“What will I do with the money? The first thing will be to get a home of our own with plenty of ground around it for the kids to play in. No more of these flats for us. But we are going to stay right here in Rosebank, where my wife and I were born and brought up. You know we were sweethearts, even at old public school No. 13, around the corner. Most of the kids are now going to that same school. The oldest girl, Antoinette, who is now 14, can realize her ambition to go to normal school and take up teaching, if she wants to--but she don’t have to now.”
The Patrick Sullivans had a bad three hours last night.
You see, it was only a month ago that theirs was a childless family. Mary had grown up and was teaching and there were no babies around the house. Then they found a 1-month-old baby boy, abandoned in St. Aloysius’s Church, and adopted him. The cheery household it has been since then!
But yesterday a young woman arrived at the Sullivan home, 961 Walnut Street, and said that she was the baby’s mother, and that the baby’s father had only abandoned him temporarily because they were then in desperate straits, but that everything had come out all right financially and now wouldn’t the Sullivans give her back her boy?
That’s when their bad three hours began. If their hearts were wrung so at abandoning a baby not their own, what must be the mother’s feelings? That won the day.
Papa Sullivan went to Judge Hinton this morning. He, had been to him last week to adopt the baby legally. Now he wanted to know if that legal process would stand in the way of his returning the baby to its mother. Judge Hinton said it would not prevent such action, and he believed that it would be best to give the child to its mother. But he didn’t look at Papa Sullivan when he said it. Men don’t like to see each other wet-eyed.
“She’ll come back,” said Papa Sullivan, “and she can get him.”
Judge Hinton this afternoon made an order at the request of Mr. Sullivan declaring the adoption of the baby by the Sullivans void. The request was made on the ground that the mother had appeared and had shown herself capable of properly caring for the child. The mother did not appear in court. No further action will be necessary. The mother need only go to the Sullivan home and get her baby.