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Mary and the Baby

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.”

THE BABY’S FATHER

Now, this Baby has a father. He has lived in Russia and came to America to earn money. One of his older brothers was already located in New York State, and from his letters sent over the sea, it was plain that the opportunities for wealth in the States were most promising.

The older brother had grown rich – very rich – working on the railroad. He never earned less than nine dollars a week, and now that he spoke English, he earned twelve.

Such stories of easily acquired wealth lured John, as we call him, to leave his Fatherland with his wife and child. But unfortunately for John and his family, they reached America during the recent panic. Thousands of workmen were idle. In New York, John could find no work. Even the rich brother only worked part of the time, and having wife and children of his own, had nothing to divide with John and his family. So John drifted away seeking employment.

The few dollars that he brought with him became exhausted, and although he studied English evenings, he spoke it brokenly. One of the boys at the Colony said he talked in “kindlewood.”

While he was seeking employment, no word came to the wife and child. Some said John would never come back. But Mary believed in him. She said that he had always loved the baby and he knew that she herself could work. But at times even she doubted when weeks followed weeks and no word came.

Once when one of the boys was going to New York, she called him aside quietly, and said, “You will see John in New York, I think… Big man, light hair … tell him come home, see Baby… I want him.”

But John was not seen in New York.

It was not until a few days ago that he returned. He had traveled through New York State and on to Massachusetts. No work – everywhere no work! Sometimes he had walked. Sometimes he had jumped a freight. All to no purpose. He had wanted to write good news to Mary, and he had no good news to write. Always bad news. He was a failure. He had wished he might end it all, but the thought of the Baby had made him continue the search for employment.

Finally, one day, a rich man in Montclair needed a gardener. This man was rich – not rich like his brother – but had houses and acres of splendid farm. He would pay two dollars a day wages to a man willing to work. It seemed too good to believe. He would hurry back to his Baby and Mary. They must know the good news.

So he came and told Mary he had a job, and a little home for her and the Baby. They would be rich like his brother.

So Mary went with John and they took their Baby, all tied up in shawls.

That was yesterday – Monday – so there will be no argument Thursday on “Whether or not old-fashioned cow’s milk is better for babies than prepared foods.”

Because we homeless men have lost Our Baby.

One of the boys asked the Chairman – another boy – if they would have the Debate, now that the Baby was gone?

“To hell with it,” replied the Presiding Officer.

The above is a true story, and to The Self Master Colony, all a part of the day’s work.