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Full forty years have passed and gone, Since early on a winter’s morn, My infant eyes first struck the light. At once I showed my baby-spite, To find my new abode so plain, And half resolved I’d not remain. If I had unexpected come, And found this unpretending home, I might the negligence excused, But now I felt I was abused.
For half a year the fact was known That I was on the road to town, And all the neighbors, far and near, Said, “Doctor’d bring a baby here.” And so I came at dawn of day, A-crying, too, I’ve heard them say, And found few preparations made-- I’ve often wondered that I stayed.
Plain petticoats and untrimmed slips, Pewter spoons that scratched my lips, A cradle made of painted pine, That rocked so rough it made me whine; Then three long hours every day The colic checked my baby play; For months this griping kept me riled, And nearly set my mother wild.
At last our troubles seemed to wane, I thought I’d bid adieu to pain, When teething time, with all its pangs, Commenced its course with piercing twangs; My mother’d walk the floor by day-- My pa by night, I’ve heard them say.
My father, jolly, good, and kind, Would often half make up his mind To slap me soundly if I cried, But his heart would fail him when he tried, And as he tossed and dandled me In drowsiness upon his knee, They say the more he nursed and tried, The more I always screamed and cried, And often would each soul alarm Upon our little one-horse farm.
These trials lasted just a year, The coast again seemed getting-clear, When all at once the whooping-cough Attacked and nearly took me off. For nine long weeks I whooped and choked, While mother nursed and father joked-- He was always great to jest and pun, And turn all troubles into fun-- He said the _crisis_ now was here, And we had nothing worse to fear.
Alas! his jesting hopes were vain, The whooping-cough did not remain, But measles next came breaking out, The pimples showing, little doubt, Another siege was mine to bear. “To all the ills that flesh was heir,” I felt my infant lot was given, And really wished I was in heaven.