Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1885 — What a Baby Can Do. [ARTICLE]

What a Baby Can Do.

It can wear out a $1 pair of kid shoes in twenty-four hours. It can keep its father busy advertising in the newspapers for a nurse. It can occupy both sides of the larg-est-sized bed manufactured simultaneously. It’can cause its father to be insulted by every second-class boarding-house keeper in the city who “never take children,” which in nine cases out of ten is very fortunate for the children. It can make itself look like a fiend just when mamma wants to show “what a pretty baby she has.” It can make an old bachelor in the room adjoining use language that, if uttered on the street, would get him into the penitentiary for two years. * It can go from the furthest end of the room to the foot of the stairs in the hall adjoining quicker than its mother can just step into the closet and out again. It can go to sleep “like a little angel,” and just as mamma and papa are starting for the theater it can wake up and stay awake until the last act. These are some of the things that a baby can do. But there are other things. as well. A baby can make the commonest home the brightest spot on earth. It can lighten the burdens of a loving mother’s life by adding to them. It can flatten its dirty little face against the window pane in such a way that the tired father can see it as a picture before he rounds the corner. Yes, babies are great institutions, particularly one’s own baby.— Newman Independent.