From the Relief Society Magazine, April 1937 –

The Gift

By Ivy Williams Stone

The Hanks family had the distinction of being the poorest people in all the various communities where they had temporarily resided. They had the poorest house, the shabbiest clothes, the most children. But by a strange, ironical twist of life’s compensations, the finest babies! Strong, sturdy, brown-eyed youngsters! At one country town, where the nondescript car had breathed its last throb, the Hanks’s twins had captured first prize at the baby show. Thus, the family had been enabled to purchase a car slightly less worn than their other one, and to follow the lure of the highway to Littleton.

In this “Mormon” town things had been better. People were kinder, acting as though even poor folks might be human. The “Ligion Lady,” as the Hanks’s children called the visiting Relief Society Teacher, was most kind. She didn’t pick up her skirts and look into corners where she shouldn’t. She didn’t act better and give curt orders about antiseptics and soap. She never criticized Ellis Hanks because he seldom worked. She didn’t smile knowingly when Mrs. Hanks explained that a man might have a broken back and still eat hearty! Why, this Ligion Lady even invited them to church, and when Mrs. Hanks went, in her shoes that were much too large and her coat that was much too thin, the Ligion Lady beckoned her and moved over and gave her a seat.

Whenever the Ligion Lady, otherwise known as Mrs. Wilson, mother of the beautiful, frail, golden haired little Marjorie Wilson, came to the Hanks’s house, the look of hopeless resignation faded momentarily from the beaten eyes of Mrs. Hanks. Mrs. Wilson acted just like another real woman, with problems of rearing children and rustling food. She always took the youngest baby on her lap and made him shout with laughter; she managed to make all the other six Hanks children smile with the joy of living, their auburn curls and luminous brown eyes and firm hard bodies a testimony to inborn ability to withstand privation. “how I wish they were mine!” The Ligion Lady would whisper, and every time she came she brought each child a gift. Never old, soiled clothing; never poor quality food. The clothing she gave was always clean and whole, with never so much as a button missing! The food was tantalizing, and each visit was followed by flour, or coal, and once shingles on the decrepit roof. And she sent a man to help lay them, remembering the broken back that Mrs. Hanks was always using to shield her husband.

And, thanks to the ministrations of this good sister and her sister workers, the last two Hanks babies had been hospital born. for the first time in her starved, down-trodden existence, Mrs. Hanks had known the joy of clean linen, the assurance of three meals a day, the luxury of a real bed. The nurses had been kind; the two youngest Hanks babies had lain, side by side, with the children of the rich, superior in physical qualities, on a parity for attention.

On a certain day in October, as she made her report to the Relief Society President, Sister Wilson looked discouraged. “There’s so much sickness in my district,” she reported. “One family with scarlet fever; a little boy dangerously ill with an ulcerated tooth, one father with a broken leg. And Mrs. Hanks will be needing hospitalization and another layette in the spring.”

“What? Again?” Incredulity marked the voice of Sister Meecham. “Why, it was only last year that we sent her. We’ve scarcely gotten that bill paid.”

“Again,” repeated Sister Wilson. “And it was last year, and the year before that, and maybe it will be next year, too. and there’s nothing left from the last layette. The only redeeming feature about them is the babies are finely built and strong. And beautiful, too. the little girls look like Madonnas. I wish this baby could come to me. I have prayed for another baby for years.”

“The Lord will provide,” methodically Sister Meecham reached for paper and pencil. “Coal and coats for the Larsons. Light bill for old lady Toole. Special shoes for lame Tommy Green. His paralyzed foot is getting shorter and shorter.”

Sister Wilson did not go to the Hanks house again. And her good intentions about the layette were rudely interrupted when little Marjorie fell ill. The cars of doctors were parked for long stretches of time in front of the Wilson home. and, in spite of doctors, nurses, serums and administrations, the hand of death, bearing infantile paralysis, reached out for the beautiful Marjorie. The grief-stricken, childless parents faced long years of loneliness. Wide-eyed and tearless they looked at the delicate body, ravaged by this strange, unfathomable disease. Friends vied with each other to help them in their sorrow; flowers in profusion were sent to the stricken home. at the graveside services, Mrs. Hanks, wearing a hand-me-down coat that was much too thin, and shoes that were much too large, stared at the profusion of flowers, the host of friends. She had been unable to send any flowers; she could offer no solace, and her thwarted soul yearned to extend sisterly sympathy to this woman who had given to the less fortunate so generously. The seven little Hankses, sturdy, hard bodied and beautiful, stood about wide-eyed. From a respectful distance they had worshipped this delicate fair haired little girl, who seemed to them like an angel.

