The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-07-29

| It may be owing to natural progress
sion or to mothers meetings, or even
to the new babyless language that the
modern mother has introduced into
the nursery, but for some reason or
another infants have changed most
remarkably.
Fifty years ago baby in the house
made a great deal more fuss and trou
Bile than 1t does at the present day.
Judging from an unprejudiced grand.
mothers description of her progeny
of long ago, one is forced to the con-
clusion that they must have been
squalling, red-faced little creatures,
whose department was most ungrace-
full and undignified Evidently they
were noe possessed with an atom of
self-respect and usually succeeded in
upsetting the whole household.
Just ask grandma how her babies
used to act You will be a pessimist
before she has had finished her story.
She will relate tales that will harrow
your soul. Your exhausted ear will
hear all about the long nights of
Group, when the youngster had to be
shaken by the heels, stood on it's head,
hung out of the window, slapped on
the back, creased about the nose,
porlticed all over and compelled to
swallow spoonfuls OF suiet melted
over a smoky lamp.
II they didn't have Group they had
collie, which required trotting and
bouncing and floor walking, rocking
the cradle, not to mention pints OF
catnip tea. In those days catnip tea
was omnipresent. There was always
cup of it brewing on the back of
the stove in every properly conducted
household. When a dose was admin.
istered the attendance of the entire
family was required. In many cases
the farmhands had to be called in to
assist
1t took one person to hold the
squirming infant, another to grasp its
feet and still another to keep its club.
by fists from doing damage to the
many faces bending solioitiously
above it. Somebody held the spoon,
while mother adjusted one or more
extra bibs. When all was ready
cold-blooded relative grasped the slip.
perry little nose and in twinkling
the spoon and its contents were
spilled over the bibs and trickling
down baby's neck.
II nothing else was the matter,
then its food didn't agree with it, or II
was cutting teeth or had broken out in
rash. 1t was in chronic state of
swallowing tacks and pennies. 1t was
always hungry and never sleepy. ex
cept in the daytime. when there was
company that particularly wanted to
see its eyes. All that day it would
slumber so sweetly and afterward |
make the night hideous with it's
screams for light or somebody to
amuse it.
All the jokes about walking the
floor were not jokes at all. Newspap-
er pictures were not caricatlres; |
they were drawn from history and are |
all that is left to remind us of the old. |
fashioned baby
The twentieth century infant would |
not deign to initiate the conduct Of |
its ancestral juvenile. In the first !
place, more than half the ills that a |
baby was heir to in the long ago have |
been forgotten or have been eliminat. |
ed; consequently there is less crying |
and not nearly so much attention de- |
manded
In the modern baby the imp of the |
Jerverse has been to great extent |
conquered. If IL lies awake at night |
II Is really in pain and not rampaging
because its mother is worn out or the
poor father unusually sleepy.
An investigation of the subject re-
veals that in these times babies gen.
orally sleep soundly at night, eat reg.
ularly, take one or more maps during
the day and are usually well-behaved,
normal children
They do not insist upon being rock.
ed to sleep, nor annoy those within
hearing distance by bowling hour
after hour Just because they cannot
have the electrolier for a toy or the
auto horn to cut their teeth upon.
The transformation does not seem
so remarkable when one gets down
to the philosophy of the matter. How
can two human beings act alike, when
one is talked to like this, Mowers
little lam. tum det 90 mil1i," and the
other is addressed. Dorothy, come
get your milk"