Alfred with his usual assurance undertook to instruct the family, including the doctor and the nurse as to how the baby should be handled—yes, that's the term he used, "handled." Aunt Tillie reminded him the baby was not a colt. He was advised that the old fashioned way of nursing babies was obsolete. He was not permitted to up-de-doo baby, that is, throw him up and catch him coming down, notwithstanding he asserted this was the only way to prevent a baby from becoming liver-grown; nor would Miss Liston or Pearl the mother, permit Alfred to kiss the baby on the mouth. Miss Liston asserted that kissing was most dangerous in spreading microbes and germs; therefore, the baby must not be kissed on the mouth.
"All right, little baby," Alfred would say, "I can kiss his little tootsie ootsies."
"Please don't kiss his foot," appealingly pleaded Pearl. "Please don't kiss his foot, he might put it in his mouth."
"I kissed you on the mouth a thousand times when you was a baby, and I'm living yet," snapped Alfred.
Field
Baby cried at night. Alfred declared it was unnecessary to lose sleep on account of a baby crying. All required was a cradle. Every person that expected to rear a baby should have a cradle.
Alfred visited every furniture store in the city. Not one had a cradle. Few understood what they were. One young clerk advised that his grandfather in the country, near Alfred's farm had one and he had heard the grandfather say his father before him had used it.
Alfred sent his colored man, Doc Blair, to borrow or buy the cradle.
The cradle was borrowed. The man did not care to sell it. He sent the wagon to get the cradle.