The Senator nodded reflectively. He had often thought of it. This was a hobby. He was a widow's son himself as it happened, and had been reared in just such a school, though he was leagues and leagues away from it now. There rose before him the little bowed mother in black who had struggled for him at her machine. His eyes softened as he thought of it.
"Sometimes," continued Mrs. Pennybacker, "she is a grade beyond the wash-tub and the scrubbing brush. What does she do then? Brushes the cobwebs off the little acquirements the public school or the 'Ladies' Seminary' gave her years ago, and finds a place to teach; or scrapes together enough money to buy a type-writer, and goes to work. She may have to be away from them through the day, but you never hear of her making that an excuse for foisting her children on somebody else. She makes some shift--gets somebody to stay with them while she is gone, or does something--and _she keeps them together_.
"By the way, Senator Southard, speaking of scanty equipment, do you know of anything crueler than thrusting a woman out into the world to fight for herself and her fatherless children with no weapons but a needle's point and a broom-stick? It is getting better all the time, I will admit, but education in my day was like teaching a boy to swim and a girl to wade, and then taking them out into deep water and shoving them both overboard. Of course the boy can strike out. It was intended that he should. Deep water helps him. But the girl--Beg pardon? The girl, you think, generally shoves herself out in these days? Not always. Often the swimmer who is bearing her and her little ones up goes down. Death doesn't care anything about sex. And I have never noticed that he enquires even whether a man can be spared, or how many are dependant upon him. He just sends a big wave over him and down he goes. Then, of course, the woman who has been carried along before this has to strike out with one hand while she holds the children up with the other. Often she can't do more than 'tread water' until the oldest boy is able to swim."
And again the Senator's mind went back to the brave little mother in black "treading water"--that was about what it was--she could hardly keep their heads above the waves. He looked up at the ceiling with eyes that did not see the frescoing. They were filled with a vision of the little unpainted house, the hollyhocks, the kitchen fire around which they had all crowded (she would not let one of them go)--the scanty table--the patched knees. And she had never lived to see him here!