Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-11-29
1.-the Babies.''

At the banquet Of the Army of the Tennes-
see. a toast was proposed TO ''Thc Babies"
Mark Twain responded as follows;
The babies"-as they confront MS in our
sorrow. let us not forget them in our festivi-
ties Laughter. ! like that. We haven't all
the fortune to be ladies'. Laughter. We
haven't all been generals or poets or states
men, But when toasts work down to babies,
we stand on common ground, for we have all
been there: we have all been babies. Laugh
ter and applause. II is a shame that tor
thousands of years the worlds banquets have
utterly ignored the baby as if he didn't amount
to ANYTHING. If YOU gentlemen will stop and
think minute; if you will go back fifteen
or one hundred years to your early married
life laughter. and contemplate your first
bab, Won will remember that he amounted
to good deal, and even something tver.
You soldiers YOU all know when that little
fellow arrived at family headquarters. you
had to hand in your resignation. Laugh
teri He to k entire command. You became
his lackey. his mere body-servant, and you
had to stand around too. He was not com
mander who made allowances for time, dis
lance. weather or anything else. lou had to
execute his order whether il was possible or
not laughter; and there was only one form
of marching in his manual of tactics, and
that double quick. lie treated you with
every sort of insoence and disrespect. and
the bravest of YOU didn't dare to say word.
You could face the death-storm of Donaldson
and Vcksburg and give back blow for blow,
Tapplause: but when he clawed you whiskers
and pulled your hair and twisted your nose
YOU had to take it. Laughter When the
thunders of war were sounding in your ears
Won set your face toward batteries and adj
vanced with steady tread; but when he turned
on the terrors of his war whoops you advanced
in onother direction laughter and mighty
glad of the chance. too When he called for
soothing syrup, did you venture to throw out
any side remarks about certain service being
unbecoming an officer and a gentleman!
Laughter. No. you got up and got it, II
Inc ordered his pap-bottle, did you talk back?
No. YOU went to work aud warmed it. You
even descended SO far in your mental of
flee as to take sup at the warm, insipid stuff
yourself to see if it was right, three parts
water to one of milk, touch of sugar to
Ii odfy the collie and drop of peppermint to
kill the immortal hiccough. | can taste it
vet Roars of laughter.
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 be-
cause 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, , 30 in the
morning, didn't you rise up promptly and re-
mark with a mental addition which wouldn't
improve the Sunday School book much that
it was the very thing you were about to pro-
pose Yourself? Roars. Oh, yes. you were
under good discipline, and as you went fut-
tering up and down the room in your undress
uniform, you not only prattled undignifed
baby talk, but you tuned up your martial
voice and tried to sing Rock a by, baby, in
the tree top for instance. What a spectacle
for the Army of the Tennessee, (roars of
laughter, and what an affection for the
neghbors, too, For it isn't everybody with
in mile around that likes military music at
3 O'Clock in the morning, and when you had
been keeping this sort of thing up two or
three hours and your little velvet had init
mated that nothing suited him like exercise
and noise, what did you say? You simply
went on till You dropped in the last ditch.
lGreat laughter.
thing. Why, one baby is just house and
front yard by itself If one baby cant fur
nish more business than You and your whole
interior department can attend to, he is not
enterprsing. Irrepressible, brimful of law
less activity, do what you please, you can't
make him stay on his reservation. Pro-
longed laughter. Sufficient unto the day is
one baby. As long as you are in your right
mind, don't you ever pray for twins. Yes,
it was high time for the toast-master to rec
ognize the importance of babies. Think
what is in store for the present crop.
Fifty years hence we shall all be dead,
trust and Their this flag, if it still survives.
and let us hope it may. will be floating over
III. H.,
ing to the settled laws of increase, our pres
ent schooner of State will have grown into a
political leviathan Great Eastern, and the
Graded babies of to-day will be on deck.
Let them be well trained, for we are going to
leave big contract on their hands. APP
plause. Among the three or four
million cradles now rocking in this
land are some which the nation
would preserve ages as sacred things.
if we could know which ones they are.
In one Of these cradles an unconscious Farra-
gut of the future is at this moment teething.
Think of it. And putting in the world of
dead earnest, nnutterable, but perfectly iusti-
fable profanity over it, too. Laughter. In
another future renowned astronomer is
blinking at the shining milky substance with
but languid interest, the poor little chap, and
wondering what is to become of him. In
another future great historian is lying and
doubtless he will continue to lie till his earth
ly mission is ended. Laughter. In another
a future President is busying himself with no
profounder problem of state than that of
what the mischief has become of his hair so
early, and in mighty array in other cradles
there are some 10000 future office-seekers
getting ready to furnish him the occasion to
grapple with that same old problem a second
time. And still in one more cradle some
where VI der the flag the future illustrious
commander of the American armies
is so little burdened with his approaching
grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving
his whole strategic mind at this moment to
trying to find out some way to get his own
big toe INTO his mouth. Laughter.
Political.
A meeting of prominent democrats was