"Resolved, that old-fashioned cow's milk is better for Our Baby, than
any prepared food."
The debate on the above subject will start at seven o'clock next
Thursday evening. The Conservatives of our Colony will speak in favor
of cow's milk as a baby's food. The Progressives will speak in favor of
prepared food.
The parliamentary rules governing the debate will be the same as govern
a "catch-as-catch-can" wrestling match.
No slugging will be permitted until forensic effort has proven
ineffective. When further argument has become useless, the three-ounce
boxing gloves, recently donated to us, may be used to force a decision.
In fact, several of the boys who talk but little, are practising with
the gloves, so that they may become factors in the final settlement of
the problem.
On the other hand, the literary coterie is in deep study. One boy is
reading up reference books on the subject whenever he can find the
time. Still another blindfolds himself and opens the Bible at random,
looking for spiritual guidance on the subject of infant diet. Of course
the Court of Final Appeal will be Her Ladyship--The Baby Herself.
She already knows a great deal about crackers and breakfast foods,
and she is far too clever not to have her own opinion on the dietary
properties of milk and its substitutes.
* * * * *
And now it may be in point to tell how we came to have a ten-months-old
baby at our Colony.
We are ostensibly a young men's colony--men and boys trying to get to
their feet and become independent and self-supporting. But if anyone
comes to us hungry, we like to give them something more edible than a
card to a professional charity.
Had Hunger delayed her coming another week, Our Baby and her mother
might have been driven to ask food and shelter on Christmas Eve. As it
was, they came to us on December 19th, at ten o'clock in the evening.
They had no place in which to sleep except the local police station,
and that is not the place for a little baby--even strong men weaken in
the chill of its hospitality.
So, on their arrival, the boys who were retiring for the night, held
a conference. Our supply of beds and bedding did not even equal the
demand made upon it by the boys themselves. But that did not cause them
to hesitate, and all agreed that they must not turn the newcomers away.
One boy immediately gave up his blanket, the second his comforter, the
third his bed. In that way the mother and baby were made comfortable
for the night, little realizing that they were taking anything away
from those who had nothing to spare. But homeless men are quickly
sympathetic, for what they know of hunger and cold is not altogether
hearsay.
On the next day we undertook to make more permanent provision for the
Baby and Mary, her mother. We began to look around for beds. We asked
two of the kind-hearted clergymen if they could obtain a bed for our
new arrivals. One of them phoned me later in the day to ask me what
town the poor people were from, and when I informed him, he said "The
woman should have applied to the charity association of the city from
which they came. If the case was worthy, aid would be given."
Worthy or unworthy, we didn't feel like sending the Baby away. She was
teething and fretful, and a teething, fretful baby may not be as worthy
as one who grins and bears it.
The other minister said, "The wonderful work the Church was doing, had
not so much to do with the poor in this life, as in the hereafter." Now
in truth, while the mother was discouraged and didn't care anything
about life as far as she herself was concerned, she had ambition for
her child, so she could not qualify and ask assistance under these
conditions.
The boys themselves made two wooden beds, and fitted up a room for the
Baby, while the mother in turn helped the young men in the kitchen.
The Baby has grown strong and well. She likes her big brothers with
all their noise and horseplay, and they like their Baby. To see rough
homeless men sing lullabies to an infant-in-arms, congratulating
themselves when she falls asleep soothed by the monotonous humming of
some cradle song that they themselves thought they had forgotten long
ago, might renew one's faith in the kindly humanity that lives in every
heart.
Has not Christ said, "And whosoever shall receive one such little child
in my name, receiveth me."