THE LITTLE MOTHER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 133, 12 June 1909, Page 10

THE LITTLE MOTHER.

It seems singular, looking back to the day of our meeting, that I did not realise that the girl was of foreign birth. She looked twenty years old. Her face indicated that into that space of life had been crowded many experiences which never enter into the lives of Fortune's favourites. She was dirty, clothes and skin, and yet she aroused only interest and sympathy ; why sympathy was a mystery, as the girl seemed capable of caring for herpelf. "Yes, I have six children." The mute surprise of the hearer was answered by — "Not mine, my mother's. I brought every one up. I've been in this country twelve years, since I was three, and I ain't never been inside a school even one day. The little go; I make them. They ain't going to be like me. I'm going to get the littlest one in school as soon as it opens. No, that won't give me no chance ; there's the baby ; sixteen months old, yet. So cross, so ugly. Ugh ! Never shuts his mouth all day." There was silence for a space in which the expression of rebellion gave place to dread and loathing. Her voice lowered to a whisper : "There's another baby coming soon. All the other six don't count when I think of that baby ! How I hate it ! Carrying it on my arm and doing the work. Never a minute now, what will it be them?" Her voice had risen. Raising her hand to enjoin silence, she said : "Listen ; there's the new baby ; hear him holler ? Well, soon there will be two going just like that." She raised her arms, holding her palms outward as if to push the future back. "Yes, two ! I know. I've always had it, always." And she dropped those long thin arms with a gesture of despair that Rachel might have envied. "No, I can't come to you to learn to read English, because there is no one to take care of the baby, and there ain't no use, 'cause there's the other one so soon." She stopper] suddenly, the lids dropping over her beautiful eyes, her head drooping. When she raised her head again her eyes were darker and larger ; all that she had told sunk into insigniikwnce before this coming revelation Scarcely above s whisper in a trembling voice she said : "I ain't never had my first communion yet. The Sisters, the good Sisters, tell my mother to let me come to learn God's Book. She let me go two nights, and never no more. If I don't have first communion, then I cannot work away from home. That's why. No, I just got to stay and work, wash and cook and everything, and' there's another baby soon. There, listen, that's the new baby ; I got to go ; that woman what have him she get mad." Halfway down the stairs she raised a pair of beautiful brown eyes suffused with sorrow, and, smiling 6adly, said : "I might come from Italy last night, and I have been here twelve years already." A return visit to this girl revealed such a condition of dirt, disorder, and crowding in her home as defies description. The floor was the bed of all i but the father and mother, two vigorI ous Italians who had barely reached middle life. They owned a fruit and vegetable stand at the corner, and were considered very successful by their neighbours. They gave all their time to the business of the stand, and were as indifferent to the condition of their home and children as two strangers, except as to its cost. The children were weird. One, a girl of ten, had a long oval face, colourless, surrounded and always partly covered by wonderful black hair, with eyes large and sunk back in her head. She was a silent child, answering to greetings by a nod, but always looked at one with a long questioning gaze, as if life and all in it were wholly beyond her comprehension. Wherever she was met she was accompanied by a child too young to care for itself. Going into the house one evening just as darkness was falling, a little gii'l of three was found at the front door screaming at the top of her voice, and holding her hand to her head. It was evident that the cause of grief was more than the child could bear. Before she could reply to the question, "What is the trouble?" the ten-year-old sister, with her long hair hanging to her knees and partially concealing her face, came flying down the stairs and through the dark hallway like a very virago in her rage. She grasped the screaming child by the shoulder, shook her vigorously and screamed : " She one big lie ! She one big lie ! She lost her balloon, not hurt her head. She always one big lie !" The little one was dragged to the stairs and pulled j up, every step marked by a blow which j struck her anywhere the little fury who held her could reach. That one small body could hold so much passion was marvellous ; the effect on the beholder was paralyzing. Two nights later at ten o'clock the same child sat at the head of a fight of stairs holding " fhe now" baby in her lap by grasping its clothes tightly to prevent its falling down the stairs. The long black hair, unbound, fell like a black cloak about herself and the child ; the straggling locks hanging' over her face were tossed back, showing the eyes larger, darker, more questioning than ever. Her _ oval face was wan and white, but without expression ; only the eyes held life. A little persuasion won her to put the baby on the bed. This was accomplished by stepping over the little brothers and sisters stretched on the floor in all the graceful abandon of sleeping childhood. The rooms were absolutely dark. Tho child sat on the _ stairs for the light and the companionship of the passing neighbours. Business at the stand was brisk, demanding the services of all the older members of the family ; this little child was the house-mother. To the request made to the mother during a business transaction that she ■would permit her two daughters to come upstairs to learn to read English, she responded in tones of disdain : "No time, no good English; no want English; no good." One heard again in imagination the sweet, hopeless voice of a girl, aged in girlhood, " I might come from Italy last night ; been here twelve years already." To those who see this girl, on whose face is written a woman s experience, she will not appear as a heroine, but to me she will always rank as one. For herself she- has no hope, but over the destinies of the little brothers and sisters she rules, knowing one law — "They must go to school; like me I will not have them." And against odds before which the ordinary girl would quail this girl stands firm and triumphant. She has caught the spirit of the country as she has its language, and the children whom she controls are walking in the path the Canadian children tread. When told 'that the ten-year-old sister must go to school, she gave a long sigh of relief. " I'm 'glad she must. They" (meaning her father and mother) "can't help it. I'm glad. I thought she was going to be like me. No, I get along; she help when she comes home." The weaks pass, and there is the new baby, a very bambino, swathed and bound tightly as if its mother came from Italy but yesterday. The sister is carrying it in her arms, her face shining with mother-love. Proudly she holds it out for admiration. It is a beautiful baby, and the sister beams with pride as she rp«pondjj, " YePi «be ia ln'CUy» awful pretty, '-WToffpiig Gifibe..