"An ounce of mother," says the Spanish proverb, "is worth a pound of clergy."--_T. W. Higginson_.
Mother is the name of God in the lips and hearts of little children.--_Thackeray_.
These "days" for doing things that you ought to do any day are getting so numerous as to lead to curious ethical conflicts. A boy in Sabetha, Kansas, was taken to task for missing Sunday school one Sunday. "I wanted to come," he said, "but Sunday was Mothers' Day and mother wanted me to go fishing with her, so I went."
The lady bather had got into a hole and she couldn't swim. Nor could the young man on the end of the pier; but when she came up for the first time and he caught sight of her face, he could shriek, and he did. He shrieked:
"There!" hoarsely cried the young man. "My wife! Drowning! I can't swim! A hundred dollars for you if you can save her."
In a moment the burly fisherman was in the sea. In another he was out of it, with the rescued lady bather. Thanking his lucky stars, he approached the young man again.
"Well, what about the hundred bones?" he asked.
But if the young man's face had been ashen gray before, now it was dead white, as he gazed upon the features of the recovered dame.
"Y-e-s, I know!" he gasped. "But when I made the offer I thought it was my wife who was drowning; and now--now it turns out it was my wife's mother!"
The burly fisherman pulled a long face. "Just my luck!" he muttered, thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket. "How much do I owe you?"
"Is your wife's mother enjoying her trip to the mountains?" "I'm afraid not. She's found something at last that she can't walk over."
A recent movie comedy showed on the screen a bevy of shapely girls disrobing for a plunge in the "old swimming-pool." They had just taken off shoes, hats, coats and were beginning on--a passing freight-train dashed across the screen and obscured the view. When it had passed, the girls were frolicking in the water.
An old railroader sat through the show again and again. At length an usher tapped him on the shoulder.
"Oh, I'll wait a while," was the answer. "One of these times that train's going to be late."
"Didn't anybody criticise you for filming an automobile in ancient Babylon?"
"No. But I had a dozen letters calling my attention to the fact that the car showed a California license tag."