392 The Journal 
warmer waters of her small iron tub). - 
One of them wrote a “‘tub song”’ for the 
morning bath: 
Splash, splash on Janet’s toes, 
Tweek-tweek, Janet’s toes, 
Janet’s eyes, blue, blue, 
Janet has two pink ears, too! 
Baby’s mouth, round—so! 
Pearly teeth, all in a row. 
They watched the baby’s every move, 
saw her grow day by day, saw the 
plotted curve of the weight chart go up, 
slide down, rise again, but always 
reach a higher point at the end of a 
week than the place where the week had 
begun. Jn their journals they recorded 
some of the things they saw, and they 
built a Baby Book of Janet’s doings. 
Sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, 
they set the doings down. 
Janet loves to creep along, 
Beside a little bug, 
And pinch it with her fingers, 
Or squash it on the rug. 
I've seen her take a flower 
And press it to her nose, 
And, in attempt to smell it, 
Janet merely blows! 
Have you seen Miss Janet, 
Watch the sunshine chase 
The shadows in the morning 
From their hiding place? 
The girls read their observations at 
the weekly council fires on Monday 
night. Sometimes they merrily pan- 
tomimed the care of Janet, and the 
lessons: in baby craft that they had 
learned. They called the baby ‘‘Moon- 
Child”’ and invented special honors, to 
be won by all who did things for Janet 
in a systematic way. For each girl 
wanted to mother the baby, and 
organization by turns was necessary 
for the youngster’s welfare. Therefore 
the two by twos. 
Janet was the hub of that camp. The 
curriculum, if the happy freedom to 
keep busy as one chose could be called 
such, was moulded elastically to fit its 
principal part. Were the hymns at 
morning service interrupted now and 
then by a gale of laughter at one of 
Janet’s pranks? Well, then, surely God 
would be just as pleased as he may have 
been with the singing, for surely song 
and laughter go hand in hand in praise 
of Heredity 
of the Creator’s handiwork. Did Janet 
sometimes struggle to her moccasined 
feet, totter across to the reader of a 
morning Bible verse or poem, take the 
book in her hands and insist on turning 
the leaves? Well, then, was it not 
Jesus himself who had set down the 
little child in the midst of the people and 
declared that “Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven?” The regular order of 
things, program, curriculum—what had 
they to do with the case? They were 
to serve, not to dictate, to help when 
they might, not to inhibit wherever 
they could. 
Before the girls went home, the 
baby’s first words came. They were 
watched for earnestly and the tantal- 
izing sounds that form the first faint 
dawn of speech were duly recorded. 
The first real laugh rippled out in the 
midst of a serious councilors’ meeting, 
liquid, clear, prolonged, unmistakable. 
After that it was often practiced, but 
the thrill of hearing it for the first 
time was memorably sweet. 
But the day of departure came, and 
each girl would have taken Janet home 
if she could. One of the older girls, 
whose parents were visiting camp, 
begged that she might have Janet as 
part of her Domestic Science course at 
Bryn Mawr. For Janet had only been 
adopted by the Camp Mother for the 
summer and was about to be returned 
to the steaming city where her mother 
tried to make ends meet on $5 a week. 
But the idea was too novel, too unpre- 
cedented. 
Another girl was more fortunate and 
persuaded her home folk to let her adopt 
another infant temporarily, that she 
might continue her fascinating fun of 
mothering at home. 
Two girls of the group, eager for the 
adventure of college in the fall, ap- 
proached the authorities of Bryn Mawr 
on the subject of having a college baby. 
Janet had proved “practicable” at 
camp so why not mothercraft through 
the winter, too? What the college 
powers replied is too trite to need 
repeating. Needless to say, the girls 
went through the regular mill with only 
a bright memory to keep the innermost 
self alive. 
