Cradle

“ Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green; Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen; And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring; And Johnny's a drummer, and drums for the King. Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all. ”

“ On what used to be the altar step of the north aisle stands a baby's cradle—a cradle on real rockers. A gorgeous coverlet, all trimmed with rich guipure lace, falls from the corners of the cradle in splendid, rich folds. The arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland are carved on the back. And when you look under the head of the cradle you see that a baby lies sleeping in it. A darling tiny baby it is—its little wee face set in a close lace cap and lace ruff, under a kind of lace-trimmed hood that forms part of the pillow. ”

“ It is said the "hand that rocks the cradle is the lever that moves the world." If this be true, then the Indian mother takes no part in the world's movement, for she never has rocked a cradle. The cradle of a child is an oak board two and one-half feet long, and one and one-half feet wide, to which the babe is strapped in a way that the arms and legs are free for exercise and growth. ”

“ The Indian child, in truth, takes its first lesson in the art of endurance, in the cradle. When it cries it need not be unbound to nurse it. If the mother be young, she must put it to sleep herself. If she have younger sisters or daughters they share this care with her. If the lodge be roomy and high, as lodges sometimes are, the cradle is suspended to the top poles [Pg 391] to be swung. If not, or the weather be fine, it is tied to the limb of a tree, with small cords made from the inner bark of the linden, and a vibratory motion given to it from head to foot by the mother or some attendant. ”

“ The cradle, so called from its general resemblance to that article of furniture, has two rockers, which move easily back and forth in two grooves of a frame, which is laid down firmly on the edge of or over the water, so that the person working it may at the same time dip up the water. ”

“ No grandmother, with all her experience, ever rocked a cradle more naturally or with more tranquilizing effect. While she rocks the cradle with her foot, with one hand she fans the infant sleeper, and with the other hand wipes her face with the handkerchief, and occasionally turns her head and views the situation with approval. ”

“ In the background is a cradle with a child, watched over by a placid cat, a cow and a number of yellow chickens, which trip close past the cradle: a deliciously homely and delightfully-painted slice of life, enlivened by the rays falling from the skylight upon the cradle and deepening all the colours in the foreground, so that the blue becomes bluer, the green real, mellow grass-green, and the scene of the cradle, the cat, the cow and the chickens, with a few objects around, placed in the full light, forms the centre of the picture. ”

“ For the beginning of the cradle is not the real beginning. That is only the end of the darkness of forebeing that is pierced with a woman's pang. That is still an uneasy slumber, yea, even though it weakly smile, and by and by stumble over its syllables, and stumble over its own uncertain feet, and walk, and spell, and use a tennis-racket. It is incomplete, and will never be complete in itself. ”

“ When fairly in his big, old-fashioned cradle, the boy would lie, looking more like a dandelion than ever, in his yellow flannel night-gown, playing with his toes, or rocking himself to and fro, calling the cradle his boat, and blithely telling his mother that he was sailing 'far way to find Daddy.' When tired of play, he lay still and asked her to sing to him. ”

“ The wife of a chief or wealthy man will not, however, rest satisfied with the mere strip of skin by way of a cradle, but has one of an elaborate and ornamental character. The illustration represents a remarkably fine example of the South African cradle, and is drawn from a specimen in my collection.
It is nearly two feet in length by one in width, and is made of antelope skin, with the hair still remaining. The first care of the maker has been to construct a bag, narrow toward the bottom, gradually widening until within a few inches of the opening, when it again contracts. ”

“ She looked up and down the vista of little beds and said softly, “Just to think that a baby will come to claim every one of them—”
But another clerk was before them another of those perfect beings whom all the shopping public of the wide world may well envy Paris—and a very few other cities.
“A cradle! at about what price?—this way, I beg.” They went around to the other side and there stood twenty in a row—all different—each exquisite—some in enamel, some in carved wood, some in gilt or in silver, some made of great silken ropes interwoven, some made of twisted bamboo. ”

