The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-12-01
A CHILD'S STORY
RV Max Barthel

Little Sonya was picked up in
village near Kazan and together with
other ragged and hungry children she
was shipped to Moscow and unloaded
into a Children's Home. The home
had been overcrowded long ago, but
it is always easy to find a place for
the shrunken little body of one who
for many weeks has been staggering
on the brink of death by starvation,
who has subsisted for months on
grass, roots, banks and refuse.
During the first few months the
children in that home had died like
flies in the fall They just dropped
down, they did not cat, they flew
away to strange lands which they
had beheld in their hunger delirium,
they flew away to Canaan, where
they could eat bread and drink milk
to their fill, where they did not
have to scramble with the wild dogs
| for refuse. 1t is like heaven there
and without hunger.
Sonya remained alive. her swollen
limbs became childlike again, her
staring eyes grew mild again. Only
| with great mistrust, when the food
wac SCI Ncu. Iucy HetI Sccll LIlt Iilcl =
CHESS war for a piece of bread, the
terrible scenes occasioned by dry
| crust of bread, but here in the home
women smiled when they gave out
the bread and soup.
How the little girl blossomed out
again, she smiled, she chirped and
opened her heart again to the world.
How wonderful the earth was after
all! The sun flew like golden bird
through the blue sky. When it
touched the clouds with its wings,
the gold broke and fell down to
| earth in fine dust. The flowers
were first green buds, but they open
| ed up, blushed at the beauty of the
world, fell in love with the sun,
with the clouds, became sweet and
colorful, played with the butterflies
| and the singing birds.
All this little Koroleva saw with
| astonished eyes. She, too, was a
| withered flower. Now she became
green and colorful and blossomed
forth.
One day there came into this Mos
COW home in shipment of clothing
and toys from the proletarian West
a number of pencils that had been
| collected by American children. Lit
tie koroleva got a pencil, too. How
| many things there were on this
world! Here is piece of wood,
take it in your hand, take a piece of
| paper, and you can make the world!
You can make birds, clouds, flowers
men. cows, horses, villages, houses,
| trees-anythlng you want and can
| think of!
| Formerly she used to make pic
lures with her thin fingers on the
| windows of her hut, or with piece
| of charcoal she drew village on the
wall of her home, but all this passed
away or was wiped off and lasted
| only for hours. But now the pic
lures remained. The last fear re-
| naming in her soul disappeared. The
| wonderful world mirrored itself in
thousands of pictures in her little
| heart; the sun, the birds, the flow
| ers, the animals and the stars. And
| out of the fullness of her heart she
drew with her little pencil the pic
| lures of the fabulous surrounding
world which liolently crowded upon
her. She painted flowers, stars, viii
| lagos, horses and the sun she paint
| ed as if it were big fantastic bird
which touched the clouds and rained
gold down to the earth.
| See, all this conjured forth from
the heart of the little Koroleva with
the thin pencil of an American child,
when, rescued from the gruesome
| abyss of hunger, she came up and
| began to live again.