Life — May 17, 1894 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

City Niece: “BY HER HOR’ “OH, TO BE SURI Uncle Treetop: THAT WEIFER 18 TWO YEARS OLD. How bo you KNow ? HE HAS ONLY TWO,” THE ABSENT ONE. N a quiet little home on the West Side, the gentle and loving father was arranging all forthe night, and as the little children gathered around his knee to lisp their childish devotions ere he marched them off to bed, it was indeed a pretty domestic scene that presents itself to the reader. Softly rocking with his foot the crib where the youngest of the family, with sweetly parted lips, lay sleep- ing, the eyes of the fond parent were beaming with that unmatched solicitude which only a parent can show, and as he deftly disrobed the twins and prepared them for the evening's rest, it was beautiful to watch the methodical exactness with which all was done. Experienced in all of the trifling details which make the most perfect guardian of childhood, the kind father’s precision and self control were indeed a pleasing sight, and the most careful critic would find it hard to discover any flaws in this home management, which is the foundation of all good government and the cornerstone of the best civilization. Indeed, nothing seemed to be. wanting to make the scene more complete, until the second twin, with that quick curiosity which oftentimes in children so quaintly betrays itself, even about the most remote and unfamiliar objects, suddenly exclaimed with startling distinctness : “ Papa, where is mamma ?” Carefully placing the paregoric bottle back in its accus- tomed place, the fond father, with the light of a great pride shining in his eyes, his whole face illuminated at the thought of the one being he had been so long accustomed to revere, replied: * Darling, you must not ask for mamma. To-night she is at Sherry’s making one of the greatest woman suffrage Tom Masson. speeches of her life.”