etually keep watch? I have had
six children--they were all healthy and had their full complement of
legs and arms--except Bob, who lost an arm in the Spanish war, but
that doesn't count--and I never was shut up in my room before I had to
be--nor put on a milk diet--nor forbidden reasonable exercise--and I
think the modern doctors are full of fads and greed. Their bills! I
don't know who is rich enough to be ill nowadays!" Here she shut her
eyes and trembled to think of the portion of her own great fortune
that might have transferred itself to the doctor's pockets if her
nursery had not antedated the present school. "It may not seem very
expensive to young Mrs. Minthrop to lie on her sofa and drink
milk--but just wait till she comes to pay for it!"

"I don't believe anyone will care about the bill, Mrs. Star," said
Deena, "so long as Polly keeps well."

"It is bad enough to have food and exercise taken away from the young
mothers," continued Mrs. Star, who was evidently mounted on a hobby,
"but when helpless infants are deprived of their natural sustenance
and fed from bottles filled in a laboratory and stuffed with cotton,
it is time for the Gerry Society to interfere. Cruelty to children is
practiced far more by the rich than by the poor, in my opinion, and if
you want to see cases of inanition and feeble spines, I'll show you
where to look for them, and it won't be in the tenements!"

Deena wanted to laugh, but didn't dare to; the old lady proclaimed her
fierce sentiments with such earnest gravity. She managed, however, to
say politely:

"You think that science has not improved upon nature in rearing the
race, but you must remember that it finds the higher classes existing
under unnatural conditions."

"The conditions would do very well if we could banish the doctors,"
said the old lady, testily. "I am out of patience with their
incubators and their weighing machines and their charts and their
thermometers--yes, and their baby nurses! What do you suppose I heard
a mother say to her own servant the other day: 'Please, nurse, may I
take the baby up? He is crying fearfully,' and the nurse, who had
reluctantly put down the morning paper, said: 'No, m'am, when he cries
in that angry way, he must learn that it is useless!' _His age was six
weeks._"

Deena burst into a hearty laugh.

"My dear Mrs. Star," she said, "I am a convert."

Mrs. Star wagged her head in approbation.

"Just tell your sister what I have sai