We lived in a house which was one of many made to the same measure with the inevitable street porch, big window, trimmed lawn in front and garden in the rear. We had attained the standard of prosperity maintained in our home town by keeping “hired help” and installing a telephone, so our social status was fixed.
There was but one adjunct missing to our little Arcadia. While at a word or look children flocked to me like friendly puppies in response to a call, to Silvia they were still an unknown quantity.
I had hoped that her understanding and love for children might be developed in the usual and natural way, but we had 7 now been married ten years and this hope had not been realized.
She had tried most assiduously to cultivate an acquaintance with members of child-world, but into that kingdom there is no open sesame. The sure keen intuition of a child recognizes on sight a kindred spirit and Silvia’s forced advances met with but indifferent response. She wistfully proposed to me one day that we adopt a child. My doubts as to the advisability of such a course were confirmed by Huldah, our strong staff in household help. In our section of the country servants were generally quite conversant with the intimate and personal affairs of the home.
“Don’t you never do it, Mr. Wade,” she counseled. “Ready-mades ain’t for the likes of her.”
When, in acting on this advice, I vetoed 8 Silvia’s lukewarm proposition, I was convinced of Huldah’s wisdom by seeing the look of relief that flashed into my wife’s troubled countenance, and I knew that her suggestion had been but a perfunctory prompting of duty.
Time alone could overcome the effects of her early environment!
