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    IN MY NURSERY.

    BY
    LAURA E. RICHARDS,


    AUTHOR OF
    "THE JOYOUS STORY OF TOTO," "TOTO'S MERRY WINTER," ETC.

    BOSTON:
    LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.


    _Copyright, 1890,_
    BY ROBERTS BROTHERS

    _All rights reserved._

    Printers
    S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.


    To my Mother,

    JULIA WARD HOWE.

    _Sweet! when first my baby ear
    Curled itself and learned to hear,
    'Twas your silver-singing voice
    Made my baby heart rejoice._

    _Hushed upon your tender breast,
    Soft you sang me to my rest;
    Waking, when I sought my play,
    Still your singing led the way._

    _Cradle songs, more soft and low
    Than the bird croons on the bough;
    Olden ballads, grave and gay,
    Warrior's chant, and lover's lay._

    _So my baby hours went
    In a cadence of content,
    To the music and the rhyme
    Keeping tune and keeping time._

    _So you taught me, too, ere long,
    All our life should be a song,--
    Should a faltering prelude be
    To the heavenly harmony;_

    _And with gracious words and high,
    Bade me look beyond the sky,
    To the Glory throned above,
    To th' eternal Light and Love._

    _Many years have blossomed by:
    Far and far from childhood I;
    Yet its sunrays on me fall,
    Here among my children all._

    _So among my babes I go,
    Singing high and singing low;
    Striving for the silver tone
    Which my memory holds alone._

    _If I chant my little lays
    Tunefully, be yours the praise;
    If I fail, 'tis I must rue
    Not t' have closelier followed you._




CONTENTS.


    Dedication
    In my Nursery
    The Baby's Future
    Baby's Hand
    The First Tooth
    Johnny's By-low Song
    Baby's Valentine
    The Rain
    The Ballad of the Fairy Spoon
    Song of the Little Winds
    Good-night Song
    Another "Good-night"
    "A Bee came tumbling"
    Jingle
    Little Old Baby
    Baby's Journey
    The Bumble-bee
    The Owl and the Eel and the Warming-pan
    Young (one)'s Night Thoughts
    Little Sunbeam
    Baby's Belongings
    Infantry Tactics
    Baby Bo
    The Difference
    Little John Bottlejohn
    Jemima Brown
    Alice's Supper
    Toddlekins
    Bobbily Boo and Wollypotump
    Sleepyland
    Little Brown Bobby
    Phil's Secret
    A Song for Hal
    The Fairies
    The Queen of the Orkney Islands
    Baby's Ways
    Pot and Kettle
    Punkydoodle and Jollapin
    Mrs. Snipkin and Mrs. Wobblechin
    My Sunbeams
    In the Closet
    Bed-time
    Bird-song
    Geographi
    Higgledy-piggledy
    Belinda Blonde
    Tommy's Dream; or, The Geography Demon
    Polly's Year
    What the Robins sing in the Morning
    The Eve of the Glorious Fourth
    The Dandy Cat
    A Party
    Jumbo Jee
    An Indian Ballad
    The Egg
    Wouldn't
    Will-o'-the-wisp
    Nonsense Verses
    An Old Rat's Tale
    To the Little Girl who wriggles
    The Forty little Ducklings
    The Mouse
    A Valentine
    Jamie in the Garden
    Somebody's Boy (not mine)
    Bogy
    The Mermaidens
    The Phrisky Phrog
    The Ambitious Chicken
    The Boy and the Brook
    The Shark
    The Easter Hen
    Pump and Planet
    The Postman
    Hopsy Upsy
    Little Black Monkey
    Jippy and Jimmy
    Master Jack's Song
    Mother Rosebush
    The Five Little Princesses
    The Hornet and the Bee
    The Three Little Chickens who went out to Tea
    A Legend of Lake Okeefinokee
    Grandpapa's Valentine
    Alibazan
    The Three Fishers
    Peepsy
    May Song
    Two Little Valentines
    A Howl about an Owl
    Our Celebration
    The Song of the Corn-popper
    What Bobby said
    Master Jack's Views
    Emily Jane
    Song of the Mother whose Children are Fond of Drawing
    The Seven Little Tigers and the Aged Cook
    Agamemnon
    The Wedding
    Swing Song
    The Little Cossack
    What a Very Rude Little Bird said to Johnny this Morning
    The Monkeys and the Crocodile
    Painted Ladies
    Some Fishy Nonsense
    Lady's Slipper
    A Little Song to sing to a Little Maid in a Swing
    Betty in Blossom-time
    Betty's Song
    A Nonsense Tragedy
    From New York to Boston
    Sandy Godolphin
    My Clock
    My Uncle Jehoshaphat
    Rosy Posy
    Sick-room Fancies.
          I. My Wall Paper
          II. My Japanese Fan
    Marjorie's Knitting
    He and His Family
    Easter-time
    Easter
    Jacky Frost
    Subtraction
    Grandfather Dear
    Gathering Apples
    The Ballad of the Beach
    The Boots of a Household
    The Palace
    Bunker Hill Monument
    May
    Gregory Griggs
    A Nursery Tragedy
    The Umbrella Brigade
    The Princess in Saturn and the Red Man in Mars
    Wiggle and Waggle
    Gret Gran'f'ther
    Day Dreams
    The Battle
    The Strange Beast
    A Garden Jingle
    The Baby goes to Boston
    The Flag in the Schoolroom
    Johnny Jump-up
    The Outlandishman
    A Sleigh-ride
    The Little Gnome
    The Little Dutchess




