New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-08-12
The Tribune Fresh Air Fund

plays all the time" So wrote Mary
Anna to her dear mamma and papa"
the other day, implying for you and
me, dear reader, that four-year- old An
toinette was not ever thus-that she had
had in times prior to the inditing of
the letter, her fearful spells.
In fact, there was a deeper implica-
ton than that to be read between the
lines of the little letter. If you were
Mary Anna and had gone away from
dear mamma and papa" with Antoi-
nette, leaving them with q certain wor-
ry uppermost in their minds-if you
lad done this and found, when you
that you could relieve that worry, what
would be the very first thing you'd
write in that letter.
Imagine mamma" and papa" at the
railroad station seeing Mary Anna and
little Antoinette off on their great adj
venture. AS she kisses them goodby
mamma" says, with a voice full of con-
Germ, to Mary Anna: ooh, dear, l do
hope she'll be good. She's been so
Whitney and full of cry lately, I'm
afraid she will just fret all the time,
so that they'll send her home again.
And she needs the country so much!"
tot away the mother whispers the part
ing injunction: Dear daughter, try to
amuse her and keep her from fretting,
so she may stay-she is so thin and
pale and needs the change so much"
If you were Mary Anna and knew
what mamma" was worrying about
even though, you were just bursting
with other important news, what would
be the first thing you'd put down in
your first letter home? Well, Mary
Anna was just as wise and thoughtful
as you, so she began her letter: can
toinette never cries; she just plays all
the time"
That she considered the news of the
first Importance you may Judge by
what she suppressed until she had set
down her first sentence. She con-
tinued: eve are having such good
time! We go for walks every day.
We 60 to swim, too We have peaches,
ice cream. mush melon, too. and lots of
other good things. We are all fine"
Now, why did Antoinette cry and
whine at home. and what worked the
cure? First, the disease. She lives in
Tenth Avenue in a three-room rear
tenement, where the air is always bad.
She ought to spend all her waking
hours romping and playing. but her
!
with rushing streetcars and automo-
biles and dumbling trucks, and she is
so young that her mother fears to let
her run wild in it and keeps her, of
necessity, as she thinks, in the bad air
of the gloomy tenement most of the
time. So Antoinette whines and pines
and pales.
Then the cure. When they went
away from mamma" Mary Anna and
Antoinette were taken by The Tribune
Fresh Air Fund up into the Berkshire
Hills, where the air is always fresh,
the sunshine golden and the skies are
tories. And when Antoinette had slept
one night in her new surroundings, had
eaten a wholesome breakfast next
morning and been set down on the
green grass thereafter with no street
cars, no automobiles. no trucks to make
her nervous and afraid, she just threw
back her head and laughed and then
just played and played and played with
never thought of tears.
People used to think that when
babies cried it was merely evidence of
inherent bad temper. Nowadays wise
people know that babies will be happy
if they are physically we'll. The Trib-
une Fund is trying to make babies-up
them healthy through country vaca-
tions away from their unhealthful
tenement surroundings.
A great many people. some of whose
names appear below, are helping the
funds campaign for health and. happi-
ness by contributing to the cost of the
work. Won't you join them? Ten
thousand dollars must be raised by Au-
gust Is if the work is to be continued
as planned.
Contributions to the Tribune Fresh Air
Fund