The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-02-08

gotten now?" The pink miracle was laid beside Julia; she shifted her sore body just weak fingers to raise the blanket a trif1e to make room, and spread from the baby's face. A little crump- led rose leaf fo face, a shock of soft black hair, and two tiny hands that curved warmly against JuiaPs investi- gating finger. All the rest was deli cate lawn and soft wool. The baby wrinkled her little coun- tenance, her tiny mouth opened, and Julia heard for the first time her daughters rasping, despairing, bitter little cry. A passion of ecstasy flood ed her heart; she dropped her soft pale cheek close to the little creased one.
 "Oh, my darling, my darlingi" she breathed. "Oh, you perfect, helpless, innocent thing! Oh, Jim, she's cry ing, the angeIi Oh I do thank God for her!" she ended softly.
 'I thank God you're so we'll" said Miss Poland. Here, you can't keep herI"
 Anna, go with Aunt Sanna," Julia said weakly.
 Anna, eh?" Miss Poland said, wrapping up. the pink blanket.
 Anna Toland Studdiford,'' Jim an- swered. Julia had that all fixed up weeks ago!"
 "WeII-now-you children!' Miss Toland said, looking from one to the other, with her half-vexed and half approving laugh. What do you want to name her that for?''
 'I know what for,'' Julia smiled as she watched the pink blanket out of sight.
 lot T0I just for a kiss, and a whimpered, And now you must forget all pain, dear, and just be happy!'
 Then Julia was left to her own thoughts.
 She watched Miss Wheaton come and go in the soft twilight. A shaded light bloomed suddenly, where it would not distress her eyes. The cur tafns were drawn, and Ellie came softly in with pitcher of hot milk on a tray. Now and then the baby's piercing little "Oo-wah-wahr' came in from the next room, and when she heard it, Julia smiled and said faintly, '"The darlingi''
 And as a ship has been blown sea- ward, to meet the gales and to be battered upon rocks, might be caught at last by friendlier tides and carried safely home, So Julia felt herself car ried, a helpless little wreck, too tired to care if the waves flung her far up on shore or drew her out to their mad embraces again.
 "An forgotten % Miss Poland had asked, from her fifty years of 1gnor- ance, and Now you must forget all the pain,' Mrs. To1and had said, with her motherly smile.
 Queer, drifting thoughts came and went in her active brain during these quiet days of conva1escence. She thought of girls she had known at The Alexander, girls who had cried, and who had been blamed and os- tracised, girls who had gone to the City and County Hospital for their bitter hour, and had afterward put the babies in the Asylum! Julia's thoughts went by the baby in the next room, and at the picture of that tender helplessness, wronged and abandoned, her heart seemed to close like 8 closing hand
 Anna Poland Studdiford would never be abandoned, no fear of that Never was baby more closely sur rounded with love and the means of protection. But the other babies, just as dear to other women. what of them? What of mother hearts that must go through life knowing that there are little cries they will never hear, tears they may never dry, tired little bodies that will never know the restfulness of gentle arms. The ter rible sum of unnecessary human suf- fering rose up like a black cloud all about her; she seemed to see long hospital wards, with silent forms fill ing them day and night, night and day, the long years through; she had g1impses of the crowded homes of the poor, the sick and helpless moth CTS, the crying babies She suddenly knew sickness and he1plessness to be two of the greatest factors in human life.
 What if Heaven is only this earth, clean and right at last" unused Julia, "and Hell only the realization of what we might have done, and didn't do-for each other!" And to Jim she said, smiling, This experience has not only given me a baby, and given me my own motherhood, but it seems to have given me all the mothers and the babies in the world as well! l wish you were a baby doctor. Jim the preservation of babies is the most important thing in the world!"
 Slowly the kindly tides brought her back to life, and against her own be- lief that it would ever be so, she found herself walking again, essaying the stairs, taking her place at the table. Miss Wheaton went away, the capable Caroline took her place, and Julia was well.
 Caroline was a silent, nice-looking, efficient woman of forty. She knew everything there was- to know about babies. and had more than one book to consult when she forgot anything She had been married, and had two handsome sturdy little girls of her own, so that little Anna's rashes and colics, her crying days and the days in which she seemed to Julia alarm fnsly good, presented no problems to Caroline. There was nothing Juf1a could tell her about sterilizlng, or tal- cum powder. or keeping light out or the baby's eyes, or turning her over in her crib from time to time so that she shouldn't develop one-sidedly.
 More than this, Anna was a good baby; she seemed to have something of her mothers silent sweetness. She
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