Evening Star Newspaper, June 9, 1929, Page 99

THE SUNDAY e e e = Bringing Up The Baby Honeybunch Had Her Ideas And Spitke Had His, So They Compromised, and You'd Never GuessHZ ho ¥ on. BY JOSEPH FAUS. HE event caused considerable gossip among the neighbors; they wanted to know why the youmg couple eould- n't wait for one of their own flesh and blood, instead of up and adopt- ing & strange child from the orphanage. But Spike Maloney, the retired pugilist, and his wife, Honeybunch, a former actress, seemed content with parenthood by proxy. In his bil- liard parlor Spike mournfully hummed “The Prisoner’s Song” and, as all his cronies knew, that meant he was as happy as a clam at high water; while Honeybunch was so enraptured withh the baby she actually missed several changes of program at the nearby vaude- ville theater. The butcher boy, 35 years old, and curious as all the rest, attempt- ed to solve the local conundrum. “What's it to- day, Miz Ma- loney?” he asked as he came in, pad in hand, one morning a week after the child was legally born. “How much is a Spring fryer?” queried Honey- bunch brightly, looking up from where she was washing the dish- es. Honeybunch would have made a nice ad for ho- siery or bathroom suits; billboard reviewers used to refer to her as petite, with pleas- ing personality and well rounded figure. The butcher boy’s mind revert- ed reluciantly to the other chicken. “W hatever yon make of «a spring fryer him advised the butch- is 75 cents per er boy, “don’t make him Pound,” he re- a butcher boy.” pn:.g.”ng oo pound of liver and wrap it up in today's paper if you don’t mind,” ordered Honeybunch with a disarming smile. “Ha! Ha!” hollowly laughed the butcher boy, as he seribbled down the item. “Say, how's the new baby?” “IT'S a wow!"” enthused Honeybunch, and a second later, as if in verification of the claim, a long “Wo-0-0-w!” issued from the ad- g Troom. «] was only trying to teach him to wash his own back, but he just didn't have the reach,” explained Spike, tall and not bad looking, ex- cept for a caulifiower ear, coming into the kitchen with a year-old infant, wet and naked, in his arms. He turned to the butcher boy with a proud grin. “Meet,” he gayly invited, “the future heavyweight champ of the world.” Honeybunch winked past her husband’s shoulder as the butcher boy gravely shook hands with the future champion. “He means,” she said calmly, “the future great vaudeville star. My boy is going ta out-Sale Chic, and I don’t mean maybe, perhaps, or if.” As Spike's face mottled in mild vexation, the butcher boy, used to domestic tiffs, diverted his attention by asking: “Say, what'd you all name the youngster?” «I wanted to call him Battling Buster,” re- sponded the father. “That's a real, high-class monicker for the lad that's going to kayo the best bruisers from now on. Honeybunch, though, wanted to name him Marmaduke, and so we compromised and named him Marma- duke; but after this there won't be no compro- mises, and when I say compromises I don’t mean no Appomattox Courthouses or San Juan “well,” offered the butcher boy, ‘“whatever you make out of him, don't make him a butcher boy. It's a dog's life.” “1 know,” symphathized Honeybunch. “I don't like frankfurters either.” IN time, the obliging and observing soliciter of the meat emporium was able to divulge, confidentially, of course, to his many customers some interesting facts relative to the Maloney menage. The butcher bey told how one day Honey- bunch had shown him their medicine cabinet and in its far-flung bottle line was every rem- edy conceivable for juvenile ills. She ex- plained that she and Spike were taking the best care possible of their beloved Marmaduke, and that if ever a surgeon advised that he undergo an operation for something she just knew that she would die, die, die, and that Spike would die, die, die, too. Both of them, the reporter declared, thought the bambino brilliant, beautiful, cute, cunning and perfect physically. “I swear,” admired Spike, “yow’d think the kid was going te oe a contortionist, he’s so supple and clever. Why, honest, I've seen him put his big toe in his mouth, and that’s more than I can do.” Then the butcher boy narrated with relish the difference of opinions between the parents regarding their offspring’s future. Honey- bunch, he said, some days would be in the liv- ing room playing and singing all the popular ballads to Marmaduke, who would sit on the rug curiously listening to the solos of his lovely mamma. Then the ambitious parent would dance mer- rily around, as she explained, “to instill the spirit of Terpsichore” in the child. She said she believed in training him early; she was pos- itive her baby would be the supreme vaude~ ville artist of his