate- 
 fully ascribe it all to insects. What should I do 
 without them? Ernest being out of town, I wrote 
 my letters under the trees, thinking that I could 
 thus keep in touch with my boy and my mother 
 at the same time, although the latter is far away. 
 The air was full of ants just returning from their 
 matrimonial flight, and the walk was thickly 
 strewn with groups of workers who were either 
 awaiting them or caring for them. 
 
 Stanley was the first to discover that some- 
 thing unusual was happening, and when I realized 
 what it was I laid down my pen and watched with 
 him for a while. It was a most thrilling drama to 
 him, although the actors were so small. To see 
 the returning queens met and caressed by workers, 
 who were helping remove the queen's wings while 
 they caressed her; to see the tired drones vainly 
 trying to escape from the workers, who evidently 
 thought them useless save for food ; and to watch 
 the general hurry and scurry, which still had so 
 much of hard-hearted method in it, was quite 
 diversion enough for a couple of hours. I gave 
 him some idea of what was going on, and he was 
 much impressed by the thought that the drones 
 were so lazy that they could not be permitted to 
 live. 
 
 When his interest began to flag I got him a 
 three-inch hand-lens or reading-glass, and with 
 
An Adopted Mother 49 
 
 that as a companion he finally drifted away from 
 ants to caterpillars and miscellaneous insects. I 
 certainly shall purchase him a lens of his own, a 
 cheaper one than this. 
 
 I wonder that more people do not realize the 
 value of entomology, even that of the most rudi- 
 mentary type, as a recreation and education for 
 boys and girls. Most children hear nothing of it 
 except in the school-room, where I fear they some- 
 times come to hate the bee as an unfailing example 
 of industry. There they are also introduced to the 
 caterpillar and the butterfly, but that is usually 
 all. They thrill with interest in lions and tigers 
 which they will probably never see save in their 
 unhappy and artificial menagerie existence, and 
 they sing picturesque little songs about the blue- 
 bird, the swallow, the oriole, and a few other 
 most unapproachable birds ; but the one division 
 of natural history which is most natural for them 
 is seldom mentioned. Insects are around us in 
 profusion much of the year, they are easily caught 
 and kept in captivity for a time, and there is 
 almost no risk in the matter. 
 
 Ponds and brooks have a strong attraction for 
 small boys, especially for those highly blessed 
 ones whose mothers can so disregard appearances 
 as to let them go barefooted, but the real informa- 
 tion which they possess in regard to the denizens 
 of these places is about on a par with their belief 
 that hair-snakes have developed from horse-hairs. 
 
50 Note-Book of 
 
 I know that unless parents have learned some- 
 thing about insect life before their children are old 
 enough to care for it, they will have to educate 
 themselves as well as their little ones, and they 
 hardly know how to go about it. It seems to 
 demand time which can illy be spared. Some 
 parents actually cannot spare the time, but most 
 of them can, and it seems to me especially wise 
 to give only children an intelligent interest in the 
 tiny creatures of their own dooryards. I was an 
 only child myself, and lived for some years in a 
 neighborhood where my playmates were either 
 too good to be interesting or too bad to be whole- 
 some. Thanks to my having painstaking and 
 nature-loving parents (although they were busy 
 people and not particularly educated along these 
 lines), I was taught to love and watch insects, and 
 passed many happy solitary days in the company 
 of angleworms and beetles. 
 
 It really does not cost much time, energy, or 
 money to show an interest in insects and give a 
 child an opportunity to identify and watch them. 
 Just the listing of all he can find in his own yard 
 puts him in the way of making new discoveries, 
 and some day he will find ants driving their flocks 
 of aphids from pasture to pasture and eating the 
 dew-like secretion for which they are thus kept 
 and tended. Some day, too, he will see an 
 ichneumon-fly sting and paralyze a huge cater- 
 pillar, which will thus be kept sweet for her babies 
 
An Adopted Mother 51 
 
 to feast upon whenever they are hungry. The 
 ichneumons, it seems, prefer their beef upon the 
 hoof. 
 
 Stanley has fully entered upon his heritage of 
 interest in natural history, and I have many times 
 known him to play in quiet content for three hours 
 with some new insect which he had found. He 
 will let playmates come and go while he remains 
 interested in his bug. Sometimes he even begs 
 them not to 'sturb him. The other boys laugh 
 at him, and privately confide to me that "Stanley 
 is an awfully funny little fellow, he likes bugs so." 
 Yet I notice that when I join their group and they 
 are convinced it is not beneath the dignity of older 
 persons to ''like bugs," they become almost as 
 much interested as he. 
 
 One rule has to be enforced in the interests of 
 conventional living. Insects must not be brought 
 into the house. At first Stanley's enthusiasm 
 made him quite often forget this. I myself did 
 not particularly mind, but it must have been 
 rather trying to my caller when he rushed in one 
 afternoon with a glass jar half full of tent-cater- 
 pillars, crying exultingly : "Just, see these lovely 
 caterpillars! Are n't they nice, though? First 
 I got them in my cap, but they kept crawling 
 out, so I found this for them. I put a whole lot 
 of grass for them to eat, and they are vurry 
 happy. One of them is sweaty, so I will take 
 him out." 
 
52 Note-Book of 
 
 Of course he took them all out of doors and 
 that very quickly ; but it had been impossible to 
 check his rush of enthusiasm, and as soon as my 
 caller was gone I had to go out on the back porch 
 to atone for my previous indifference. I found 
 him much troubled because he had just remem- 
 bered that there were no father and mother cater- 
 pillars to care for the little ones. "I fink the 
 butterfly fathers and mothers had ought to take 
 care of the baby caterpillars," said he. "They 
 ought to come back and help them change their 
 skins, anyway. How would you like it if you 
 had to change your skin without anybody to help 
 you, if you was a little caterpillar? " 
 
 June 2jth, 1902. Abiogenesis is the last of 
 Stanley's concerns. "Does hairs turn into 
 snakes?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because things that are not alive cannot make 
 things that are." 
 
 "God could make them, though, could n't 
 He?" 
 
 "Yes. He could even make snakes out of 
 nothing, as He did at first, but now that He has 
 them started He does not have to do that. Now 
 the big snakes hatch out little snakes." 
 
 "Yes. But Mother, God could reelly make 
 them out of noffmg if He had a mind to. Or He 
 
An Adopted Mother 53 
 
 could make them out of anyfing. He could make 
 them out of cloff or tin even." 
 
 June 30th, 1902. Another victory for Stanley, 
 and another vindication of my theory that the 
 person to conquer a child's temper is the child 
 himself. Yesterday was a day of conscious recti- 
 tude for him, and he went to bed last night feeling 
 very sure that he would never be naughty again. 
 Alas, how easily things go wrong ! 
 
 He awakened out of sorts this morning and 
 was fast going from bad to worse. When he left 
 the breakfast table he kicked and flung several of 
 his playthings in the most petulant manner pos- 
 sible. I was just wondering if I could safely wait 
 until after prayers for the seemingly inevitable 
 scene, when he suddenly turned, ran to me, and 
 said, "Let me hug you, quick! " 
 
 After a bearlike embrace and repeated kisses 
 he gave a happy sigh and said: "There! That 
 temper is fighted ! You know it helps when I can 
 hug you. Now I '11 be good froo prayers, and 
 you tell God how I fighted, and then I '11 fix 
 rings right afterward." 
 
 And he did. 
 
 I am more and more grateful that I have ven- 
 tured to trust so much to the child's own wisdom 
 and strength. He has never once disappointed 
 me, and I confess that several times I have relied 
 on his strength because I dared not trust my own. 
 
54 Note-Book of 
 
 With all my experience and all my training I have 
 often felt unable to cope with Stanley's temper. 
 Throwing the responsibility of it on him seemed 
 the only way, even when he was only a lisping 
 five-year-old with the face of a baby. I suppose 
 that I was unconsciously influenced at first by the 
 lifelong belief that "with every temptation God 
 also provides a way of escape, ' ' for with strong 
 tempers there are strong wills which can hold 
 them in check. 
 
 I have sometimes wondered that Ernest does 
 not seem more perturbed by Stanley's worst 
 moods, but when I congratulated him on his 
 serenity he said, "I had a very strong temper 
 when I was a boy, and I developed into a thor- 
 oughly respectable citizen in spite of it." 
 
 I wonder if Ernest ever howled and kicked and 
 fought as I have seen Stanley do? Of course I 
 knew that he had been a child, had heard of his 
 whooping-cough, measles, and croup from his 
 mother, yet she never mentioned his naughtiness. 
 Perhaps she had forgotten it, as mothers are apt 
 to forget the failings of their children. I often 
 remember my own early outbursts of temper, 
 and how uncomfortable they made me and every- 
 body else, but in my mind Ernest is always the 
 dignified, self-contained Christian gentleman that 
 he was when I first met him and has been ever 
 since. I suppose that if we had not both learned 
 self-control, we would hardly have grown to care 
 
An Adopted Mother 55 
 
 for each other, our first meeting having been on a 
 stormy winter day, when a matter of business 
 brought us together and we found ourselves pos- 
 sessed of diametrically opposite views. 
 
 We have had diametrically opposite views on a 
 number of questions since, as far as that goes, but 
 it does not seem to interfere in any way with the 
 peace of our home, and I fancy that one carries 
 the point about as often as the other. Ernest 
 feels, as I do, that to have a strong will, with its 
 incidental penalties, is not a thing to be deplored 
 if the early training is right. It is rather an oc- 
 casion for rejoicing. 
 
 July ist, 1902. I am much delighted and en- 
 couraged over a little incident which occurred to- 
 day. I suppose all of us have hobbies, and 
 probably one of mine is wishing to get the other 
 person's point of view. In this case, however, it is 
 quite the converse, a desire to have the other person 
 get my point of view. It always seems to me that 
 people who possess that sort of mental adaptability 
 are much better fitted for just and happy living. 
 
 This time it has to do with punishments. Only 
 a few days since, Stanley asked me, "Mother, 
 does folks punish folks to get even? " and I gave 
 considerable time to trying to explain the true 
 purpose of punishment. I felt that it was a diffi- 
 cult task with so young a child, and had little 
 hope as to the results. 
 
5 6 Note-Book of 
 
 This afternoon Stanley came home horror- 
 stricken because a boy in his school had slapped 
 a girl. He wanted to talk much about slapping 
 in general and that particular form of slapping in 
 which a girl is the victim, for Stanley is nothing 
 if not chivalrous. After a while I said, speaking 
 of a feeble-minded pupil of mine: "I once had a 
 boy in my Chicago kindergarten who slapped chil- 
 dren, and I could n't make him stop. After a 
 while I decided that it was because he did n't 
 know how it hurt to be slapped. Now what do 
 you suppose I did?" 
 
 "Don't know." 
 
 "What would you have done?" 
 
 Prolonged thought on the part of Stanley; 
 then: "Mother, if I had been in your place I 
 would have taught him how it hurt. He would 
 have to be slapped himself good and hard, you 
 know and I would have done it, even if I did nt 
 want to. ' ' 
 
 July jrd, 1902. I have been face to face with 
 the question of slang for several days, and have 
 been trying to formulate my views. Not that 
 it is the first time that my attention has been 
 called to the subject, but that it has come before 
 me in a new way. I think I will write out my 
 present ideas quite fully, and then I can see how 
 they work out. Only a good many of my theo- 
 ries are already proved. 
 
An Adopted Mother 57 
 
 Slang is so universal and yet so disliked by 
 cultivated people. Still we must concede that 
 certain words which start their career as slang are 
 at length adopted by the mother-language and 
 become useful words in good and regular standing. 
 These, I fancy, have their future marked out for 
 them from the beginning and show signs of promise 
 and energy. Expletives can never win a place in 
 a good vocabulary, if only because they are tokens 
 of ill-controlled passions and emotions. Hence, 
 and this is to be the first article of my linguistic 
 creed, my fight must be against all forms of ex- 
 pletive. Secondly, and for the same reason, I 
 must war against the use of all adjectives and ad- 
 verbs which bespeak impatience and ill-temper. 
 Next on my black-list I shall place all slang words 
 which seem unlikely ever to gain respectability. 
 
 Slang is almost invariably used to convey an 
 impression of smartness and worldly wisdom. To 
 make young children feel that it really produces 
 the opposite effect is often to strike at the root of 
 the matter. It does far more than repeated ad- 
 monitions that "such words are not pretty," as 
 many mothers put it. 
 
 I remember an experience I had with Edwin 
 B. in my Chicago kindergarten. He told me one 
 morning that there were "a lot of kids " standing 
 on the street corner. I said I would look at them 
 at once, that I had not known there were any 
 goats in that part of the city. 
 
58 Note-Book of 
 
 ''Oh, there was n't any goats there," he said, 
 "just kids, you know." 
 
 "Kids are goats, Edwin," I replied, "little 
 young goats." 
 
 "Oh, but these kids is just boys. They ain't 
 goats at all. ' ' 
 
 "Why did n't you say boys, then? What would 
 you think if I were to call your hat a chair? I 
 am afraid you would think I did n't know very 
 much." 
 
 There the conversation ended. About a week 
 later Peter said something at our table about "de 
 kids in our alley," and I appeared not to notice it. 
 Instantly Edwin spoke up. "You mean boys; 
 you don't mean kids," said he. "Kids is nanny- 
 goats, ain't they, Miss Eleanor?" 
 
 I agreed that they were young goats, and Peter, 
 crestfallen and scarlet, muttered something about 
 not knowing. Each one of the twenty at the 
 table apparently remembered and told of it, and 
 another slang word was quietly dropped from the 
 vocabulary of the place. 
 
 Children can certainly be led to think concern- 
 ing the words which they use, and even to enjoy 
 doing so. Take any boy who is old enough to 
 handle tools : these are so interesting to him that 
 a lesson in which they are used as illustration will 
 be listened to with respect. Some day when he 
 is in a thoughtful mood and misuses a word, it is 
 easy to tell him that to do that is like taking the 
 
An Adopted Mother 59 
 
 wrong tool for a piece of work. To say that a 
 day is "roasting hot " when it is only quite warm, 
 is like taking an auger instead of a gimlet with 
 which to bore a small hole, and to say that some- 
 thing is "awfully pretty " when it is only pretty 
 is very much like using an axe to drive a tack it 
 is too big and heavy a tool in the first place, 
 and then it was made for chopping, not for 
 pounding. 
 
 There are many advantages to this way of 
 pointing a moral. It not only makes the mean- 
 ing more clear in the first place, but a lesson 
 linked to a child's favorite implement will be fre- 
 quently recalled when he uses that implement and 
 he will be delighted by discovering new analogies 
 and making new comparisons for himself. 
 
 Slang is so insidious! We think that we are 
 free from it, and that very day some common 
 phrase slips from our unguarded lips and we 
 have said it. Ernest and I have several times 
 been reproved by Stanley for using some word 
 which we object to his using, and we always ac- 
 cept his reproof with humility and thank him for 
 reminding us of our mistakes. It is charming to 
 see the tact with which he immediately tries to 
 allay our embarrassment by saying : ' ' I know you 
 did n't fink. You don't vurry often say words 
 like that, and I know you '11 learn." 
 
 I sometimes fancy that our imperfections and 
 his knowledge that we are fighting against them 
 
60 Note-Book of 
 
 is his strongest stimulus in struggles for a purer 
 tongue. 
 
 One other thing. That which is absolutely for- 
 bidden is apt to have a peculiar fascination. I 
 try not to forbid any more than is necessary. 
 About a week ago Stanley said "Gosh!" in my 
 presence in a way which showed that he was ex- 
 perimenting on me. I said nothing. Soon he 
 tried it again in the same way. I kept still. 
 When he was undressing for bed that night he 
 asked me if "Gosh" were a bad word. I con- 
 sidered deeply and said it was not a swear-word, 
 or a really wicked word, but that I thought it ex- 
 ceedingly silly, and that it was a word which the 
 best and most careful people would not use. He 
 told me that the Seymour boys said it. I replied 
 that this was no reason why he should. 
 
 He sat there half undressed, with one stocking 
 in his hand. "You would rather that I did not 
 say it," he remarked, "but you do not say that I 
 must not ? ' ' 
 
 I nodded. He stood suddenly upright, waved 
 the stocking round his head, and shouted, "O 
 Gosh ! Gosh ! Gosh ! Gosh ! Gosh ! Gosh ! GOSH ! " 
 Then he went on undressing. I have not heard 
 him say it since, and I have been listening. Our 
 friend Dr. Darrow says that he thinks "the gosh 
 is thoroughly eliminated from his system." 
 
 July 6th, 1902. I believe that I will write out 
 
An Adopted Mother 61 
 
 one of Stanley's original stories as he told it to me 
 to-day. He does not often allow his imagination 
 free rein for so long a narrative, but a rainy Sun- 
 day afternoon gave exceptional opportunity. I 
 sat by the window writing letters, and it was the 
 easiest thing in the world to slip my pen along on 
 a second sheet of paper and keep a perfect record 
 of all he said. He is so accustomed to seeing me 
 write that it does not occasion remark or cause 
 self-consciousness. 
 
 It started with his erecting a playhouse in one 
 end of the sitting-room. This was constructed of 
 the big gray shawl carefully pinned over the backs 
 of four dining-room chairs. He said that his 
 house was in Masstoosetts, which was just across 
 the street from Michigan. I was supposed to be 
 in Michigan writing letters. He was a mother 
 living there with his only child, Helen Lorene. 
 Lest my memory should sometime fail on these 
 details, or Stanley re-read this story when I am 
 not by to explain, I will make it a matter of 
 record that Helen Lorene is my little old wax 
 doll, minus most of her wax and hair and all of 
 her youthful beauty. 
 
 He brought Helen Lorene to see me, held her 
 on his knee while visiting, and went home to 
 Masstoosetts from time to time for other members 
 of his family. 
 
 "Good-morning. How do you do? I 've 
 come to see you. This is my little girl. She 's 
 
62 Note-Book of 
 
 the only child I 've got. She has the croup 
 pretty bad, but I fink she will outgrow it. She 
 used to have it worse at the School before I got 
 her. Have you any children? I should fink you 
 would buy a few. . . . Why ! I forgot ! I 
 have reelly got another child. She was just 
 hatched yesterday. That is why I forgot I had 
 her, you know. I will go home and get her. 
 You may hold Helen Lorene. 
 
 "There! This is the new child [a toothpick]. 
 Her name is Buttonaree. She is n't very big, so 
 I just call her that. 
 
 "I have another child too [bringing over a toy 
 broom]. His name is Plant Buttonaree. He is 
 much taller. He is almost as tall as Father. 
 That is because he eats bread and milk three times 
 a day. 
 
 "Do you want to see another of my children 
 [holding up a toy carpet-sweeper] ? This one is 
 going to be a boy when he gets bigger, but I can't 
 find any name that 's just right for him. 
 
 "Why! I have four babies 'sides Helen. I 
 did n't know I had so many. I 'm going to have 
 another pretty soon, too. You see I 'm earning 
 money to buy babies. 
 
 "This [a piece of red paper] is one of my chil- 
 dren too. Her name is Flower April Marie. I 
 call her that because she is red. Mother, how 
 big are babies when they are hatched? 
 
 "This [a bit of kindling] is a boy. His name is 
 
An Adopted Mother 63 
 
 Leaf- Wood-Glass. He is a dirty child, but it is 
 because he is so little that he does n't understand. 
 
 "This one [a Bible card] is a girl who plays out- 
 of-doors and can run very fast. Her name is 
 Flag-Cat-Drawer. 
 
 "And this [a whittled stick] is the very last 
 child I have. Her name is Red-Coal-Leaf. She 
 is a vurry, vurry good child. 
 
 "And now I am going to play somefmg else." 
 
 July loth, 1902. Stanley is quite over his 
 temporary estrangement from Helen, the dear old 
 battered and worn dollie which was once mine and 
 is now his. He no longer asks, "Is it right for 
 boys to play with dollies? " During the day time 
 she is ignored, unless it rains or a little girl comes 
 to visit, but when he finds her on his pillow at 
 night he covers her face with kisses and calls her 
 his "dear, sweet little Helen Lorene." 
 
 He told me once, after he had been crying, 
 that Helen was "a great comfort " to him, and 
 he often sings himself to sleep when he thinks he 
 is lulling her. He is very anxious that she should 
 be loved by others, yet once he showed a bit of 
 jealousy. He had asked, "Which do you like 
 best, dollie or me? " 
 
 "You, of course," I replied; "but I have 
 known times when she behaved better than 
 you." 
 
 "'Course," came the indignant answer. "She 
 
64 Note-Book of 
 
 is n't alive and I am, and that makes a lot of 
 difference, you see." 
 
 I do see it whenever I think. Like most 
 mothers, I do not always take time to see. Rainy 
 days are most apt to dim my intellectual vision. 
 Even in such a big house as ours, there is hardly 
 room enough for my active little boy to work off 
 his superfluous energy. I often recall what my 
 wise friend, Stanley's teacher, said to me when 
 she heard that he was coming: "Oh, you will get 
 along all right. You have been a kindergartner 
 and know how to suggest things to be done. 
 That solves most of the difficulties with 
 children." 
 
 I do not find that having been a kindergartner 
 keeps me from getting into the pitfalls that lie in 
 the paths of all mothers, but it certainly does help 
 me realize that I must scramble out as quickly as 
 possible, and it teaches me how to do it in most 
 cases. There is no excuse for me if I forget very 
 long that being alive makes a lot of difference. 
 Don't I know how restless and uncomfortable I 
 am after a day in which I write too steadily and 
 long? Don't I know that there are times when 
 nothing but a four-mile walk, even if it has to be 
 taken through the rain or over snowy and unbroken 
 roads, will set me quite at peace with myself? 
 And how would I act if I were then told that it 
 was too stormy for me to go out, and that I should 
 play indoors and not make any more noise than I 
 
An Adopted Mother 65 
 
 could help? I honestly believe that the time- 
 honored injunction to "sit still and be a good 
 boy," with the practice which accompanies the 
 precept, has landed many a robust lad in the 
 House of Correction. 
 
 And then there is the remembrance of my ex- 
 perience with Fritzie to keep me humble. Fritzie 
 was one of my Chicago gamins, born and bred in 
 a brewery district, never comfortably clean, and 
 subject to fits of the most diabolical temper, 
 which seemed to come without provocation. Be- 
 fore meeting him I was wont to maintain that 
 there was no occasion for corporal punishment, 
 even with children who had been brought up on 
 it and expected it. 
 
 I stood by my theories through many a hard 
 conflict with Fritzie, but one morning when he 
 threw himself on the floor and struck and kicked 
 and bit like an infuriated beast, and all without 
 apparent cause, I suddenly decided that spanking 
 was indicated and bore him off to a cloak-room 
 for a sound punishment on that part of his anat- 
 omy which Mrs. Wiggins declares is not the seat 
 of the conscience. 
 
 It worked to a charm. A sweeter, more help- 
 ful, or more sunshiny child than the spanked and 
 regenerated Fritzie was not in the kindergarten 
 that day. And I? I was so appalled by the 
 downfall of my theories that I would almost have 
 preferred him to continue naughty. I had not 
 
66 Note-Book of 
 
 punished him in anger or because I lost my self- 
 control, and had not even a fleeting satisfaction 
 in it. 
 
 When I wrote up my journal for the day that 
 journal to which I am so largely indebted for 
 whatever insight I may possess, I set down my 
 conviction that corporal punishment was some- 
 times necessary, and retracted my former views. 
 But long after I had closed the book and put it 
 away, I remembered how cold and purple Fritzie's 
 hands were before his punishment, while his face 
 was flushed and hot. I began to think that there 
 might have been a very simple physical cause for 
 his ill-temper, and took out the book and wrote 
 that upon further consideration I wished to re- 
 serve my decision until I had seen him through 
 one more ugly spell. 
 
 I did not have to wait long. In less than a 
 week Fritzie was acting like a veritable demon. 
 I picked him up, kicking and screaming and try- 
 ing hard to bite me, carried him into the storm- 
 house, locked both doors, drew out my watch, 
 looked exceedingly severe, and told him he must 
 jump up and down as hard as he could for three 
 minutes. He remembered his spanking and 
 jumped. Then I unlocked the door and made 
 him run back and forth in the biting winter air as 
 fast as he could, until he became breathless. 
 When I opened the door into the kindergarten 
 and let him in, he was every whit as good as 
 
An Adopted Mother 67 
 
 though he had been spanked, and my old-time 
 theories had been vindicated. 
 
 I firmly believe that in many cases corporal 
 punishment works so charmingly only because it, 
 together with the strong crying which follows, 
 restores the child's normal circulation. Now 
 there are other and more pleasant ways of restor- 
 ing the circulation ways not so humiliating to 
 the child, so apt to arouse the parent's temper, 
 or to engender hard feeling between the two. 
 The longer I live the more I believe that corporal 
 punishment is both unnecessary and wrong for 
 any child who is old enough and intelligent 
 enough to reason, and who has been brought up 
 from the first by those who are willing to find a 
 better way. 
 
 July 14-th, 1902. Another lesson taught me 
 by my little boy ! I suppose it was really only 
 the echo of some things I have said to him in 
 days gone by, but it was given back in so different 
 a form and after such a lapse of time that it was 
 practically original. Besides, it always impresses 
 us to see others consistently practising what we 
 have preached. 
 
 I have tried, when I could speak of such things 
 naturally and without forcing, to have Stanley 
 realize that thoughts are very important, and that 
 our happiness does not always depend upon 
 material circumstances; that people who make 
 
68 Note-Book of 
 
 themselves think pleasant thoughts can often be 
 truly happy when others would find no cause for 
 contentment. 
 
 To-day he became greatly excited over a mouse 
 in the wood-box. He had not seen it, yet was 
 sure that he heard it. He shouted great bullying 
 speeches to it, carefully explaining in an under- 
 tone each time that it was ''only fiction," that he 
 "would n't reelly hurt the dear little mousie," 
 and that "it would n't matter 'cause the mousie 
 could n't understand words anyway. ' ' I was sew- 
 ing in the sitting-room, and he came many 
 times to ask me out to see it. Before I could 
 reach a good stopping-point in my work, he 
 came in drooping. "Mother," said he, "I took 
 fings out and it was n't a mouse at all only 
 a piece of paper that wiggled when you poked 
 it." 
 
 I sympathized as tactfully as I knew how, 
 while he pouted a little and screwed the toe of 
 his shoe around on the floor. Suddenly he 
 brightened. "Oh, but Mother," said he, "didnt 
 I have a dandy time when I fought it was a 
 mouse? It was such fun, you know! I 'd shout 
 out somefing and poke the wood, and then that 
 paper would rattle and I 'd most fink I saw him. 
 It was more fun! " 
 
 And the child was actually radiant all the rest 
 of the forenoon over the fun he had had with a 
 mouse which never existed. Truly "The mind 
 
An Adopted Mother 69 
 
 is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven 
 of hell, a hell of heaven." 
 
 July 1 8th, 1902. We are in our summer home 
 at last for what remains of the short vacation. It 
 is a new world to Stanley, who has the greatest 
 liberty imaginable. There are no dangers to be 
 guarded against and no evil companions to be 
 feared. Being barefooted is not enough he rolls 
 up trousers and sleeves and disdains hats. He 
 has already acquired so much tan that he looks 
 variegated when undressed. On this account he 
 thinks he will "prob'ly be an Indian" when he 
 grows up. 
 
 Naturally he is a person of much interest to 
 those who have never seen "the little boy the 
 Davidses have adopted." My neighbors tell of 
 overhearing some other children questioning him. 
 
 "Where did you live before you came to Mrs. 
 Davids?" said they. 
 
 "I did n't live," replied Stanley. 
 
 "Were you dead? " (This in a hushed voice.) 
 
 "No! I was n't dead. I just did n't live ! " 
 
 July 2jrd, 1902. Our life in the woods has 
 given Stanley a great many new ideas, and has, sad 
 to say, renewed his fears of the night. Several 
 skunks have been prowling around of late, and the 
 cottagers have had to be very careful in their even- 
 ing rambles. Stanley overheard bits of conversa- 
 
70 Note-Book of 
 
 tion on the subject and got the idea that a skunk 
 was a terribly ferocious great beast which came 
 out of his hole as soon as the sun went down. 
 When in bed the least noise would make him ask, 
 "Is that a skunk? " 
 
 To allay these fears I have talked a great deal 
 about skunks, described them fully, and given 
 them as good a reputation as I could, notwith- 
 standing the fact that they are in rather bad 
 odor here. I told him how, being such small 
 animals, they had to have some way of scaring 
 away larger ones and making men let them alone. 
 I told him that, even if he were out walking in 
 the night and saw a skunk a short distance off, he 
 would be perfectly safe if he just stood still and 
 did not frighten him. It was only when hurt or 
 scared that they threw the bad-smelling liquid. 
 He was much reassured and began to think them 
 more sinned against than sinning. 
 
 To-day that subject has been of paramount im- 
 portance to him. He talked it over with Ernest 
 and cautioned him. "Yes, Father," he said, "if 
 you tried to pick up a skunk, he 'd frow up his 
 tail and that would be the last of you." 
 
 He has often come to me for supplementary 
 information. "Mother," he said once, "how 
 does skunks squirt at people when they are going 
 frontwards?" In fact, I think he has succeeded 
 almost too well in getting their point of view, for 
 he said: "It is all right for them to frow bad- 
 
An Adopted Mother 71 
 
 smelling stuff on people what tries to hurt them. 
 If I was a skunk and anybody tried to hurt me, 
 do you know what I 'd do? I 'd jerk up my tail 
 and frow bad-smelling oil all over 'em." 
 
 But the climax came to-night when, after his 
 usual petition to God to "bless Father and bless 
 Mother, ' ' etc. , he added : ' ' Oh, yes, and somefing 
 else, you know, 'bout skunks." Thinking he 
 meant no irreverence and wishing to get his views, 
 I said: "Very well. You say what you wish." 
 
 "You say the words to it, Mother." 
 
 "No, you say them, for I don't know what 
 you want." 
 
 After a long pause and deep thought he said : 
 "Well, I guess one word will do, but I '11 have to 
 start again. . . . Bless Father and Mother 
 and Grandfather and Grandmother and Nettie, 
 and make me a good boy. Skunks. Amen." 
 
 I suppose he wished that they should be pro- 
 tected in their night wanderings, and was only 
 embarrassed by the thought that he might be un- 
 conventional. It strikes me that if more people 
 had his faith in the Lord's ability to understand, 
 we should not have so many categorical prayers 
 full of vain repetitions. 
 
 July 2^th, 1902. What is a mother anyway? 
 that is a human mother of the ideal type? And 
 are not our ideals changing quite rapidly? I 
 doubt whether the highest ideal of motherhood 
 
72 Note-Book of 
 
 in these days differs much from the highest of a 
 century ago in this same country, but it is much 
 more widely accepted and is naturally somewhat 
 affected by the spirit of the age. With all due 
 deference to heredity, it seems to me that the 
 bearing of the child is of less and less relative im- 
 portance as women have more and more oppor- 
 tunities to keep in touch with their maturing 
 children. It is a comfort to us adopted mothers 
 to believe it, yet I thought so long ago. 
 
 I remember hearing Professor Swing say that 
 he knew many mothers whose children were well 
 washed, well scolded, well whipped, but never in- 
 spired. He also spoke of parents who knew 
 nothing and appeared to be perfectly satisfied 
 with themselves. But this is perfectly sure, that 
 the great majority of mothers have to see to the 
 washing and disciplining of children, and if they 
 intend to do the inspiring also, there must be 
 wise planning, persistent living up to it, together 
 with considerable independence of the opinion of 
 neighbors who do not make inspiration a part of 
 their plan. 
 
 If there are to be so many and such apparently 
 conflicting demands upon the time of the average 
 mother, it strikes me that, for myself at least, I 
 need to decide the relative importance of things 
 and keep it in mind. First, I would take it for 
 granted that a woman's duty to her child should 
 be paramount. Certainly her duty to her home 
 
An Adopted Mother 73 
 
 is greater than that to the community, and adults 
 in the home are able to be more independent than 
 the child are less seriously affected by neglect 
 than are children. 
 
 Then as to the ideal mother. First of all I 
 would have her serene, able in emergencies to do 
 three or four things at a time without becoming 
 cross, and able to steady and help a petulant and 
 unreasonable child without losing her self-control. 
 It takes grace to be serene and it takes something 
 more, for serenity rests upon a physiological 
 as well as upon a spiritual basis. It requires 
 sleep and fresh air and wholesome meals to pro- 
 duce it. Any mother who can possibly obtain 
 a midday nap should take it with a clear con- 
 science, feeling sure that she is thereby doing 
 even more for her little ones than for herself. 
 
 Next I would have her so affectionate that her 
 children might always feel certain of her love, 
 even when weak and naughty : but this affection 
 should never interfere with absolute justice, else 
 the children would grow up with the idea that 
 wrong-doing is atoned for and blotted out by 
 kisses and hugs. 
 
 Then, I think, I would have her sympathetic, 
 taking the trouble to be interested in all her chil- 
 dren's affairs. I remember one dear lady whom I 
 know very well saying to her daughter, "I have 
 always thought it wonderful that you gave me 
 such full confidence throughout your girl- and 
 
74 Note-Book of 
 
 young womanhood." And the daughter, then 
 settled in a home of her own, replied: "It was a 
 matter of course with me. When I was little you 
 were never too tired or busy to listen to what I 
 thought important, or to stop and sympathize 
 with my grief when my doll got hurt. My con- 
 fidences were never repelled." 
 
 I would have her thrifty, of course, but I should 
 be afraid of having her too fine a housekeeper. 
 Somehow, excessive devotion to an immaculate 
 home does not seem to create the best sort of at- 
 mosphere for active boys and girls. It is apt to 
 make them think that other mothers let their 
 children have better times in the house, and when 
 a child gets an idea into his little head that his 
 mother is not absolutely the best in the world, 
 the very foundations of society are endangered. 
 I know that the most devoted children may say 
 such things in an occasional burst of temper, but 
 to have the idea really lodge and be strengthened 
 and corroborated by too many injunctions not to 
 touch this and not to get that onto the floor is 
 downright perilous. If it results in nothing worse, 
 it is quite certain to produce a distaste for over- 
 tidiness, which generally ends in slovenliness. 
 Virtues carried to excess in the parents generally 
 produce the balancing faults in the next genera- 
 tion, and so the average is maintained. 
 
