“MOTHER’S STORY BOOK.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 807, 3 February 1910, Page 4

“MOTHER’S STORY BOOK.”

The loveliest hook in all the land is a kind that is never sold, Bound in a beautiful pinky-white and trimmed with a touch of gold ; It’s a sort of an odd, irregular shape, so it does not stand on a shelf, And the funniest thing about it is that you cannot read it yourself.

This hook is specially mother’s own, and when from its page she reads, Even the liltlest child will thrill at the glory of knightly deeds ; Tales of warfare and tournament you easily understand If read off, not from a printed page, but from Mother’s Book-of-the Hand.

The stories you like the best of all are not about knight or earl, But those she reads about the time when she was a little girl ; And sometimes her stories move along in a kind of a sing-song rhyme, But mostly they're more like a talk, and begin with “Once upon a lime.”

The dear old delicious sentence gives you a sort of thrill, And you settle yourself to listen, and you keep, oh, very still; For you must not lose a single word of the pictures grand or gay That rise before you when mother reads in this most delightful way.

You listen, and dream, and listen to the stories one by one, And yon kiss the sweet book gently when the story-reading is done, And you wish with all your happy heart that every child in the laud Could know what it is to be read to from Mother’s Book-of-the-Hand.