Life — April 2, 1914 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Bs ul oa Save the Baby ‘ENE—A Home in the Suburbs. Distracted young mother wring- ing her hands over a crying baby. Enter cqually distracted father. Morner: Oh! Oh! Baby is dying. Fatuer (running up to the crib): What is the matter with him? Morner (holding him back): How do I know? Have I not been judged incompetent by the Local Council? Don’t you touch him, it’s against the law. Fatuer: Why don’t you do some- thing? Send for the doctor. Motner: Impossible. The Board of Health has to be notified first. Fatuer: I can’t stand this. (4t- tempts to take up the baby, but ts held sternly back by the mother.) My child! Mortner: Wait. Here comes some one, (Official from Board of Health enters. Baby screams lustily. The official proceeds to vaccinate the baby. Disappears.) Moruer: He is still alive. Faturr: Call the doctor on the tele- phone, Motuer: Impossible. Here comes some one else, (The door opens and another representative of the Board of Health enters. Baby still screams. He inoculates the baby with amazing skill and then disappears.) Farner (running forward again): My child! Motuer (restraining him): You misunderstand. We must first be vis- ited by a representative of the Woman's Club, Remember that the president of the Woman's Club has been elected Mayor, and on a platform that promised to report all cases like this to the Mothers’ Department. Fatuer (sinking into a chair and covering his face with his hands): Mothers’ Department? Great Heavens, there is not a mother there. Motner: That makes no difference. (At this point an old nurse who has survived her day and generation, and, like a souvenir of the past, has still lingered with the family, enters.) Morner: Keep out! You're liable to be arrested. Nurse: What's the matter? Fatuer: Baby is dying and we can- not send for the doctor. Motner: Not yet. Here comes the sociological expert. He has to write the case up for all the hygienic jour- nals. It is a syndicate. Nurse (her voice rising above the baby’s screams) : I'll risk all. (Plunges forward to crib and grabs the baby.) Motuer: Stop her! Fatuer: Go it, Nurse! I'll spend the rest of my days in jail. (The nurse turns the baby over rapidly and extracts an open safety-pin. Baby ceases crying.) Nurse: Think of it! What is the world coming to? Why, the little dear might have cried himself to death— and just for this. Fatuer (regaining his self-posses- sion): Don't mention it, Nurse. Let us thank heaven that baby’s life is spared up to the present moment. Think of what might have happened if the doctor had actually come. The Ballade of Silly Spring ET other bards their love declare To modern damsels of to-day; To maids of wise, pedantic air, Or those who join the suffrage fray. But otherwhere my fancies stray, For rather I a song would sing, With all the plenitude I may To Sylvia in the Silly Spring. The trinkling tangles of her hair, The glory of her eyes’ soft gray; How surely these my heart ensnare, How to their charms my senses sway. Like roses is her smile so gay,— Like bird-notes, hear her laughter ring! And sunlit zephyrs bear my lay To Sylvia in the Silly Spring. Never was season quite so fair; So full of apple-blossom spray. Never was maid so debonair, So like a fragrant, fresh bouquet. Ah, me, my muse has run away! I can't control the prancing thing; It dances like an elf or fay To Sylvia in the Silly Spring. LEnvoi: . Sage, these be foolish themes you say; The flowers a-bloom, the birds a-wing ; Yet only these my thoughts convey To Sylvia in the Silly Spring. Carolyn Wells, EASTER BAND-BOXES A STUDY IN CONTRACTION AND EXPANSION comichooks.