SYLVESTER HOSPITAL BY S. L. HUNTER VISIT to St. Agnes's Hospital, Raleigh, will reveal an unusual lack of many things that are generally considered as necessities in modern and wellequipped hospitals. Yet much good work has been done. The children's ward is a tiny place, holding at most only four beds, but there have been times when some of these beds have held two or three children. As I am writing there are eleven children in the hospital, but some of them are tiny babies who are with their mothers in the maternity ward. As in all hospitals, there is much that is pathetic about the helpless, suffering children, and yet much to be thankful for, because they can have clean beds, good food and tender care. One child of seven years old was brought in terribly burned. Her mother had left her in the care of a neighbor while she went off to her work. The neighbor had left the room for just a few minutes. This little one was playing with her own children, and while she was away the little girl's clothing caught fire and for days and weeks her life was despaired of. When she was beginning to recover her mother and grandmother came prepared to take her away, thinking that she would have much better care with them than the hospital could give. The mother was finally persuaded not to remove her. When she consented to let her stay she said she supposed it would be better, because air was bad for burns and in the hospital she would This was be in an "air-tight house." rather a blow to Dr. Hayden, who prides herself on the amount of fresh air given to all the inmates of the house. The child steadily improved, but at last the mother, becoming impatient of the long illness, took her away. The want of proper care was too much for the poor, weak, little body, and she was soon released from her sufferings. Later on we had a little boy, the son of West Indian parents, who had been very ill in the winter and had never fully regained his strength, but the good food and care soon helped him, and his father took him with his little brother back to the West Indian home. The boy with crutches is Isaac. For a year and a half he lay on the "Little Helpers' Cot"-a patient, pathetic little object. When he was strong enough he ISAAC was sent to the young men's building of St. Augustine's School, where he had his home for a long time. Just now he is back again in the hospital, needing some special treatment, but he has been promoted to the men's ward, as he is now too old to be with the little children. The little one standing by the chair was another badly burned baby, who has now gotten well and gone home. Flora, who sits in the chair, will also soon leave the hospital. Sylvester is a boy without a mother, who was so badly beaten by a woman who was supposed to take care of him that the court interfered, took him from her and sent him last summer to St. Agnes's Hospital. He has now quite recovered, is a merry little soul and gets into all sorts of mischief, so that he has to be watched very closely. He is only seven years old and has lived with bad people all his life, so that we cannot expect him to be as good as children who have had the comfort and training of good homes. Recently he had to be punished and we felt that the thing he would feel the most would be to deprive him of his trousers, to which he had recently been promoted. He howled dismally, but he has now recovered his spirits and we hope soon to be able to restore to him the lost treasures. One of our 1906 graduates, whose first child was born in the hospital two years later and baptized in the school chapel, writes: "The baby laughs and notices everything. I still use the hospital rules with him, as I can't find any better or as good. He certainly is one great joy to me." The children of St. Ambrose's Parish School, in the city of Raleigh, every year bring groceries, fruit, and other gifts at Thanksgiving-time to the hospital. They have also given something toward the building fund of the new hospital. From all over the country help has come to take care of our little ones. Indians and Negroes, as well as white people, have helped. Southern people as well as Northern people have aided. Northern babies, Southern babies, Negro babies and Indian babies have sent their pennies, and the whole amount donated has been enough to take care of the Little Helpers' Cot. Perhaps some of the older people would like to follow the example of the babies in keeping the doors of St. Agnes's Hospital open all the year round and in putting up the new St. Agnes's Hospital, which we hope to be able to use about June 1st. CHILDREN OF ST. AMBROSE'S CHURCH, RALEIGH, BRINGING THANKSGIVING GIFTS TO THE HOSPITAL BY THE RIGHT REVEREND JAMES H. VAN BUREN, D.D. "What other?" "The little girl dream, who living so far from Puerto Rico, place her in the box misionera, and send her to me. Carmen, dear, you think she sometimes in the night, in faraway Boston, wake up and want to see the little doll which I call Massachusetts? You think so, Carmen, dear?" "Perhaps." "Then should I not sometimes let her go back for a visit? Ah, Carmen, dear, that would be hard for me. But if the other mamma would grieve for her, should I not let her go? Or, you think perhaps she know how much I also love my sweet little Massachusetts, and that I never before had a doll in all my life? You think she know how Ramona is sick in Hospital San Lucas very long time? And if she know that, Carmen, dear, will she be sad, or triste, if I cannot spare my little Massachusetts?" "It is sure, no one but having a tender heart would send you her doll, Ramona; and who knows but she have yet other ones beside? Sometimes they have two, or even three, when very rich." "But none so sweet and dear as mine! And you think she want me to keep The names and the incidents in this little story are for the greater part imaginary. And yet, like Ramona, I cannot help feeling that they stand for the truth. Dreams are strange things; and since most people have them, they must be meant to serve some purpose. The pictures, at all events, are real.