"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."
----------
In "righting" each other,
(As Betty would say),
If we find there's a bother
That stands in the way--
Perhaps 'twould be well,
Before crying, "Sin,"
And running to tell,
To look for the pin!
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[Illustration]