The story
When a wealthy manufacturer died, he left all his property unreservedly to his widow, and his choice was a good one. The woman had excellent business ability, ran her late husband’s factory herself, and year by year made it a better paying proposition. She had two children, a boy and a girl, and they had all the luxuries that they could desire. Both graduated from college, returned home, and calmly permitted their mother to struggle with life’s burdens alone. More than that, they were not grateful, and were constantly lamenting because they were ‘wasting time’ in the dreary little town when they might be leaders of business and fashion in New York. On numerous occasions they urged their mother to let them go out into the great world, and finally she consented, making each a liberal allowance. The boy secured a position in Wall Street, and dreamed of the time when he would call J.P. Morgan by his first name. The girl had talent as an artist, engaged high-priced instructors, and made many friends of whom she was extremely proud.
Some months later, the widow, who had been engrossed in business, awoke to realize that her children needed attention. The girl had a suitor, a foreign nobleman, who, as she said, ‘was willing to overlook’ the lack of social position. The boy had become the favorite of his employer and was offered a partnership for the trifling sum of $50,000. The business woman was a real business woman, and her suspicions were aroused. She hired detectives and made investigations. The count was a plebeian barber and a fortune hunter; the ‘business man’ was crook. The widow carefully collected evidence, unmasked the barber and drove him away, then communicated with the postal authorities and had the satisfaction of furnishing conclusive evidence of the crookedness of her son’s ‘friend and employer,’ after which she told her children she was tired of their foolishness, compelled them to return to their home town and become her aides at the factory. If these two people had had a foolish mother they probably would have been penniless before many years. But as she was a business woman she showed them their errors and they grew up to be good members of society.
Summary from The Moving Picture World · 24 May 1913
