One important change in our life at Altoona, after my mother and brother arrived, was that, instead of continuing to live exclusively by ourselves, it was considered necessary that we should have a servant.  It was with the greatest reluctance my mother could be brought to admit a stranger into the family circle.  She had been everything and had done everything for her two boys.  This was her life, and she resented with all a strong woman’s jealousy the introduction of a stranger who was to be permitted to do anything whatever in the home.  She had cooked and served her boys, washed their clothes and mended them, made their beds, cleaned their home.  Who dare rob her of those motherly privileges!  But nevertheless we could not escape the inevitable servant girl.  One came, and others followed, and with these came also the destruction of much of that genuine family happiness which flows from exclusiveness.  Being served by others is a poor substitute for a mother’s labor of love.  The ostentatious meal prepared by a strange cook whom one seldom sees, and served by hands paid for the task, lacks the sweetness of that which a mother’s hands lay before you as the expression and proof of her devotion.

Among the manifold blessings I have to be thankful for is that neither nurse nor governess was my companion in infancy.  No wonder the children of the poor are distinguished for the warmest affection and the closest adherence to family ties and are characterized by a filial regard far stronger than that of those who are mistakenly called more fortunate in life.  They have passed the impressionable years of childhood and youth in constant loving contact with father and mother, to each they are all in all, no third person coming between.  The child that has in his father a teacher, companion, and counselor, and whose mother is to him a nurse, seamstress, governess, teacher, companion, heroine, and saint all in one, has a heritage to which the child of wealth remains a stranger.

There comes a time, although the fond mother cannot see it, when a grown son has to put his arms around his saint and kissing her tenderly try to explain to her that it would be much better were she to let him help her in some ways; that, being out in the world among men and dealing with affairs, he sometimes sees changes which it would be desirable to make; that the mode of life delightful for young boys should be changed in some respects and the house made suitable for their friends to enter.  Especially should the slaving mother live the life of ease hereafter, reading and visiting more and entertaining dear friends—­in short, rising to her proper and deserved position as Her Ladyship.

Of course the change was very hard upon my mother, but she finally recognized the necessity for it, probably realized for the first time that her eldest son was getting on.  “Dear Mother,” I pleaded, my arms still around her, “you have done everything for and have been everything to Tom and me, and now do let me do something for you; let us be partners and let us always think what is best for each other.  The time has come for you to play the lady and some of these days you are to ride in your carriage; meanwhile do get that girl in to help you.  Tom and I would like this.”