narrow edges
of thread-lace are pretty and dainty even at the present day. At the
rooms of the Essex Institute in Salem may be seen the shirt and mittens
of Governor Bradford's infancy. The ends of the stiff, little, linen
mittens have evidently been worn off by the active friction of baby
fingers and then been replaced by patches of red and white cheney or
calico. The gowns are generally rather shapeless, large-necked sacks of
linen or dimity, made and embroidered, of course, entirely by hand, and
drawn into shape by narrow, cotton ferret or linen bobbin. In summer and
winter the baby's head was always closely covered with a cap, or
"biggin" often warmly wadded, which was more comforting in winter than
comfortable in summer.

The seventeenth century baby slept, as does his nineteenth century
descendant, in a cradle, frequently made of heavy panelled or carved
wood, and always deeply hooded to protect him from the constant drafts.
Twins had cradles with hoods at both ends. Judge Sewall paid sixteen
shillings for a wicker cradle for one of his many children. The baby was
carried upstairs, when first moved, with silver and gold in his hand to
bring him wealth and cause him always to rise in the world, just as
babies are carried upstairs by superstitious nurses nowadays, and he had
"scarlet laid on his head to keep him from harm." He was dosed with
various nostrums that held full sway in the nursery even until Federal
days, "Daffy's Elixir" being perhaps the most widely known, and hence
the most widely harmful. It was valuable enough (in one sense of the
word) to be sharply fought over in old England in Queen Anne's time, and
to have its disputed ownership the cause of many lawsuits.
Advertisements of it frequently appear in the _Boston News Letter_ and
other New England newspapers of early date.

The most common and largely dosed diseases of early infancy were, I
judge from contemporary records, to use the plain terms of the times,
worms, rickets, and fits. Curiously enough, Sir Thomas Browne, in the
latter part of the seventeenth century, wrote of the rickets as a new
disease, scarce so old as to afford good observation, and wondered
whether it existed in the American plantations. In old medical books
which were used by the New England colonists I find manifold receipts
for the cure of these infantile diseases. Snails form the basis, or
rather the chief ingredient, of many of these medicines. Indeed, I
should fancy tha