The Naughty Boy. Rhymes and Jingles by Mary Mapes Dodge for children
"Och, save us!" cried Betty, "I'm 'most driven wild;
Would you shtep here a moment, ma'am, please?
For the sowl of me, ma'am, I can't ready the child
While he keeps up such doin's as these.
"I might better be curlin' a porkerpine quill,
Or washin' the face of a eel,
Than be dressin' of him—for he never keeps still
'Less I howld him by neck an' by heel.
"It's three blissed times since I put on his clothes
That he's wriggled stret off o' the chair;
Not a moment ago he attack-ted me nose,
And it's twice he's been into me hair.
"If ye'll credit me, ma'am, wid his cryin' an' kickin',
He's brought tears to my eyes, ma'am, like rain—
If he wasn't so bad, ma'am, I wouldn't be speakin',
For I niver was one to complain."
Thus summoned, I went to the nursery-door,
There sat master Johnny, a-pout.
And I said, as I lifted him up from the floor,
"Why, Johnny, what's all this about?"
A scream was his answer. His flushed little face
Looked angrily up into mine;
"Oo hurt!" "Do I, Johnny? Where?—show me the place!"
But his cry only changed to a whine.
In a moment, I found out the cause of the trouble—
'Twas a pin, pricking deep in his side;
And she, in her roughness, had bent the thing double—
No wonder my darling had cried!
Poor Johnny! He sobbed on my shoulder awhile,
Then held up his face to be kissed;
(If Betty went back to the Emerald Isle,
I know where she wouldn't be missed.)
Soon, meek as a lamb when the tempest is whirling,
And the shepherd is deaf to his bleat,
Our Johnny submitted to washing and curling,
Till Betty proclaimed him "complete."