Outside the house the father ruled, but in the house the mother was ruler and priestess. The parents never interfered in each other’s domain. If anything was said about something outside the house, it was, “Go to your father.” If about anything within the house, it was, “Ask your mother.” The mother often counselled with her husband about the children but never before them. Their matured decision was acted upon as if they had never spoken on the subject. Such was the love and respect and implicit obedience to the parents, that the boys never went away from home without asking permission of the mother, for it seemed to be within her province to know where her boys were. This habit clung to them until they reached manhood or as long as they were at home, for during school vacations and afterwards, before going out, it was always, “I will ask mother first.” This may seem very rigid, but what could have been better for a family of energetic boys than such a system of which they were trained to venerate and love mother and home? While Mr. Jasper was telling this I recalled what I had read in the autobiography of George Ebers, where he writes of his mother’s influence: “I had no thought, performed no act, without wondering what would be her opinion of it, and this intimate relation, though in an altered form, continued until her death. In looking back, I may regard it as a tone of my whole development that my conduct was regulated according to the more or less close mental and outward connection in which I stood to her.” And the sisters, for there were several, dear, good, noble girls, models of the mother in every respect, a family group clinging together, the interest of each belonging to all and never sundered except by death. There was no separate purse among the children. If one needed a little money he was free to help himself, and this continued even after they had grown to manhood, each assisting the others and no account kept. It was a sad, sad day when death suddenly removed the mother from her privileged place in the home. Mr. Jasper stopped suddenly with tears in his eyes and a choking sob in his voice, while he sat in silence for some minutes, looking back over the years as if he saw that home and the mother again. I had known so little, almost nothing of my mother; yet such as she was she was still my mother. It has always caused me deep, heartfelt grief when others have told me of their mothers. Why could not I have had a mother’s love and care? Why? The loss of such a treasure is next to losing God, the greatest loss, it seems to me, that can befall a human being. I had no father, not a real one, and have no feeling about him except—I have often heard people speak with great respect of their father, but the heart’s affection always goes to the mother.