The Bay and Padie Book | Page 4

and tries.
Ssh! ssh! ssh! for the little boy blinking,
Blinking at the fairies who
are wanting him to go;
Little boy thinking, thinking, thinking,
Little
boy thinking if he will or no.
Rubs his little eye for to push the sleep away;
Better on the lawn is it?
Watching spriggies play?
Minahs and starlings,
But no such darlings
As the little boy that's
never been to sleep this day.

Ssh! ssh! ssh! for the big eyes gleaming,
Dee, dee, softly his mother
sings;
Little boy dreaming, dreaming, dreaming,
Fluttering to
bye-low on bull-fly wings.
BARTER
Kiddies must have little shoes
Softly buckled round their toes,

Rompers wrought in butcher blues,
That's the way the money goes.
In the Summer silky cool
Fabrics foaming in the breeze;
In the
Winter muffling wool--
We must buy our kiddies these.
Woolly gaiters, tasselled hoods,
Mantles soft that flow and fall,
All
the very best of foods,
All the very best of all.
Babies must have songs for sleep,
Anxious watchings night and day,

Kisses if they laugh or weep,
So the ripe hours rush away.
And for this we pay (it seems
We may not serve visions, too)
With
our high neglected dreams,
With great things we meant to do.
FATHER SONG
They mean such a wonderful lot to me,
It's quite absurd how my soul
is smitten
With Padie, who's four, and Bay, who's three,
And Sufi, a
Persian kitten!
So mother must worry, and father must fuss,
But I'll fake these songs
to a sadder version
When manhood steals the boys from us,
And the
Bottle-o pinches the Persian!
SUNDAY DINNER
The butcher comed and he bringed no meat,
But he crawled in the
poultry pen,
And he putted his hand among they feet,
And catched
the father hen.

He catched it as hard as anything,
But it didn't once crowed at all,

And he tied its feet with a bundle of string
And hanged it up on the
wall.
And now and again its wings went flap,
But that didn't frighten me!

I runned for my little brother chap
To come outside and see.
The father hen's not crowing now,
The ittooest ittoo bit;
We're
going to tell our father how
The butcher's hurted it!
Our father has mended the bathroom door
And the leg of the rocking
chair:
He mended the fence long time before,
And he bought my
horse some hair.
He made the bikes so they wouldn't squeal,
And he made the bunny
to talk;
He hammered some tacks in the engine wheel
When the
engine couldn't walk.
And he cured the teddy when it was dead,
And he mended the barrow
for me--
So father will mend the rooster's head
Before he haves his
tea.
THE CONCERT IN THE GARDEN
The wheelbarrow wept to the willows
And Padie called out for a
hymn:
He dabbled his boots on the pillows
And the minister looked
quite grim.
While the Emu turned the pages
The Wallaby sang with zest,
Of the
error in uncle's wages
While the chairs all turned to the West.
The Baker paused with a frigid stare
And his heels apart, of course;

And the shell-back sprang from his sunny lair
With his hand upon his
horse.
The rooster's grandma nursed the cat,
Which uttered nor purr nor

sound,
While the Platypus followed the Minister's hat
Around and
round and round.
WHISPER!!!
Sit up in your beds and hark!
Something said "meow" in the dark!

Was it a gentleman saying some prayers?
Was it a mousie trapped
under the stairs?
Was it a manager stealing some shares
Or a
newspaper having a lark?
Sit up in your beds and hark!
Something
said "meow" in the dark!
Would you your treasures securely keep,

Never turn lamps out and never go sleep.
THE COMING OF BAY
Bay doesn't stay in the stars any more;
He didn't much cry nor care

When God pushed him out of a big star door
Into the everywhere.
I ringed him up on the telephome
And down he flied to me!
Didn't
you know how Bay came home?
I got the push-cart, see?
And
wheeled him in the front-yard door
Just one way and another,
I
didn't make mud-marks on the floor,
Or scratch the paint on the
front-way door,
'Cos I am a careful brother;
I putted him into the
new white cot,
I covered him up till he grew quite hot,
And then
called mother to see;
So Bay doesn't stay in the stars any more
But
only with mother and me.
BABY SONG
The grandmas talked with worried eyes
And said it was a shame--

Nobody wanted Littley then
Before our Littley came.
Boyo's nose will be out of joint,
He's a toddling baby yet,
And now
there's another one coming along,
Poor little pet!
But Littley rode through the storm of doubt
And the cloud of the
troubled brow;
Nobody wanted Littley then--
But you should hear

them now!
SOUL DISCIPLINE
They say I'm a bad-tempered man,
And yet I never swear
When
flop into my porridge
Comes a woolly Teddy Bear!
They say I'm an impatient man,
And yet I never shoot
When, after
breakfasting, I find
Damp toffy in my boot!
And when my wife and my two sons
Are dutifully kissed,
I don't go
crook if I'm called back
When Sufi has been missed!
I'm always on the scowl and quick
To censure or condemn;
But,