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 happiest when he could be home working, playing with
the baby, pushing him about in a go-cart, working in his garden, or
lying on the floor making something--an engraving or print or a box
which he was carving, the infant in some simple gingham romper crawling
about. He was always busy, but never too much so for a glance or a
mock-threatening, "Now say, not so much industry there. You leave my
things alone," to the child. Of a Sunday he sat out on the front porch
smoking, reading the Sunday paper, congratulating himself on his happy
married life, and most of the time holding the infant. Afternoons he