The guardian. [volume] (Boston, Mass.) 1901-1960, 1940-06-01
Baby Heaven
By liza LEWIS
Mcclure Syn6icate-WNU Service.l

after eleven p. m, no SaXophoneS,
no dogs or musical students allowed
why, you couldn't ask for a quiet
er place than Bayberry Haven't"
what was the manner" inquired
my wife in a startled tone. COIL
see." She added. For just a mo-
ment l thought you said Baby
Heaven!'
"Ha! hal" laughed the agent, in
what l thought at the time was a
remarkably hollow tone. "Ha! ha!
hal"
And so we moved to Bayberry
Haven. A little far out, but sun
light in every room, an outside en-
trance to every apartment, and a
real grass lawn in the middle.
Welcome to Baby Heavenl"
cried the iceman gayly as my wife
let him in at the front door the
next morning.
And Baby Heaven it was.
AS | ran for my train in the morn
ing, l would leap over a toy auto
mobile, broad jump over eight kid
| die cars in row, pole vault over
a scooter bike and roll merrily
down the sidewalk with two roller
skates under one foot
True, there was no radio playing
after eleven at night. There were
no dogs, there were no saxophones,
there were no musical students.
/ But there was no law against the
infant above us, and the infant be-
low us, and the infant to the right
of us, and the infant to the left Of
us, taking regular turns all night to
disrupt the peace and quiet for
which l had come to Bayberry
Haven.
Sometimes, when starting out in
the morning, l would look about me
at the beautiful sunshine and at the
little porch of green lawn, and l
would determine to ask some of the
boys from the office out to dinner
that night, so the poor city-bound
) OATS could see what blade of grass
looked like.
But all, the kiddies! The kiddies!
BY dinner time, what with their
abandoned dollies, and their lost
caps, and their paper airplanes-
you know, you fold up little pieces
of paper and sail them all over the
place and hear the janitor swear
I well, what with them scattered
knee deep all over our little green
lawn space, l don't believe the boys
from the office ever did get to see
blade of grass.
And the chalk marks on the walkl
| How my friend, Hobbsnotch, of the
! Evening Graphonews, used to pore
over them He was writing his
book then-you know, "Sally in Our
Back Alley'-and of course he
wanted to get it suppressed in Bos-
ton. He needed the money. He has
claimed ever since, with tears of
gratitude in his eyes, that his sue
cess dates from the first time l
asked him out to dinner and he
read the words that the innocent
little kiddies had chalked on my
/ front steps.
One Saturday afternoon l went to
the grocery store on an errand for
my wife. thought at first 1 was
back on the East Side. But l soon
realized that they were not push
carts-they were baby buggies. A
sea of baby buggies. I counted
eighteen of them in one block. You
can depend on the number, because
l am certified public accountant.
If you saw a young couple stroll
ing down to the grocer's without a
baby buggy, you just knew that they
had one at home, with a nice-reli-
able colored girl-by-the-hour
loves-children wheeling it up and
down the sidewalk.
Or if they didn't have any baby
buggy at all, you knew that Santa
Claus had them down on his list,
and they would find one in a stock
ing on Christmas morning.
should have known it would be
like that. l should have known that
every couple with one or two or
three or four or five children-or
even those young couples whose
mammas are still squabbling over
which one shall make the bassinet-
l should have known that they
would all move out here: It's so
good for the children, you know.
And so the stork hovers over Bay
berry Haven constantly. It's not
his fault. It's the sunshine, and
the fresh air. And you know how
it is, in an epidemic of that sort
you begin to get panic-stricken
Fear of contagion; force of exam
Pile; power of suggestion; and all
that sort of thing You, too, may
fall a victim
A stork, after all, is only human.
Or inhuman, whichever way you
look at it. He might, some day,
get mixed up in his chimneys. And,
frankly speaking, being man who
is fond of his peace and quiet, had
rather be elsewhere when it hap
pened.
So that is why, last week, we gave
notice to the landlord that we we're
leaving Bayberry Haven on the first
of the month.
tI,5e