Year: 1877

DecOrah Republican.


You remember the first time tiny
patter OF baby feet came down to the
gate to meet papa" how to little hands
were stretched up to you, and to roguish
eyes looked up to yours, and the next
moment little mouth bearing palpable
evidence of recent conflict with bread
and syrup puckered itself saucily and
demanded tribute from your lips, and
how you went into the house with the
little face close to your own, with little
fingers entwisted in your whiskers and
little arm encircling your neck. Some
how it put out OF your mind the fatigue
and worry OF the day, and made you for
get for the time several vexations and
annoying things which had forced them
selves to the front of your meditations
as you walked slowly homeward. That
little pit-a-pat of tiny feet was new
music to you, and it brought with it in
Auences that quieted the fretfulness of
spirit, and set your heart beating to a
new and strange emotion. 1t made you
feel new interest in life and gave you
new hope for the future toward which
those baby feet were tottering. You re-
member how the little baby lips lisped,
"Papa!" as if the little soal were coming
with the words. How the little face
was radient with childish happiness, and
the little eyes sparkled with bewitch-
ing and piquant ROBUSTNESS, and how
the little mouth, syrup-smeared though
it was, had tempted you to fly at it as you
never before had done; and how you sat
there while the twilight deepened with
the head nestled close to yours and the
little feet went toddling throug h baby 5
dreamland. You remember how you
met the little feet at the gate night after
night, and how you allowed the syrupy
lips to claim their tribute as they would,
while you bore their owner chattering
and laughing into the house, shutting
the face of many care which in days
agone would have entered with you
Somehow those little fingers that got
into your whiskers, and those little arms
that entwined themselves about your
neck, and that tangled mass of golden
hair always getting into those roguish
eyes, become very necessary part OF
your existence in those days, and you
grew to look upon the hour that sent
you home to them as the one that
brought you the most happiness But
you remember how distinctly-one
night wheu the brown autumn leaves
were thick on the ground, and the winds
whistled dreary prophecy of winter
through the bare branches of the trees,
that when you reached the gate there
was no pit-a-pat of little feet coming to
welcome you home, and how, while you
wondered at the absence, she whose love
for your pet kept more than even pace
with your own met you at the door with
undisguised alarm in her face and tried
to tell you as if it was not serious, that
"our little darling is not feeling very
well tonight" You 60 to the little
couch and there lies your pet with
parched lips, flaming cheeks, heavy eyes,
breathing quick and short, stricken down
with fierce fever. All. how you
remember the anxious days and nights,
the alternate hopes and fears, as you
saw the little cheeks lose their rosy
plumpness, the roguish light fades out
of the eyes, and the difficulty with
which the little lips tried to whisper
"Papar and how often the little wasted
arms tried in vain to circle your neck
as they had been used to do And when
you went down town, as you had to,
how you had no heart for work or busi-
ness, and with that little flushed face
ever coming between you and your wri-
ting or your fingers and whatever you
tried to do.


But the end came at last One day
the little life rallied and some of the old
light came back to the little eyes The
lips moved and called Papa" and
Mammal


''Yes, darling;


Kiss baby


And as you bend over the little face
the little arms gather you close in their
grasp once more, and the eyes fill with
a strange gladness, and 'Oh, papa! Oh,
mamma! Such pity gate!'


And the little feet have toddled
through. and your darling is baby forev-
ermOre.


Yes, a baby always; a baby that never
grows old Your baby, toddling down
to the gate in the twilight always to re-
main So You will always feel those ba-
by fingers in your whiskers and those
baby arms around your neck; it will al
ways be that same baby face nesting
close to your own. You may feel the
years creeping over you, and find your
self with locks white as the driven snow
and your form bent as you go tottering
feebly down the down-grade of life, but
that little face will come up from the
l.
you in the twilight at the gate. But
will it come to meet you at the gate no
more? Oh, yes, for some day you will
sink to sleep dreaming of those little
feet, and awaken to hear them pit-a-pat
on the golden pavements, as your dar
ling, with face radiant and shining,
comes flying down to the pearly gates to
welcome papa home to his baby forev-
ermOre.