I believe I must tell you of some of the rest. There was one of our managers, a lovely young lady with beautiful brown eyes, who seemed to feel as if she never could do enough. I don't know what she did not give; for so many presents came in her name that there seemed to be no end to them. She even furnished the little recitation room entirely, and bought quite an apothecary shop of medicines, so that the children might have plenty when they were ill.
Then the young ladies of the "Helping Hand of St. Mark's Church" sent us a number of beautiful things. One of our managers, who had a fine conservatory, sent in a quantity of flowers, which we made into bouquets, and put into baskets, and sold for a good deal of money. We had a present of a flagstaff from Mr. Niblo, of Niblo's Garden, and one of the lady managers gave us the flag, and on the reception day it was waving over the Home. It would fill several pages to tell all the nice things that came—so I will hasten on.
We had a three days' reception in one of the great rooms, the 14th, 15th, and 16th of May. They were opened on the first day with religious services, and were all delightful. We had the carpenters to come and build tiers of seats at the lower end of the room, one above the other, reaching nearly to the ceiling; and each day the orphans marched in two and two, and were placed in the seats, to see all that was going on. Sometimes they would sing hymns for us, and other times they sang "Jim Crack Corn" and "Dixie," and other funny songs.
One day a kind lady gave them each a ten cent piece, and they came down in a great hurry to spend them immediately. We managed to have a good many things to cost only ten cents that were marked much higher, so that the dear little things should have just what they fancied.
Then a gentleman gave them each a chance, which he paid for, in a great cake; and I wish you could have heard the clapping of hands, and hurrahing, when a boy they all liked won it. Of course he gave them all a piece, and they enjoyed it tremendously. I really was afraid some of them would be ill, they had so much cake and candy.
The great fun of all to the children was to eat philopenas with the ladies. I do believe I eat about twenty-five. Of course I never meant to catch them; but I pretended to be very much astonished when they caught me, and when I went home to my dinner I got a basket, and put in it twenty-five great rosy-cheeked apples to pay for my philopenas. I thought these were much better for them than so much candy; and when I handed them out, the children looked highly delighted.
When the fair was over, we were surprised to find how much money we had taken, and very grateful too. Some of our pretty things were left, and we put these carefully by for our winter fair; and after a little while we settled down quite comfortably in the new Home.
The summer passed quietly away; everything seemed to go on happily, although we had very hard work to collect money enough to keep us out of debt. You see the terrible war was now raging, and all the charitable institutions were suffering, because everybody was anxious to do all they could for the soldiers.
We took three children belonging to volunteers who had no one to leave them with, and we had one poor little fellow from Fort Sumter. He was born in the fort, and soon after abandoned by his mother, who became a very wicked woman. Then his father—who was a good soldier—was sent to Florida to help fight against the Indians, and was killed: and poor little Richard was left alone in the world, with no one to take care of him but an old woman, who washed the soldiers' clothes and worked in the fort. After the wicked and dreadful attack on the handful of half-starved soldiers, who were so heroically guarding their country's flag and honor, but who were forced to surrender, the brave Major Doubleday, hearing of our Home, sent the poor little fellow on to us, and we were very glad to give him shelter, and make him as happy as we could.