The Lullaby

1895

There can be no doubt that if the lullaby was not in advance of the war song it was at least contemporaneous with it. Mr. Mason tells of the low, sweet chant of the Zuni mother and her quaint baby songs. In making their bread he mentions the imitative power of the native women, who sing notes and words which are made to sound like their hand stones working in the mealing stones. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch.


Wished He Were A Dog

Burger, author of the "Wild Huntsman," fell in love with his wife's sister and married her after his wife had died of a broken heart. He soon discarded her for new favorite, who proved to be such a Tartar that Burger said, "I wish I had been born a dog."


Long River

The Atchalafaya river, in Louisiana, was so named from two Indian words meaning Long river.

The Lullaby Song Mother Used To Sing

1911

The Lullaby Song

Some time ago a western contemporary gave utterance to this practical, prosaic and unemotional declaration: "Another very pretty sentiment that should be exploded is the lullaby song. Did your mother rock you to sleep and sing while doing it, and you recall the song? As a rule, a woman has so many children they are hustled off to bed without being rocked, and what mother ever knew a lullaby from start to finish?"

There are some things that are too sacred for alleged humor or wit and the above is an instance in point, as there are many who will not accept it as either, for as observed by an exchange there are those whose years have exiled them to dreamland, who can call up tender recollections of childhood and remember the songs that mother used to sing.

There are plenty of old men living who had mothers who could sing in low, tender, though uncultivated, tones the lullaby song, and its melody is still enshrined in the heart and thrills in memory. The old man of German stock especially can remember the simple folk song of the Fatherland that his mother sang above his cradle. Long ago its music came from over the sea, and at last has incorporated in the runic rhymes the old colored nurse crooned or warbled to woo sleep to infantile eyelids.

It may be that in later years we have been privileged to hear the great voices of the day. But all their grand arias never so touched our hearts as when in an encore they gave us a melody that had been dedicated to babyland and which thousands of mothers had sung to the cradle's rocker beating time.

It is strange what a hold these simple melodies of childhood retain in a life, however long, however filled with changes and vicissitude. There is something in their joys though they be ever so fleeting, that remains indelible. Every now and then, in quiet hours, the heart will hark back over the intervening years and remember it with reverence. And who will say that we are not better men and women for such moments of reflection, even though they do bring back the sound of voices that have long been silent, and the touch of hands that are dust?

And can you recall the song? Of course! You hear the familiar notes again in the midst of other surroundings, and instantly the scene is changed about you. You are a child again, just for a moment, and you look up, as you did in days gone by, into a face you love — oh, it may be aged and wrinkled and homely now, but it's still to you the sweetest face in the world.

You look again into eyes that are eloquent with a mother's unspeakable love — the purest, sweetest, holiest feeling the human heart may know. You feel again the comforting presence of her who guided your first uncertain footsteps, who heard you lisp your first little words, and whose tender solicitude for you has never ceased in all these years.

Can you recall the song? A generation may have passed since you heard it. Perhaps, in the corner of some quiet churchyard the singer lies asleep. Years and experience may have come upon you since you heard it last from her dear lips. Scenes may have changed, and your feet have wandered far since then; but never, never have you forgotten.

Life has brought you discords, but they can't erase it. After it may have come the other songs of other days. but the echo of those earlier ones is with you always. Childhood can never die.

No, do not tell us that the lullabies have gone out of fashion, after all these ages in which they have been sung over cradle and couch, in hovel and palace, and been remembered by millions in whose hearts remained an echo and a light of other days. The childhood that never heard a mother's lullaby is not apt to have a manhood of wholesome sentiment or that reverence for womankind which ennobles the heart and uplifts the soul.

—The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, Feb. 28, 1911, p. 6.

Babies Now Getting Lullabies by Radio, Not Mother

Baby Florence Jackson listening in on a bedtime story.

New York, 1922

NEW RADIOPHONE LULLABY SUPPLANTS OLD SONGS OF MOTHER AT TWILIGHT

The romance of your baby days will soon fade from the babe of tomorrow. For no longer need mother croon or rock her babe to sleep, or even whisper the story of the sandman. All she will do will be to "cut in" and let babe go to sleep to the tune of a radio lullaby or bedtime story. Florence Jackson now gets her twilight lullaby in New York by radio.

—The Chronicle Telegram, Elyria, Ohio, April 13, 1922, p. 8.

Latest Progress: Phonograph Croons Baby Lullabies, Cradle Rocks

1903

Brass Lullabies for Babies.

Further cause for indignation among the cult, that is for getting back to nature and old-fashioned ideals as fast as possible will be supplied by the newly invented machine of a Swiss mechanic.

It is an automatic nurse for babies, and is attached to the cradle. If the baby cries, the air waves cause specially arranged wires to operate a phonograph, which croons a lullaby, while clockwork released simultaneously causes the cradle to rock.

How the heart will be stirred at the sight of the motherly brass phonograph bending over the grieving pink and white mite in the cradle, "crooning" a lullaby. Did you ever hear a phonograph croon? It croons in a sad, low tone like an X-ray machine and a torn cat singing a duet. It ought to cultivate a taste for music in the infant mind that might materially affect the voice quality.—St, Louis Globe-Democrat.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 5, 1903, page 6.