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egin with; well, I suppose he will get down to his store, by the time he has lost a dozen customers, or so--he is too busy shaving himself, to go down there to _shave_ them! that's a settled point. Look now at that window!--a young mother comes to it with a little new baby,--its little neck is as limpsy as your doll's; and its hands look just like those your cook fries when she makes fancy doughnuts. She loves it, though; just as well as if it wasn't as red as a brick, and bows up its little worked sleeves, and combs its _five_ hairs, and thinks it a "perfect beauty." She has got _her_ work cut out for the winter, hasn't she? The times that baby will have to be taken up and put down--washed--dressed and undressed--nursed, rocked and trotted--laid on its back, and laid on its stomach--and laid on its side. Just as if _I_ didn't know!--I could tell her a great many things she don't know about taking care of that baby. Young mothers are very _experiment-y_. Do you know what _that_ means? Well, they worry a baby out of a year's growth, for fear it _will_ worry; _your_ mother knows all about it--ask her if she didn't do just that way with you till Grandma and Aunt Charity taught her better? First babies are poor little victims. I can remember how _I_ used to be plagued! Stifled alive for "fear I should get cold;" trotted up and down when there was a great pin sticking into my shoulder--and held so close to the candle to be looked at, that I came near being blind as a mole. It's a wonder to me that I am here now, writing this juvenile book; if I hadn't been a baby of spirit, I should have keeled over, and died of sheer torment long before I got into short clothes. Well, there's another window. An old lady sits at it; not so _very_ old, either, for she's as brisk as a musquito. Her head flies round if any one opens the door, as if it were strung on wires. I don't believe she has any fire in her room, for she keeps hitching round after the sun all day--and when he bids her good afternoon, she comforts her shoulders with a blanket shawl; then, her lamp is always out long before I go to bed, and nobody who has a good fire, ever wants to go to bed and leave it; they'll find a thousand things to do--a letter to write, or a book to read, or some chestnuts to eat; or, if they haven't anything else to do, they will sit and look at the fire. I am sure I've been forced to look at more disagreeable objects than that, for many an ho
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