 And my ideal mother should be somewhat un- 
 conventional. It should not distress her to have 
 
An Adopted Mother 75 
 
 her children the most plainly dressed in the neigh- 
 borhood, and she should not be above going for 
 polliwogs with them when the fine spring days 
 come, even if it meant wearing old clothes and 
 carrying home rusty cans of the little wrigglers. 
 Such things are so conducive to good fellowship ! 
 
 And how large a portion of her time should she 
 give to outside interests? That would depend on 
 many things, but I would have her choose the 
 best, and watch herself to see the result of vari- 
 ous outings. It would be well if in some way she 
 could come to a fuller comprehension of what the 
 public schools are doing and trying to do for 
 children. In many places there are mothers' 
 meetings held in connection with the local schools, 
 and the best of all, when it is possible for her to 
 attend, is a first-class State Teachers' Association 
 meeting. More and more are such meetings 
 planned with reference to the interest and com- 
 prehension of the general public, and they are 
 even providing section meetings for those who 
 are outside the profession. It is a great uplift to 
 attend a convention of this sort. 
 
 I would not have my ideal mother give much 
 time to newspaper reading. I think it was Agassiz 
 who advised people to "read the eternities rather 
 than the Times," and the advice still holds good. 
 A good review winnows the papers and gives to 
 busy people the wheat without the chaff. A 
 magazine containing items of popular scientific 
 
76 Note-Book of 
 
 interest is a particularly good thing for mothers 
 of boys, and I would rather take my real mental 
 vacation with a fine novel in my hand than behind 
 the rustling pages of a daily paper. 
 
 I do not see that my ideal would have much 
 time left for Browning and Shakespeare, but per- 
 haps she might when the last of her flock reached 
 school age. She would have to manage to look 
 neat and dainty along with more serious matters. 
 She would owe that to the home in general, and 
 her children would so appreciate it. A bright 
 bow in the hair, a flower on the corsage, some 
 trifle of that sort, is a great help in giving little 
 people a fond pride in their mother. I shall never 
 forget, if I live to be a hundred, the proud thrill 
 which I always felt when my mother pinned on a 
 certain purple jabot with a scrap of real lace. I 
 suppose it would seem frightfully dowdy to me 
 now, yet it was in good taste then. And when I 
 was permitted to see her in her one silk gown, 
 ready to go to a party as I was ready to go to bed, 
 I was quite certain that earth held nothing more 
 splendid or more satisfying. I know now that 
 her best was very modest, but it was becoming to 
 her and gave me a happy feeling that things were 
 as they should be. 
 
 And they were very nearly as they should be. 
 My mother did wonders with the strength and 
 opportunities which were hers, keeping the bal- 
 ance even in rendering his due to each in the 
 
An Adopted Mother 77 
 
 home circle, and giving our little house the artistic 
 touches with which a true home-lover can make 
 the most humble dwelling attractive. She was 
 not the ideal mother, because in caring for the 
 health and welfare of others she neglected herself, 
 never allowing herself to stop while there was 
 anything left undone (a degree of energy and am- 
 bition which will undo the most robust), yet I have 
 known only one other who seemed to me so near 
 the ideal. 
 
 If I can be as much to my boy as she has been 
 to me ! I dare not expect it, but it will not be 
 for lack of endeavor if I fail. I have my ideal in 
 mind, and it will be strange if by taking thought 
 I cannot grow more and more into its likeness. 
 
 July 2jth, 1902. I wonder if I have ever real- 
 ized what a constant terror of bug-a-boos means 
 to a child. I knew Stanley was often in great 
 fear at night, and that sometimes during the day 
 he disliked to be alone in a room, but to-day I 
 had a deeper insight into his fearful little heart. 
 We had been talking about goodness and badness 
 and children in general, and I said, "I think that 
 the best thing in the world, Stanley, is a good 
 little boy or a good person." 
 
 "Oh no," came the instant response, "the best 
 ring, the very best, is not to be ated up." 
 
 August i st y 1902. Stanley has just dozed 
 
 off 
 
78 Note-Book of 
 
 into a restless sleep, having this afternoon at- 
 tended a party which was the time of his life, 
 from a gastronomical standpoint at least. From 
 the sartorial standpoint it was not so impressive, 
 I being obliged to let him go barefooted and in 
 the very simple best which our woodland life de- 
 mands. I endeavored to atone for all omissions 
 by giving him that "well-groomed look" which 
 fashion journals state is the criterion of real ele- 
 gance in attire. It was when I was struggling 
 with his hair that he discovered it had to be 
 "partied " because he was going to a party. 
 
 When he returned he did not look well-groomed, 
 and he was very hiccuppy. If there was a single 
 substantial on the menu, it had not impressed 
 itself on his memory. He was sure they did not 
 have sandwiches. He could not recall any bread 
 and butter. There were certainly no crackers. 
 There was no meat. There were no potatoes. 
 There were, however, four kinds of cake, ice 
 cream, lemonade "with pipes to suck it froo," 
 nuts, and an unlimited supply of candy. In fact, 
 it would appear that everything was unlimited. 
 Stanley "had the dandiest sort of a time," but 
 his stomach ached and he felt sick. He was sure 
 he had n't eaten too much. The lady had kept 
 telling him to "take rings " and so he did. 
 
 His disposition as well as his digestion was 
 somewhat the worse for dissipation, so I told him 
 that it was always right for children to go early 
 
An Adopted Mother 79 
 
 to bed after parties, and bundled him off to sleep 
 at precisely six o'clock. Of course there had to 
 be peppermint administered to stop the stomach- 
 ache. He was nervous and fearful of every little 
 noise, and before sleep came he had a long crying 
 spell with no external provocation. Well ! 
 
 I wish that somebody who is capable would 
 write and syndicate an article on "The Moral 
 Effect of our Meals." I know perfectly well that 
 life will be a burden to Stanley and his associates 
 to-morrow, and that they will experience all the 
 evil results of intemperance. 
 
 I remember a little Jewess who occasionally 
 upset the whole kindergarten by her demoniacal 
 fits of temper when I was teaching in Chicago. 
 It was a puzzling case because she usually showed 
 quite remarkable self-control. After many efforts 
 we found out that her mother punished her for 
 slow dressing by sending her off without breakfast. 
 Then hunger weakened her self-control and we 
 took the consequences. We had to issue an ulti- 
 matum to the effect that if there were to be no 
 breakfast there must be no kindergarten. 
 
 Jennie was bad enough, yet better a hungry 
 child than one of the coffee-and-buckwheat-cakes- 
 for-breakfast kind. A lunch of crackers in the 
 cloak-room would soothe the former, but the latter 
 was hopelessly irritable and unreasonable. An- 
 other trying child was the one whose mother 
 "liked things good and rich." A fourth (and 
 
8o Note-Book of 
 
 there were several of him) was the delicate and 
 capricious youngster who did not find anything 
 to suit him on the breakfast table and so refused 
 to more than taste of food. Such a lad should 
 be taught that eating is often a duty when it is 
 not a pleasure, and that failure to eat a fair meal 
 is sometimes nothing less than naughtiness. 
 
 In moments of great exasperation I have 
 thought that half of the naughtiness, punching, 
 scratching, and general lack of self-control in the 
 morning kindergarten sessions was only the effect 
 of bad or insufficient breakfasts, and I have 
 wished it were practicable to collect statistics as 
 to the contents of children's stomachs, somewhat 
 as certain scientific gentlemen collect, tabulate, 
 and deduce from the contents of their minds. 
 How easy it would then be, after we had figures 
 and good authority to back us, to say to a mother 
 whose five-year-old son had sobbed himself into a 
 state of exhaustion : "Madam, you thought you 
 were whipping your son because he was cruel to 
 the baby and impertinent to you, but the truth is 
 that you whipped him for eating the food which 
 you prepared and set before him for breakfast. 
 You are the primary cause of his ill-temper, and 
 unfortunately there is nobody to whip you ! " 
 
 August fill, 1902. One of the delaying inci- 
 dents of Stanley's bedtime has been a frequently 
 recurring stomach-ache, which has aroused my 
 
An Adopted Mother 81 
 
 suspicions, there being nothing about his home 
 suppers to induce it. He always claimed that it 
 was cured by peppermint on sugar at the School, 
 and I have also given it to him. Last night I said 
 he should have something to make it stay cured 
 longer, but that the medicine was not a good- 
 tasting one, and I did not wish to give it to him 
 unless I really had to. He was positive that he 
 needed something, so I administered a very small 
 dose of quinine in water. Ugh ! 
 
 When he got through sputtering and swallow- 
 ing, he was sure that he needed no more medicine. 
 However, it took him a long time to settle down 
 for the night. 
 
 This evening when all the other detaining de- 
 vices had been exhausted, he asked, "Mother, 
 how does your stomach feel when you need very 
 bad-tasting medicine? " 
 
 "How does yours feel? " I counter-questioned. 
 
 "I I fink it feels as if it needed some good- 
 tasting medicine." 
 
 He did not get it, and I am confident that I 
 have discovered a medicine which will cure per- 
 manently with one dose. 
 
 August 8th, 1902. I wonder how old we seem 
 to Stanley Ernest and I? He has always been 
 very eager to know our ages, but Ernest has a 
 prejudice against giving such statistics, and so I 
 have never told. A while ago Stanley was sure 
 
82 Note-Book of 
 
 that he had solved the problem. Ernest was 
 going to vote and he wanted to vote also. When 
 told he could not until he was twenty-one, he 
 was positive that was his father's age. And when 
 he heard me say that I never tasted coffee until 
 I was sixteen, he was equally certain of me. 
 
 But to-day he came dancing in saying : "I have 
 just found out about the first man and woman. 
 Guess their names. Why, you knew ! Mother, 
 were you alive then? " 
 
 August I2tk, 1902. Why is it that men almost 
 invariably require "instant obedience and no ask- 
 ing of questions" from children? Within the past 
 week two men have said to me, with every evi- 
 dence of pride in the statement : "When I speak 
 I expect my children to obey at once." Was it 
 wrong in the woman they addressed to wonder 
 whether they always obeyed "at once" when con- 
 science, God's voice, commanded them? 
 
 These are comparatively young men, yet how 
 far removed from their own childhood if they 
 cannot remember the struggle between conflicting 
 inclinations, when as boys they were subject to 
 many small temptations. When one gets right 
 down to it, the naturally good people are scarce. 
 With many of us, life is one long endeavor to be 
 good, and I, for one, do not find it such an easy 
 matter to do the right thing that I cannot occa- 
 sionally allow a child a few minutes in which to 
 
An Adopted Mother 83 
 
 think over the situation and determine his course 
 of action. If he decides to continue in his wrong- 
 doing, the rights of others must be protected 
 and the small culprit dealt with according to his 
 offence, but it strikes me that the kindest and 
 wisest thing we can do, when we see children 
 wavering between right and wrong, is to state the 
 case quite dispassionately, give them to under- 
 stand that we expect them to do right and shall be 
 much happier when they have decided to, and then 
 stand back and allow them to develop strength of 
 character by fighting down their evil promptings. 
 
 To do right because it is right, and not because 
 you have to, is the final motive to which all ex- 
 cept the criminal classes must attain. Degenerates 
 are exceptions to this rule, but we are supposed 
 to be dealing with normal children, destined to 
 experience temptations daily throughout their 
 lives, when they are alone, when parents are 
 dead, when friends are scattered, and when cir- 
 cumstances would all seem to render a compromise 
 with conscience expedient. Woe to him who has 
 not learned to fight his unseen battles when 
 young! Compulsory goodness is not virtue, and 
 results in no comforting sense of rectitude. It 
 protects other members of society and prevents 
 strengthening the habit of wrong-doing, still it is 
 a pitiful substitute for voluntary, even if tardy, 
 obedience. 
 
 Who knows how early in life the most favored 
 
84 Note-Book of 
 
 child may be left alone and unprotected? In 
 view of the possibilities it strikes me that people 
 should gladly give time to developing little men 
 and women of strong, independent character, even 
 if our homes and schoolrooms are not remarkable 
 for unfailing instant obedience. 
 
 And also, suppose that we who are inclined to 
 tear open the morning-glory by requiring of little 
 children virtues of which time has not yet made 
 them capable should apply the rule of "instant 
 obedience and no asking of questions" to our- 
 selves? Would n't we be a trifle more charitable 
 with our sons and daughters? 
 
 I have just had an experience with Stanley 
 illustrative of what I have lately been considering, 
 the difficulty of being instantly obedient. We 
 had a long and wearying contest of wills this 
 afternoon, so long that my nerves, which are 
 equal to most demands, were rather the worse for 
 wear at its close. During it all I could see the 
 struggle between good and evil reflected in his big 
 brown eyes and his expressive little face. After- 
 ward, when we were trying to make ourselves look 
 fresh and presentable for dinner and Ernest's 
 home-coming, he leaned against me with a tired 
 caress. "I guess you did n't fink I was trying 
 to be good," he said, "but I was. I tried just 
 as hard as I could." 
 
 "Only you did n't succeed very well? " I asked, 
 with my hand under his chin. 
 
An Adopted Mother 85 
 
 "Yes, only I did n't succeed. Perhaps that 
 was because I am only a little boy, you know." 
 
 Now who would ever expect a five-year-old to 
 analyze the situation so keenly? I would not 
 from my previous knowledge of children, and 
 what I now wonder is whether Stanley is such an 
 exceptionally bright child, or whether it is not 
 simply that we are on such terms of perfect con- 
 fidence that he tells me things which most children 
 keep to themselves. If the latter, how often 
 adults must stand justly condemned at the bar of 
 childish judgment! 
 
 August ijth, 1902. Compliments and endear- 
 ments vary. Yesterday it was, as it so often is : 
 "O, Mother, Mother, Mother, you are my very 
 best chum ! " 
 
 To-day it is: "You are my loffy-doff, Mother. 
 That is something nice, is n't it? " 
 
 What spoils my enjoyment of the latter term 
 of endearment is a natural wonder as to where he 
 heard it. Can it be that it was from the lips of 
 a certain young man who calls upon my servant? 
 And if so, am I not likely to lose another maid 
 by marriage? Perhaps misfortunes of this sort 
 have made me suspicious. Only a year ago I felt 
 comfortable and secure in the services of a young 
 woman who told me soon after I had employed 
 her that she had been give the go-by by the 
 young man she had been engaged with, and that 
 
86 Note-Book of 
 
 she did n't care whether she ever see another or 
 not. 
 
 Yet within a year she was blissfully, blushingly 
 conscious of the admiration of a certain farmer's 
 son, and only a few weeks later was distracted by 
 the rivalry between him and a widowed painter. 
 She was married from my house. Clearly I must 
 keep an eye on Nettie. 
 
 August 2Oth, 1902. Concerning prayers. This 
 being a Christian household of the old-fashioned 
 and good-fashioned kind, where all the family 
 have a short service of worship together after 
 breakfast, our boy does not have the impression 
 which most have, that prayer is for small children 
 and church services only. We have morning 
 worship together and we also ask the blessing at 
 table, often using the form which Stanley re- 
 peated at the School : 
 
 " God is great and God is good, 
 And we thank Him for this food. 
 By His hand must all be fed, 
 Give us, Lord, our daily bread. Amen." 
 
 The bedtime prayer has been quite a problem 
 in my mind. I have always felt that "Now I lay 
 me " could be improved upon. No prayer is fer- 
 vent and effectual unless it is understood by the 
 one uttering it, and when you come to analyze 
 
An Adopted Mother 87 
 
 that, it is not just what one would choose for the 
 child of to-day. It contains no praise or thanks- 
 giving for mercies received, no petitions in behalf 
 of others, and none for spiritual strength amid 
 worldly temptations, three points which strike me 
 as most essential. So I have kept myself open 
 to conviction and experimented a little. I feel 
 sure I should have learned much more if Stanley 
 had not always been so tired by bedtime. He 
 plays so hard that even with his short days he 
 sometimes cries from sheer fatigue. "Mother," 
 he said, on one such occasion, "the next time that 
 you are so tired it seems as though you would cry, 
 you just cry and you will feel better. Only if you 
 cry too long it will make your head ache." 
 
 Sometimes it is: "I don't want to say my 
 prayers to-night, I am so tired. But God will 
 understand." Once when he asked me to pray 
 for him, he to listen carefully and say "Amen," 
 he told me at the close that I "did it all right," 
 having evidently had some misgivings. 
 
 Again he said : "This is the tiredest night I ever 
 had. You don't know how tired I am." 
 
 "No, dear," I answered, "I don't know ex- 
 actly, but God does and He understands all about 
 it." In praying for him then I said, "Look down 
 on this tired little boy and bless him " when he 
 suddenly stood bolt upright and said: "Is that 
 how God knows He looks right down in me? 
 Does He look in my froat ? " 
 
88 Note-Book of 
 
 My conclusion is that the very best prayer, 
 at least for my boy, is one fresh every evening 
 and preceded by a little cuddling talk about 
 what the day has been and the morrow should 
 be. The way in which ready-made prayers 
 become vain repetition is shown by the mere 
 possibility of a child's making such a blunder 
 as he did one night, I having at first yielded 
 enough to the traditions of Ernest's family to 
 start Stanley on the familiar "Now I lay 
 me." He was very sleepy, knelt and said: 
 "Now I lay me down to sleep, and we fank 
 Him for this food Mother, I am all mixed up! 
 Help me." 
 
 At the same time, when I was looking out for 
 the pitfalls of conventionalism I stumbled into 
 one of my own contriving. Saying one evening 
 that I would "make up" a prayer which he should 
 repeat after me, I was followed with many giggles 
 and a gabbling "Amen, amen, amen, amen," 
 until I explained that "amen" was not a word to 
 play with. Even then I could not see what was 
 wrong, and did not until, a few nights later, he 
 asked for "another make-believe prayer." He 
 had confounded phrases and actually thought that 
 I was carrying fiction into the realm of prayer. On 
 the same evening when I made this startling dis- 
 covery I said, "I will tell you more about what 
 the Lord's Prayer means another time," he hav- 
 ing learned it parrot fashion in the School. In- 
 
An Adopted Mother 89 
 
 stantly he retorted : "Why not tell me now? Is 
 it a very long mean? " 
 
 "Bless," that most impossible of words to de- 
 fine to a young child, he evidently interprets as 
 "love," for he frequently adds to his petition for 
 blessings on the family, "and love my own self 
 some, too." 
 
 Once it struck me that he did what I believe 
 adults often do, prayed to be made better than he 
 really wanted to be. In dictating an appropriate 
 little prayer for him to repeat after me, sentence 
 by sentence, I said, "Help me to be the best kind 
 of boy." Stanley amended it to "the best kind 
 of boy in the whole world." Then, when kissing 
 me good-night, he insisted that I should stay in 
 the room with him, instead of just outside the 
 door, where I could visit with some friends. 
 
 I said : "The best kind of boy would n't ask his 
 mother to stay in with him to-night." 
 
 "No," was the instant response, "but I 'm not 
 the best kind of boy yet, you know. Not now, 
 but I will be to-morrow." 
 
 However, barring a peculiarity of form, I think 
 the most satisfactory prayer I ever knew him to 
 offer was one wholly original and spontaneous. 
 "My dear God," it ran, "bless all the people I 
 love. Give me all the fings I need. Make me 
 the best kind of a man. Amen." 
 
 August 22nd, 1902. If Stanley would only 
 
90 Note-Book of 
 
 express himself in elegant phraseology, how much 
 more impressive he might make his remarks on 
 omniscience ! To-day he said : ' ' I know why God 
 knows the most about me. It 's because He 
 made me. Of course He knows everyfing what 
 it inside of me, even what I fink. I bet if I 'd 
 made anybody I 'd know what was inside of 
 him." 
 
 August 26th, 1902. How much there is in the 
 gentle art of managing! If I remember rightly, 
 David Harum said of his one-time clerk, Chet 
 Timson : "Chet 's a good feller but he has n't got 
 tack." And I am constantly surprised by the 
 number of people who not only have n't "tack," 
 but do not care to have it. A most estimable 
 lady of my acquaintance considers it beneath her 
 dignity to "manage." So should I consider it 
 beneath mine, if management meant the use of 
 unworthy means or even the use of worthy means 
 for an unworthy end, but when it includes such 
 details as the asking favors of a tired man after a 
 good dinner instead of when he is hungry, I con- 
 sider it most commendable. 
 
 Don't I know how it feels to be tired, half- 
 starved, and more than half inclined to be cross at 
 the close of a hard day's work? Don't I know 
 how it feels to be unreasonable, and realize all 
 the time that I am so? Indeed I do, and I have 
 an extra warm corner in my heart for people who 
 
An Adopted Mother 91 
 
 love me enough to consider my temporary weak- 
 ness and humor it, even if it might be called man- 
 aging. Though it may be perfectly evident what 
 they are doing, still I love them the better for it, 
 and I gave Ernest useful hints along this line soon 
 after we were married. 
 
 I have a notion that those who will not consider 
 these fine points get their punishment as they go 
 along, without ever recognizing it as such. They 
 are the ones who think that people are never will- 
 ing to do them favors, who find themselves un- 
 popular without knowing why, and who are 
 forever encountering little obstacles in the carrying 
 out of any plan which requires the co-operation 
 of others. 
 
 I am by no means a believer in what somebody 
 has called "the painless education." I believe 
 that far more than half the good of education lies 
 in the training to hard work, concentration, and 
 even the doing of distasteful tasks ; but little chil- 
 dren have so much to master at once and so many 
 more distractions than adults, that it is encumbent 
 on parents to learn to manage. It has been said 
 that if one wishes to know the reason why he 
 should be patient with children, he should try to 
 write with his left hand, provided he is not left- 
 handed to begin with, and then remember that a 
 child is left-handed from head to foot, and left- 
 handed in brain and morals as well. 
 
 There are many times when it is not necessary 
 
9 2 Note-Book of 
 
 to raise the issue, even if it is one which has to be 
 raised and settled eventually. One may advance 
 most rapidly by making haste slowly, and there 
 is a great deal in waiting for the psychological 
 moment before starting in on what is likely to be 
 a trying and tedious contest of wills. In child- 
 training, as elsewhere, no question is ever settled 
 until it is settled right, and it is foolish to start 
 in when for any special reason the chances are 
 strongly against success. For instance, if it were 
 necessary to make a decided stand against some 
 exasperating habit in a child, and I felt that it 
 would mean a long struggle of wills, with the 
 possibility of my having to use constraint, shut- 
 ting-up, the tying of hands, or other means of 
 punishment, I would rather temporize as much as 
 possible without too great a sacrifice of parental 
 dignity, until an occasion arose on a morning 
 when the child was rested and fairly reasonable 
 and I was sure of both my own self-control 
 and freedom from interruption. Then I would 
 hold to my point with infinite patience until I 
 conquered. 
 
 It is not the quickest and sharpest methods 
 which produce the best results. Neither are they 
 economical of time in the long run. The child 
 who is absolutely sure that his little sins will be 
 noticed and that there is no escaping condemna- 
 tion seldom requires severe punishment. It is 
 the one whose parents laugh at sauciness as 
 
An Adopted Mother 93 
 
 "cute" one day and reprimand it as impertinence 
 the next who is most apt to create scenes. The 
 battle of child-training, it strikes me, is more than 
 half won when the child has become thoroughly 
 convinced that you place his growth in righteous- 
 ness above every other consideration, and will 
 make any sacrifice, of your own comfort as well 
 as of his, to secure that end. Once it is secured, 
 the severity of the punishment is not so impor- 
 tant, as long as there is absolute steadiness and 
 faithfulness on the part of the parent. 
 
 I heard such a funny instance of this a few days 
 since, something which a friend of mine saw in 
 the family of another friend. The father in this 
 family is a clergyman, and there are three wide- 
 awake and very well-trained children. The mother 
 was entertaining callers. The five-year-old son 
 disturbed her. She spoke to him twice, but could 
 not leave the room to enforce her request for 
 quiet. Then she called to her husband. He 
 came gravely down from his study, took the 
 offending child by the hand, led him into the 
 dining-room, pointed him to a chair in the corner, 
 took a graham cracker from the table, and said : 
 "Eat that at once and decide that you will be a 
 good boy." Instantly the child was tearful and 
 penitent. Now what did it? First, I should say, 
 the consciousness that his offence was considered 
 sufficiently important to make his father leave the 
 preparation of a sermon. Second, the extremely 
 
94 Note-Book of 
 
 grave look on his father's face. And last and 
 least, the thought of banishment from his play- 
 things. 
 
 As for the graham cracker? That was hardly a 
 penance, but it may have had its part in breaking 
 the current of the child's thought, as well as in 
 fortifying the little inner man. Most people 
 know that hunger is not conducive to serenity, 
 and showmen never risk it in members of the 
 "happy family/* else strife would result. 
 
 I remember two instances of ' ' seeing it through" 
 in my own life as mission kindergartner. Both 
 concerned the spitting habit, which was then 
 epidemic in the district. The loss of the first 
 front tooth makes such a convenient and tempt- 
 ing orifice for expectoration, and I was in a 
 Swedish neighborhood. The commendable Scan- 
 dinavian tenacity of purpose shows early in life. 
 Bert spat upon the floor just before dismissal and 
 I told him he must stay and scrub it. However, 
 when I was lifting a little cripple down the steps, 
 he dodged past and fled with derisive yells to his 
 home half a mile away. I was a new teacher, and 
 he did not dream of pursuit, especially as the day 
 was of the breathless, scorching kind, but this 
 could not be passed over. 
 
 I attended to other details, got his address, 
 donned my hat, walked to his home, interviewed 
 his mother, and took him away from a tempting 
 dinner before he had tasted a mouthful ; led him 
 
An Adopted Mother 95 
 
 back over the hot and weary way, he blubbering 
 at every step, and watched him get water and a 
 cloth and wash the floor for five full minutes by 
 the clock. There being no time left for eating, I 
 fasted from breakfast until four o'clock that day, 
 yet it paid most gloriously. Henceforth the bad 
 boy of the kindergarten was a changed character, 
 and not only that, but every child of the twenty 
 at the table felt the influence, for the facts became 
 known and it was generally understood that the 
 new teacher meant business. Spitting became 
 unfashionable at once. 
 
 A day or two before this there had been another 
 rather funny incident. This time it was Chris 
 who spat. At the second offence I signalled the 
 Director, whisked him out of the room, stood him 
 in the corner of a corridor, placed a large bucket 
 before him, sat down with my book in a rocker in 
 front of him, and said that this was a better place 
 for him than the main room. "Spit all you want 
 to now," I said sweetly. "I see that you cannot 
 help it, because you did not stop when I asked 
 you to." 
 
 "Don't want to spit," he muttered between 
 closed teeth. 
 
 "Oh, I am sure you must," I replied, "and I 
 will wait here until you are through." 
 
 Well, he would n't and I said that he should. 
 He said I would have to go back to the other 
 room. I assured him that the Director would 
 
96 Note-Book of 
 
 care for my children. He said I would have to 
 go to dinner. I reminded him that I had brought 
 my lunch that morning. He said the rooms 
 would be locked up at one o'clock. I replied that 
 they would be open for a mothers' meeting that 
 afternoon, and that although I should prefer to 
 be out with the rest, I was willing to stay with 
 him as long as was required to have him finish 
 spitting. He vowed he would not spit, and I 
 turned another leaf in my book. At the end of 
 an hour he made his first concession. I kept him 
 at it for ten minutes. Then I said : "Perhaps that 
 will do for this morning, and if you have to spit 
 to-morrow we will come out here again." But 
 that finished Chris. He was regenerated before 
 Bert's more public experience caused a wave of 
 righteousness to pass over our corner of the room. 
 He must be a young man now. I wonder how 
 he remembers me ? and if he has developed a 
 sense of humor? 
 
 Sometimes a playful fancy will help a child with 
 the things which he has to do when tired and list- 
 less. The great bugbear of Stanley's days at the 
 cottage is the scrubbing up before dinner. He is 
 much interested in fossils, which abound here, 
 and one day when there were goose-pimples on 
 his legs he exclaimed : "Why, my legs look just 
 like fossils, fossil coral, you know, but not Petos- 
 keys. ' ' That gave me a cue, and afterward, when 
 he was especially tired, I suggested he should 
 
An Adopted Mother 97 
 
 play that he was polishing fossils as they do Pe- 
 toskey stones. It has never failed, and his "fossil 
 legs " are scrubbed until they shine. 
 
 Another fancy that helps him greatly is imagin- 
 ing how much worse it would be when he hurt 
 himself if he were a piece of furniture, for then 
 the marks would remain. "It 's a good fing I 'm 
 not a bedstead now," he often says, holding out 
 an injured member. "How do you fink that leg 
 would get well if I was? " These times are fre- 
 quently enlivened, for his seniors, at least, by his 
 alluding to the "cigars on his feet," he confound- 
 ing the word "scars " with "cigars." 
 
 Another point in the gentle art of managing is 
 the praising of virtues instead of criticizing the 
 corresponding faults, as often as possible. It is 
 so easy to fall into the habit of nagging, than 
 which there are few habits more fatal to success. 
 I drifted into it in regard to table manners a few 
 months ago, and matters went from bad to worse 
 until I dreaded meal-hours. Then I quit and 
 awaited opportunities for deserved praise. Within 
 a week the whole atmosphere of the dining-room 
 was changed, and faults have been overcome to a 
 wonderful degree. 
 
 Allied to this method is that of non-resistance. 
 I find it is poor policy for me to take notice of a 
 single irritable retort, beyond looking grieved and 
 either walking gravely away or keeping silence for 
 a long time. This seldom fails to bring a quick 
 
93 Note-Book of 
 
 "Pardon me! I am sorry." If the offence is re- 
 peated there is still time for me to send Stanley 
 to sit quietly somewhere and think it over. On 
 the same principle I have learned not to keep re- 
 minding him to attend to his dressing in the morn- 
 ing. After one reminder I say: "You are old 
 enough to attend to business, and this is your 
 business. When you are late to breakfast it will 
 be your own fault if you have cold food and per- 
 haps small portions." 
 
 But instances multiply and this record must 
 not be extended. After all, the principal thing 
 is for parents to bring the golden rule down to 
 all the details of life, remembering that children 
 have even more foibles and besetments than they, 
 with much less experience in mastering them, 
 and also that, as the old Quaker said to his wife: 
 "The whole world is queer except thee and me, 
 and I sometimes think thee is a little peculiar." 
 
 August 30th, 1902. Stanley has had another 
 bout with his temper to-day, and I have made 
 another and apparently successful effort to utilize 
 his warlike spirit in this connection. He has the 
 usual five-year-old longing to become a soldier 
 when he grows up, and I have told him that he 
 need not wait until then, that no boy is too young 
 to be a Christian soldier if he will fight bravely all 
 the naughtiness there is in him. So when I see 
 his temper rising I say: "Stanley, you have a 
 
An Adopted Mother 99 
 
 chance to fight now. I hope you will beat." If 
 I speak quickly enough it often appeals to his 
 fancy and he fights it out alone. 
 
 He has different ways of doing this, and usually 
 seeks some form of expression for the battle rag- 
 ing within. Sometimes he goes into a corner and 
 pummels sofa pillows for a few minutes. Some- 
 times he doubles up his fists and dances around 
 in the middle of the floor, sparring at the air until 
 he ends in a laugh and comes up to be kissed. 
 Of one thing I am positive: for months I have 
 not justly estimated his own efforts at self-con- 
 trol. I have thought too much of his lack of suc- 
 cess and not enough of the evidences of struggle 
 against evil. 
 
 My conscience particularly accuses me of re- 
 fusing to caress him if he tried to embrace me 
 when his face was flushed and angry and his mo- 
 tion abrupt and fretful. I have thought he was 
 determined to assert his privileges even while in 
 rebellion against his duties. I know now that he 
 wanted a little help and strength from me to turn 
 the battle in favor of the right. I know also 
 what it means when he so often pauses to ask: 
 " Mother, do you love me even when I am 
 naughty? Do you love me right now? " 
 
 And I have acquired enough wisdom to reply : 
 "Yes, I love you very dearly, even when you are 
 naughty, but I cannot be happy with you or enjoy 
 having you around until you are good again." 
 
ioo Note-Book of 
 
 Stanley's ideals are all right. He does not 
 think it smart to be naughty and namby-pamby 
 to be good, and down in his heart he has an added 
 love and respect for people who insist on holding 
 him up to his best. His trouble is the same that 
 many adults have: he cannot always keep his 
 conduct up to his own ideals. Yet I am not at 
 all afraid for the outcome of this long struggle 
 with his temper on which he has entered, for he 
 has begun it early, he has a strong will, and it is 
 our ideals which little by little shape our charac- 
 ter. Besides, I have fought over exactly the 
 same ground myself, and firmly believe that the 
 most even and serene people are not those who 
 have never felt the tuggings and burnings of 
 strong temper, but those who have fought and 
 conquered it. If properly trained it is surely an 
 element of strength in character, and parents 
 should not begrudge the extra trouble it makes 
 in the rearing of children. 
 
 That even a little child may come to appreciate 
 the part a mother has to play is also sure, for less 
 than a week ago Stanley said to me, after a long 
 contest of wills: "What would I ever do if I had 
 another kind of mother?" And last night he 
 said, speaking of a schoolmate of his: "Roy Sin- 
 clair's mother is just as mean ! She lets him do 
 anyfing he wants to, and that is not being a good 
 mother, 'cause there are lots of fings what he 
 had n't ought to." 
 
An Adopted Mother 101 
 
 But this is not what I had started to do, chron- 
 icle our conversation of to-day. When he had 
 vanquished his temper and was still talking of 
 battles, he wanted to know if I thought him 
 strong enough to knock people down. I said he 
 might possibly knock down small children, but 
 that even if he were strong enough to knock down 
 big men, he ought to use his strength in other 
 ways. 
 