-J. H. V. B. "CARMEN, DEAR, PLEASE YOU BRING ME MASSACHUSETTS." Massachusetts? You think she will not grieve? I could not wish her to be triste, Carmen, dear. But if you suppose she is content, then I am happy." "Yes, Ramoncita mia, for she must be a Christian, and so she is happier knowing you have part of her happiness than if she kept it all. Christians are that way." "Ah, then I am satisfecha, and me alegro, me-al-e-gro, ou-y-mucho. Ah, Mas-sa-chu And the words faded into the stillness of the night. The hours passed slowly away. Now and then some little sufferer required the nurse's care, and midnight rolled by; the distant strokes of the Ponce city clock softly numbering the passing hours. Four o'clock had come and gone, when the little voice called out once more. "Carmen, dear." "What will you, little one?" "I tell you something." "Is better to wait, Ramona, till the morning." "Will it molest you if I tell you now?" "No, not molest, niñita, but to sleep is better." "But I did sleep, Carmen, dear. And beside, I am quite strong, is it not true? And stronger every day-you know that. Please you let me tell you something." "Then, well, what is?" "I dreaming, Carmen, dear, dreaming one so beautiful dream, and strange; yes, wonderful; I almost cannot tell; so very strange and beautiful. Perhaps you can explain." "Well, what is?" "I dreaming that Massachusetts say, 'Come with me, Ramona, mamita mia'— you know she speak very well the Spanish same as I the English-and she say in my dream, 'Come with me, I take you to Boston, a city far away, where I lived before.' So I went with her, and oh, such a wonderful city, Carmen, dear, and very large; and houses very, very high, some of them, and hospitals as large as San Lucas, what you think? And trolley cars coming up out of the ground, but you will not believe that! and streets, some very straight and wide, wide as the Plaza of Ponce perhaps; and others narrow and bending round and turning back again till I am nearly lost. But Massachusetts is never lost in Boston, for it is seen that she was educated there, and she tell me, everybody in Boston have to learn first thing to find their way. And soon we come to a great and beautiful parque, she call it the Common, with many trees and a monument, and nearby, a large house which call itself the State House, on a hill called Beacon, with a great, round dome above. Ah, Carmen, dear, you never saw such a beautiful palacio, it is sure. "And then we walk together through a garden, and soon we come to a church, very great, having a cross so high it touch the clouds perhaps; who know? quien sabe? "And now it is Easter Day; and Carmen, dear, there are children coming from every direction; boys and girls, oh, so many, many, perhaps a thousand! And every one is carrying in the hand a little box. "Then we make haste, Massachusetts and I, and we go first into the great and beautiful church they call Trinity, and we go up into a very high galeria where we can see and hear very well. Then begins to play the organ, and there are many beautiful flores there in one part, roses and lilies perhaps, near where afterward, the coro sinza, all with white robes. Ah, Carmen, dear, you think heaven is more beautiful than that? And then I hear them singing, oh, singing like the angeles, so sweetly, and all the church is filled with the glory and triunfo of the song: 'Jesus Christ is Risen To-day, Allelulia!' "And then the boys and girls come in, singing also, until there is room for no more, and each one with the little box in hand. And when they enter the church, I see there is a heavenly light shining from each box, which I could not see when in the street. But now, in the church I could see the light, because in the church is darker. "And so I ask Massachusetts what is in the boxes, and she tell me it is money which the children have saved and are bringing to lay it at the feet of Jesus. "But, I say, 'money does not shine with light like that. What is in the boxes to make them shine?' And Massachusetts tell me, 'It is the Spirit of Sacrifice.' She tell me money which have been touched with the Spirit of Sacrifice always shine like that; only not everybody can see the shining. "Is it not beautiful? Surely, Massachusetts is a wise child, Carmen, dear. You suppose everybody in Boston is so wise as that? "Well, then I look again, and I see that not all the boxes shine with equal light. Some are very bright and others dim. And I say, 'The bright ones have A CORNER OF THE CHILDREN'S WARD, ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL, PONCE |