Case in Point

If one is so unheeding as to commit oneself to Children's Ministry service, one must take the little pains that come with it. What follows is a case (pun intentional, as you shall see) in point. The moral of the story is that one cannot avoid love of small children. It will come, be as detachedly benovolent as ever you may.

He walked through the door and straight into my heart. Or rather, his mother handed him over the baby-gate and he smiled at me. That is how, all in a moment, I became the devotee of a toddler named Case.

The child is remarkably beautiful, but I have resisted the charms of beautiful children before. Despite previous several-year stints in Children's Ministry, my only real darlings were my baby sister, Marjorie, and a little Indian girl whom I looked after in Nursury when I was twelve. Her name was Sophia, I believe, and she was not a nice child. Perhaps that is why I adored her--no one else did. However, I don't think that any Children's Ministry worker could remain long indifferent to Case; and the behavior of my fellows in Toddlers 1 seems to confirm this.

He is dark-haired--not black or curly, just regular Caucasian brown. He is also perhaps a little surer of his hands and feet than the other toddlers. So far, nothing striking. But here comparison ends. For this particular child is blessed with the most radiant, the friendliest, the sweetest-spirited smile that it has ever been my happy lot to behold on the face of an infant. It reaches all the way to his eyes, which are as blue as mine and nearly the same shade, but larger and longer-lashed. It is perfectly sunny and most astonishingly winsome.

This smile won my heart unresisting from me, but what is more amazing still is that he smiles so often. If Case is confused, he smiles as if enjoying the joke on himself; if a new face swims into his ken, why, he smiles as if at his own parents; if he is startled, he looks grave for a moment, and then smiles! Whatever might be expected to frighten a child merely makes him smile.

He has no notion of fear so far as I can see, and no idea that other people are anything but his best friends in the world. At first I said to myself, "Ah, he must be an insinuating child, or else foolish." Not so. For although he seems to expect good of everybody, he does not sidle or flatter for crackers at snack time (as I have seen others do), nor does he lavish smiles for the fun of it. They are genuine responses of delight. Also, he has no trick of trying to make people look at him. One may look at him for several minutes together while he remains completely oblivious.

Case is not a talker. I believe he made only one comment on a toy in the whole course of the morning (in baby-speech, of course). He is, however, very active--his favorite game is to build up towers of blocks and kick them over. He will also kick over other people's towers without asking (I did not say he was a perfect child), and has been known to take another's toys with the same unconcern for the laws of meum and tuum. He is often in motion, and I would characterize him as athletic. At one point I was at pains to keep him from balancing on the upcurved end of a rocking chair. And, while he is not as cuddly as some of the others (I mean that he will not hold out his arms and beg to be picked up), he will be perfectly still and good when lifted into anybody's lap or arms.

The last characteristic that I will mention here, which by the way gives me a conviction of his intelligence and self-possession, is a way that he has of looking round when any disturbance is being made (as of another child crying) or if a book is being read aloud (he seems rather fond of books). He will look up, ascertain and judge the situation in a most detached and adult-like manner, then apparently dismiss it from his mind and return to his play.

I have seldom met with a little boy whom I could so heartily wish to have had as my own. How blessed his parents are, and how nice they must be! For, you know, you can judge a good deal about parents from the behavior of their children. The other girls (there are five of us in all) who work in Toddlers 1 all tease that I have got a pet child now, as little Cora is one of theirs. Well, I do not wish to play favorites, and I won't. But let this stand as a case in point: love of toddlers, like most other forms of love, will find a way. I have always had the liveliest enjoyment in children of all ages, from babies to teenagers, but I admit that for the third time in my life I have now been touched by that form of vicarious maternal love which can only be described as "baby-smitten."