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Wanted–A Real Mother
by
“While she had been ill, I had gone to see the mill owner to ask for help for the brave little woman who had shown us all what a heroine she was. But his answer had been, ‘She took my son from me and I will have nothing to do with her. If she will give the child to me, I will bring it up in luxury, but I will not have her here.’
“So when she was ready to go back to work, I told her that another offer had come from the grandfather of the child to adopt it and I said to her, ‘Don’t you feel that you had better give them the baby?’
“For answer, she patted the curly head and said, ‘If I can fight death for my baby, I can conquer in the fight to live. I shall keep her. You may tell him that the child will not live in luxury but that she shall know no want, and she shall have both the education and culture which befits her father’s child.’
“But the mother’s heart was sore when she looked in the glass and saw what a pitiful change had come to the pretty face. ‘I am so glad it came while Mary was little,’ she said. ‘Had it come later, she would have minded my ugly face. Now she knows no better and she will grow used to it.’
“So she was glad when I offered to have her come to live with us in the distant city where none had known of her or of the awful fight she was planning to make. We had taken a large house and there were many things the mother could do with her stiff hands which gradually, because of the long hours she spent on them, were beginning to limber a bit. I gave her rooms for herself and the child and there she lived, keeping away from all so that none might see her shrunken, changed body. She lived only for the child, hoarding carefully the little money that she could save lest there be not enough to send her to college when the High School should be over.
“Often have I heard her praying for strength to fight through the battle; often have I heard her pray that the little girl should grow to be an honor to the family who would not help her; often have I begged her to let me tell the child the story of the days that had gone, but her answer was always the same, ‘No. Let her live the happy, care-free life. Some day I will tell her, but not now. It would kill me to have her pity me. She must love me for myself and not for what I did. My only happiness is to live and work for her.’
“So the heroine has spent the fifteen years and to my way of thinking she is a mother of whom you may be proud.
“She must never know I have told you. But not for the world would I have you add to her burden by thinking she was not all that you wanted your mother to be.
“Sincerely,
“A. E. Morse.”
When Mary had finished the letter, she sat as one stunned. Her mind seemed on fire. Mechanically she picked up the pearls that she had thrown on the bed. Her mother had carried them with her through that awful fire. They were one of her two treasures and now she had almost said she would not wear them. Oh, what a selfish girl she had been! She had thought only of herself.
Once she had asked her mother why the scar was upon her face and she had answered, “Just an accident, child, when I was a young woman.” Then she had talked of something else. The lame foot, the misshapen hands, the red face, the queer little knot of hair–all were the price paid for her own life. Every minute since she was born, she had been a burden to her mother.