The native Virginian. [volume] (Orange Court House, Va.) 1867-187?, 1869-09-03
ABOUT BABIES.

| In one Of the street-cars of the me.
tropoiis, few evenings since, was q
lady with baby.
One of the blue-eyed, Growing, happy
babies, disarranging its white robes,
and rumpling its blue ribbons with ali
the abandon of baby that is secure in
ever-fresh supplies, both of love and
clothes. The mother was evidently a
stranger to the other ladies in the car:
yet all of them smiled when they look
ed In her direction, and many of them
| spoke to her and seemed to love her for
| the sake of the beautiful child.
The opening instinct OF womanhood
seems to be the love OF the babies, and
the girl must be a very little one who
does not want doll to which she can
play the sweet part Of mother. The
depth and purpose of the instinct are
revealed to us in the petition of the lit
tie miss of five years, who happens to
be ar only child-"Mammy, | want a
baby to play with, meet baby, NAM
ma"
No kinder blessing was ever bestow-
ed; that in the close of Fanny FERNS
letter to the newly-married Princess
Royal of England: "And when, bright
est OF all others, the crown of materni-
ty shall descend upon your youthful
brow, God grant you that incest of all
places on earth TO cry ina mothers
bosom -
Yet, while the instinct of maternity
is peculiar to woman, and marks her
sex more plainly than rounded limbs
or gentle manners, it is not to women
and girls alone that the love of babies is
confined.
1t was once the lot of the writer to
dwell in the white tents of Camp Har-
rison, in Georgia, in the lower part of
the State, where families are always
far between, and much more so in war
times. For long weeks we had not
seen a woman or child.
At last the railroad through the Camp
was repaired, and in the first train
there was lady. with such wide-a-
wake, kicking baby as the latter one of
the metropolis. Some hundreds of
rough soldiers were around the cars,
and Captain Story of the 57th Infan-
try was the biggest and toughest a.
mong them, if we may judge of the tree
by its bark.
The lady with the baby in her arms
was looking from window, and he took
off his hat and said, "Madam, | will
give you five dollars, if you will let me
kiss that taby." One look at his beard |
ed face told her that there was nothing |
bad in it, and, saying, with a pleased |
laugh, al do not charge anything for |
kissing my baby" it was handed over.
The little one was not afraid, and the |
bdshy whiskers; an eighth Of an ell long,
were just the playhouse 1t had been |
looking for.
More than one kiss did the Captain |
get from the little red lips, and there
was energy in the hug of the little /
round arms. Then other voices SAID,
pass him over here, Cap?" and before
The train was ready to move, half a hun
1red men had kissed the baby. 1t was |
On its best behavior, and kicked. and |
.ugged at whiskers, as only happy ba-
by can. 1t was an event of the cam
)aign; and one giant of a mountaineer,
who strobe past us with tread like a
but with tear dimmed eyes
md quivering lips, said, "By George,
t makes me feel and act like a fool
,ut I've got one just like it at home"
Other lands have owned the power of
his young Immortality, and the Hipdoo
lails the little stranger with the words,
Young child, as thou hasi entered the
world in tears when all around thee
smiled, SO live as TO leave the world in
miles while all around the weep"