Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1876 — Only a Baby. [ARTICLE]

Only a Baby.

A year ago this August one of those events occurred which every man of sense would pronounce trivial and meaningless. No reporter, however hungry for news, would jot it down as having any present bearing on the liistoiy of the "time, nor could any novelist bring into his book a point so insignificant and common. It was only the birth of a baby, a girl-baby; tjie child of young Flaxman and his wife, who are certainly as commonplace a pair of human beings as can be found in New York. The Flaxman family in fact have but one noteworthy point—money. The baby was born into a chilly nest. Anybody could see that her coming was a mistake of Nature. Her father married a girl without fortune, and brought her home just when the business of the firm (Flaxman & Son) was at its lowest ebb at the beginning of the panic. It was hard enough to fit out the young couple*with carriage, horses, servants, etc.; to maintain, in short, two establishments under one roof; all of which was done, and handsomely done, for the Flaxmans know to the last tithe what society demands, and overpay it. But to bring a child at such a time, not only as a source of present expense, but to cripple all business projects for the future, was, to say the least, inconsiderate. Her grandfather, when told of her birth, remarked that “the annuity paid to the widow of his son John had been a heavy lien upon the estate, but this was worse.” The Flaxmans are little troubled with those affections which daily bring joy or torture into households not so well bred. The old people and the young were courteous and entertaining to each other when they met at table, just as they would be to any guest. Old Flaxman’s real affections were given to his books; his wife and the baby’s mother were probably fonder of kago ware and old lacquer than anything else in the world, and Phillip himself thought oftener of his bay trotter than he did of his pretty bride These people heard eloquent divines preach of humanity and love, and admired them, just as they did Waclitel as Manrico, or Salvini as Othello. They were no more persuaded to become faithful and loving human beings than to imitate the tenor of the Moor! What sermon this little helpless bit of flesh, in its roll of flannel, preached—how can we tell? It was preached in some speechless fashion. Everybody has seen the Baby and its inexplicable influence in a household. Something of the divine healing power which from the manger in Bethlehem drew peasants and kings to worship together still seems to linger in every cradle. The baby in the Flaxman house was to outsiders like any other baby. But within it was a miracle, a wonder. The trivial mother sobered into a quiet gentlewoman; the grandmother and she held hourly councils over. the blue bassonette, and talked of colic and croup, instead of Minton ware and old Etruscan. The old lady suddenly discovered “ Philip’s wife to be a most sensible, lovable person,” and Philip’s wife began to call her “mother,” and so brought tears to the sharp eyes behind the spectacles. Philip this spring sold his trotter for “ a family horse fit to take our little lady out airing;” and as for his father, he was an abject slave from the day she held out her chubby arms to come to him. After that she tagged at his' white mustache or spectacles as she pleased; old Flaxman and young Flaxman, who never pulled together since the latter was a boy, sat by the nursery fire, good fellows together, many a night, forgetful of club, of public dinner. When the child was ill, they waited night after night till morning, silent and anxious, while the doctor and the women were busy overhead. Last week the baby died. The death rate of July sets down thousands of such little lives as burned out in this city by the savage heats. The political economist would take no note of these weightless atoms of humanity, or secretly deem them mistakes—among “ the myriad germs which Nature shapes and shatters.” All that is left to tell that this baby.was once in the world is a little heap of earth in Greenwood' with a freshly planted rose upon it, and a silence that has fallen upon one household. No—something more; a strange loyalty and kindliness which have spirting up in certain hackneyed, worldly hearts 1 toward each other, and toward that Power which gave the baby to them and took it home again; a store of tiny garments and toys of which they do not speak to each other, but which bring back to each thoughts beyond all others tender and near {o God. When men and women die, they always leave behind them a certain amount of evil influence as well, as good at work in the world. But when we remember that each of these thousands of little ones left in its forsaken home only this sacred memory, forever softening and holy, we find, not one of Nature’s mistakes, but a gift beyond all others direct from the Divine hand, lying beneath the little hillocks ,in God’s acre.— N. IT.l T . Tribune.