Having grown up in the Antique Bed business, I’ve seen many different kinds of beds…from elaborate pineapples to sturdy cannonballs, from fancy, imported mahogany to local tiger maple. Historically, a “rope bed” was a loose term given to all beds from the late 18th to the mid-19th Centuries. Before box springs, beds consisted of wooden frames laced together with ropes woven from head to foot and side to side and then tightened by a bed key. A tick of hay, feather, straw or horse hair would then be placed on the network of ropes and that’s where you slept. The phrases “sleep tight” and “don’t let the bed bugs bite” refer to the sleeping conditions often associated with rope beds. One peculiar-looking New England necessity was the Trundle Bed. Extra space in early New England homes was rare. By design, these little beds on wooden wheels could be tucked away under a bed or eave when not in use. When cleaning out old homes, it’s not unusual to still find these beds – forgotten and untouched New England classics. A friend, just yesterday, happened on the following charming poem which prompted the subject of this article.

“MY TRUNDLE BED” - (1860) Ballad by John C. Baker, 1822-????

As I rummag’d thro’ the attic,
List’ning to the falling rain,
As it patter’d on the shingles
And against the window pane;
Peeping over chests and boxes,
Which with dust were thickly spread;
Saw I in the farthest corner,
What was once my trundle bed.

So I drew it from the recess,
Where it had remain’d so long,
Hearing all the while the music
Of my mother’s voice in song;
As she sang in sweetest accents,
What I since have often read—
“Hush my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed.”

As I list’ned, recollections
That I tho’t had been forgot,
Came with all the gush of mem’ry,
Rushing, thronging to the spot;
And I wander’d back to childhood,
To those merry days of yore,
When I knelt beside my mother,
By this bed upon the floor.

Then it was with hands so gently
Placed upon my infant head,
That she taught my lips to utter
Carefully the words she said;
Never can they be forgotten,
Deep are they in mem’ry riven—
“Hollowed be Thy name, O Father!
Father! Thou who art in heaven.”

This she taght me, then she told me
Of its import great and deep—
After which I learned to utter
“Now I lay me down to sleep”
Then it was with hands uplifted,
And in accents soft and mild,
That my mother asked—”Our Father!
Father! do bless my child!”

Years have pass’d, and that dear mother
Long has molder’d ‘neath the sod,
And I trust her sainted spirit
Revels in the home of God;
But that scene at summer twilight,
Never has from mem’ry fled,
And it comes in all its freshness
When I see my trundle bed.