Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 693

The hind's wife, in looking forward to a family, is hopeful that her first-born may be a female. The hope is quite natural. In high life, where it is important to have a male heir to an estate, it is anxiously hoped that the first will be a boy; and when he makes his appearance, the bonfires are set ablazing. Among the cottagers we are talking about, there is no heritage but toil. The poor wife, foreseeing what may be her fate – a 'heavy handful' of children – piously wishes that she may be provided with a girl, who will grow up to help her in her interminable round of duties. Heaven has heard and answered her prayer. A baby girl is placed in the loving arms of her mother. We need not be surprised that the infancy of this eldest daughter, as conventionally considered, is curtailed in order that she may qualify for the position of nurse to her brothers and sisters. As early as her sixth year, she has not only to superintend the amusements of those next to her in seniority, but to undertake the sole charge of the baby while the parent is otherwise necessarily employed. And it is marvellous how aptly a child so placed will assume the air of responsibility, and evince the tact and solicitude of maternity! When children better circumstanced are yet devoted to the interests of their dolls, she is seated at the cottage-door, or on the green bank amongst the daisies, singing to her little human charge, or with matronly pride twining chaplets of the simple flowers for its adornment. Her engrossment would be perfect, but that she has occasionally to cast her eye in the direction of the burn to see that Johnnie, aged four, has not ventured too close to its margin; or to look that Bessie, in the innocence of her two and a half years, does not pull the tail of the faithful but cross-grained old collie which snoozes on the grass beside them. Returned home with her charges as gloaming falls, the baby is transferred to its mother; but the little maid's anxieties are not yet ended. She assists Johnnie and Bessie to their suppers, and then, amid pleasant reminiscences of the day's simple events, undresses them for bed. In virtue of her position in the household, she herself is permitted to sit up an hour or two later, and is rewarded for her good behaviour by being permitted for a short time to nurse baby in its night-clothes. Thus the first-born girl grows up to womanhood – her mother's right hand and the friend-in-council to each and all of her nurslings.

Where the elder children are boys, the less fortunate mother has to do her best with the material at her disposal – that is, invest one or other of her manikins with the rôle of nurse. The character is not so natural, nor can the experiment, we are afraid, be considered an invariable success; and yet we have known boys with strong innate love for children, whose skill and devotedness in nursing would put to shame many a woman of average maternal instinct. But however that may be, the young rustic rarely escapes altogether what to many of them is at times the irksome task of 'minding the bairn,' although, on the score of his incipient manhood, he may the earlier transfer the service to his juniors. At one stage or other of his boyhood, if his supply of sisters is limited, he is liable to be called from his hoop or marbles, or to forego his projected bird-nesting, in order to rock the cradle or dandle the baby while mother washes up the house or gets ready father's dinner. Even the youngest of the family does not always succeed in evading the doom of his elders; for one or other of these having married young and settled down in the neighbourhood, has of course defied all that philosophy has said or might have to say on the subject, and straightway added to the population; so that nothing is more natural than that the immature uncle or aunt should be wheedled or coerced into tending their still tenderer relatives until one of them shall have developed sufficiently to assume the hereditary duties of its position.

A curious reversion of this case is when the grandchildren are called upon to 'mind' their uncles or aunts – a by no means inconceivable circumstance, when the frequency of early marriages among the poor is considered. We remember some years ago, while on a visit in Forfarshire, that this very subject was broached by our hostess, who, as faithful helpmate of the minister, was herself mother-in-chief to the parish. She told us of a poor woman who had had a great number of children, all of whom had died young except one, a girl, who had married early, but who also died, in giving birth to an infant son. The infant was taken care of by the bereaved grandmother, who was still in the prime of life, and who had herself, after the adoption of her grandson, other two children, one of which survived, a fine boy of fifteen months old. At our friend's invitation we visited with her the humble cottage where this singular combination of relationships existed. The mistress was busy churning as we entered, while seated by the fire was the grandson, some eight or nine years of age, engrossed in the task of amusing the baby. After greeting the good dame in homely kindly manner, the minister's wife turned to the children and asked: 'How are you to-day, Jockie?'

'Fine,' answered the little fellow bashfully.

'And how is your uncle?' continued his questioner with a merry twinkle in her eye and a significant glance at us.

'Ou, he's fu' weel; only gey girnie whiles wi' his back-teeth,' glibly answered the urchin, throwing aside his shyness when his precious charge had become the subject.

'Dear me, Jockie,' laughed my friend, 'you will have some trouble with him then?'

'Whiles,' soberly said the boy, who, although conscious that the question was meant for banter, seemed unable to restrain himself on a matter evidently near his heart. 'He disna sleep weel, an' I'm obliged to sit up at nicht an' whussle till him; but he's guid, puir mannie, when the fashious teeth are no troublin' him.'

We were much affected by the artless affection which Jockie displayed towards his uncle; and learned recently with pleasure that he had, through the minister's good services, been appointed pupil-teacher in what was formerly the parish school; and that his nursling, hardier than the rest of the family, was acquiring his first knowledge under his nephew's affectionate tuition.