IN MY NURSERY.


    In my nursery as I sit,
    To and fro the children flit:
    Rosy Alice, eldest born,
    Rosalind like summer morn,
    Sturdy Hal, as brown as berry,
    Little Julia, shy and merry,
    John the King, who rules us all,
    And the Baby sweet and small.

    Flitting, flitting to and fro,
    Light they come and light they go:
    And their presence fair and young
    Still I weave into my song.
    Here rings out their merry laughter,
    Here their speech comes tripping after:
    Here their pranks, their sportive ways,
    Flash along the lyric maze,
    Till I hardly know, in fine,
    What is theirs and what is mine:
    Can but say, through wind and weather,
    They and I have wrought together.




THE BABY'S FUTURE.


    What will the baby be, Mamma,
    (With a kick and a crow, and a hushaby-low).
    What will the baby be, Mamma,
    When he grows up into a man?
    Will he always kick, and always crow,
    And flourish his arms and his legs about so,
    And make up such horrible faces, you know,
    As ugly as ever he can?

    The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
    With a fife and a drum, and a rum-tiddy-tum!
    The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
    When he grows up into a man.
    He will draw up his regiment all in a row,
    And flourish his sword in the face of the foe,
    Who will hie them away on a tremulous toe,
    As quickly as ever they can.

    The baby he may be a sailor, my dear,
    With a fore and an aft, and a tight little craft
    The baby he may be a sailor, my dear,
    When he grows up into a man.
    He will hoist his sails with a "Yo! heave, ho!"
    And take in his reefs when it comes on to blow,
    And shiver his timbers and so forth, you know,
    On a genuine nautical plan.

    The baby he may be a doctor, my dear,
    With a powder and pill, and a nice little bill.
    The baby he may be a doctor, my dear,
    When he grows up into a man.
    He will dose you with rhubarb, and calomel too,
    With draughts that are black and with pills that are blue;
    And the chances will be, when he's finished with you,
    You'll be worse off than when he began.

    The baby he may be a lawyer, my dear,
    With a bag and a fee, and a legal decree.
    The baby he may be a lawyer, my dear,
    When he grows up into a man.
    But, oh! dear me, should I tell to you
    The terrible things that a lawyer can do,
    You would take to your heels when he came into view,
    And run from Beersheba to Dan.




BABY'S HAND.


