1580 
Tht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
December 2 1 . 1924 
Hope Farm Notes 
THE CHRISTMAS BABY 
Part II. 
Dick led the way straight to the back 
of the church. There stood a row of old- 
fashioned horse-sheds. They were little 
used, now that ears had come into use, 
but a few old farmers still drove their 
horses to church, and kept feed boxes or 
dosed mangers in the sheds where they 
fed their animals. Dick led the way 
straight through the dark to one of these 
horse sheds. Frank followed as best he 
could, groping his way through the black¬ 
ness. Finally he reached the shed, and 
with his hands on the wall felt his way 
to the corner where the feed box was 
built. And Dick stood up on his hind 
feet, put his paws on the box and whim¬ 
pered. Then, as if remembering that 
Frank could not understand, in the dark, 
he took the man’s hand in his mouth and 
gently placed it in the box. This may 
seem incredible to those who have never 
been intimately associated with animals 
of superior character and intelligence, yet 
1 know of many cases where dogs and 
horses have been able to do everything but 
talk in their efforts to communicate with 
humans. It is my conviction that in some 
way the blind and the deaf may come 
closer to an understanding of these dumb 
friends than ordinary mortals ever can. 
At first Frank thought he was han¬ 
dling a bundle of old clothes, but finally 
he felt some movement within. Finger¬ 
ing his way carefully into the bundle.he 
grasped a baby’s little hand. The tiny 
fingers closed on his thumb. I rank felt, 
ihe little thing tremble as it shivered 
and cried. It was a child—a child in 
the manger! There flashed through 
Frank’s mind those words which the 
minister had read. 
“And this ihall he a sign to you. Ye 
: hall find the child . . - Dying in a 
manger!” 
Quickly Frank pulled a robe from the 
nearest car, wrapped it clumsily, around 
the shivering baby and carried his 
precious burden through the dark to the 
church door—'Dick at his heels. Mary 
stood there waiting for him, and all that 
Frank could think of to say was: 
“Glory to God in the highest.” 
Then he told how he found the baby 
in the shed manger, and do you know 
that as he told it half the men in front 
of that little church took off their hats 
and stood bare-headed in the cold air. 
For was not this like the working out 
of a miracle? Curious women crowded 
about them as Frank and Mary held the 
baby together. . 
“Come right into the light and let s 
see what it looks like,” said old Mrs. 
Wilson, a practical mother, as might be 
attested by her 10 children. But I’ rank 
refused when they made him understand. 
“This is a gift direct from God. A gift 
to us—we shall have our first look at 
this wonder in our own home.” 
Frank and Mary started off down the 
road carrying the precious bundle be- 
tween them. It weighed less than 10 
pounds though from the w r ay they car¬ 
ried it you would have thougnt they were 
staggering under a ton of the most 
fragile material. We are apt to smile at 
the way some of the young folks carry 
and handle their firstborn, but you should 
have seen this middle-aged couple carry¬ 
ing between them the most precious thing 
that had ever entered their lives—home 
through the frosty air of that glorious 
Christmas Eve. 
Over on the main road a company of 
town people were hurrying home in their 
car. Sweet and clear came the words 
they were singing: 
“Silent night! Holy night! 
All is clear, all is bright.” 
Frank and Mary would gladly have 
been alone, but half a dozen curious peo¬ 
ple followed them down the road. Frank 
and Mary never spoke^ during that walk 
—who could speak wlnm this miraculous 
thing had fallen into their lives?. For 
these brief moments they had a glimpse 
of that most perfect understanding that 
can ever come to man and woman. The 
unhappy thing about life is that too .many 
men and women never come to this un¬ 
derstanding. They plod wearily . on 
through life accepting the material things 
with more or less quarreling. There 
comes no miracle into their homes to lift 
their spirit away from the earth. 
They reached home at last, and Frank 
held the baby while Mary lighted the 
lamp. Frank started to unwrap the 
bundle, but Mary’s trembling hands 
pushed his away. 
“No! No! It’s mine. It’s my an¬ 
swer to prayer. Let me see it first.” 
