I have seen women enter the cars with their babies’ faces completely covered with a blanket shawl.  I have often thought I would like to cover their faces for an hour and see how they would bear it.  In such circumstances, in order to get the blanket open, I have asked to see the baby, and generally found it as red as a beet.  Ignorant nurses and mothers have discovered that children sleep longer with their heads covered.  They don’t know why, nor the injurious effect of breathing over and over the same air that has been thrown off the lungs polluted with carbonic acid gas.  This stupefies the child and prolongs the unhealthy slumber.

One hot day, in the month of May, I entered a crowded car at Cedar Rapids, Ia., and took the only empty seat beside a gentleman who seemed very nervous about a crying child.  I was scarcely seated when he said: 

“Mother, do you know anything about babies?”

“Oh, yes!” I said, smiling, “that is a department of knowledge on which I especially pride myself.”

“Well,” said he, “there is a child that has cried most of the time for the last twenty-four hours.  What do you think ails it?”

Making a random supposition, I replied, “It probably needs a bath.”

He promptly rejoined, “If you will give it one, I will provide the necessary means.”

I said, “I will first see if the child will come to me and if the mother is willing.”

I found the mother only too glad to have a few minutes’ rest, and the child too tired to care who took it.  She gave me a suit of clean clothes throughout, the gentleman spread his blanket shawl on the seat, securing the opposite one for me and the bathing appliances.  Then he produced a towel, sponge, and an india-rubber bowl full of water, and I gave the child a generous drink and a thorough ablution.  It stretched and seemed to enjoy every step of the proceeding, and, while I was brushing its golden curls as gently as I could, it fell asleep; so I covered it with the towel and blanket shawl, not willing to disturb it for dressing.  The poor mother, too, was sound asleep, and the gentleman very happy.  He had children of his own and, like me, felt great pity for the poor, helpless little victim of ignorance and folly.  I engaged one of the ladies to dress it when it awoke, as I was soon to leave the train.  It slept the two hours I remained—­how much longer I never heard.

A young man, who had witnessed the proceeding, got off at the same station and accosted me, saying: 

“I should be very thankful if you would come and see my baby.  It is only one month old and cries all the time, and my wife, who is only sixteen years old, is worn out with it and neither of us know what to do, so we all cry together, and the doctor says he does not see what ails it.”