A GERMAN BABY.
"BABY WAS FOUND ASLEEP IN THE SNOW."
Of all house-wives in Europe, probably the German is the hardest worked, and of all European mothers the German practises most completely the art of swathing and padding her baby, and of putting it on the shelf. The German baby is swaddled in a long, narrow pillow, which is made to meet completely round him, being tucked up over his feet and turned under his solemn chin. Three bands of gay blue ribbons are then passed round the whole bundle and tied in large, florid bows about where his chest, his waist, and his ankles may be supposed to be. In this guise he can be deposited as an ornament either on the sumptuous best bed, or on the kitchen dresser, or on the drawing-room table. How fond the Germans are of this presentment of baby may be guessed from the fact that it figures largely in their picture-books, among their dolls, and even in the bakers' shops at Easter-time, made of dough and covered with sugar to be devoured by greedy live babies.
"A VERY QUEER FISH."
The German mother has the completest confidence in the safety of her baby when swaddled thus. But the confidence is sometimes betrayed by the wrappage, as witnesseth the following story. A party of peasants set out for the christening of a new baby, the baby being swaddled and wrapped in the usual manner. The way was long to the church, and the weather was cold; indeed, snow lay on the ground. The anxiety of the christening over, the whole party—parents, sponsors, and friends—adjourned to the village inn to warm and cheer themselves with schnaps, or what the Londoner terms "a drop of something short." They then set off on their return home lightly and gaily, and their hearts being merry within them they essayed a snatch or two of song and a step or two of dance. Home at length was reached, and the interesting christened bundle was laid on the table. The whole party—parents, sponsors, and friends—stared agape and in silence; there was the pillow, the ribbons, and the bows all complete, but where was the baby? Someone ventured to raise the bundle; it was quite limp and empty! Baby was gone! Back the whole party hurried on its lonely track, and baby was found asleep in the snow, about midway between the church and the village. He was a sturdy child, and the story runs that he escaped with a violent sneeze or two, which, it is said, the anxious parents strove to allay by popping him into the oven. There can be no doubt that the German child that could survive the pillow, and the snow, and the oven, must have been sturdy indeed.
Like the German mother in her treatment of infants is the Austrian—the real Austrian, that is, who is of Teutonic origin; for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy includes so many nationalities, so many kindreds and peoples and tongues, that it would need a whole article to write of them all. And like also, with a curious difference, is the Swedish and Norwegian mother. The Swedish child, or barn—(compare the Yorkshire barn, and the Scottish bairn)—is swaddled in more complex fashion than the German. It is wound about with six-inch-wide bandages, sometimes with the arms free and sometimes not, sometimes the legs included in the whole bundle, but usually swathed separately. The bandages are traditionally supposed to make the limbs and figure grow straight. The bandaged barn is then wrapped in a pillow and tied about with ribbons and bows like the German child, except that frequently his arms are free and his legs are shortly and stoutly suggested by the tucking in of the pillow. After that he may be fastened flatwise to another pillow, and slung perpendicularly from a supple pole stuck in the wall, so that he looks like a very queer fish indeed, fit to be shown outside the shop of an angling-tackle maker. Like the German, the Swedish child always wears a cap, which is borderless and of special fineness for its first Sunday, when it is christened. Then, also, it wears beads upon its neck, and gorgeous garments with gay bows of ribbon, all which are provided by the godmother. In the remoter parts of both Sweden and Norway it is still the custom every Sunday to carry these swaddled infants to church, which is probably a long way off. They are not taken into church, however, but buried for warmth in the snow, in which a small hole is left for them to breathe through.
In less primitive parts of Sweden and Norway, however, and among the better-off, the pillow-bundle often gives place to a wooden cradle, shaped like a trough or a French baquet, which is usually suspended by a spiral spring from the roof. The elastic motion can scarcely be of the most delightful kind to baby we should think, for there is nothing to prevent the cradle from spinning or twisting round at its will, and so producing dizziness. In Russia, too, a similar cradle is used—contrived, however, more rudely as to both structure and motion. It is an oblong box or wicker basket, with a cord from each of its four corners converging to the hook or the rafter from which it is hung, and with a looped cord underneath, in which the mother puts her foot to swing her baby. In winter—which in Russia is long and severe—the cradles or, sometimes, the hammocks in which the youngest children sleep are slung round the great stove upon which the parents and other adult members of the family pass the night, wrapped in their sheep-skins.
