The little Girl cried out in vain—
He picked her up and Off he Flew—
This Naughty, Naughty Bugaboo!
So, children when in Bed to-night,
Don't let them Take away the Light,
Or else the Awful Bugaboo
May come and Fly away with You.
It is a far cry in time and a farther one in literary worth from "The Awful Bugaboo" of 1883 to "Seein' Things" of 1894. The sex of the victim is different, and the spirit of the incorrigible western tease gives way to the spirit of Puritanic superstition, but there can be no mistaking the persistence of the Bugaboo germ in the later verse:
An' yet I hate to go to bed,
For when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,