Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1920 — COMFORT IN BABY’S SMILE [ARTICLE]

COMFORT IN BABY’S SMILE

At Writer Say*, Little Children Are ‘ th* Star* That Illuminate th* Pathway of Life. The other afternoon I was going to the store In th* village where I live and saw coming toward me a pleas-ant-faced lady leading by the hand the finest little chap you ever saw. He couldn’t have been more than a year and a half old, had on a jaunty little cap and clothes to match, had a sweet, round, serious little face with great beautiful brown eyes. He was indeed a little fellow to admire and love. He was prettier than any picture and I looked him full in the face as he passed, my heart full of happy thought at the sight of such a charming little man. He looked straight back at me and, with the same serious look in his great eyes, gracefully saluted me with two or three gentle up-and-down motions of his little hand. I repaid him w’ith a loving and appreciative smile, and was repaid with an answering smile from the proud and happy mother. Dear little fellow 1 I have thought of him a score of times since, and shall again and again recall tits recognition of a gray-head-ed, old man w’hom he happened to meet as he was starting where I most earnestly hope * thousand beautiful things and splendid experiences await him.

Could anything after all be more touching than a wave of the hand from a baby just beginning the voyage across life’s seas to an old voyager whose sea-worn shallop has almost reached its last anchorage? The little children! Unchanged by all the turmoil and pain and perplexity and catastrophes of the world, as innocent and hopeful and confident today as they were in the ancient days when the world was new with its record of sin and sorrow unwritten. They are Indeed the salt that preserves the race from becoming stale and hopeless. They are the stars that illumine the dark night of human life, the flowers that delight the eye, the treasures which enrich a hundred million homes and keep alive hope and sanity and courage in countless hearts. The little children are indeed the hope of the world. To them the old and weary world will pass the torch of endeavor and the problems of life and the burdens of labor and thought, and their brave young spirits will laugh at the responsibilities thus forced upon them and “carry on” till they in turn pass the burden to other fresh, young enthusiasts.—Roland Cortheil. in Boston Transcript