Page:Common Sense in the Nursery.djvu/29



HE proverbial nine days of blind puppyhood are not without their hint to the human mother. We shall have something to say as to the intellectual awakening when "the precocious baby" sits for his likeness in our gallery of portraits. In dealing with the infant in his physical aspects, it is safe to recommend that for nine times nine days after birth he should be allowed to keep his eyes closed as much as Nature dictates, and would compel, if she were let alone. He must be washed, dressed, and fed at proper times, of course, but the modern custom of keeping him in the simplest and plainest of night-gowns for the first month is based upon sound sense and physiological principles.

On a Southern plantation, where I passed much of my childhood, the colored "mammy" lived in a snug cabin backed by a field of corn. One of the stories with which she regaled our eager ears was