It was of my first experiment in language that I set out to speak, when other grievances came between me and my subject. At ten months, or a shade over, I had amassed a vocabulary of three words--not that three words were of the slightest use in dealing with a woman like my mamma; but I did my best with them. The second and third were more or less trivial expressions of good feeling depending for their result on my inflection of voice; the first, of which I want more particularly to speak, created some sensation in its way and, indeed, produced a sort of result so startling that I have never to this moment entirely fathomed the significance of it. The matter fell out thus. After my ninth month had passed and nothing but my own language of laughter and tears had broken the silence, my father had a gloomy inspiration that I must be a dumb idiot, and that he and my mamma were jointly responsible for a being unlikely to add to the fame or repute of either. To calm their poor, foolish fears as soon as possible was obviously my duty under these circumstances, and I set about it. A brief, jocund monosyllable commended itself to me in this connection. I had heard my father use it under somewhat humorous circumstances, after falling over a chair on a night when he crept into my room to see me asleep. I was not asleep and we both laughed heartily at the time. He doubtless went away and forgot the incident; I, on the contrary, thought over it, practised the word, and tried it as a simple exclamation on my mother, doubting nothing that she would glory in it and perhaps reward me. Judge then of my surprise when she regarded me with horror and fear, almost dropped me back into my cradle, and burst into a flood of tears. “Oh, baby! how could you?” she asked, between her sobs. “I’ve been praying for you to talk for months and months, and now--oh, it can’t be true--it can’t!” Suspecting that my pronunciation was at fault, I uttered the word again with the greatest distinctness, whereupon my mamma became hysterical and fled from the nursery. She brought my father up when he came home, and I observed she was still in tears. “Such--such a dreadful thing,” she said; “he’s spoken, James.” “Good business!” exclaimed my father. “The little beggar isn’t dumb then, thank the Lord. What did he say? I’ll bet he tried to lisp your name.” “He didn’t lisp at all--he spoke only too clearly. I don’t know how to tell you. He--he swore!” And my mamma broke down entirely, while my papa gazed upon me with frank amazement. “He swore?” repeated my papa, blankly. “What at? Why should he swear? I’m sure no kid ever had a better time.” “To think that the very first word which has passed his lips----!” cried my mamma. “But what did he swear at?”