“I must repeat dear, because it is so very important for you to remember, that every woman has an ovary which contains many seeds or eggs, just as the female flower has. These eggs, if left unfertilized, will pass from the body and never grow any more. But each one, if fertilized by the papa, as the bird’s eggs were, and as the flower seeds were, will stay in a little nook inside the mother’s body, where it will grow and grow until the time comes for it to burst forth into the world, following the same principle that the first cell followed in reproducing, and which all living things 66 follow always. The life within forces it away from the parent, to become a separate growth. Then it will come forth, and behold, the tiny seed or egg has grown to be a baby girl or boy, weighing several pounds!”
“Oh-h!” Elsie gasped again. “And that is how—how—I—came to be born, mamma!”
“Yes, darlingest, it is the way in which every living person was born. There is not, and there cannot be, any other way. Each child is a part both of its father and mother. The egg in the mother would never grow into a baby unless it had first been fertilized by the father, who does so through his great love for the mamma, just as with the birds and animals, though his love is of a higher kind than that of the lower orders.” 67
“And does the mother-woman warm the eggs as the bird in the nest does, mamma, while the papa-man brings her nice things to eat?”
“Yes, dearie, only the mother-woman has the nest inside her body, as I have said, and she keeps the little one safe and warm there much longer than the bird sits on her nest. And think of all the years after the baby is born that she waits on and cares for it! There is no other love that equals in devotion that of the mother.”
Elsie, without a word, her eyes swimming in tears, kissed her mother affectionately. She had realized a little more of what she owed to her.
“Now,” said Mrs. Edson, “I must tell you how to care for this nest in which, by and by, when you have grown up 68 and have a husband and are strong enough, you will be keeping a little baby of your own. Because many girls who become married do not know these things there is a dreadful amount of sickness and misery in the world, all needless. And it does seem too bad—when merely a few words at the right time would have saved it all!”
Of course Elsie was not old enough to understand how this could be, so she said nothing, but sat looking earnestly at her mother as she went on:
“In the first place, dear, you must know that the little baby’s nest, which we call the womb, is placed in the lower portion of the woman’s body, just above the ‘private parts’. Perhaps it is put there because it is the safest place for it in the whole body—for the eggs and 69 womb are very delicate, and must not be exposed to any danger of injury. So it grows in the interior of the trunk, where outside dangers would be less likely to reach and spoil it, so that the woman would be sick all her life and never have any children. Many hopeless female complaints, ending with premature and painful death, are caused by lack of proper care of the womb and its entrance. That care consists chiefly in preventing the womb from being touched by anything, and keeping the entrance clean. It is very simple—just keep the entrance clean and the womb untouched by anything. An observance of such slight rules as these would have saved many and many a poor soul from a life of continual misery and suffering. 70
“I have told you, dear, long ago how to keep the entrance clean. And now that you will soon begin to menstruate, as the passing out of the eggs is called, I shall have but little to add to what you already know, but I will repeat it from the beginning in order that you may have it all clear in your mind.