companionship, either from
selfishness or some absurd educational theory, that weakens the force of
home ties later on.

I have been frequently lectured by those older, but more especially "new
mothers" younger than I, about staying with the boys at bedtime until
they grow drowsy. "The baby is put to bed, and if he cries I pay no
attention; it is only temper, not pain, for he stops the minute I speak
to him," they say. I feel the blood rush to my face and the sting to my
tongue always when I hear this.

Not pain, not temper, but the unconscious yearning for companionship, for
mother-love, is oftener the motive of the pitiful cry. Why should it be
denied? The mother bird broods her young in the nest at twilight, and the
father bird sings a lullaby to both. The kittens luxuriously sup
themselves to sleep with the warm mother flesh responding to their
seeking paws. In wild life I know not an animal who does not in some way
soothe her young to sleep. Why should the human child, the son of man, be
forced to live without the dream memories that linger about happy
sleeping times? What can the vaunted discipline give to replace them? It
is then, as they grow, and speech forms on their lips, that little
confessions come out and wrongs are naturally righted through
confidence, before they can sprout and grow.

I was not quite five when I last watched mother sowing her flower seeds,
and yet I remember to this day the way in which she did it, and so when
it came time to give my bed of summer roses its first bath of whale oil,
soap, and water, and the boys gave whoops of joy when they saw Bertel
wheel out the tub and I appeared with the shining brass syringe, I
resolved to let them have the questionable delight of administering the
shower bath, even if it took all day.

I have appropriated a long strip of rich, deep soil for these tender
roses, quite away from the formal garden and across the path from the new
strawberry bed, which by the necessity of rotation has worked its way
from the vegetable garden to the open spot under the bank wall by the
stable where the hotbeds congregate. This wall breaks the sweep of the
wind, and so both our tender roses and strawberries are of the earliest,
the fruit already being well set and large.

It was the middle of the morning. The work was progressing finely,
without more than the usual amount of slop and misdirected effort, when a
violent tooting from the direction of the highway caused