 He then asked if anybody was strong enough 
 to ' ' knock down a whole city f ul of people. ' ' This 
 was such a good opening that I quoted and inter- 
 preted to him that verse from Proverbs : "He that 
 is slow to anger is better than the mighty ; and he 
 that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." 
 This was a new idea to him, and he has infinite 
 respect for the Bible as a final authority. I re- 
 peated that the strength was a better kind than 
 just strength of muscles, but his ideas were natur- 
 ally somewhat hazy on metaphysical points, and 
 he decided to use the vast strength which he 
 meant to acquire, in working for a whole cityful 
 of children whom he would adopt when old 
 enough. "Won't that be sweet? " he asked. "I 
 will take care of piles of children, but I won't 
 knock folks down." I wonder how I shall enjoy 
 being a doubly adopted grandmother to several 
 hundred (or perhaps thousand) waifs. 
 
 In spite of his afternoon of struggle, or possibly 
 because of it, our day ended very sweetly. He 
 
102 Note-Book of 
 
 asked me to say a prayer for him when he was 
 ready for bed, feeling that he was too tired to say 
 it himself, but promising that he would "fink 
 about it and say amen." At the close, I said, 
 "and bless this tired little boy." Instead of 
 echoing my "amen" he reached up one soft little 
 hand, patted my cheek, and added reverently, 
 "And bless my dear, tired mother, too. Amen." 
 
 September ^th, 1902. We have left our little 
 summer paradise behind once more, and the leav- 
 ing, which is always rather hard for me, was very 
 much enlivened by the presence of our small boy. 
 I am so strongly attached to the spot which I had 
 the pleasure of rescuing from the wilderness, look- 
 ing after all the pioneering details myself with 
 Indians to wield the axe and white men for saw 
 and hammer, that it is always a wrench to steam 
 away from it and watch the shore receding from 
 view, to think how the squirrels and chipmunks 
 will frisk unmolested on the porches where we 
 have been so happy, and, worst of all, to wonder 
 what changes will take place during the year in 
 our coterie of summer neighbors. Many States 
 are represented in our settlement, and it is parting 
 for ten months when we separate. The cottage 
 looks so desolate when reduced to fighting trim 
 for the winter, that there is always a lump in my 
 throat. 
 
 We took the one o'clock boat, many of our 
 
An Adopted Mother 103 
 
 friends coming to see us off. Stanley had been 
 allowed to trot around and say farewell in the 
 morning, while he was still barefooted and in out- 
 ing costume. Ordinarily it is understood that he 
 must save his kisses for members of the family, 
 but this morning there was a special dispensation. 
 One family of playmates he missed because of 
 their absence. They atoned for it by coming to 
 the dock to see us off. By that time Stanley was 
 ready for civilization, while they were still dressed 
 for roughing it. When they wanted to kiss him, 
 he drew back. "I am afraid I will get my face 
 dirty," he explained with childish candor, and I 
 am not yet quite certain on whom the joke fell. 
 I rather think, from the way in which my friends 
 laughed and I blushed, that I came in for a share. 
 
 Our second day was spent on the cars, with a 
 number of changes and wearisome waits at small 
 stations. It was very, very hot and dusty, and 
 we felt it all the more because coming from such 
 a land of pure delight. Drawing-room cars were 
 often out of the question, and only the habit of 
 seeing the bright side of things tided us over. I 
 do not think any of our party mentioned the 
 heat. We simply ignored it as far as possible. 
 
 Ernest had preceded us home, in the fashion of 
 the typical American husband, and Stanley felt 
 responsible for my welfare. After settling me 
 comfortably somewhere, he always devoted him- 
 self to the flora and fauna of the region. A fat 
 
104 Note-Book of 
 
 cricket amused him during the first wait. The 
 second was given to harvesting twenty-nine wild 
 cucumbers of various sizes and degrees of prickli- 
 ness. These were taken on board the next train, 
 counted, arranged in one row, arranged in two 
 rows, grouped in families, done up in a handker- 
 chief, emptied out of the handkerchief, and com- 
 bined in various ways until they were limp and 
 wilted. Then they were dropped from the win- 
 dow, one at every third telegraph pole. 
 
 The last wait we spent in some pleasant school- 
 grounds near the small station. Here he watched 
 ants and captured a caterpillar. He found a 
 small box for the latter and carried him onto the 
 train (with the conductor's permission), where he 
 devoted himself to "catching flies to be company 
 for the nice little caterpillar." As usual, he 
 greatly edified his fellow-passengers, and quite 
 unconsciously, going off alone into the empty 
 corner of the car and amusing himself quietly, 
 only coming across once in a while to make sure 
 that I was all right. 
 
 We were en route for ten dusty, sweltering 
 hours that day, and although his flushed little 
 face was covered with beads of perspiration and 
 the fatigue shadows darkened under his eyes, not 
 one fretful word did he speak. Always thinking 
 of my comfort and ignoring his own, he diverted 
 himself all day with trifles to which most children 
 would be indifferent. As we drew near home 
 
An Adopted Mother 105 
 
 and were vainly trying to make ourselves present- 
 able, he said: "I shall be glad to get home, won't 
 you? But I fink we have had a vurry nice trip, 
 don't you? I have n't said a single fing what I 
 had n't ought to, and I have n't made any fuss, 
 and I have n't 'sturbed you, have I? I fink that 
 is a pretty good trip." 
 
 That this sweetness cost effort was shown by 
 what he said the next morning. "I had a shiny 
 face, did n't I, last night? I kept it all smiled up, 
 but I was so tired that it was vurry, vurry, vurry, 
 vurry hard to do." 
 
 He has had much to tell Ernest of the noise 
 which the cars made when going over "the bum- 
 peners " (the places where the rails are joined), 
 and of his last fishing exploits. ' ' Norman caught 
 bursts and perches and black basses," he says, 
 "but I caught minnies. Do you know what 
 minnies are? They are just heads of tails, that is 
 all." 
 
 Home has had to be re-discovered, and at 
 every turn he has exclaimed : ' ' Why, I had for- 
 gotten all about that ! Is n't that funny? " He 
 must have grown like a weed in our absence, for 
 he is now able to stand upon the floor while 
 washing in the bowl, whereas before going north 
 he had to use a hassock. His great faith in the 
 efficacy of bread and milk has made him resolve 
 to "eat it in days too," as well as at dinner-time, 
 so as to grow even faster. "Just fink, Mother," 
 
106 Note-Book of 
 
 he said gravely, "my stomach has taken all that 
 strong and grow out of the food and made it into 
 more me. " 
 
 Later he had misgivings. "When I am as tall 
 as God wants me to be," he asked, "how do I 
 stop growing? S'posing I did n't stop then I 'd 
 be a giant. But I would n't hurt people. I 'd 
 be a kind giant. Only I would fight other giants, 
 'cause if I did n't they might hurt folks." 
 
 We are adjusting ourselves again to the old 
 ways of living, home, and school, and proceed in 
 orderly fashion already, even though we have to 
 get along simply for a while. It is hot, and noth- 
 ing but my wish to be here at the opening of 
 school induced me to return so early. I know 
 that Stanley could have made up the lessons 
 missed in a fortnight stolen from the term, but I 
 fancy it is worth whatever sacrifice of comfort we 
 both have made to have him feel that when 
 school is in session he belongs at his desk. As 
 for the heat, we can stand it as well as those who 
 have borne it all summer, although Stanley has 
 just run in to plead for lighter clothing. "I am 
 so sweaty," he says. "Why, I am even sweaty 
 inside my mouf. Just see ! " 
 
 September 8th, 1902. I am very proud of my 
 little boy to-night for the quite unexpected way 
 in which he practised what I have been preaching. 
 I have told him many times that if he could n't 
 
An Adopted Mother 107 
 
 conquer his temper alone he must let God help 
 him. One day he asked just what I meant by 
 that, and how God could help him. Then I 
 realized that, considering his youth, what I had 
 said to him was no better than cant. 
 
 I could not tell him to kneel and ask for strength 
 when angry, it would be too much to expect from 
 a child of his age and temper. With some children 
 it might work, but he could not possibly feel the 
 prayer that his lips might offer at such a time, and 
 I do not wish him to feel that there is virtue in 
 lip-prayer only. 
 
 So I told him that God is always willing to 
 help those who will let Him, and that the best way 
 for my boy would be to go off by himself when 
 he felt his temper rising and keep just as still as 
 he could. I said : "If you learn to do that, you 
 will find that God does help you, and you will 
 soon become stronger than your temper." 
 
 This afternoon he was on the verge of an ex- 
 plosion, when he suddenly turned and ran into 
 my room, turning the key in the lock behind him. 
 I thought him bent on mischief and tip-toed close 
 to the door to listen. It was absolutely still 
 within, and I was hardly back to my sewing when 
 the lock grated again and he came out smiling. 
 "You 'd better fink we licked that temper good," 
 said he. And that was the close of the incident. 
 
 I know there will yet be many trying times 
 when his failure will be as dismal as to-day's 
 
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 success was brilliant, but I mean to keep this in 
 both his mind and my own, and hope to have it re- 
 peated. Surely I ought never to feel discouraged 
 over a little lad who has proved himself to this 
 extent. 
 
 September nth, 1902. I wish people would 
 stop thinking that the nature-study ideal is a 
 course in elementary science. The two may 
 charmingly supplement each other, and the parent 
 or teacher who has a knowledge of elementary 
 science is fortunate indeed, but to my mind nature 
 study means rather a coming into sympathy with 
 all out-of-door life. In one of his novels Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes says what I mean far better than 
 I can say it. In describing Cyprian Eveleth he 
 says: "He loved the leaf after its kind as well as 
 the flower and the root as well as the leaf, and did 
 not exhaust his capacity of affection or admira- 
 tion on the blossom or bud. Thus Nature took 
 him into her confidence. She loves the men of 
 science well and tells them of all her secrets who 
 is the father of this or that member of the group, 
 who is brother, sister, cousin, and so on through 
 all the circle of relationship. But there are others 
 to whom she tells her dreams ; not what species 
 or genus her lily belongs to, but what vague 
 thought it has when it dresses in white, or what 
 memory of its birthplace that is which we call its 
 fragrance. 
 
An Adopted Mother 109 
 
 I am not planning to train my boy as a poet 
 when I let his sweet little fancies about flowers 
 and birds go unchecked. I am only letting him 
 acquire a taste for the sweetest, most wholesome, 
 and least expensive pleasures in the world. He 
 asked me the other day: "Which place do you 
 like better, this place or the cottage (our summer 
 home in the north woods)?" 
 
 "The cottage." 
 
 "O Mother, I knew you 'd say that. We 
 don't reelly like any place without woods, do 
 we?" 
 
 Some of our most interesting talks along nat- 
 ural-history lines are far from being poetical. 
 The young servant-girl whom I took north with 
 me this season had never cleaned fish, so when one 
 of our neighbors sent in several fine bass, I dressed 
 the first one to show her how. Stanley happened 
 along at just the right time to get the benefit of 
 it, so as I worked I told him about the different 
 parts of the fish's body, how he wiggled his tail 
 to make himself go ahead, how he spread his fins 
 to slow down, how he breathed water instead of 
 air, and then I spread out the feathery branchia 
 which take the place of lungs in a fish. 
 
 The internal organs were intensely interesting 
 to Stanley, and after I had finished my part of 
 the work he stood beside Nettie to see the process 
 repeated, appealing often to me to make sure that 
 he remembered their functions correctly. When 
 
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 the task was ended he turned to me with the hap- 
 piest of sighs, saying: "Did n't we have a lovely 
 visit 'bout that fish, Mother?" 
 
 Often he reverses our relations and instructs me 
 in that queer compound of common sense and 
 superstition which small boys acquire in their 
 intercourse by the side of ponds and brooks. 
 "Horsehairs do turn into snakes, Mother," he 
 says. "Edwin told me so, and he showed me a 
 hair what was going to turn. I know what an 
 insect is. It 's a dragging-fly or a butterfly or a 
 caterpillar or a bug, but not a spider. That frog 
 is a mate, Mother." 
 
 "And what is a mate, dear? " 
 
 "Why, it is one what has little baby ones." 
 
 Yesterday, when I had been imitating the croak 
 of the tree-toads for him, he said : "Mother, what 
 do they say when they say that ? ' ' 
 
 "We cannot understand, dear." 
 
 "Tell you what I fink. I fink they are telling 
 God that they would like a little more rain if you 
 please, and of course He could understand." 
 
 I sometimes wonder where he gets all his 
 quaint, reverent little ideas, but do not like to 
 check his happy confidences by questioning too 
 closely. One day he said: "Just watch that 
 little caterpillar wobble his cunning little head. 
 You said he was my little caterpillar, but reelly, 
 you know, he is God's little caterpillar." 
 
 We fed this same caterpillar until he was full- 
 
An Adopted Mother in 
 
 grown, let him go into chrysalis in a suitable box, 
 and saw him emerge, eleven days later, a beautiful 
 great Monarch butterfly. On the day that he 
 came out, Stanley's delight knew no bounds. 
 He would even have gone without dinner, if per- 
 mitted, for the sake of watching the butterfly. 
 And I was amused by the way in which he inter- 
 preted the insect's motions according to human 
 motives. He sees me taking calisthenics every 
 morning, so when the butterfly was slowly spread- 
 ing and folding his wings, pumping into them 
 from his over-fat body the fluids which were to 
 expand and strengthen them, Stanley exclaimed : 
 "That is right, little butterfly! Take your exer- 
 cises and pretty soon you will be strong enough 
 to fly." 
 
 Some of his questions are very baffling. I 
 think the most puzzling one was when he insisted 
 upon knowing if there were any "wild nerotions " 
 around. He thought they were very big, and he 
 knew they liked to be on rocks. He was afraid 
 that they were fierce. After a week of genuine 
 detective work I found that he had overheard a 
 geological neighbor of ours talk about an erosion 
 of the rocks. He had asked the gentleman some 
 questions and been put off with an answer that he 
 could not understand. Ignorance and childish 
 fears had done the rest. 
 
 It seems absurd, I know, to call all this sort of 
 thing a study, yet after all it is the "little boy 
 
ii2 Note-Book of 
 
 end " of a study, and if it served no other purpose 
 than the cultivation of observation, it would pay. 
 It will do more than this, however. It will make 
 him original. People who get their ideas first- 
 hand from things, instead of second-hand from 
 books or the lips of others, are the most original. 
 It will help him develop into a man who can be 
 happy out-of-doors, with or without golf-sticks 
 and horses, and it will tend to keep him pure and 
 with a proper reverence for the mystery of life, 
 whether in higher or in lower forms. 
 
 September I5th, 1902. Until to-day Stanley 
 has known nothing of the tiny son who preceded 
 him in the home. It is hard for me to speak 
 calmly of the baby even now, and I have feared 
 giving Stanley a terror of death. I had also 
 feared his feeling that the baby had been nearer 
 to me than he could ever be, a kind of jealousy 
 which, if once begotten, might be only too fre- 
 quently fostered by the thoughtless remarks of 
 outsiders. 
 
 This morning I took from my cedar chest a 
 Scotch cap which I used to wear when sailing, 
 and offered it to Stanley. He was delighted, 
 and was prancing around with it on, admiring the 
 effect each time that he passed a mirror, when he 
 began to wonder why I had such a thing packed 
 away. " Mother," said he, "did you ever have a 
 little boy before?" 
 
An Adopted Mother 113 
 
 "How big was he?" 
 
 "Just a little baby, dear." 
 
 "Where is he now?" 
 
 "He is in heaven." 
 
 "Did you want him to go there? Did n't you 
 want God to take him? Then why did God take 
 him? " 
 
 "He was not very well, and I think God did 
 not want him to suffer." 
 
 "You did n't want him to either, did you? 
 O Mother, why are you crying?" 
 
 My head went down on the desk and all I could 
 sob out was: "I miss him so." 
 
 Then came two little arms stealing around my 
 shoulders, awed kisses timidly pressed on my hair, 
 my hands, my shoulders wherever he could 
 touch me and a quivering voice saying: "O 
 Mother; dear, dear Mother, don't cry! Can't 
 you get my brother to be your little boy? My 
 brother is ever so much gooder than I am." 
 
 "No dear, I do not need anybody else. You 
 will be a comfort to me if you are my good little 
 boy." 
 
 "Oh, I will be so good, Mother," said he, with 
 tearful eyes. "And perhaps some day God will 
 let your other little baby come back, and then I 
 will help you take care of him. Mother, perhaps 
 you could get my little baby (the tiny brother 
 whom he dimly remembers, and who is still to 
 
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 him the ideal of all that is winsome in babyhood). 
 He is so sweet, and I would let you have him. 
 He is just learning to walk. O Mother, I will 
 be such a comfort to you, and I will take such care 
 of you ! I will be vurry, vurry good." 
 
 He was sobbing on my knee when he finished 
 speaking, and I was so shocked by the depth of 
 his sorrow for me, that I managed to crowd back 
 my selfish tears and comfort him. 
 
 All through the day he has been devotion itself, 
 not even wanting to play out with his friends, 
 lest I should be lonely, anticipating my every 
 wish, and leaving his toys often to come over and 
 pat me with a loving " We know, don't we, 
 Mother? About your dear little baby, you know. 
 But we won't talk about him because that would 
 make you cry." 
 
 And again it was: "I am afraid Father will 
 know that you have been crying when he comes, 
 and that makes him sad for you. You just watch 
 me do tricks for a while, dear Mother, and then 
 you will be all smiley when he comes." 
 
 And this is the child who I feared might be 
 jealous! I suppose that if I had not felt the 
 possibility of some such wicked emotion in my- 
 self, I would never have imagined it in him. His 
 love was broader than the measure of my mind. 
 
 September i8th, 1902. This noon Stanley 
 climbed upon my lap as soon as he entered the 
 
An Adopted Mother 115 
 
 house and began lavishing caresses upon me. I 
 could hardly spare the time then for such visiting, 
 but did not wish to discourage honest affection, 
 and thought there might possibly be a confession 
 of some sort coming. And who would ever have 
 guessed what it was to be? "I cried in school 
 this morning, Mother, but I reelly could n't help 
 it. Do you know why? It told about a baby, 
 in our book, and I fought about your little baby 
 what died, and I felt so sorry for you. But what 
 do you fink? There is a picture on the wall at 
 our school of a mother-angel with a little baby in 
 her arms. And I wanted to tell you about it so 
 you would n't be worried about him. I am vurry 
 sure that it is your baby and that God has told 
 that mother-angel to take good care of him. She 
 looked reel kind and she had him all cuddled up 
 close. Now I 've told you, and ar'n't you glad? " 
 
 September 2ist, 1902. I wonder how much of 
 my little lesson in geography will linger in Stan- 
 ley's mind and how straight he will get it. 
 
 For several mornings lately I have talked him 
 into consciousness by telling of a small Chinese 
 boy, whom we decided to call Ah Sin, who was 
 always going to bed just as Stanley was awaken- 
 ing. Sometimes at night we even discussed Ah 
 Sin's rising and morning toilet, which we were 
 sure were even then taking place on the other 
 side of the world. At school he heard something 
 
n6 Note-Book of 
 
 of a Chinese baby girl, Wah Lee, and our interest 
 in things Chinese had a great revival. 
 
 After all the other details were settled and we 
 had conceded that Ah Sin might .sometimes wrig- 
 gle while his mother was helping him dress, but 
 that little Wah Lee was too gentle and thought- 
 ful to make any trouble in that way, we still had 
 to dispose of the sun. And the sun was a trouble- 
 some problem, for how was a five-year-old to 
 comprehend that it is the earth's revolving on its 
 axis which makes the sun appear to move? 
 
 So this afternoon we had a Sunday geography 
 lesson. First, Stanley had to find the largest and 
 roundest red apple he could. Then I took a sharp 
 little knife and removed portions of the skin, 
 leaving white spaces to represent water. The red 
 skin remaining showed the general outline of 
 the land on the globe, and a long hat-pin thrust 
 through the core made an excellent axis. 
 
 We stuck one tiny pin into North America to 
 represent Stanley and two more into Asia to 
 represent Ah Sin and Wah Lee. Then we ex- 
 tinguished all but a single electric light, and that 
 a low one, which proved a most convenient sun. 
 It seemed to me that Stanley got a very clear 
 idea of the cause of day and night from our long 
 talk which followed, and we went over the ground 
 several times with different variations of our 
 Americo-Chinese tale. 
 
 There is a good deal in knowing when to stop, 
 
An Adopted Mother 117 
 
 and our lesson ended with Stanley's wanting the 
 earth and getting it to eat. 
 
 September 2jth, 1902. One of the great advan- 
 tages of a village life, in the case of a small boy, is 
 certainly the chance he has to get dirty without 
 losing caste. In a well-paved and upper-class 
 residence section of a city it would create nothing 
 short of a scandal if a child were turned loose in 
 such simple attire as Stanley wears to school. 
 Perhaps this bondage to clothes is one of the 
 many reasons why the population of cities has to 
 be recruited from the country. I have always had 
 a fellow feeling for Antaeus, because contact with 
 Mother Earth has much the same effect upon me 
 that it had upon him. I do not enjoy the con- 
 tact in precisely the same way as my small boy, 
 but sitting on a porch never rests me as it does 
 to sit upon the sod, and I consider a hammock a 
 base and uneasy substitute for a turf couch. 
 
 I confess that not even the experiences of city- 
 mission life have deadened me to the unbecoming- 
 ness of dirt, and barefooted boys seem much more 
 attractive in poems than out, but I have even 
 permitted Stanley to go without shoes and stock- 
 ings all summer. His tender little feet were 
 covered with ugly callouses as the result of wear- 
 ing heavy and poorly fitting shoes, and he had a 
 croupy reputation which was evidently deserved, 
 so I have let him rest his feet and at the same 
 
n8 Note-Book of 
 
 time test that heroic remedy for croup going 
 barefoot as much as possible. It has worked well 
 so far, and he is blissfully happy. 
 
 The boys of all ages in the neighborhood seem 
 to think Stanley a model of good nature and 
 pluck, and were much pleased with his comment 
 on a second lad of his own age, a child who is 
 always dressed in the latest style, kept spotlessly 
 clean, and seldom permitted to play out-of-doors 
 without having his hands covered, a little hot- 
 house plant of a boy. Stanley saw him looking 
 wistfully through the fence around his home, and 
 said: "O Fred, let 's go over and talk to that 
 that Is it a little boy or a little girl? " It 
 seemed all the funnier because the daintily dressed 
 child had short hair and trousers, and Stanley has 
 always thought of the latter much as the Roman 
 youths did of the toga virilis. 
 
 There have been some limitations imposed. 
 Stanley must be clean for school and for meals, 
 and indeed the life of greater freedom has so over- 
 whelmed him with its joyous privileges that he 
 has been very careful about assuming too much. 
 This (Saturday) morning he was allowed to go 
 out in a pair of cotton trousers, a calico waist, 
 and a five-cent straw hat. He was not cautioned 
 to take care of his clothes. I expected that he 
 would be ready for the tub by noon, but thought 
 it would be good for him and no harder for me 
 than to have a warm and restless little boy fret- 
 
An Adopted Mother 119 
 
 ting under restrictions. With good playmates I 
 felt him well placed for the morning. 
 
 At ten he came in exceedingly pensive. "It 
 would make me vurry, vurry happy," he said, 
 "if I could have on my overalls and sit in the 
 dust." I am sure that after his twenty-five-cent 
 trousers had been protected by quarter-of-a-dollar 
 overalls, he entered upon one of the great days 
 of his life. He was as happy as a sparrow taking 
 a dust bath, or a hen wallowing in the sand on the 
 sunshiny side of a bush. He had a quiet and 
 glorious day, free from all irritability and un- 
 wholesomeness, and I maintain that it was a sen- 
 sible thing to permit it, even if it was hard on my 
 pride. He will have enough wearisome years in 
 which to keep up appearances and live the con- 
 ventional life, and he will probably need, in the 
 long run, all the sturdy vitality which he is now 
 storing up. 
 
 September 2Qth, 1902. If there was one matter 
 in which I prided myself that I had been especially 
 successful, it was in having Stanley realize that 
 dumb brutes had feelings and rights of their own 
 which he was bound to respect. I have been 
 greatly surprised by my apparent success, almost 
 overwhelmed at times, as when he proceeded to 
 justify the skunks in their method of self-defence. 
 
 But I fear my work along this line is not 
 ended. At dusk my door-bell rang violently and 
 
120 Note-Book of 
 
 repeatedly, and I answered it, only to find Stanley 
 there propped up with an improvised crutch and 
 a crude cane. "You will have to help me this 
 time," he said. "I am so lame. Harry's little 
 calfie kicked me." 
 
 "And what were you doing to him?" 
 "Nuffing. We were n't hurting him, anyway. 
 We was just behind him and had hold of his tail, 
 kind of wobbling it around, and he kicked. . . . 
 But we had a DANDY time." 
 
 September joth, 1902. When we decided to 
 adopt a child I knew that we must not expect 
 him to be brilliant. I know some educators hold 
 that too much stress has been laid upon the power 
 of heredity in this regard and too little upon the 
 power of home influence and environment. I 
 know, too, that an adopted daughter of a Western 
 professor, a child of only ordinary promise when 
 taken, developed into one of the most remarkable 
 intellect, and that it was ascribed to tactful and 
 scientific training. But one cannot generalize 
 from a single instance, and Stanley is a child of 
 the laboring class. I wish that I knew more of 
 his antecedents. They are thoroughly respect- 
 able, but how did he get this intense respect for 
 education and this constant realization that knowl- 
 edge is power? 
 
 When he first came he would start off to school 
 each morning, peeping through the openings of 
 
An Adopted Mother 121 
 
 the fence to call back: "I am going to school, 
 Mother. Going to learn my lessons. Going to 
 study hard. Going to be a good boy. Going to 
 do everyfing just right." 
 
 "I have found out," he announced gravely a 
 little later, "that the more you study the more 
 you learn." 
 
 He has often said: "Now if I did n't know 
 that, I could n't do this." And he likes to have 
 me tell him practical ways in which book-learning 
 helps. There have been several cases of small- 
 pox in the house across from ours this year, and 
 it has impressed him greatly to hear that if a man 
 who could not read should come along selling 
 things, he might go right up to the door and 
 catch the disease, all because he could not read 
 the quarantine card and tell what s-m-a-1-l-p-o-x 
 spelled. I am sure that he got the right idea 
 from our conversation, although I afterward heard 
 him tell a thick-headed playmate that he 'd better 
 study his spelling more, " 'cause he 'd be lobble 
 to have the smallpox if he did n't." 
 
 Spelling is always a matter of the greatest inter- 
 est, and he likes to have me pronounce words for 
 him. Yesterday when I was doing this, I said : 
 "Spell 'see.'" 
 
 "What kind of see, Mother? " 
 
 "Like 'I see a cat.'" 
 
 He spelled it. "Now, Mother," he added, "how 
 do you spell ' see ' like ' I see a dog ' ? " 
 
122 Note-Book of 
 
 Sometimes he tries to emulate the older boys 
 by spelling out the names of articles desired. 
 This has its inconveniences. For example, I 
 have to make further inquiries when he says: 
 "Please give me a p-j-h-r-x. " 
 
 There are compensating advantages to this en- 
 thusiasm for spelling. To-night, for example, 
 while I am writing this, I can hear him spelling 
 himself to sleep. "I guess I will spell heifer," 
 he says. "Heifer. F-o-r-p, heifer. That is 
 right. . . . Now spell heifer. F-o-r-p, heifer. 
 That is right." 
 
 Sometimes, when there is great need of a quiet 
 diversion, Stanley is the teacher and I am the 
 pupil, always with the understanding that I may 
 be allowed to go on with my sewing or household 
 tasks. Then we have great fun, for after a while 
 the pupil becomes confused and insists that 
 h-o-r-s-e spells "sheep," "goat," or the name 
 of some other quadruped. Stanley has the dra- 
 matic instinct, and it is the sweetest kind of 
 commentary on the excellence and tact of his 
 teacher when he gently and patiently insists on 
 my learning the right way. Knowing her as well 
 as I do, I can recognize her inflections and 
 gestures reproduced exactly. Sometimes he is 
 ambitious to teach me words which he himself 
 has never learned. Then he asks me in a whis- 
 per how they are spelled, gets his information, 
 and pronounces them to me in a tone of the 
 
An Adopted Mother 123 
 
 greatest assurance. If a word is long he some- 
 times has to ask a second time in a whisper to 
 make sure that I gave it aright when I spoke 
 aloud. The dual role does not trouble him in the 
 least. 
 
 Few people who have not tried it realize how 
 much comfort there is in living with a normal 
 child. These little ' ' visits, ' ' as Stanley calls them, 
 are as much fun for me as for him, although in a 
 somewhat different way, and they give me a good 
 insight into his difficulties, educational and other- 
 wise. Sometimes he is rather patronizing, but in 
 such a gentle way that I do not mind. For in- 
 stance, I spoke of his bathing in the tub, and was 
 checked with: "That is n't bayving when you 
 are in the tub that is baffing. It 's bayving 
 when you are in the Bay." Then, turning to 
 Ernest, he said apologetically: "Mother does n't 
 understand that, you know." 
 
 And then there are many little opportunities to 
 give information which will interest him and go 
 to make general culture. The story of the boy 
 Watts and the tea-kettle, told one night when I 
 was getting dinner, has fascinated him greatly. 
 He has spoken of it often since, following out the 
 idea which I suggested then, of the many ways 
 in which Watts's discovery of the power of steam 
 affects our daily life. 
 
 "We plant the wheatfield, but we do not have 
 to grow the wheat," and the planting of this sort 
 
1 24 Note-Book of 
 
 of wheat is a constant delight, the returns are so 
 generous and well worth while. It is not enough 
 to teach a child to do things. He must be taught 
 to think and enjoy thinking, if he is to amount to 
 much. Thinking is, after all, largely a matter of 
 habit, and if the habit is formed early enough in 
 life, it is likely to persist. 
 
 October jrd, 1902. Poor Stanley is suffering 
 the fate of most very youthful lovers, in finding 
 himself the object of too much interest and criti- 
 cism from his companions. Anita's plump and 
 rosy cheeks have always been attractive to him, 
 and he has been allowed to kiss her as often as he 
 wished without thinking it at all a matter of re- 
 mark. But the impulse to kiss her at school must 
 have overwhelmed him, for to-night we had a con- 
 versation on the subject. " Mother," said he, 
 "did you ever kiss a girl? " 
 
 "Yes, many times." 
 
 "'Course, though, you are a lady! When I 
 kissed Anita the boys made fun of me. . . . 
 Father, did you ever kiss girls? " 
 
 Ernest said but I think his reply was not in- 
 tended for record. 
 
 October 6th, 1902. Stanley's love for natural 
 history, which I have so carefully fostered, is 
 not altogether without its drawbacks. I had a 
 wearisome afternoon in the rain to-day, and 
 
An Adopted Mother 125 
 
 left Nettie to receive the boy on his return from 
 school and see that he was made dry and happy. 
 When my errands were all done and I neared 
 home, I fear that I was too tired to be quite reason- 
 able. Entering by the back way to avoid setting 
 the front part of the house afloat, I found Nettie 
 smiling over her work. Stanley and a playmate 
 were in the sitting-room. 
 
 Nettie told me what had amused her. When 
 he reached home he said he had found some 
 angleworms and picked them up. "I fought I 
 might need them when I am a big boy and go 
 fishing," he explained. She was politely inter- 
 ested, and went on changing his clothes for dry 
 ones. That done, she held his umbrella up to 
 open and dry it, when she felt a score or so of 
 wriggling earthworms descending on her head and 
 shoulders. He had used the umbrella for a re- 
 pository. 
 
 "Where are the worms now? " I asked. 
 
 "I had him pick them up and put them into a 
 can," she replied. "I thought they could be 
 kept in a corner of the porch, so he could take 
 them out to the garden when the rain stops." 
 
 Forgetting how inexperienced she was, and 
 feeling only amused over the occurrence, I went 
 to the sitting-room door. In the centre of the 
 room stood the can with a few worms remaining 
 in it. The rest were sprawling dismally around 
 on the rug in search of a burrowing-place, while 
 
i26 Note-Book of 
 
 Stanley's friend ran a train of toy cars in one 
 corner and Stanley was hunting through the 
 volumes of my new thirty-dollar Natural Histories 
 to find a picture of snakes that he wanted to show 
 him. Actually turning those precious pages with 
 hands which had recently been full of worms ! 
 
 Now I do not dislike worms, but they have 
 their place. I do not like them in hymns, where 
 people are supposed to sing, "Did He devote that 
 sacred head for such a worm as I? " and I do not 
 like them on sitting-room rugs. Consequently I 
 fear there was more quickness than kindness in 
 the way I rescued my books and gathered up the 
 worms to throw them out-of-doors. Stanley was 
 much grieved, as I now think he had a right to 
 be, for he had blundered ignorantly, and I was 
 still upset and dishevelled when Ernest came to 
 dinner. There had been no scene, no scolding, 
 yet the domestic atmosphere was wrong and it was 
 distinctly my fault. 
 
 I had not overcome my annoyance when I put 
 Stanley to bed, but when he suddenly squatted 
 down "to show how robins hop around in the 
 rain," and went about the room in that fashion, 
 such a funny little figure in his white pajamas 
 with the extra long legs trailing after him, I did 
 have the grace to realize that he is hardly more 
 than a baby, and that it is altogether unworthy 
 of an adult to lose patience with such a little one 
 for lack of judgment. Still, I should have more 
 
An Adopted Mother 127 
 
 self-respect if I had regained my serenity without 
 this lesson. 
 
 Presumably Stanley did not carry his experi- 
 ments with worms quite so far as did one of his 
 playmates. Charley is ill, and Stanley said : "He 
 had a handful of angleworms and put 'em in his 
 mouf, and that made him sick. Putting angle- 
 worms to your mouf is lobble [liable] to make 
 you sick. If I should put an angleworm to my 
 mouf I 'd prob'ly have the measles." 
 
 The measles are prevalent just now, and there 
 is much talk of contagion. This has evidently 
 got mixed with a recent Sunday-school lesson, for 
 while we were discussing the disease lately Stanley 
 remarked: "I fink I never, never, never ought to 
 go in a s'loon where they drink whiskey and beer, 
 'cause I might catch it too." 
 