    Like a little crumpled roseleaf
    It lies on my bosom now,
    Like a tiny sunset cloudlet,
    Like a flake of rose-tinted snow;
    And the pretty, helpless fingers
    Are never a moment at rest,
    But ever are moving and straying
    About on the mother's breast:
    Trying to grasp the sunbeam
    That streams through the window high;
    Trying to catch the white garments
    Of the angels hovering by.
    And as she pats and caresses
    The dear little lovely hand,
    The mother's thoughts go forward
    Toward the future's shadowy land.
    And ever her anxious vision
    Strives to pierce each coming year,
    With a mother's height of rapture,
    With a mother's depth of fear,
    As she thinks, "In the years that are coming,
    Be they many or be they few,
    What work is the good God sending
    For this little hand to do?
    Will it always be open in giving,
    And always strong for the right?
    Will it always be ready for labor,
    Yet always gentle and light?
    Will it wield the brush or the chisel
    In the magical realms of Art?
    Will it waken the loveliest music
    To gladden the weary heart?
    Will it smooth the sufferer's pillow,
    Bring rest to his aching head?
    Will it proffer the cup of cold water?
    By it shall the hungry be fed?
    Oh! in the years that are coming,
    Be they many or be they few,
    What now is the good God sending
    For this little hand to do?"
    Thus the mother's anxious vision
    Strives to pierce each coming year,
    With a mother's height of rapture,
    With a mother's depth of fear.
    Ah! whatever may be its fortunes,
    Whatever in life its part,
    This little wee hand will never loose
    Its hold on the mother's heart.




THE FIRST TOOTH.


    My own little beautiful Baby,
    You're weeping most bitterly, dear!
    There'd soon be a lake, if we treasured
    Each sweet little silvery tear.

    A lake? Nay! an ocean of sorrow
    Would murmur and sigh at your feet,
    And you would be drowned in your tear-drops,
    My own little Baby sweet.

    But, darling, as in the wide ocean
    The divers plunge boldly down,
    And bring up the radiant pearl-drops
    To set in some royal crown,

    E'en so from the sea of your sorrow,
    This dolorous "fountain of youth,"
    Will come, ere a week be over,
    A little wee pearly tooth.

    And then the tears will all vanish,
    Dried up by the sunshine of smiles;
    And we'll have back our own little Alice,
    With her merriest frolics and wiles.

    And whenever you laugh, my Baby,
    Through all your life's happy years,
    You'll show us the radiant pearl-drop
    That you brought from the ocean of tears.




JOHNNY'S BY-LOW SONG.


    Here on our rock-away horse we go,
    Johnny and I, to a land we know,--
    Far away in the sunset gold,
    A lovelier land than can be told.

    _Chorus._ Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
    Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    And all the birds sing by-low!
    Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.

    The gates are ivory set with pearls,
    One for the boys, and one for the girls:
    So shut your bonny two eyes of blue,
    Or else they never will let you through.

    _Chorus._ Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
    Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    And all the birds sing by-low!
    Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.

    But what are the children all about?
    There's never a laugh and never a shout.
    Why, they all fell asleep, dear, long ago;
    For how could they keep awake, you know?

    _Chorus._ When all the flowers went niddlety nod,
    Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
    When all the flowers went niddlety nod,
    And all the birds sang by-low!
    Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.

    And each little brown or golden head
    Is pillowed soft in a satin bed,--
    A satin bed with sheets of silk,
    As soft as down and as white as milk.

    _Chorus_. And all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
    And all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    And all the birds sing by-low!
    Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.

    The brook in its sleep goes babbling by,
    And the fat little clouds are asleep in the sky;
    And now little Johnny is sleeping too,
    So open the gates and pass him through.

    _Chorus_. Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
    Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
    And all the birds sing by-low!
    Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.




BABY'S VALENTINE.


    Valentine, O Valentine,
    Pretty little Love of mine;
    Little Love whose yellow hair
    Makes the daffodils despair;
    Little Love whose shining eyes
    Fill the stars with sad surprise:
    Hither turn your ten wee toes,
    Each a tiny shut-up rose,
    End most fitting and complete
    For the rosy-pinky feet;
    Toddle, toddle here to me,
    For I'm waiting, do you see?--
    Waiting for to call you mine,
    Valentine, O Valentine!

    Valentine, O Valentine,
    I will dress you up so fine!
    Here's a frock of tulip-leaves,
    Trimmed with lace the spider weaves;
    Here's a cap of larkspur blue,
    Just precisely made for you;
    Here's a mantle scarlet-dyed,
    Once the tiger-lily's pride,
    Spotted all with velvet black
    Like the fire-beetle's back;
    Lady-slippers on your feet,
    Now behold you all complete!
   