she had seen enough of babies. But she adored my little son. How near
she seemed to me then! How hungry I had been for her, without realizing
it! I felt that she loved my baby boy as she had never loved me or any
of her own children. And I understood why mother never had had time to
love her own babies. In the struggle for existence of those hard years
she had never had a minute to indulge in the pure joy of having her
baby. I sat watching her with her first grandchild, so sweet in his
exquisite hand-sewn little clothes, and suddenly I found myself crying
hysterically.

Mother was very dear to me from that day. Later in this chronicle I
want to give a chapter to my mother and what we both suffered during
this period of her visit to New York, for it marked the climax of my own
development. When mother and the children started off on their return
trip to the West, Tom sent them flowers and candy and fruit. He had
already generously put financial worry away from my family for all time,
but I knew that he was a little ashamed of some of mother's crudities.
I wondered why I did not feel ashamed. I was very, very glad I did not.
It gave me something tangible to cling to--a sure consciousness of
power, that comes of knowing one possesses the true pride to rise above
the opinions of other people.

I would have given my life, that day, to be able to assure my family
that material security which they owed to my husband, who neither loved
nor understood them. I looked down the years and saw myself crushed by
a burden of indebtedness to a man I felt I no longer loved. Only
mother's grateful, simple happiness eased my hurt. I had never
approached my mother, but I knew now that if her natural dignity and
great, kind heart had been given the advantages that the women in my
husband's family took as a matter of course, she would have been