 And this reminds me to set down another recent 
 mistake of his, when he confused the names and 
 purposes of the saloon and the drug store by call- 
 ing the latter a ' ' drunk store. ' ' I fancy he hinted 
 at a truth, however, when one remembers how 
 some drug stores are patronized in villages by 
 people who dislike to be seen entering a saloon. 
 
 October 8th, 1902. How easy it is to find cause 
 for happiness when we are in the right mood ! 
 Often the thought of putting on his own shoes 
 and stockings quite overwhelms Stanley, but this 
 morning, when he was full of joyful anticipations, 
 
128 Note-Book of 
 
 he put them all on with celerity and said: "Just 
 s'posing I was a centipede and had to get all my 
 stockings on before breakfast ! ' ' 
 
 October nth, 1902. Alas for the little boy who 
 could not withstand the seductions of the cow 
 pasture ! He was playing peacefully in the yard 
 after school when some forbidden companions 
 came along and asked him to go with them to the 
 pasture. Nobody was there to help him resist 
 temptation and he went. Twilight came and 
 darkness, with still no boy. Ernest and I had 
 nearly finished our dinner when the door-bell rang 
 violently. I opened the door and saw him half 
 hidden off to one side, waiting for me to find him. 
 I paused for him to take the initiative, and at last 
 he stepped forward with what was intended to be 
 an exceedingly jaunty air, saying: "What did 
 you want me for? " 
 
 "I thought you wished to come in. Go to 
 wash before you come to the table." 
 
 Then came floods of tears and agonies of re- 
 pentance, although punishment had not been 
 mentioned. Indeed I had suspected that the 
 fatigue, hunger, and awesome darkness had been 
 retribution enough. It took all the resolution I 
 possessed to keep me from turning consoler and 
 spoiling the natural process by which many sins 
 bring about their own punishment. When he 
 was washed and fed and going to bed, he said: 
 
An Adopted Mother 129 
 
 ''Mother, I don't fink you understand. I truly 
 forgot about not going with those boys. I fink 
 it 's because I am such a little boy. Whose fault 
 was it? 'Cause they asked me, you know. I tell 
 you what ; you 'member me every little while not 
 to play with them. I am very sure that the 
 trouble is because I am too little." 
 
 We talked it over, of course. There was no 
 dodging the issue, but I could not be severe. I 
 spoke only of my anxiety when one of the other 
 boys told me where he had gone, and he told me 
 what a charming time they had in the pasture. 
 Evidently his conscience had not begun to trouble 
 until they started homeward. Then "the boys 
 was mean and went just as slow as they could, 
 and they might just as well have made the cows 
 run. 
 
 "When I grow up, you dear, dear, dear, dear 
 Mother," he said, "I '11 buy a cow, not a hooked 
 one, and you can go to pasture with me. Every 
 night. And you can catch frogs in the crick 
 there. I fink it would be nicer to have a cow 
 what gives milk, so I 'd better get one with a calf. 
 How long is a calf if you count his tail? What 
 makes cows be ugly? I b'leeve I know. I b'leeve 
 they don't like people and they are afraid of them, 
 and when they see you coming they just fink you 
 are a great big dreadful FING, and then they hook 
 you." 
 
 Charming prospect in store for a woman who 
 
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 cannot abide cows. I should be delighted to 
 catch frogs, but when a cow waggles her head at 
 me with that discomfiting bovine stare of hers, 
 my courage oozes out at my finger-tips. It is 
 something I cannot reason about successfully. 
 When I am alone I have often said: ''You are 
 very foolish, Eleanor Davids. Why can you not 
 fear snakes, or even mice, so as to be at least con- 
 ventionally cowardly?" But it does no good. 
 The panic returns at my first encounter with a 
 leisurely Bossie. Cows are so dreadfully rectangu- 
 lar and self-possessed ! 
 
 I wonder if I shall parallel the experience of my 
 delightful friend, Mrs. Fowler? She is one of 
 those people who are born with an antipathy to 
 cats. As a child she suffered fearfully from the 
 mere presence of a cat in the room. A year ago 
 her children set their young affections on a stray 
 kitten, and were at last permitted to adopt her on 
 condition she should be kept in the barn. 
 
 After a while the cat hung around the back 
 door. One day she slipped through. Finally 
 she was sick and was brought in to be doctored. 
 Some weeks later she presented the family with 
 a pair of kittens. As there were three children, 
 there seemed to be a providential coincidence 
 between their number and that of the cats. Mrs. 
 Fowler said that they might keep one of the three. 
 They thought it best to wait a bit before deciding 
 which to sacrifice. Meanwhile the trio strolled 
 
An Adopted Mother 131 
 
 more and more frequently into the house, the 
 kittens slowly but surely developing into cat- 
 hood. 
 
 One day I called upon Mrs. Fowler, to find her 
 sewing in the sitting-room and three of the chairs 
 around her pre-empted by cats. There was not 
 a child in sight to justify this state of things. I 
 remember that somewhere in his Essay on Educa- 
 tion, Spencer speaks of parenthood as the greatest 
 education in the world, the most rigorous and 
 thorough, and calls it a most wonderful provision 
 of nature that our strongest instincts lead us to 
 our most rigorous discipline. Is it possible that 
 in my case this will include cows? 
 
 October 14-th, 1902. Such a funny illustration 
 of the familiar saying "that a little learning is a 
 dangerous thing." Stanley came home from 
 school quite decided that he would not go any 
 more. He has no distaste for it, and must, I 
 think, have been unduly elated over some en- 
 couraging remark of his teacher's. "No, truly, 
 Mother," he said, "I don't fink I need to go to 
 school any more. You know I can read very well 
 now, and I can write, too." 
 
 "There are still some words that you cannot 
 write," I said. "You might better go a while 
 longer. Can you write ornithorhynchus? " 
 
 "No. I can't write that. I guess p'r'aps I 'd 
 better go after all." 
 
132 Note-Book of 
 
 October igtk, 1902. To be small and wiggle- 
 some and yet go to church! Well I remember 
 how it feels. First there is the pleasing excite- 
 ment of having on one's best clothes, a happiness 
 somewhat marred by the inevitable maternal last 
 look at one's ears and ringers. Then the digni- 
 fied walk to church between father and mother, 
 the dignity not becoming oppressive until one 
 reaches what might be called the last quarter. 
 Next the entering church and getting settled in 
 the pew, discovering who are seated in the imme- 
 diate vicinity, wondering how the minister keeps 
 so clean, and unfolding and examining one's extra 
 Sunday handkerchief to make sure that the penny 
 for the offertory is still safely below it in the 
 pocket. After that comes the long period of try- 
 ing to be good. 
 
 Dear me! When I think of that, I do not 
 want to be a child again. And yet, my boy must 
 attend church each Sunday morning with us. 
 This is so much a matter of course that it never 
 occurs to him to protest, and indeed I do not 
 think he considers it an ordeal. He is a great 
 friend and admirer of our young minister, and 
 also on most comfortable terms with the singers, 
 so he has a personal interest in those who lead in 
 the service. He knows that the minister will be 
 disappointed if Stanley is not there, and he looks 
 forward to a time when he shall be permitted to 
 sing with the boy choir. 
 
An Adopted Mother 133 
 
 I have never expected him to understand the 
 sermon, but I have given him chances to become 
 acquainted with the minister, and he seems to 
 feel that loyal friendship demands a certain de- 
 gree of attention. The results are sometimes 
 peculiar. For instance, when Mr. Phillips said, 
 "Woe! woe! woe!" Stanley asked why he was 
 calling "Whoa!" Another time, when he had 
 spoken of an eagle screaming as it flew upward 
 (this in some illustrative incident) a thoughtless 
 person in the near neighborhood began to use 
 a squeaky pump. "There is that eagle now," 
 said Stanley. "Mother, don't you hear it 
 scream ? ' ' 
 
 I have always found the place in a hymn-book 
 and handed it to Stanley during the singing, he 
 humming softly along with the congregation and 
 so feeling that he is really a participant in the 
 service. It was a distinct step in advance when 
 he began to find his own place, and now he first 
 hunts the correct number for me in one book and 
 then for himself in another. I am teaching him 
 the words of a few of our standard hymns at 
 home, having purchased a church hymnal for the 
 purpose, but he thought he discovered a comfort- 
 able short cut to singing lately when, the clergy- 
 man announcing "We will sing number one 
 hundred," he followed the familiar tune with 
 words and whispered triumphantly to me at the 
 close: "Mother, I did just what Mr. Phillips said. 
 
134 Note-Book of 
 
 I sang 'One hundred, one hundred, one hundred, 
 one hundred ' all the time." 
 
 October 22nd, 1902. It is certainly humiliating 
 for people with immortal souls to find their amia- 
 bility at all dependent upon their temperature or 
 the condition of their stomachs, and yet if we are 
 honest with ourselves we have to admit a close 
 relation between our physical condition and our 
 dispositions. Then why should we not recognize 
 it in dealing with children? It was Beecher who 
 said that two thirds of Christianity was a Christian 
 temper, and that two thirds of a Christian temper 
 was a good digestion. How then about the moral 
 accountability of one who permits children to up- 
 set all normal digestion and lay the foundation 
 of future ills by eating whatever and whenever 
 they wish? 
 
 Confirmed dyspeptics, whose ills are the matter 
 of friendly inquiry and whose changes of medicine 
 furnish topics of conversation, Emerson to the 
 contrary notwithstanding, receive all the sym- 
 pathy which they deserve. In fact they often re- 
 ceive more, because they so frequently sin against 
 knowledge and succumb to the temptation of a 
 holiday repast or an especially toothsome dish. 
 The child who is cross for like cause is likely to 
 have a spanking instead of sympathy. 
 
 Thanks to the admonitions of various doctors 
 and trained nurses, and the more or less accurate 
 
An Adopted Mother 135 
 
 statements made by advertisers of cereals, there 
 is an increasing number of parents who study the 
 dietetic needs of children and place the right food 
 before them, but I wonder if we do not owe some- 
 thing more to our boys and girls in the way of 
 teaching them to think about such things. Every 
 particle of matter which is to renew and add to 
 the body must be taken into the stomach, and 
 there is a time coming when these little people 
 will be big people and decide for themselves. It 
 strikes me that it is well to have children under- 
 stand this, and that if they wish to be strong and 
 capable men and women they must take in the 
 right material. 
 
 Stanley came to us, a model in the way of eat- 
 ing what was set before him, and my only virtue 
 lies in having kept him up to the School standard. 
 With new temptations, and with adults eating in 
 his presence and frequently taking what it was 
 not best for him to have, it would have required 
 only about three days in which to undo all that 
 had been accomplished in this line. However, I 
 have managed to keep him perfectly happy on 
 what he calls "little boy food," giving him as 
 much as possible what we have, but rigorously 
 excluding some dishes. I do not know quite how 
 it has been done, and am really surprised at my 
 success. 
 
 We attended field sports recently, and Stanley 
 was for a whole afternoon beside a boy who con- 
 
136 Note-Book of 
 
 stantly munched cookies, yet he did not ask for a 
 taste, and was perfectly satisfied when I declined 
 the big one which was offered to him. I know 
 that it is much easier for him to be sensible be- 
 cause he does not see other members of the family 
 gormandizing, but I fancy that the greatest help is 
 a normal digestion and simple, unspoiled tastes. 
 
 Upon a few things I insist. He must not re- 
 fuse to eat any kind of food which is given to 
 him, although if I know that he dislikes it I am 
 careful to give him a smaller portion. These no- 
 tions and preferences are soon forgotten if not 
 humored, whereas if they were, I should soon 
 have a capricious little autocrat of the breakfast 
 table saying, "I will eat this," and "I will not 
 eat that." It sounds like fiction, and Sunday- 
 school fiction at that, when I say, that if offered 
 a choice between two dainties for dessert, he 
 almost invariably asks: "Which will make me the 
 stronger? " and takes it. But this is fact, and he 
 is not conscious of doing anything remarkable or 
 particularly virtuous in so deciding. 
 
 Two stories have had a very bracing effect on 
 him. One is of my struggles to eat certain things 
 when I was a little girl, and how my mother made 
 me eat those which I did not like before tasting 
 the others. This also includes a sequel of how 
 fortunate this training was for me when I grew 
 up and went away to live in a boarding-house. 
 The other story is of a cousin of mine, who was 
 
An Adopted Mother 137 
 
 not so strong as her brothers and sisters and 
 thought she ought to be favored on that account. 
 She pouted and was cross because her piece of pie 
 was not so large as that of the other children, and 
 her mother sent her away from the table without 
 any pie at all. I have never attempted to make 
 a personal application in telling these, but it may 
 be that Stanley draws his own conclusions. The 
 latter tale seems to strike him as quite tragic. 
 
 There is also a third story, which I had forgotten 
 for the moment. It is of the battle-ship Oregon 
 and the wonderful work that she was able to do 
 after her long trip around the Horn, all because 
 her engines were fed the right kind of coal. 
 
 I feel sure, too, that our many little talks on 
 anatomy and physiology have given Stanley an 
 added respect for the human body and its needs. 
 They have come about quite incidentally, and he 
 seems to find them of absorbing interest. He 
 calls most frequently for the story of digestion, 
 but that may be because it is the longest. It 
 usually ends with his listening to the working of 
 my "pump" sending the blood out into its 
 "pipes," and then tracing on his clear skin the 
 course of his own blood-vessels, in which the 
 nourishment derived from his food is carried 
 around to muscles, bones, skin, etc., and all are 
 given a chance to take some of the strength out 
 for themselves. This reminds me of his plaintive 
 plea when I was asking him to wash his hands 
 
138 Note-Book of 
 
 more thoroughly. "Why, Mother, that won't 
 come off," said he. "That is just some of my 
 pipes showing froo ! " And he was right, as a 
 brighter light proved. 
 
 I wish I could feel as sure of my success in all 
 details as I am in this particular one of regulating 
 Stanley's eating, and, what is even more import- 
 ant, teaching him to regulate it willingly and 
 gladly. But then, if he were as good as that in 
 all respects, he would be an angel instead of a 
 healthy human boy and I? I would probably 
 be writing magazine articles on "How to Bring up 
 Children," growing more and more self-satisfied 
 daily, and winning a full measure of that cordial 
 dislike which is the portion of paragons. It is 
 undoubtedly a good deal better for me to have 
 my frequent disheartenments and wonderings as 
 to whether I have done the right thing, together 
 with an occasional conviction that I have not. 
 
 October 24th> 1902. One of the sweetest re- 
 wards of trying to teach a child the better way, 
 instead of sternly repressing and arbitrarily pun- 
 ishing him, comes when he begins to take the reins 
 of government into his own hands and rule him- 
 self for good. I tasted this sweetness to-day. 
 
 Stanley returned from school in a pouring rain, 
 and, owing to an unfortunate tumble, his rubber 
 boots were considerably wetter inside than out. 
 As a consequence he could not go at once to 
 
An Adopted Mother 139 
 
 Harry's, as he had set his heart upon doing. The 
 hard, ugly look which I have learned to dread 
 came into his eyes and he was on the verge of an 
 explosion, when suddenly he gripped the edges 
 of his chair and sat very still. I told him that 
 when we got the dry shoes and stockings on, he 
 might watch for a chance, and if it stopped rain- 
 ing at all he could go to play in the house. He 
 gripped the chair more tightly for a minute and 
 then said but I will tell the story as he did a 
 little later. 
 
 "I fought my temper that time, did n't I?" 
 said he. "Did n't say anyfing inside of me, but 
 just talked right out loud and said: 'I will not go 
 out at all this afternoon or play with any one. 
 Not in any shoes. If anybody comes to play, 
 you send them home. I fink that will be better. 
 I was bad for a little while, you know, and that 
 will just pay me." 
 
 October 2jth, 1902. A few years ago I heard 
 of an inland home where both of the sons had run 
 away to sea, and the broken-hearted mother was 
 lamenting the fact to her minister. "I do not 
 see how it ever happened," she said. "None of 
 our people were seafaring folks, and we live so 
 far from the water." For answer the wise old 
 minister pointed to the only picture of importance 
 in the room, a fine one of a ship at sea. 
 
 Whether this story is literally true or true in a 
 
Note-Book of 
 
 higher sense only, it points a moral. I have been 
 watching the effect on Stanley of our own pictures. 
 They are not all that I could wish. Some are 
 kept for associations only, but there is nothing 
 which calls for banishment. The Madonnas make 
 him tenderly reverent, Sargent's Prophets do not 
 interest him at all, Guido Reni's Dawn interests 
 him mildly, but the Raphael cartoons hold him 
 enthralled. 
 
 The strong onward sweep and rush of Guido's 
 picture does not hold the same restful fascination 
 for him which it has for tired adults. If it 
 were expedient to awaken him early enough 
 to see a really fine sunrise, so that it could 
 mean more to him, he would soon appreciate the 
 picture. 
 
 The Miraculous Draught of Fishes is his favorite 
 among the cartoons. When he is particularly 
 tired he lies on the floor looking up at it, and 
 begs me to tell him the story over and over and 
 over again, I often reading and interpreting it to 
 him from his own little Testament. 
 
 The Death of Ananias and Sapphira is another 
 which enthralls him. His usual comment at the 
 close of this very impressive and tragic recital is : 
 "Well, they had n't ought to have told lies!" 
 And his English goes uncorrected. I tell the 
 story when it is called for, but admit that I do 
 not enjoy the narration. Once in a while I find 
 him standing before this cartoon in deep thought. 
 
An Adopted Mother 141 
 
 Usually this unnatural meditation is followed by 
 a confession of some shortcoming. 
 
 It was this same picture, together with its 
 equally strong and awful companion, Elymas 
 Struck with Blindness, and The Beautiful Gate of 
 the Temple, with its repulsive figure of the man 
 born lame, which confronted a certain young can- 
 vasser a few years since. She was taking orders 
 for photographs, colored and mounted on glass, 
 with celluloid frames of china pink, mustard yel- 
 low, and peacock blue. Naturally she was inter- 
 ested in art, and she wished to be agreeable. 
 "What lots of pretty pictures you have," she 
 said, as her eyes fell on Ananias in his death 
 agonies. 
 
 What I am thinking is this, that whereas many 
 parents give their girls a piece of silver on each 
 birthday, in order that they may gradually accu- 
 mulate something toward housekeeping, I would 
 like to give my boy a really fine photograph of 
 some famous and helpful picture, suitably framed. 
 I shall begin doing it very soon, and by the time 
 he goes to college or has to fit up bachelor apart- 
 ments away from home, he can hang his walls 
 with excellent pictures, all of which shall have 
 old, tender, and helpful associations for him. I 
 should like to have a couple of fine bronzes in the 
 collection, too, all things which he could under- 
 stand as a boy, but which he would not outgrow 
 as a man. 
 
i4 2 Note-Book of 
 
 October 3 ist, 1902. Stanley came home quite 
 drenched to-day, although he had carried his um- 
 brella to and from school. The reason was that 
 he had lent it to two little girls who had none, 
 as far as their paths coincided. "You know, 
 Mother," he said, "boys ought to always take 
 care of girls. And I did n't get very wet any- 
 way, 'cause I scooted so." 
 
 Opinions may have differed as to the wetness, 
 but we were unanimous as to boys' obligation to 
 care for girls. And Stanley does care for them 
 very intensely. It reminds me of the day when 
 he met Anita. It was the first time in his life 
 that he had ever played with a little girl; for 
 there were only boys in his first home, and at the 
 School the sexes are kept separate. He kept 
 running to me to say with a happy giggle: "O 
 Mother, I fink little girls is just lots of piles of 
 fun!" 
 
 November ist, 1902. Last Sunday Doctor 
 Blank preached us an excellent sermon on the 
 indeterminate sentence, a measure about to be 
 submitted to our voters, and which seems a fit- 
 ting subject for pulpit treatment. I have been 
 thinking ever since of the relationship there is 
 between the larger and what we call the smaller 
 affairs of life. Dealing with the little naughti- 
 nesses of a child would, at first thought, be classed 
 among the smaller affairs and penology among 
 
An Adopted Mother 143 
 
 the larger, although when you get right down to 
 the heart of the matter child-training is of primary 
 importance. One point which he made and illus- 
 trated so that even his youngest auditors could 
 comprehend it was that we no longer punish the 
 offender to punish him, but to protect society. 
 Stanley smiled appreciatively when he said : 
 "Johnny is not tied to the piano leg to get even 
 with Johnny for teasing his little sister, but to 
 keep him where he cannot get at his little sister 
 to tease her any more. ' ' 
 
 I was most interested in what he told us about 
 the operation of the Beranger law in France, 
 whereby all criminals sentenced for two years or 
 less are paroled for five and obliged to make 
 weekly reports to the police. If their record is 
 clear at the end of this time, the sentence is re- 
 mitted. He also spoke of the excellent work 
 done in our own country by the Elmira Reforma- 
 tory, where there are criminals sent on indetermi- 
 nate sentences. The point of all which, in this 
 connection, is that the formation of right habits 
 is everything. 
 
 I suppose none of us realize to what an extent 
 our virtue is merely a habit. Goodness is not 
 really a part of us until it becomes automatic. 
 The infant beginning to walk has to concentrate 
 his mind upon that, but after a while he walks, 
 runs, even dances without giving thought to his 
 steps, and has his mind free for other matters. 
 
144 Note-Book of 
 
 This wonderful power of habit is my great hope 
 for Stanley in regard to his temper. 
 
 His first efforts at self-control were prompted 
 by fear of being shut up, later ones by fear of my 
 strong disapproval as well, and now he is coming 
 to feel that it is weak and unsoldierly to give way 
 to anger. Eventually I hope he may want to do 
 right simply because it is right, than which there 
 is no higher incentive. Meanwhile, whatever the 
 governing motive, the habit of self-control is 
 strengthening, so that by and by it will be easier 
 for him to keep his temper than to lose it, how- 
 ever strongly it may stir within him. When that 
 happy day comes, he may be safely trusted to 
 follow his own line of least resistance, indepen- 
 dent of father, mother, and all the world be- 
 sides. Even now he is conscious that discomfort 
 follows rage. ' ' Mother, ' ' he says, laying his hand 
 over the region of heart and stomach, "do you 
 know that every time after I lose my temper I 
 feel bad in here?" 
 
 Intellect is a great modifier of disposition, and 
 the habit of thinking about and trying to under- 
 stand things is helping my little lad. He is find- 
 ing out what makes him weak and trying to avoid 
 occasions of stumbling. "I wish I could know 
 what makes you lose your temper," I said to him 
 one day. 
 
 "Well, I '11 tell you," he replied seriously. 
 "You see I get so tired, and then, first I know, 
 
An Adopted Mother 145 
 
 I 'm cross. I fink when you let me go to play 
 with little boys, you 'd better always tell me to 
 come home in half an hour." 
 
 Another time he said: "Do you know why I 
 am so cross to-night? It is because I am vurry, 
 vurry tired. There was church and Sunday- 
 school, and the walk out to carry those papers 
 to that sick man, and then I had to play with my 
 water-bugs a lot." 
 
 And again, a third time, when he was very 
 trying, I said: "Stanley, what makes you act so? 
 Is it because you are tired or because you are 
 naughty? " 
 
 'Which would you rather have it?" said 
 he. 
 
 "I would rather think it is because you are 
 tired." 
 
 "Then that 's it," he replied, "and you 'd bet- 
 ter put me right to bed." 
 
 To bed he went, although it was only five in 
 the afternoon, for his diagnosis was evidently 
 correct and his prescription as well. 
 
 He is coming to feel more and more responsible 
 for his moods. "Do you like me?" he asked 
 once after some naughtiness. "Do you love me? 
 Even when I am bad? You know I am always 
 vurry, vurry good when I try to be." 
 
 He is also showing more disposition to atone 
 for the unhappiness which his fits of temper cause 
 others. ' ' I want to help you lots, ' ' he often says, 
 
146 Note-Book of 
 
 after one of his outbreaks, "so you won't feel so 
 sorry about my being bad." 
 
 The danger of evil associations is becoming 
 more and more clear to him, and that which helped 
 him most in realizing it was something which 
 happened when he left his magnet lying for a long 
 time against a bodkin. When he found that the 
 bodkin had become a magnet he could not under- 
 stand it at all, until I explained that being right 
 with the magnet so long had magnetized the bod- 
 kin, that a great many things besides magnetism 
 could be given in that way, and that goodness and 
 badness were often taken from other people just 
 by being much with them. We had a sweet and 
 profitable chat about this, and Stanley thought 
 that he originated all the ideas and made all the 
 discoveries, not seeing that I prepared the way 
 for him. He really made these thoughts his own, 
 and that was most profitable. Predigested food 
 is as bad for the mind as for the body, I fancy. 
 It did not at all impair the abiding influence of 
 the conversation when he ended with a childish 
 anti-climax, for it did not strike him as absurd or 
 incongruous. "And then there 's measles/' he 
 said. "They are Catching, and they are vurry bad 
 indeed. You don't ever want to play with folks 
 what have the measles. ' ' 
 
 The thing which interests and pleases me most 
 in all our little conflicts is his tacit or spoken 
 acknowledgment that I am right. I believe that 
 
An Adopted Mother 147 
 
 all children come to have a peculiar respect and 
 liking for those who will consistently and with 
 unfailing patience hold them up to what they 
 know is their own best. There have been many 
 funny incidents to show how closely he watches 
 me for inconsistencies. I remember once, when 
 he was unwilling to get out of the bath-tub 
 promptly, I told him that the next time he could 
 not play with a sponge at all, because he was 
 unwilling to leave it when asked. 
 
 Meanwhile I forgot what I had said, and when 
 the next time came he stretched out his hand for 
 the forbidden sponge. "You don't remember 
 telling me anyfing, do you?" he asked, with a 
 guilty look in his eyes. 
 
 I could not remember, but I saw my danger. 
 "Be careful that you do not forget it," I replied 
 gravely. 
 
 Instantly the hand was withdrawn and he be- 
 came radiant. "O Mother, Mother," he said. 
 ' ' I was afraid you forgot ! ' ' 
 
 November jrd, 1902. When I was tucking 
 Stanley into bed to-night, after a day in which he 
 had been absolutely all that heart could wish, so 
 sunshiny, helpful, and plucky, he said: "Do you 
 know why I have been so good to-day? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, it's because I got to finking last night 
 that I b'leeved I 'd feel better if I 'd be gooder. 
 
148 Note-Book of 
 
 So I stood up and said: 'Well, what are you go- 
 ing to do about it to-morrow?' (to myself, you 
 know), and I said it real loud." 
 
 "Yes, and then what did you answer? " 
 "Did n't say a word. Kept still, so as to 
 s'prise myself by being good, you know! " 
 
 November Jth, 1902. I have never read any- 
 thing on the cultivation of politeness in children 
 which impressed me as more practically sugges- 
 tive than an incident in the papers a few years 
 ago. A small boy's manners improved so after 
 he entered school that his mother cross-questioned 
 him to find out what the teacher did to secure 
 such results. "Nothing," was the indignant 
 reply. 
 
 "She surely must do something," persisted the 
 mother. 
 
 "I tell you she does n't do nothing," replied 
 the child. "She just walks around and is polite, 
 and it makes us feel as polite as anything." 
 
 One idea Ernest and I try to develop in our 
 home that the people we love, and with whom 
 we live every day, are just as much entitled to 
 courtesy as guests; in fact, we say that if any 
 difference is to be made it should be in favor of 
 those dearest to us. Unlike some men, Ernest 
 lives up to this. I try to be a good example, 
 also, but sometimes think that the home-maker 
 has to contend against more practical difficulties, 
 
An Adopted Mother 149 
 
 because often so flurried with conflicting duties 
 and calls for attention. In such emergencies it is 
 well if one can fall back upon a good reputation 
 for courtesy. Something of that sort happened 
 this very evening, and made me think on these 
 things. 
 
 I was very tired, and Stanley had many last 
 requests to make after he was in bed, all coming 
 from his own fatigue and restlessness, and yet so 
 plausible that there was nothing for me but to 
 accede. At last I threw myself on my own bed 
 for a wee nap before beginning my evening's 
 work. Another question came, and I answered 
 in a tone which certainly was impatient, although 
 the words were right. 
 
 There was quite a silence, and then a grieved 
 little voice from the next room said: "Why, 
 Mother, you talk as if you was scolding me." 
 Then, happily: "But I know you was n't reelly, 
 because I know you don't scold." 
 
 How ashamed I felt ! I could only answer 
 truthfully: "I am sorry. I did n't mean to scold, 
 dear." 
 
 My shame deepened as Stanley added: "I 
 know! You don't need to tell me. I know you 
 ar'n't that kind of a mother." 
 
 He is very discriminating as to "kinds of 
 mothers." "What do you fink?" he asked the 
 other day. "When I was over to Edwin's, his 
 mother said that he could do somefing and then 
 
150 Note-Book of 
 
 that he could n't. After she had said that he 
 could, you know." 
 
 Mothers need to be extra good, I am sure, be- 
 cause their children see them behind the scenes 
 while constantly seeing other people before the 
 footlights. Once when I was delayed about get- 
 ting dinner, and so over-hurried in my prepara- 
 tions, I asked Stanley to save his questions. "I 
 cannot answer them now," I said rather emphati- 
 cally; "don't you see how many things I am 
 cooking all at once? " 
 
 "If I was the minister's little boy," he re- 
 marked, "if I was the minister's little boy, I fink 
 he would tell me rings even if he was cooking." 
 
 Perhaps one reason why it is so hard to in- 
 culcate politeness is that it is difficult to explain 
 the reason back of many small refinements of life. 
 Conventionality is in almost constant conflict with 
 a child's instincts, and yet, if we are not afraid to 
 think, or too indolent to explain, we can generally 
 make children understand that there is a good 
 reason for all social usages. Then they see some 
 sense in observing them. Stanley is chivalry 
 itself in the matter of waiting on girls and women, 
 for he understands that they are not equal to 
 heavy work, like boys and men. Table manners 
 are the hardest for him to acquire, yet he is quick 
 to notice their lack in others. "Mother," he 
 said, soon after a certain clergyman left our 
 house: "Mother, was n't it too bad how Doctor 
 
An Adopted Mother 151 
 
 Blank played with his spoon? He did just this 
 way." Whereupon he repeated a nervous trick 
 of Doctor Blank's to perfection. 
 
 And what could I say? Only that the gentle- 
 man's mother had probably not made him careful 
 when he was a little boy. 
 
 I tell Stanley that when people really have to 
 say things which others do not like to hear, it is 
 well to begin with something pleasant if possible, 
 and I have illustrated what I mean, he seeming 
 to catch the idea. There is much in the way a 
 statement is made, and I was greatly edified a 
 few days since by his manner of declining an invi- 
 tation to visit some elderly acquaintances. ' ' Fank 
 you," he said, "but I reelly need all my time for 
 play." 
 
 When one remembers that he is the most boyish 
 type of boy, brimming over with fun and seldom 
 still for a minute, Stanley's manners seem very 
 fair. He should be classified in the sweater type, 
 in contradistinction to the ruffled-collar type, yet 
 I hope he can grow up without ever feeling that 
 gentlemanliness and manliness are incompatible. 
 On one point I am perfectly satisfied. I never 
 knew a child who so uniformly respected the 
 property of others. If this is my doing, it has 
 not been to any appreciable extent the result 
 of precept, but almost entirely that of example. 
 He has his shelves and his desk for toys and 
 papers. When he finishes playing with certain 
 
152 Note-Book of 
 
 things he is supposed to return them to place be- 
 fore taking out others. At night his belongings 
 are to be in his receptacles. If I find them else- 
 where I have the privilege of putting them away 
 for a week. When they are kept within bounds 
 I never interfere. I never destroy a scrap of 
 paper or string belonging to him, although the 
 accumulation may be tremendous. Instead, I 
 wait for some rainy day and let him sort them 
 over for a bonfire in the grate, I being near to 
 offer a word of advice now and then. 
 
 An acquaintance of mine recently told what a 
 terrible temper her daughter exhibited because 
 the mother had burned up "a litter of old toys" 
 without warning the child. I wonder how I 
 would feel if somebody were to destroy half of 
 my possessions in my absence? I rather think I 
 should develop a temper also, and where is the 
 difference from an ethical standpoint? Children 
 tire of most toys in a few weeks, and are perfectly 
 willing to have them destroyed, put away for a 
 time, or sent in mission boxes, if they are worth 
 sending. Courtesy and consideration will never 
 become natural to a child, will never be anything 
 more than a veneer added for the sake of policy, 
 unless he has witnessed and experienced the re- 
 sults of politeness at home, while still in the 
 plastic period of life. 
 
 November loth, 1902. To-night I had a sweet 
 
An Adopted Mother 153 
 
 little surprise as a comforting close to what had 
 been an unusually wearing day. I was watching 
 Stanley undress himself for bed, lending a hand 
 occasionally on the hardest buttons and the tight- 
 est knots of the shoe-laces, when he suddenly 
 paused, put his elbow on his knee and his chin 
 on his hand, and said: "O, Mother, I don't see 
 how I could ever get along without you ! " 
 
 "What made you think of that, dear? " I said. 
 
 "Well, I was just finking what a good mother 
 you are and what lots of rings you do for me, and 
 then I fought how I just could n't stand it not to 
 have you. You are reelly a very good mother, 
 you know. ... I just love to look at you." 
 
 November ijth, 1902. Perseverance and pa- 
 tience will accomplish almost anything with a 
 child who thinks. What puzzles me now is 
 whether all children can be induced to think. I 
 believe they can at least all who could not be 
 classified as defectives. I should hesitate to gen- 
 eralize on the strength of my experience with 
 Stanley, but presuming on what I have had with 
 several hundred other children, and taking him 
 only as corroborative evidence, I feel quite sure 
 of my ground. 
 
 I more and more firmly believe that any method 
 of governing children is a failure unless it has for 
 its fundamental idea the making them self-govern- 
 ing just as soon as they are capable and to just 
 
i54 Note-Book of 
 
 the extent in which they are capable, not waiting 
 to give them all the responsibility at once, but 
 letting them assume it a little at a time. 
 
