3

Alabama "Holly House" 3

proof of a capable mother. She gives herself to work of
caring for her husband her home and her children, and
practices self denial. Pleasure except in the perfor-
mance of duty or recreation are to her an unknown
quanity. Day in and day out she is busy from early morn
till during eve.

Her Sunday program does not vary from that of a week-
day with exception of the extra work in consequence of an
elaborate Sunday dinner sometimes with guests. She has no
time to attend church and is too busy for the blues and
small social activities that offer the town's only re-
creation. Her opinion is that a woman with responsibilities
and tasks as heavy as her own has no time for recreation.

To some extent she is discontented. On the rare
occasions when she visits she first bathes, and dresses
the two babies, then the same preparation is gone through
for herself. She goes then spend a part of an afternoon
with three old ladies who cannot get out much and are glad
to have some one coming in from the outside world. She
must carry a child in either arm and during the visit they
fret. The conversation is pursued between cries and com-
plaints of the babies is discontinued long enough to
pacify them and rummage the house to find something to
suit their fancy, home made cat; a metal door stop, a pipe
with which to blow soapbubbles; a wooden darning egg.

As sunset nears she thinks of the late household; her
husband's evening meal, the chickens to be put away so she
rises to go home with promises to come again, then rushes

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