Ethel Morton's HolidaysSmith, Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke)
General
Ethel Morton's Holidays
Smith, Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke)
Children -- Societies and clubs -- Juvenile fiction; Holidays -- Juvenile fiction
"We're a deputation representing several families and a club, all of
which are interested in the baby, but I should like to have the young
woman you select for us understand that we are going to rely on her
knowledge and skill, and that she won't be called to account by a
council of war every time she washes the baby's face."
The Director smiled.
"I quite understand," she said. "I think I know just the young woman you
want. She finished her course here last May, and then she went with me
to Chautauqua for the summer and helped me there with the work we did in
measurements and in making out food schedules and so on for children
whose mothers brought them to us for our advice. Miss Merriam--Gertrude
Merriam is her name--is taking just one course here now, and I think
she'll be willing to give it up and glad to undertake the care of a baby
that needs such special attention as your little waif."
The whole party followed the Director upstairs and looked over with
interest the scientifically appointed rooms. There was a kindergarten
where those of the children in the house who were old enough, together
with a few from outside, were taught in the morning hours. The nursery
with its spotless white beds and furniture and its simple and
appropriate pictures was as good to look at as a hospital ward, "and a
lot pleasanter," said Dr. Watkins. Out of it opened a wee roof garden
and there a few of the children dressed in thick coats and warm hoods
were playing, while a sweet-faced young woman sitting on the floor
seemed quite at home with them. She tried to rise as the Director's
party came out unexpectedly on her. Her foot caught in her skirt and Dr.
Watkins sprang forward to give her a helping hand.
"This is Miss Merriam of whom I was speaking," said the Director,
introducing her. "Will you ask Miss Morgan to come out here with the
children and will you join us in the study?" she asked.
Miss Merriam assented and when her successor arrived the flock went in
again to see the children's dining-room and the arrangements made for
doing special cooking for such of them as needed it.
"We try not to have elaborate equipment," explained the Director. "I
want my young women to be able to work with what any mother provides
for her home and not to be dependent on machines and utensils that are
seldom found outside of hospitals. They are learning thoroughly the
scientific side. Miss Merriam, who, I hope, will go to you, is a college
graduate, and in college she studied biology and food values and
ventilation and sanitation and such matters. Since she has been here she
has reviewed all that work under the physicians who lecture here, and
she has practised first aid and made a special study of infant
requirements. You couldn't have any one better trained for what you
need."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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