On the other hand, the literary coterie is in deep study. One boy is reading up reference books on the subject whenever he can find the time. Still another blindfolds himself and opens the Bible at random, looking for spiritual guidance on the subject of infant diet. Of course the Court of Final Appeal will be Her Ladyship--The Baby Herself. She already knows a great deal about crackers and breakfast foods, and she is far too clever not to have her own opinion on the dietary properties of milk and its substitutes. * * * * * And now it may be in point to tell how we came to have a ten-months-old baby at our Colony. We are ostensibly a young men's colony--men and boys trying to get to their feet and become independent and self-supporting. But if anyone comes to us hungry, we like to give them something more edible than a card to a professional charity. Had Hunger delayed her coming another week, Our Baby and her mother might have been driven to ask food and shelter on Christmas Eve. As it was, they came to us on December 19th, at ten o'clock in the evening. They had no place in which to sleep except the local police station, and that is not the place for a little baby--even strong men weaken in the chill of its hospitality. So, on their arrival, the boys who were retiring for the night, held a conference. Our supply of beds and bedding did not even equal the demand made upon it by the boys themselves. But that did not cause them to hesitate, and all agreed that they must not turn the newcomers away. One boy immediately gave up his blanket, the second his comforter, the third his bed. In that way the mother and baby were made comfortable for the night, little realizing that they were taking anything away from those who had nothing to spare. But homeless men are quickly sympathetic, for what they know of hunger and cold is not altogether hearsay. On the next day we undertook to make more permanent provision for the Baby and Mary, her mother. We began to look around for beds. We asked two of the kind-hearted clergymen if they could obtain a bed for our new arrivals. One of them phoned me later in the day to ask me what town the poor people were from, and when I informed him, he said "The woman should have applied to the charity association of the city from which they came. If the case was worthy, aid would be given." Worthy or unworthy, we didn't feel like sending the Baby away. She was teething and fretful, and a teething, fretful baby may not be as worthy as one who grins and bears it. The other minister said, "The wonderful work the Church was doing, had not so much to do with the poor in this life, as in the hereafter." Now in truth, while the mother was discouraged and didn't care anything about life as far as she herself was concerned, she had ambition for her child, so she could not qualify and ask assistance under these conditions.