She pulled off the warm robe and 
onened the rude bundle and exposed the 
little form. Simon Harris, the black¬ 
smith, stood close beside Mary, and he 
caught the first look at the baby. He 
had reached out his. finger to play with 
the little thing. Now- his hand dropped 
and his face turned white: 
‘‘My God, if it aint a nigger baby!” 
Mary held the little, twisting morsel 
of humanity up to the light and looked 
at it. There could be no question that 
Simon Harris was right. There lay in 
her hands a dark brown baby. The mouth 
and nose gave undisputable evidence of 
its dominating blood. The hair had lost 
the kink of the negro without quite reach¬ 
ing the curl of the white race. There it 
lay—the miracle—the Christmas wonder 
-—a poor little, helpless, unwelcome bit 
of deserted human clay. It rubbed its 
little helpless fists into its eyes and cried, 
as any baby would for help—for how 
was it to know that the color line would 
be draw'll-—even in the cradle—even on 
Christmas Eve? As Mary held the baby 
a piece of brown wrapping paper dropped 
out of the bundle. Frank picked it up, 
brought it to the lamplight and read the 
words written in straggling letters. 
“I can’t keep my baby no more. I 
leave him at the white man’s church. 
May God bless him what keeps him.” 
The little group stood about the table 
staring at the baby which Mary still held. 
Her face was white. She stood looking 
at the miracle child in horror. Her 
people had come from the South. She 
had much of the Southern woman’s in¬ 
born prejudice against the negro. That 
this little brown baby should have come 
to them, found in a manger on Christ¬ 
mas Eve—it was hideous—profane ! 
Simon Harris sensed the situation. 
“Well folks,” he said, “I guess we 
ain’t needed here no longer. ’Bout time 
we moved on.” 
The women would have remained to 
talk it over, but Simon hurried them out. 
“Well, Merry Christmas Mrs. Henry.” 
he called over his shoulder. It was a 
perfunctory but poorly suited greeting. 
Looking from the window Frank saw the 
group walking down the road, talking 
and looking back as they went. A short, 
distance below' Frank saw Simon stop 
a man who drove a gray horse hitched to 
a sleigh. It was .Toab Benson, the poor- 
house keeper. 
“Say .Toab,” Simon called, “better stop 
at Henry’s and take their Christmas 
present out to the poorhouse where it be¬ 
longs. Its a black baby—wished onto 
them. From the look of her, Mrs. Henry 
may go crazy and kill it unless you take 
it away. Well, Merry Christmas!” 
So it happened that while Frank and 
Mary were looking at each other across 
the Christmas baby, .Toab Benson, the 
poorhouse keeper, walked in w'ithout 
knocking. 
“Now then, what’s this I hear? Some 
one worked off a little brow'n brat on 
you? Wrap him right up, Mrs. Henry, 
and I’ll carry him on to the poorhouse— 
where he belongs.” 
Frank could not hear this, but with 
the keen intuition of the deaf he knew 
what was going on. Mary wrapped the 
robe around the crying baby and held it 
out to .Toab. But Frank rushed in be¬ 
tween them and snatched the child away. 
“No you don’t,” he cried, in the hard 
rough voice of the deaf when they are 
aroused to anger. “No you don’t. You 
let that baby alone, .Toab Benson. He 
belongs to me. I found him ! God sent 
him to me. No poorhouse for a Christ¬ 
mas baby. You hear me? Get out of my 
house.” 
And Joab stayed not upon the order 
of his going. He went quickly with Dick 
growling at his leg. 
"Well,” he said at the door, “I done 
my duty anyway. I ain’t interfering in 
no family quai'rels.” 
The door shut behind him and Mary 
turned on her husband in a sudden rage. 
The fraction of a grain of pigment in 
the skin of that little one was quite 
enough to change a miracle to near 
murder. This gentle woman, driven al¬ 
most insane with disgust and disappoint¬ 
ment, screamed at her husband and then, 
recognizing the futility of trying to make 
him understand with sound, wrote her 
defiant message that he might record it: 
“/ will not have that hrat in the house. 
You can choose between your Christmas 
baby and me. I will not touch it.” 
Then she burst, into tears—ran up 
stairs to her room and shut and locked 
the door behind her, and threw herself 
on the bed in an agony of grief and dis¬ 
appointment. 
