Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/193

 is all shaved except a little tuft on the top of the head, and that is tied in a little knot and not often combed; and after a girl is twelve years old it is shaved and kept very short.

After breakfast is over—and a very simple meal it is in Siam—the children go off and find some pleasant place in which to play. The baby goes with them, and is carried by the older sister on her right hip, and, with her arm to support the child's back, she walks along as if she had no load to carry.

The girls play at keeping house, and make dishes of clay dried in the sun, and from seeds, grasses and weeds they make all sorts of imaginary delicacies. Little images of clay washed with lime are their only dolls; these are sometimes laid in tiny cradles and covered with a few pieces of cloth. The Siamese cradles are made on oblong wooden frames, something like a picture-frame, from which hangs a network bag made of cord, which forms the cradle, and a board is put in the bottom to keep the netted cord in shape. The large cradle of the same sort in which the live baby sleeps is fastened by ropes to the rafters of the house, and forms a cooler and safer cradle than those in which American babies rest. If any one will make a little frame and net some cord for the basket part, she can have a real Siamese cradle.

The boys in Siam are very fond of pitching