THE OLD CRADLE.
The historic and old-time cradle is dead, and buried in the rubbish of the
garret. A baby of five months, filled with modern notions, would spurn to
be rocked in the awkward and rustic thing. The baby spits the "Alexandra
feeding-bottle" out of its mouth, and protests against the old-fashioned
cradle, giving emphasis to its utterances by throwing down a rattle that
cost seven dollars, and kicking off a shoe imported at fabulous expense,
and upsetting the "baby-basket," with all its treasures of ivory hair
brushes and "Meen Fun." Not with voice, but by violence of gesture and
kicks and squirms, it says: "What! You going to put me in that old cradle?
Where is the nurse? My patience! What does mother mean? Get me a 'patented
self-rocker!'"
The parents yield. In comes the new-fangled crib. The machine is wound up,
the baby put in, the crib set in motion, and mother goes off to make a
first-rate speech at the "Woman's Rights Convention!"
Conundrum: Why is a maternal elocutionist of this sort like a mother of old
time, who trained four sons for the holy ministry, and through them was the
means of reforming and saving a thousand souls, and through that thousand
of saving ten thousand more? You answer: "No resemblance at all!" You are
right. Guessed the conundrum the first time. Go up to the head of the
class!
Now, the "patented self-rockers," no doubt, have their proper use; but go
up with me into the garret of your old homestead, and exhume the cradle
that you, a good while ago, slept in. The rockers are somewhat rough, as
though a farmer's plane had fashioned them, and the sides just high enough
for a child to learn to walk by. What a homely thing, take it all in all!
You say: Stop your depreciation! We were all rocked in that. For about
fifteen years that cradle was going much of the time. When the older child
was taken out, a smaller child was put in. The crackle of the rockers is
pleasant yet in my ears. There I took my first lessons in music as mother
sang to me. Have heard what you would call far better singing since then,
but none that so thoroughly touched me. She never got five hundred dollars
per night for singing three songs at the Academy, with two or three encores
grudgefully thrown in; but without pay she sometimes sang all night, and
came out whenever encored, though she had only two little ears for an
audience. It was a low, subdued tone that sings to me yet across
thirty-five years.
You see the edge of that rocker worn quite deep? That is where her foot was
placed while she sat with her knitting or sewing, on summer afternoons,
while the bees hummed at the door and the shout of the boy at the oxen was
heard afield. From the way the rocker is worn, I think that sometimes the
foot must have been very tired and the ankle very sore; but I do not think
she stopped for that. When such a cradle as that got a-going, it kept on
for years.
Scarlet-fever came in the door, and we all had it; and oh, how the cradle
did go! We contended as to who should lie in it, for sickness, you know,
makes babies of us all. But after a while we surrendered it to Charlie. He
was too old to lie in it, but he seemed so very, very sick; and with him in
the cradle it was "Rock!" "Rock!" "Rock!" But one day, just as long ago as
you can remember, the cradle stopped. When a child is asleep, there is no
need of rocking. Charlie was asleep. He was sound asleep. Nothing would
wake him. He needed taking up. Mother was too weak to do it. The neighbors
came in to do that, and put a flower, fresh out of the garden-dew, between
the two still hands. The fever had gone out of the cheek, and left it
white, very white--the rose exchanged for the lily. There was one less to
contend for the cradle. It soon started again, and with a voice not quite
so firm as before, but more tender, the old song came back: "Bye! bye!
bye!" which meant more to you than "Il Trovatore," rendered by opera troupe
in the presence of an American audience, all leaning forward and nodding to
show how well they understood Italian.
There was a wooden canopy at the head of the old cradle that somehow got
loose and was taken off. But your infantile mind was most impressed with
the face which much of the time hovered over you. Other women sometimes
looked in at the child, and said: "That child's hair will be red!" or,
"What a peculiar chin!" or, "Do you think that child will live to grow up?"
and although you were not old enough to understand their talk, by instinct
you knew it was something disagreeable, and began to cry till the dear,
sweet, familiar face again hovered and the rainbow arched the sky. Oh, we
never get away from the benediction of such a face! It looks at us through
storm and night. It smiles all to pieces the world's frown. After
thirty-five years of rough, tumbling on the world's couch, it puts us in
the cradle again, and hushes us as with the very lullaby of heaven.
Let the old cradle rest in the garret. It has earned its quiet. The hands
that shook up its pillow have quit work. The foot that kept the rocker in
motion is through with its journey. The face that hovered has been veiled
from mortal sight. Cradle of blessed memories! Cradle that soothed so many
little griefs! Cradle that kindled so many hopes! Cradle that rested so
many fatigues! Sleep now thyself, after so many years of putting others to
sleep!
One of the great wants of the age is the right kind of a cradle and the
right kind of a foot to rock it. We are opposed to the usurpation of
"patented self-rockers." When I hear a boy calling his grandfather "old
daddy," and see the youngster whacking his mother across the face because
she will not let him have ice-cream and lemonade in the same stomach, and
at some refusal holding his breath till he gets black in the face, so that
to save the child from fits the mother is compelled to give him another
dumpling, and he afterward goes out into the world stubborn, willful,
selfish and intractable,--I say that boy was brought up in a "patented
self-rocker." The old-time mother would have put him down in the
old-fashioned cradle, and sung to him,
"Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed;"
and if that did not take the spunk put of him would have laid him in an
inverted position across her lap, with his face downward, and with a
rousing spank made him more susceptible to the music.
When a mother, who ought to be most interested in training her children for
usefulness and heaven, gives her chief time to fixing up her back hair, and
is worried to death because the curls she bought are not of the same shade
as the sparsely-settled locks of her own raising; and culturing the
dromedarian hump of dry-goods on her back till, as she comes into church, a
good old elder bursts into laughter behind his pocket-handkerchief, making
the merriment sound as much like a sneeze as possible; her waking moments
employed with discussions about polonaise, and vert-de-gris velvets, and
ecru percale, and fringed guipure, and poufs, and sashes, and rose-de-chêne
silks, and scalloped flounces; her happiness in being admired at balls and
parties and receptions,--you may know that she has thrown off the care of
her children, that they are looking after themselves, that they are being
brought up by machinery instead of loving hands--in a word, that there is
in her home a "patented self-rocker!"
So far as possible, let all women dress beautifully: so God dresses the
meadows and the mountains. Let them wear pearls and diamonds if they can
afford it: God has hung round the neck of his world strings of diamonds,
and braided the black locks of the storm with bright ribbons of rainbow.
Especially before and right after breakfast, ere they expect to be seen of
the world, let them look neat and attractive for the family's sake. One of
the most hideous sights is a slovenly woman at the breakfast table. Let
woman adorn herself. Let her speak on platforms so far as she may have time
and ability to do so. But let not mothers imagine that there is any new way
of successfully training children, or of escaping the old-time self-denial
and continuous painstaking.
Let this be the commencement of the law suit:
OLD CRADLE
versus
PATENTED SELF-ROCKER.
Attorneys for plaintiff--all the cherished memories of the past.
Attorneys for the defendant--all the humbugs of the present.
For jury--the good sense of all Christendom.
Crier, open the court and let the jury be empaneled.