"

I used to chuckle the while I verbally denounced him for his coarse,
plebeian point of view and tastes.

In a little while the child came, and to his immense satisfaction it was
a boy. I never saw a man "carry on" so, make over it, take such a
whole-souled interest in all those little things which supposedly made
for its health and well-being. For the first few weeks he still talked
of not having it petted or spoiled, but at the same time he was surely
and swiftly changing, and by the end of that time had become the most
doting, almost ridiculously fond papa that I ever saw. Always the child
must be in his lap at the most unseemly hours, when his wife would
permit it. When he went anywhere, or they, although they kept a maid the
child must be carried along by him on his shoulder. He liked nothing
better than to sit and hold it close, rocking in a rocking-chair
American style and singing, or come tramping into my home in New York,
the child looking like a woolen ball. At night if it stirred or
whimpered he was up and looking. And the baby-clothes!--and the
cradle!--and the toys!--colored rubber balls and soldiers the first or
second or third week!

"What about that stern discipline that was to be put in force here--no
rocking, no getting up at night to coddle a weeping infant?"

"Yes, I know. That's all good stuff before you get one. I've got one of
my own now, and I've got a new light on this. Say, Dreiser, take my
advice. Go through the routine. Don't try to escape. Have a kid or two
or three. There's a psychic punch to it you can't get any other way.
It's nature's way. It's a great scheme. You and your girl and your kid."

As he talked he rocked, holding the baby boy to his breast. It was
wonderful.

And Mrs. Peter--how happy she seemed. There was light in that house,
flowers, laughter, good fellowship. As in his old rooms so in this new
home he gathered a few of his old friends around him and some new ones,
friends of this region. In the course of a year or two he was on the
very best terms of friendship with his barber around the corner, his
grocer, some man who had a saloon and bowling alley in the neighborhood,
his tailor, and then just neighbors. The milkman, the coal man, the
druggist and cigar man at the next corner--all could tell you where
Peter lived. His little front "yard" had two beds of flowers all summer
long, his lot in the back was a garden--lettuce, onions, peas, beans.
Peter was always hap