Ayah

“ The struggle was past.
"Papa," she said, raising an earnest, tearful little face to his, and speaking in tones tremulous with emotion, "dear, dear papa, I do love you so very, very much, and I do want to be to you a good, obedient child; but, papa, Jesus says, 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me,' and I must love Jesus best, and keep his commandments always. But you bid me say that I am sorry I refused to break them; and that I will yield implicit obedience to you, even though you should command me to disobey him. ”

“ Ascott came to Hilary at Kensington, or on that dreary heartless wedding-day, that they should ever have been sitting in Selina's room so merry and comfortable, admiring the baby, and on the friendliest terms with baby's papa?
"Papa" is a magical word, and let married people have fallen ever so wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. ”

“ Your dear papa was my brother, and you, my dears, are my nephew and niece. Come to my arms, and be assured that, as far as I can, I will make up for the loss you have sustained. I will love you deeply, fondly, ardently; and for my brother’s sake, and that of your kind, gentle, and loving mother, who was as dear to me as my dear sister Gwenfan, who was the light and joy of our homes, and for your own sakes, I will be your guide, your friend, your counsellor and stay. ”

“ With some one sitting at the blinds
[134] To watch you while you play;
"I often see her look up quick,
And smile at some one there;
And when she laughs and hides away,
She knows some one will care.
"Why didn't Doctor Bishop cure
My mother, dear papa?
That's what he did one time, you know,
For Lulu Hart's mamma.
"Say, papa, was God good to take
My own mamma away?
For I was just a baby then—
Papa, why don't you say?"
"Yes, always good," he sobbed. "Mamma
Is very happy, dear."
His little girl sprang up, nor cared
Another word to hear.
"Why, papa! crying? Please don't cry. ”

“ Oh, Father's is fine and big and handsome, and all that, of course; but not like this. His is just a nice place to eat and sleep in, and go to when it rains. But this—this you just want to live in all the time. Here there are curtains 'way up and sunshine, and flowers in pots, and magazines, and cozy nooks with cushions everywhere; and books that you've just been reading laid down. (All Father's books are in bookcases, always, except while one's in your hands being read.)
Grandpa's other daughter, Mother's sister, Hattie, lives here and keeps house for Grandpa. ”

“ Mamma’s voice is as sweet as a robin’s, so papa says. Papa is a great big man, so big that nobody could ever hurt me, or mamma. Papa wants to see you too. Won’t you write me a letter, a little letter all to myself? I’ve got a box made of rosewood, with a lock and key on it, where I’d hide it from Uncle Jack, (that would tease him!) Uncle Jack wants to see you too, but I hope you never will let him, for he’s such a terrible tease, he’d plague you dreadfully. I guess our baby would send his love to you if he only knew you. ”

“ Common to both the Semitic and Indo-European tongues, and traceable through all their branches, is the parental title first uttered by the infant; Abba, Abi, Aba; Atta among the Slavonians, and again among the Goths; Athair among the Irish, the pater of Greece, fondly called at home papa, and apphys the pater of Rome, the German Vater, and our own father—il babbo in Italy, and daddy in English cottages.
In the East a parent is more usually called the father of his son than by his own name. ”

“ On the twentieth day, which marks the end of the lying-in period, the grandmother comes early, bathes the baby and puts some corn meal to its lips. She utters a prayer in which she requests that the child shall reach old age and in this prayer gives it a name. A few of the women members of the father's clan come in one at a time, bathe the baby and give it additional names. After the names have been given, the paternal grandmother goes with the mother and the child to the eastern edge of the mesa, starting so as to arrive about sunrise. ”

“ Yes, Hal—it's papa's birthday and mother is remembering the day by decorating our little stand with the flowers your papa has grown. (He caresses the mignonettes tenderly.)
Hal. Dear daddy—dear flowers—aren't they lovely, mother?
Mrs. Hamilton. Yes, Hal. (She wipes away a tear, trying to conceal her emotions from her son.)
Hal. Maybe some day I'll be a famous botanist like papa and then you'll have two boxes. (Mother is silent trying to keep back the tears and Hal notices it.) Papa is coming home soon, isn't he, mother? (She just shakes her head.)
Mrs. Hamilton. We must be brave. ”

“ Seymour.
"What! and leave your own father, Edward?" asked his agitated parent.—"Look at me,—I am your father;—but I suppose, your mother, as well she might, taught you to hate me?"—"My mamma told me it was wicked to hate any body: and I am sure I have no papa: I had a grandpapa, but he is gone to heaven along with my mamma, Fanny says, and she is my mamma now." ”

“ And when Father was Father again, leaning on the back of Mother's chair, she said to him, "You're nothing but a great big boy," so that Father chuckled, his cheek against hers and his eyes shining. That was the way with Father. Six days he found quite long enough to be a man; so on Sunday he became a boy.
The gate clicked behind you, Father in the middle and you and Lizbeth holding each a hand, and keeping step with him when you could, running a little now and then to catch up again. ”

“ The uncles on the mother’s side are in many ways closer to a boy than is his own father. The father belongs to a different clan and while he lives with his family, in his wife’s house, he spends a great deal of time with his own clan group where he may be the “ceremonial father” of one of his small nephews. Since marriage cannot take place between two members of the same clan the father is, to a certain extent, an outsider who has little to do with the religious training of his sons. ”

“ When the wife becomes pregnant, the eldest brother performs the ceremony of giving the bow and arrow, but the brothers are all equally regarded as the fathers of the child. If one of the brothers leaves the rest and sets up an establishment of his own, it appeared, however, that he might lose his right to be regarded as the father of the children.
If a man is asked the name of his father, he usually gives the name of one man only, even when he is the offspring of a polyandrous marriage. ”

