English substantives may be declined in the following manner:—
SINGULAR.
What is the nominative case
Of her who used to wash your face,
Your hair to comb, your boots to lace?
A mother!
What the possessive? Whose the slap
That taught you not to spill your pap,
Or to avoid a like mishap?
A mother’s!
And shall I the objective show?
What do I hear where’er I go?
How is your?—whom they mean I know,
My mother!
PLURAL.
Who are the anxious watchers o’er
The slumbers of a little bore,
That screams whene’er it doesn’t snore?
Why, mothers!
Whose pity wipes its piping eyes,
And stills maturer childhood’s cries,
Stopping its mouth with cakes and pies?
Oh! mothers’!
And whom, when master, fierce and fell,
Dusts truant varlets’ jackets well,
Whom do they, roaring, run and tell?
Their mothers!
CHAPTER IV.
OF ADJECTIVES.