“I think you’re drunk!” said the woman, coolly.
“Not at all. You feel of her and see. She’s just a lot of rods and wires and machinery. I had her padded and made with a face because I thought she’d look more natural that way.”
“Suppose all that you say is true. How can it help me? I have to see what the baby needs, then look through the book and see what number to say and then, I suppose, I have to stay and watch the old thing work. I wanted a chance to work at my books and this—why, it’s ridiculous!”
Teeple laughed.
“You’re a nice little woman, Susanna, but you certainly lack imagination. When I ordered this machine, I thought about all that and so I bought a phonograph with clock attachment. It will run for twenty-four hours without attention. Then I had a baby doctor work out a twenty-four hour program of infant activity for different ages. Our baby is about two months old. You put this phonograph with the two-month record on it in the nursery. At six in the morning you see that all the supplies for that day are in the proper place; you see that the Psychophonic Nurse is in her proper place; the baby must also be in her proper place. Then you attach the current to the phonograph and the nanny and start the record. At definite periods of the twenty-four hours the phonograph will call out a number and the nanny will do what is necessary for that hour. It will feed the baby just so often and change it just so often and bathe it just so often. You start it at six and leave it alone till six the next morning.”
“That sounds fine,” said the wife, sarcastically, “but suppose the baby gets wet between times? Suppose it starts to cry?”
“I thought of that, too. In every diaper there is a fine copper wire. When that becomes wet a delicate current is sent—you understand I mean an electrical current, not a watery one—to an amplifier and a certain sound is made, and the nanny will properly react to that sound. We have also provided for crying. When the baby does that, the nanny will pick the little one up and rock her to sleep.”
“But the books say that spoils the baby!”
“I know. I thought of that. But then, the poor little thing has to have some love and affection in her life and so I thought it wouldn’t harm it any to be rocked now and then. That was one reason why I had the padding made the way I did. I bet it will be mighty comfortable for the child. Then again, you know I had a nanny and I wanted my child to have one, too.”
“Well,” said the woman, petulantly, “show me how the thing works. I’ve a lot of writing to do and unless I do it, they’ll hire someone else.”
After two hours of close observation, she had to admit that the nanny was just as capable of mechanically looking after the needs of a baby as he was. In fact, the cleverness of the performance made her gasp with astonishment. After each series of complicated acts, the machine went back to the chair and sat down.
The husband was triumphant.
“She does the work nicely,” he said. “Naturally, there’s no intelligence—but none is needed in the early months of childcare.”
* * * *
The Psychophonic Nurse performed her duties in a way that would have been a credit to any woman. Of course there were times when things didn’t go as well as they should, but the fault was always with the human side of the arrangement and not the mechanical. Usually the mother was to blame because she didn’t put the supply of food or clothes in exactly the right place and once a new servant played havoc by cleaning the room and putting the nanny and the chair on the wrong side of the crib. Still, with a little supervision and care, things went very well indeed, and in a very short time the baby became accustomed to her nanny, and the mother was satisfied to spend a few minutes every morning arranging supplies and then leave the two alone for the rest of the day. Every two weeks a new record was placed in the phonograph, for it was determined that it was necessary to make a change in the program at least that often.
Mrs. Teeple, thoroughly happy with her new freedom, now devoted her entire time to literature. Her articles, which appeared in the Saturday issue of The Business Woman’s Advisor, were brilliant and aroused the most favorable comment from all parts of the world. An English firm asked her to write a book on Woman, the Conqueror, and so relieved was she of household worries, that at once she started to pound out the introduction on her noiseless, electrical typewriter. Once in a while she felt the need of exercise and would stroll around the house, and occasionally look into the nursery. Now and then she would pick the little one up. As the child grew older, this made her cry, so the mother decided that it was best not to interfere with the daily routine.
In spite of their efforts to conceal the activity of their new assistant, the news spread through the little town. The neighbors called, and while they had all kinds of excuses, there was no doubt about what it was they really wanted to see. Of course, opinions differed, and rather sharply. There were some of the older women who fearlessly denounced such conduct as unconditionally bad, but most of the women were secretly jealous and demanded that their husbands also buy a mechanical nursemaid.
The news spread beyond the confines of the town. Descriptions of a most interesting and erroneous nature began to appear in the newspapers. Finally, to avoid unscientific criticism, Mrs. Teeple wrote a full account of the way she was raising her child and sold it to the New York Comet, fully illustrated, for five thousand dollars. At once the Eastinghouse Electric Company was swamped with orders which they simply filed for future delivery. The entire machine was covered with patents and these were all the property of Teeple, who, for the time being, merely said that he wanted to make further studies before he would consider the sale of his rights.
