240

THE ST. JAMES ORPHANAGE

Happy Days Spent by the Inmates of a Worthy Charitable Institution.

Excellent Discipline -- The Routine Work of the Day -- The Good Sisters and Their Charges.

The children call her Sister 'Lastics.

Her real name is Sister Mary Scholastics, and her duties, with thirteen other Sisters of Mercy, are to care for the children at the St. James orphanage.

This place of refuge is on that stretch of rolling, grass covered prairie northwest of the city. When this prairie is left as God made it it is beautiful in the extreme. It swells and undulates away into purple nothingness, and all over the bearded grass dandelions nod their delicate hands, and and yellow butterflies with eye like spots upon their wings submit [?] to the buffettings of the wind

But it sometimes happens that God proposes and man disposes. And man, who has a mania, in this part of the country, for cutting down hills, has resolved the place into a series of clay cuttings, which in wet weather are almost impassable because of the mud, and in dry weather are the home of the infant simoons, which pepper the eyes with torturing particles of clay.

By taking the Walnut Hill motor and riding to the western end of the line and then getting on the brisk little Benson place motor, which rocks over the road bed like a poorly balanced cat boat over a choppy bay, you come to a stretch of these clay cuttings in the midst of which, you get off, walk a quarter of a mile to a very substantial brick building in the midst of a clay plateau, and find yourself at the Orphanage.

In the facade stands St Joseph -- done in bisque -- with the Child in his arms, and playing literally under the shadow of their patron saint are ninety little children.

Meanwhile, tolling for them, praying for them, loving them, are Sister 'Lastics and her thirteen colaborers.

All of these good women bear the name of Mary -- name dear alike to sacred and to secular ears. And to distinguish them a very little one from another, another name is given, so that Mary Borgia, and Mary Benedictine, and Mary Celestine, may answer to earthly call.

But aside from that middle name, so often amusingly inappropriate, there is little to distinguish these gentle, strong, faithful women one from another. Their faces are [?] from lack of excitement, their steps are quick because they are ever bent on willing service, their eyes are soft because they are filled with kindness, their manners are gently authoritative, and their faces are framed in the white linen and the black drapings of their order

Sister Mary Michael is the superior -- a calm woman who looks at you with eyes which are not unsophisticated, as are those of some of her satellites. She is a woman who has ability, as you feel directly upon meeting her, and who could, if you asked her, tell you the exact amount of every item of expense of the Orphanage.

The building has not yet been occupied a year. It is substantial, commodious and very simple. It cost in the neighborhood of $70,000. Of this six sevenths are still owing

But it will be paid for The order of the Sisters of Mercy will do it. They will do it by their faithful minutes which reach into monotonous and beautiful years of toil The order is a great one and this branch of it here will be helpful if the need comes Meantime, by subscription, funds will be raised as much as possible, while the Sisters bend every energy toward paying for the expenses of the institution, and of meeting the interest, which, fortunately, is only 5 per cent.

It would be easier to do this if coal were not so high. But to beat a building that holds over 100 persons, who insist on their rights to a certain number of cubic feet of air per capita, is an expense almost as great as all the other expenses of living put together

There is no one so lowly, just as there is no one so powerful, that he is not plundered by the man who deliberately place coal above its value!

To have been held up on the highway and despoiled by a feudal baron, as honest men were three centuries ago, was preferable to being robbed in a country which makes its meaningless boasts of law and order, under the mistaken impressions that these things stand for equity and justice.

But in spite of coal combines and other damnable contrivances of a more or less cold world, ninety little boys and girls were kept warm and snug at the Orphanage last winter Ninety little folks, none of whom are provided with more than one parent, and some of whom have no parents of any sort or description knew what it was to be housed and clothed, and fed, and even loved.

In the morning they awoke in the dim early light to see the dormitories with their white shaped iron beds reaching north and south. They washed, dressed, combed, according to the inflexible rules, each boy and girl in his or her place.

Then, morning prayers in the chapel -- a chaste room with delicately colored windows The priest is a German and loves his own tongue better even than the Latin And he is old, and it maybe that he forgets just how hungry boys and girls may be! Not that anyone said so But it is impossible, for a very wordly person, with a good appetite, to think of ninety little boys and girls trying to pray when they are all thinking of porridge, with sugar and milk on it, without sighing in sympathy.

However after the good father has read his Latin with a German accent, all the people go stumbling down the bare halls to the dining room And the very little ones sit at a table which is not much higher than a bench, while the others go to higher tables, according to their size. And they have, porridge, and cakes, and coffee [?] milk, and hash or browned potatoes and stewed meat, quite after the manner of children at home. And when they have eaten there is a time for work for the older ones, and then school for all. Some of the boys study German with the venerable priest, who loves to teach the tongue of the fatherland. But it is the sisters who guide through the intricacies of those first perplexing lessons, and who, with the older pupils, teach the mystery of fractions, of geography and of physiology.