Frank stood and read the note—hold¬ 
ing the crying baby in his arms. There 
is a curious obstinacy about the deaf, or 
at least about many of them. Unable to 
hear all the small and trifling derails of 
a discussion, they are influenced mostly 
by fundamentals. Frank had never been 
considered a religious man. In fact, his 
afflictions had led him into a cynical, 
critical view of life which so often leads 
to the conviction that whoever rules the 
universe is guilty of injustice when phys¬ 
ical penalty is unfairly distributed. Yet 
the events of this evening seemed so 
tremendous—so close to the supernatural 
—that Frank could not rid himself of the 
thought that he must in some way carry 
them through. When Mary rushed away 
from him, he did not follow her, but 
settled into h stubborn purpose to save 
this little child. 
He put a tin basin of water on the 
stove, put one of Mary’s aprons over his 
Sunday clothes, and sat down in the 
rocking chair beside the stove with the 
baby in his lap. 
lie remembered that his grandmother 
had always given him a warm bath when¬ 
ever anything went wrong with him, 
whenever he threw stones and broke a 
window or got his feet wet in Winter. 
Grandma had always stripped him and 
“soaked him in warm water.” So now, 
with clumsy fingers, he pulled the rough 
garments off the little brown baby and 
bathed it clean. Old Dick sat beside him 
and watched w'ith solemn eyes. Dick 
would gladly have helped—with his 
tongue. 
As lie dried the soft brown skin. Frank 
suddenly remembered that he had bought 
a set of doll’s clothing for the hired 
man’s little girls—to be given them 
Christmas morning. Leaving the baby 
in the rocking chair, Frank found the 
package and opened it,. Then he fitted, 
as best he could, the doll’s flannel skirt 
and dress over the baby. Frank could 
not hear the little thing crying, but 
somehow' Dick made him understand, so 
with Dick left on guard Frank went 
down in the cellar and found a small 
pitcher of milk. This he warmed on the 
stove and put in a little sugar as he had 
seen his mother do. 
You might have called it comical or 
beautiful—just as you were able to feel 
it—this great clumsy man sitting in the 
rocking chair feeding warm milk to this 
feeble little brown baby, the dog sitting 
near by as if he fully understood. The 
baby responded to this rude nursing. The 
choking little cry ceased. The sturdy 
little legs stopped trying to free them¬ 
selves from the doll’s skirts, and as 
Frank rocked gently the little brown 
fingers reached up for the man’s hand 
and with a -sigh of satisfaction the 
Christmas baby fell asleep. Frank put 
out the lamp. The moon looked in at the 
window, the fire snapped in the stove, the 
chair creaked a little as it rocked, the 
dog lay by the stove with one watchful 
eye open. The baby slept on. Finally 
the man’s head drooped over the bundle 
in his arms. A little later the dog opened 
his eye and almost smiled to see his 
master asleep in the chair still holding 
the sleeping child. 
Upstairs Mary lay for hours in a 
tumult of rage and grief. She thought 
it over. The injustice of life. This 
crowuiing insult as it seemed. She could 
not make it right, yet as she lay there 
a calmer mood came to her and she re¬ 
pented. Twice she started up to go down¬ 
stairs to see what had become of Frank, 
but something held her back. Suddenly, 
after hours of thinking and thinking, 
there came to her ears, as she thought, 
the sound of music—low, murmurous, 
sw’eet and far away. She tried to reason 
that it could not be—yet still it came, 
sweet and clear. I think it was simply 
the wind harping over and through the 
wire fence beside the pasture, but to the 
tortured woman it seemed like some great 
song far away on the hills, and it brought 
her peace and repentance. She went to 
the window and looked out, half expect¬ 
ing to see the hills covered with a great 
glory. The moonlight sparkled on the 
snow, and far away to the east rhe sky 
was just beginning to color with the com¬ 
ing of Christmas morning. 
