BABIES THAT TRAVEL

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 1, 1900

BABIES THAT TRAVEL.

“Why do these babies all cry so?” asked a wearied excursionist of his neighbor. “Every baby on this car is crying.”

A little later in that same journey another family party entered the car. Here, escorted by mother, father, and nurse, was a baby enjoying a make-shift traveling seat in which it was kept during the whole journey. The makeshift seat was merely a carrying basket, a common bassinet. It was lined with soft pads; it was just long enough to hold the baby, which might have been anywhere from five to eight months old, and just short enough for easy carrying. As the car was crowded, the nurse sat with the basket on her knees until it could be placed in the seat beside her and opposite the parents. It was plain that the basket and the baby were old companions; for it was at home there as one in his own castle. When it wished to sit up, the curving basket-sides held it steady, as no arms could have held; and when sleep overcame the little creature, it tumbled its small heavy head over into the pads of the basket, and closed its eyes. The motion of the cars, broken by the unyielding basket, was to that baby but a pleasant lullaby. There was no unquiet in its easy resting-place; and when it woke, it was to still lie there placid and smiling, kicking its bare feet contentedly. Except when it was fed, and for a loving word and smile now and then, baby was let alone—that shibboleth of good nursing. It was showed nothing out of the window or in the car, and what was evidently the old accustomed rattle and favorite doll were its only playthings. Thus the unaccustomed excitement and motion, the new faces, and the strange place were

nullified by the familiar belongings. The result was a perfectly placid baby doing its hundred miles without a cry, but with wood-pigeon cooings and kitten-like slumbers, and big restful eyes, which told of the quiet mind behind.

The less a baby feels, sees, and hears in its journeyings, the less weary it is, and as a consequence the less it cries. Nor is a baby the only gainer by silence; for she whose baby cries least in traveling is indeed the one whose temporary neighbors rise up and call her blessed.

—Harper’s Bazar.