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A SOY BABY'S LIFE. 79
Asahi was carried by his nurse pick-a-pack. All day
long, except when asleep or feeding, baby was carried
behind nurse's collar, or put into a kind of huge
pocket or bag on the maid's back. All children in
Japan are carried in this way. Often baby
is
strapped to the mother's or nurse's back by a string
or belt. When a poor mother has several children,
she ties the youngest on the back of one of the
older children. These often have babies nearly as
large as themselves to carry. Set in between coat
and back of nurse or bigger child, the baby's head
sticks out at the top like a jack-in-the-box, or a
Christmas doll peeping out of a stocking filled by
Santa Clans. The Japanese call our cradles " rocking-baskets,"
or " machines to make the baby sleep."
In a crowd of street children many seem to be
two-headed. Baby's hands and legs hang down.
Baby often falls asleep while being carried pick-apack.
Baby's head sometimes rolls about, but
baby's neck never breaks. Baby
does n't often
cry. Very rarely do you hear a Japanese baby
crying. By-and-by baby learns to talk. Father and
mother are his first words "chichi," "haha."
Then he calls his aunt " o-ba-san." He points to
rice and says "mama; " to the cat "ne*ko; " to the
dog, " "
inu ; to the " "
fish, uwo ; to the
" "
bird, tori
;
and so on, till he learns the whole language.
When a baby comes into the world in a rich man's
house, we say he is " born with a silver spoon in his
"
mouth ; but as spoons were hardly known in the
land of chopsticks, what can we say of Asahi?