TOMMY TRIES TO SMOKE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 225, 13 September 1878, Page 3

TOMMY TRIES TO SMOKE.

I've been sick. * ! Mamma said 'moking was a nasty, dirty, disgraceful habit, and bad for the window-curtains. Papa said it wasn't. He said all wise men 'moked, and that it was good for rheumatism, and that he didn't care for the;window-curtains not a— —-,that fing that busts and drowns people, I forget its name. And he said that women didn't know, much anyway, and they couldn't reason like men. So the next day that pa wasn't nice a bit—that day I frew over the accawarium, and 1 felt as if I had the rheumatism every time I went* to sit down—l just got papa's pipe and loaded it and 'moked, it. And they put mustard-plasters on my tummick till they'most burned a hole in it, I guess. I fink they fought I was going to die. r -| I did. I fought so. Mamma said I was going to be a little cherub. Nurse said so, too ; then she went to put an ozzer mustardplaster on and I didn't want her to, and i she called me something else. I guess that was 'cause I frew the mustardplaster in her face. I dpnt want to be a cherub, anyway. Cherubs are little boys without any bodies or- legs to them—nothing but little wings right back of their ears. They can't have mustard-plasters put on them, but then they don't have much fun, and I guess the angels use them for playing marbles. The other angels are called syrups. They wear nightgowns and gold rings about their heads, and no end of wings. They haven't much to do except to tote around little harps and play tag and loaf about on the clouds. But I wouldn't want to be a syrup unless I could have a tail, too, like a mermaid or a lobster. . Anyhow, I'd rather be little Tommy for a while yet. But I won't 'moke again. I guess mamma was right. May be I'm something like a windo.w-curtain. ''Moking isn't good for me.