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