Tale of a Grandfather

I HAVE been thrown a good deal with a baby lately, and flatter myself that we have become intimate, and even that she enjoys my society. At any rate, she protests vigorously when nurse, mother, or some other interfering third party comes to take her away for bath, bed — the disciplined routine of life.

She knows that with me there is to be no welfare work, no uplift. It is all plain sailing.

Our time is short and we get down at once to the business of happiness. Would this be amusing? No! All right — something else, then. How about this? Firstrate! You really do make surprisingly good suggestions! And in a moment we are hard at it.

We are not constrained by any burdensome idea, however, that when we have chosen a diversion we must stick to it through thick and thin. Not at all. The instant before it becomes a bore we switch to something else.

We know that drinking imaginary tea from tiny cups will begin to pall if indulged in too long. There are plenty of alternatives: the study of pictures, shopping expeditions, or, if we feel energetic, strenuous construction work — erecting lofty towers, for example.

In this way we avoid ruts and keep ourselves from becoming stale. We are just as keen at the end of our hour, when the before-mentioned intrusion of authority arrives to spoil everything, as we were in the first joyful moment of being left by ourselves.

Of course we realize that life is n’t all beer and skittles. We can be serious enough when we like. When it suits us to be so, we become serious without any fuss or awkwardness. Possibly we exchange ideas sedately, but generally we prefer to relax in mere thought. This does not necessarily involve complete idleness. On such occasions the baby is likely to be sitting on the wide sofa before the fireplace, inserting colored pegs in a square board. I am in my big chair facing her at a convenient angle. Every now and then she pauses in her work and looks over at me inquiringly. I nod, she nods back, and thereupon the work is resumed and the meditation goes on.

We are very forthright and outspoken with each other. That, I suppose, is because we meet on a basis of complete equality. She knows that I will do instantly anything she wants; I know that she will do instantly anything I want (because I could n’t possibly want anything except her presence) — hence a sense of fair play and complete confidence all round.

My family and friends, so everyone says, are charming people, and I think so myself. They do the best they know how to be entertaining. It is pathetic, though, how uninteresting these good folks are — I mean, compared with the baby. They seem to think you have to get all worked up about trivialities: business, politics, literature, sport — that sort of thing. Moreover, I never know what is actually going on in the back of their minds. They say so and so; but what do they really think? I don’t know. Probably they don’t know themselves.

I am never puzzled about what goes on in the back of the baby’s mind. There is no back of her mind. Anything she thinks comes out before it has been sullied by being brooded over. Moreover, she wastes no time figuring out how her present attitude is going to affect her future. Consequently, there are no mental reservations in her dealings.

It is a pleasure — I mean a purely selfish pleasure — to make anyone happy. It is a hard job, though, to make a grown person happy; so hard that I am afraid I gave up trying years ago. All you have to do to make a baby happy is to smile and speak kindly. And for reward you receive, and without any waiting about, a spontaneous and understanding sympathy such as all older people have long ago forgotten how to proffer, and most of them to feel.

Another pleasant thing: you can wear your heart on your sleeve with a baby. In fact, she expects it. Her own is defenselessly exposed, so why not yours? She won’t think any the worse of you for giving yourself away.

All these things are obvious and superficial. If you are a close observer, however, a baby can lead you pretty deep into the mystery of life. Until she is, say, three years old, nothing is plainer than that a baby is the mere conduit of a message from another world. There is something speaking in her which you don’t know anything about. It can only be God Himself taking a hand until such time as He may retire and allow the new life to go on without His direct intervention.

Wordsworth, of course, has said this; but not nearly so simply and clearly as a baby says it.

This particular baby I have been talking about looks like an angel. It really would be absurd for a baby to look like anything else.

ROBERT L. RAYMOND