ON THE CULTURE OF BABIES
Midsummer came and with it a great suffocating blanket of heat which
brought prostration to the world at large and to little Rosie O'Brien a
new care and a great anxiety.
"I don't mind about myself," she murmured one breathless sultry morning
as she served George Riley his late breakfast. Even George, who paid
scant attention to weather, looked worn and pale.
Rosie sat down opposite him as he began eating and stared at him out of
eyes that were very sad and very serious.
"It's Geraldine, Jarge. I don't know what I'm going to do. The poor
birdie was awake nearly all night. I hope you didn't hear us. I don't
want to disturb you, too."
George shook his head. "Oh, I slept all right. I always do. But it was
so blamed hot that when I got up I felt weak as a cat." He bolted a
knifeful of fried potatoes, then asked: "What's ailing Geraldine? Ain't
her food agreeing with her?"
Rosie sighed. It was the sigh of a little mother who had been asking
herself that same question over and over. "It's partly that; but I
think the food would be all right if only other things were all right.
You're a man, Jarge, so you don't understand about babies. It's
Geraldine's second summer and she's teething. Her poor little mouth's
all swollen and feverish. It would be bad enough in cold weather, but in
this heat she hardly gets a wink of sleep.... I tell you, Jarge, if we
don't do something for her real quick, she's just going to die!" Rosie
dropped her head on the table and wept.
"Aw, now, 'tain't that bad, is it, Rosie?"
"Yes." The answer came muffled in tears. "It's just awful, Jarge, the
way they go down. They'll be perfectly well, and then before you know
what's happening they just wilt, and you can't do anything for them. And
if Geraldine dies, I--I want to die too!"
"Aw, Rosie, cheer up! She ain't going to die!" George's words were brave
but his face was troubled. "I suppose, now, if she was only in the
country, she'd be all right, wouldn't she?"
Rosie wiped her eyes and sighed. "Is it cool in the country, Jarge?"
[Illustration: Rosie stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and
very serious.]
"You bet it is--just as cool and nice! The grass is green and wind's
always a-blowin' in the trees and you can hear the gurgle of the creek
down at the bottom of the meadow. And at night you can sleep on the big
upstairs porch, if you want to, and you always get a breeze up there.
And you needn't be afraid of mosquitoes and flies, either, 'cause mother
always has things screened in with black mosquito-netting. Oh, I tell
you it's just fine in the country!"
George paused a moment, then laughed a little apologetically.
"Leastways, Rosie, that's how I always think of the country now. Of
course we do have sizzling weather out there just as much as we do here;
but it's different, somehow. Out there you get a chance to cool off.
They ain't them ever-lasting paved streets all around you, sending out
heat like a furnace night and day just the same.... Do you know, I ain't
felt like myself for three weeks! If I was back home now I tell you what
I'd do: I'd go down to the creek and take a dip and then I'd come in
and, by gosh, maybe I wouldn't sleep!"
Rosie sighed again. "Well, no use talking about the country. It's the
city for ours, even if Geraldine does die."
Tears again threatened and George hastened to give the comforting
assurance: "Aw, now, Rosie, it ain't that bad, I know it ain't. Besides,
this weather can't keep up forever. We'll be having a thunderstorm any
time now, and that'll cool things off." Then, to change the subject:
"What does your mother say about Geraldine?"
"Pooh!" Rosie tossed her head in fine scorn. "I'd like to know what my
mother knows about babies!"
George protested. "She ought to know something. She's had a few
herself."
"Jarge Riley, you listen to me." Rosie looked at him fixedly. "With some
women, having babies don't mean one blessed thing! They just have 'em
and have 'em and have 'em, and that's all they know about them. Take me,
now, and I'm twelve, and take ma, and I don't know how old she is, but
she has had eight children, so you can judge for yourself, and right now
she's so ignur'nt about the proper care and feeding of babies that I
wouldn't dare trust Geraldine to her alone for twenty-four hours!"
Rosie paused impressively, then concluded with the damning statement:
"All the time she was taking care of that baby she never once boiled a
nipple! Never once!"
George blinked his eyes in puzzled thought. "Do you got to boil 'em?"
For a moment Rosie glared unspeakable things. Then she answered with
crushing emphasis: "You certainly do!"
George moved uneasily. "No hard feelings, Rosie. I was just askin'."
Rosie was magnanimous. "I'm not blaming you, Jarge. You're a man and not
supposed to understand about sterilizing. But I do say it's disgraceful
in a mother of eight.... Why, do you know what ma was feeding Geraldine
when I took hold of her? Nothing but that old-fashioned baby-food that
nobody but ignur'nt people use now. It's the first thing they hand out
to you at the drug-store, if you don't know the difference. It makes
babies fat but it don't give them one bit of strength, and people like
ma suppose if a baby's fat, of course, it's all right. Oh, such
ignur'nce!" Rosie sighed wearily and cast long-suffering eyes to heaven.
Balancing a conciliatory knife on his finger, George appealed to her as
man to man: "Now, Rosie, see here: I'm not saying that you don't know
all about babies, 'cause I think you do. I know the way you been finding
out things at the Little Mothers' Class and I know the way you study
that book. But facts is facts, Rosie, and after all, your ma has raised
five kids out of eight, and that ain't so bad."
"Go on." Rosie looked at him challengingly.
George had no more to say.
Rosie had. "Jarge Riley, you know as much about babies as a rabbit!
Don't you know that Geraldine is a bottle-baby?"
An expression of helpless wonderment spread over George's face. "Why,
Rosie, ain't they all bottle-babies? Seems to me I always seen 'em give
bottles to all of 'em."
