The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-06-17

SuChCu Jul 46tS Do IL al q HAAS NOAA>AA-
ton, because it WAS natural for usto suck
when awake and we ought to have been
sleeping, except when awakened by gen.
uine hunger. What we suffered through
not being allowed 10 lie comfortably and
sleep quietly is not for words to tell.
You did not kill us outright, as the
Chinese do some of their criminals, by
total deprivation of sleep; but we pity
those poor wretches-we had taste of
that torment. f ~
But that wasn't all; being awake so
often and sucking so much, then throw
ing up and sucking again, our internal
arrangements got sadly out of order; and
didn't our small stomachs ache dreadful
ly? Then you trotted us again worse
than ever, and turned us over and
tumbled us about, we all the time pro-
testing by squalling to the top of our
lungs; and then didn't we catch it? Cat
nip tea, paregoric, castor-oil and all the
nostrums that anybody chose to recon-
mend-and all because you wouldn't let
AS have our natural sleep. ~ y
When we came to be little older and
first began to take notice you trotted us
and tossed us and walked the floor with
us until we learned to like being kept in
motion; but soon we grew rather heavy
and tiresome to the arms, and then we
were scolded, sometimes slapped, for in
sisting on what we considered our right.
A little older yet, and you tantalized and
teased us, exciting our indignation, just
to see how cunning we looked when
spunky; and not long afterward pun
ished us for exhibiting such bad tempers
Again, when in a yielding humor, you
indulged us in every way, and we ruled
the house; but when, in a different mood,
you refused the same indulgences, we
waxed wroth and suffered, first from our
own vexation, secondly from yours.
Moreover, we had to suffer physical
aches and pains that God did not put in
to the original plan of an infants life. In
addition to taxing our digestive organs
far beyond their natural range with
cakes, candies and even condiments, our
clothing was anything but comfortable;
in winter our little legs and arms were
left uncovered, and in summer we were
made, cross and miserable with skirts
and belts and bands that CALLED our ten
der flesh and this, forsooth, that we
might look pretty and be ala moden
Everybody must confess that this list
of baby grievances contains only the
most common and milder forms of ill
treatment; the aggravated and excep.
tional cases are not included.
But you will say that l am contradict
ing myself about the wisdom of Provi-
dence; for if we could remember our
baby Affections, and thus protest against
the perpetrators, one generation would
suffice to work a reformation in this mat
ton. If people don't or won't learn wis
dom from such enlightenment as is now
available to most readers, l don't believe
they would from any amount of personal
protestation, their own memory included;
they would go on in the old, beaten path,
because it is easier; that is, it saves what
most people hate above everything else
the labor of thinking. H..
People who won't do right for rights
sake won't do it for fear of consequences,
when the consequences are placed so far
in the future, as is implied in waiting for
babies to grow up and reproach them.
Why, don't people go on every day VIC
lating laws of nature in their own per
sons, and laying up stores of future
weakness and pain, because it suits their
present humor and appetites to go on?
So, l say, all things considered, it is
great mercy we don't remember our days
of babyhood and their woes-Mrs.
Oltge Stewart, IN Science Of Health.