The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1918-03-08

in her own personal charity book.
Hello. Here comes something
startling, something certainly, If
experienced observation. amounts
TO anything, from southern
cline: a woman with hair and
eyes black as coal, her cheeks
flaming like a poppy.
The nurses and visitors alike
frightened as if something cleo
trical had come into the room.
She must have been stunning
when she was a girl!
If ever there was a woman who
had been the undisputed belle of
the village, some place where
skies were blue and trees were
green and grapes were red, this
was sh! Something rough about
her, too, something of a swagger
in her shoulders, left over from
that long ago, perhaps, when the
world belonged to her, something
sturdy in her facing of the world,
something fierce and something
gentle. A tightly swathed bundle
in her arms, which, on opening,
proved to contain Baby jeanette.
Instantly Baby Jeanette, with coal
black hair and eyes, sat up and
waved her arms, and smiled on
all the company, revealing a full
row of little white teeth.
Trace Of Bronchitis.
The doctor greeted jeanette
with smile and the mother with
hah-reproving glance; then she
jerked the shawl from the lower
part Of Jeanette, and displayed
two little habitually red feet.
Jeanette was treated, at once, to
the process of being stripped, and
having her stomach laid across a
broad hand, while an ear was ap-
piled to her spine.
Un-hunh! A trace Of bron-
chitis!
Now why was jeanette not pro-
ided with stockings?
Prompt defiance on the part of
the woman from the Bordelaise
country. She has 10 children,
10! and she works every day, she
keeps a flower SUBSTANTIALLY,
one could tell that from looking
at her-the othe. children can
stay home, but the baby she must
take with her; she sets Jeanette
among the flowers, but there is
shawl wrapped around jean
cites legs, always! and it isn't
that which gives her the bronchi-
tbs, it's the bad weather we've
been having, and. She's no
match for the doctor.
To begin with, the doctor has
too strong hold on the affec-
tiOns of the woman from the
Bordelaise country, which is taxi
ing an unfair advantage; so they
compromise on the doctors terms,
she to provide the stockings and
the mother to see that they are
kept on jeanette; and an espe-
cially bald baby enters.
No Better Work.
So 1t proceeds all day long, with
now and then a mother who, like
the Bordelaise, clings to the old
fashioned idea that it's her baby,
to do with as she pleases; not
everybody's baby; but for the
most part the mothers are in
thoro sympathy with the work,
and grateful for it. Results
count, even with mothers.
The mortality rate has been
lowered among these wee dispen-
sary patients, in spite of the war,
average weight for age has in
creased, and the general health
and sturdiness, and even mentality
has improved to a remarkable de-
gree, among these waits who
mostly have but one natural par
ent.
The state, however, is splendid
ly fathering these fatherless chill
dren, and the wisest women and
the best men are glowing now
with the already assured success
of their efforts to make a better
France from the progeny of these
natural mothers and an artificial
father.
France, with all her passion
ate devotion to her great pur-
poses, is doing no better work
than this!