LITTLE WAR MOTHERS

Levin Daily Chronicle, 3 September 1918, Page 1

LITTLE WAR MOTHERS

A GREAT AND WONDERFUL ARMY I met her first at the local national kitchen, writes a lady attendant at one of those valuable institutions which the war has brought to England — a tiny little figure in cheap black, with bright, but shabby, boots many sizes too large, and old cotton gloves, many sizes too small, that left bare an inch or two of red wrists above them. She carried in ono hand a jug almost as large as herself, and in the other a poor little purse. On her arm there hung a market basket of rush, and to her little short skirt there clung a mite of about three, with great blue eyes and a round wet mouth. Two small boys, of about six and eight, eagerly watched her as she pepped over the high white eounter critically examining the tempting dishes arranged there before making her choice. "Two of soup, two of vegetable pie, two of tapioca—and how much will that leave out of a shilling,, she asked of the kind-facod woman behind the counter. With the odd coppers she wisely bought fruit. I helped her to put the good food into her basket, an dslie told me her age was ten! "Baby" would soon bo three, and had never seen "Daddy," who had been killed "killing Germans. " '' Her name's Gladys May, the little mother told me, as she proudly took off the close-fitting crocheted bonnet to show me the golden baby curls that clustered damply round the little head of that very self-possessed small person who was evidently well used to admiration. We walked along the li»t, sunny road together—l carried the large jug of nourishing soup, she carried the laden basket. "Mother," I was told, was working in a muniton factory. Of the two little boys, Archie, the elder, worked I*at a lady's " before and after school cleaning the knives and boots for 4/6 a week. Bert, the younger, went round with papers. "And I keep house," she said simply, with a quiet dignity far beyond her ten years. Eventually we turned down a dim and narrow court to a tiny little house, half of which they call "home." With a very big key Archie opened the door, and I watched the little trio mount the steep steps to the '' upper.'' Since that day I havS come to know my "little mother" well, and through her I have found that she is but one of a great and wonderful army of such brave little mites "keeping house" and mothering tli c younger children in the many homes whore mother is away all day fighting in tho factory and father is away fighting in the field. Dear, loyal little heroines! War has robbed them of their blessed youth; hurried them down the stream of life, past the happy, careless fields of childhood, on to the troubled watern of maturity while still in years they arc babies. True daughters "of their war-waging parents, theirs is not the spirit of sacrifice —it is the grand, innate spirit of the ract —the glory of our England.