Still another little baby,—he was the fourth,—was all red. He just came that way. His eyes were black and his hair was straight and black. He was bound up tight and slipped into a basket and carried around on his mother’s back. He didn’t think this was queer, even when he grew up. He thought all little babies were carried that way. And he thought all fathers and mothers had red skin and black hair and wore leather coats and trousers trimmed with feathers. For his did.
But long before he was old enough to notice any of these things he knew his mother loved her little red baby that she carried on her back, and he loved to have her take him out of his basket bed and rock him in her arms and sing to him, saying:
“Cheda-e
Nakahu-kalu
Be-be!
Nakahu-kalu
Be-be!
E-Be-be!”
For all this happened in America long, long ago, and he was a little Indian baby.
The last little baby, and he makes five, was all white. He just came so too. His eyes were blue and his hair was gold and he looked like a little baby you know. And he wore dear little white dresses and little knitted shoes. When he looked up he saw his father’s white skin and his mother’s blue eyes. When the baby was big enough he saw what kind of clothes his father and his mother wore,—but the story doesn’t tell what they were like. And when the baby was big enough he saw they all lived in a big dirty noisy city, but the story doesn’t tell what kind of a house they lived in. And the story doesn’t tell whether he thought any of these things queer when he was little or when he grew up; probably because you know all these things yourselves. But the story does tell that long before he was old enough to notice any of these things he knew his mother loved her little white baby with blue eyes and golden hair. And it tells that he loved to have her rock him in her arms and sing to him this song:
“Listen, wee baby,
I’d sing you a song;
The arms of the mothers
Are tender and strong,
The arms of the mothers
Where babies belong!
Brown mothers and yellow
And black and red too,
They love their babies
As I, dear, love you,—
My little white blossom
With wide eyes of blue!
And your wee golden head,
I do love it, I do!
And your feet and your hands
I love you there too!
And my love makes me sing to you
Sing to you songs,
Lying hushed in my arms
Where a baby belongs!”
For all this is happening in your own country every day and he is a little American baby. Perhaps you know his father,—perhaps you know the baby,—perhaps, oh, perhaps, you have heard his mother sing!