It’s a very easy matter to give away the other man’s baby, but not so
easy when it comes to parting with our own. Organized charity does a
whole lot for the unfortunate, but often does it in the wrong way. The
mothers who are active in organized charity are too ready to separate
parents from their children, never thinking for a moment what a loss it
is to both parents and children to be thus separated. The only excuse for
separating parents from charity children, is the economy. It is cheaper.
Charity using painful economy to a painful extent.
I believe it is better, where it is possible, to allow parents the
society of their children, and children the society of their parents,
even if charity is asked to step in and keep the wolf from the door. It’s
better for the parents, I’m sure. If anything will make a man or woman
better, the society of their own children must surely come first in the
elevating influence.
In my own individual case I can notice the self-improvement since I
have a child to look up to me with trusting eyes and feel the tight
clasp of his little hand. “A child shall lead them.” The man who wrote
this line had the love and power of a child’s influence in his mind. We
are all benefitted and made kindlier and more loving in the society of
children—and especially our own children.
Only a few weeks ago an old school-mate of mine lost his wife, leaving
him with a family of seven small children, including a baby girl of only
ten months. The charitable mothers of the neighborhood took an interest
in the poor man’s affairs, and began to collect clothing for the little
motherless orphans and fit them out for school. They all thought the
bereaved man could get a housekeeper much easier if the baby were out of
the way, and they began to look around to secure a good home for her.
They all agreed on that point—it was to be a good home for the baby, with
kind people.
I was present when the committee of charitable women met at the poor
man’s house to inform him that they had found a home for Baby Ruth. I
shall never forget the look of pain that flashed into his eyes at the
mention of finding a home for his baby. He was too full for words, but
he picked the baby up from where she was playing at his feet with a
yarn ball and string, and as he pressed her to the bosom of his coarse
blouse I saw the tears overflow from his grief stricken eyes and run
unrestrained down his rough cheeks.
After a few moments of silence he mastered his feelings and thanked
the ladies for taking an interest in his children, but hugged the baby
again and said: “But little Ruth is my baby! She was Mary’s baby! The
last kisses and caresses of my poor dead wife were given to our baby—her
baby. How can I put her away so soon after Mary’s death? She’s so small
and dependent—must I begin the separation of my family away down at the
bottom—away down with the weakest and smallest—with the baby—the one
dearest to the mother who is now dead?”
The spokeswoman of the crowd told him how it would be best for the baby,
and for him, to find it a good home, with kind people, who would care for
it “and give it all the comforts of life.”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted, “I know you mean it all for the best, and
I could agree with you if—if it were some other father’s baby we were
discussing, and not my baby—Mary’s baby—the last of our family to feel
the loving caress of her embrace.
“Is it a crime that I am poor and wifeless, and my children are
orphans? Can I cease to love my children because I am poor and they are
motherless? They have been a great comfort and pleasure to me. I love
their prattling voices; the sound of the little toy cart, as baby drags
it across the floor, is sweeter music than the tones of the pipe organ
down in the fashionable church.
“Shut your eyes to the squalor and rags you see here, and let your
minds go back to your own homes, and recall the sound of the little tin
wagon, loaded with tin soldiers and rag dolls, your own children used to
pull through the house; and picture yourself standing at the gate after
parting with your favorite child. Picture the scene, as the strange
person carries your baby away, with her child face turned appealingly
towards you, and you make no effort to bring her back to your arms and
your heart.
“Would you, my good and kind women, who mean only good towards me and my
children—would you call this a picture of civilization—a scene amongst
enlightened people, or would you dream of it forever afterward as a
picture of hell?”