I was present when the committee of charitable women met at the poor man’s house to inform him that they had found a home for Baby Ruth. I shall never forget the look of pain that flashed into his eyes at the mention of finding a home for his baby. He was too full for words, but he picked the baby up from where she was playing at his feet with a yarn ball and string, and as he pressed her to the bosom of his coarse blouse I saw the tears overflow from his grief stricken eyes and run unrestrained down his rough cheeks. After a few moments of silence he mastered his feelings and thanked the ladies for taking an interest in his children, but hugged the baby again and said: “But little Ruth is my baby! She was Mary’s baby! The last kisses and caresses of my poor dead wife were given to our baby—her baby. How can I put her away so soon after Mary’s death? She’s so small and dependent—must I begin the separation of my family away down at the bottom—away down with the weakest and smallest—with the baby—the one dearest to the mother who is now dead?” The spokeswoman of the crowd told him how it would be best for the baby, and for him, to find it a good home, with kind people, who would care for it “and give it all the comforts of life.” “Yes, yes,” he interrupted, “I know you mean it all for the best, and I could agree with you if—if it were some other father’s baby we were discussing, and not my baby—Mary’s baby—the last of our family to feel the loving caress of her embrace. “Is it a crime that I am poor and wifeless, and my children are orphans? Can I cease to love my children because I am poor and they are motherless? They have been a great comfort and pleasure to me. I love their prattling voices; the sound of the little toy cart, as baby drags it across the floor, is sweeter music than the tones of the pipe organ down in the fashionable church. “Shut your eyes to the squalor and rags you see here, and let your minds go back to your own homes, and recall the sound of the little tin wagon, loaded with tin soldiers and rag dolls, your own children used to pull through the house; and picture yourself standing at the gate after parting with your favorite child. Picture the scene, as the strange person carries your baby away, with her child face turned appealingly towards you, and you make no effort to bring her back to your arms and your heart. “Would you, my good and kind women, who mean only good towards me and my children—would you call this a picture of civilization—a scene amongst enlightened people, or would you dream of it forever afterward as a picture of hell?” THE PATHOS OF HUMOR