When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw out any
side-remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a
gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap bottle
and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and
warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a
suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was right--three
parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a
drop of peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs. I can taste that
stuff yet. And how many things you learned as you went along!
Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying
that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels are
whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin--simply wind on the
stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual
hour, two o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up promptly and remark,
with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school book much,
that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh!
you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and down
the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified
baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing!
--Rock a-by Baby in the Tree-top, for instance.
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