g
Like the concert when the kiddies and their
mother start to sing.

When the supper time is over, then the mother
starts to play
Some simple little ditty, and our concert's under
way.
And I'm happier and richer than a millionaire
or king
When I listen to the kiddies and their mother
as they sing.

There's a sweetness most appealing in the trilling
of their notes:
It is innocence that's pouring from their little
baby throats;
And I gaze at them enraptured, for my joy's
a real thing
Every evening when the kiddies and their mother
start to sing.

{107}

THE BUMPS AND BRUISES DOCTOR

I'm the bumps and bruises doctor;
I'm the expert that they seek
When their rough and tumble playing
Leaves a scar on leg or cheek.
I'm the rapid, certain curer
For the wounds of every fall;
I'm the pain eradicator;
I can always heal them all.

Bumps on little people's foreheads
I can quickly smooth away;
I take splinters out of fingers
Without very much delay.
Little sorrows I can banish
With the magic of my touch;
I can fix a bruise that's dreadful
So it isn't hurting much.

I'm the bumps and bruises doctor,
And I answer every call,
And my fee is very simple,
Just a kiss, and that is all.
And I'm sitting here and wishing
In the years that are to be,
When they face life's real troubles
That they'll bring them all to me.

{108}

WHEN PA COUNTS

Pa's not so very big or brave; he can't lift
weights like Uncle Jim;
His hands are soft like little girls'; most anyone
could wallop him.
Ma weighs a whole lot more than Pa. When
they go swimming, she could stay
Out in the river all day long, but Pa gets frozen
right away.
But when the thunder starts to roll, an' lightnin'
spits, Ma says, "Oh, dear,
I'm sure we'll all of us be killed. I only wish
your Pa was here."

Pa's cheeks are thin an' kinder pale; he couldn't
rough it worth a cent.
He couldn't stand the hike we had the day the
Boy Scouts camping went.
He has to hire a man to dig the garden, coz his
back gets lame,
An' he'd be crippled for a week, if he should
play a baseball game.
But when a thunder storm comes up, Ma sits an'
shivers in the gloam
An' every time the thunder rolls, she says: "I
wish your Pa was home."

I don't k