“ Alfred called at a cabinet maker's and ordered a cradle made to order. The rockers must be pointed and have plenty of circle so it would not overset easily. The German agreed to have the cradle completed by Saturday.
Sunday was selected as the day to introduce baby Field to the soothing influence of a cradle. Alfred advised "All you have to do is sit near it. You can read or sew. Just gently push the cradle with your foot. You can have a rope reaching to your bed. If the baby gets restless at night all you have to do is hold on to the rope." ”

“ To the cradle in a manger the wise men of old went to offer gifts. To a cradle I would ask you to go with me to-day; to a whole homeful of cribs; which is known by a word that means crib and manger and cradle all in one—"The Crèche."
There is something, as it seems to me, appropriate in this French word to the broad thoroughfare (so like one of the outer boulevards of Paris) out of which we turn when we have walked a score or two of yards from the Stepney Station, or where some other visitors alight from the big yellow tramway car running from Aldgate to Stepney Causeway. ”

“ The day was intensely hot, yet about two hundred men were at work in the full glare of the sun, washing for gold--some with tin pans, some with close-woven Indian baskets, but the greater part had a rude machine, known as the cradle. ”

“ In such a cradle they lay & tie in the Infant, without any linnen clothes or sheets, instead of which they lay him on a sort of soft moss, of a red color, which they dry in Summer, and have great plenty of it. When the Infant is to be rocked, they let the cradle hang by a rope from the roof of the hut, and by thrusting the cradle and tossing it from one side to the other, they lull him a sleep. ”

“ These fingers, called the cradle, caught the grain as it was cut and helped to leave it in a bunch. In the early cradle-scythe the fingers were few in number and they ran along the blade for only a part of its length, but in America during the colonial period the cradle [88] was improved by lengthening the fingers and increasing their number. At the time of the Revolution the improved American cradle was coming into use and by the end of the eighteenth century it was driving out the sickle. ”

“ The cradle was made by a practical wag, known as Billy Bradley, who attended to it every Show Day. When there was a clean sheet of actual offenders, Bradley contented himself with “rocking” men who volunteered just for the fun of the thing. Finish was imparted to the performance by a fiddler, named Smith Keighley, playing “Rock’d in the cradle of the deep” during the operation. Many were the visitors who came to see the stirrings in this corner of the town. ”

“ Cradle.—The rocker or cradle is still less than the tom and inferior in capacity. It bears some resemblance in shape and size to a child's cradle, and rests upon similar rockers. The cradle-box is about forty inches long, twenty wide, and four high, and it stands with the upper end about two feet higher than the lower end, which is open so that the tailings can run out. On the upper end of the cradle-box stands a hopper or riddle-box twenty inches square, with sides four inches high. The bottom of this riddle box is of sheet-iron, perforated with holes half an inch in diameter. ”

“ NURSERY AND CRADLE SONGS OF THE FOREST.
The tickenagun, or Indian cradle, is an object of great pride with an Indian mother. She gets the finest kind of broad cloth she possibly can to make an outer swathing band for it, and spares no pains in ornamenting it with beads and ribbons, worked in various figures. In the lodges of those who can afford it, there is no article more showy and pretty than the full bound cradle. The frame of the cradle itself is a curiosity. It consists of three pieces. ”

“ I didn't order but two rockers. I never ordered it that big. Do you think I'm a fool. I know what a cradle is."
"Well, you don't call that thing a cradle, do you?" inquired Aunt Tillie.
"Well, it's as near as you will get to one, people don't know nothing about babies or cradles in these days."
The cradle, with its three rockers and six sharp points and a big old fashioned rocking chair with four more pointed rockers, made the baby's room a storage place for ancient instruments of torture.
[534] The night was a wild one, winds without, colic within. Eddie knew the route to the paregoric. ”