A great peace came to the woman’s 
heart. But as she looked she saw a man 
climb over the road fence and come 
cautiously in past the shed and through 
the barn yard. He hesitated a moment, 
and then walked to the kitchen window 
and stood peering in. A sudden terror 
seized upon Mary—Frank! he could not 
hear this intruder. He might be in 
danger. Mary ran down stairs, opened 
the kitchen door and looked within. The 
room was warm and comfortable, a crack 
of light from the stove and the waning 
moonlight showed her husband asleep in 
the rocking chair still holding the baby in 
his arms. The dog lay by the stove. At 
the w'indow she saw a man’s face looking 
in. It was a black face, a kindly face— 
Abram the black man who had seen the 
vision. 
A touch on her husband’s arm wakened 
him. Mary took the baby gently from 
his arms and pointed to the face at the 
window. 
“Come in, Abram !” she called. 
The man came in and stood holding his 
hat in his hand. 
“Mis’ Henry,” he said, “I hear tell 
you got a little brown baby here that you 
don’t want. Ain’t I told you how I had 
a vision about that? My wife she just 
cried herself asleep because she ain’t got 
no child. Mis’ Henry, can’t I have this 
baby? Don’t send him to poorhouse. 
We’ll give him all the love there is. 
Can’t I take him back before Julia wakes 
up and give him to her as my Christmas 
present?” 
* * it * X 
I wish you could have seen the little 
procession which moved over the hills, 
along the country road through the crisp 
air of that eai'ly Christmas morning. 
Abram went ahead—his face aglow. Then 
came Mary and Frank carrying the 
precious bundle between them with wise 
old Dick following. As the snow crinkled 
beneath his feet Frank looked up at the 
many stars and the glowing East. There 
came to him again : 
“Arise and take ihe young child and 
his mother and go into the land of Israel: 
for they are dead who sought the young 
child’s life” 
They stopped before Abram’s little 
house. The woman was still asleep. 
Gently Abram carried the Christmas baby 
and laid the little brown offering in the 
bed beside his wife. 
“Didn’t I tell you Mr. Henry,” he 
whispered, “that the angel of the Lord 
in my vision was just the same com¬ 
plected that yoti be?” it. w. c. 
The J. H. Hale Peach 
I read with interest your editorial of 
recent date in regard to the J. II. Hale 
peach. The J. H. Hale, undoubtedly, 
has qualities superior to Elberta, since 
it is less fuzzy and more firm. The va¬ 
riety is not self-fruitful, however, and 
does not set fruit until cross-pollinated. 
Interplanting with other varieties will 
not overcome this difficulty in seasons 
unfavorable to the work of bees. There 
are numerous instances on record in this 
State where Hale planted between ad¬ 
joining rows of other varieties has failed 
to set fruit. We have a number of other 
varieties introduced from various parts 
of the world which have this same fault, 
and they are uncertain in production. 
Among our large number of seedlings 
here we have some that are excellent in 
every way, except that they do not pro¬ 
duce any pollen themselves. We will 
not introduce any of them, because ve 
consider that defect serious. 
In addition to its inability to pollinate 
itself, J. II. Hale has a serious tree weak¬ 
ness. It is subject to collar-rot injury 
just at and below the surface of the 
ground. It can be budded high on hardi- 
stock to overcome that trouble, but of 
course all such weaknesses are expensive. 
M T e believe that the good qualities of 
J. II. Hale can be retained, and the 
weaknesses eliminated by breeding, and 
we now have several hundred trees of 
Hale crosses, which will come into bear¬ 
ing in about tw'o or three years. We ex¬ 
pect some fine peaches in the lot. 
We have been distributing our other 
seedlings rather slowly, because we find 
that there is need of rather wide testing 
in the State before we make too strong 
claims. Two seedlings that were very 
promising in New Brunswick have proved 
to be quite susceptible to bacterial leaf 
spot when grown in Southern New 
Jersey. We also have a few seedlings 
which are of excellent quality and fine 
for the roadside market, which lack cer¬ 
tain characters for long distance ship¬ 
ments. M. A. BLAKE. 
New Jersey Experiment Station. 
Father: “Ned, why are you always at 
the bottom of your class?” Ned : “It real¬ 
ly doesn’t matter, pa. We get the same 
instruction at both ends of the class.— 
Boston Globe. 
A Farm Labor Group 
