LOVE STORY OF THE LATE WILL CROOKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 June 1921, Page 9

LOVE STORY OF THE LATE WILL CROOKS.

(Written specially for Tit-Bits by Mrs. Crooks.) Thirty years ago I was a widow and Will Crooks was a widower. I had no family to oomfort me; he had six little ones, the youngest a boy of two years, the eldest a girl of sixteen. Everybody knew Will Crooks. He was a public man, a Guardian, and a member of the Lorfdon County Council. In the former capacity he was, in a way, my master—he would say he ceased to be when he married me, but that is only his nonsense!—for after my first husband’s death ! had obtained a post as an attendant in the lunatic ward of Poplar Union. It was inevitable that we should meet* because 1 lived with his mother in Poplar, and XVill used to drop in pretty frequently. If pity is the first step to love, then I surely pitied him. He was having a very rough time. Not only had he no home worth the name, but his children were getting quite out of hand. How could it have been otherwise, when the mother had been a poor ailing creature for several years before her death, and never very strong at the best, and when the father had been immersed in public work all the time I REFUSED HIS PROPOSAL. Will used to tell me his troubles, and one day I said to him, “What you want, Air. Crooks, is a good, capable wife to look after you and the children. It iBn*t every woman’ll face it,” I went on. “To .start married life with a husband and six children is enough to make any woman think twice and then twice again. But if you could find the right one it would be a blessing.” “Well,” he said in his quiet way, “I’ve had the same thought mynelf, and I don’t mind telling you I’ve got my eye on the very woman for the job.” “Then if I were you,” I said, “I’d lose no time in telling her so, and seeing what she says. You have my best washes.” “It’s YOU,” he said quietly. “Never!” I said. “I’ve been married once, and that is quite enough for one lifetime. No! I couldn’t face it.” Aly firdt marriage had been far from happy; besides, the thought of marrying Will Crooks had never occurred to me. But it was the thought of six children, and the responsibility thus incurred, that daunted me. “Think it over,” he said. Will had everything in his favor. I knew he had been a kind husband to hia wife. 1 knew that he was a good son. He was, too, respected and beloved by all. STEPAIOTHER' TO SIX. These things I knew. But they did not bring me to the point of saying “Yes.” I had no inclination to marry again. And so matters went on for some time. Will asked me occasionally to go out with him, and I did. At last he said, “Well, haven’t you made up your mind to come to me?” I answered, “No. Those children daunt me. It’s a big undertaking, 1 don’t feel equal to it.” * . “Well,' he said, sadly, “I can’t find anyone else more suitable or sensible, and if you won’t take me and the kiddies I’ll have to break up my home —and—it’ll break my heart.” That touched me. 1 began to see that mine was perhaps a selfish view; that to marry Will Crooks might be a duty, and that in taking up what ueemed a cross 1 might find the crown of mv life. So, quite suddenly, I said, ‘Will you promise me one thing?” “11l promise you anything if you’ll be my wife,” he said. “The minute I marry you,” I said, “I shall be a stepmother, and you know the name stepmothers get. Nobody knows better than you do that the children are out of hand. I’m almost a stranger to them. I shall have to get their obedience before I win their love, for if they don’t respect me they’ll never love me—and 1 may have to punish them ”

“Well,” he interrupted. “Of course.” “Yes,” 1 said, “it’s ‘of course’ now, but will it always be so? Will you trust me to be just as well as kind? Will you hear the why and wherefore before you judge?” I was satisfied with his answer.

W e were married. I've never regretted it, and I don’t think W’ill has. He kept his word. I had a tussle to begin with, but I never had a wrong word either with him or from him.

Now they are. men and women and half of them have no recollection of any other mother but me. They think there’s nobody like me. I won my battle, and my husband helped me.

HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE. Yet I might have made the road of life hard for Will. I might have hindered him in his great work for humanity. I’d plenty of incentive. “Aly husband shouldn’t come home at all hours of the morning!” one would say. “He’s in clover, hob-nobbing with quality!” another would say, and this was a subtle form of temptation to discontent on my part. But I knew my husband's heart was in the right place. So I never said, “Where have you been? “What have you been doing?” “Why are you home so late?” 1 nev£r worried him. I just trusted him. And during the twenty-nine years of our wedded life never once have I gone to bed if I knew he was coming home, although a thousand times it has been the small hours of the morning. 1 was always waiting with a bit of something hot for his supper. Just after we were married, several officials at the asylum left. They asked for pensions and got them. I said to Will “I was a bit slow. I might have got a pension if I’d asked the Guardians.” “You’ve got a Guardian,’’ said Will, and that s better than a pension.” I agree. It is. Or it was, at any rate, in my case. Will Crooks was Guardian by name and guardian by nature. And now our roles on the stage of life are reversed. The active hand and foot are feeble, although the brain is still bright,- and I have to be his guardian.