Without pleading ignorance of the evils frequently attendant on the practice of intrusting children with the care of infants, we prefer simply to accept it as inevitable, and to contemplate the advantages with which it is as undoubtedly accompanied. In the first place, it is this early discipline, this facing of the harder realities in their lot from the outset, which could alone prepare those in the humbler walks of life to tolerate the position in which their maturer years will have to be spent. The girl whom necessity has taught the rudiments of housewifery simultaneously with her alphabet, and the mysteries of nursing together with the secret of making pot-hooks and hangers, will blend most naturally and easily into the mistress of a poor man's home, where the anxieties and solicitudes common to women are indefinitely multiplied. If not so palpable, the value to boys of the knowledge of simple household duties is after all scarcely less important; for aptitude in these is perhaps the most efficacious weapon with which he can enter the lists of a determinately arduous life. In their acquirement the future workman has been taught self-reliance and the habit of industry – qualities on which his success mainly depends; while he is specifically prepared for the not uncommon eventuality – as soldier, sailor, or emigrant, or even in the ordinary casualties of married life in his own sphere – of having to minister to the physical wants of himself and others. Nor in the last of these situations will his juvenile experience of 'minding the bairn' be without its useful application; for at meal-times, in his evenings off work, and even in the night-watches, he will be called upon to accept his share in those solemn rites which his domestic felicity has entailed.

There is a reflection too of a far higher character to which the consideration of this simple theme not inaptly gives rise. Solicitude for the welfare of those whom they have cared for and protected remains with the elder brothers and sisters in greater or less force throughout life; and the younger members of the family can never wholly divest themselves of the confidence and respect which such services have engendered. Each unit in the tale of the poor man's family thus stands to the other not merely in the fraternal, but, in varying degrees, also in the filial relation. Hence that wonderful tenacity of kindredship by which they are distinguished. Diverging careers, conflicting interests, petty jealousies, and even animosities, may temporarily step in to arrest the current of their affection; but the advent of calamity or sorrow to one or other is a signal which rarely fails to reunite them in bonds stronger than ever. Is not blood, after all, thicker than water, in their own idiomatic phrase? The successful digger or colonial shepherd needs nothing more transcendental than the memory of the humble home in which all were mutually dependent, to send his tenderest thoughts wandering across the ocean which divides him from his playmates and friends. Wherever their various lots may be cast, there is to the end a common haunt in which their loving spirits may meet, in the 'auld clay biggin' or 'humble cot' where each in his turn performed his part in 'minding the bairn.'

The family affections are, moreover, the pith and marrow of patriotism; and who will venture to estimate the degree in which a nation's stability is dependent upon the primitive economy of the poor man's household? It is only by association with the loves and sorrows and joys of his childhood that the external surroundings of his home become endeared to the heart of man. How naturally Burns arises, in his Cotter's Saturday Night, from the more immediate reflections which the happiness of his humble characters suggests, to that eloquent exclamation in praise of his native land, beginning,

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs.

CAPTURING OSTRICHES

The greatest feat of an Arab hunter is to capture an ostrich. Being very shy and cautious, and living on the sandy plains, where there is little chance to take it by surprise, it can be captured only by a well-planned and long-continued pursuit on the swiftest horse. The ostrich has two curious habits in running when alarmed. It always starts with outspread wings against the wind, so that it can scent the approach of an enemy. Its sense of smell is so keen that it can detect a person a great distance long before he can be seen. The other curious habit is that of running in a circle. Usually five or six ostriches are found in company. When discovered, part of the hunters, mounted on fleet horses, will pursue the birds, while the other hunters will gallop away at right angles to the course the ostriches have taken. When these hunters think they have gone far enough to cross the path the birds will be likely to take, they watch upon some rise of ground for their approach. If the hunters hit the right place and see the ostriches, they at once start in pursuit with fresh horses, and sometimes they overtake one or two of the birds; but often one or two of the fleet horses fall, completely tired out with so sharp a chase. —Newspaper paragraph.

SONNET

Oft let me wander hand-in-hand with Thought
In woodland paths and lone sequestered shades,
What time the sunny banks and mossy glades,
With dewy wreaths of early violets wrought,
Into the air their fragrant incense fling,
To greet the triumph of the youthful Spring.
Lo, where she comes! 'scaped from the icy lair
Of hoary Winter; wanton, free, and fair!
Now smile the heavens again upon the earth;
Bright hill and bosky dell resound with mirth;
And voices full of laughter and wild glee
Shout through the air pregnant with harmony,
And wake poor sobbing Echo, who replies
With sleeping voice, that softly, slowly dies.

notes

1

Across Africa. By Verney Lovett Cameron, C.B., D.C.L., Commander Royal Navy, Gold Medallist Royal Geographical Society, &c. Two vols. with numerous Illustrations. London: Daldy, Isbister, & Co., 56 Ludgate Hill. 1877.