s, so I am told, I considered it necessary to have a
lighted lamp in my room at night. Other habits affecting my special senses
followed in rapid succession. The visitors began pouring in to see me on
the second day, and I think it was a morbid interest that any one could
work up over such a red, speckled mite of humanity as I must have been.
They all insisted on digging me out of my nest, taking me up and rolling
me about, when it was my natural inclination to want to sleep nearly all
the time. From this procedure I soon grew restless and disturbed sleep
followed.

For the first two or three days I had no desire for nourishment, so far as
I can remember now, but a number of concoctions were put down my unwilling
little throat. As I have since learned, a babe, like a chick, is born with
sufficient nourishment in its stomach to tide it along a few days without
parental intervention. You might be able to convince a hen mother of this
fact, but a human mother--never! So when I cried, it was for two or three
reasons: My feelings were outraged, or the variety of teas had created a
gas on my stomach which made me feel very uncomfortable (the old ladies
called it "misery"). Then I cried because I thought, or rather felt, that
the air-cells of my lungs needed expansion, and the crying act assisted
materially in doing this. If I could have talked or sung, I should not
have cried. Crying was the easiest and most natural thing for me to do. It
was then that I was introduced to the paregoric bottle, and I very soon
began to form the habit. My dear, good mother would have been terribly
incensed had any one suggested that her darling was becoming a little dope
fiend.

Remedies soon lost their soporific effect on me, or I acquired tolerance
to the usual dosage, and the folks had to hunt up new things to give. I
took soothing syrups and "baby's friends" galore. The night and the day
were not rightly divided for me; when I slept, it was during the day when
others were awake, and _vice versa_. I became a spoiled, pampered child,
and gained a great deal of attention and sympathy, in consequence of which
I became a veritable little bundle of nerves. While yet in my mother's
arms, I manifested many of the whims and vagaries which were destined to
crop out more strenuously as I grew older.

Ah, mothers, why does that big, loving heart of yours never falter or grow
weary in the performance of what you think is your bounden duty toward
your