have a deeper love and responsibility for their children. The father instinct is so often crushed.

Among the poor, dolls and the time to play with dolls, are not to be had. But there is sure to be a baby in the family on whom the devotion that is lavished, by a sister, only a little older, has given these caretaking children the name of "Little Mothers."

One day Mrs. Alma Calder Johnston looking from her window in Stuyvesant Square, saw little girls carrying babies in their arms, all too heavy for such children. She found these little girls were taking care of their baby brothers and sisters while their mothers were away all day earning a living for the family. Here they were, losing all mothering themselves — what could be done to restore to them their childhood?

Mrs. Johnston began by taking small parties of these children, for days' outings, to the country.

So the "Little Mothers' " Aid began in 1899 until to-day we find the Association with four houses, with day nurseries. Classes in cooking, sewing, laundry, hygiene, and dress-making are taught every day to these children cut off from ordinary schools by their home cares.

And not only this, but the workers from the Aid go out into the homes and while the big mothers are gone to work, make the tenement clean and liveable so that the family can be kept together.

In some of these homes are crippled children. Busy doctors give hours every week to relieving their suffering.

Do not the names of these four houses for little girls and babies, suggest the joy that has come into the little mothers' lives? "Happy Day House," "Pleasant Place," "Loving Arms," "Sunny Side."

And for summer where thousands go in relays from week to week "Holiday House."

To these houses kind friends send money, clothing, books, and toys, for all are supported by contributions. Other kind friends serve as officers, teachers, and nurses. And children of all nationalities and all faiths spend hours, of work and play, together under this beautiful charity to "the least of these."

"SHE MADE HOME HAPPY"

BY HENRY COYLE

"She made home happy!" these few words I read
Within a churchyard, written on a stone;
No name, no date, the simple words alone,
Told me the story of the unknown dead.
A marble column lifted high its head

Close by, inscribed to one the world has known; But ah! that lonely grave with moss o'ergrown Thrilled me far more than his who armies led.

"She made home happy!" through the long sad years,
The mother toiled and never stopped to rest,
Until they crossed her hands upon her breast,
And closed her eyes, no longer dim with tears.
The simple record that she left behind

Was grander than the soldier's to my mind.

LITTLE MOTHERS

BY EMMA S. NESFIELD *

Sometimes in this queer old world, blessings are thrust upon us, and we simply take them for granted accept them as our right-and think no more about them. One of the most common of these are the Little Mothers. Nearly every large-sized or even moderately large-sized family, and oftentimes just ordinary little families have one. Sometimes they don't even know they have them, because these precious blessings are born, like every other baby, and by the time they have seriously taken up their lifework, why, they are just one of the family.

Once there was a really large, old-fashioned family of five boys and four girls, and the second girl, who happened to be the third baby, was one of those things I've been telling you about. She wasn't particularly strong in body—very often they are not but she made up for it in mind, in love, in sympathy, in all the golden abstractions of true womanhood.

In the beginning of the story, the family was very prosperous but like many large, old-fashioned, highprincipled families, each year saw prosperity fading away into the dim and distant "used to be's." So, by the time this Little Mother was well on in her work, the world at large seemed to be one big, struggling, strangling problem.

When the last baby came, the Real Mother of the family somehow did not have the strength to go on

struggling, and though life meant very much to her, though her work was waiting for her, giving the little new baby to her oldest girl, she stopped living.

This oldest girl, like many another girl, scarce grown, stepped into her mother's place. She washed and combed, dressed and prayed over the little ones. She managed on narrow margin to keep the large family together, with a fair amount of the happiness and good times that always come to large families, even under the most distressing pressures. And when her little charges were well on their way: when the older ones were prepared to begin life's work to swell the little margin to comfortable appearances a big, lonely, homeless man came and begged her to help him gather Household Gods.

Somehow,

Then the Little Mother took the helm. it seemed natural. For ever so long, "the boys," now big brothers, had been coming to her for sympathy for advice, which was mostly so good that it was seldom acted on- for comfort, when misfortune followed failure, to be advised. And they never found her wanting; because being what she was, she could not help herself. She often scolded them with righteous indignation, and then relented of her cruelty in tears. How those brothers loved her of all the sisters; how they pained her most, is only a repetition of what always happens to her kind.

One by one the brothers and sisters married, started new circles, named new babies for this well-beloved sister, and had her godmother the new-comers. While she just struggled on trying to make ends meet

as a reduced gentlelady only can, by teaching petted darlings of the moneyed people in the world; and by giving readings and lectures to small seekers after culture.

At last one day a cold gripped her with a merciless hold, and she, having nothing left to struggle forno more mothering to do had not the strength to fight it off. When they had buried her by her father and mother, and left her forever, to go back to their world of husbands and wives and babies, then this family realized, for the first time, that God had sent them a "Little Mother" and they had not known it; had taken her for granted until she was gone — and her life had been only half lived.

But that is the way with "Little Mothers." You will find them the world over, in the tenements and the alleys, in the palaces and mansions. They give all they have. They worry and they grieve, comfort and scold, shield and protect, and when they have nothing left to mother, they mostly die. For, after all, they are blessings thrust upon us, and we simply take them for granted-accept them as our rightand think no more about them, giving them belated appreciation when they are gone.

* By courtesy of the Overland Monthly.

MATRES DOLOROSAE

BY ROBERT BRIDGES *

Ye Spartan mothers, gentle ones,
Of lion-hearted, loving sons,