FATHER'S LETTER
At the last donation party, the minister opined
That, if he'd half suspicioned what was coming, he'd resigned;
For, though they brought him slippers like he was a centipede,
His pantry was depleted by the consequential feed!
These are the things I'll write him—our boy that's in the West;
And I'll tell him how we miss him—his mother and the rest;
Why, we never have an apple-pie that mother doesn't say:
"He liked it so—I wish that he could have a piece to-day! "
I'll tell him we are prospering, and hope he is the same—
That we hope he'll have no trouble getting on to wealth and fame;
And just before I write "good-by from father and the rest,"
I'll say that "mother sends her love," and that will please him best.
For when I went away from home, the weekly news I heard
Was nothing to the tenderness I found in that one word—
The sacred name of mother—why, even now as then,
The thought brings back the saintly face, the gracious love again;
And in my bosom seems to come a peace that is divine,
As if an angel spirit communed a while with mine;
And one man's heart is strengthened by the message from above,
And earth seems nearer heaven when "mother sends her love."
[70]