For several months it seemed the discussion would never end. College debating teams selected as their subject, Shall the Child of the Future Be Raised by the Mother or by a Psychophonic Nurse? The leaders of the industrial world spent anxious evenings wondering whether such an invention would not simplify the labor problem. Very early in the social furor that was aroused, Henry Cecil, who had taken the place of Wells as an author of scientifiction, wrote a number of brilliant articles in which he showed a world where all the work was done by similar machines. Not only the work of nurses, but of mechanics, day laborers, and farmers could be done by machinery. He told of an age when mankind, relieved of the need to labor, could enter into a golden age of case. The Working day would be one hour long. Each mechanician would go to the factory, oil and adjust a dozen automatons, see that they had the material for twenty-four hours production, and then turn on the electrical current and leave them working till the next day.
Life, Henry Cecil said, would not only become easier, but also better in every way. Society, relieved of the necessity of paying labor, would be able to supply the luxuries of life to everyone. No more would women toil in the kitchen and men on the farm. The highest civilization could be attained because mankind would now have time and leisure to play. And in his argument he showed that, while workmen in the huge assembling plants had largely become machines in their automatic activities, still they had accidents, sickness, and discontent, ending in troublesome strikes. These would all be avoided by mechanical workmen; of course, for a while there would have to be human supervision, but if it were possible to make a machine that would work, why not make one that would supervise the work of other machines? If one machine could use raw material, why couldn’t other machines be trained to distribute the supplies and carry away the finished product? Cecil foresaw the factory of the future running twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, furnishing everything necessary for the comfort of the human race. At once the ministers of the Gospel demanded a six-day week for the machines, and a proper observance of the Sabbath.
Strange though it may seem, all this discussion seemed natural to the general public. For years they had been educated to use electrical apparatus in their homes. The scrubbing and polishing of floors, washing of dishes, washing and ironing of clothes, the sewing of clothes, grass cutting, cleaning of the furniture
, had all been done by electricity for many years. In every department of the world’s activity, the white servant, electricity, was in common use. In a little western town a baby was actually being cared for by a Psychophonic Nurse. If one baby, why not all babies? If a machine could do that work, why couldn’t machines be made to do all other kinds of work?
The lighter fiction began to use the idea. A really clever article appeared in The London Spode, the magazine of society in England. It commented on the high cost of human companionship, and how much the average young woman demanded of her escort, not only in regard to the actual cash expenditure, but also of his time. When he should be resting and gaining strength for his labors in the office, she demanded long evenings at the theater or dance or petting parties in lonely automobiles. The idea was advanced that every man should have a psychophonic affinity. He could take her to the restaurant, but she wouldn’t eat, at the theater she could be checked with his opera cloak and top hat. If he wanted to dance, she would dance with him and she would stop just when he wanted her to and then, in his apartment, he could pet her and she would pet him and there would be no scandal. He could buy her in a store, blonde or brunette and when he was tired of her, trade her in for the latest model, with the newest additions and latest line of phonographic chatter records. Every woman could have a mechanical lover. He could do the housework in the daytime while she was at the office, and at night he could act as escort in public or pet her in private. The phonograph would declare a million times, “I love you,” and a million times his arms would demonstrate the truth of the declaration. For some decades the two sexes had become more and more discontented with each other. Psychophonic lovers would solve all difficulties of modern social life.
Naturally, this issue of the Spode was refused admission to the United State on the grounds that it contained immoral literature. At once it was extensively bootlegged and read by millions of people, who otherwise would never have heard of it. A new phrase was added to the slang. Men who formerly were called “dumbbells”, “creeps”, or “drips”, were now referred to as “psychophonic affinities”. If a man was duller than usual, his girlfriend would say, “Get a better electric attachment. Your radio tubes arc wearing out and your wires are rusting. It’s about time I exchanged you for a newer model.”
In the meantime, life in the Teeple home was progressing as usual. Mrs. Teeple had all the time she wanted for her literary work and was making a name for herself in the field of letters. She was showing her husband and friends just what a woman could do, if she had leisure to do it. She felt that in no way was she neglecting her child. One hour every morning was spent in preparing the supplies and the modified milk for the following twenty-four hours. After that she felt perfectly safe in leaving the child with the mechanical nanny; in fact, she said that she felt more comfortable than if the baby were being cared for by an ignorant, uninterested girl.
The baby soon learned that the mechanical woman was the one who did everything for her and all the love of the child was centered on her nanny. For some months it did not seem to realize much more than that it was being cared for in a very competent manner and was always very comfortable. Later it found out that this care would not come unless it was in a very definite position on the bed. This was after it had started to roll around. Dimly it must have found out that the nanny had certain limitations, for it began to learn to always return to its correct position in the middle of the crib. Naturally, difficulties arose while she was learning to do this. Once she was upside down and the nanny was absolutely unable to pin on the diaper, but the baby, frightened, started to cry and the machine picked it up and, by a clever working of the mechanism, put her down in the right position. By the time the baby was a year old a very good working partnership had been formed between them and at times the nanny was even teaching the little child to eat with a spoon and drink out of a cup. Of course various adjustments had to be made from time to time, but this was not a matter of any great difficulty.