 A man must fight his battles with himself, and 
 it is better that a boy should do the same. Any 
 other method is only temporary and a makeshift. 
 I have thought this for many years, and the way 
 in which my belief is modified as time passes is 
 that I feel more and more faith in the child. If 
 children live among those who are honest with 
 each other and with themselves, it becomes nat- 
 ural for them to be equally candid. 
 
 I have much to encourage me in regard to 
 Stanley. Yesterday he and I lunched together, 
 Ernest being out of town. He likes to wait upon 
 himself, but spilled some cream which he was 
 pouring. I had cautioned him in advance, so 
 afterward I helped undo the mischief and kept 
 still. After chatting about other things for a 
 while, he said : "Little boys feel better when they 
 are good, don't they? You know I was sort of 
 careless and spilled that cream. . . . Careless 
 is n't bad, but it 's pretty much alike, and boys 
 does feel better when they are good when they 
 are vurry, vurry good." 
 
 This morning he was a disturbing element 
 during prayers, which are never long, and are 
 planned especially with the idea of making them 
 comprehensible to him. Afterward I said he 
 should sit quietly in his chair for ten minutes to 
 
An Adopted Mother 155 
 
 make up for it. If he could not sit quietly, then 
 he would have to try it longer. I put his chair 
 in front of the clock, showed him where the hands 
 would be at the end of ten minutes, and told him 
 that he might get up then if he felt sure he had 
 been good enough. 
 
 I went about my work in another room. Ten 
 minutes passed and all was quiet, although there 
 had been a little noise at first. At the end of 
 thirteen he came dancing to the door with his 
 face aglow. "I am all right now, Mother," he 
 said. "I was a little bad at the very first, so I 
 did n't get up at the time you said, but I fink it 's 
 fair to now." 
 
 What a change in the last six months ! Then 
 telling him to sit in his chair for ten minutes 
 would make a scene for an hour, ending in a 
 striking and kicking outburst of temper, floods of 
 tears, and a tired mother and son for the rest of 
 the day. 
 
 November iqth, 1902. Is there any subject 
 which will so entrance the average child as the 
 coming of a new baby to some home in which he 
 is interested? I am sure there is none which will 
 so stimulate his natural inclination to ask ques- 
 tions. And they are such hard questions to an- 
 swer ! The one mistake that my mother made in 
 her early life with me was giving untrue replies 
 to these questions. I remember she had always 
 
Note-Book of 
 
 told of finding me in a rose beside the front porch. 
 I had asked her on which of the several bushes 
 there that particular rose grew. She pointed out 
 the tallest, and for several successive Junes I 
 made furtive examinations of all its buds in the 
 hope of finding a baby brother or sister. 
 
 Not until I was eight years old and more criti- 
 cal did it occur to me that roses do not bloom or 
 even bud early in March. It was a fatal anachron- 
 ism, and nothing in all my childhood was such a 
 deep and lasting hurt as the loss of confidence in 
 my mother which came to me then. I know that 
 she was only following the custom of her time in 
 hushing all such queries and putting me off with 
 evasive and fanciful answers, but the results were 
 disastrous, and she was so far in advance of her 
 time in all her other ideas of child-training that 
 this mistake stands out more prominently by 
 comparison. I resolved long ago that whatever 
 questions Stanley might ask should either be 
 answered truthfully or not at all. 
 
 He is very fond of Mr. and Mrs. Woodward, 
 and often wishes that their little son had lived to 
 be a comfort to them and a playmate for him. 
 When he first heard that there had once been a 
 baby there, and asked how long it had lived, I 
 told him "only a short time, about an hour and a 
 half." 
 
 "How long is that? " he asked. 
 
 "About as long as we stay in church." 
 
An Adopted Mother 157 
 
 "As long as we stay in church?" said he. 
 "Well, I fink that is pretty long." 
 
 This morning I had great joy in the news with 
 which I awakened him. "I have something very 
 sweet to tell you, dear," I said. "God has given 
 a little daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Woodward." 
 
 And then there was trouble, for he thought 
 "God reelly ought to have sent her here," and it 
 took all my tact and persuasiveness to convince 
 him that she was more needed in the home to 
 which she had been sent. Then the questions 
 began. 
 
 "How did God get her down?" 
 
 "I can't tell you that. When they first saw 
 her she was on the bed in Mrs. Woodward's room, 
 and I can't tell you any more." 
 
 "Mother, if you had found her there would she 
 have been yours? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not even if you owned the house?" 
 
 "Not if the Woodwards were living there." 
 
 "But, Mother, s'posing you owned it and it was 
 empty?" 
 
 "Yes, I might have kept her if she had been 
 found in an empty house of mine." (It occurs 
 to me to wonder if this had anything to do with 
 Stanley's wanting to play around one of my 
 houses which is unoccupied, to-day.) 
 
 After breakfast came another flood of questions, 
 too many to record them all. "How old was the 
 
158 Note-Book of 
 
 baby when she came? Not old at all? Just fin- 
 ished? How old is she now? Not quite one day? 
 Humph ! If she was a boy, she 'd be a lot older 
 'n that by this time!" 
 
 November 2Oth, 1902. This morning Stanley 
 crawled sleepily out of bed, rubbed his eyes, and 
 said, quite as though he had been considering the 
 matter all night: "I 'm going to have a baby of 
 my own pretty soon, Mother. I 'm going to buy 
 one. I fink I will buy the Bertram baby. Don't 
 you fink she is a good one? " 
 
 November 2ist, 1902. Mine is such a busy life 
 that when Stanley first came I wondered how I 
 should find time to keep up a real intimacy with 
 him and still not neglect >the work already on 
 hand. It is not good for a child to have preoccu- 
 pied parents and be greeted with a request to 
 "run away, dear," nearly every time that he 
 comes in with what he considers news of great 
 importance. Now I have things on a most satis- 
 factory basis. From the time I rise until he is off 
 for school, I do what I call "interruptable work," 
 tucking in light household tasks which I do not 
 care to delegate to my one servant. When he 
 leaves I write out the bill-of-fare for the next 
 twenty-four hours, then I go to my desk until he 
 returns for luncheon. While he is eating I sew 
 and visit with him. He leaves, Ernest comes, 
 
An Adopted Mother 159 
 
 and we have our luncheon. Ernest leaves, and I 
 dress for the afternoon, work at my desk until 
 Stanley comes, give myself utterly to visiting with 
 him, hearing about his school-day, the new words 
 he has learned, etc., until he is ready to play. 
 Then we settle on the playmate and the field of 
 their activity, and I am often free to go out for a 
 couple of calls, my marketing for the next day, 
 or perhaps a four-mile walk in the country. 
 
 With Stanley's short school hours I can easily 
 do this and still have twenty minutes or so to 
 snuggle and visit in the couch corner or look at 
 "animal books " when he is ready for dinner and 
 before it is served. After dinner we play marbles 
 or something equally mild until the clock strikes 
 seven. Then he goes to bed, and when he is 
 tucked in I have my evening before me, the first 
 part being sometimes broken in upon by his diffi- 
 culty in going to sleep. 
 
 I do not see that he has really taken very much 
 of my time, yet he has always found me approach- 
 able, and as bed-time draws near he has been per- 
 mitted to monopolize me utterly for a while. 
 He never doubts that he will be welcome, and 
 salutes me on his return from school with his 
 familiar: "O Mother, you are always so glad to 
 see me! Oh, ar'nt you glad you have a little 
 boy? And am I not glad I have a mother? 
 S'posing we did n't have each other! Would n't 
 that be sad?" 
 
160 Note-Book of 
 
 In the emergencies when I cannot be free to 
 visit with him at the regular times, he seems to 
 think it quite as much a misfortune for me as for 
 him, and if it is writing or something of that sort 
 which preoccupies me, he tiptoes around very 
 carefully, saying: "I will take Peter into the 
 other room so he won't 'sturb you, and then you 
 will be froo sooner, and wont you be glad when 
 you can visit with your boy? " 
 
 Stanley has told me, with the suggestive candor 
 of childhood, that his "other mother had a very 
 beautiful face," but he quite took away the sting 
 of this when he said, a day or so later: "I love to 
 look at your face, Mother, because it is always so 
 smiley in it." 
 
 What I am aiming at is this and I wish to put 
 it on paper for my own benefit, to be reread in 
 the days when it is easy to lose hold of the better 
 way of doing things that I know there is rarely 
 a day, in my life at least, when I cannot by care- 
 ful planning give to my boy all he needs of the 
 fullest and sweetest companionship. It is very 
 little time that a thoroughly healthy child of 
 school age can be with his mother, and it is poor 
 policy and poor economy of time (in the long run) 
 for the mother to put him off then. 
 
 Before I had my views formulated and my sys- 
 tem so well developed, there were days when I let 
 Stanley play out too long before dinner, thus get- 
 ting an extra quarter of an hour in which to finish 
 
An Adopted Mother 161 
 
 some interesting task. Things always went wrong 
 in consequence, and it took me quite a while to 
 see the relation between cause and effect. Being 
 overtired, he would rebel at the cleaning up which 
 had to precede dinner, be disagreeable at the 
 table, and when tucked into bed would have long 
 crying spells and suffer from fright or something 
 he did not know what. Often my stolen fifteen 
 minutes made a bad quarter of an hour for me, 
 and by the time he was safely asleep I was too 
 tired and unstrung to do anything but follow his 
 example. It takes considerable steadfastness al- 
 ways to follow the wise and far-sighted policy, but 
 it pays every time. 
 
 November 2jth, 1902. I shall always remember 
 a sermon on "Unconscious Influence" which I 
 heard preached five years ago, but I heard another 
 and much briefer one in my own kitchen to-day 
 which will linger quite as long in my memory. 
 
 The text of the first sermon was from the fifth 
 chapter of Acts: "They brought forth the sick 
 into the streets, and laid them on beds and 
 couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter 
 passing by might overshadow some of them." 
 
 The text of the second sermon appears to have 
 been my kitchen apron, which I had unwittingly 
 misused in some emergency. 
 
 Stanley had been playing beside me as I pre- 
 pared for our Thanksgiving dinner party. He 
 
1 62 Note-Book of 
 
 had his small work-apron on and his hands and 
 arms were quite wet, when for some reason he 
 suddenly needed to have them dry. I had just 
 removed the hand towel to substitute a new one. 
 
 "Dear! " said he. "My hands are all wet. I 
 know! I '11 wipe 'em on my apron. There! 
 You see I don't have to ask you if I can do that, 
 because I 've seen you do it your own self." 
 
 I doubt if studied oratory ever sent a sermon 
 home to the auditor's heart as Stanley's upturned 
 face of smiling trust sent this home to mine. And 
 won't I have a care in the future for kitchen aprons 
 and other things? 
 
 November 28th, 1902. This rather unfortunate 
 Thanksgiving Day began with a bad fire in our 
 furnace chimney and ended with my servant's 
 leaving me for a factory. The fire started before 
 daylight, and when I went out to see the flames 
 they were still blazing high. Being reduced to 
 soft coal had made the mischief, and it was really 
 a close call for the house. 
 
 Ernest felt that our escape from a big fire was 
 almost miraculous, and kept alluding to it at 
 table. He did not notice how wide Stanley's 
 eyes were opening, or think about the effect on 
 him, until a reproachful voice said: "Do you 
 fink it is a good fing to talk about chimneys burn- 
 ing out before little boys? " 
 
 And that has made me wonder if we are not 
 
An Adopted Mother 163 
 
 often inconsiderate in this way. We hold back 
 things which we do not wish to have repeated 
 outside, but in that we are only selfish. We do 
 not think enough of how our chance remarks may 
 be the base of persisting fears. In another way 
 I know that I sometimes fail to keep the right 
 balance. Ernest and I have so little time to- 
 gether that we have much to discuss at meal- 
 hours, and I ask Stanley to talk less on that 
 account. I do not wish him to eat in silence, for 
 he must be our companion and learn to talk easily 
 and well, but sometimes I forget and talk above 
 his head for too long. This happened a few 
 nights since, and then he said politely but firmly : 
 "If you please, I would like to talk about fishes 
 and guns and nice fings." 
 
 One point has to be insisted upon, however, in 
 this family. When Ernest and I are talking to 
 each other, we must not be interrupted with re- 
 quests for explanations of what we have said. 
 Stanley understands that when we talk to him we 
 will explain as much as may be necessary, and 
 that is all. Of course I sometimes find the tables 
 turned, but I can stand that, although it is hard 
 to keep a straight face when he says, in reply to 
 some impulsive question of mine: "I was telling 
 Father about that, and I don't fink I can explain 
 it to you." That is one of the times when I 
 pocket my pride for the sake of his sense of fair 
 play. 
 
1 64 Note-Book of 
 
 November jotk, 1902. Our poor little lad is 
 asleep at last, and I am nearly exhausted from 
 the strain of trying to comfort him and hold back 
 my own tears. To think that he has had such a 
 heartache and kept it from me all these months! 
 It must be that when he left the School, he and his 
 brother Sidney built air-castles and dwelt in them 
 so long that they came to count them as realities, 
 for I am sure those in authority would not ease 
 the parting by making false promises. At all 
 events he came here in the belief that his brother 
 was soon to follow, and his poor, loyal little heart 
 has been growing weary with hope deferred. 
 
 He has asked me several times when he could 
 have Sidney to play with again, and I have told 
 him to be patient until we should visit my mother 
 in the city where the School is situated then we 
 would go up and get him. I never dreamed that 
 we were misunderstanding each other. Neither 
 did I dream that Stanley's frequent crying spells 
 at night were caused by homesickness for Sidney. 
 He always said it was because he was so tired, 
 and in a sense I suppose he was right. 
 
 But it all came out to-night when he asked me 
 if Sidney were not coming here to live pretty 
 soon. I answered as tactfully as I could and be 
 truthful. Then came the break-down. I hope I 
 shall never again witness such floods of tears and 
 such anguish of spirit in a little child. For a long 
 time he could not even speak, then he began to 
 
An Adopted Mother 165 
 
 plead brokenly for Sidney in a way that was 
 harder for me than the passion of crying which 
 had preceded it. 
 
 "He is the vurry goodest brother in the world. 
 . . . You would like him. . . . He could 
 do lots of fings for you more than I can. . . . 
 I want to see him so bad that it seems as if I would 
 die. And I know he wants to see me just as bad. 
 . . . We are brothers, you know, and broth- 
 ers had ought to be together, don't you fink so? 
 . . . He is bigger than I am. He is eight 
 years old, and he could help take care of me when 
 I am so little. Then I would n't make you so 
 much work and you would n't get so tired. . . . 
 O dear, dear, DEAR Mother, you don't know 
 how it feels to want somebody so bad and not 
 have him. . . . Don't cry, Mother. Please 
 don't ! Is it about your little baby what is up 
 with God? Do you want him as bad as I want 
 my brother? . . . See, I am stopping crying. 
 
 I will be froo pretty soon, and then I can 
 comfort you better. . . . There ! Put your 
 head on my shoulder and I will pat your cheek. 
 
 I wish you was my brother, and then 
 we would have another mother just exactly like 
 you. . . . I 'm afraid, though, there is n't 
 any other mother in the world what looks like 
 you. . . . Don't cry! Just laugh about 
 somefing and keep right on laughing, and then 
 you '11 stop crying. . . . I do that way lots 
 
1 66 Note-Book of 
 
 of times when I get to finking about Sidney and 
 wanting him only it 's harder when you 're in 
 bed. . . . It is harder when you 're so tired, 
 too. . . . We will have to comfort each other, 
 won't we? And you know I 'm a comfort, don't 
 you? . . . Only I reelly fink it is worse about 
 Sidney, 'cause he is just at the School and the 
 big boys are mean to him. You know the angels 
 ar'n't teasing your baby." 
 
 The dear little fellow is hardly more than a 
 baby himself, in spite of his manly ways and his 
 clear thinking, and I stayed by to cuddle and 
 soothe him as well as I could for two hours, until 
 his tired and tear-stained eyes closed in sleep. 
 Then Ernest came and we both broke down when 
 I told him about it. Of course taking a second 
 boy is out of the question, for that would mean 
 three children in the home after we adopted the 
 little girl, yet if Ernest were willing, I believe I 
 would be. Sidney is certainly an exceptionally 
 desirable boy, for I watched him closely when 
 deciding upon Stanley. 
 
 December ist (morning), 1902. Stanley is facing 
 the inevitable with his usual courage. "You 
 know about last night?" he said, while I was 
 helping him dress. "Well, it 's all over now. 
 But, Mother, you will be a comfort to me, won't 
 you? . . . Mother, why do you ever talk 
 cross to me?" 
 
An Adopted Mother 167 
 
 "Do I, dear? Is n't it just when I am in a 
 hurry and say something quickly? " 
 
 "No, sometimes you say 'Stanley!' just like 
 that, and it makes me feel bad." 
 
 Evidently I have not yet learned how to be 
 "the best kind of a comfort." 
 
 December 1st (night), 1902. This has been one 
 of those days when things come in a heap. Four 
 big rolls of proof on my desk to be read and re- 
 turned by to-night's mail, and an unusual amount 
 of work to do in the kitchen. A very busy morn- 
 ing was just ended when Stanley came home from 
 school in his usual voracious state and asked me 
 to get him a new slate-cloth while he ate. I 
 could n't just then, but spread forth the luncheon 
 which he always has to eat early and alone, and 
 visited with him while preparing the luncheon 
 proper, which has to suit the hours of a business 
 man, uncertain as those may be. 
 
 So it chanced that, by the time I was free to 
 find the slate-cloth, I had quite forgotten. Stan- 
 ley had also, and it was not until he had eaten, 
 washed, been given a supplementary polish, prop- 
 erly kissed and ushered to the front door, that 
 either of us remembered the slate-cloth. I flew 
 back and found an old piece of cretonne, the birds 
 and flowers of which I thought would delight any 
 child. 
 
 When I reappeared Stanley refused to take it. 
 
1 68 Note-Book of 
 
 The other boys had white ones and he wanted a 
 white one. I regretted that he was not pleased 
 with it, but said it was all I could give him then. 
 He declared he would go without any. I said 
 that his teacher had told him to bring one, and it 
 would be wrong in him not to do so when he 
 might have this. 
 
 With a face like a thunder-cloud he replied : "I 
 don't care, I won't take it! So now! " 
 
 There were signs of a genuine explosion of 
 temper coming, so I dropped the cloth on the 
 front steps and said: "I have no time to stand 
 here and talk. There is the cloth. Miss Murray 
 told you to bring one, and I have given you this. 
 Now I shall not even wait to see whether you 
 mind. Good-by. " 
 
 The kitchen work went on, Ernest came to 
 luncheon, and I was just ready to begin on the 
 proof, when the door-bell rang and I went, only 
 to find Stanley and a second boy, the latter with 
 a note. Stanley was tearful and with those mys- 
 terious grimy streaks which appear on even the 
 cleanest boy's face when he cries (to my mind 
 one of the strongest evidences that we were created 
 out of dust). The note was from Miss Murray. 
 4 * Stanley says that he is sick," she wrote, "and so 
 I send him home." 
 
 He had told me only a few days before of a 
 playmate who had feigned illness to obtain an 
 afternoon for play, so my suspicions were aroused. 
 
An Adopted Mother 169 
 
 I appeared most concerned and tucked him 
 up, protesting, on the sitting-room lounge. If 
 little boys were too sick to stay in school, 
 they must keep very, very quiet and not try to 
 play with anything. I would go into the next 
 room with my work and perhaps he might fall 
 asleep. 
 
 Soon he followed and was sobbing on my shoul- 
 der. "Mother," said he, "I don't fink that per- 
 haps I am reelly sick. Not some ways, anyhow. 
 I don't fink I need to lie down. I fink I 'd better 
 get up on your lap." 
 
 "Well, just for a minute, dear, until I am sure 
 what is the matter with you," I said, thinking 
 that a little cuddling might restore healthy action 
 to the conscience. 
 
 Then the confession came, with copious tears 
 and stormy sobbing. "Mother, I felt so vurry, 
 vurry badly. That made me sick. It was about 
 that cloth, you know. I did n't take it. But I 
 kept finking and finking about it, and I could n't 
 study and we had a class and I could n't read 
 I cried instead and I fought I was sick. But I 
 am not. Only I feel so. My head aches and 
 in here [placing his hand over his heart] And, 
 O Mother,! am so vurry, vurry sorry." 
 
 There is no use of putting down what I said. 
 They were the same things which any mother 
 would have said in my place, only I may have 
 laid more stress than some would upon God's 
 
1 70 Note-Book of 
 
 wish that we should not make ourselves unhappy 
 over confessed and forgiven naughtinesses. 
 
 Next I had to persuade him to return to school 
 and resume his work. He felt he could not. I 
 had to tell him that if he refused to go it would 
 make him feel sick and unhappy again, and it 
 would not be right for him to miss doing his work 
 when he felt better. It was right for him to come 
 home and tell me how sorry he was, but now it 
 was right for him to go back. Then I wrote and 
 read aloud a note to Miss Murray, saying that 
 Stanley was feeling better and was coming back 
 to work. A good washing of hands and face, an 
 extra portion of good-by kisses, and he went off 
 radiant, with the cretonne clutched in his hand, 
 "an outward and visible sign of an inward and 
 spiritual grace." 
 
 "Isn't it queer," he said, "how you stop 
 feeling sick after you 've told your mother 
 rings?" 
 
 December ^.th, 1902. Stanley's interest in the 
 Woodward baby shows no signs of flagging, al- 
 though of course he has asked so many questions 
 and received so many answers that he does not 
 feel the necessity of talking quite so much. Her 
 constantly increasing age is now the matter of 
 greatest interest. This morning his first question 
 was, "How old is that dear little baby now?" 
 And when I told him he said: "Now she has 
 
An Adopted Mother 171 
 
 sleeped on earf fifteen nights. I fink she is get- 
 ting pretty old, for her." 
 
 December 6th, 1902. Last night I had another 
 illustration of Stanley's keen analysis of his own 
 failings, although this was rather more charitable 
 and by way of exoneration than such analyses 
 usually are. The furnace was acting badly and 
 the house was not properly warmed. The day 
 had been an exceedingly good one for him, but 
 to my surprise he was very cross and unreason- 
 able for a few minutes while undressing. When 
 finally buttoned into his thick little pajamas, he 
 stood still by the register and said : "What makes 
 little boys cross, I wonder? What made me cross 
 then? Do you s'pose it was 'cause I was cold? 
 What else makes people cross? I fink it's being 
 cold or sick or hungry or tired." 
 
 So we had to have a talk about crossness, all 
 cuddled up together in a blanket shawl, while my 
 dinner dishes stood untouched upon the table and 
 the clock marked off the minutes past his bed- 
 time. I find that we come especially near to each 
 other at bedtime, and besides, this was a chance 
 to utilize that "wonder-power" which makes the 
 child's mind so receptive to new ideas. A little 
 lost sleep may be easily made up, but opportuni- 
 ties seldom return. 
 
 With question and answer and occasional kiss, 
 we reasoned it all out to our own satisfaction. 
 
1 72 Note-Book of 
 
 We decided that people were much more likely to 
 be cross when cold or sick or hungry or tired, and 
 that others should be more patient with them 
 then. But that being cold or sick or hungry or 
 tired did n't make it really right to be cross. It 
 was only a reason for trying harder not to be so. 
 We found that if mothers let themselves be cross 
 whenever they felt badly, boys would have a hard 
 time. We found, too, that if boys could n't be 
 tired without being cross, they should stop playing 
 so hard. And then the funny little lad was tucked 
 snugly into bed, at peace with all the world, and 
 soon forgot the trials and temptations of life. 
 
 What a joke he had at my expense to-night ! 
 When he stands up for his good-night hug and 
 kiss, I always say: "This has been a good day, 
 dear," if the circumstances warrant it. When the 
 day has been a very naughty one, nothing is said, 
 but he shows his consciousness of it by a sad look 
 after the kiss, so sad that I sometimes answer the 
 unspoken thought by saying: "You will have a 
 chance to make to-morrow better, you know." 
 
 When the day has been marred by only trivial 
 naughtiness, he usually introduces the subject by 
 saying: "Good day, Mother? All busseppin [but 
 excepting] " and waits for me to mention the 
 exceptions, on which he comments with the 
 greatest freedom, quite as though another were 
 the culprit. 
 
 To-night I was rather preoccupied when I said, 
 
An Adopted Mother 173 
 
 "This has been a very good day, dear, and you 
 have been a comfort to me." He drew back 
 most soberly and said: "Busseppin one time. 
 You know ! " I could recall no naughtiness and 
 said as much. 
 
 "Fink some more, Mother," said he. 
 
 I thought and could recall all of the day save 
 the breakfast hour, so I very foolishly answered : 
 4 ' Excepting breakfast-time, was n't it ? That was 
 not very bad. 
 
 May I ever remember the results of my du- 
 plicity. Like a flash came the laughter and the 
 triumphant reply: "O Mother! To-day there 
 was n't any busseppin! It was all good, just as 
 good as could be. Joke on you ! " 
 
 December loth, 1902. I have the queerest feel- 
 ing of being on probation while Stanley is making 
 his exhaustive study of mothers in general and 
 his own in particular. I never had quite this feel- 
 ing before, although I have probably been watched 
 just as critically and much more intelligently. I 
 suppose Ernest used to study me in some such 
 way before he seriously considered inviting me to 
 become Mrs. Ernest (after that idea had him in 
 its possession, he was presumably less analytical). 
 But a busy young woman has no time for self- 
 consciousness, and then he did not tell me of his 
 observations and conclusions as he made them. 
 Stanley does. 
 
174 Note-Book of 
 
 He was visiting with me in the kitchen to-night 
 while I was preparing dinner, asking me innumer- 
 able questions and making such quaint comments 
 on the events of the day that the fun of it kept 
 striking me afresh, even when I had almost more 
 work on hand than I could manage. A sense of 
 humor combines beautifully with housework. 
 
 Then I became aware of his especial scrutiny. 
 "I fink/' said he, ''that you are the funniest 
 mother in the world you laugh so much. Do 
 you know what Harry's mother does? He helps 
 her and every fing, but she is cross just the same, 
 because she does so much work, and the Sey- 
 mours' mother is just horrid." 
 
 "Well, you know what kind of boys she has. 
 Bad boys make cross mothers and good boys 
 make happy mothers." 
 
 "But Harry's mother is cross when she works. 
 And they don't any of them laugh like you. I 
 fink that good mothers make good boys. Don't 
 you see? You are a good mother and I am a good 
 boy." 
 
 December ijtkj 1902. What a blessed thing it 
 is to understand the magic of make-believe. I 
 learned it long ago, and now my little boy is find- 
 ing the way to that happy realm where the sun 
 can always shine and life is never dull. I hope 
 he may never forget it. Surely it is wise to keep 
 our hold on some of the fancifulness of childhood. 
 
An Adopted Mother 175 
 
 My mother has never quite comprehended how 
 so exceedingly practical a person as I can find 
 comfort or diversion in pretence, but has at last 
 come to acknowledge that since I find happiness 
 in it, the absurdity does not matter. I remember 
 how she laughed about the way in which I tided 
 over my Chicago measles. I say my Chicago 
 measles, because I cannot break myself of the 
 habit of having the measles every eight or nine 
 years. It is a dreadful thing to have such a pen- 
 chant for contagious diseases, and measles of one 
 nationality or another seems to be my pathologi- 
 cal specialty. 
 
 Now I maintain that when one is quarantined 
 in a boarding-house hall bedroom, holding only 
 keyhole communication with one's fellow-citizens, 
 it is infinitely wiser to live a life of happy fancies 
 than to lounge helpless on one's couch and rebel 
 at fate. My days were most systematic. After 
 a leisurely breakfast alone, I put my room in ex- 
 quisite order, then I had my little quiet hour. 
 After that a brisk walk to and fro, with wraps 
 on and a driblet of fresh air coming in from the 
 screened window. 
 
 Next came mnemonics, and it was surprising to 
 see what a number of fine poems I could recall 
 word for word. Then I put literature aside for 
 theoretical sewing and carefully planned the de- 
 tails of making over and supplementing my modest 
 wardrobe. Some of these plans I jotted down 
 
Note-Book of 
 
 with closed eyes, so that they might be ready for 
 future reference. Then I lay down for a rest, 
 made a fresh toilet for luncheon, ate what the 
 maid brought to me, took another walk and visited 
 several of my friends, in the spirit. 
 
 Such delightful conversations as we had on all 
 sorts of topics ! Only it was I who said all the 
 bright things in these talks, whereas in real inter- 
 course it was more frequently the other way. 
 Next, perhaps, would be the planning of original 
 stories, nearly all of which have since been written 
 out and published. Another rest, and by that 
 time I had to dress hurriedly for dinner, which 
 was always the event of the day, for then I had 
 large parties of friends to dine with me, repre- 
 sented by their photographs. No shirking of 
 toilet details for such occasions as these ! Every 
 lock of hair must lie in its place, and if my face 
 was a trifle too rosy, why should it not be with so 
 much excitement? 
 
 They were really happy and contented days. 
 They did not seem particularly long, and what a 
 lot of thinking I did ! I might almost have sus- 
 pended cerebration for the next twelvemonth on 
 the strength of it. 
 
 But I drift sadly from my purpose of recording 
 Stanley's development and significant remarks. 
 To-night when he was very tired and I busy get- 
 ting the dinner, he fretted and fussed for lack of 
 diversion until I suggested a game of supposing. 
 
An Adopted Mother 177 
 
 We took turns in suggesting the conditions. 
 "S'posing," said he, "we had n't any house at 
 all, and right in winter." 
 
 "What would you do?" 
 
 1 ' I would go right to Dr. Darrow [a great friend 
 of his] and ask him where I could have a house." 
 
 "And what would he say? " 
 
 "He 'd say 'Well, there is the Woodward 
 house' ; and I 'd say, 'Well, I might try it. ' Then 
 after I 'd tried it, if I liked it, you know, I 'd pay 
 him some money and he 'd let me stay." 
 
 Oh, we had a lovely time supposing, and such 
 experiments help me comprehend the limitations 
 and misconceptions of the child's mind. 
 
 Stanley sometimes utilizes this power of imagin- 
 ation in highly original fashion. I remember one 
 sweltering day last summer, before we went north, 
 when he and Anita found their regular games 
 "too hot and sweaty," so sat down on the back 
 steps and played that they were in the house and 
 the house was down in the bottom of the cistern. 
 For about twenty minutes they talked of swim- 
 ming around from one room to another and how 
 cold and wet it was, until at last I saw Stanley 
 rise with a veritable shiver and heard him say, 
 "Now let 's run around a little while and get 
 warm.', 
 
 Occasionally, though, he encounters difficulties, 
 as he did when visiting on the cottage porch with 
 his grandmother. She had told him about calling 
 
1 78 Note-Book of 
 
 on a friend and being followed home by two tiny 
 kittens, who were in turn chased by a dog, and 
 finally spent the night cuddled together on the 
 limb of a tree. This, with the details of their 
 rescue by grandfather the next morning, made 
 a very thrilling story. 
 
 This time he wanted to dramatize it, saying: 
 "Now, Grandmother, you be the dog and I will 
 be the kitties." 
 
 To which grandmother replied : "How can you 
 be two kitties? Perhaps one will want to stay on 
 the tree and the other to run on the walk." 
 
 "Well," said Stanley slowly and winking with 
 great deliberation, "no say I will be half a 
 kitty and, no er er half of me will be a kitty 
 and no, I will be all of one kitty and well, 
 never mind, let 's go on playing." 
 
 December isth, 1902. The little lad is just 
 tucked in and I am writing in his room. It would 
 have taken a harder heart than mine to resist his 
 bedtime appeal. 
 
 "Which do you fink is the tiredest of us to- 
 night?" he said. "I know I am. Do you fink 
 that if you were I, you would let your mother go 
 out into the kitchen to wash her dishes? You 
 know you 'd be just a very tired little boy then. 
 O Mother, I wish you were my big brother! 
 We 'd have such sweet times together, and then 
 we 'd have another mother just like you." 
 
An Adopted Mother 179 
 
 December ifth, 1902. Stanley had another long 
 crying spell for his brother last night, and Ernest 
 has had me write to the Superintendent of the 
 School to see if Sidney is still there, and if so to 
 hold him until we have had time to decide de- 
 liberately whether we can take him. If we do, it 
 will mean giving up the little girl whom we had 
 hoped to take, and growing old without a daughter 
 in the home. It seems strange that Stanley's 
 longing does not lessen at all with the passage of 
 time. 
 
 December i8th, 1902. I have been thinking to- 
 day how much the early home influences have to 
 do with a boy's estimate of women, and how 
 largely a wife's position in the home depends 
 upon the way in which her father-in-law used to 
 treat her mother-in-law before his children. It 
 depends much, I know, upon her own attitude in 
 the early days of marriage, but most upon influ- 
 ences which may have been at work before she 
 was born. 
 
 For this reason I am certain that our boy will 
 be a good husband for some lucky girl by and by. 
 He is devoted to me now, and has decided views 
 on the duty of men and boys to care for women 
 and girls. It does not strike him as incongruous 
 when, after I have drawn him home on his sled, 
 he begs me to stand still while he puts it away, 
 in order that he may help me up slippery steps. 
 
i8o Note-Book of 
 
 When we walk together in the rain he is always 
 selecting "the carefullest side of the puddles " for 
 me ; he sternly orders away all dogs which come 
 toward me and even changes sides at the sight of 
 a stub on the walk, in order that I "need n't step 
 on the cigarry side." 
 
 I suppose he will have to pass through that 
 period in which all boys despise girls, but now he 
 is very susceptible to feminine charms. We had 
 another talk about girls this noon. "Mother," 
 said he, "is it all right to kiss girls?" 
 
 "Yes, until you get to be a big boy." 
 
 "Well, I wonder why the boys keep saying that 
 it is n't. They laugh at me." 
 
 "It is all right, Stanley, but then, you don't 
 have to kiss them unless you want to, you know." 
 
 "Why, that is so," said he, looking greatly re- 
 lieved. "You don't reelly have to, do you?" 
 
 And now I wonder if the small girls have been 
 making love to him. 
 
