she composed a melody for some old ballad, but more often the words and music both were hers. Where were such nonsense-songs as hers?
“Little old dog sits under the chair,
Twenty-five grasshoppers snarled in his hair.
Little old dog’s beginning to snore,
Mother forbids him to do so no more.”
Or again,—
“Hush, my darling, don’t you cry!
Your sweetheart will come by and by.
When he comes, he’ll come in green,—
That’s a sign that you’re his queen.
“Hush, my darling, don’t you cry!
Your sweetheart will come by and by.
When he comes, he’ll come in blue,—
That’s a sign that he’ll be true.”
And so on through all the colors of the rainbow, till finally expectation was wrought up to the highest pitch by the concluding lines:
“When he comes, he’ll come in gray,—
That’s a sign he’ll come to-day!”
Then it was a pleasant thing that each child could have his or her own particular song merely for the asking. Laura well remembers her good-night song, which was sung to the very prettiest tune in the world:
“Sleep, my little child,
So gentle, sweet, and mild!
The little lamb has gone to rest,
The little bird is in its nest,”—