As the days slipped by Mrs. Hanks formed a resolution. In all her years, this Ligion Lady was the one person who had treated her as an equal, as a real human. Surely the Lord would open the way for her to return this kindness. thus, for an unexplained reason, Mrs. Hanks refused hospitalization for her eighth baby. She declined the proffered layette; but accepted with her usual humility the donations of miscellaneous clothing that various people sent. There were woolen baby shirts, somewhat shrunken; blankets that had accidentally been boiled; paling bunnies, slips and dresses of varying lengths. Whenever a package smelled suspiciously of soap and antiseptics, Mrs. Hanks laid it aside without bothering to open it. this eighth baby should conform to the old time standards of living as maintained by the Hankses before their arrival in Littleton.

On an evening in April Mr. hanks came home jubilant and debonnaire. The air was full of the odors of spring; he had sighted a flock of wild geese migrating northward. The work of his particular project was finished, and there would be a temporary lull before the next project would need laborers. The highway lured and beckoned; the coins from his last check jingled in his pocket; the vision of further regular employment faded. A nostalgia for revolving wheels, gasoline and roadside cam grounds overpowered him. Three years in this one town had been too much. There were still many places Mr. Hanks had never seen. As soon as Ma was able to travel, they would move on. Having made his decision and feeling mentally relieved thereby, Mr. Hanks ran a joyous hand through his thick, auburn curls, revealing the cowlick that necessitated a side part. Perhaps, if this coming baby proved to be twins again, they could win another prize and buy a larger car!

Mrs. Hanks recognized her husband’s symptoms as readily as if they had been chicken pox or mumps. He took them spasmodically, but always they were the same. She sighed resignedly, and felt only surprise that she had been permitted to stay three years in Littleton among the kindly Mormons.

The eighth Hanks baby was born in the small, dilapidated house, unattended except by Mr. Hanks and the eldest daughter. Wrapped in the illy matched garments, a fat, plump, curly haired little girl began life in a decrepit baby basket, one of two that had been donated. Unmindful of her handicap of birth, she slept peacefully, while her brothers and sisters gazed at her without wonder. Babies had long since ceased to be a novelty in their lives. Mr. Hanks spread his shoulders a trifle wider – the vision of the rolling highway was a little closer, and one more could readily be adapted to the accommodating auto.

A week later the Hanks were ready to move. In the temporary absence of the others, Mrs. Hanks packed the baby in one of the two baskets; in the other she packed some valueless cartons. Then she took an old faded quilt, that had never known a bath, tore it in two and tucked a half over each of the two baskets. “We have to pack a new baby warm,” she told the family. “spring air mightn’t be so good for her. This here other basket has some things we don’t need, and I want to leave ‘em with the Ligion Lady. Maybe there’ll be other folks come to live here, that she’ll want to help.”

In the middle of the night they were ready to start. Mr. Hanks wanted to be out on the long, open highway by the break of day. he loved to roll along as the sun came up; also he did not want any meddling officer of one of those relief projects to order him to another job. somewhat irked at the delay, he drove into town at Mrs. Hanks insistence, to deposit the battered basket with the Wilsons. but a woman could be set in her ways, and realizing this, he toyed with the dog while Mrs. Hanks carried th basket to the front porch of the Wilson home, and set it carefully within the shelter of the porch wall. Then, with the friendly wind sweeping through his uncovered, uncombed, auburn locks, Mr. Hanks drove joyously on, his worldly wealth of children packed around him in the moaning car.

***

The hastily summoned friends stood about the Wilson living room, as Mrs. Wilson, her eyes shining, the love of life again in her every movement, told and retold the story.

“I was awakened by a funny little cry. Like someone shut in. I – I listened, and it came again. I followed the direction of the sound. god had heard my prayers! There, in this decrepit old basket lay the darling. A beautiful little girl. O, Sister Meecham, bring the layette the Relief society made for Mrs. Hanks. Sister Brown, bring over your bassinet! I cannot wait to get the darling bathed and properly clothed. Look at her lovely brown eyes, her plump, hard body, her auburn curls!”

“Who in the world could have left you a baby?” queried an inquisitive soul.

“Who, I wonder?” parried Mrs. Wilson, with shining eyes. In her hand she held a crumpled, soiled scrap of paper on which had been written, in laboriously scrawled letters: “TO THE LIGION LADY.”