Three People | Page 2

of wisdom must have come over his baby brain, for he made a sudden dash at his father's glass, sending the red wine right and left, and shivering the frail glass to fragments; he did more than that, he promptly seized on one of the sharpest bits, and thereby cut a long crooked gash in the sweet chubby finger, and was finally borne, shrieking and struggling, from the room, his little heart filled with mingled feelings of terror and rage. So much for Baby Hastings and his birthday.
* * * * *
In a neat white house, no more than a mile away from this great mansion, there was another baby. It was just when Pliny Hastings was hurried away to the nursery that this baby's mother folded away papers, and otherwise tidied up her bit of a nursery, then pushed a little sewing chair in front of her work table, and paused ere she sat down to give another careful tuck to the blanketed bundle, which was cuddled in the great rocking chair, fast asleep. Then she gathered the doubled up fist into her hand, and caressed it softly, while she murmured: "Bless his precious little heart! he takes a splendid nap for his birthday, so he does."
"Ben," this to the gentleman who was lounging in another rocker, reading the paper, "does it seem possible that Bennie is a year old to-day? I declare, Ben, we ought to have got him a present for his birthday."
The father looked up from his paper with a good-natured laugh. "Seems to me he's rather youthful to begin on that tack, isn't he?"
"Oh, Ben, no! I want every one of his birthdays to be so nice and pleasant. Do, papa, come here and see how nice he looks, with his hair all in a curl."
Thus appealed to, Mr. Phillips came over to the arm-chair, and together they stood looking down on the treasured bit of flesh and blood.
"Our eldest born," the mother said, softly.
"And youngest, too, for the matter of that," answered Mr. Phillips, gaily.
His wife laughed. "Ben, there isn't the least bit of sentiment in you, is there? Now they are having a wonderful time to-day in the grand corner house on the Avenue, the Hastings' house, you know, and it's all because their baby is a year old to-day, and he isn't a bit nicer than ours."
"Their baby's father is worth a million."
"I don't care if he is worth a billion, that don't make their baby any sweeter. Say, Ben, I just wish, for the fun of it, we had some little cunning thing for his birthday present."
Mr. Phillips seemed to be very much amused. "Well," he said, still laughing, "Which shall it be, a razor or a jack-knife?"
His wife actually shuddered. "Ben!" she said, with a reproachful face, "how can you say such dreadful things? What if he should grow up and commit suicide?"
"What if I had a boy, and he should grow to be a man, and another man should tread on his toes, and he should knock the other man down, and the other man should die, and they should hang my boy," rattled off Mr. Phillips in anything but a grave tone.
"Little woman, that's what I should call looking into the future, isn't it?"
A knock at the door interrupted them, and Roxie, the tidy little maid of all work, who had been out for an afternoon, appeared to them, talking rapidly.
"If you please, ma'am, I'm a quarter late, and could you please to excuse me; the clock around the corner doesn't go, and Kate she didn't know the time; and Mrs. Meeker said would you please accept her love and these grapes in a basket. She says they're the finest of the lot, and you needn't mind sending of it home, 'cause she'll let little Susie step around after it."
This mixture set Mr. Phillips off into another of his hearty laughs; but when they were alone again, he seized one of the great purple clusters, and flinging himself on the floor in front of the baby, exclaimed:
"I'll tell you what we'll do, little wife: we'll present one of these to the boy, and then you and I will eat it in honor of his birthday, unless, indeed, there may be some bad omen in this, even. You know the juice of the grape may, under certain circumstances, become a dangerous article?"
Mrs. Phillips laughed carelessly as she nestled in the little sewing chair, and prepared to enjoy the grapes. "No," she said, gaily; "grapes are very harmless omens to me. I'm not the least afraid that Baby Benny will ever be a drunkard."
* * * * *
There used to be in Albany, not many years ago, a miniature "Five Points," and one didn't have to go very far up