 December 26th, 1902. If people find the simple 
 joyousness of Christmas becoming a thing of the 
 past, it can be remedied by adopting a child who 
 has had a hard time, and reviving all the fun and 
 frolic of the day. Ever since our marriage Ernest 
 and I have sent out Christmas baskets to those 
 who were having a hard time, and I have made 
 at least one little girl glad with a new doll ; still, 
 that sort of giving at long range does not make 
 
An Adopted Mother 181 
 
 the day joyous at home. It had been a sad re- 
 minder of those who are dead or far away, and 
 no amount of holly or ground pine has ever im- 
 parted the desired feeling of festivity. We have 
 had guests, too, delightful people, but grown up. 
 
 So it is not strange that we made great prepara- 
 tions for this year. Stanley had only a slender 
 supply of toys and we delayed replenishing it. 
 We talked much of the coming holiday and of 
 Santa Claus, although he understood very well 
 that the dear old saint was no more real than the 
 sandman and the fairies. Still, Stanley did not 
 sparkle and caper with delight as most children 
 do under such circumstances. I could not think 
 what was the matter until he came to me one 
 morning with an anxious face, saying: "Mother^ 
 do you really fink I will have a present? You 
 know I never had a Christmas present in my 
 whole life." 
 
 Those misgivings were settled at once, and 
 after that there was no lack of enthusiasm. He 
 was allowed to dictate a letter to Santa Claus 
 which was pinned up in the sitting-room. His 
 petition was very modest, however. I objected 
 to letting him attend the Christmas Eve festivities 
 at the church, thinking that the sleep would be 
 better for him, but I was short-sighted enough to 
 say this beforehand, and my friends made me feel 
 the weight of public opinion so crushingly that I 
 yielded foolishly, I am sure. 
 
1 82 Note-Book of 
 
 We spent the afternoon before in doing Stan- 
 ley's shopping, he having earned some nineteen 
 cents for the purpose. A rather wavy hand mirror 
 was bought for his father, another trifle for me, 
 and pink pop-corn balls for the whole family circle. 
 These were wrapped, inscribed, and hidden with 
 great secrecy. 
 
 The evening was about what one may expect in 
 any Sunday-school. Stanley distinguished him- 
 self by standing on a seat and calling out to Santa 
 Glaus, who was taking down a pop-gun: "Give 
 that to me, please. That is what I want." But 
 when it was handed to another and he was given 
 a pretty mug for his milk, he was quite contented. 
 "I fought at first," he explained, "that I would 
 rather have the gun, but the more I fought 
 about it the more I fought I would rather have 
 the cup." 
 
 When we were leaving he heard somebody say 
 that it was half-past eight. "Why, Mother ! " he 
 said. "What shall we do? Did n't you hear the 
 clock strike seven?" So I was held to account 
 by the very one for whom I had suspended the 
 bedtime rule. 
 
 Christmas morning dawned fair and white, with 
 a beautiful light snow falling. The gifts were by 
 the fireplace in the sitting-room. Ernest tiptoed 
 around for fear of awakening Stanley too soon. 
 I think he seriously considered locking us both 
 into our side of the house before he went down 
 
An Adopted Mother 183 
 
 to look after the furnace. I know that when he 
 was half-way down the cellar stairs he returned to 
 say: "Now, Eleanor, don't on any account let 
 Stanley see his stocking before I come back. I 
 would not miss the fun for a hundred dollars 
 not for a hundred dollars." 
 
 With the first rumble of coal below stairs there 
 was a squeal and a scramble in the little folding- 
 bed, and a sleepy boy tumbled out, fumbling with 
 awkward fingers at the buttons of his pajamas. 
 "Need n't tell me to hurry this morning," he 
 said. "Wish I could dress by 'lectricity." When 
 Ernest came up he called out : ' ' Morning, Father ! 
 Merry Christmas! I '11 hug you by and by. 
 Can't stop now!" Catching a glimpse of the 
 yard outside, where our tall firs were wearing 
 their cloaks of ermine, he said: "Oh, don't you 
 fink God is nice to let it snow for Christmas? " 
 
 Ernest led into the sitting-room and set the 
 head of a toy man wagging as he peeped out of 
 the top of Stanley's stocking. ' ' Oo-ee ! ' ' was the 
 first exclamation. "Does n't that man look 
 pretty wiggling his head up there? Fix him 
 again, Father. Now, Little Man, do you like 
 bad boys? See him nod! Oh, there is somebody 
 who likes bad boys. Here are some nuts ! You 
 take them, Mother. You may have them for 
 breakfast. Why-ee ! Look at my letter to Santa 
 Claus and see if I said to bring that gas-ball. 
 What do you fink? He brought me something 
 
1 84 Note-Book of 
 
 I did n't even ask for! Here is some candy! 
 I '11 'vide it even with all of us. A pop-corn ball 
 for me ! Now I can send this to Grandfather and 
 Grandmother. You know I could n't buy enough 
 for them." 
 
 A toy horn was used at once for playing Amer- 
 ica, but, unfortunately, the lips were applied to 
 the wrong end. A volume of Father Goose was 
 rapturously greeted. "See, Mother," he said, 
 "this book will tell us all about the goose [the 
 ruling passion for natural history again]." 
 
 A beautiful tassel-cap was donned at once. 
 "When I get warm working," he said, "I can 
 push it back, so ! It keeps my hair good and 
 warm." Other things were worn, pocketed, or 
 held until he looked like Cupid posing as Santa 
 Glaus, but a toy railroad was his chief delight. 
 "My little luckymotive is a dandy little hustler," 
 he said. "Look at him now! Doesn't he fink 
 he is smart ? ' ' 
 
 At three o'clock nine boys and a tiny girl came 
 to our Christmas party, Anita being now a resi- 
 dent of another town. The girl is a dear little 
 mouse who would never stand up for her own 
 rights, and I made some suggestions to the boys 
 who arrived ahead of her. As a result she was 
 the queen of the occasion. While they were all 
 watching the mechanical railway in the parlor, 
 the boys lying flat in an admiring circle and the 
 small Mary sitting Turk-fashion among them, 
 
An Adopted Mother 185 
 
 Ernest and I cleared the dining-room and added 
 the finishing touches to a treeful of gifts. Some 
 of our guests were children who had but little at 
 home, and we had taken pains to find out their 
 hearts' desires. The secret of the tree had leaked 
 out, as such blissful secrets are apt to, and al- 
 though there was a polite self-restraint on the 
 part of our guests, it all vanished when I entered 
 the sitting-room and said : ' ' Children, do you think 
 you could manage to leave the railway for a few 
 minutes? " 
 
 As if moved by one spring the ten boys were 
 on their feet. " You bet," was the emphatic re- 
 ply from their spokesman, and then the greatest 
 fun began. The little Mary had no sled, and 
 when the boys cried, "Give Mary her present 
 first," and Stanley was allowed to carry a fine 
 red one to her, enthusiasm knew no bounds. 
 "What are you going to do with it, Mary?" 
 they asked. 
 
 "KEEP IT," she said, sitting down on it at 
 once and clutching it with both tiny hands. 
 Even when candy, an orange, and a pop-corn 
 ball were piled in her lap, she let them slide to 
 the floor rather than relax her hold. We after- 
 ward found that she had been allowed to hope for 
 one from Santa Glaus, but that her father's illness 
 had so reduced the family revenue as to disap- 
 point her and her parents as well, for they are de- 
 voted to her. She thought it Heaven-sent indeed. 
 
1 86 Note-Book of 
 
 The boys had skates, knives, or something 
 equally popular; still, Mary's sled was the great 
 event. When the party was over they formed a 
 guard of honor and drew her home upon it with 
 much capering and shouting. Stanley went direct- 
 ly to bed, although it was not yet six. It struck 
 him as perfectly just when I said he should make 
 up the sleep lost the night before. "Well," he 
 said, "I shall have to fink about my presents 
 when I go to bed. I don't b'leeve I '11 have 
 time to go to sleep." However, he did. In 
 fact, he had time to sleep thirteen hours and a 
 half before awakening. 
 
 January ist, 1903. This has been a tearful 
 day in our home. The tiny Woodward baby, 
 whose coming made us so glad a few weeks since, 
 died last night, and it was a great shock to us all. 
 She had seemed quite strong. I could not keep 
 the tears back; the mother is very dear to me, 
 and I know so well what she is suffering. Stan- 
 ley mingled his tears with mine and sobbed until 
 I managed to regain my self-control for his sake. 
 It has started again the endless questions concern- 
 ing babies and heaven. 
 
 "Mother, was that little new baby scared when 
 she got here? Is she an angel now? Is she a 
 baby angel? Will she ever be a grown-up angel? 
 Why did she have to go back to heaven so 
 soon? Oh, but I will take the very best care of 
 
An Adopted Mother 187 
 
 you. I won't let God get you. Do you know 
 what I fink? I fink that little girl babies always 
 die and little boy babies don't. You see that 
 is two little girl babies what we know that has 
 died. But I was a boy baby and I lived. It 's 
 because little girl babies are n't strong enough, 
 you see. 
 
 "If I died and God sent angels for me, would 
 they be reelly angels? I don't quite under- 
 stand about angels. When God gets little boys 
 up to heaven He makes angels out of them. 
 How big does He make them? I tell you what, 
 Mother, if He let me fly outside and I lit down 
 near the School, I bet some of the boys would 
 catch me. Does He let His angels fly outside 
 sometimes? If He does, I know what I would 
 do I 'd fly right down to where you are and see 
 you. I 'd reelly rather play with you than stay 
 up there, you know." 
 
 January 3rd, 1903. I have been home from the 
 meeting of our State Teachers' Association for 
 two days now, having gone with my conscience in 
 a very doubtful condition and returned with it 
 righted. It seemed wrong to exile my little lad 
 to another home, where he would have to sleep 
 with a playmate and live on strange fare, in order 
 that I need not miss attending the sessions of two 
 days and the reunion with old friends and ac- 
 quaintances from all over the State. However, it 
 
1 88 Note-Book of 
 
 has changed me from a maid-of-all-work to a 
 woman who actually enjoys thinking again. It 
 has given me some new ideas on child-training, 
 and has made me much better informed on the 
 relation of the public to the schools, various 
 questions of public interest having been discussed. 
 Ernest was right when he insisted that having 
 Stanley is a reason for my continued attendance at 
 these meetings, rather than for my giving them up. 
 
 I have had a queer demonstration of the im- 
 portance of sleep to a growing child. I have been 
 so punctual in having Stanley go to bed on the 
 stroke of seven that nothing else ever occurs to 
 him as possible when I am in control. He no 
 more thinks of teasing to remain up, even when 
 we have guests, than he would think of crying for 
 caviare. And I never awaken him until half-past 
 six. 
 
 The result is that he seldom has less than eleven 
 hours of sound sleep and occasionally he has much 
 more. While I was away he went to bed at eight 
 and arose before six for two days. On the first 
 day after my return he was so irritable that I could 
 hardly get along with him, complained of being 
 too tired to play, and wanted to retire immedi- 
 ately after our six-o'clock dinner. 
 
 That night he slept, without waking, for more 
 than thirteen hours, and to-day he has been a 
 perfect little sunbeam, volunteering to "do all the 
 work busseppin the high-up fings," and standing 
 
An Adopted Mother 189 
 
 his accidents and disappointments without a 
 whimper. 
 
 Because it is germane to the subject and I fear 
 to lose the slip on which I have the statistics, I 
 will write down here for reference the results of 
 the work of a Swedish government committee ap- 
 pointed to ascertain how many hours children of 
 different ages should sleep in order to study 
 properly. 
 
 According to the report forwarded to the Min- 
 ister of Education, children of four should sleep 
 twelve hours ; children of seven, eleven hours ; 
 children from twelve to fourteen, from nine to ten 
 hours. I mean to hold Stanley to this schedule, 
 neighbors to the contrary notwithstanding. He 
 will not think it a hardship if he knows nothing 
 different. Indeed, at present he has a great pride 
 in his early bedtime. Only a few days since, 
 when one of the other boys was inclined to laugh 
 at him for going off at seven, he answered with 
 dignity : " 'Course I go to bed at seven, and you'd 
 better go then too. Does n't your mother want 
 you to grow? " 
 
 I have told Stanley that night is the time for 
 growing, and that the boys who sleep the most 
 hours are the strongest, run the fastest, throw the 
 farthest, and study the best. I have told him 
 how plants do their growing by night and absorb 
 their chlorophyll by day, and he watches a couple 
 of fine asparagus plants of mine with great interest 
 
190 Note-Book of 
 
 to see this verified. When there are new shoots 
 he looks at them every morning, and these grow 
 so rapidly that a gain of several inches overnight 
 is nothing unusual. He will have nothing to un- 
 learn, if I use facts instead of fancies in sending 
 him early to bed. And as far as I can see, what 
 might be called the asparagus method is quite as 
 efficacious as the bugaboo scheme of scaring 
 children off to sleep. 
 
 January 6th, 1903. This has been one of those 
 charming winter days which delight small boys 
 and produce in the breasts of healthy and normal 
 ones an overflowing happiness. Stanley has been 
 at his best all day. It began in the morning 
 when he knelt beside me during our family prayers. 
 Since he came to live with us, I make the 
 prayer, it being easy for me to use words which 
 children understand. I often hear him explaining 
 some detail to the Lord in a whisper as he nestles 
 beside me, and this morning he prompted me 
 quite audibly. "Fank Him about the snow," he 
 said. "Ice too. And remember the hills, 'cause 
 they are such fun." 
 
 Everything has been just right. When he raced 
 with the other boys he was always sure that he 
 had "beaten them to smittereens," and he has 
 not only been happy but extremely conscious of 
 the fact. "I fink Saturday is the very best 
 squeally day," he said. "Sunday is the day to 
 
An Adopted Mother 
 
 do your quiet. And school is the best place to 
 keep still 'cept when the teacher tells you to talk. 
 Mother. I never fought before why they call 
 Saturday a hollerday, but that 's it, is n't it? 
 'Cause then you can holler most." 
 
 Evidently his own surpassing goodness has been 
 a source of some amazement to him, for to-night 
 when he was ready for bed he said: "Mother, 
 why do you s'pose I have been so good to-day? " 
 "Because God helped make you so, dear." 
 "No! [indignantly] He never did a fing to me. 
 Did He know I was going to be good before 
 I did? He must have, 'cause He knows every- 
 fing." 
 
 January yth, 1903. Concerning the force of 
 gravity Stanley and I have had many conversa- 
 tions. It seems such a delight to him to discover 
 a law under even the most trivial incidents of 
 every day. It began last summer, when he in- 
 sisted on knowing why the ball would come down 
 again each time that he threw it up. Of course 
 there was much to it which I could not attempt 
 to explain, but I took considerable time to show 
 him how universal and unfailing the force of 
 gravity is. I got laughed at for my pains by my 
 summer neighbors, who took frequent occasion to 
 ask if he had yet mastered the nebular hypothesis, 
 or congratulated me on his progress in perpetual 
 motion. 
 
Note-Book of 
 
 I thought that, as long as he evidently found 
 our talks on such subjects interesting, there was 
 no harm done, and it seemed to me as if a child 
 who came to realize the constancy and omnipres- 
 ence of the force of gravity, recognizing in it a 
 power which he could not see and yet could 
 always rely upon, would find it easier to believe 
 in God as omnipresent and all-powerful, although 
 invisible to mortal eye. It has proved so with 
 Stanley, and I am well enough pleased with the 
 results of my experiments to continue them. 
 
 Stanley has had a good deal of fun in "trying 
 to fool old Force of Gravity," and laughs loudly 
 when he always finds the joke at his expense, but 
 to-day he went farther. Shut in by the storm 
 and his cold, he had to pass his first school-day 
 at home. With no playmates available and a 
 mother tied down to her desk for the afternoon, 
 he was cast on his own resources. It suddenly 
 struck me that he had not spoken for an hour, 
 and I investigated. He was seated on the floor 
 with the elliptical track of his toy railroad in his 
 hands. The usual rolling-stock was put aside, 
 and on the track he had a large glass marble with 
 an image imbedded in it. He was tilting the 
 track carefully first one way and then another, so 
 that the marble ran quickly around it. 
 
 After showing me how he could regulate its 
 speed and direction without touching the marble, 
 he said: "You see, Mother, old Force of Gravity 
 
An Adopted Mother 193 
 
 is my playmate now. Don't you fink he is a 
 pretty good playmate for a little boy? He 
 does n't have to go home, you know, and he 
 does n't get mad, like the other boys does. 
 And Mother! If another sick little boy wanted 
 to play with him right now, he could, could n't 
 he? And he 'd keep right on playing with me, 
 too." 
 
 Stanley's reasoning appealed to me all the more 
 an hour later, when other boys came in and let 
 loose the energy which had been pent up in 
 school, and when his nerves, weakened by physi- 
 cal discomfort, made him petulant and irritable. 
 It struck me then that I had been, quite uncon- 
 sciously, teaching him to find companionship and 
 diversion among the forces of nature which "are 
 pretty good playmates for little boys." 
 
 January ijth, 1903. How should we get 
 through these stormy days of enforced confine- 
 ment if we could not be accomplishing imaginary 
 exploits in the open? For a large part of the 
 morning Stanley was sharpening his two wooden 
 swords to make them ready to use in shooting 
 bears. He dictated a letter to his grandmother, 
 in which he told how many he expected to slay, 
 and he had a great time deciding how to distri- 
 bute his spoils wisely, talking of bears about as 
 ordinary sportsmen would mention quail or wood- 
 cock. He was intensely practical in his childishly 
 
194 Note-Book of 
 
 impractical way, for he even asked, "How long 
 do you fink a bear would last us, if we were care- 
 ful?" 
 
 A vivid imagination has occasional drawbacks 
 as well as advantages. He had been choo- 
 chooing around as a locomotive for a while this 
 afternoon, when he came to me to help him with 
 some difficult buttons. I thought he could per- 
 fectly well help himself, but how could I refuse 
 aid when he said: "Please help me. You will 
 reelly have to this time. I can't button up my 
 own fings when I am a luckymotive, don't you 
 see? " 
 
 January 1 6th, 1903. More evidence that Stan- 
 ley is making a systematic study of me. I sup- 
 pose this plan would hardly occur to a child who 
 had always had a mother, and the same one. As 
 a rule, parents are taken for granted and accepted 
 in the sort of spirit in which one accepts sky over- 
 head and earth underfoot. At least, the tendency 
 to analyze and compare would not develop in the 
 ordinary child until a much later period. So far 
 Stanley's conclusions seem to be quite compli- 
 mentary, rather more so than I am conscious of 
 deserving, but there may come a day when he 
 compares me with a really superior mother, and 
 then where shall I stand? 
 
 When I was helping him dress this morning, he 
 opened the conversation by saying: "If I had a 
 
An Adopted Mother 195 
 
 very bad cold you would make me stay in, 
 would n't you, Mother?" 
 
 "Yes, during such weather as this." 
 
 "Well, the Seymour boys have very bad colds, 
 and they go every place. Their mother tries and 
 tries to make them stay in, and they won't." 
 
 "How does she try? " 
 
 "Oh, she whips and whips them, and then 
 they kick her. Sometimes they swear. Oh, 
 but their mother is cross! What makes her so 
 cross? " 
 
 "Well, dear, you know she has six little chil- 
 dren, and works very hard. Perhaps she is so 
 tired that she cannot help it." 
 
 This seemed to satisfy Stanley, but in thinking 
 it over after he had gone to school and while I 
 was washing my breakfast dishes (an occupation 
 which gives those "opportunities for fructifying 
 thought " which men say women so seldom take) 
 it occurred to me that while I had undoubtedly 
 told the truth in regard to Mrs. Seymour's irrit- 
 ability, I had laid the emphasis on the wrong 
 factor in the case. The natural result of what I 
 had said would be to make Stanley think fatigue 
 a sufficient excuse for ill-nature. Yet he must 
 learn to keep sweet under such difficulties. That 
 is a feature of the Japanese training which I have 
 always admired, their insisting that both children 
 and adults must be bright-faced and cheerful 
 under all circumstances. It is Lovey Mary's 
 
196 Note-Book of 
 
 philosophy in another form. "The way to git 
 cheerful is to smile when you feel bad, and to 
 think about somebody else's headache when yer 
 own is most bustin'." 
 
 So this noon I introduced the subject again. 
 "I have been thinking about Mrs. Seymour," I 
 said, "and I can tell you a better reason for her 
 being so cross. It is because her children are 
 naughty. Don't you think so? When children 
 are good, mothers are not cross at them, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes, Mother, I reelly am sure that is it, and 
 is n't it too bad?" 
 
 "It is too bad. You see if I had not such a 
 good little boy I might be very cross. It is good 
 husbands who help make good wives, and good 
 children who help make good fathers and mothers. 
 
 "Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother, you are just 
 sweet ! You are the very sweetest mother in the 
 world ! I have had two sweet mothers. Only I 
 have forgotten the one I had before I went to 
 the School." 
 
 I believe that this is a good place to write down 
 something which I read a few days since in one of 
 Barrie's books, and do not wish to have slip from 
 my memory, because it says so beautifully what 
 we have all felt and sometimes try to express: 
 "The praise that comes of love does not make us 
 vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, 
 the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she 
 
An Adopted Mother 197 
 
 looks at us is about the most pathetic thing a 
 man has to face, but he would be a devil alto- 
 gether if it did not burn some of the sin out of 
 him." 
 
 January 22nd, ipoj. We had an informal 
 little dinner party last night, at which several of 
 Stanley's particular friends were present. Of 
 course, since I am without a housekeeper, the 
 small boy was in more or less of the domestic 
 secrets and was so keenly interested that he even 
 brought one of his cronies in during the afternoon 
 "to smell of the turkey" and be dazzled by its 
 proportions. It seemed the simplest and best 
 thing to let him be present with the guests, in- 
 stead of banishing him to the home of a motherly 
 woman in the neighborhood, who willingly invites 
 him over, for a consideration, and lets him sleep 
 with her own hopeful. 
 
 I set a place for him at a small table within 
 arm's length of my own, and he bore himself with 
 dignity and propriety, eating a much modified 
 meal with an humble and contented spirit, and 
 willingly making his adieux at seven, to be tucked 
 into bed in a near-by room and cuddle down with 
 a long-desired boy doll, whose advent had been 
 carefully timed for this very occasion. I do not 
 remember giving him any injunctions as to man- 
 ners, although I did remind him that it was to be 
 a grown-up party, and that of course he would 
 
198 Note-Book of 
 
 go to bed at the usual time, even if it were not 
 over. 
 
 This morning his eight-year-old neighbor, Ed- 
 ward, was in, and asked, prompted to it by some 
 chance remark of Stanley's, "Why, was you in 
 the room with the company when they was 
 eating? " 
 
 " 'Course I was." 
 
 "My! Wasn't you scared, though? I allus 
 am. When we go away to eat, or folks comes to 
 our house I get so scared that I just can't talk, 
 and I can't eat much. Lots of nice things, but 
 they kinder stick! " 
 
 "Pooh! What 's there to be scared about? 
 Just ate like any time, only sat at my own table." 
 
 "My! But I 'd 'a' been awful scared. I allus 
 am." 
 
 All of which supports in a wholly unexpected 
 way my contention that it is worse than folly, it 
 is positive cruelty, to cram a child with eleventh- 
 hour instructions as to the size of his mouthfuls, 
 the desirability of keeping his knife away from 
 his lips, the proper use of his napkin, the im- 
 propriety of clamoring for food, the exceeding 
 sinfulness of overeating, et cetera. 
 
 But how natural it is to do just that thing! 
 And how often I have to pull myself up on the 
 verge of exhortation ! It is such a time-honored 
 custom, and in this matter I even find that in a 
 certain sense my enemies are those of my own 
 
An Adopted Mother 199 
 
 household. So often Ernest, when we three are 
 dining alone, will check Stanley in some little im- 
 propriety with the warning: "Just think how 
 ashamed you would be if you should do that 
 some time when we have company here." 
 
 I have to chink in hurriedly with a supplemen- 
 tary remark: "And it would n't be a bit worse 
 than doing it when you are with your father and 
 mother. You love us better than you do our 
 guests, and you surely wish to be just as polite 
 to us. Besides, you know good manners are 
 good manners, whether anybody sees or not." 
 
 Sometimes Stanley continues the conversation 
 in the best of feeling by saying, "Yes, and just 
 fink how ashamed I 'd be of bofe of you if you 
 did rings what you had n't ought." 
 
 That seems a simple and natural comment 
 under the circumstances, but I was rather shocked 
 when he said one day : '"Course God knows when 
 you stuff in a big mouf-ful, even if nobody else 
 catches you, and you 'd ought to be ashamed for 
 Him." Still, why is n't that a child's version of 
 "eating and drinking to the glory of God?" 
 
 January 2/j.th^ ipoj. I am almost too tired 
 to write anything in my note-book to-night, but 
 cannot let pass these little evidences of Stanley's 
 perfect devotion and loyalty to the mother he has 
 adopted. He was so tired that he begged to go 
 to bed as soon as he had finished his dinner, and 
 
200 Note-Book of 
 
 I even left my dessert untouched for the sake of 
 tucking him in. Then he was not willing that I 
 should leave him, begging me to stay near and 
 touch him as long as he remained awake. "I am 
 so vurry, vurry, vurry, vurry tired, Mother," he 
 said, "and so sleepy and cold that I can't stand 
 it without you. I 'm so sorry, but I cant stand 
 it. Oh, I '11 just have to give up everyfmg, I am 
 so tired! [This must have been a quotation.] I 
 need a million mothers to-night to pet me and 
 love me." 
 
 "Why, Stanley, what could you do with so 
 many? " 
 
 "I 'd 'vide 'em up. Eight could pet me and 
 the rest do the work in the kitchen. No, I 'd 
 'vide 'em the other way. Eight could do the 
 work, and the rest could pet me." 
 
 "And where would you have me? " 
 
 "Right here, of course, 'cause you 'd be the 
 nicest, you know!" 
 
 January 28th, 1903. Years ago, before I was 
 a staid married woman or even a kindergartner, 
 I used to ask my small neighbors in from time to 
 time to play dolls, and my own dear "Helen 
 Lorene Gray," with her trunkful of clothes and 
 her ancestral bedstead, was always the belle of the 
 occasion. I shall never forget the awe with which 
 my guests listened to the history of that dainty 
 bedstead, made after the model of a by-gone day, 
 
An Adopted Mother 201 
 
 laced with bed-cord, and equipped with the old- 
 fashioned flat bolster and a pieced spread with a 
 valance. To think how many little girls in my 
 family had played with it and taken good care of 
 it, so that it still looked new, made a great im- 
 pression, and any child who handled it roughly 
 after that risked becoming a social outcast. 
 
 Quite as interesting, but in a different way, was 
 the description of Helen Lorene's wardrobe, for 
 nearly every article was associated with some ill- 
 ness of my childhood. Her winter cloak was 
 made during the cold weeks when I was shut in 
 after having scarlet fever ; her old-fashioned cir- 
 cular with hood was made from a piece of my dear 
 grandmother's dress not long before she died ; the 
 dashing hat which went with Helen's spring suit 
 was of straw, re-sewn by my mother's patient fin- 
 gers, to divert me when I had intermittent fever 
 and had been good and quiet through a lonely 
 morning in bed ; and the long white cock's feather 
 with which this reward of virtue was trimmed 
 had been pulled from the tail of my favorite 
 rooster in an encounter with a barnyard rival. 
 
 I recall one afternoon when I had a new guest 
 a little boy who had been invited to bring his 
 doll along, and came clutching a new one tightly 
 and disdainfully with one hand. I suspected 
 what was the matter, for he stood apart from the 
 girls, looking first at them and then at the doll. 
 At last he came to a decision. "I don't care if I 
 
202 Note-Book of 
 
 are a boy," he announced loudly. "I am going 
 to play wiv my dollie anyway." And he did, 
 having the happiest afternoon imaginable. 
 
 I believed, even then, that it was good for boys 
 to have dolls, but how little I dreamed that my 
 dear Helen Lorene would ever be wielding her 
 wholesome influence over my boy ! She is about 
 fourteen inches tall, with scanty traces of her 
 once luxuriant blonde locks ; the wax is gone in 
 spots from her chubby face, and her eyes do not 
 bob open and shut with their old engaging 
 promptness. She has lost so much of her saw- 
 dust as to be far too limp for style, and spends 
 most of her days reposing on Stanley's bed. But 
 when night comes, he greets her with rapturous 
 kisses and embraces. "Helen is a great comfort 
 to me," he says, "she is so sweet! " 
 
 She shares his couch every evening until he 
 finds himself drifting off to. dreamland, when she 
 is laid out of harm's way, "because," he says, 
 "it would be so vurry sad if I should roll over and 
 squalchher." She receives into her waxen ear 
 all those confidences for which I am too busy to 
 wait, and is duly instructed in number-work and 
 spelling before sleep claims her little father. 
 Sometimes he lavishes other attentions upon her. 
 One night he called out, "I have washed Hel- 
 en's face, Mother!" 
 
 " O, Stanley!" I cried in consternation. 
 "Water will spoil it!" 
 
An Adopted Mother 203 
 
 "Oh, it 's all right," was the reassuring reply. 
 "I did it like Peter does himself! " [Peter is our 
 cat.] 
 
 When, at last, Stanley made a determined and 
 successful effort to go to sleep in the dark, it was 
 done ostensibly on Helen's account. ''She is old 
 enough now," he said, "to learn not to be afraid 
 in the dark." And long after I turned out the 
 light and left the room I heard him crooning sweet 
 and reassuring things to her. 
 
 ' ' She is doing vurry well for such a little dollie, ' ' 
 he said the second night, which was rather more 
 blustering and nerve-testing, "but she is some 
 scared. I fink, if you could find the time, you 'd 
 better turn up the light here a minute and give 
 me her little shawl. That will make her feel 
 better." 
 
 I found the time, and saw him sitting up in 
 bed, rather wide-eyed himself, explaining to her 
 that "that scratchy sound is just rose-bushes rub- 
 bing against the house. It is not bears at all." 
 He was already learning the lesson that comes to 
 most of us in time, that of being brave for those 
 who are weaker than we, even when we cannot be 
 brave for ourselves alone. 
 
 For a while he wanted a boy doll, evidently 
 being influenced by the remarks of others into 
 feeling that a girl doll was too effeminate, al- 
 though I do not know of his betraying to them 
 that he played with one. I delayed getting it, 
 
204 Note-Book of 
 
 feeling sure that its freshness would make him 
 regard Helen with disfavor, even while he found 
 it impossible to love the new arrival as well. 
 When I finally bought one, his rapture lasted for 
 only a few days. Then Helen became all-in-all 
 once more, and I realized my injustice in doubt- 
 ing that he loved her for her real worth, instead 
 of for her beauty. 
 
 Stanley is as boyish and sturdy a lad as I ever 
 knew. He is the sort that men all fancy, feeling 
 of his fine muscle and laughing over his attempts 
 at athletics. Still, that is only one more reason 
 why I rejoice to see the gentle, protecting side of 
 his nature fostered. He shall have his dear dollie 
 as long as he wishes, even if he "are a boy." 
 
 Peter, too, our fine great cat, has been an ex- 
 cellent companion for Stanley. At first he was 
 intensely jealous, but when he found him a con- 
 siderate companion he became gracious by de- 
 grees. Now he permits great liberties, and is 
 championed even in his misdeeds by Stanley, 
 who gazes tenderly upon him when he is "curled 
 up like everyfing" under my desk; and brags, 
 when Peter does not sheath his claws quickly 
 enough in frolic, that " our cat is a dandy 
 scratchier." This sometimes occurs when Stan- 
 ley's fingers are bleeding from the mishap, and it 
 reminds me of a friend's favorite adage, "It is a 
 mighty poor frog that won't croak for his own 
 puddle!" 
 
An Adopted Mother 205 
 
 January Jist, 1903. I have written to the 
 School not to hold Sidney for us any longer. 
 Stanley has hardly mentioned him lately, and has 
 not had a really serious crying spell this month. 
 I shall be glad when he is quite over it. It has 
 been hard on all of us. 
 
 February 2nd, 1903. What a struggle it is to 
 rear a child on lines entirely different from those 
 common to the community! All of Stanley's 
 playmates have money given them from time to 
 time, which usually remains in their possession 
 only during the interval necessary for them to 
 reach the confectioner's. One whole family sys- 
 tematically extort hush-money from their parents 
 by screaming, teasing, and tagging their father to 
 his place of business, until they are bought off 
 with a penny apiece. The father exhorts, threat- 
 ens, and even whips them for it, but, not having 
 a logical mind, or else caring too much for the 
 peace of the moment, he does not stop the supply 
 of pennies. 
 
 To add to the difficulties of the case, at least 
 one of our leading grocers is in the habit of treat- 
 ing to cheap candy all small children who are 
 likely to have spending-money later. Of course 
 he gets their patronage when they get the cash. 
 
 Still, all these problems have to be faced sooner 
 or later, and it may be just as well to have it 
 sooner. Stanley has no money given to him, 
 
206 Note-Book of 
 
 and that which is paid to him is fairly earned. It 
 is stipulated that none is to be spent for candy or 
 gum. Beyond this we place no restrictions upon 
 his expenditures. At present his regular income 
 is three cents per week, earned by keeping the 
 kitchen wood-box filled, and collected every week 
 from his father on my verifying his statement that 
 he has done his work faithfully and promptly. 
 
 I am sure that I earned fifty times that amount 
 when the new system was put in operation. In- 
 stead of doing it early, he would want to delay 
 his work until noon. It would be too cold in the 
 wood-shed, he would be too tired, his arm was 
 lame from a fall he had the day before, he wanted 
 the boy who brings our cream to help him, and 
 so on, indefinitely. Sometimes he even offered 
 to skip a day and take iess pay, and it had to be 
 carefully explained that he was paid for the regu- 
 larity of his work, and that Father was depending 
 on him. It was a wearisome struggle, but he was 
 held to it, and now glories in his punctuality and 
 thoroughness. It is fine to see his scorn of the 
 other boys when they display the money which 
 has been given to them. "I earn my money," 
 he says. "I don't have money given to me." 
 