day. As for Spike, he watched all such behavior with sour countenance, and whenever oppor- tunity afforded he took his innings with his son. The butcher boy stated that often he saw or overheard the father lecturing to the wide- eyed baby on the difficult art of the left hook STAR, WASHINGTON, *D..'C;?JUN : e e S E9, 1929:PART "R S0 Spike often lectured his baby on the difficule art of the left-hook and the solar plexus jab. and the solar plexus jab. He said that the fond parent gave the kid real rubdowns, flexed his biceps and actually taught him to hit him on the nose with a chubby fist. Further, he selemnly averred, one day he had seen Spike trying to coax the baby to chew on & raw beefsteak, saying that it was time he was eating some real he-man’s food. Luckily, the relator appended, his wife came in at that moment and gave him a piece of her mind and a bigger piece of the broomstick. In fact, this unfortunate incident was the forerunner of eothers equally unfortunate that finally drove the husband and wife to lquids— Spike to drink and Honeybunch to tears. uwom just can’t understand these things,” gloomily declaimed the for- mer, one day to the butcher boy when he met him on the street. He had Marmaduke in his arms and the kid, at least—unaware of his hotly debated future—looked exceedingly happy. “If it's a girl baby,” went on Spike virtu- ously, “I say let the mother have the main say as to whether she should be a school teacher or a channel swimmer; but if it's a boy baby I say let the father have the main say as to whether he shall be a leather-pusher or a lounge lizard. “I don't mind adding, for I know you won’t repeat it, my wife and me have been having some disagreements lately, and it's upset me something awful. I need something to cheer me up. Say, do you mind holding Battling Honeybunch would sing and dance merrily around Marmaduke, positive that he'd turn ous to be the supreme vaudeville artist of his day. Buster & moment while I step in here for &, near beer2” “Sure not,” acquiesced the butcher boy, glad to be of some service to his customer, who ap- pretty dry.” “No, I'm net dry” shortly rejoined the “I'll use this did I give up for you, I ask? What did I give up for you? What did I give up for the sake of married life and a baby? Just when everybody from Key West to Porte land was beginning to know and admire me, Honeybunch Hunter, as the best soubrefte in any musical comedy company outside of the Big Town, just when I heard that Ziegfeld hisself was fixing to wire me an offer to a thou- sand a week, just when they all said the movies was sending their scouts to look me over—I ask you what happened then? “You come along and induced me to marry you—you, a third-rate palooka who to get up strength for a fight had to eat onions for sup- per, and whose manager had charley-horse in his right arm from throwing the sponge in the ring so often. “But, dumbbell that I was, I was willing to give up .all my bright and happy future in the big time, ready to let go my just claim to fame and fortune, for the sake of settling down with you and raising a family. And now that we got the family, what do you want to do with it? “Why, raise it to be another ham-and-egg fighter, just like yourself, to grow up into a false alarm and maybe induce some other tale ented performer to be a fool and marry him, ':Mbceh. goodness knows, I don't want it ever “Why don't you say something? Why don’t you make some alibi? You made plenty of them to the sport editors in the old days. Is your tongue musele-bound like your brain? Why don’t you say something?” Honeybunch paused to give herself some breath and before she could refuel Spike heate edly took up the discussion where she left off. “Yeh, that’s your side of it! Just like a weman! They all have a mind like a small town trolley—one track! Sure, I'll tell you what you give up. A cheap tab’-comedy job to be the wife of a real high-class boxer who, if he hadn't of had some rotten luck and bad decisions, would be right now where Gene Tun- ney is, and that’s no bedtime story. “You know you was getting old, your voice starting to crack and your legs wasn't as spry as they was during the Spanish-American War—yet you stand there and pull that pole= cat about Ziegfeld and the movies. Sure you married me—I couldn’'t help myself—and whac I wanted was love and a family. What I got was hard words and a broomstick, and a family you are trying to make into another stage faile ur?. Jjust because his mother was one. "Now you say something. Just say some- :cl:lmg. ago tg: and say it! I'm listening. You ow p S answers. Why don't you say Before Honeybunch could say something the butcher boy coughed loud!: ] I e y, and Honeybunch Continued on Page Thirteen. . *% 38