child always quiet and take it through the dangerous period of teething without a ripple on the surface of domestic life.  As children cannot tell what ails them, and suffer from many things of which parents are ignorant, the crying of the child should arouse them to an intelligent examination.  To spank it for crying is to silence the watchman on the tower through fear, to give soothing syrup is to drug the watchman while the evils go on.  Parents may thereby insure eight hours’ sleep at the time, but at the risk of greater trouble in the future with sick and dying children.  Tom Moore tells us “the heart from love to one, grows bountiful to all.”  I know the care of one child made me thoughtful of all.  I never hear a child cry, now, that I do not feel that I am bound to find out the reason.

In my extensive travels on lecturing tours, in after years, I had many varied experiences with babies.  One day, in the cars, a child was crying near me, while the parents were alternately shaking and slapping it.  First one would take it with an emphatic jerk, and then the other.  At last I heard the father say in a spiteful tone, “If you don’t stop I’ll throw you out of the window.”  One naturally hesitates about interfering between parents and children, so I generally restrain myself as long as I can endure the torture of witnessing such outrages, but at length I turned and said: 

“Let me take your child and see if I can find out what ails it.”

“Nothing ails it,” said the father, “but bad temper.”

The child readily came to me.  I felt all around to see if its clothes pinched anywhere, or if there were any pins pricking.  I took off its hat and cloak to see if there were any strings cutting its neck or choking it.  Then I glanced at the feet, and lo! there was the trouble.  The boots were at least one size too small.  I took them off, and the stockings, too, and found the feet as cold as ice and the prints of the stockings clearly traced on the tender flesh.  We all know the agony of tight boots.  I rubbed the feet and held them in my hands until they were warm, when the poor little thing fell asleep.  I said to the parents, “You are young people, I see, and this is probably your first child.”  They said, “Yes.”  “You don’t intend to be cruel, I know, but if you had thrown those boots out of the window, when you threatened to throw the child, it would have been wiser.  This poor child has suffered ever since it was dressed this morning.”  I showed them the marks on the feet, and called their attention to the fact that the child fell asleep as soon as its pain was relieved.  The mother said she knew the boots were tight, as it was with difficulty she could get them on, but the old ones were too shabby for the journey and they had no time to change the others.

“Well,” said the husband, “if I had known those boots were tight, I would have thrown them out of the window.”

“Now,” said I, “let me give you one rule:  when your child cries, remember it is telling you, as well as it can, that something hurts it, either outside or in, and do not rest until you find what it is.  Neither spanking, shaking, or scolding can relieve pain.”