 When it was time for his birthday offering to 
 go into the Sunday-school bank, he was proud 
 that he could save his own earnings for it, and all 
 his income for two weeks was laid on the altar. 
 He has not been asked to give from his store for 
 
An Adopted Mother 207 
 
 weekly church and Sunday-school contributions, 
 but when he earns more he should give of his 
 earnings. 
 
 No amount of theorizing could have instilled 
 the practical wisdom he is acquiring. "You 
 would n't fink it would take so much work to 
 earn a quarter," he said recently, " but it does." 
 
 One day he came home determined to take a 
 penny from his bank and purchase gum. I re- 
 minded him of the understanding in regard to it. 
 He declared that the money was his and that he 
 would buy gum if he wished. He was hungry, 
 tired, and cross. After luncheon I went to the 
 door to see him off. With my arm around him 
 for our good-by hug, I said, "I hope you have 
 no money in your pocket." 
 
 "Have I? " said he. "Oh, let me see! There is 
 one penny. Please take it back to my bank for me. 
 I am glad you 'membered me of it. ' ' So that temp- 
 tation was downed, thanks to the fortifying effect 
 of a square meal and somebody standing ready to 
 turn the balance at the psychological moment. 
 
 We had several talks on the folly of gum-buying 
 after that, and now I think the little man has 
 convictions of his own. It is not long since he 
 found himself with the accrued wages of two 
 weeks. He had great fun in counting and re- 
 counting his pennies, pretending to lose one and 
 then finding it again. I said, "Some boys spend 
 their money just as fast as they earn it." 
 
208 Note-Book of 
 
 ' ' Yes, ' ' was the quick reply. ' ' Get a cent, buy 
 some gum ; get a cent, buy some gum ; get a 
 cent, buy some gum ; get a cent, buy some gum ; 
 get a cent, buy some gum ; get a cent, buy some 
 gum. Come Sunday morning and they have no 
 cents and I have six pennies! " 
 
 There have been other and more serious temp- 
 tations. Once he came home with a penny which 
 a schoolmate had dropped on the floor "when 
 he was being bad." Stanley was sure that the 
 original owner had forfeited all claim and that it 
 was his. When he came to see that the teacher 
 was the one to hold it, he started to return it to 
 her. Playing with it on the way, he dropped it 
 down a crack and then it had to be replaced from 
 his own funds. It took half an hour to make 
 these things clear to the child's mind, but the 
 time to settle such questions is when they arise. 
 It is taking too many chances to wait, and it is 
 best to check these things before the child is old 
 enough to have misappropriation really a sin. 
 
 Perhaps I feel rather more intensely on this 
 point because I really suffered from a theft of 
 my own when I was six. I had been given a 
 pocketbook for Christmas, a bewitching one of 
 bright purple leather, with a small mirror on one 
 of the inner flaps a mirror in which I could in- 
 spect my face by sections and find it all the more 
 interesting because it had such a preternaturally 
 wavy aspect. In one pocket there was a bright 
 
An Adopted Mother 209 
 
 penny. That was very charming, but the more I 
 looked at that penny the more I wondered how 
 it would seem to have two there, rolling after 
 each other as I tilted the pocketbook and jingling 
 together when I shook it. 
 
 My mother never dreamed that her child could 
 steal, and her purse was often around. I stole 
 one cent, had an hour's guilty delight in it, re- 
 pented and tried to replace it, but could not find 
 the purse. I think I did not look my mother in 
 the face for a week. I remember that when she 
 called me I was so often in my toy closet that it 
 became a subject of remark. I dared not throw 
 the penny away because I needed it for restitu- 
 tion, yet I dared not keep it with the other. 
 When I finally got it back where it should be, 
 my conscience did not cease from troubling, and 
 I am sure that in the long run she must have re- 
 covered thirty-fold. Even now I sometimes feel 
 a reminiscent flush of shame at the thought of it. 
 
 I have heard small boys in this town tell of 
 holding back the offering which had been given 
 them for Sunday-school, and have quietly in- 
 spected Stanley's pockets on his return each Sun- 
 day. To-day I found a coin there. He was 
 indignant, ashamed, and penitent, all at once. 
 Of course he tried to invent a plausible explana- 
 tion, but his eyes persisted in telling the truth. 
 We had a long talk, and I told him of my early 
 theft and how unhappy it made me. It was all 
 
210 Note-Book of 
 
 straightened up at last and the money put aside 
 to go in next week, but I am glad and thankful 
 that what I feel sure was his first theft of money 
 was promptly detected. This doing wrong and 
 escaping detection is a dangerous experience. 
 
 February $th, 1903. Our little city, like most 
 others during this winter of anthracite famine, 
 has been driven to the almost exclusive use of 
 soft coal. Stanley feels that this has greatly in- 
 creased his responsibilities and care of me. It is 
 such an anomalous situation. He goes to a 
 friend's house to play and I call for him at five 
 o'clock. He would not dare come home alone 
 through the dusk of the winter's eve, but from 
 the moment that he slips his soft little hand into 
 mine, he thinks that I am the one to be cared for 
 and protected. 
 
 This solicitude reached a climax to-day, when 
 we got into a current of coal gas. ' ' Don't breave 
 along here, Mother," he said. "I '11 show you 
 how not to. You stick your tongue out and roll 
 it up and wiggle it so ! Then you don't breave, 
 you see. It 's gas in the air, you know, and if 
 you breave it, it will make you dead." 
 
 I put my muff up to my face and was not made 
 dead. Stanley thinks that his presence of mind 
 alone was my salvation. 
 
 My manners also came in for attention, and I 
 think the reproof was merited. Stanley spoke of 
 
An Adopted Mother 211 
 
 a playmate as "El," and I soon did the same 
 thing, when he gravely remarked: "I call him 
 ' El' because I know more about him, but ladies 
 should call him Elmore. You '11 'member that, 
 won't you, Mother?" 
 
 February ytk, 1903. I fear our friend, the 
 Superintendent of the School, will think we are 
 as waves of the sea, driven about by every wind, 
 for Stanley had another heart-breaking time last 
 night and Ernest had me write again to find out 
 if Sidney is there. "If he is," he says, "we 
 must have him, but then we shall have to wait a 
 couple of years for the little girl. It won't do to 
 increase our expenses too fast. And of course it 
 will not do to tell Stanley of our plans until we 
 are sure that we can have Sidney. He may have 
 been given to another family." 
 
 From which it will be seen that Ernest is 
 changing his mind in more ways than one. 
 "Another boy and a little girl." Stanley may 
 have been only the entering wedge. Suppose the 
 little girl should have a sister or friend in the 
 School for whom she longs? There may be an 
 endless-chain system in the matter of adoptions, 
 as well as in writing begging letters for one's 
 favorite charity. 
 
 I am also struck by the complete way in which 
 Ernest has given himself to the new plan. There 
 is never anything half-way about Ernest. At 
 
212 Note-Book of 
 
 noon he wished that he had telegraphed. "I 
 could even now," he said. "I should hate to let 
 Sidney slip through our fingers for the lack of a 
 little effort." At dinner he expressed relief that 
 "a certain letter had almost reached its destina- 
 tion." And all the time the chubby youngster 
 at the end of the table had no thought of how he 
 had upset preconceived ideas, revolutionized a 
 quiet old house, and twisted two conservative 
 people around his fat little finger. 
 
 February I2tk, 1903. It happened just as I 
 had hoped it would not, Stanley crying for his 
 brother again for two hours last night, and I, not 
 yet knowing Sidney's whereabouts, could say 
 nothing hopeful to cheer him. His grief has all 
 the hopelessness that one feels who has buried 
 his heart's dearest. ''When you went to the 
 School," he asked, "why did n't you take Sid- 
 ney instead of me? He 's lots lovelier than I 
 am." 
 
 "He was an older child than I wanted, dear," 
 I answered truthfully, "and would you like it any 
 better if I had? Suppose I had brought him here 
 and left you there? You would not have been 
 together then." 
 
 " But, Mother," he protested, " don't you 
 s'pose Father could pay for bofe of us? Lots of 
 fathers do pay for two little boys, and some 
 fathers pays for more. And some of them are 
 
An Adopted Mother 213 
 
 not as nice as Sidney and me. Why does the 
 Blanks have such lots of naughty children? I 
 should n't fink they 'd want 'em at all." 
 
 The poor little fellow finally got into such a 
 state that I did what my reason said might be 
 only preparing for another scene I told him that 
 he might ask Ernest in the morning if he could 
 have his brother, and explained that it would 
 take so much more money if we had a second 
 boy, that I thought he should tell his father he 
 was willing to give up the promised dog and to 
 share all his toys with Sidney, if he could have 
 him here. I feared that the child would make 
 himself ill if something were not done to quiet 
 him. 
 
 It proves how much closer the mother comes to 
 the child with her greater opportunities for inti- 
 macy, that Stanley had never yet said one word 
 to Ernest about this dearest wish of his heart. I 
 hoped the old reserve would keep him from 
 broaching the subject until we could hear from 
 the School. 
 
 Fortunately the letter came soon after Stanley 
 fell asleep. Sidney was at the School and should 
 be kept for us. We decided to say nothing about 
 it until after breakfast, if possible, feeling that 
 Stanley would eat none if he became too much 
 excited. 
 
 I underestimated the strength of the little fel- 
 low's resolution, for we were hardly seated at the 
 
214 Note-Book of 
 
 table this morning before he began, his eyes large 
 with excitement and his lips quivering with 
 anxiety. "Father," he said, "may I please have 
 my brother come here to live? He is so good, 
 and I will be gooder than I have ever been yet. 
 And I don't want my dog, and " 
 
 Ernest's answer was somewhat choked, and 
 Stanley misunderstood him, thinking that he said 
 "No." He gave a heart-breaking sob and fell 
 limply against my shoulder. It took fully five 
 minutes to make him understand that Sidney was 
 to come, and even then he could not stop the 
 flow of tears. Well ! We all cried together and 
 I fancy it did us good, although it was not at all 
 beautifying, and our breakfast was hardly touched. 
 I am sure Stanley got quite a new idea of Ernest's 
 tenderness of heart, and sharing deep emotion 
 tightens the family bonds. 
 
 Ever since we got calmed down, this has been 
 a blessed day for us all. Stanley knows that Sid- 
 ney is not to come until spring, we having to 
 make some changes in our house first, but that 
 does not trouble him at all. "I know he is 
 coming," he says over and over again, "because 
 when you and Father tell fings they are always 
 so." He has sorted out his best toys to be kept 
 for Sidney, and will not use them himself for fear 
 something may happen to them before his brother 
 comes. 
 
 I should like to know just how he acted at 
 
An Adopted Mother 215 
 
 school. I imagine he "gave to a gracious mes- 
 sage an host of tongues," for he brought home a 
 note from Miss Murray at noon. "Is there any 
 foundation for what Stanley says about his 
 brother coming here to live?" she wrote. "I 
 suppose it is just a fancy of his. I have tried in 
 every way to get him out of the notion, but he 
 says it is true because his father has promised." 
 
 "I told her and told her," Stanley explained, 
 "but she kept saying that she guessed not. I 
 told the boys, too. And the girls. Mr. Ellison 
 said he was glad I met him on the street, you 
 know, so I told him. There were some other 
 people, too, what I told, but I don't know their 
 names. I guess they just came up from the 
 station." 
 
 At intervals all day he has come to me to 
 "have a little visit about Sidney." "You won't 
 be tired at all when he comes," he assures me, 
 "cause then you will have two boys to take care 
 of you. He can even make beds. You can just 
 you can just go outdoors and watch bugs all the 
 time. And I will never be afraid or cry at night 
 any more, 'cause I will have Sidney." 
 
 February i^th, 1903. What would I not give 
 to be able to follow all the processes of a child's 
 mind? Stanley and I have had a sort of continu- 
 ous-performance contest of wills for several days, 
 and while I did not yield ground at all I could not 
 
216 Note-Book of 
 
 see that I gained any. I began to have depressed 
 moments of wondering whether it were all worth 
 while, and to have a new comprehension of how 
 nervous and feeble women are sometimes sim- 
 ply worn into submission by vigorous children. 
 Then, as usual, I began to feel ashamed of my- 
 self and nailed my colors to the mast. 
 
 At noon Stanley was eating his solitary luncheon 
 in a corner of the kitchen, while I was busy with 
 other things. Suddenly he brought his funny 
 little fist down on the table with a resounding 
 whack, and said, thumping time as he spoke: 
 "I have decided two fings. I will not eat any 
 more dates this noon, and I will not be bad any 
 more." 
 
 When I had comprehended this, he went on : 
 44 1 will not be bad to-day ! I will not be bad to- 
 morrow, or the next day, or the next day, or the 
 next day, or the next day, or the next day ! And 
 then I will not be bad for twenty days, and then, 
 after that, I will not be bad at all ! I will not be 
 bad ever again ! ' ' 
 
 Of course he will "be bad" a great many times, 
 just as all of us are after we turn away from our 
 Mount of Transfiguration, but he will always be 
 a trifle stronger, just as we are, for having held a 
 high resolve. So my day, which began in un- 
 pleasantness and weariness of spirit, has ended 
 most beautifully. 
 
An Adopted Mother 217 
 
 February iytk, 1903. What do we not discuss 
 over the kitchen table? Mother always laughs at 
 me for giving Stanley scientific facts in reply to 
 his questions, but I find he thinks them as in- 
 teresting as fairy tales if they are put into words 
 which he can comprehend, and I am sure he will 
 find them quite as useful in the long run. 
 
 This noon it was ornithology, running into 
 some other ology, the name of which I do not 
 know, if indeed it has a name. "Mother," said 
 he, "what makes the birds fly?" 
 
 "The strong muscles in their wings, dear." 
 
 "If they stopped wiggling them would they fall 
 down? " 
 
 ' ' No. They would hold their wings spread and 
 float down. Do you remember the paper balloons 
 that we watched on the Fourth of July? It is 
 the warm air inside which makes them light, so 
 that they float. Birds have little places all 
 through their bodies, in their bones and else- 
 where, in which there is warm air. Their hot 
 blood keeps it warm, and this makes them light, 
 so that they float down instead of tumbling." 
 
 "Yes, Mother, I understand, and oh, don't 
 you b'leeve angels are made that way, too? " 
 
 February 20th, 1903. Another victory for my 
 little Christian soldier! My washerwoman sent 
 the basket of clean clothes home so late this week 
 that I was obliged to iron all afternoon, and when 
 
218 Note-Book of 
 
 Stanley returned from school, I was busily at it in 
 the kitchen, close to the dining-room door. 
 
 He was rather out of sorts when he came in, 
 but the weather was dreadful and he said nothing 
 about going out into the storm again. After he 
 had been here an hour, he asked if he might go to 
 Harry's. I said "No," and gave my reason: it 
 was too late on such a short and stormy winter 
 day. Stanley was very cross, grumbled, sput- 
 tered, and declared that he was going anyway, 
 whether permitted or not. Then he began to 
 put on his wraps. I said nothing, thinking I 
 would try the value of non-resistance as long as 
 possible. I looked very sober and kept on with 
 my work. I did, however, make an opportunity 
 to lock both outside doors and pocket the keys 
 without detection. He had on his many wrap- 
 pings, and only the buckles of his arctics re- 
 mained to be fastened. Then, although I did 
 not look toward him, I noticed that he stopped 
 his struggles. Soon a voice of different tone said, 
 "What do you fink I am going to do now? " 
 
 Knowing the proper thing to say under such 
 circumstances, I promptly replied, "I cannot im- 
 agine, but I know what I wish you would do." 
 
 Then Stanley asked, "Do you need to come 
 into the dining-room for a little while, Mother?" 
 
 "No, not at all." 
 
 "Well, I am going to shut the door, and don't 
 you look until I tell you ! " 
 
An Adopted Mother 219 
 
 Then followed great puffings and tuggings, 
 heard indistinctly through the closed door. A 
 warning followed these: "Don't you look until I 
 tell you! There!" 
 
 The door swung open and I saw Stanley, his 
 wraps all removed and put away, arms out- 
 stretched, and face radiant with the light of self- 
 conquest. "Did you know I was going to do 
 that?" said he. "You 'd better guess God was 
 s'prised when He saw me taking off my over- 
 shoes. Made Him happy. Angels too ! You 
 too! Made lots of folks happy that time! " 
 
 I am sure there was rejoicing in the kitchen 
 over the one little sinner that returned, whether 
 it reached to heaven or not. But I believe it did. 
 And if the last pair of pillow-slips were hung on 
 the bars in a rather wrinkled condition, and the 
 ironing-board stood around until half-past eight 
 in the evening, it was because Stanley and I 
 simply had to celebrate his victory by looking at 
 "animal books" together. These (my new set of 
 Lydekker's) furnish the very refinement of bliss 
 for him, and since he is not permitted to handle 
 them himself, looking at them is a rare privilege 
 in these busy months when I have to be mother, 
 maid-of-all-work, and writer, as well as club-wo- 
 man and church- and Sunday-school worker. 
 
 And through what rose-colored glasses did he 
 look at the many pictures ! The whales were a 
 little bigger, the lions a little fiercer, and the 
 
220 Note-Book of 
 
 kangaroos much funnier than ever before. And 
 then he made so many jokes of his own nonsensi- 
 cal sort, asking if I did not think that the alligators 
 had pleasant looking moufs, and saying he fought 
 the bats must feel like umbrellas when they hung 
 themselves up to sleep. I suppose it was the as- 
 sociation of ideas, but I could not help remember- 
 ing what somebody once said about Jonah being 
 at his best in the whale's belly. 
 
 February 26th, 1903. Soon after Stanley came 
 to live with us, we had a friend visiting in the 
 home, a college president and a father. He took 
 a great liking to the child and watched him con- 
 stantly. "Give him work to do as soon as you 
 can," he said. "Give him lots of it and keep 
 him at it, even when he wants to leave a task un- 
 finished. There is nothing like work for a strong, 
 active child of his stamp." 
 
 It was exactly what I had resolved, and yet he 
 did well to impress it on my mind, for it is always 
 much easier to do a thing than to teach a child to 
 do it. Stanley is a good reliable worker, now, 
 with right ideals in this direction. ' ' Sometimes, ' ' 
 he says, "the bigger boys ask me to help them 
 put on their overshoes, but I do not do it. I fink 
 it is better for them to learn to help themselves. 
 But course I help littler boys. And always girls. 
 
 Being without a housekeeper or even an ordi- 
 nary servant all winter has given Stanley many 
 
An Adopted Mother 221 
 
 chances to help, and it is fortunate the extra 
 work has fallen on me at a season when he is 
 obliged to spend so much time within doors. It 
 is a joyful sight to see him flying around in his 
 little chafing-dish apron, with his sweater sleeves 
 rolled far above his elbows and his hands and 
 arms scrubbed to a rosy pink, executing orders as 
 fast as I can issue them. He is really a great 
 help now, for our house is a place of magnificent 
 distances, and he saves me many steps. He fre- 
 quently puts all the food on the table before a 
 meal and brings out all the soiled dishes after- 
 ward, doing it exactly as well as I could. "Don't 
 do that," he says of many little tasks, like scour- 
 ing the kitchen knives or feeding the cat. "That 
 is my business." 
 
 He speaks scornfully of playmates who "don't 
 do a single fing to help their mothers, even when 
 they have n't anybody else to help them. I don't 
 fink they ought to have anyfing to eat when it 
 is cooked," he adds. "Don't you know what 
 you told me about the Bible? 'If well people 
 won't work, they had n't ought to eat.' ['If any 
 will not work, neither shall he eat.']" 
 
 He can make Ernest's cocoa as well as I, and 
 the privilege of doing this is esteemed a great 
 honor, especially when he is permitted to get out 
 and measure the various ingredients. He thinks 
 that there was never such a good father in the 
 world, and working for him in any way is joyful 
 
222 Note-Book of 
 
 service. "I am going to grow so much, ' ' he says, 
 "that some day I will be your grandfather. And 
 then I will work in the store and help Father. 
 But I will be a good cooker, too, so I can 
 make his cocoa and rings. I will cook rings for 
 you, too. I will make you bofe some ostridge 
 soup." 
 
 He has pride in the quality of his work as well 
 as in the quantity. Once in a great while I let 
 him wash the saucepans, and because this so 
 seldom happens (I always wishing to linger and go 
 over them again) it is a most solemn function, not 
 to be entered upon lightly or without due con- 
 sideration. He usually expatiates upon it while 
 at work. "Now, when you wash saucepans, 
 you have to be very careful," he says, as he 
 stands on a chair to reach the dish-pan. "When 
 I was a little boy I was careless sometimes. ' ' 
 
 Even when I am not apparently busy, so that 
 there is no power of example to influence him, 
 he often begs for work. ' ' Give me some work to 
 do," he says. ' I am tired of playing." 
 
 If, as Van Dyke suggests, every life may have 
 its ruling passion, asserting itself before and con- 
 tinuing after that of romantic love, I do not know 
 what is to be preferred to a passion for work. 
 Having foresworn laziness myself some years ago, 
 I speak as one having authority. To do useful 
 work as well as one can, never slighting or desert- 
 ing it for anything less worth while ; to take rest 
 
An Adopted Mother 223 
 
 and recreation, but to take it because, as Horace 
 says, "a field that has rested yields an abundant 
 harvest" ; to feel somewhat of the creative spirit ; 
 to learn to accomplish easily what was once the 
 impossible; and to feel the increasing capability 
 of both body and mind ; this is a worthy ruling 
 passion. It is one, too, equally useful in both 
 adversity and prosperity. The rich man's son is 
 steadied and saved by it, and the poor man's son 
 is kept from discontent and brooding, as well as 
 being lifted to a higher point of vantage than his 
 father had before him. Those who would play 
 find keener delight in pleasure because they have 
 been working steadily and faithfully; those in 
 trouble find work their greatest comfort. Truly 
 I wish for my boy the strongest, sweetest, and 
 most abiding romantic love, but love and work go 
 well together, and I will cultivate in him an in- 
 telligent passion for work. Love will come in its 
 own time. 
 
 Already I see Stanley rescued from little beset- 
 ments by his industry. Filling the wood-box has 
 worked off many a spell of irritability, which was 
 harmlessly expended upon the "chunks"; and 
 last night he triumphed remarkably over his fear 
 of darkness. "I 'm going into the wood-shed to 
 make me some arrows," he said, "because I reelly 
 shall need them as soon as it comes spring. Only 
 will you please sing quite loudly while I am there? 
 Because, you know, I am rather afraid." 
 
224 Note-Book of 
 
 February 28th, 1903. How hard it is to deal 
 wisely with the unconscious irreverence of child- 
 hood ! It hurts older people so, particularly those 
 of us who have strongly religious feelings, to hear 
 sacred things mentioned in the same way as secu- 
 lar ones. It was only a few days ago that Stanley 
 asked me about the size of God. "He must be 
 very, very tall, ' ' said he. ' ' Could He get drowned 
 in our bay? " [The large bay on which our sum- 
 mer home is situated.] 
 
 I was on the point of saying the conventional 
 "Oh, you must not talk about God in that way," 
 when there flashed into my mind a stanza of 
 Whittier's which we often sing: 
 
 " We may not climb the heavenly steeps 
 
 To bring the Lord Christ down; 
 
 In vain we search the lowest deeps, 
 
 For Him no depths can drown." 
 
 And then I saw that poet and child were think- 
 ing on the same great question, and who was I 
 that I should reprove the child ? 
 
 To-day I had a somewhat similar experience, 
 but saw my way out, leaving Stanley with a feel- 
 ing of happy satisfaction and a lesson to ponder 
 on as well. He was just in from coasting with 
 the other boys. "It is n't safe to coast on your 
 back, is it?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
An Adopted Mother 225 
 
 "Or standing up? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Mother, don't you fink Jesus could do it all 
 right when He was alive? " 
 
 "Yes, Stanley, I think He could have done it 
 without hurting Himself if there had been snow 
 in the country where He lived. But suppose He 
 had done it safely and there were a lot of boys 
 around who could not, and yet kept wanting to 
 try when they saw Him? Do you think He was 
 the kind of boy to do it and make them want to 
 try, when they should not? " 
 
 There was fine scorn in Stanley's tones as he 
 answered: "Course He would n't. There might 
 even be some little baby boys there what did n't 
 know any better than to do fings He did. He 'd 
 just say 'I can have a good enough time with- 
 out,' and He would not do what they had n't 
 ought to. It would make them feel bad, you 
 know, and He was n't that sort." 
 
 March ?th, 1903. This has been a very in- 
 teresting day for children on account of the glare 
 of ice and the falling rain. For fat little boys 
 who have not far to fall, it has been a rollicking 
 time. Many were the tumbles reported to me, 
 but the most picturesque was that of a dog. 
 "He did n't fall down just like other people, be- 
 cause he had more legs." I wonder if it were the 
 one offered to Stanley the other day by a small 
 
226 Note-Book of 
 
 girl, who was obliged to give it away before taxes 
 were assessed. I made inquiries as to breed, and 
 was told it was "half spaniel and half puppy," 
 Stanley adding, "That is the very best kind to 
 have, you know, Mother." 
 
 But the latter part of to-day was overshadowed 
 by an accident, and Stanley came in crying, with 
 his rubber boots full of water. "It was all Ed- 
 win's fault anyway," he sobbed. "He made me 
 fall down into the water. He made me run so 
 fast. You see he was a chickmump and I was a 
 dog, and he went too fast and I had to catch 
 him." A sense of humor is a wonderful help in 
 such emergencies, and this was an emergency for 
 me, because losing time to comfort and re-costume 
 a small boy just then meant failing to get off im- 
 portant mail, so I managed to keep serene, and 
 said, "Well, next time don't be a dog when you 
 have your rubber boots on." Then we looked 
 into each other's eyes and forgot our sorrows and 
 annoyances in a good laugh. I am glad that 
 Stanley can see a joke, and I mean to keep the 
 fun alive in him. There is something abnormal 
 about a child who does not joke in his own way, 
 but it is sadly little encouragement that many of 
 them have in it, parents not realizing the real 
 educational value of fun. 
 
 March nth, ipoj. My birthday, and I had a 
 novel gift. Ernest had been too busy to lay any 
 
An Adopted Mother 227 
 
 little plans with Stanley, and when he heard that 
 it was my birthday he was much depressed to 
 think he had no gift for me. Ernest promptly 
 bought one for him to present as coming from 
 them both, in spite of my having been remem- 
 bered already. But this did not satisfy him, and 
 he went off by himself for a long time. 
 
 He returned radiant, and gave me a large shiny 
 metal bottle cover, which he had picked up some- 
 where a week before, and which was his chief 
 treasure. "You can keep it on your dresser," he 
 said. "If you get somefing in your eye, you can 
 see it in this. It is big enough for one eye, you 
 know, and it will look very pretty there. Is n't 
 it a sweet s'prise? You had n't reelly seen it be- 
 fore, had you? " 
 
 Blessed boy, as if I did n't know what it had 
 cost him ! All day he has been going in to look 
 at it and finger it wistfully, always turning away 
 with the same remark, "But I am glad that you 
 have it," and with a shining face as well. If I 
 could not see beyond to-day, I would never have 
 the heart to take a gift so dear to the giver. But 
 selfishness comes easily enough to us all, and I 
 will not inculcate it in Stanley. The joy of self- 
 sacrifice may mean as much to him as the joy of 
 possession, and it is surely nobler. 
 
 March i6th, 1903. It seems as though one 
 having the care of a child from the beginning 
 
228 Note-Book of 
 
 might keep his English pure without much 
 trouble, but what a task it is to take even a boy 
 of five who has lived among users of slang and 
 incorrect English, and thoroughly revise his vocab- 
 ulary. They are not indifferent to such matters 
 in the School, yet the odds are against them. 
 New children are always coming in, and the bet- 
 ter trained ones going out to homes, most of the 
 new-comers from the commonest sort of sur- 
 roundings, and the employees of the institution 
 cumbered with many cares. 
 
 It would not do to nag the child, and I was 
 particularly anxious to spare him anything of the 
 sort when he was so overwhelmed with newness 
 and strangeness as really to suffer from a form 
 of brain-fag every night. His use of the word 
 "awful" was the most striking fault, so I began 
 on that, reminding him every time he said it and 
 ignoring all other blunders. When he had fairly 
 mastered that, I took "You bet" as the subject 
 of special attention. We made a game of it, and 
 Stanley soon became intensely interested in get- 
 ting his lips shut before the wrong word could 
 escape. A judicious compliment from time to 
 time helped, and I was careful not to bother him 
 with correcting errors which would soon right 
 themselves. For instance, he still has a tendency 
 to make some of his verbs regular when they 
 should not be, but he has picked up many correct 
 forms quite unconsciously. 
 
An Adopted Mother 229 
 
 It has interested him to know that we have the 
 most wonderful language in the world and that it 
 has been growing for hundreds of years. I tell 
 him we must take care of what words we use, so 
 that they will be right for other people to use 
 after us. We must not spoil them by using them 
 for the wrong purpose, as a carpenter might spoil 
 a saw if he took it to pound nails. It is true that 
 this cultivated fastidiousness has its disadvantages, 
 as when he recently corrected a young man who 
 called here for saying "bet!" "You must not 
 say that word around this house, ' ' he said. ' ' We 
 don't allow it." 
 
 His efforts at extending his own vocabulary are 
 very funny, and I can usually tell when he is 
 making ready to experiment on a new word. In- 
 deed I sometimes tempt him into it by using 
 some rather difficult one with a comprehensible 
 meaning several times in close succession. Then 
 I see him casting about for a chance to work it in. 
 It seems queer to hear him say that he is "anxious 
 for a cookie," but the only times he has really 
 blundered were when he said that Anita "had 
 gone so far away that she has gone out of pa- 
 tience," and when he told of a dreadful fall which 
 had ' ' nearly explained his shoulder. " He is very 
 shrewd and canny about betraying ignorance, but 
 he never denies himself expression for the want 
 of a familiar word. 
 
 " I am a pretty good frower-ball, ' ' he announced 
 
230 Note-Book of 
 
 some time ago, "and I mean to be a base-bailer 
 when I am big." This must not be regarded as 
 committing him irrevocably to a sporting career, 
 for he also wishes to be a "seller-man" in his 
 father's store, and has mentioned being a "polar- 
 man" (lineman) for the telegraph company. 
 
 It makes one realize more than ever the pecu- 
 liarities of our mother tongue to see how they 
 entrap a child. Why should we not speak, as 
 Stanley has done, of "the very pettest pig of 
 all ? " or say that we ' ' will go fastly ' ' on an errand ? 
 
 "How many flies [wing-beats]," he asks, "does 
 it take to cross the ocean? " "She is a very big 
 schooner," he also says, "but she does n't schoon 
 very fast." 
 
 "Don't you fink," he asks, "that I fit my new 
 clothes pretty good?" 
 
 I believe it is said that we most betray the 
 breadth and accuracy of our thought by our 
 choice of adjectives and adverbs, and I do not 
 know exactly where Stanley would stand if such 
 a test were applied to him. He certainly shows 
 fertility of expedient. "Folks can't sleep with 
 me," he carefully explained to a friend, "because 
 I have such kicky legs." And another time he 
 wanted to go out with his sled because it was 
 "snowing just lickety bang." 
 
 We sometimes amuse ourselves in our quiet 
 hours by thinking what lots of hard words we 
 know and by telling what they mean. Almost 
 
An Adopted Mother 231 
 
 anything can be turned into a diversion if one 
 cares to do it, and such recapitulations are very 
 encouraging to the youthful mind. "I spelled 
 'cat' to-day and writed it," he announced some 
 time ago, "and could n't do it yesterday. I fink 
 that when you was just a little girl, five, you 
 know, you prob'ly could n't do fings as good as 
 me." 
 
 March i8th, ipoj. Two of Stanley's play- 
 mates have been left motherless within the past 
 week, and it has made him think much of death 
 and the grave. His questions have been very 
 hard to answer both truthfully and comfortingly, 
 all the more because my own eyes would fill from 
 time to time, and it was difficult to speak serenely 
 of some things. He had such a terror of being 
 "put in the ground." Luckily I remembered 
 having found a cast-off cicada skin a few months 
 ago, and looked it up. It was remarkably per- 
 fect, the only break being the little opening in 
 the back, through which the cicada had emerged, 
 and the feet were still hooked into the branch 
 where the transformation took place. 
 
 With this by way of an object lesson I told how 
 the real insect was not there, having flown away 
 to a happier life than he had ever before known. 
 "In some such way, but not in the same way," I 
 added, "people who die leave their bodies behind 
 on earth. They do not need their bodies any 
 
232 Note-Book of 
 
 more, and do not care what becomes of them after 
 they are through living in them. It is the real 
 person who goes to heaven, you know, not just 
 the outside house or body in which he has been 
 living. The body which he leaves behind is no 
 more the real person than your clothing which 
 you took off last night is you." 
 
 "And then other folks put his old body in the 
 ground? " 
 
 "Yes, dear. Sometimes it is wrapped up very 
 carefully and burned, and the ashes are put in 
 some beautiful spot. Usually it is put into a 
 box, or coffin, and buried in the ground, where 
 the flowers and trees can grow over it, and the 
 soft green grass covers the place where the ground 
 had been opened for it. We take good care of 
 our bodies while we are alive, because we have to 
 use them and must have them clean and well, and 
 the dead bodies are put lovingly away because 
 they have been so useful to the people who lived 
 in them." 
 
 In the most important respects my little lesson 
 was a perfect success, for Stanley has quite lost 
 his terror of the grave, but it was somewhat of a 
 shock to me when he nodded understandingly at 
 the close and said: "I know now. It is just our 
 skin that is put into the ground, and we don't 
 need our skin any more, so that does n't matter." 
 
 It would have been folly to explain further, 
 since the chief object of the discussion was at- 
 
An Adopted Mother 233 
 
 tained, so I only said, "Rather more than the 
 skin, dear, but not the real person, and it truly 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 March 2Oth, 1903. I have spent to-day shop- 
 ping in our nearest large city, and found the ride 
 home about as much as a tired mortal could 
 stand, but I thought how it lightened the parcels 
 and eased the way to remember the little lad 
 waiting eagerly for my return. Such things come 
 to me with fresh force every now and then, mak- 
 ing me realize how much richer and fuller and 
 sweeter my life is than it was before we took in 
 the homeless child. People often say to me, "I 
 think you are doing a fine thing, and I hope you 
 will have your reward some day." 
 
