"Think of a mother having to stand and plead for a legal right to the child she has borne," she went on, moving her chair a little nearer to the Senator. "When you come right down to it, who has a right that approaches hers? Leaving out of account all sentiment, all thought of the price she has paid for ownership in her offspring, and looking at it in a purely practical way, who has a right that can be better substantiated? Who is it that risks her life every time there is a child born into the world? _The mother._ Who is it that the Almighty has fitted to take care of those children? _The mother._ Who is it that keeps the family together? _The mother._ When a man dies and leaves a lot of helpless little ones, what does a woman do? Give those children away to this one and that--anybody that can be induced by love or money to take them? Ah, no! She gets out her sewing machine or her washtub and goes to work. She doesn't know any other way. She doesn't want any other way. It may be but a poor little shack that she has to keep them in--it hasn't any of the luxuries of the apartment house--but it has the children. And it is a home. And _she makes it_. In nine cases out of ten she doesn't ask any help about it either. It is often pretty short commons with them. She gives them meat when she can get it, and bean-soup and encouragement when she can't. But ten chances to one she will make men and women of them. The most worthless men in a community are not widow's sons as a rule. Did you ever think of that, Senator Southard?" 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_.