p. 13 | Quarantined

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 29, 1915

Quarantined

“Show me no more!” exclaimed the doctor reluctantly. “It is scarlet fever,” he continued, and our hearts sank.

Father looked at me, his eyes betraying the unspoken fear felt by both of us, as I held in my arms our only son, a golden-haired darling of less than two years.

While he lay in a fevered sleep, the good doctor, in his quick professional way, helped us make plans for the nursing of him, and for the protection of the other children.

I was to be isolated with him, for we could not afford a trained nurse. And how could his mother have given him up to the care of another?

I was stunned. The props and stays, the necessary settings of my life, were suddenly withdrawn, and left me benumbed and bewildered.

I looked up, and there was the little jacket he had worn in the morning. It was night now, and my heart ached. The little jacket was like a living thing, suddenly becoming of priceless value.

Father came for his good-by before we were closed in room quarantine. Our eyes met in unspoken question. How shall it be when we meet again? How shall it fare with our baby toddler?

We had been shut in a good many days,—days of ceaseless anxiety and watching for me; to my child, days of suffering and pain.

“Muvver!” and the blue eyes were big and wistful. “Yes, darling,” and two little arms were held up imploringly.

With God’s help the battle had been fought and won. The doctor had made his farewell visit, saying, as he departed, that with careful nursing all would be well.

I now had time to think, to wonder what lessons this pause in my busy life held for me.

There were always duties that filled every hour with their unceasing demand on strength, brain, and heart. Could it be that I had been too much occupied with doing the things that perish with the day?

Did the crown of motherhood sometimes press so hard that I failed to wear it with the grace and the sweetness that belonged to it?

Yes, I needed a vision—a clearer view into my own soul, and the tonic effect of this standstill.

The voices of my little girls came to me as they rang out in merry play downstairs. Ah! the wise training that their active young lives must have, the tender guidance needed for their busy little feet! Surely, nothing but the power of God was sufficient for these things. Of course I had thought all this many times before, but it seemed to me then that never had I felt it so keenly, so insistently. And the little prattler in the room with me, was his life to count for good or for evil? My purposeful, my earnest prayer was that his young voice should proclaim the gospel news, and his willing feet carry the message of peace.

“It largely depends upon the mother,” a dear old lady had once said to me, “whether the boy makes a fighting Ishmael or a praying Samuel.” I walked to the window and looked out at the mountains which were now bathed in their sunset glory. Tomorrow the quarantine would be raised, and baby and I would be welcomed into the family life once more. To my eyes it seemed as if out there lay the Delectable Mountains, so magically had twilight turned all into the softest tints of violet. And out there, too, I knew lay Vanity Fair.—The Lutheran.