A Baby Brother
When I was about five years old a baby brother came into our family. All my playmates had sisters, and I thought it was just lovely to have some one…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“A Baby Brother” from When I Was a Girl in Switzerland by Susanna Louise Patteson, 1921.
When I was about five years old a baby brother came into our family. All my playmates had sisters, and I thought it was just lovely to have some one you could call sister; so I was much disappointed when told that I had a brother. What made it worse, he was baptized Jacques, a name I never did like, and my little bed had to be moved up to Greta’s room in order to make place for baby’s cradle.
It was a time-honored custom in our village to rock a baby during its every waking moment. They also gave to babies a food known here as pap. It is made of finest ground rice and wheat meal, boiled, and seasoned with sugar and cream. A Swiss child is as eager to scrape out a pap pan as an American child is to scrape out a bowl in which cake has been mixed.
After my brother came, to rock the cradle was my steady job. As a reward I was permitted to scrape out the daily pap pan.
For a long time I never saw my brother’s hands nor feet. They were held in with bandages in which he was laced from chin to toes, like an Indian papoose. When Mother wished to take him up she put one finger under his chin and raised him a little, then put the other hand under his back and lifted him. I used to wonder whether they had ever tied me up like that.
At first our baby slept nearly all the time. As he grew older he lay awake longer, and if he cried I had to rock his cradle. About this time Aunt Verena taught me a little verse in the Swiss language:
“De Vatter het gseid i sell’s Chindli go wiege,
Er well mer drü Eier im Anke go süde;
Do süt er mer drü nnd isset mer zwei,
Welle Guggich wet wiege um en einziges Ei?”
That is to say: “Father told me to rock the baby, that he would cook me three eggs in butter; that he cooked three, and ate two himself, which Cuckoo would rock baby for just one egg?”
But for all my rockings I never got even the one egg. One day I was called in from play, just when it was most exciting, and as I unwillingly rocked that cradle I got to thinking of all the other babies in the village,—and of all those pap pans. There were babies in the homes of several of my aunts, of the Frau Pfarrer, Nenna the silk-weaver, Barbara the seamstress, and of the scrub-woman, yes, and the family that used to live up-stairs in the poorhouse had twins. Probably all of those pap pans would be mine for the mere asking.
As soon as baby brother was asleep again I started out to see my old-time friends. All were glad to see me, because I hadn’t been there in some time. I started with the Frau Pfarrer and asked her to please not put the pap pan to soak the next time she made pap, but to let it stand until I would come around and scrape it out.
Yes, she certainly would keep it for me.
Of course, I promised to rock the cradle for a while, should the baby be awake. I made the same request of my aunts, and all my other friends except the poorhouse family—they had children of their own. And they all promised to do as I asked them to.
The next day I went on my first round. Almost everywhere the baby happened to be asleep when I called, so I didn’t have to rock the cradle. I could skip quickly from one place to the next, and I just reveled in the delicious sticky substance that was left in those pap pans. My old-time visiting habit was being revived. Again Father had to go hunting for me at meal-times. But this time there did not happen to be among my friends a young lady with whom he liked to have a visit, and he was not as pleasant about it as he had been at other times. I was punished by being sent supperless to bed; but Father usually relented and brought some bread and milk to my room.
After my brother was old enough to walk, Mother went to attend the wedding of a cousin. It was one of those weddings where the festivities are kept up for several days. Greta was left in charge of us children, and baby brother cried a great deal. I had to amuse him, rock him, and wheel him around until I got heartily tired of it. Finally I played truant and went on one of my old rounds of visits.
When I returned, Greta was very angry with me. She said if I wouldn’t be good and help take care of my baby brother I couldn’t live at home any longer. Greta had been with us so long that she was like one of the family, and her word was law. In my innocent child-like way I believed every word she said, in fact everything that any one said. Children do, and oh, what agonies they often suffer as the result of some threat that was never meant to be carried out!
I had seen ragged children begging from door to door. In those days street begging was still tolerated in Switzerland. Now, as I have heard, it is forbidden by law. I thought that now I, too, would be a beggar child, unless some friend or aunt would take me in. I waited around a while hoping Greta would change her mind, or that Mother would come home. It was already late in the afternoon; I wondered where I would sleep that night. Finally, all hope abandoned, I went to my room; I remember with what a heavy heart.
In one of my pinafores I gathered a few things and went slowly down the stairs, and out of the house. Outside of the door I hesitated again, still hoping that Greta would change her mind and forgive me. I can now see myself with that little bundle of belongings, stopping there to turn over in my mind where I would go. Should it be to Aunt Elizabeth at the post-office or Aunt Elizabeth at the bakery? Or should it be Nenna the silk-weaver or the Frau Pfarrer?
I couldn’t think of going to Barbara’s because that thatched straw roof made her house so gloomy. The scrub-woman was poor, I didn’t consider her at all; nor the poorhouse people. Strange to say, I couldn’t make up my mind to go to any of the aunts or friends I had been so much in the habit of visiting. It must be I had become satiated with pap and tired of babies. I finally resolved to go to Aunt Verena’s, where there were only grown-ups and where there were the silk looms in that prettily papered room. I started to go, but presently the door opened and Greta called me back. She would forgive me, she said.
Up to that time I had cherished a childish love for Greta, but somehow after that I never felt quite the same toward her. I believe that mentally I aged some years during that period of suspense, distraction, and terror.
One day about that time Marie Pilger came to get me to attend the fair in Kaiserstuhl. But on the next day I was taken with a strange crying spell, and Marie had to bring me home. When
Mother saw me she took me in her arms and said, “The child is homesick.” Immediately the crying spell was over. That was my first experience of home-sickness.
As I have scanned memory in trying to recall events of those early days it has seemed strange to me that I do not remember more about animal pets, such as cats and dogs. I recall that at times we had white rabbits in the stable, and they made me cringe with fear for they were always near the horses’ feet. We had a little black dog “Fido” of which brother and I were very fond. Sometimes when Greta tried to scare us into being good she would say, “I’ll give Fido to Felix.”
“Felix” was a character in our village who went about with a burlap bag tossed over his shoulder, and who was said to collect dogs for their skins. Whenever brother or I saw him, we hid our pet for the rest of the day. One day our Fido disappeared, and after that we always looked with suspicion on Felix.
As time went on and my brother became more like a playfellow, I loved to take him out for walks, and I came to regard him with a true sisterly love. The older he grew, the more we enjoyed each other.
Patteson, Susanna Louise. When I Was a Girl in Switzerland. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
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