‘AND YET YOU CAN’T HELP LIKING HIM.’

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 187, 3 March 1893, Page 6

‘AND YET YOU CAN’T HELP LIKING HIM.’

There is nothing in nil this mortal life sweeter to a lazy man than the snooze he takes between daylight and the hour he ought to get up in the morning. But you won't sleep if baby doesn’t want you to, and if he is old enough to come climbing out of his little bed into yours with a little shrill shriek of delight, ‘ Oh, baby !’ you say, despairingly, when you hear him coming. Or perhaps you feign the soundest slumber, hoping that he will cuddle up by your side and slumber too. Your own sleep would be all the sweeter if he would do that, and you could hear his soft breathing by your side, and hold his tiny hand in yours. But he hasn’t crawled into your bed to do any soft breathing, and he is very much obliged, but he doesn’t care to have bis hand held by anybody. He prefers poking the fingers of that hand into your eyes and shrieking out : ‘ Wake up, papa !’ * Now, baby, do lie down by papa, and go to sleep,’ you say, coaxingly. ‘ Baby isn’t s’eepy,’ he says, sweetly but firmly. Then lie pokes his finger into your eyes, your nose, your ears, and your mouth, informing you that;— ‘ Dis poppy’s nothe, dis poppy’s eyetb, dis poppy’s mcui, ti b poppy’s fickers, dis poppy’s toofums, dis poppy’s ear, dis poppy’s ’ ‘ Baby, won’t you lie down and go to sleep ?’

‘ Baby no s’eepy.* ‘ Papa will buy baby sweets,’ ‘ Babv dot sweets now,’ ‘ But papa will buy some beautiful sweets and some beautiful tops.’ ‘ Baby dot boo’ful tops. Baby take wide now.’ ‘He takes bis ‘wide’ sitting astride your'lower chest and bouncing straight up and down, while screeching out : * Dit up, liossy. Dit up ! Go ’long !’ Then be wants you to ‘ play circus ’ with him, an undignified proceeding .. ;<» quite e p won you are up au<> ore aged but you have n>.. resirc to pinv it nw, Then you gay, pleadingly : ‘ £aby, go play with baby’s toys.’

‘ Um, uni,’ he says at this, and slips out of bed, and his back in a minute with his arms full of toys, which he deposits in yoar face, saying:— ‘ Poppy and baby play wiv toys,’ and back he climbs into bed with you, and you might as well give up then, for there’s no more sleep for you uow, and your beloved snooze is at an end. But when you come to think about it you find there is something, after all, a good deal sweeter and dearer than your last nap, and that is—baby himself.