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An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker by Cornelia Stratton Parker
page 31 of 164 (18%)
no one had ever tasted such joy. The baby gurgled about, and was kissed
within an inch of his life. The Jello lady sent around a dessert of
sixteen different colors, more or less, big enough for a family of
eight, as her welcome home.

About six weeks later we called our beloved Dr. J---- from a banquet he
had long looked forward to, in order to officiate at the birth of our
second, known as Thomas-Elizabeth up to October 17, but from about
ten-thirty that night as James Stratton Parker. We named him after my
grandfather, for the simple reason that we liked the name Jim. How we
chuckled when my father's congratulatory telegram came, in which he
claimed pleasure at having the boy named after his father, but cautioned
us never to allow him to be nicknamed. I remember the boresome youth who
used to call, week in week out,--always just before a meal,--and we were
so hard up, and got so that we resented feeding such an impossible
person so many times. He dropped in at noon Friday the 17th, for lunch.
A few days later Carl met him on the street and announced rapturously
the arrival of the new son. The impossible person hemmed and stammered:
"Why--er--when did it arrive?" Carl, all beams, replied, "The very
evening of the day you were at our house for lunch!" We never laid eyes
on that man again! We were almost four months longer in Cambridge, but
never did he step foot inside our apartment. I wish some one could have
psycho-analyzed him, but it's too late now. He died about a year after
we left Cambridge. I always felt that he never got over the shock of
having escaped Jim's arrival by such a narrow margin.

And right here I must tell of Dr. J----. He was recommended as the best
doctor in Cambridge, but very expensive. "We may have to economize in
everything on earth," said Carl, "but we'll never economize on doctors."
So we had Dr. J----, had him for all the minor upsets that families need
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