“ My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed, clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the orphan as her own child. ”

“ Oh, father, at the sound of whose footstep that child must always "hush up" or beat a hasty retreat to parts unknown—how much, how very much you lose, when never that little face grows brighter that "papa has come home;" when, with your hands thrust into your coat-pocket, you lounge along toward your door, and never invite with your love that dear blessed little nose, to flatten itself against the window-pane, watching for "my papa." ”

“ For the submissive son is, for the sake of salvation, separated from the unbelieving father, or the father from the son, or the mother from the daughter, or the daughter from the mother, and relatives from relatives, and friends from associates. ”

“ Grant yesterday, and—but here I broke down, and my appeal, "Oh, papa, I've forgotten what more it was I was to say," produced a peal of laughter, and put an end to our little pretence of mystery.
"Your packet is much the smallest, papa," I said; and watched to see what would come out of the white paper. My father's face lit up with pleasure as he opened a small case and discovered a beautifully executed miniature of my mother.
"Willie," he said, "I think the lady who left this for me yesterday must have been very like mamma."
"Yes, papa, she was very like indeed," I answered ”

“ Take the word for ‘father’ in all languages: cut down to its root, there is the same root found in all. Ab in Hebrew, abba in Syriac, pater in Greek and Latin, vater in Low Dutch, père in French, padre in Spanish and Italian, father in English—ay, even the child’s papa and the infant’s daddy—all come from one root. But this cutting away of superfluities to get at the root, is precisely what a ’prentice hand should not attempt; like an unskilled gardener, he will prune away the wrong branches. ”

“ Children universally address their father's brother by the title of father, and their mother's brother by that of uncle; their mother's sister is called mother, and their father's sister aunt. The same relative designations extend to the step-parents, relatives, and to those of the grand-parents. The children of brothers and sisters address each other by the titles of brother and sister. Step-parents treat their step-children with as much kindness and attention as their own ”

“ MAUD. [Stubbornly] I never wanted him for a father, Uncle.
RALPH. They do wonderful things nowadays with inherited trouble. Come, are you going to be nice to him, both of you?
ATHENE. We're going to try.
RALPH. Good! I don't even now understand how it happened.
MAUD. When you went out with Guy, it wasn't three minutes before he came. Mother had just told us about—well, about something beastly. Father wanted us to go, and we agreed to go out for five minutes while he talked to mother. We went, and when we came back he told me to get a cab to take mother home. ”

“ The mother is always the most important member of the household, and the grandmother is treated with veneration. The presence of the mother-in-law is coveted by their sons-in-law, who look on them as the guardians of the virtue of their wives. The paternal uncle is a much nearer tie than with us; while men look on their first cousins on the father’s side as their most natural wives. ”

“ The father has nothing to do with the disposal of his daughter, the reason given being that the daughter belongs to the class of her mother's brother, and not to that of her father. Notwithstanding this, they believe that the daughter is of the father solely, being only nurtured by her mother. ”

“ Indeed, sir, a mother's place never can be filled to a child by no one whatever. Least of all such [16] a mother as he had in your dear lady. But he's a boy, sir, and not a girl, and in all reason a father is what he'll chiefly look to in a year or two. And for the meanwhile, sir, I ask you, could Master Reginald look better or behave better than he did afore the company come? ”

“ I have no parents to love me, as other children have!" Thick tears coursed their rapid way over the rosy cheeks of the deserted foundling.
"Be still, and do not weep, my poor child! [151] You have a Father above,—one who is a Father to us all,—who loves you, and will take care of you." ”

“ Sessions, of course, Dad. Why, don’t you?”
“Son,” coldly declaimed his grandfather, “there’s things a fool boy has no right to—to—Oh, Jimmie, lad, how’d you guess? She’s a wonderful little woman. And I told her all about you. And she feels just like a mother to you already. She says so, son, and—
“My lad,” Dad caught himself up pompously, “this is not a subject I care to discuss. Have you heard anything from your father? ”

“ When I was sixteen, my Aunt Abby, papa's sister, told me that mamma was said to be the most beautiful girl in the whole State, and that papa fell so in love with her when he was just out of college, that he came very near dying because his father did not wish them to be married. ”

“ Among the Land Dyaks children as they grow up are called, according to their sex, the father or mother of a child of their father's or mother's younger brother or sister, that is, they are called the father or mother of what we should call their first cousin. ”

“ Fathers and mothers in the Bible receive equal honor and equal deference, but the instruction and guidance of the children are much more definitely and repeatedly attributed to and inculcated upon and implied as belonging to the father than the mother. He is recognized as the head. At his door lies the responsibility. Ahaziah walked in the ways of his mother, but of his father also when he did evil in the sight of the Lord. It is the sins of the fathers, not of the mothers, that are visited upon the children. ”

“ The persons selected for godparents should be near relatives or friends of long and close standing, and should be members of the same church into which the child is baptized. The maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather usually act as sponsors for the first child, the maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother for the second. ”

“ To the son the father is the embodiment of every social restriction, borne with such great opposition; the father bars the way to freedom of will, to early sexual satisfaction, and where there is family property held in common, to the enjoyment thereof. Impatient waiting for the death of the father grows to heights approximating tragedy in the case of a successor to the throne. Less strained is the relationship between father and daughter, mother and son. ”

“ We see that the father is often not named at all, and the father’s family is scarcely ever noticed; while on the mother’s side the relations extend even to second cousins. To decipher these records is sometimes a hard matter, when they are very rudely chipped—or rather bruised—on the rough granite rocks ”