September 26,—1935-Portrait of an Old-Fashioned Mother Who Always Carried On
The Washington Daily News—Thursday—September 26,—1935
Portrait of an Old-Fashioned Mother Who Always Carried On
By ERNIE PYLE
DANA, Ind.—My mother would rather drive a team of horses in the field than cook a dinner. She has done very little of the first, and too much of the latter, in her lifetime.
My mother is living proof that happiness is within yourself, because she has done nothing for a whole long lifetime but work too hard, and yet I’m sure she has been happy.
She loves the farm. She wouldn’t think of moving to town, as the other “retired” farmers do. She would rather stay home now and milk the cows than go to the state fair.
She is the best chicken raiser and cake baker in the neighborhood. She loves to raise chickens and hates to bake cakes.
She and my father took a trip East, and saw Niagara Falls, after they had been married 30 years. She didn’t want to go, and was glad to get home, but did like the trip. The high-point of the journey (which included Washington and New York) was a night in a tourist camp near Wheeling, W. Va. It looked so homely inside—she said—just like home.
My mother probably knows as little about world affairs as any woman in our neighborhood. Yet she is the broadest-minded and most liberal of the lot.
I don’t remember her ever telling me I couldn’t do something. She always told me what she thought was right, and what was wrong, and then it was up to me.
When I was about 16 I forgot and left my corncob pipe lying on the window-sill one day when I went to school. When I got home that night, she handed me the pipe and said, “I see you’re smoking now.” I said, “Yes.” And that was all there was to that.
She thinks it’s awful for women to smoke, but I imagine if she had a daughter who smoked, she’d think it was all right.
My mother is a devout Methodist and a prohibitionist. Yet she and my father voted for Al Smith in 1928, because they thought he was a better man than Hoover. Some of their neighbors wouldn’t speak to them for months because they voted for a Catholic and a wet. But they didn’t care. They are always doing things they think are right.
My mother never can get her big words straight. She calls the quintuplets the “quintiplets.”
My mother has had only three real interests in her whole life—my father, myself, and her farm work. Nothing else makes much difference to her. And yet, when I left home 17 years ago, to be gone forever except for brief visits, she was content for me to go, because she knew I was not happy on the farm.
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My mother has quite a temper. I remember once when the liniment man came, and said we hadn’t paid him for a bottle of liniment. My mother said we had. The man said we hadn’t. So my mother went and got the money, opened the screen door, and threw it in his face. He never came back again.
She always tells people just what she thinks. A good many of our neighbors have deservedly felt the whip of her tongue, and they pout over it awhile, but whenever they’re in trouble they always thaw out and come asking for help. And of course she gives it.
My mother is the one the neighbors always call on when somebody gets sick, or dies, or needs help of any kind. She has practically raised a couple of kids, besides myself. She has always been the confidant of the young people around here.
I started driving a team of horses in the fields when I was 9. I remember that first day perfectly. My mother had gone to a club meeting, but she came home in the middle of the afternoon, and brought me a lunch of bread and butter and sugar out to the field. And also, I suppose, she wanted to make sure I hadn’t been dragged to death under the harrow.
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My mother played the violin when she was younger, but she gave it up after I took one term of lessons. I gave it up, too. You should have heard me.
My mother doesn’t realize it, but her life has been the life of a real prairie pioneer. You could use her in a book, or paint her picture, as one of the sturdy stock of the ages who have always done the carrying-on when the going was tough.
She isn’t so very old any more, but she seems to work harder than ever. We try to get her to rest. But she says, “Oh, I can’t rest.” We say, “Yes, but you don’t have to work.” She says, “Supposing you were gone, the work would still have to be done. It wouldn’t do not to do it.” But she doesn’t understand what we mean.
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