Limby made a rare to do when he was a little baby. But he never was a little baby—he was always a big baby; nay, he was a big baby till the day of his death.
“Baby Big,” his mamma used to call him; he was “a noble baby,” said his aunt; he was “a sweet baby,” said old Mrs. Tomkins, the nurse; he was “a dear baby,” said his papa,—and so he was, for he cost a good deal. He was “a darling baby,” said his aunt, by the mother’s side; “there never was such a fine child,” said everybody, before the parents; when they were at another place, they called him “a great, ugly, fat child.”
We call it polite in this world to say a thing to please people, although we think exactly the contrary. This is one of the things the philosopher Democrates, that you may have heard of, would have laughed at.
Limby was almost as broad as he was long. He had what some people call an open countenance; that is, one as broad as a full moon. He had what his mamma called beautiful auburn locks, but what other people said were carroty;—not before the mother, of course.
Limby had a flattish nose and a widish mouth, and his eyes were a little out of the right line. Poor little dear, he could not help that, and, therefore, it was not right to laugh at him.
Everybody, however, laughed to see him eat his pap; for he would not be fed with the patent silver pap-spoon which his father bought him; but used to lay himself flat on his back, and seize the pap-boat with both hands, and never let go of it till its contents were fairly in his dear little stomach.
So Limby grew bigger and bigger every day, till at last he could scarcely draw his breath, and was very ill; so his mother sent for three apothecaries and two physicians, who looked at him,—told his mamma there were no hopes; the poor child was dying of over-feeding. The physicians, however, prescribed for him—a dose of castor oil!
His mamma attempted to give him the castor oil; but Limby, although he liked sugar plums, and cordial, and pap, and sweetbread, and oysters, and other things nicely dished up, had no fancy for castor oil, and struggled, and kicked, and fought, every time his nurse or mamma attempted to give it to him.
“Limby, my darling boy,” said his mamma, “my sweet cherub, my only dearest, do take the oily poily—there’s a ducky, deary—and it shall ride in a coachy poachy.”
“Oh! the dear baby,” said the nurse, “take it for nursey. It will take it for nursey—that it will.”