A Mother of Five

"A Mother of Five" by Bret Harte is a touching short story that explores the themes of maternal sacrifice, love, and the complexities of family life in the American frontier. The narrative centers around a mother raising her five children in a challenging environment, highlighting her resilience and determination in the face of adversity. Through vivid characterizations and poignant storytelling, Harte captures the struggles and joys of motherhood, ultimately portraying the strength and devotion that defines a mother's love. This tale reflects the broader social context of the era while offering a timeless glimpse into familial bonds.

• Short story

								
She was a mother--and a rather exemplary one--of five children, although
her own age was barely nine. Two of these children were twins, and she
generally alluded to them as "Mr. Amplach's children," referring to an
exceedingly respectable gentleman in the next settlement who, I have
reason to believe, had never set eyes on her or them. The twins were
quite naturally alike--having been in a previous state of existence two
ninepins--and were still somewhat vague and inchoate below their low
shoulders in their long clothes, but were also firm and globular about
the head, and there were not wanting those who professed to see in this
an unmistakable resemblance to their reputed father. The other children
were dolls of different ages, sex, and condition, but the twins may
be said to have been distinctly her own conception. Yet such was her
admirable and impartial maternity that she never made any difference
between them. "The Amplach's children" was a description rather than a
distinction.

She was herself the motherless child of Robert Foulkes, a hardworking
but somewhat improvident teamster on the Express Route between Big Bend
and Reno. His daily avocation, when she was not actually with him in the
wagon, led to an occasional dispersion of herself and her progeny along
the road and at wayside stations between those places. But the family
was generally collected together by rough but kindly hands already
familiar with the handling of her children. I have a very vivid
recollection of Jim Carter trampling into a saloon, after a five-mile
walk through a snowdrift, with an Amplach twin in his pocket. "Suthin'
ought to be done," he growled, "to make Meary a little more careful o'
them Amplach children; I picked up one outer the snow a mile beyond Big
Bend." "God bless my soul!" said a casual passenger, looking up hastily;
"I didn't know Mr. Amplach was married." Jim winked diabolically at us
over his glass. "No more did I," he responded gloomily, "but you can't
tell anything about the ways o' them respectable, psalm-singing jay
birds." Having thus disposed of Amplach's character, later on, when
he was alone with Mary, or "Meary," as she chose to pronounce it, the
rascal worked upon her feelings with an account of the infant Amplach's
sufferings in the snowdrift and its agonized whisperings for "Meary!
Meary!" until real tears stood in Mary's blue eyes. "Let this be a
lesson to you," he concluded, drawing the ninepin dexterously from his
pocket, "for it took nigh a quart of the best forty-rod whisky to bring
that child to." Not only did Mary firmly believe him, but for weeks
afterwards "Julian Amplach"--this unhappy twin--was kept in a somnolent
attitude in the cart, and was believed to have contracted dissipated
habits from the effects of his heroic treatment.

Her numerous family was achieved in only two years, and succeeded her
first child, which was brought from Sacramento at considerable expense
by a Mr. William Dodd, also a teamster, on her seventh birthday. This,
by one of those rare inventions known only to a child's vocabulary,
she at once called "Misery"--probably a combination of "Missy," as she
herself was formerly termed by strangers, and "Missouri," her native
State. It was an excessively large doll at first--Mr. Dodd wishing to
get the worth of his money--but time, and perhaps an excess of maternal
care, remedied the defect, and it lost flesh and certain unemployed
parts of its limbs very rapidly. It was further reduced in bulk by
falling under the wagon and having the whole train pass over it,
but singularly enough its greatest attenuation was in the head and
shoulders--the complexion peeling off as a solid layer, followed by the
disappearance of distinct strata of its extraordinary composition. This
continued until the head and shoulders were much too small for even
its reduced frame, and all the devices of childish millinery--a shawl
secured with tacks and well hammered in, and a hat which tilted backward
and forward and never appeared at the same angle--failed to restore
symmetry. Until one dreadful morning, after an imprudent bath, the whole
upper structure disappeared, leaving two hideous iron prongs standing
erect from the spinal column. Even an imaginative child like Mary could
not accept this sort of thing as a head. Later in the day Jack Roper,
the blacksmith at the "Crossing," was concerned at the plaintive
appearance before his forge of a little girl clad in a bright-blue
pinafore of the same color as her eyes, carrying her monstrous offspring
in her arms. Jack recognized her and instantly divined the situation.
"You haven't," he suggested kindly, "got another head at home--suthin'
left over," Mary shook her head sadly; even her prolific maternity was
not equal to the creation of children in detail. "Nor anythin' like
a head?" he persisted sympathetically. Mary's loving eyes filled with
tears. "No, nuffen!" "You couldn't," he continued thoughtfully, "use her
the other side up?--we might get a fine pair o' legs outer them irons,"
he added, touching the two prongs with artistic suggestion. "Now look
here"--he was about to tilt the doll over when a small cry of feminine
distress and a swift movement of a matronly little arm arrested the
evident indiscretion. "I see," he said gravely. "Well, you come here
tomorrow, and we'll fix up suthin' to work her." Jack was thoughtful the
rest of the day, more than usually impatient with certain stubborn mules
to be shod, and even knocked off work an hour earlier to walk to Big
Bend and a rival shop. But the next morning when the trustful and
anxious mother appeared at the forge she uttered a scream of delight.
Jack had neatly joined a hollow iron globe, taken from the newel post of
some old iron staircase railing, to the two prongs, and covered it
with a coat of red fireproof paint. It was true that its complexion was
rather high, that it was inclined to be top-heavy, and that in the long
run the other dolls suffered considerably by enforced association with
this unyielding and implacable head and shoulders, but this did not
diminish Mary's joy over her restored first-born. Even its utter absence
of features was no defect in a family where features were as evanescent
as in hers, and the most ordinary student of evolution could see
that the "Amplach" ninepins were in legitimate succession to the
globular-headed "Misery." For a time I think that Mary even preferred
her to the others. Howbeit it was a pretty sight to see her on a summer
afternoon sitting upon a wayside stump, her other children dutifully
ranged around her, and the hard, unfeeling head of Misery pressed deep
down into her loving little heart as she swayed from side to side,
crooning her plaintive lullaby. Small wonder that the bees took up the

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