The Coolidge examiner., 1932-05-20
MATERNITY
WARD
By Fannie Hurst
&c by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.)
(WNU Service)

\/OU could not be nurse in
maternity hospital over a pc
riod 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 des-
tiny.
Day after day, there occurred in
the ward Of the maternity hospital
the miracle of life or the tragedy of
death. Babies. babies, babies;
wanted, unwanted, alive and kick
ing, pink, blue, male and female,
opened their blue eyes upon an
erheric world bounded by doctors,
nurses, lnternes, wan mothers and
blear-eyed fathers.
The eyes of Vesta had come TO
be little bitter about this business
OF birth. 1t seemed to her a SYM
Dol that the newborn child, still
| blue with the mysterious pallor of
those glacial hinterlands preceding
| lie, should first of all. as greeting
to his fellow humans, pucker up to
cry.
Sometimes, the newborn child,
bot 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 O ward Of pain; grew up in
streets and tenements of gloom
and CRIME, went out into a world Of
disappointment and chagrin and in
turn gave life.
or course, there was the other
aspect. The bright wanted babies
who were born into bright, loving
homes. The youngsters who thriyed
and prospered and begot happily in
turn. But somehow, from the van
tage 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 majority.
Walking along the rows of cribs,
1t 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, unconsclously
cruel, reckless and ignorant were
most of the parents who dared to
daily with the miracle of creation.
II made one fearsome, unventure-
some, cautious and tlnged with BIT
terness.
Ii seemed to yesta, studying the
plights of the stricken parents, that
their sense of responsibility, their
Scared consciences, must be more
than they could bear.
Sometimes, walking home from
the hospital, moving among the
shouting, playing children of the
tenement-lined streets, observing
their drab little uniforms of pow
erty. their pale faces, the rickety
legs, 1t 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. un-
balanced. old maidish, sour grapes,
pessimist.
Whatever the case, at twenty-five.
there were ridges of vicarious suf-
fering around Vesta's mouth and
along her brow and deep in her eyes
the muddy waters of pain.
You lived, moved, breathed in
world of pain.
Not that these thoughts predom-
mated the personality of Vesta. Out
wardly, at least, she was calm, eff
cient, even rather beautiful in pale
harassed sort of way. She had gen
tleness and, strangely enough,
great skill in her work.
Sense of humor, one doctor, chaff-
ing, used TO tell her she lacked.
Sense of humor! Sense of humor
about pain. Nevertheless, because
TO live in a world was to learn some
how to adopt oneself 20 the injus-
tice of suffering childhood, there did
manage to survive in Vesta, even
with her sensitiveness to the pain
about her, a Joy of life.
1t was not difficult to muster a
sense of humor about much of the
mortal drama that went on about
her. Almost every evening, in the
apartment she shared with two
nurses, there were hilarious recitals
of the anecdotes of the day. The
| sayings of bewildered mothers, be-
fuddled fathers and precocious chill
| drpn