 Are they blind? Can they not see that I have 
 my reward every day, and that Ernest and I 
 get more out of it than the child does? I often 
 wonder whether God sees any particular virtue in 
 my adopting the child. It seems to me that if I 
 were actuated by the most absolute selfishness, 
 I could not increase my own happiness more than 
 by taking Stanley to bring up as my own. 
 
 When I reached home he was in bed, sitting up 
 with arms outstretched and eyes aglow to make 
 his joyful report. "O, Mother, but you '11 be 
 glad," said he. "I fink I have reelly been the 
 best boy in the whole world to-day. I haven't 
 been b-a-d once. I just could n't have been 
 
234 Note-Book of 
 
 better. Have I been as good as God? Just for 
 once, you know? " 
 
 March 24-th, 1903. This has been a day of 
 sensational developments. For some time Stan- 
 ley has been asking questions along a line which 
 made me wonder if I ought to have a long and 
 strictly confidential talk with him. He is very 
 young to be told of the beginning of life, but I 
 would rather tell a little child than to risk his get- 
 ting a low idea of birth. Indeed my only reason 
 for not telling him of it some time since was the 
 fear that he would be unable to keep from talking 
 of it to other children. 
 
 I have kept a straight face when he assured me 
 that Harry's father rabbit was going to hatch out 
 some baby rabbits pretty soon, have answered 
 with the desired dimensions when asked, "How 
 big are little babies when they are first hatched? " 
 and have tried always to preserve a responsive 
 and sympathetic attitude when such subjects 
 were under discussion. It has done me good to 
 remember how young I was when my friends 
 began telling me things which I must never tell 
 my mother. I did try to tell her without break- 
 ing my promises, but when I began edging around 
 with my shy questions I was always told to wait 
 until I was a big girl. It was a mistake on her 
 part, the second grave mistake which I have ever 
 been able to find in her dealing with an eager and 
 
An Adopted Mother 235 
 
 inquisitive mind. In that she simply followed 
 the custom of her generation, but it was taking 
 dangerous chances. 
 
 I have never told an untruth in reply to a ques- 
 tion and have never seemed to evade replying, 
 but little by little I have found the queries coming 
 nearer the mark. "How big are baby whales?" 
 Stanley has asked. "How big are they when 
 they are in the sky? " 
 
 And then there was a noticeable opening of his 
 brown eyes when I said that baby whales never 
 were there. "God does n't make everything in 
 the sky, dear," I said. "He can make things 
 anywhere, and sometimes He makes them when 
 people are looking, only they cannot see how He 
 does it. They cannot watch Him making baby 
 whales or other creatures that live in the ocean, 
 but when they first see the baby whales they are 
 about as long as our bathroom." 
 
 "Is that when they are first born, Mother? 
 What does 'born' mean?" 
 
 "Not quite the same as 'hatched.' We say 
 that little creatures are hatched when they have 
 to break their way out of an egg-shell. When 
 they come without any shell around them we say 
 that they are 'born.' 
 
 Stanley looked satisfied, so I began edging 
 away from the subject by telling how birds and 
 fishes were always hatched, but four-legged crea- 
 tures were born : that one reason why we could 
 
236 Note-Book of 
 
 not call a whale a fish was because it was born, 
 not hatched, and that this was also the reason 
 why bats are not called birds. Then I told him 
 how little creatures that are born are fed with 
 milk from the mother's body, and those which 
 are hatched are fed on other things. 
 
 That sufficed for one day, but I could see that 
 the subject was still on his mind, for a few nights 
 later he said at the dinner-table: "Mother, I do 
 not see how God ever gets the bones inside of 
 people. Isn't that the funniest part of it? Where 
 does He put them in? " 
 
 And then I evaded as skilfully as I could. 
 "It is very wonderful," I said, "and I do not 
 understand all about it myself. There will 
 always be some things which nobody can under- 
 stand, you know. I think it is just as wonderful 
 how He puts the leaves on the trees, though, 
 don't you ? All winter their branches are bare and 
 brown, but in spring the tiny green leaves come all 
 over them and grow bigger and bigger, yet we can 
 look right at the tree while they are coming out 
 and growing, and not see how God is doing it." 
 
 "That is wonderful, isn't it?" said Stanley. 
 "I never fought about that before." 
 
 Another day he asked: "Are mothers always 
 ladies, or are they sometimes men? Why are 
 they always ladies? " 
 
 It was easy to answer these questions, because 
 when he had been reminded how men had to earn 
 
An Adopted Mother 237 
 
 money in the stores and shops, he thought they 
 were foolish ones to ask. I told him there were 
 other reasons, that men were not made to be 
 mothers and care for little babies, that they had 
 their own work to do in the world, but that car- 
 ing for the tiny children was a work which God 
 had given to women. 
 
 To-day came the climax. He had spent his 
 afternoon play-time at Harry's, and Harry's home 
 is on the townward corner of a large farm, with a 
 good variety of live-stock in the stables. When 
 he returned and we were having our usual before- 
 dinner visit, he began telling me about "the little 
 baby calfie at Harry's." 
 
 Something in the child's voice struck me as 
 unusual, and I asked how old the calf was. He 
 said: "It is n't any old at all. It is just born! " 
 
 It was evident that he wanted to talk freely, 
 but was experimenting to see how far he could 
 safely go. The upshot of it was that he told me 
 all about the birth of the calf, and I appeared in- 
 terested instead of shocked. I said: "Now you 
 understand what is meant when people say 'born ' 
 instead of 'hatched/ Don't you know, I told 
 you, but you could n't seem to understand." 
 
 And then how happy he was ! He felt that I 
 had been dealing honorably with him and that all 
 was well. "There ! " he cried. "Harry said that 
 mothers did n't know about such rings, and you 
 could n't tell them anyfing; that they was just 
 
238 Note-Book of 
 
 cross if you tried to. But I knew better! I knew 
 my mother knew! " 
 
 The interview ended with the agreement that 
 he was always to ask me about such things if he 
 wanted to understand better, because mothers 
 knew more than boys. Also, I told him that this 
 was the way in which God wished children to 
 learn, and that I would prefer he should not talk 
 such things over with other people only with his 
 father and mother. 
 
 I feel safe about him now, much more so than 
 before, and there is certainly a new and close 
 bond between us because of this confidence. 
 When other questions need to be answered, I 
 think he will bring them to me first of all, and 
 the unwholesome mystery and fascination is dis- 
 pelled. It takes courage, but it is the only safe 
 way, and when he is a little older and can enjoy 
 with me the revelations of the compound micro- 
 scope, I am sure he will come to feel as I do, 
 that the beginning of life is an almost holy subject. 
 
 Marc/ijist, 1903. It would be unsafe to gen- 
 eralize, but I am sure that in the case of our boy, 
 the constant asking of questions is a sign of great 
 fatigue. It is only when he is too tired to think 
 things out for himself that he wearies others for 
 answers. Under those circumstances he needs 
 some quiet diversion to let down his tension and 
 then as much rest as can be secured. 
 
An Adopted Mother 239 
 
 Strong as he is, I see signs of brain-fag if he is 
 in the least overstimulated, and I think a cutting 
 down of his long sleeping hours would change him 
 from a usually sunshiny and comfortable child 
 into one decidedly peevish and unreasonable. If 
 it were not that I fear to make bed unpopular, I 
 should tuck him in for a long period of quiet 
 every time that he is irritable. 
 
 One of to-day's questions is worth noting 
 down. It was apropos of the present kite craze. 
 "Mother," said he, "if you tied a strong string 
 to me, would I go up in the air? " 
 
 April ist, 1903. Such fun as we have had with 
 our April Fool jokes to-day! Stanley is not 
 exactly an adept at it yet, and we have had to 
 jump and exclaim over such assertions as: "O, 
 Father! There is a dreadful great alligator on 
 the back of your neck! " and "O, Mother, look 
 out ! You most stepped on a boom-constructor 
 then." True to his ruling passion, most of his 
 jokes have been zoological. He must have 
 worked in several good-sized menageries in the 
 course of the day. 
 
 After breakfast he came with reverent manner 
 to ask: "Mother, would it be right for me just 
 one day, you know to try to fool God? Do 
 you s'pose I could? " 
 
 I wish I could follow accurately the workings of 
 his busy little mind. I have never had very 
 
240 Note-Book of 
 
 solemn conversations with him about such sub- 
 jects, and I fear am very far from the type of 
 mother I used to find described on the pages of 
 my Sunday-school books, but I am pleased and 
 surprised to find how constantly God is taken 
 into the reckoning. I do not mean that flip- 
 pantly. I mean that the little lad seems always 
 conscious of the existence of God and loves to 
 think of Him, although often in very crude and 
 imperfect fashion. As for that, I suppose we all 
 have but crude conceptions of our Creator. 
 
 "O, Mother," he said the other day, "there 
 is such a slippery pond in our school yard. I 
 stepped out did n't know 't was there slipped 
 went down just bizzing ! You 'd have slipped 
 down, too, if you 'd been there, or Father. Even 
 God would, I know. He just could n't help it 
 when it is so slippery ! ' ' 
 
 And again, when he went off to play, I said, 
 "Keep my boy dry." 
 
 "Yes, God will and I will," was the startling 
 reply. "Bofe of us, you know! " 
 
 April jrd, 1903. I have an excellent house- 
 keeper at last, and Stanley and I celebrated our 
 freedom by going polliwogging. 
 
 April 6th, 1903. One of the hardest questions 
 to deal with is this abominable sentimentalism 
 between boys and girls. I had not foreseen that 
 
An Adopted Mother 241 
 
 it would become a vital matter in our home be- 
 fore Stanley reached his sixth birthday, but every 
 now and then he says things which betray how 
 much the boys of the primary grades talk about 
 kissing girls, and discuss the propriety of playing 
 with girls. I have taken the ground that there is 
 no reason why little boys and girls should not kiss 
 if they love each other very dearly, but that I 
 think it best for all children to save their kisses 
 for the people in their homes. 
 
 I had a talk with Stanley's teacher on the sub- 
 ject, and find that she has taken quite the oppo- 
 site course, meeting all complaints of threatened 
 kissings from the girls, and squelching all boast- 
 ings on the part of the boys, with a stern "1 wish 
 to hear nothing more about this silliness." I 
 have such respect for her judgment that I wonder 
 if I have been wrong. I know she could not say 
 to her pupils what I say to Stanley, and yet I 
 have seen good effects in him from my teachings. 
 It is increasingly evident to me that the best 
 thing for a boy is a sister and the best thing for a 
 girl is a brother, so that in the free and normal 
 companionship of the home these nonsensical and 
 unwholesome ideas may die a natural death. We 
 shall certainly have to adopt a little daughter 
 before many years ! 
 
 I am sure that there is no situation in which 
 children can hear remarks about being "little 
 sweethearts," or small boys having "girls," with- 
 
 16 
 
242 Note-Book of 
 
 out mischief coming of it. Even asking small 
 friends to stand side by side, so that their admir- 
 ing elders may "see what a pretty couple they 
 make," is unwholesome. 
 
 To-day it was a condition and not a theory 
 which confronted me. Stanley's former neighbor 
 and playmate, Anita, is visiting in town and came 
 to spend the day with him. He really loves her 
 very dearly and she reciprocates. She was sup- 
 posed to return to her uncle's at four o'clock. 
 At about that time they came in to where I was 
 sitting. "I 've got to go home," said Anita. 
 
 "She has to go," echoed Stanley, leaning 
 against my shoulder. 
 
 Anita turned her head away and became deeply 
 interested in Stanley's playthings. Stanley sat 
 on the edge of a chair and rocked violently. 
 "Mother," he said. "K-i-s-s ! You know ! 
 B-o-y-s 1-o-v-e g-i-r-1-s. You know!" 
 
 I said: "All right." 
 
 He tiptoed over and whispered to me. "Very 
 well, ' ' I replied. ' ' Kiss her good-by. ' ' 
 
 "Mother, how do you spell 'Anita '? " 
 
 I spelled it. 
 
 "That 's too long. I can't 'member," said he. 
 "Anita! Now N. stands for your name. . . . 
 N. 1-o-v-e k-i-s-s! " 
 
 Anita looked coyly away, wriggled, and bit the 
 end of one of her curls, but the outline of her 
 cheek showed that she was smiling. 
 
An Adopted Mother 243 
 
 "You tell her, Mother," said Stanley. 
 
 "Stanley wishes to kiss you good-by, dear," I 
 said. "You will let him, won't you?" 
 
 "Uh-huh!" 
 
 "All right, -Stanley, why don't you?" But 
 Stanley had dived into a pile of sofa cushions and 
 was kicking violently. I thought the presence of 
 a third party might be the cause of trouble, so I 
 went up-stairs. I was quickly brought down by 
 his calling in a distressed tone: " Mother! 
 Mother! Anita 's going, and you know! " 
 
 So I came down in the most comfortably mat- 
 ter-of-fact way possible. " Oh, yes," I said. 
 "Stanley wants to kiss you, does n't he? Let 
 me kiss you first and then he may." 
 
 So I kissed her, and then he, with radiant and 
 awed face, embraced her and kissed her fat cheek. 
 And, womanlike, she was radiant too. 
 
 April zotk, 1903. " O, Mother, Mother, 
 Mother ! I have had such fun ! Harry has a 
 little baby calfie and lots of little white chickens 
 just the cutest little fmgs. They all have 
 mothers, but they have no fathers whatever. 
 Is n't that too bad? But s'posing they had no 
 mothers? I tell you it 's a pretty good fing they 
 have mothers. 
 
 "And, Mother, Harry is going to have some 
 better hens, just dandy ones, all roosters, you 
 know. Not even Plymouth Rocks, but roosters !" 
 
244 Note-Book of 
 
 Easter Monday, ipoj. Stanley wrote his first 
 letter to-day, not so long or profound an epistle, 
 but very creditable and characteristic. I had to 
 dictate the spelling of some words, otherwise it was 
 entirely his own. It was acknowledging an assort- 
 ment of Easter eggs which some thoughtful older 
 boys, brothers, sent to him. "I thank you," he 
 said, "for my lovely Easter eggs, and when I am 
 a big boy I am going to be very good to little 
 boys. ' ' In talking it over with me later, he added, 
 "and I shall always be just sweet to girls." 
 
 I wish that I might have a picture, a moving 
 picture, of Stanley in the joyful throes of com- 
 position. He has his own diminutive desk and 
 chair, and was so overwhelmed with pride that he 
 paused and kicked joyously at the end of every 
 word. Once he left his desk and turned a som- 
 ersault. Yet there will probably be a time when 
 letter-writing seems a bore and he begrudges dic- 
 tating a few phrases to a stenographer. I only 
 hope it will always be a matter of course with 
 him, this promptly acknowledging all gifts and 
 favors. It is not so much the etiquette of the 
 matter, although that is important enough, but I 
 am sure that the habit, like that of saying "Thank 
 you" and the less common one of asking a bless- 
 ing on our food, keeps the appreciative spirit 
 alive within us. 
 
 The eggs I distributed around the house, and 
 before church Easter morning I let Stanley take a 
 
An Adopted Mother 245 
 
 basket and hunt them. It was a very happy ex- 
 perience for him, and I am glad to record the way 
 in which he volunteered to "pass the kindness 
 on." Ernest was not feeling well, and said he 
 could not take his usual Sunday afternoon walk 
 into the country with reading matter for a certain 
 cripple. I said I would go instead, but Stanley 
 spoke up. "Let me go," he said. "I know the 
 way and I will tend right to business. You 
 need n't worry about me any. And I fink I will 
 take him my best Easter egg. I have so many, 
 you know, and it might make his back feel better." 
 
 The day was bleak, and Ernest would have said 
 "No" at once if I had not signalled him to con- 
 sent. Better have him get a bit tired and cold in 
 walking his mile than to check such a generous 
 impulse. We fitted him out with a parcel of 
 papers in each overcoat pocket, and a box con- 
 taining cotton and the precious egg clutched 
 tightly in both hands. He looked so small and 
 chubby that we both turned back from the door 
 with moist eyes. "Our little boy is growing 
 up," said I. 
 
 "Did you ever know such manliness?" said 
 Ernest. And then, partly I believe, to subdue 
 his own feeling, he laughed at me and said I was 
 scheming in a new way for a tiny girl from the 
 School. 
 
 There is nothing more to record except that he 
 came back promptly and had executed his errand 
 
246 Note-Book of 
 
 all right. ' ' They liked the papers, ' ' he exclaimed, 
 "but they fought the egg was the nicest part. 
 They said it was the very best one they ever saw, 
 and was rit it nice that I had it to give to that 
 poor, poor man?" 
 
 April 2Oth, ipoj. I doubt if any child who has 
 never been homeless and motherless can appreci- 
 ate home and parents with the same ardor as one 
 who has had such a sad experience. Stanley has 
 been with us almost a year, and the wonder and 
 delight of it do not seem to grow less to him. 
 Even now he often comes rushing home from 
 school to hug and kiss me and say: "Oh, but 
 I 'm glad that I have a mother! " And when he 
 is hurt or grieved by anything which has hap- 
 pened, his first remark is usually : "But I tell you 
 it is a good fing I have a mother ! And a father ! 
 And a home! " 
 
 It never strikes him that he is at any disadvan- 
 tage as compared with children who were born 
 into their homes, and indeed I do not see that he 
 is. He still thinks that our relationship was of his 
 making. On last Thanksgiving night, when he 
 was overflowing with the right spirit, after his 
 first day on a sled of his own, he said: "Oh, 
 Mother, are n't you thankful to have a little boy ? " 
 
 "Indeed I am," I answered heartily. 
 
 "Let 's see," he continued. "How long is it 
 since I got you, Mother? " 
 
An Adopted Mother 247 
 
 It is funny, too, to see how imagination is be- 
 ginning to blend with memory in his recalling 
 those days of a year ago. I recently heard him 
 telling another boy of some things which he did 
 not like about the School. "I was very tired of 
 it," he said, "and so I decided to come here." 
 
 He got into queer difficulties with his vocabu- 
 lary the other day, which showed afresh how inter- 
 dependent words and ideas are. He has asked 
 me a great many times what it meant to marry, 
 and I have told him that when a man loves a 
 woman very dearly, better than anybody else in 
 the whole world, so that he would like to have 
 her with him always, earning the money to buy 
 what she needs and taking care of her always, he 
 may ask her to marry him. And if she loves him 
 in that same way and is willing to care for his 
 home and help him, she may say "Yes." Then 
 they must stand up together before a minister and 
 promise these things out loud to each other before 
 him and before God. If there is nobody who 
 knows any reason why they should not marry, 
 the minister then says: "I pronounce you man 
 and wife. Whom God has joined together let no 
 man put asunder." 
 
 I have explained to him what these solemn 
 words mean, and how after they are said the wo- 
 man has the same last name as the man. And I 
 have called his attention to the duties of home- 
 making, how each must do his part faithfully if it 
 
248 Note-Book of 
 
 is to be a happy home, and how both should be 
 careful always to keep just as loving and thought- 
 ful as they were at first. It was something of a 
 shock, therefore, although his reasoning had been 
 good, to have him later, when speaking of his 
 choice to be my little boy, say: "Did I marry 
 you then, Mother?" 
 
 "No," I said, "you adopted me. You were 
 not old enough to marry, and nobody could 
 marry me anyway, because I was already married 
 to Father." 
 
 "Oh," he said, "can't you marry people what 
 are married? But it 's all right, is n't it, for us 
 to love each other and take care of each other and 
 have the same last name? And it 's just as sweet 
 as being married anyway ! " 
 
 April 23rd, 1903. A busy, happy day. It is 
 sweet to think it over quietly, now that its hero is 
 off to the Land of Nod. It is the first anniver- 
 sary of his coming to this home, and has been 
 celebrated as his sixth birthday. The real birth- 
 day came a few days since, and when he is older 
 I shall explain to him why we have observed this 
 instead. The two being so near together and all 
 our reminiscences being connected with this, it 
 seems wise to observe it. 
 
 I find that, like his last Christmas, it is practi- 
 cally the first anniversary of its kind he has ever 
 known. As a result he has been collecting in- 
 
An Adopted Mother 249 
 
 formation from all his associates as to what is 
 proper on such occasions. He has insisted that 
 we must begin the day by giving him his "birth- 
 day spanks," and has wanted me to practise up 
 in advance. He also took it for granted that he 
 was to have a party of six invited guests, so we 
 resolved to live up to his ideas of what a birthday 
 meant. 
 
 Such squealing and frolicking as ushered in the 
 day ! And then came the routine, varied only 
 by the taking of his new foot-ball to school. Five 
 little boys and one little girl were invited to come 
 here directly from school, and not to come dressed 
 up. The one girl seldom says anything, but sits 
 around and purrs like a dear little pussy-cat, and 
 inspires a vast amount of chivalry in all the small 
 boys of the neighborhood. Mary was the queen 
 of the Christmas party, and she was equally de- 
 ferred to to-day. It does me good to notice how 
 much gentler the boys are when she is with them. 
 
 We had an ideal day for the frolic, and that 
 after a week of either wet or bitterly cold weather. 
 Stanley felt certain that God had sent the sun- 
 shine especially to help him have a good time, 
 and while I did not foster the idea at all, I saw no 
 use in denying it. 
 
 My birthday gift to him was the clearing out 
 and preparing of a playhouse. For several years 
 we had packed down our own ice, and now that 
 we no longer do it there was left a room, 
 
250 Note-Book of 
 
 accessible from both within and without, seven by 
 fifteen feet, with cross-ventilation from shuttered 
 windows and double sawdust-filled walls. This I 
 furnished with crude table, seats, and sideboard, 
 and tacked bright pictures on the walls. The 
 tablecloth, if such it could be called, was made of 
 bright tissue-paper, a different shade for each 
 place. 
 
 At five o'clock I called the children together at 
 the front door, and tied on each a bow of ribbon 
 to match his place at the table. Then the rules 
 of the game were announced : they were to find 
 their own supper-table, all were to start even 
 when I gave the word, nobody was to go faster 
 than a walk, and the first one to find the supper 
 was to call the rest. They might go anywhere 
 on the place except into the doors of the house 
 itself. 
 
 Stanley was as much puzzled as the rest. 
 Ernest, Miss Murray, and our young minister, 
 who happened along at just the right time, saw 
 them fairly started. Such strides, such giggles, 
 and such a shout when the table was really found ! 
 And when Stanley heard that he was to have a 
 playhouse, his rapture knew no bounds. 
 
 I suppose it was much like the orthodox party 
 from that time on, save that the supper was rather 
 more digestible and the scene more picturesque. 
 Sandwiches, potatoes, lemonade, and all disap- 
 peared with the usual rapidity, and even the 
 
An Adopted Mother 251 
 
 animal crackers which had formed a sort of Noah's 
 Ark procession down the middle of the table were 
 dismembered with neatness and dispatch. 
 
 The candy hearts imbedded on the frosting of 
 the cakes, and the extinguishing of the birthday 
 candles, took longer, and then all flocked out for 
 a short game with the new foot-ball, a game in 
 which the minister led, but where even Mary had 
 her turn when it came round. 
 
 At a quarter past six my little boy was tucked 
 into bed, in accordance with our satisfactory rule 
 of an early retiring hour after parties. I think he 
 summed it all up in the happy way in which he 
 sighed: "I fink birfdays are the very nicest days 
 of all!" 
 
 Afterwards the old nervous fears came upon 
 him with the reaction from excitement, and he 
 begged me to stay in the room. I wanted to lie 
 down for a bit, and that was not possible in his 
 room, yet I agreed to stay if he would lie very 
 still and not talk. He promised, but then, "You 
 look very, very tired," said he, "and I will stand 
 it alone. You may go anywhere you want to. 
 I don't b'leeve I '11 be too 'fraid, because, you 
 know, I am six years old now! " 
 
 It reminds me of his remark a few days ago, 
 when I said that I should miss having a five-year- 
 old boy, and he replied quite seriously: "But I 
 fink you will feel better when you have a six- 
 year-old boy, because, you know, I can take 
 
252 Note-Book of 
 
 much better care of you then." Evidently other 
 considerations also have weight with him, for 
 after he had been visiting with me for a long time 
 he hurriedly arose, gave me a parting hug, and 
 said: "I fink I 'd better hustle off and roll my 
 hoop before I grow to be a man." 
 
 Truly, it does one good to mark the anniver- 
 saries, and I have been sitting beside my sleeping 
 boy and thinking what changes the year has made 
 in him. He has gained five inches in height and 
 ten pounds in weight, has exchanged his baby fat 
 for the firmest of muscle, has bright color instead 
 of marked pallor, has almost wholly conquered 
 his old timidity, has made fine progress in learn- 
 ing to rule his temper, has done a year's excellent 
 work in the public school, and has reached a point 
 where corporal punishment seems to be quite a 
 thing of the past and he can be governed by the 
 mildest measures. He has nobly fulfilled his early 
 promise to take good care of the parents whom 
 he adopted, and he has been the light of our 
 home. 
 
 May ipth, 1903. Before I was awake yesterday 
 morning there came a gentle tap on my door and 
 Stanley's voice: " Mother, O, Mother! Is this 
 reelly the day that Sidney 's coming?" 
 
 When I let him in and he was sure that it was 
 true, such kickings and squealings of pure delight ! 
 Somersaults done in pajamas with feet are 
 
An Adopted Mother 253 
 
 peculiarly effective when the pajamas have been 
 made with liberal allowance for growth the 
 extra-length legs flap so engagingly at every 
 turn. 
 
 When I finally suggested getting dressed for 
 breakfast, Stanley demurred. "I don't want to 
 get dressed," he said, "and I don't want any 
 breakfast or any dinner or any supper. I don't 
 want to go to school or to play with the other 
 fellows. All I want to do is to sit on the edge of 
 the sidewalk all day and think about my brother." 
 
 We had received notice to meet the attendant 
 who was bringing Sidney to us at another town 
 some twenty miles away, and this would keep me 
 all day and bring me back after Stanley was ready 
 for bed. Nothing else availed until I fell back on 
 my good old argument that that waiting-time 
 seems shortest and is happiest when we are doing 
 our work just as well as we know how. He went 
 to school in tears, but he went, and after that the 
 comfort of routine duties held him secure. 
 
 There is not much to write of the day. Sidney 
 was radiantly happy, quite nervous, and had been 
 too excited to eat much breakfast or dinner, so 
 the first sign of returning balance was a tremend- 
 ous appetite. Ernest had run away from business 
 to keep me company during what promised to be 
 a somewhat tedious day, and we had a happy 
 time. Sidney's pathetic little bagful of treasures 
 had to be opened and displayed to us, his plain 
 
254 Note-Book of 
 
 and meagre wardrobe, his tooth-brush, his New 
 Testament, and the two letters I had written him 
 while he was at the School. One was written last 
 February and has been his chief treasure ever 
 since, although it was not until long after that he 
 knew he was to come to us. 
 
 It was not until we reached the home station 
 that the situation became dramatic. During our 
 short walk home he scanned every house in the 
 gathering darkness, asking: "Is this our house? 
 Is ours a pretty good house? Is it large? " And 
 when we came to it he could hardly wait for the 
 latch-key to be turned and let him in. Then, in 
 true boy-fashion, he let out a joyous "Whoop- 
 ee! " which was answered from above, where the 
 boys' new room was occupied for the first time, 
 and a fat little figure in pajamas appeared on the 
 upper landing. How those boys hugged ! White 
 arms and black arms were all tangled up, and 
 white legs and black legs waved ecstatically in the 
 air as they kissed and hugged and giggled, and 
 kissed again. It was worth living five years to 
 see! 
 
 Then Ernest and I went up-stairs with them, 
 and while Sidney was made ready for bed Stanley 
 rushed from one to the other of us, hugging, kiss- 
 ing, and occasionally stopping long enough to 
 turn a somersault. I am sure that the last mis- 
 giving vanished from Ernest's heart in those bliss- 
 ful moments. When the two boys knelt beside 
 
An Adopted Mother 255 
 
 me for their prayer, they found that they used 
 different forms. Sidney said his alone, and then 
 both joined in "Our Father." Stanley amended 
 his to suit the new circumstances, saying: "Bless 
 my father and my mother, bless me some, too, 
 and Sidney. Help me to be a good boy. Help 
 Sidney to be a good boy. Help me to grow up a 
 good man. Help Sidney to grow up a good man. 
 Help everybody to grow up a good man. Amen." 
 Two bearish hugs, one from either side, and I 
 was free to go down-stairs and leave them. In- 
 stead I sat in the hall outside, in the dark, listening 
 to the happy ripple of voices, which it would have 
 been, cruel to forbid. The boys had no idea that 
 I was there. One thing which pleased me was 
 that Sidney's coming did not make Stanley a 
 whit less loyal or demonstrative toward the rest 
 of his little circle. Even dear old battered Helen 
 was not neglected. "She is my dolly, Sidney," 
 he explained, "and she always goes to bed with 
 me. You fink it 's all right for boys to have 
 dolls, don't you? Then she can be yours some, 
 too. She used to belong to our mother when 
 she was a little girl. That 's what makes her so 
 wobbly. Mother says she has played with so 
 many children that she is tired, so she likes to be 
 in bed. Only when I get very sleepy I lay her 
 out, so I won't forget and roll on top of her. 
 O, Sidney, let 's kiss some more! Don't you 
 fink kissing is more fun than going to sleep? " 
 
256 Note-Book of 
 
 "I tell you what, Stanley, you must help me 
 find things to do for our mother. I know one 
 thing. We will make our own beds every morn- 
 ing. I will show you how to help. And we can 
 dress ourselves, and I will help you part your 
 hair." 
 
 "Yes, all right. I do fings for her, but you are 
 older and can do more fings. You may have 
 half my toys, and I have six cents saved to buy 
 you fings. What do you want? " 
 
 ' ' Gee whiz ! I don't know ! ' ' 
 
 "Sidney, you must n't swear! " 
 
 " 'Gee whiz' ain't swearing. It 's only talking 
 to your horses. You know you say 'Gee' to 
 them. And when you say 'Jiminy crickets' 
 you 're just talking to your crickets, so that is all 
 right." 
 
 "Well, perhaps it isn't swearing, but anyway 
 it is the sort of word Mother does n't like boys to 
 say, and I '11 help you 'member not to say it. 
 Every time you start to say 'Gee' I '11 tell you to 
 stop." 
 
 "What does she do to you if you say it? Does 
 she whip you? " 
 
 "Uh-uh! She doesn't whip you. She says 
 'You must learn not to say that.' ' 
 
 "But what does she do?" 
 
 "I told you what she does. She says, 'You 
 must learn not to say that,' and then you learn 
 and she helps you 'member. I '11 show you all 
 
An Adopted Mother 257 
 
 about everyfing in the morning. We have the 
 biggest house. And I '11 show you our church." 
 
 "Do you go to church? Will you take me 
 some time? " 
 
 "Take you next Sunday. Course we always 
 go, all of us. Sunday-school, too. Church is 
 pretty long, but you '11 like it. [This was a 
 pleasant surprise to the eavesdropper.] And 
 sometimes we go down to the church Saturday 
 afternoons and take lots of flowers to make it 
 pretty, and I help. Mother can't do it very well 
 without me, and now you can help too. And O, 
 Sidney, you ought to see our cat ! He is the 
 biggest one you ever saw, and he is just hand- 
 some. He is a tiger with some white on him." 
 
 "A tiger! Ain't you afraid of him?" 
 
 "Uh-uh! Course he isn't a tiger tiger, just a 
 tiger cat kind of streaked, you know. But this 
 is the best place. There is n't a bear around 
 here ! Not one in town ! Mother says so. And 
 there is n't any up norf where we go in the sum- 
 mers, either! Only skunks, but they are all right 
 if you don't bother them, and they usually sleep 
 daytimes anyway. Ain't you glad you don't 
 have to be afraid of bears? " 
 
 "I 'm not afraid of bears any more now, Stan- 
 ley. I tell you what we 've got at the School. 
 We 've got a tame frog, and we feed him, and we 
 put him in the fountain and he swims around 
 like " 
 
258 Note-Book of 
 
 "O, Sidney, you must not say that! That is 
 a very bad swear! Ever and ever so much 
 worser 'n 'Gee whiz/ You must be sure not to 
 say it any more." 
 
 "That is n't a bad word. It can't be swearing. 
 It is in my Bible. I '11 find it for you to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 "Perhaps it is in your Bible, but it is a swear 
 the way you said it anyhow. You ask Mother if 
 it is not. She says words are different different 
 places. I heard it in church last Sunday, but it 
 was all right then. It 's all right when a minister 
 is preaching if he says it like this 'HELL' [very 
 dispassionately, slowly, and solemnly], but any 
 other way is swearing." 
 
 "Gee whiz, I did n't know " 
 
 "You said 'Gee whiz'!" 
 
 "Did I? I did n't know it. Well, I did n't 
 know about that other word, but I won't say it 
 anyhow." 
 
 "And I '11 help you 'member about all these 
 fings, and O, Sidney, come on, let 's kiss each 
 other some more! " 
 
 And so it went for almost two hours, until I 
 felt that I must check the talking and get them 
 asleep. There was much said to make me happy, 
 although there were also the expected revelations 
 of work in store before the new boy could equal 
 his younger brother in many respects. He is just 
 as bright and of as great promise, and after all I 
 
An Adopted Mother 259 
 
 doubt whether any other work is so fascinating, 
 to me at least, as this same thorough business of 
 child-training. I cannot imagine that there would 
 be much pleasure or profit in going about it in any 
 half-way fashion. 
 
 This morning the boys awakened at four, and 
 visited in whispers and giggles until six, when 
 they came down washed and dressed and ready 
 for the day. All is well with them and the home ; 
 new possibilities of work and play, and, best of 
 all, of helpful love, open up before us, and it is 
 truly a cause of thanksgiving from us to Him who 
 "setteth the solitary in families." 
 
 THE END 
 
UNIVEKSTTY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, 
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 1925 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY