Baby

“ You'd think, to see us carrying on about that little tad,
That, like as not, that baby was the first we'd ever had;
But, sakes alive! he isn't, yet we people make a fuss
As if the only baby in the world had come to us! ”

“ From the crib come whimpers, angry cries, yells, sobs, baby snarls and sniffles that die away in a sleepy infant growl. Silence, sleep, repose, and the building of life and nerve and muscle in the quiet and the darkness. The baby has been put in harmony with the laws of nature—the invigoration of fresh air, sleep, stillness—and the little one wakens and grows like a fresh, sweet rose. The mother, looking on, learns of the ways of God with men. ”

“ What will the baby be, Mamma,
(With a kick and a crow, and a hushaby-low) .
What will the baby be, Mamma,
When he grows up into a man?
Will he always kick, and always crow,
And flourish his arms and his legs about so,
And make up such horrible faces, you know,
As ugly as ever he can?
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
With a fife and a drum, and a rum-tiddy-tum!
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
When he grows up into a man. ”

“ Baby is more bewitching every day. She is so wonderful and so lovely that I am never tired of watching her. The miracle of a baby's growth makes one stand speechless in delight and awe. When this little morsel of life, hardly as many days in the world as I have been years, coos and smiles, and stretches out those tiny rosebud fingers only big enough for a fairy, I feel like going down on my knees to the mystery of life. ”

“ If waiting for play till baby has had its meal, how it stands at its mother's knee, making folds in her gown,—see-sawing its body perhaps, and fetching deep sighs, to throw off its impatience, but speaking no word—making no complaint till baby has had its dues. And when its turn is come, baby being laid down, what a spring into the lap, what a clasp of the neck is there! ”

“ A baby's eyes, ere speech begin,
⁠Ere lips learn words or sighs,
Bless all things bright enough to win
⁠A baby's eyes.
Love, while the sweet thing laughs and lies,
⁠And sleep flows out and in,
Sees perfect in them Paradise. ”

“ We shall see hundreds of small children, not more than five or six years of age, carrying, fast asleep on their shoulders, the baby of the household, its tiny smooth brown head swinging hither and thither with every movement of its small nurse, who walks, runs, sits, or jumps, flies kites, plays hop-scotch, and fishes for frogs in the gutter, totally oblivious of that infantile charge, whether sleeping or waking. If no young sister or brother be available, the husband, the uncle, the father, or grandfather hitches on his back the baby, preternaturally good and contented. ”

“ Toddle, toddle, waddle, waddle,
On her little pinky toes.
Stumble, stumble, pitch and tumble,
That's the way the baby goes.
Prattle, prattle, rattle, rattle,
Little shouts and little shrieks,
Tears, with laughter coming after,
That's the way the baby speaks.
Playing, toying, still enjoying
Every sweet that Nature gives.
Smiling, weeping, waking, sleeping,
That's the way the baby lives. ”

“ Every mother and real nurse knows that when the baby begins to be uneasy and gives a cry of dissatisfaction,—to come near with a smile, to make one's presence felt by a caressing tone, or to take the infant in their arms, will comfort it, bringing back the joyful sense of life—a word which signifies active relation;—and, in its highest sense, spiritual relation. ”

“ All the billboards, all the street cars, all the minds and hearts of that great teeming panes simultaneously full of babies—baby likenesses, baby advertising, baby thoughts! The great urge of a great primitive emotion never once slackening! ”

“ Baby, baby, ope your eye,
For the sun is in the sky,
And he’s peeping once again
Through the clear, bright window-pane;
Little baby, do not keep
Any longer fast asleep,
Through your cradle curtains peep. THE BABY-JUMPER
Now, little Georgie, jump up high ”

“ But to the mother that baby is the marvel of all time. There is endless meaning in the first mumblings, endless soul in the senile, baby smile, unlimited possibilities in the knobby forehead and round, hairless head. ”

“ Will he call you pretty names when the baby is crying in the night, and you cannot keep it quiet—or, better still, will he sit up and take a turn with it? Will his arm be strong around you in the days of trouble? Will his eyes shine above you full of tenderness when yours are growing dim? ”

“ Now if we may take an illustration from the workings of an infant's mind, it is pretty clearly made out that as baby sits propped among his pillows and turns his eyes hither and thither in following his mother's movements to and fro in the room, she seems in coming toward him to enlarge and in going away to diminish in size, like Alice in Wonderland. ”

“ Baby, with its little pug nose, flaxen hair, ruddy cheeks, soft eyes, and such a sweet, expressible mouth, are sources of wondrous delight and admiration. How sad, indeed, must those families be that are not blessed with children. ”

“ A proud young mother was dandling her infant at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware of the important fact of her maternity—to be sure, there never was such a beautiful baby before! ”

“ A baby clad in rags, and sheltered from the cold with them, a baby in its cradle—what do you think that cradle was? as truly as you live, nothing but a box such as a merchant packs his goods in! that baby, sleeping, heard it, and a light like sunshine spread over its pretty face. ”

“ Baby Souls, Kings of the Future, bearers of the Earth's great secrets—wainting to cross the Threshold of Life.
Babies are a lot like flowers. Some are born into the world nourished and cared for amid beautiful surroundings. ”

“ When they lay their darling down to rest,
’Neath the willows bending low.
“Only a baby!” how cold it seemed
To speak of the angel near,—
My heart went after the snowy form.
For its parents I breathed a prayer:
“Only a baby!” ah, the weary day
And the sleepless night,
The feverish longing—the aching heart—
For the baby gone from sight!
“Only a baby!” the heart sobs out,
What hopes lie shatter’d here,
The broken bud—the tiny frame,
An angel hovering near.
“Only a baby!”—the years creep by—
’Twill ever be, tho’ locks be gray;
Growing no older—only their babe ”

“ Take, then, our typical baby, lying fresh and sweet in the well aired and lighted room we suppose to be his birthright. The bones are still soft, the tender flesh and skin with little or no power of resistance. ”

“ The baby may be a potential Newton, Shakespeare, Beethoven or Buddha, but it is at its birth the most helpless thing alive, the potentialities of which avail it not one whit. It is in more need of care, immediate and continuous, than a baby microbe or a baby cat, whatever the unpublished glories of which its brain contains the promise ”

“ The butterfly will flutter for ages and ages among the rank flowers—Baby will still lie there. Come away, come away, your cheeks are pale, it cannot be, we cannot believe it, we must not remember it; other Baby voices will re-kindle our life and love, Baby's toys will pass to other Baby hands. All will change ”

“ If the mother would have this child love and not hate the baby, if she would have peace and not tempest reign in the little heart, she will be very watchful. She will have her eye on the little creature, and call it to help her to take care of the baby. She will keep it at her knee, and show it, with many a tender kiss between, how to make baby smile, how to warm baby's feet; will let it taste whether baby's food be nice, and then peep into the cradle, to see whether baby be asleep. ”

“ It is a pleasant thing to have a baby in the house—one of your achy kind. Think of the pleasures of a father in his night costume, trembling in the midnight hour, with his warm feet upon a square yard of oilcloth, dropping paregoric in a teaspoon, by moonlight, the nurse thumping at the door, and the wife of your bosom crying “hurray,” and the baby yelling till the fresco drops from [319] the ceiling. It’s a nice time to think of dress coats, pants, ties, and white kids. ”

“ Can we help suspecting a period, somewhere in the remote ages, when the baby’s ancestry dwelt amid the treetops, and learned to stand by balancing on one branch while they held by a higher one? when they edged along the branch, holding on above, but dropped to all-fours and crept when they came to the ground now and then to get from tree to tree? The whole history of the baby’s movements points to this: the strong arms and clinging hands, from birth; the intense impulse to pull up, even from the beginning of sitting; the way in which standing always begins, by laying hold above and pulling up ”

“ One little handful of a thing had a fine baby boy, nearly as big as herself, and she looked so fragile and pale, and pretty and lonely, and had such an appealing light in her big shadowed brown eyes, and such a pathetic droop at the corners of her sweet little mouth, that you longed to take her in your manly arms―baby and all―and comfort her. ”

“ Some of them are munching fruit, others playing hide-and-seek among the crowds, while many a tiny baby is nodding itself to sleep on its mother’s back or crying with all its might for a little attention. ”

“ Meanwhile, nature has provided an educational appliance almost ideally adapted to the child’s sense condition, in the mother’s face, hovering close above him, smiling, laughing, nodding, with all manner of delightful changes in the high lights; in the thousand little meaningless caressing sounds, the singing, talking, calling, that proceed from it; the patting, cuddling, lifting, and all the ministrations that the baby feels while gazing at it, and associates with it, till finally they group together and round out into the idea of his mother as a whole. ”

“ WHEN baby wakes of mornings,
⁠Then it's wake, ye people all!
⁠For another day
⁠Of song and play
⁠Has come at our darling's call!
And, till she gets her dinner,
⁠She makes the welkin ring,
And she won't keep still till she's had her fill—
⁠The cunnin' little thing!
When baby goes a-walking,
⁠Oh, how her paddies fly! ”

“ The bell is rung and somebody sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. This is the signal for all the females present to commence talking “baby,” during which time you are left to your own sad thoughts and the speculations upon the practicability of suddenly recollecting an important engagement, and the likelihood of your being believed if you do. Just when you have concocted an absurdly implausible tale about a man outside, the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters, carrying what at first sight appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, with the feathers all at one end. ”

“ When he sees me hold my hand to my head, he says, 'Mama tired—head bad—Baby play self.'"
"July 9.—Baby can now find his way all over the house, goes up and down stairs alone and about the lawn and garden quite independently, and enjoys the liberty of going in and out of the windows: runs after butterflies or to catch his own shadow: picks up flowers or leaves, and is the picture of enjoyment and happiness. ”

“ There are nursemaids, and even mothers, who will wheel a baby along the street with the sun blazing full in his face, and who will keep a light burning all night for their own convenience in tending him; and in later years his schoolbooks will get the credit of having weakened his eyes. Nature protects the little one somewhat at the outset, for at first the eyes open by a narrow slit, which admits but scanty light: our baby was just beginning, at a month old, to open her eyes like other folk. ”

“ It must be sweet, it must be very sweet! —From “Songs of the Golden Gate,” copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and used by kind permission of author and publisher.
ROCKING THE BABY By Madge Morris Wagner
I hear her rocking the baby—
Her room is just next to mine—
And I fancy I feel the dimpled arms
That round her neck entwine,
As she rocks, and rocks the baby,
In the room just next to mine.
I hear her rocking the baby
Each day when the twilight comes,
And I know there’s a world of blessing and love
In the “baby bye” she hums. ”

“ A Baby’s feet, like sea-shells pink,
Might tempt, should heaven see meet,
An angel’s lips to kiss, we think,
A baby’s feet. ”

“ Both baby and mother have a hard time of it for the first few weeks of its life. The baby is passed from hand to hand, fussed over, and talked to so much by the visitors that come in, that it must think this world a trying place. ”

“ The nursery radiator has begun. I must go and get baby.
Mr. E. Let baby alone. If the youngster will sleep, for heaven’s sake let him. The steam-pipes make noise enough for this time of night, one would think, without your taking the trouble to wake baby. ”

“ We shall consider, for a moment, the more important details of the routine care that you should give yourself, for the baby’s sake, and then we shall be ready for the pleasantest task of all—the actual care of the baby himself. ”

“ Another mistaken belief about babies has been that they are born “delicate” or “strong”; and, as they are born, so must they live—that is, if they live at all! The delicate baby has been regarded as a cross, to be carried with patience and resignation. ”

“ First, the babies,—for there are three: the aristocratic baby, the happy-go-lucky baby, and the forlorn baby. The aristocratic baby lives, in a fine, well-furnished room, has a pretty little mamma, who wears white gowns, and pink ribbons in her cap ”

“ Baby says, like little birdie,
Let me rise and fly away.
Baby, sleep a little longer,
Till the little limbs are stronger.
If she sleeps a little longer,
Baby too shall fly away.
ALFRED TENNYSON
MOTHER FROST—I
At the edge of a wood there was a great, clear, bubbling spring of cold water. ”