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I know not how, patiently, to reply to your saucy
letter to me! Indeed, you write as if you fancied that
“a correspondent once” is a correspondent forever of
your Journal. And then to intimate that my little Needle
possibly may stand in the way of your getting large
Needles for your paper! How did you find out that I
was married? and how did you learn where the quiet
corner of the South is where I have been for nearly two
years a happy wife?

Your letter took me quite by surprise, and my sharp-eyed
little Needle, Harry, as I was reading it, snatched it
with his fat fist, and nearly tore it into fifty atoms, before
I could rescue it from his fierce gripe. It was well for
your sake it was not your head, Mr. —. And you
have the coolness to say (I read after I had smoothed
and put the pieces together as well as I could)—the cool
effrontery to all married dames to say, that you do not
think “that my having got married will lessen aught the
interest of my `Needles' if I will kindly contribute another
series!” For that speech, in pen and ink, you
deserve that every married lady should stop your paper.
Indeed! My being married has not upset my wits, nor
quite made a fool of me, Mr. —, though if you should
sometimes chance to overhear me talk to Harry in a

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language which has neither dictionary, grammar, nor
meaning, you would asseverate that I was for the time
a little out!

But baby-talk is a young mother's privilege. You
men may growl at the cherubs in monosyllables, but you
can't talk baby! Harry opens wide and wider his great
black eyes at all the pretty things I tell him about
“horsey eaty corney; cowey moo-moo-mooey; doggy
barkey boo-woo-woo; chickey crowey doo-dle-doo-oo;
turkey (which baby calls `daggins') gobble, gobble,
gobble;” and so on, giving extraordinary, and, in my
own estimation, very respectable and praiseworthy imitations
of the noises of animals, especially the barking
of Bruno, our huge mastiff; at which I feel assured I am
very successful, for the deep notes always set my little
Needle to puckering his woful lips, and ending the imitation
by a genuine bellowing of his own; and the cry of
a child thirteen months old is no trifling affair, especially
if mamma is out of sugar-candy.

In such cases nothing stops the dear little angel of a
boy but my blowing tremendous blasts upon a tin trumpet,
on the homœopathic principle of like curing like; and
his astonishment at the superiority of my tin trumpet
performance to that of his own lungs is so great, that he
pauses, and gives in—fairly beaten.

These “little Needles knows a heap,” as Aunt Chloe,
his old black nurse, said to me this morning, as Harry
knocked over a little wooley-crowned black baby, Chloe's
grandson, which had crawled near him, and began to
amuse himself by sucking an India rubber tooth-biter.
“Mass Harry make little nigga know hi' place!”

I could not help laughing at the old woman's remark;

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at the same time could not but feel its truth. The white
infant on a plantation very early understands, as if by
instinct, its superiority; while the African child tacitly
recognizes it. This African element infused into our
humanity is a great mystery.

Excuse this blot, Mr. —; Harry has pulled at my
sleeve in trying to walk round my table, and upset my
inkstand shockingly. And while I shake my finger at
him, he shakes his wise head from side to side in a
cunning way, as much as to say, “No—no, you won't
whip baby!” and then he smiles with enchanting confidence,
looks up into my face with eyes full of love and
fun, and ends by putting up his little mouth for a kiss;
for the rogue is conscious that he has done a great mischief,
which he so often perpetrates in some shape or
other through the day, as to be quite familiar with my
reproving exclamation of “Ah! naughty Harry!”

Dear little fellow! I would not lay the tip of my finger
upon his beautiful body, in retribution for all the blots,
work-baskets turned topsy-turvy, books torn, and all
his miscellaneous misdoings generally. I would not for
India's wealth arouse in that dear little heart of his, fear
of his mother! There is so little pure affection on this
earth, let it be found sacred and unmarred between the
young mother and her heaven-given babe!

You should have seen poor little Harry when he was
christened, Mr. —. He was then ten months old,
and a stout, strong, rosy rogue, with a laughing face
that seemed to over-run at the bright eyes with the light
of joy.

But when the minister took him into his arms, Harry
looked up into the stranger's grave face with a stare of

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wonder and a slight inkling of fear; the first shadow of
which I ever saw pass across his sunny brow. The deep
voice of the clergyman in its solemn tones seemed to
make a strange impression upon the child's sensitive
nature. All at once he put up his rosy mouth, sweetly
open like a young robin's, and with a half-timid, half-coaxing
look, pulled the minister by his bands, and drew
his face down close to his that he might kiss him! It
was beautiful and touching! The dear, half-frightened
child evidently wanted to conciliate and win his enemy
over by love!

The good man paused in the service, and with a fine
smile bent down to the little open mouth, and kissed him
so affectionately, and then patted his cheek so kindly,
that Harry at once took courage and confidence, clasped
his little fists together, a smile like heaven lighted up
his face, and he nestled in the arms of the clergyman
with a confidence and trustfulness, in singular contrast
with his doubt and timidity a moment before.

Oh! how powerful is love! It is thus that God would
have us lift up our lips to Him in prayer, and thus He
will bend down and bless us, making us happy and at
peace with the assurance of His tender affection. Harry
received the cold baptismal rain upon his curly head
without a change in his smiling face. With “the cross
upon his brow,” I received my child back from God's
altar, where I had thus dedicated him; and like a Crusader
bearing the cross, I trust he will be to his life's end a
faithful soldier in the host of the Captain of his salvation!

How can a mother clasp to her heart from week to
week an unconsecrated child, remaining as it was born,

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unsanctified by the living waters of the church's fountains?
It was the little children Jesus took up in His
arms; it was the little children He commanded mothers to
bring to Him! Since the christening of my dear Harry
I love him far more, and I lie down with him in peace,
knowing that, should he be called from my arms, he was
first placed by me in the arms of Jesus, in the bosom of
His church.

But to your letter, Mr. —, desiring me to do you
the favor to renew my letters, or “Needles,” which you
kindly say “were not only well received, but are yet
much inquired after!” I am not ungrateful for the kind
interest my poor epistles have awakened in the hearts
of many, whom I shall never know in this world. For
their pleasure, I am ready to begin a new “paper of
Needles;” but now, that I am married, these dear readers
must expect that my little Needle, “Harry,” will figure
a good deal in them.

I am living very retired, with but few subjects of interest,
other than domestic ones. My house is a paradise
of love and peace. My husband seems to think
only of me and Harry—to forget himself for us! In
my next letter I will describe my home in the Sunny
South, and, perhaps, I may find subjects enough around
me to give some interest to my Needles. But I have
first a word to say, Mr. —, before I fairly consent to
be your correspondent. I do not wish you to alter my
letters, or, in your masculine dignity, cut out any
“baby-talk,” or baby affairs, that may be in them; for
my nursery is my world just now, and Harry the most
important personage in this little world of cradle and

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painted toys! Perhaps in that greater nursery, the
WORLD itself, bearded men are quite as much,

“Pleased with a rattle, and tickled with a straw,”

p613-426

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