Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-11

" ternity hospital over q period Of
| seven years and not have some
rather. special ideas about the
story of mankind. Vesta had.
She had seen, through the long period of her
association with an institution dedicated to
birth, the mills of the gods grinding out the
relentless grist of human destiny.
Day after day there occurred in the wards
OF Maternity Hospital the miracle OF life or
the tragedy of death. Babies, babies babies;
wanted unwanted, alive and kicking, pink,
blue male and female, opened their blue eyes
upon an etheric world bounded by doctors,
nurses, internes, wan mothers and blear-eyed
fathers
The eyes of Vesta had come to be little
bitter about this business of birth. 1t seemed
10 her symbolic that the newborn child should
FIRST of all, as greeting to his fellow humans,
pucker up to cry.
Sometimes the newborn child, not yet an
hour old, lay in his crib and frowned, as
already fear and premonition were upon him.
Poor darling, Vesta found herself saying.
/ A pink cherub opened its eyes upon ward
of pain: grew UP in streets and tenements OF
gloom and CRIME, went out into world OF
disappointment and chagrin and in turn gave
life.
OF course. there was the other aspect. The
bright wanted babies who were corn into
bright loving homes. The youngsters who
thrived and prospered and begot happily in
turn But somehow from the vantage of the
hospital ward, the odds seemed so against that.
The tired. broken-down, poverty stricken
mothers, the babies with the thwarted pain
riddled futures seemed so greatly in the ma
jority. Walking along the rows Of cribs, it
was difficult not to feel your heart hurt. Even
In the private rooms where they lay swaddled
In expensive layettes, the odds seemed against
them. Anyway, after seven years of the routine
of seeing them born, something akin to chronic
pain lay in the heart of Vesta..
What a grave responsibility to give life. How
sure one needed to be. How thoughtless, I'M
consciously cruel, reckless and ignorant were
most of the parents who dared to daily with
the miracle of creation.
It made one fearsome, unventuresome, eau
tous and tinged with bitterness
It seemed to Vesta, studying the pnghts OF
the stricken parents, that their sense of re-
sponsibility, their SCARED consciences must be
almost more than they could bear.
Sometimes, walking home from the hospital
moving among the shouting playing children
of the aforementioned streets, observing their
drab little uniforms of poverty their pale faces,
the rickety legs, it felt, momentarily at least.
uncomfortable that she continue to play her
role in assisting mothers to give life.
Morbid said some Embittered, said others,
or sensitive, wicked, unbalanced, old-maiolSh'
sour grapes pGSSliiEoI
Whatever the case, at Is there were ridges
of vicarious suffering around Vestas mouth
and along her brow and deep in her eyes the
muddy waters of pain.
You lived, moved, breathed in world OF
pain.
MOT that these thoughts predominated the
personality of Vesta. Outwardly at least,
she was calm, efficient even rather beautiful
an o pale harassed sort of way. She had gen.
taeness and, strangely enough, great skill in
her work.
Sense of humor one doctor, chatting. used
% tell her she lacked. Sense of humori Sense
of humor about paint Pain. Nevertheless be-
cause to live in world was to learn somehow
30 adapt oneself to the injustice of suffering
childhood, there did manage to survive in
Vesta, even with her sensitiveness to the pain
about her, a Joy of life.
It was not difficult to muster sense of
hunor about much of the mortal drama that
went on about her. Almost every evening, in
che apartment she shared with two nurses. there
were hilarious recitals Of the anecdotes OF the
Gay. The sayings of bewildered mothers, be-
Auddled fathers and precocious children
Often the three girls invited young doctors
An to dine with them and the zest and vitality
Dc these parties was vesta. She was good at
paay. The inner torment, the trials Of the
day, the vicarious pain for humanity. the sense