The Child Who Never Grew (nonfiction) by Pearl S. Buck

Author:Pearl S. Buck
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography
ISBN: 9781453263594
Publisher: San Val
Published: 1950-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

III

I CAME TO MY own country as a stranger. There was disadvantage in this, for I had no friends to guide me, nor any who knew in any way what I needed or how to help me. Yet there was advantage too. I knew what I wanted to find and I had learned from my life among the Chinese to look for essentials—that is, for human quality. I had to determine that I would not judge by money alone. If the right place cost a great deal, I would find some way to pay for it. I was young, I was strong, I was well educated. With those three gifts, I could provide somehow for the child.

I learned a great deal in the next year. It took me in many directions indeed. I had a long list of schools and institutions and I asked for others as I went. Of that intensive search it would be useless to tell every detail, but for those who must make a similar search it may be useful to know certain things.

First of all, I learned not to judge an institution by its grounds and equipment. Some of the finest and most expensively equipped schools were the worst, so far as the children were concerned. I remember one such place. I had spent a whole day with the headmistress. She showed me every detail of the splendidly planned grounds and houses. The children were well fed and well cared for, obviously. She had a resident doctor and a resident psychologist. The attendants for the children were neat and pleasant. There were an excellent school building and a good exhibit of handcraft, done by the children. There was a department of music. Every effort, she assured me, was made to develop the children to the height of their potentiality. She herself was competent, brisk, not unkind. I tried to think of my little girl beside her and could not quite imagine warmth between them, but of course the headmistress would not have much to do with any individual child. So well impressed was I as the day went on that I was beginning to think of the fabulous annual fee and to plan how it could be found. Evening came, and I sat on the wide porch, still with the headmistress, waiting for the bus that was to take me away. Then something happened which undid all the day.

A car stopped and a group of young girls in their teens, all children in the school, mounted the steps and crossed the porch. They greeted the headmistress very properly and she returned their greeting. I saw her watching them sharply.

Suddenly she called to them, “Girls, stop!”

They stopped, half frightened.

The headmistress said in her clear, peremptory way, “How often have I told you to hold up your heads? Go back to the steps and walk across the porch again.”

They obeyed instantly while she watched.

When they had gone into the house she turned to me with a complacent explanatory air.

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