At eleven months old our little girl could stand alone as long as she cared to, though perhaps it was not till the next month that she felt altogether secure on her feet. She could climb up and down stairs with perfect ease. She could walk held by one hand, but she did not care to, and creeping was still her main means of getting anywhere.

Her understanding of speech had grown wonderfully, and as she was docile in obeying directions, I could always find out whether she knew a thing by name by saying, “Point to the rose,” or “Bring the book to aunty,” and thus found it possible to make out a trustworthy list of the words she knew: fifty-one names of people and things; twenty-eight action words, which she proved she understood by obeying (“give” and “sit down,” and the like), and a few adverbial expressions, like “where” and “all gone”—eighty-four words in all, securely associated with ideas. She understood them in simple combinations, too, such as, “Bring mamma Ruth’s shoes;” and often, where she did not know all the words in a sentence, she could guess quite shrewdly from those she did, interpreting our movements vigilantly.

For her own speech, the small set of spoken words she owned was of little use; indeed, as I have said, these were only exclamations. For talking to us she used a wonderfully vivid and delicate language of grunts, and cries, and movements. She would point to her father’s hat, and beg till it was given her; then creep to him and offer the hat, looking up urgently into his face, or perhaps would get to her feet at his side and try to put it on his head; when he put it on, up would go her little arms with pleading cries till he took her, and then she would point to the door and coax to be carried outdoors. She would offer a handkerchief with asking sounds when she wished to play peekaboo; or a whistle, to be blown; or a top, to be spun. When she was carried about the garden or taken driving, or when she crept exploring and investigating about the rooms, she would keep up a most dramatic running comment of interest, joy, inquiry, amusement, desire; and it was remarkable what shades of approval and disapproval, assent, denial, and request she could make perfectly clear.

XIII
WALKING ALONE; DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE

And now our little girl was entered on the last month of the year—a month of the most absorbing activity, yet perhaps rather in practicing the powers she already had than in developing new ones. She added to the list of words she understood till it was impossible to make record of them all—new ones cropped up at every turn. She made the two small additions to her spoken words that I have already mentioned. She became perfectly secure in standing, and she was even more zealous to climb than before, making nothing, in the latter part of the month, of turning at the top of the stairs and sliding down, head first or feet first, rarely needing for safety the vigilant arms that always hovered ready to catch her.

For a time she made little advance towards walking, though she began now to show some pleasure and pride in being led about by the hand. But about the middle of the month the walking instinct seemed at last to stir. The little one had often stepped from chair to chair, keeping a hand on one till she had fairly hold of the other. If the gap was an inch wider than she could cross thus, she dropped down and crept. Now one day she looked at the tiny gap, let go her chair, stood longingly, made a movement as if to take the single step, and dropped ignominiously and crept; nor would she trust herself of her own accord to movement on her feet (though once her mother did coax her a few steps) for nearly a week. Then at last she ventured it.

I did not see the first exploit, but the next day I set her against the wall and told her to walk, and she would step forward with much sense of insecurity, tottering and taking tiny inches of steps, her legs spreading more widely at each one, till I caught her in my arms. Once I let her go as far as she could. She would not give up and sit down, but went on as far as her legs would carry her, tremulous, pleased, half afraid, half proud, and wholly conscious of doing something remarkable; and when at the seventh step she subsided to the floor, she was not in the least frightened, but got up readily and tottered on another six steps.

The next day she had weakened, however, and for several days she would not try again; and when she did try, she fell down after a single step. She wanted to try again, and crept back to the wall, stood up, laughed, waved her arms, made a false start, and could not quite find the courage. In the four days that remained of her first year she sometimes forgot herself and took a step or two; and she was perfectly able to take half a dozen any time, strong and steady on her feet; but it was not till shortly after the close of the year that she cast aside her fears and suddenly was toddling everywhere.

It was about the middle of the twelfth month that the little one added the useful sign of nodding to her means of communicating. She had been taught to nod as a mere trick the month before, and took to it at once, jerking her whole little body at every nod and priding herself mightily on it. Perhaps because of this pride and pleasure, it became after a time a sort of expression of approval: she greeted us with nodding in sign of pleasure when we came in; she nodded like a mandarin when she heard she was to go to ride. So now, when a pleasant suggestion was made, “Would Ruth like a cracker?” “Does Ruth want to go see the kitties?” her nod of approval soon passed into the meaning of assent; indeed, it began now to be joined with the grunt of “Ĕ!” that I have mentioned. She had a perfectly intelligible negative grunt, too, just such as grumpy grown people use, out of the primitive stock of their remotest ancestry, no doubt.

I was nearly taken in at one time by this cheerful nodding and “Ĕ!” The little lady used them so intelligently when she was offered something she wanted, and refused so consistently when offered what she knew she did not want, that I began to set down any question as understood if she said yes to it. But presently I had an inkling that when she did not know whether she wanted it or not, she said yes, on the chance—since most things prefaced by “Does Ruth want?” proved pleasant. So I asked her alluringly, “Does Ruth want a course in higher mathematics?”