San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-11-17
THE sAwDUsr BABY.

LIGHT preacher to those who
would unkindly criticise the
humbleness of the text. As great
streams from little fountains flow,
great truths from little texts may
grow. But is the text really a
little thing? What is there in all
the afterward of life that is so
cherished by the baby, grown a
woman, as her first limp, unartis-
tic, out-of-sorts, constitutionally-
bedraggled sawdust baby? Not
all the china and silk construc-
lions of her later dollhood COM
pare in the deep seated affection
which it evoked with that unat-
tractive sawdust baby.
Who has not seen one of these
embryo women of the future,
standing wide eyed in the presence
Of the first real meat baby that her
consciousness has apprehended, or
surveying the wonderful ensemble
of some Paris doll, every sense
alert and every nerve strung to its
tensest strain, eyes flashing, lips
quivering and breath suspended,
as the mysterious breathing Of the
one and the mechanical counterfeit
Of the other strikes awe and be-
wilderment into her soul, then
turn with a soft sigh of relief to
the homely sawdust baby, that
has shared her pillow and alb
sorbed her smiles and her tears
since its creation in her dim and
almost forgotten past? With what
rapture she hugs it to her heart,
all the more tenderly because on
It's face it has not the wonderful
movements and grace of the
Others.
In fact, this is worthy of particu-
lar notice, that the more despised
and ridiculed the growing little
miss finds her sawdust baby, the
more teuderly does she nurse it
and the more jealousy does che
guard it against the assaults OF its
private and public foes. How often
with tear.stained face, and beating
heart, and eyes flashing angry de-
fiance has she snatched her idol
. from the rude grasp of some tor
menting boy, grading it on her
heart with divinest tenderness and
whispering consolation to its
bruised and sorrowful feelings. TIC
her that sawdust baby is her com.
fort and her care, the supreme
object of her reverent love, all the
more tender and sublime on &C
count of it's general unattractive-
ness and neglect at the hands OF
the doll people.
What anguish of heart and real
suffering she experiences as she
finds some cruel heather hand has
been sticking pins and needles in
to the body of her dear one, OF
some mischievous lad with brand
new knife has been trying its edge
upon its limbs until the sawdust
runs out. Few more bitter tears
will be shed than those that fall on
= such occasions. The sorrows Of the
future may be Tor greater cause
but they will not go down any
deeper or compel greater suffering
Will they be for greater cause!
What can be greater cause Of dis.
tress than to see and feel that ouI
loved ones suffer indignity and
that upon them fall the hands oil
cruelty and malice? Does not the
woman brevet suffer all this in hel
very soul, under the indignitiet
heaped on her sawdust baby?
The years grow and the wear and
tear of baby fingers and the inev.
liable OF age comes upon the can
vas that holds the sawdust and at
every movement the painful truth
appears that the sawdust baby has
grown too old and dilapidated fol
use. Yet even then the "dear ole
darIing"i is not discarded, only
laid aside carefully and handled al
the more tenderly. The years grow
and, almost a woman grown, the
sawdust baby is still preserved
among the treasures most priced
and fondest raco1lected among all