Travels in Philadelphia/Madonnas of the Curb
MADONNAS OF THE CURB
A little girl—she can't have been more than twelve years old—stood up gravely and said: "The meeting will please come to order. The secretary will read the minutes of the last meeting."
The gathering of small females—some ragged, some very trim, ranging in age from eight to fourteen—sat expectant. A child in a clean pink dress with neatly braided blonde hair advanced seriously and read the minutes of the previous meeting.
"Are there any corrections?" said the president.
There were none and the meeting proceeded to business. On a long table in the schoolroom was a large laundry basket, a small quilted mattress, sheets, blankets and other accessories. There was a baby there, a life-size doll, amazingly realistic. The business of the meeting was the discussion, under the guidance of Miss Matilda Needle, the teacher, of the proper way of making a baby's bed, putting him to sleep in the basket and ventilating the room. It was the Little Mothers' League of the Vare School, on Morris street, holding its weekly meeting.
Miss Needle took the chair. "I saw something the other day," she said to the children, "that pleased me very much. I was coming down the street and I saw Elsie Pulaski holding a baby like this." (She illustrated by picking up the doll, letting its head sag, and all the Little Mothers looked very grave.) "I was about to speak to her when Bertha Fitz ran across the street and said to her: 'You mustn't hold the baby like that. You'll hurt him.' And Bertha showed her the right way to hold him. Now can any of you show me the way Bertha did it?"
Thirty small arms waved frantically in the air. There was a furious eagerness to show how the luckless Elsie should have held her baby brother.
"Well, Mary," said the teacher, "you show us how the baby should be picked up."
Blushing with pride, Mary advanced to the table and with infinite care inserted one arm under the large doll. But in her excitement she made a false start. She used the right arm where the position of the artificial infant demanded the left. This meant that her other arm had to pass diagonally across the baby in an awkward way. Immediately several of the juvenile audience showed signs of professional disgust. Hands vibrated in air. Another member of the Little Mothers' League was called upon, and poor Mary took her seat in discomfiture.
They passed to another topic. One of the members demonstrated the correct way of making the baby's bed. With proud correctness she disposed the mattress, the rubber sheeting, the sheets and blankets, showing how each should be tucked in, how the upper sheet should be turned down over the top of the blanket, so that the wool would not irritate the baby's chin. The others watched her with the severity of judges on the bench.
The teacher began to ask questions.
"Who should the baby sleep with?" she said.
One very small girl, carried away by the form of the question, cried out, "His mother!" The others waved their hands.
"Well, who should he sleep with?" said Miss Needle.
"Himself!" cried several triumphantly.
"Why should he sleep by himself? Rosa, you tell us."
Rosa stood up. She was a dark-eyed little creature, with hair cropped short—we will not ask why. Her face worked with the excitement of putting her thoughts into language.
"If he sleeps with his mother she might lay on him and smother him."
They all seemed to shudder. It was as though the unfortunate infant was perishing before their very eyes.
The Little Mothers' Leagues are groups of small girls, ranging in age from eight to fourteen who are being taught the essentials of caring for babies, under the direction of the Child Federation. By the kindness of the Federation and Miss O'Neill, the supervisor of public school playgrounds, I was privileged to visit four of these classes the other afternoon. In three of the schools the children were learning how to put the baby to bed; in one they were sitting around a small bathtub studying the technique of the baby's bath. Some of the girls had brought babies with them, for almost all of them are at least partly responsible for the care of one or more children. There was a moving pathos in the gravity with which these matrons before their time discussed the problems of their craft; and yet it was also the finest kind of a game and they evidently enjoyed it heartily. Many of them come from ignorant homes where the parents know next to nothing of hygiene. Their teachers tell of the valiant efforts of these children to convert their mothers to more sanitary ways efforts—which are happily often successful. In one home, where the father was a tailor, the baby was kept in a room where the pressing was done, the air was hot and heavy with steam. The small daughter, who was a member of the Little Mothers' League, insisted on the baby being removed to another room. Two children in another school, who had been told of the importance of keeping the baby's milk on ice, tried to make home-made ice-boxes, which their fathers, becoming interested, promised to finish for them.
One wishes that all this might be only an enchanting game for these children, and that it would not be necessary for them to put it into practice every day, with tired little arms and aching backs. He must be stiff-hearted indeed who can watch these gatherings, their tousled little heads and bare legs, their passionate intentness, their professional enthusiasm, without something of a pang. They know so much of the problems, and they are so pathetically small. There is a touching truth in the comment of one teacher in her report: "The girls who had no babies at home seemed to take greater interest than those that did have." But this is not always so, for nothing could be more enthusiastic than the little essays written by the children themselves, describing what they have learnt. I cannot resist a few quotations:
No one can be healthy unless she is extremely clean. Baby will want his bath daily, with soap and warmish water. You should not put to much soap on the baby's face as it get in the baby's eyes. They likes to kick the water as long as support his head. Before starting on this swimming expedition, you should have all, her or him clothes, warm, by you, and he expects a warm flannel on your knees to lie on. You must carefully dry all the creases in his fat body for him, with a soft towel. (Ruth Higgins, Fifth Grade.)
The Little Mothers' League has helped me a good bit in dressing my little baby sister and I have enjoyed it very much and I think it is a very sencible society. I have learnt how to dress the baby in winter and summer. And after it is done with the bottle it should be boiled. (Helen Potter.)
A baby is not to be made to walk to soon because he might become bollegged. Some mothers think it is nice to see the baby walk soon. You should never listen to what your neighbor says when your baby is sick, but take him to a doctor. (Anna Mack, Sixth Grade.)
In washing a baby you should have a little tub to bath it in and when you hear the doorbell ring you should never let your baby in the tub while you go because many of them get drowned, and you should use castial soap because that is the best. (Marie Donahue, Seventh Grade, age 12.)
But perhaps most eloquent of all is what little Mary Roberts says. Mary is in the Sixth Grade at the Boker School:
"The melancholy days are come
The saddest of the year,"
Is what we all think when the time comes when The Little Mothers' League has to break up for the year. For seven weeks we have listened eagerly to what Miss Ford has told us. We all hope Miss Ford will come back to Boker School next fall and teach us how to care for infants.