“ Whatever of skill or fame women have acquired through the ages in other departments, the nursery has ever been an undisputed sphere for woman's work. Nor have we reason to think that, in the centuries we have been considering, she was not faithful to this her especial province. The cradle of Henry V., yet in existence, is one of the best specimens of nursery furniture in the fourteenth century which have come down to us. Beautifully carved foliage fills the space between the uprights and stays and stand of the cradle, which is not upon rockers, but apparently swings like the modern crib. ”

“ They reached the hole at length, and raising himself to his knees, the wind being somewhat less boisterous while the rain was falling, the old man clutched the heavily-weighted cradle in both arms, and attempted to force it into the haven of safety he had spent his strength in forming. ”

“ On the head of the cradle is a common sieve, upon which the auriferous earth is placed; water is then poured on it, and as soon as the machine is set in motion, the gold, sand and dust are carried into the body of the cradle, while the gravel is rejected. ”

“ The North-western flatheads subject the head of a child during the first eight or ten months of its life to pressure produced by means of a cradle or cradle-board, provided with a board which rests upon the forehead and tied down upon it by means of cords extending to the foot of the cradle, while the other end is connected to the head of the cradle with a hingelike attachment. ”

“ The body of the cradle is made of the ever-useful itirritti reed, which is split into slips about the tenth of an inch in width, and then woven so as to make a kind of basket, open at one end and down one side. The edges are strengthened by a rod of flexible wood lashed firmly to them, and the cradle is brought into shape by means of a framework consisting of tolerably strong sticks. ”

“ A fat, phlegmatic-looking baby is peacefully reposing in a cradle, which is simply half a monster pumpkin scooped out and dried; it is the most intensely rustic cradle in the world. Surely, this youngster's head ought to be level on agricultural affairs, when he grows up, if anybody's ought. From Napoleon my route leads up the Maumee River and canal, first trying the tow-path of the latter, and then relinquishing it for the very fair wagon-road. ”

“ A cradle fashioned out of its wood had the power of lulling her child to sleep, and when he grew up he was able to hold converse with his mother by means of a pipe formed from the twigs which grew about the stump. ”

“ Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold in a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, recover practically every colour.
The gold-washing ‘cradle’ is a box, shaped something like a boot, and the size of a travelling trunk, with rockers on, like a baby’s cradle, and a stick up behind for a handle; on top, where you’ll put your foot into the boot, is a tray with a perforated iron bottom; the clay and gravel is thrown on the tray, water thrown on it, and the cradle rocked smartly. ”

“ Little Papoose
bound in its stiff cradle is one of the drollest things imaginable. Paint a small doll copper color, make its hair black, and bind the baby in a cradle cut from brown pasteboard (Fig. 200) . Cut along heavy line and bend forward the tongue R along the dotted line, bring the strap S across and glue the end on the under side of the cradle; then line the cradle with white tissue-paper and place the Indian child on it; spread a piece of vivid red tissue-paper over the infant, bringing the sides of the cover on the under side of the cradle, where you must glue them. ”

“ The boy on the mule, in 1506, and the child in the cradle, in 1676, are two pleasant extremes of a line where all between is, indeed, fearfully attractive, but of that quality also which might make not only men but angels weep. ”

“ A mail cart would be of little use in a country where there are no roads, but this strange cradle can be used instead of one. When the mother wants to go to the garden or call upon a friend, all she has to do is to take the cradle from the rope by which it is suspended, and hang it down her back with what we may call the handle of the bag over her head. ”

“ The seventeenth-century baby slept, as his nineteenth-century descendant does, in a cradle. Nothing could be prettier than the old cradles that have survived successive years of use with many generations of babies. ”

“ For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world. ”

“ The cradle is usually deposited in some safe corner, and the baby is left [pg 547] to sleep or amuse itself with its infantine thoughts. The cradle is sometimes attached to two ropes to form a swing, and when the mother becomes conscious of the child's awakening she uncovers its head at times and the tiny thing casts its eyes around. ”