ters queer and discordant sounds while it is tuning up its
instruments, so does the great orchestra of Human Events (in other
words, The News) offer shrill and perhaps misleading notes before the
conductor waves his baton and leads off the concerted crash of Truth.
Keep your senses alert to examine the odd scraps of hearsay that you
will often see in the news, for it is in just those eavesdroppings at
the heart of humanity that the press often fulfills its highest
function.

OUR MOTHERS

[Illustration]

When one becomes a father, then first one becomes a son. Standing by the
crib of one's own baby, with that world-old pang of compassion and
protectiveness toward this so little creature that has all its course to
run, the heart flies back in yearning and gratitude to those who felt
just so toward one's self. Then for the first time one understands the
homely succession of sacrifices and pains by which life is transmitted
and fostered down the stumbling generations of men.

Every man is privileged to believe all his life that his own mother is
the best and dearest that a child ever had. By some strange racial
instinct of taciturnity and repression most of us lack utterance to say
our thoughts in this close matter. A man's mother is so tissued and
woven into his life and brain that he can no more describe her than
describe the air and sunlight that bless his days. It is only when some
Barrie comes along that he can say for all of us what fills the eye with
instant tears of gentleness. Is there a mother, is there a son, who has
not read Barrie's "Margaret Ogilvy?" Turn to that first chapter, "How My
Mother Got Her Soft Face," and draw aside the veils that years and
perplexity weave over the inner sanctuaries of our hearts.

Our mothers understand us so well! Speech and companionship with them
are so easy, so unobstructed by the thousand teasing barriers that bar
soul from eager soul! To walk and talk with them is like slipping on an
old coat. To hear their voices is like the shake of music in a sober
evening hush.

There is a harmony and beauty in the life of mother and son that brims
the mind's cup of satisfaction. So well we remember when she was all in
all; strength, tenderness, law and life itself. Her arms were the world:
her soft cheek our sun and stars. And now it is we who are strong and
self-sufficing; it is she who leans on us. Is there anything so
precious, so complete, so that return of life's pen