"All of them bottle-babies! Jarge, you're more ignur'nt than I supposed.
Why, every last baby my mother's had except Geraldine has been a
breast-baby!"
The pink of an unexpected embarrassment mounted to George's shiny
cheekbones.
Rosie surveyed him critically. "I suppose, now that you come to think
about it, it seems to you they must all be breast-babies, too. Tell me,
ain't that so?"
"Search me if it ain't!" George spoke in candid bewilderment.
"That just shows how much you know and yet you're willing to sit there
and argue with me. Now I suppose you think it takes as much brains to
raise a breast-baby as a bottle-baby." There was a question in Rosie's
tone but George, breathing hard, had no opinion to hazard. After a
moment of impressive silence, Rosie continued: "Any ordinary, ignur'nt,
healthy woman, with lots of good milk, can raise a baby, but when it
comes to bottle-feeding----"
Rosie broke off suddenly and her face took on the expression of a
listening mother.
"Rosie! Rosie!" Mrs. O'Brien's voice called. "Geraldine's awake and is
crying for you."
Rosie paused long enough to say, in parting: "There's lots more I could
tell you, Jarge, if I had time."
"Oh, don't mind me, Rosie. Just run along. I'm sure Geraldine needs
you." George spoke with a certain relief. The weight of the new
knowledge that Rosie had already imposed upon him seemed as much as he
could bear for the present.
Rosie left him. She felt cheered and comforted, as talking out her
troubles with George always cheered and comforted her. Dear old George!
Rosie didn't know what she would do without him.
It was well that she had the consciousness of his friendly interest to
support her, for the day was to prove a trying one. Not a breath of air
stirred, and Geraldine, languid and feverish, tossed and fretted
unceasingly. Ordinarily Rosie could have given her whole attention to
the ailing baby, but today she had to take her mother's place as cook
for dinner, since a large family washing required all of Mrs. O'Brien's
time and strength. If Geraldine would only have fallen off to sleep,
Rosie could have managed simply enough; but the poor child could not
sleep. So Rosie spent a frantic morning running back and forth between
kitchen and front room.
"Why, Rosie, what ails you? You're not eating a bite," her father
remarked during dinner.
"It's too hot to eat," Rosie murmured.
"Give me your meat!" Jack cried out. "Please, Rosie!"
Without a word, Rosie passed him her plate.
In mid-afternoon, when it was time for Rosie to go about her business of
delivering papers, she entrusted the care of Geraldine to Janet
McFadden. For several days now she had been employing Janet for this
duty. Out of her own earnings she was paying Janet two cents a day, and
she did not grudge the money. Janet was the one person to whom she was
willing to entrust Geraldine at this critical time. Janet knew as much
about babies as Rosie herself, for she had gone to the Little Mother
classes with Rosie and had faithfully studied the book. So Rosie started
out with the feeling that she need not hurry back.
She loitered along slowly; after the rush of home it was good to loiter.
Even the blazing sun was restful compared with home and its unending
demands. Rosie covered the ground at snail's pace, resting at the least
provocation of shade, and stopping to look at the least hint of anything
happening or likely to happen.
It was five o'clock when she reached home again, and time to give
Geraldine her afternoon bath. Mrs. O'Brien was still at the
ironing-board and Rosie had to shift clothes-horses to find a place on
the floor for the big basin.
"Ah, now, and ain't Rosie the kind sister to be giving Geraldine a nice
bath!" Mrs. O'Brien began in her usual tone and manner. "Your poor ma
wishes there was some one to give her a nice bath!" She rambled on while
Rosie splashed Geraldine and then began wrapping her in a towel.
"I wouldn't moind it so much if only it cooled off of nights." Mrs.
O'Brien wiped her moist face with her apron, and sighed. "It's played
out I am, Rosie. I can't stand another minute." She took a long,
uncertain breath and dropped heavily into a chair.
Rosie, with Geraldine in her arms, paused in the doorway. She, too,
wanted to escape from the hot kitchen, but something in her mother's
tone held her.
Mrs. O'Brien swayed listlessly in her chair. "It's sick at me stomach
I'm feelin'. The smell o' the kitchen goes agin' me.... Rosie dear----"
Mrs. O'Brien broke off to look at Rosie a moment in silent appeal.
"Rosie dear, do ye think just for tonight ye could cook the supper for
me? I hate to ask you--I do that, for ye've had a hard day of it with
poor wee Geraldine fretting her life away. And I'm not forgetting that
ye helped me this noon. I wouldn't be asking another thing of you today
if I could help it, but I'm clean tuckered out ironin' them last
shirt-waists for Ellen, and I tell ye, Rosie, I feel like I'd faint if I
thried to stand up in front of that stove."
Tears of self-pity came to Rosie's eyes and she wanted to cry out: "And
what about me? Don't you suppose I'm tired, too?" But the sight of her
mother's face going suddenly pale and of her hands beginning to shake,
checked her, and she said, quietly enough: "All right, Ma, I will. You
take Geraldine and go out in front. Maybe it's a little cooler there."
Mrs. O'Brien started off, murmuring gratefully: "Ah, Rosie dear, ye're a
darlint and I don't know what I'd do without you!"
Rosie, left to herself, instead of taking comfort at thought of her own
nobility of conduct, leaned miserably against the kitchen door and burst
into tears.... "I don't see why I always got to do all the disagreeable
things in this house, and I always do got to, too! I--I--I'm tired, I
am!"
She sobbed on awhile brokenly, then slowly dried her eyes, for it was
half-past five and time to set to work for supper.