The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-05-16
BRINGING UP CHILDREN.
A Wise Mothers Opinion on Rules and
Theories.

A Wise Mothers Opinion on Rules and
Theories.
Every young mother starts IN her
natural career with afun set of theories.
She wears them like armor and it often
fairly clanks as she moves, and it is
armor of proof-that is, it is proof
against every weapon save the keen
lance of experience.
One twenty-year-old wiseacre has a
theory that babies are over-fed $50 they
are, more han half the time), and she
allows her poor little lamb only five
minutes for its meals and wonders that
it does not grow fat like Mrs. Smiths
baby. Another has a theory that the
little bodies are kept too warm and her
baby shivers under a thin blanket, with
its poor little pink toes all cnrled up
and turning purple with the cold; a
third believes hat warmth is the n
thing needful, and her child swelters
in heavy flannels through the hottest
weather.
1 never shall forget how a certain
very famous physician came to see me
one very hot day in August and found
my baby wearing a flannel petticoat,
and, moreover, wrapped in a flannel
blanket.
"What have you got this child so
swathed up for?" demanded DIR. William
of the nurse. "Flannel on a day like
this? The child should have nothing
on but a slip. l wish 1 had nothing on
but a slipr'
] started in mother-life with as fine a
set of theories as most people and l
have been shedding them ever since.
When L look at my eldest daughter and
remember the things 1 did to her 1
marvel hat she is alive and well. How
the ''sweet little cherub that sits up
aloft'' must have shuddered when he
saw hat poor baby taking her noon
tide nap out of doors in her carriage all
winter long!
All my friends stood round in atti-
tudes of horror and detection, but l pur-
sued my way with the intrepid imbe-
cility of youth. Wrapped in a great
quilt with just enough space left for
the pure air to enter, sheltered from
the wind by a thick hedge, that little
carriage stood out day by day, from Oc-
tober till May, with Brownie, the faith
full st. Bernard, lying beside it.
Brownie never said what he thought,
but he probably felt that l was not tc
be trusted with the child. When il
stormed of curse the carriage was
brought in and trundled in the house,
which the house being small and many
corpered, was not convenient. And
well the child lived, and it would per,
haps be hard to find a more healthy
girl than she is to-day, but Whenever
she has a touch of the neuralgia, which
is her one ailment, 1 think of the little
carriage behind the hedge and beat my
breast and say: Isl jeunnesse SGUdil"
By the time my second baby came
had learned a little more; by the time
the third appeared 1 knew enough t.
regard the first as a brand snatcheC
from the burning, and to become restivt
when any one preached a new theory.
When my seventh baby smiled in my
face she found me with hardly a theory
left, but ready to give my whole self t.
the lovely work of keeping her wei
and happy. l did not take her up when
ever she cried; neither did 1 let her or!
herself and me into fits, because l had
theory hat babies must not be takel
up. l fed her when she was hungry
even if-oh, treasonl it was fifteen min
utes before the proper time. l did no
weigh her every week or every month
in fact, 1 did not care in the least wha
she weighed so long as her flesh wa
firm and hard and her color good.
took her out in good weather and KEEP
her at home when 1 thought the win,
too sharp. And she is as robust an,
rosy-cheeked as her eldest sister, and
do not believe she will have neuralgii
when she grows up.-Laura E. Rich
ards, in Chicago News.