Adventure and adventurers > Away in the wilderness, or, Life among the red Indians and fur-traders of North America

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AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS.
length. Upon this she placed the baby, which
objected at first to go to bed, squalled a good
deal, and kicked a little. The mother therefore
took it up, turned it over, gave it one o.r two
hearty slaps, and laid it down again.
This seemed to quiet it, for it afterwards lay
straight out, and perfectly still, with its coal-black
eyes staring out of its fat brown face, as if it was
astonished at receiving such rough ‘treatment.
The mother next spread a little moss over the
child, and above that she placed another small
blanket, which she folded and tucked in very
comfortably, keeping the little one’s arms close
to its sides, and packing it all up, from neck to
heels, so tightly that it looked more like the
making up of a parcel than the wrapping up of
a child. This done, she drew the scarlet cloth
over it from each side of the cradle, and laced it
down the front. When all was done, the infant
looked like an Egyptian mummy, nothing but the
head being visible.
The mother then leaned the cradle against the
stem of a tree, and immediately one of the dogs
ran against it, and knocked it over. Luckily,
there was a wooden bar attached to the cradle, in
front of the child’s face, which bar is placed there
on purpose to guard against injury from such acci¬
dents, so that the bar came first to the ground,
and thus prevented the flattening of the child’s