Year: 1879

Mark Twain's remarks at the banouet of the Army of the Tennessee at Chicago were in response to the following toast

 The Babies-As they comfort us in our sor- | rows, let us not forget them in our festivities.

 Now, that's something like. We

 haven't all had the good fortune to be

 ladies; we haven't all been generals, or

 poets, or statesmen but when the toast

 works down to the babies, we stand on

 common ground-for we've all been ba.

 bies. It is shame that for thousand

 years the worlds banquets have utterly

 ignored the baby-as if it didn't amount

 to anything If you, gentlemen, will

 stop and think minute-if you will gc

 back fifty or a hundred years, to youl

 early married life, and recontemplate

 your first baby, you will remember that

 he amounted to good deal-and ever

 something over.

 You soldiers ali know that when that

 little fellow arrived at family headquar

 ters you had to hand in your resigna

 tion. He took entire command. Yor

 became Lis lackey, his mere bodyguard

 and you had to stand around, too. He

 was not commander who made allow

 ances, for time, distance, weather o1

 anything else; you had to execute hit

 order whether it was possible or not

 And there was only one form of marching

 Ill his manual of tactics, and that wat

 double quick. He treated you with ev.

 cry sort of insolence and disrespect, and

 the bravest of you did not dare to say 6

 word. You could face the death storm

 Of Donnelson and Vicksburgh 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 soundingin your ears, you set your faces toward the batteries and advanced with steady tread but when he turned on the terrors of his war-whoop you ad- vanced in-the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing syrup did you ven- ture to throw out any side remarks about certain services being unbecom- ing an officer and gentleman9 No; ; you got up and got it If he ordered his pap bottle, and it wasn't warm did you talk back? Not you :; you went to work and warmedit. You even descend ed so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff your self to see if it was right l-three parts water to one of milk, touch of sugar to modify the colic, and crop of pepper mint to kill those immortal hiccoughs ] can taste that stuff yet.

 And how many things you learned as you went alongl Sentimental young folks still took stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his sleep it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but "too thin" n"-simply wind on the stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take walk at his usual hour-half- past in the morning-didn't you rise up promptly and remark (with a mental addition which wouldn't improve Sun day school much) that that was the very thing you were about to propose your self? Oh, you were under good dici- pline and as you went tluttering up and down the room in your "undress uni form" you not only prattled undignifed baby talk, but even tuned up your mar tial voices and tried to sing. "Rock-a-by baby on the tree top," for instance. What spectacle for an army of the Tennessee And what an affiiction for the neighbors, too, forit isn't everybody for a mile around that likes military music at 3 in the morning. And when you had been keeping this sort of thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet head intimated that nothing suit ed him like exercise and noise, and proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all night" on What did you do?" You simply went on till you dropped in the last ditch.

 l like the idea that baby doesn't amount to anything. Why, one baby is just house and front yard full by itself; one baby can furnish more busi- ness than you and your whole interior department can attend to; he is enter. prising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless aotivities-do what you please you can't make him stay on the reservation, Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you ara in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to permanent riot and there ain't any real difference between tr1plets and an insurrection.

 Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things if we could know which ones they are. For ID one of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething. Think of it and putting in word of dead earnest, unarticulated, but pe1- fectly justifable, profanity over it, too; in another the future renowned astron- omer is blinking at the shining Milky Way, with but Q languid way, poor little chap, and wondering what has be- come of that other one they call the wet nurse in another, the future great historian is lying, and doubtless he will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended in another, the future Presi- lent is busyinS himself with no pro- founder problem of State than what the mischief has become of his hair so early. and in a mighty array of other cradles ;here are now some 6O,OOO future office- seekers getting ready to furnish him oc- .asion to grapple with that same old problem a second timai And in still |