My Babyhood

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 61, 23 November 1886, Page 2

My Babyhood

BY CHARLIE COPE. When I came into this world as a baby I was a little heap of sin, being heir to six thousand years accumulation of wickedness at ten per cent, compound interest, and if ever I had a thought about my future state it was only in regard to the large amount of sustenance I should require before I could develop into a full grown sinner. So I squalled a squall whenever that sustenance was not up to time, which time meant pretty often; it always answered, and brought mama to me in a hurry. One Sunday when mama was arrayed in more than her usual glory, she was dressed for going out, I squalled a squall which fetched her up standing and put her, as she told a crowd down stairs, into a cold sweat. Some of the crowd thought I had a pin about me, and some thought I had a pain some distance below the region of the heart, and as they gathered around me, they used the most consoling expressions they could think of, but I refused to be comforted, and in evidence of it some of mother's glory disappeared fast ; first a yard of ribbon went quick, and then the inverted flower basket she had on her head was emptied, until the last artificial rose of summer was left dangling alone just in front of her nose. She looked a bit scared, and told father I was going to have a fit and would die before they could get me christened. Father said "It would be a darned good job if I did, perhaps I should be quiet then." Mother began to cry, and called father an unnatural parent as wanted his child to go to perdition, but father only laughed, and said it wouldn't upset him if mother went too. Then as the visitors began to look uneasy like, he thumped on his hat and, headed the procession. I wasn't consulted, but I showed them I had a voice in the cencern whenjwe got to church, though the parson threw cold water on my objections; but I got one in against him, for I launched out my feet with all the strength of a six-month-old, Briton, and hit him such a one on his specs, as made him see a hundred stars of Bethlehem at once. It riled him and the procession was afraid he was going to cua a bit, so they soothed him down by promising him they would look after me for the future, but they didn't, for they went away the next day and forget all about the impossible things they had promised to do, but that was of no consequence, for as the show came back they reckoned as my evil spirit was subdued, and that it would now knuckle under, and I should grow up to be a prominent addition to society.