A SAD STORY OF A NAUGHTY BOY.
There was a little fellow,
And his name was Willie Brown;
His mother was a widow,
In a little country town.
One day he was so naughty
That his mother told him not
To leave the house a moment
Till a whipping he had got.
If you wish to know how naughty
This Willie Brown had been,
Let me tell you that the wash tub
He had thrown poor kitty in;
And the pretty little creature—
Old pussy’s joy and pride—
Had struggled in the soap-suds
Till in agony she died.
Don’t you think ’twas very wicked
For Willie, in his wrath,
To give the darling kitty
Such a soap and water bath?
Don’t you think he needed something
To teach him better—that
Soap-suds was not the element
To drown a pussy-cat?
Willie did not want a whipping,
And the stick he dreaded so,
That he minded not his mother,
Who had told him not to go;
But in terror and in silence
He departed from the house,
Creeping out the door on tiptoe,
Like a thieving little mouse.
Behind his mother’s cottage
Was the forest deep and wide;
And the naughty boy kept running
Till he reached its gloomy side;
Then he took the beaten pathway,
Which the cows and sheep had made,
And hour after hour there
Within the forest staid.
Willie wandered in the forest
Till the sun went down at last,
And the darkness, deep and dreary,
Gloomy shadows round him cast;
Far more than any whipping
Did he fear the long dark night;
So his steps he home directed,
Guided by the cottage light.
But a little way he travelled
When a scream from overhead
Almost froze his blood with terror
As he homeward swiftly fled.
And the cry above him sounded,
“Whip-poor-will! whip-poor-will!”
And again it was repeated,
“Whip-poor-will! whip-poor-will!”
“Don’t whip me; O, don’t whip me!”
Cried the trembling little lad;
“And I’ll never drown a kitty,
And I never will be bad.”
But the voice above kept screaming,
“Whip-poor-will! whip-poor-will!”
Though poor Willie begged for mercy,
It kept crying, “Whip-poor-will!”
“Don’t let them whip me, mother!”
Cried poor trembling Willie Brown,
As he rushed into the cottage,
Where poor kitty he did drown.
“The monsters in the forest
Want to whip me, mother, still;
And they chased me, ever crying,
‘Whip-poor-will! whip-poor-will!’”
“You are foolish, boy, as naughty;
It was nothing but a bird;
Of the whip-poor-will that says so,
Pray, have you never heard?
It was your conscience, Willie,
Made you feel so very bad,
For you did not mind your mother,
And you are a wicked lad.
“And boys who are so naughty,
Must always cowards be,
Who sometimes in their shadows
Can such awful monsters see.
But since you were so wicked
As the kitty dear to kill,
And the bird did only scare you,
Why, then, I must whip poor Will!”