Tired with the day’s work, Mrs. Teeple always slept soundly. Her husband, on the other hand, often wandered around the house during the night, and on such occasions developed the habit of visiting the nursery. He would sit there silently for hours, watching the sleeping baby and the sleepless nanny.
This did not satisfy him, so his next step was to disconnect the electric current which activated the nanny. Now, with the phonograph quiet and the nanny unable to respond to the stimuli from the baby and the phonograph, the father took care of the child. Of course, there was not much to do, but it thrilled him to do even that little, and now, for nearly a half year, the three of them led a double life. The machine sat motionless all night till life was restored in the early morning, when Teeple connected her to an electric socket. The baby soon learned the difference between the living creature who so often cared for it at night and the mechanical nanny, and while she loved the machine woman, still she had a different kind of affection for the great warm man who so tenderly and awkwardly did what was needful for her comfort during the dark hours of the night. She had special sounds that she made just for him and, to her delight, he answered her and somehow, the sounds he made pulled memories of similar sounds from the deep well of her inherited memory and by the time she was a year old she knew many words which she only used in the darkness—talking with the man—and she called him Father.
He thrilled when he held her little soft body close to his own and felt her little hand close around his thumb. He would wait till she was asleep and then silently kiss her on the top of her head, well-covered with soft new hair, colored like the sunshine. He told her over and over that he loved her, and gradually she learned what the words meant and cooed her appreciation. They developed little games to be played in the darkness, and very silently, because no matter how happy they were, they must never, never wake mother, for if she ever knew what was going on at night, they could never play again.
The man was happy in his new companionship with his baby. He told himself that those hours made life worth while.
After some months of such nocturnal activity, Mrs. Teeple observed that her husband came to the breakfast table rather sleepy. As she had no actual knowledge of how he spent his nights, it was easy for her to imagine. Being an author, imagination was one of her strongest mental faculties. Being a woman, it was necessary for her to voice these suspicions.
“You seem a bit sleepy mornings. Are you going out with another woman?
Teeple looked at her with narrowing eyelids.
“What if I am?” he demanded. “That was part of our companionate wedding contract—that we could do that sort of thing if we wanted to.”
As this was the truth, Susanna Teeple knew she had no argument, but she wasn’t ready to stop talking.
“I should think that the mere fact that you are the father of an innocent child should keep your morals high. Think of her and your influence on her.”
“I do think of that. In fact, only yesterday I arranged to have some phonograph records made that, in addition to everything else, would teach the baby to talk. I’ve asked an old friend of mine who teaches English at Harvard to make that part of the record, so that from the first, the baby’s pronunciation will be perfect. I am also considering having another Psychophonic Nurse made with man’s clothes. The nanny needs some repairs, and it’s about time our child had the benefit of a father’s love. It needs the masculine influence. I’ll have it made my size and we can dress it in some of my clothes and have an artist paint a face that looks like me. That way the child will gradually grow to know me and by the time she’s three years old I’ll be able to play with her and she’ll be friendly instead of frightened. In the twilight, the neighbors will think that I’m taking the child out in the baby carriage for an airing and will give me credit for being a real father.”
The wife looked at him. At times she just did not understand him. It was a few days after this conversation that Mrs. Teeple called her husband at the factory.
“I wish you’d come home as soon as you can.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I think the baby has nephritis.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a disease I’ve just been reading about. I happened to go into the nursery and the nanny has had to change the baby twenty-seven times since this morning.”
Teeple assured his wife that he would be right home and that she should leave everything just as it was. He lost no time making it home since he had been taking care of the baby at night, she had become very precious to him.
His wife met him at the door.
“How do you know nanny had to change her so often?”
“I counted the napkins, and the awful part was that many of them were not moist, just mussed up a little.”
Teeple went to the nursery. He watched the baby for some minutes in silence. Then he took her hand, and finally he announced his decision.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her.”
“Of course you ought to know. You are such an-expert on baby diseases.” His wife was sarcastic.
“Oh! I’m not a doctor, but I do have a lot of common sense. Tomorrow is Sunday. Instead of golfing, I’ll stay home and observe her. You leave the typewriter alone for a day and stay with me, won’t you?”
“I wish I could, but I’m just finishing my book, Perfect Harmony between Parent and Child, and I must finish it before Monday morning, so you’ll have to do your observing by yourself. I think, however, that it would be best for you to send for a doctor.”
The Twelfth Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK™: David H. Keller, M.D. Page 17