And above all, they teach gentleness, courtesy and kindness.

For to have a loving heart is thought to be of more kindness by the sisters, than to have a clever brain.

Then dinner -- a hearty meal this, with meat, vegetables and pudding -- then school, and after that relaxation, a little work, supper of bread

THE ST. JAMES ORPHANAGE

Happy Days Spent by the Inmates of a Worthy Charitable Institution.

Excellent Discipline -- The Routine Work of the Day -- The Good Sisters and Their Charges.

The children call her Sister 'Lastics.

Her real name is Sister Mary Scholastics, and her duties, with thirteen other Sisters of Mercy, are to care for the children at the St. James orphanage.

This place of refuge is on that stretch of rolling, grass covered prairie northwest of the city. When this prairie is left as God made it it is beautiful in the extreme. It swells and undulates away into purple nothingness, and all over the bearded grass dandelions nod their delicate hands, and and yellow butterflies with eye like spots upon their wings submit [?] to the buffettings of the wind

But it sometimes happens that God proposes and man disposes. And man, who has a mania, in this part of the country, for cutting down hills, has resolved the place into a series of clay cuttings, which in wet weather are almost impassable because of the mud, and in dry weather are the home of the infant simoons, which pepper the eyes with torturing particles of clay.

By taking the Walnut Hill motor and riding to the western end of the line and then getting on the brisk little Benson place motor, which rocks over the road bed like a poorly balanced cat boat over a choppy bay, you come to a stretch of these clay cuttings in the midst of which, you get off, walk a quarter of a mile to a very substantial brick building in the midst of a clay plateau, and find yourself at the Orphanage.

In the facade stands St Joseph -- done in bisque -- with the Child in his arms, and playing literally under the shadow of their patron saint are ninety little children.

Meanwhile, tolling for them, praying for them, loving them, are Sister 'Lastics and her thirteen colaborers.

All of these good women bear the name of Mary -- name dear alike to sacred and to secular ears. And to distinguish them a very little one from another, another name is given, so that Mary Borgia, and Mary Benedictine, and Mary Celestine, may answer to earthly call.

But aside from that middle name, so often amusingly inappropriate, there is little to distinguish these gentle, strong, faithful women one from another. Their faces are [?] from lack of excitement, their steps are quick because they are ever bent on willing service, their eyes are soft because they are filled with kindness, their manners are gently authoritative, and their faces are framed in the white linen and the black drapings of their order

Sister Mary Michael is the superior -- a calm woman who looks at you with eyes which are not unsophisticated, as are those of some of her satellites. She is a woman who has ability, as you feel directly upon meeting her, and who could, if you asked her, tell you the exact amount of every item of expense of the Orphanage.

The building has not yet been occupied a year. It is substantial, commodious and very simple. It cost in the neighborhood of $70,000. Of this six sevenths are still owing

But it will be paid for The order of the Sisters of Mercy will do it. They will do it by their faithful minutes which reach into monotonous and beautiful years of toil The order is a great one and this branch of it here will be helpful if the need comes Meantime, by subscription, funds will be raised as much as possible, while the Sisters bend every energy toward paying for the expenses of the institution, and of meeting the interest, which, fortunately, is only 5 per cent.

It would be easier to do this if coal were not so high. But to beat a building that holds over 100 persons, who insist on their rights to a certain number of cubic feet of air per capita, is an expense almost as great as all the other expenses of living put together

There is no one so lowly, just as there is no one so powerful, that he is not plundered by the man who deliberately place coal above its value!

To have been held up on the highway and despoiled by a feudal baron, as honest men were three centuries ago, was preferable to being robbed in a country which makes its meaningless boasts of law and order, under the mistaken impressions that these things stand for equity and justice.

But in spite of coal combines and other damnable contrivances of a more or less cold world, ninety little boys and girls were kept warm and snug at the Orphanage last winter Ninety little folks, none of whom are provided with more than one parent, and some of whom have no parents of any sort or description knew what it was to be housed and clothed, and fed, and even loved.

In the morning they awoke in the dim early light to see the dormitories with their white shaped iron beds reaching north and south. They washed, dressed, combed, according to the inflexible rules, each boy and girl in his or her place.

Then, morning prayers in the chapel -- a chaste room with delicately colored windows The priest is a German and loves his own tongue better even than the Latin And he is old, and it maybe that he forgets just how hungry boys and girls may be! Not that anyone said so But it is impossible, for a very wordly person, with a good appetite, to think of ninety little boys and girls trying to pray when they are all thinking of porridge, with sugar and milk on it, without sighing in sympathy.

However after the good father has read his Latin with a German accent, all the people go stumbling down the