For in the midst of every problem--political, social, economic, religious, there stands _The Handicapped Girl._ God help her--and us--for until we have gained the wisdom to remove her handicap the whole problem will remain unsolved. We are learning--every year shows a gain and in this fact lies our hope.
One finds her in all sorts of unexpected places. Last summer I saw her in a home of wealth and luxury. She was fifteen, the eldest of a family of four children. Behind her was a long line of ancestry of which anyone might rightfully be proud. Her face was pure and sweet and her eyes revealed the frankness and honest purpose of past generations. After breakfast she played for the hymns at prayers and in a clear, true, soprano led the singing. A twelve-year-old brother had selected the part of the Bible to be read and the eight-year-old sister had chosen the hymns. The father's prayer was simple and sincere and some of its sentences were remembered for many a day. After prayers the girl attended to the flowers. This was her work for the summer. I saw her gather from their lovely garden dainty blossoms and sprays of green, making them with unusual skill into bouquets for the Flower Mission in the city. Then three small baskets were filled with pansies. These went to three old ladies in the factory section of the village. She told me they were "the sweetest old ladies" and "dear friends" of hers. She seemed to take real delight in making the baskets beautiful. I saw her later in the day galloping off through the woods on her horse, her face glowing with health and happiness. In the afternoon she spent an hour on German which she said was her "hopeless study," but I found her reading German folk lore with ease. She was familiar with the best things in literature, was intensely interested in art and revealed unusual knowledge without any evidence of precociousness. She was just a normal, healthy, natural girl, well-born, well-bred, a girl with every advantage. When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and thought of her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be helped to know into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she might come to understand and do in later years her full duty toward the other fifteen-year-old girl who that day made paper boxes, feathers, flowers or shirtwaists, toiled in the laundries or the cotton factory, or walked with heavy heart from place to place searching for work. They are dependent upon one another, these two. They do not know it now, but if each is to be her best, they must know.