110 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

up the river and especially among the poorer folk
birch bark was fashioned into a sleeping-place for
the babies. For the older children trundle-beds
fitting under the big four-posters of the elders and
rolled out at night were much in use* since the
difficulty of heating made economy of bedroom-
space a necessity. This treke-bed and its protect-
ing four-poster, however, probably came later than
the built-in sleep-bank, little more than a bunk
in the side of the wall concealed by a curtain and
softened by thick feather-beds.

However rude the sleeping-place of the babies,
the old home lullabies soothed them to slumber.
Dearest and most familiar was the following:

Trip a trop a tronjes,

De varken in de boonjes,

De koejes in de klaver,

De paaden in de haver,

De eenjes in de water plas,

De kalver in de lang gras,

So groot myn klein poppetje was.

Thus to pictures of pigs in the bean patch and
cows in the clover, ducks in the water and calves
in the meadow, the little ones fell peacefully to
sleep, oblivious of the wild beasts and wilder men
lurking in the primeval forests around the little