I walked into another room to see the little babies; blind, crooked-limbed, distorted, never going to be able to use their bodies properly.
"Why does God leave them here?" I demanded of grandmother as soon as we had reached the open air again.
"Perhaps," said grandmother quietly, "to give us the blessed privilege of acting the God toward them."
"Christianity means brotherhood, Pearl, dear," she added, after we had walked several yards in silence.
What a great country this America is! Caring for its ailing and crippled in such a beautiful way!
"Oh, China!" I cried, when I was all alone in my own room, "_you_ would drown your blind, crooked-limbed, distorted babies, or throw them out on the hillsides to die! Oh, China! China! would you could come over here and see how America treats her 'weak and wounded, sick and sore?' These are the words of a church hymn."
I said something to this effect the same evening to grandmother, and she replied:
"Perhaps, my dear, it may be the duty of some of us to carry America to China."
We are at the seaside. It is the fashion in America for whole families to shut up their houses in hot weather and go off to some summer resort--the women of them--whether to be cool, or to be in the fashion I do not yet know. Grandmother wanted to go one place, Aunt Gwendolin to another, and Uncle Theodore, who said he might run over for a few Sundays, to yet another. At last a charming spot upon the Atlantic coast was decided upon. Uncle Theodore settled the question emphatically, because dear grandmother needed the revivifying influence of the sea air.
Aunt Gwendolin fretted a little at first for fear it might be humdrum, and commonplace, and for fear none of "our set" would be there; but she recovered from her depression when she heard that Mrs. Delancy, Mrs. Deforest, Mrs. Austin, and others of the same clique had also chosen that particular part of the coast as their recuperating place.
Mrs. Delancy dropped in one day to tell her that the whole fashionable tide had turned toward that coast this summer, and she knew we should have a "simply _grand_ season."
Aunt Gwendolin's spirits rose after that, and she immediately went about ordering a most elaborate summer wardrobe--morning gowns, evening gowns, walking suits, yachting suits, bathing suits.