The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-03

When I went back to the store (having been
given to understand that I was not of any use to
anybody in any way) it took me only two strides
to cover the three blocks to the car line. In the
car I tried to keep from grinning, but the whole
car full of people were grinning, and to this day
I wonder how they knew! The news got through
the city mighty quick. / bought a noon extra,
and looked to see what was said about thin
US, that is; but we must have got crowded out
for some advertisement, at the last moment.
These papers are run, not for news, but for money,
and I am going to quit taking them.
At night 1 saw the Baby again. 1t had grown
like the mischief. It's-his eyes are blue and
watery. / do hope that they are not weak. They
look weak. I think that he ought to be fitted with
glasses, or at least be examined, but I shall not
say so. Suggestions that I make are received
with ridicule and contempt. Yet / an his father!
The instant that Baby saw me, he laughed. l
read in the encyclopedia that normal babies do
not laugh or take notice until about a month old.
But Paul, my son, took notice when he was twenty
minutes of age, and laughed when he was six and
one-half hours!
During the night I got to thinking of this,
and it worried me. I feared that he was too pre-
cocious, and would be stunted in some way, to
even matters. So on my road to the store, in the
morning, I dropped off to see the doctor, and told
him my observations. And what satisfaction did
I get? Why, he scarcely listened. What are
babies to him, I suppose, so long as he has his
fee for helping them in.
He even had the nerve to deny that what I told
him was possible. That shows that he is no
kind of a doctor, or he would have seen at once
that this Baby is not the ordinary, regulation ar
ticle. 1t is our Baby; it is a Jones!
They-the mother, the mothers mother, the
nurse, the cook, and the neighbor women who have
been in-have permitted me to hold it, once. I
never had dreamed that a father must have per-
mission from seven or ten women, and some
of them outsiders, before he can handle his own
offspring. I did not hold him long. The specta-
tors pestered me so, and appeared so sure that I'd
break him (and I was a bit shaky, myself, and
acted so like a lot of hens with only one chick
between them, that I confess I was awkward, and
was willing to lay him down.
He felt very soft and mushy. I wonder if it is
natural for a baby to be so jellyfsh-like. He can't
be a freak, with no backbone or-or something.
This troubles me, and if he does not harden after
exposure I shall have the doctor again.
Paul-we have named him Paul, as a compro-
mise on Robert, which I wanted, and Launcelot,
which his mother wanted, and Bartholomew and
Jasper, which the grandmothers wanted, and Ned
and Dick, which his grandfathers wanted, and An
gus, which somebody else wanted, and Patrick,
which the cook wanted-Paul is to be a railroad
president or a general in the army; whichever is
his bent. The selection will be put to him, in due
time, and he shall be educated with this single
end in view. From all that I can tell, now, he
| would do well as either.
I already have spoken about him to Mr.. Bar
rows, of the @. & o. K. I CHANGED to ride down
| +omn NTH Mr. Rarrnuc in the q and T asked