One of the most marked traits of the latter weeks of this month was the surprising rapidity with which things were grouping themselves in the baby’s mind by association, in a way that came nearer and nearer to definite memory. She coaxed for a spoon, and when she got it was still discontented, till we found that she wished it to have milk in, as she knew befitted a spoon—though for the milk itself she did not care at all. She understood what particular frolic was to be expected from each of us. She turned, when she saw reflections, to look for the real object. She made demonstrations of joy when she saw her baby carriage, knowing well what it portended.
In two or three cases, there was at last unmistakable evidence of true memory, for at least a few minutes. For instance, in the last week of the month, sitting on her mother’s lap, the baby caught sight of a knot of loops that adorned the centre of an ottoman close by, and reached her arms for it. By way of a joke on her, her mother set her on the ottoman. It was quite beyond the baby’s sense of locality to divine what had become of the knot, and she looked all about her diligently to find it, leaning this way and that. By and by her mother took her back into her arms to nurse; but all the time she was nursing, she would stop now and then, sit up, and lean over to look for the lost knot.
At another time, when her mother came into the room with a new hat on, she reached out her hands for it with delight; her mother retreated at once, and put the hat safely out of sight, but when some minutes later the baby saw her again, her first look was at the top of her head, and seeing it now bare of lace and buttercups, she broke into a disappointed whimper.
All this time practice in her earlier attainments went vigorously on. She was watching, handling, reaching after things, all day long. Especially she watched all the movements of people; often, now, as they went in and out of doors, as they were seen through windows, came into sight or disappeared around corners. She must have been getting thus some idea of the way walls acted in shutting out her view, and of the relation of visible and invisible positions.
She had perhaps more troubles in this month than ever before, what with some fear of people, and the discomforts connected with her first pair of teeth, and also with the beginning of the weaning period. There were a number of days when her health and spirits were considerably depressed, and there was a good deal of fretting. When the teeth were fairly through, and the insufficient food supplemented, her spirits came up with a bound, and she was more joyous than ever.
She had her first skin pain in this month—a scratched finger from a clasp on my shoulder—and wailed with vigor; yet it was forgotten in a few moments, and never thought of again. It was evident that skin sensitiveness was still low, and that hurts left no after soreness.
It was about ten days before the end of the month that she first showed a decided emotional dependence on her mother. She had been separated from her for some time (by a tedious dentist’s engagement), had become hungry and sleepy, and had been frightened by an abrupt stranger. At last she settled into a pitiful, steady crying—stopping at every angle in the corridor where I walked with her, and watching eagerly till it was turned, then breaking out anew when her mother did not prove to be around the corner. This tragic experience left a much deeper mark than the physical woes, and for some days the baby watched her mother rather anxiously, as if she feared she might lose her again unless she kept her eyes constantly upon her.
And so she was come to the end of her first half year. The breathing automaton had become an eager and joyous little being, seeing and hearing and feeling much as we do, knowing her own body somewhat, and controlling it throughout to a certain extent, laughing and frolicking, enjoying the vision of the world with a delicious zest, clinging to us not so much for physical protection as for human companionship, beginning to show a glimmer of intelligence, and to cross over with sign and sound the abyss between spirit and spirit.
X
BEGINNINGS OF LOCOMOTION
When a baby has learned to see things clearly, and has known the joys of handling them, it is natural that he should soon come to feel the need of getting to them when they chance to lie beyond arm reach. Apparently the first impulse to move the whole body does always come from this desire to get at something; but I doubt if this remains a very important motive throughout the whole process of learning. There is so much in that process that is instinctive that the baby seems to be in great part taken up and carried on by a current of blind impulse. Then, too, the whole structure of bone, and joint, and muscle is so fitted to certain positions and movements that in the mere chance exercising of his limbs he is steadily brought nearer to the great race acts of balance and locomotion.