Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-12-05
MARK TWAIN ON BABIES.
Serious Talk 10 Ihe Soldiers Of the
Array OfTennessee.


CHICAGO, Nov. Is.-Mark Twain's
remarks at the banquet of the Army
of the Tennessee tonight were in
response to the following toast:
The Babies: As they comfort us
in our sorrows, let us not forget
them in our festivities.
Now, that's something like. We
havn't all had the good fortune to
be ladies; we havn't all been gener-
ais, OF poets, or statesmen; but when
the toast works down TO the babies,
we stand on common ground-for
we've all been babies. It is a shame
that for a thousand years the worlds
banquet have utterly ignored the ba-
by-as if be didn't amount to any
thing! If You, gentleman, will stop
and think a minute-if you will go
back fifty OF a hundred years, to
your early married life, and recon-
template your first baby, you will
remember that he amounted to a
good deal, and even something oyer.
You soldiers all know that when
that little fellow arrived at family
headquarters you had to hand in
your resignation. He took entire
command. You became his lackey,
his mere bodyguard; and you had
to stand around Goo. He was not
commander who made allowances
for time, distance, weather or any
thing else; you had to execute his
orders whether. it was possible or
not. And there was only one form
of marching in his manuel tactics,
and that was the double quick. He
treated you with every kind of inso-
lence and disrespect, and the bravest
of you didn't dare to say a word.
You could face the death storm of
Donaldson and Vicksburg, and give
back blow for blow; but when he
clawed your whiskers, and pulled
your hair, and twisted your nose, you
had to take it. When the thunders
of war were sounding in your ears,
you set your faces toward the bat
teries and advanced with steady
tread but when he turned on the
terrors of the war hoopyou advanc-
ed in-the other direction, and nigh
ty glad of the chance, too. When
he called for soothing syrup, did you
venture to throw out any side re-
marks about certain services being
unbecoming an officer and gentle
man? No; you got up and got it
If he ordered his pap bottle, and 1t
wasn't 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 your
self to see if it was right! three
parts water to one of milk, touch
of sugar to modify the collie, and
drop of peppermint to kill those I'M
mortal hiecoughs. l can taste that
stuff yet.
And how many things you learn
ed as you went along Sentiment
al young folks still took stock in
that beautiful old saying that when
the baby smiles in his sleep it is be-
cause 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 the usual hour-half
past two in the morning-didn't
you rise up promptly and remark
with a mental addition which
wouldn't improve a Sunday-school
much.-that that was the very thing
you were about to propose yourself?
Oh, you were under good discipline.
And as you went huttering up and
down the room in your "undressed
uniform" you not only prattled un-
diguified baby talk, but even tuned
up your martial voices and tried to
sing. "Rock-a-by- baby on the tree
top" for instance. What specta-
Gle for an army of the Tennessee !
And what an afliction for the neigh
borhood, too, for it isn't everybody
within mile around that likes mill
tary music at three in the morning.
And when you had been keeping
this sort of thing up for three hours,
and your little velvet head intimated
that nothing suited him like exer-
else and noise, and proposed to fight
it out on that line if it took all night
-"Go on What did you dO?"
You simply went on till you drop
ped in the last ditch.
I ike the idea that a baby dosn't
amount to anything. Why, one ba-
by is just a house and a front yard
full by itself; one baby can furnish
more business than you and your
whole interior department can at
tend to; he is enterprising, irrepress-
able, brinfUl of lawless activities
do what you please you can't make
him stay on the reservation. Sufi-
cient unto the day is one baby. As
long as you are in your right mind
don't you ever pray for twins. Twins
amount to permanent riot; and
there amt any real difference be-
tween triplets and an insurrection.
Among the three or four million
cradles now rocking in the land are
some which this nation would pre-
serve for ages as sacred things if we
could know which ones they are.
For in one of these cradles the un-
conscious Farrsgut of the future is
at this moment teething. Think of
it! And putting in a word of dead
earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly
| justifable, profanity over it, too; in
another the future renowned astron-
omer is blinking at the shining Mil
ky Way, with but laDguid interest,
poor little chap, and wondering
what has become of that other one
they call the wet nurse; in another,
the future great historian is lying,
and doubtless he will continue to lie
till his earthly mission is ended; in
another, the future President is
busying himself with no profounder
problem of State than what the mis-
chief has become of his hair so early,