Three People | Page 2

bearing his name and age, and
wanted the great carving fork instead. He cared not a whit that the
sparkling wine was poured, and glasses were touched, and toasts drank
on his account; but a touch 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