The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1874-09-09


The saddest sights ef the poor quar-
tiers ofthe city are not women il
liquor plodding tie frozen GROUND
with bare purple feet, as have seer
them in the dead Of winter, or tht
crushed wt;te-iacea men, whose fea
lures were sunken as death witt
worse despair, but the woeful, war
faces of the babies, lifting weary
eyes to the sky, as if wondering why
distant heaven left them so long t.
such a fate; babies hanging to the
overdrained breasts, from which
every scanty drop they drew came
straight from he mothers failing
health. l have seen a large framed
Scotehwoman, built fer strength and
brought up in the open air, crying
with weakness, because the food she
could get could not nourish her and
her child. Another time / saw a
white, poorly dressed man sitting in
Central Park with a baby covered
with sores held tenderly in his arms.
Every other day, as often as he could
leave his work, be brought it from
Moot street, one of the most squalid
in the city, FIVE miles, that it might
have the fresh air for two or three
hours before shutdown. He said the
child's illness was caused by bad air
poisoning its blood, and be looked at
the little scarfaced creature as if be
would gladly have opened every one
of his own poor veins to save its
dropping life.
The sturdy members of st. Johns
Guild are men of the working classes,
who see and feel the wants of their
poorer neighbors, as those removed
from them cannot do, and, headed by
the Rev. Alban Wiswald, whose
name is another word for prompt and
sagacious charity, they were not
slow to devise help for the helpless
ones. First of all q steamer charter
ed as a hospital and provided with
every convenience for sickness, makes
frequent trips up the river, taking
poor mothers and sick children away
where they can have a long day in
cool and pure air-just such treat
ment as weakly children of the rich
receive. who send them daily on the
North River boats for an airing-the
taking lunch and only bring
ing them home at night. One would
say the hospital boat must be a sad
sight. filed, as it is, with the sick
and %perishing. But the patience of
the children of the poor has some
thing heroic in it, and the suffering
faces grow wonderfully calm and
sweet in the reEiying air, and wall
are hushed as soon as the boat
is in mid-stream. A ward full Of
Door sick children viii not make as
much noise as a single nursery of
home darlings. One wishes they
could get over this awful inbred re-
s~traint, and cry and fight like the
with the common rights of
humanity, but thanks to their self
control, the hospital boat is far from
unpleasant place even for dainty
nerves. The clean, white cradles are
ranged in the cabins, and cots, the
rocking-chairs and camp seats on
deck are fllei with plainly dressed
mothers, each with a white slender
baby in her arms, babies and mothers
alike glad of the soothing sail and the
good hearty dinner of beef, bread and
milk they get on board, happy with
one holiday out of their hard year,
and getting life out of their clear and
fair surroundings, as well as the
blessed air that blows about them.
Here G pair OF great dark eyes
looks up from q white face on its
shoulder q shy unused smile
of pleasure creeps across it, beauti-
full to watch as, it is, the first fash
of happiness the little soul has ever
known. Those heavy brown lasbesI
rest on a pale sallow cheek, as if the
heavy lids would never open again,
but as it sleeps in its crib, a tinge of
color steals into its cheeks, the breath
ing stirs its bosom and the eyes of
the mother watching it ill with a look
that is better than a prayer. 1.-TWO
weeks ago, she says in a low voice,
fearful of waking the little sleeper,
II made up my mind that she was
going and poor people like me and
the father has no right to have a ba-
by at all. And I'd began to put her
away from me, and feel how the
house would seem without her, and
how my arms would be empty. She's
never bad a color in her cheek be-
fore in her life, and the doctor says
the air is raising of her." and the
voice sunk with the burden of its
hopes and fears. As you breathe, the
next free watt from lake or prairie
think of those whose children fall
away from their bosoms for want of
decent air-the common heritage.
Bless the Guild ofSt. John with its
carpenters and t~ailors, who leave the
work which earns their living, to
watch nights beside the sick, and look
for those who are perisbing and
whose generous efforts first set this
hospital afoat, to comfort heart bro
ken mothers and suffering children.
PIETRo.
Terrible COnfagratiOn.