Ernest Belfort Bax - "German Culture Past and Present"

George MacDonald - "Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1"

F. B. Vaux - "Domestic pleasures"

Various - "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society Vol. 3"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Watch Yourself Go By

A >> Al. G. Field >> Watch Yourself Go By




"The cabinet maker was ordered to make a cradle, not a life raft. I
didn't order but two rockers. I never ordered it that big. Do you think
I'm a fool. I know what a cradle is."

[Illustration]

"Well, you don't call that thing a cradle, do you?" inquired Aunt
Tillie.

"Well, it's as near as you will get to one, people don't know nothing
about babies or cradles in these days."

The cradle, with its three rockers and six sharp points and a big old
fashioned rocking chair with four more pointed rockers, made the baby's
room a storage place for ancient instruments of torture.

The night was a wild one, winds without, colic within. Eddie knew the
route to the paregoric.

After the first combat with the rocker Eddie swore it would have to go
or he would. He felt he had a chance with the rocking chair, but with
six points more against him he balked. "Besides nearly breaking my neck,
I broke the paregoric bottle and got glass in my feet."

[Illustration: The Wreck]

Doc and Alfred sorrowfully bore the cradle to the chicken house and it
has become a receptacle for old carpets and other rubbish.

Aunt Tillie said: "Well, you boasted Field would have something no other
baby in this section had and you made good--nothing like that cradle was
ever seen in this section. I wonder what you will think of next to
squander your money on?"

When the cradle is referred to Alfred flares up. "I've had three or four
offers for it lately. I expect a man here to look at it tomorrow. Don't
you dare to break it up to make chicken coops with. I'll get three times
as much as I paid for it just as soon as sensible people who are raising
a baby learn I have a cradle. Some smart man will start a cradle
factory, and he'll get the money, too."

All the common sense suggestions offered by Alfred were rejected. He
volunteered to walk the floor with baby while he was cutting teeth.

"No, sir, no, sir, I will not permit you to walk the floor with him
while he is cutting his teeth. You walk the floor with him when he is
teething, when he grows up the dentist will have to carry him around the
office before working on his teeth."

"Don't ride him backwards. He will be bald. Riding backwards is the
cause of half the baldness in the world."

Nurse had a schedule by which baby's cries were timed. Lung expansion
was necessary. Crying was essential to lung expansion, exercising his
voice Field made a new schedule. He was on time; in fact, he worked
overtime. He cried by sun time, that is, he began by sun time and quit
by any time. He cried until George Washington's portrait turned its face
to the wall, the dogs howled, and the cream soured.

Notwithstanding, the baby of these days is raised after the automatic
drop-a-nickle-in-the-slot manner, it is surprising how they thrive. He
was a tiny, human toy a little while back; now he is the autocrat of the
house, the absolute boss. Riding or driving, walking or autoing--he is
first. He sits at the head of the table. If he desires aught, his
desires are gratified. It is only those who have crossed the apex and
begun the descent on the other side, that can realize how quickly
children--the baby of yesterday, becomes the head of the house, ruling
all with love. Field will be a year old the first of the month. He will
have a birthday party; there will be a cake and one candle. Aunt Tillie
will have a birthday party for Uncle Al soon. When she asked his age
that she might order the candles to decorate the cake, he answered,
"Just make it a birthday party, not a torch light procession like Ollie
Evans had on his birthday."

* * * * *

The inner man, like the negro, is born white, but is colored by the life
he lives; but not one is so black they have not felt humbled and rebuked
under the clear and open countenance of a child. Who has not felt his
impurities the more that he was in the presence of a sinless child?

You have probably seen one whom some low vice has corrupted, one who is
the aversion of man and woman, make of himself a plaything for a
rollicking crowd of children, enter into their sports in a spirit that
made his countenance glow with a delight, as though only goodness had
ever been expressed upon it.

You have seen another--a genteel person, cold and supercilious--endeavor
to make himself agreeable to children, court their favor, win their
fancy. You have seen the child draw back and shrink in undisguised
aversion. I have always felt there was a curse upon such a person.

Better be driven from among men than disliked by children and dogs. One
is as instinctive as the other.

It is a delicate thing to write of one's self. It grates on one's
feelings to write anything derogatory and may be redundant to write
praise. I have endeavored to watch myself go by. To those who have
followed me thus far, to those who have been my friends, to those who
are my friends, to all mankind who despise hypocrisy and love human
beings and dogs, I commend myself in

A GOOD INDIAN'S PRAYER.

O Powers that be, make me sufficient to my own occasions.
Teach me to know and to observe the Rules of the Game.
Give to me to mind my own business at all times, and to lose no good
opportunity of holding my tongue.
Help me not to cry for the moon or over spilled milk.
Grant me neither to proffer nor to welcome cheap praise; to distinguish
sharply between sentiment and sentimentality, cleaving
to the one and despising the other.
When it is appointed for me to suffer, let me, so far as may humanly
be possible, take example from the dear well-bred beasts,
and go quietly, to bear my suffering by myself.
Give me to be always a good comrade, and to view the passing show
with an eye constantly growing keener, a charity broadening
and deepening day by day.
Help me to win, if win I may; but--and this, O Powers! especially--if
I may not win, make me a good loser. AMEN.

AL. G. FIELD.


+-----------------------------------------------------+
|Transcriber's Notes |
| |
|While unusual spellings have been retained as in the |
|original, unexpected inconsistencies in spellings and|
|punctuation have been standardised. |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

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