Ma said it didn’t sound the same ...
It sounded queer and sounded lame,
But I don’t care, because some day
I’ll make him charm it so’s to stay!
And then maybe I’ll sit and look
At my ten fingers and the book!
THE TALE OF THE FRETFUL CHILD
There lived once upon a time, in the Land of Grown-ups, a very little boy. As soon as he was old enough to cry, which was when he was very young indeed, he began to cry for an adventure. But he always cried for it in baby talk, which Grown-ups cannot understand because they have forgotten it; and so nobody knew what he wanted. They gave him milk, and they spanked him. They sang to him and they rocked him, and they even showed him how the wheels in Daddy’s watch go round. But they did not give him an adventure, and so he kept right on crying, until bye and bye he came to be known as That Fretful Child, and everyone hated his parents.
Now there is only one person in all Grown-up Land who understands baby talk, and that is the Oldest Woman in the World. People say that she understands it only because she is so old that she has learned everything there is to know and is going back to begin all over again. And, since she is as wise as she is old, and equally as gossipy, she soon heard everyone talking about That Fretful Child.
She suspected that the baby wanted something very badly, and that that something was neither warm milk, nor a spanking, nor the wheels in Daddy’s watch. And she decided to find out what it was that he did want.