“Surely, Ephraim would send for me,” she thought in her sorrow and bewilderment.  It mattered little to her, then, how or where she lived; all places were alike, since he was not in any of them, and she mechanically assented to any proposal that was made her, though she did cry out as one hurt, when John proposed an auction for the sale of household effects.  “Oh, I can’t,” she moaned.  “Your father made some of that furniture with his own hands,” but the worldly-wise son, who had outgrown “foolish sentimentality,” over-ruled her.  It all went, the cradle in which they rocked, the old clock, the table they surrounded so many years.  The rage for the antique had not yet shown itself, or John’s wife and Maria, would have secured some of the old-fashioned furniture.  As it was, they could not think of having their houses lumbered by it.  The other two daughters were not well-to-do, and prized money more than mementos.  Benjamin protested most earnestly at this sacrilegious disposal of the dear home things.  He could do but little himself, as he was still pursuing his law studies, though he did bid in his father’s armchair and a few other cherished articles.  John touched him on the shoulder, and said, “Ben, are you crazy?  What in the world will you do with a lot of old furniture?”

“You’ll see,” said Ben quickly.

If John could have seen his brother’s next proceeding he would certainly have pronounced him a hopeless lunatic.  He took the sum that fell to him and placed it in the bank to his mother’s credit.  “The interest money won’t amount to much, mother,” he said, as he handed her the certificate of deposit, “but I shall enjoy thinking that if you want some little thing you can get it without asking anybody.”

Mrs. Sinclair was a woman who lived for society; she had long ago cast aside as Puritanical the wholesome restraints that had governed her girlhood.  What with parties, operas and theatres, she was a very busy woman.  Her young family was much neglected and she was only too glad to transfer to her old mother what little care she did give them.  The restful days were gone, one would have supposed that Mrs. Sinclair had engaged, in her mother, a maid and seamstress.  “It’s so nice,” she told her friends.  “Mother takes the entire charge of them, and relieves me; children are such a responsibility.”  It was news to her friends, the fact that she was an anxious burdened mother.

It was hard for Mrs. Kensett to take up her life at the beginning again, to be confined day after day in a close room with noisy, fretful children, to go through the round of story-telling, tying shoes, mending tops and dolls, and minister to the thousand small wants and worries of undisciplined childhood.  She had gone through all that, those chapters of her life she had considered finished and sealed up.

There is no occupation in this world more soul and body trying than the care of young children.  What patience and wisdom, skill, and unlimited love it calls for.  God gave the work to mothers and has furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it and be guiltless.