ROCK-A-BY-BABY

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 53

ROCK-A-BY-BABY

There are few girls in this country (says an American exchange) who have not heard ’ the nursery rhyme sung by the mother— ' / , ..-. ■ Rock-a-by baby, upon the tree : top When the wind blows the cradle will rock; - - When the bough breaks . the cradle will fait £ And down will come .cradle," baby, and all! But how many know the origin of these lines? Shortly after our forefathers landed ;at Plymouth. Mass a party went out m the field, where the Indian women were picking strawberries.: Several of these women’ or squaws, as they are called, had ‘ papooses ’-that is’ babies—and haying no cradles, they tied them up in the Indian fashion, hung , from the limbs of the surrounding trees ‘When the wind blew these cradlls would, rock. A young man of the party, observing this,, peeled off a piece of the bark, and wrote the above irT America’. it is believed, was the first poetry written ■ ■■ . • £-‘ ‘ ■