Mr Midshipman Easy Read Free Page B

a proper feeling, will not desert their own children; and as Mr Easy asserts, and you appear to imagine, the temper and disposition of your child may be affected by the nourishment it receives, I think it more likely to be injured by the milk of a married woman who will desert her own child for the sake of gain. The misfortune which has happened to this young woman is not always a proof of a bad heart, but of strong attachment, and the overweening confidence of simplicity.”
    â€œYou are correct, Doctor,” replied Mr Easy, “and her head proves that she is a modest young woman, with strong religious feeling, kindness of disposition, and every other requisite.”
    â€œThe head may prove it all for what I know, Mr Easy, but her conduct tells another tale.”
    â€œShe is well fitted for the situation, ma’am,” continued the Doctor.
    â€œAnd if you please, ma’am,” rejoined Sarah, “it was such a little one. ”
    â€œShall I try the baby, ma’am?” said the monthly nurse, who had listened in silence. “It is fretting so, poor thing, and has its dear little fist right down its throat.”
    Dr Middleton gave the signal of assent, and in a few seconds Master John Easy was fixed to Sarah as tight as a leech.
    â€œLord love it, how hungry it is!—there, there, stop it a moment, it’s choking, poor thing!”
    Mrs Easy, who was lying on her bed, rose up, and went to the child. Her first feeling was that of envy, that another should have such a pleasure which was denied to herself; the next, that of delight, at the satisfaction expressed by the infant. In a few minutes the child fell back in a deep sleep. Mrs Easy was satisfied; maternal feelings conquered all others, and Sarah was duly installed.
    To make short work of it, we have said that Jack Easy in six months was in shorts. He soon afterwards began to crawl and show his legs; indeed, so indecorously, that it was evident that he had imbibed no modesty with Sarah’s milk, neither did he appear to have gained veneration or benevolence, for he snatched at everything, squeezed the kitten to death, scratched his mother, and pulled his father by the hair; notwithstanding all which, both his father and mother and the whole household declared him to be the finest and sweetest child in the universe. But if we were to narrate all the wonderful events of Jack’s childhood from the time of his birth up to the age of seven years, as chronicled by Sarah, who continued his dry nurse after he had been weaned, it would take at least three volumes folio. Jack was brought up in the way that every only child usually is—that is, he was allowed to have his own way.

CHAPTER IV
In which the Doctor prescribes going to school as a remedy for a cut finger.
    â€œHAVE YOU no idea of putting the boy to school, Mr Easy?” said Dr Middleton, who had been summoned by a groom with his horse in a foam to attend immediately at Forest Hill, the name of Mr Easy’s mansion, and who, upon his arrival, had found that Master Easy had cut his thumb. One would have thought that he had cut his head off by the agitation pervading the whole household—Mr Easy walking up and down very uneasy, Mrs Easy with great difficulty prevented from syncope, and all the maids bustling and passing round Mrs Easy’s chair. Everybody appeared excited except Master Jack Easy himself, who, with a rag round his finger, and his pinafore spotted with blood, was playing at bob-cherry, and cared nothing about the matter.
    â€œWell, what’s the matter, my little man?” said Dr Middleton, on entering, addressing himself to Jack, as the most sensible of the whole party.
    â€œOh, Dr Middleton,” interrupted Mrs Easy, “he has cut his hand; I’m sure that a nerve is divided, and then the lockjaw.”
    The Doctor made no reply, but examined the finger: Jack Easy continued to play bob-cherry with his right hand.
    â€œHave