"He wants you to sing to him about 'Charley boy one day,'" said Budge. "He always wants mama to sing that when he's hurt, an' then he stops crying."
"I don't know it," said I. "Won't 'Roll, Jordan,' do, Toddie?"
"I'll tell you how it goes," said Budge, and forthwith the youth sang the following song, a line at a time, I following him in words and air:
"Where is my little bastik[3] gone?"
Said Charley boy one day;
"I guess some little boy or girl
Has taken it away.
"An' kittie, too—where ish she gone?
Oh, dear, what I shall do?
I wish I could my bastik find,
An' little kittie, too.
"I'll go to mamma's room an' look;
Perhaps she may be there;
For kittie likes to take a nap
In mamma's easy chair.
"O mamma, mamma, come an' look?
See what a little heap!
Here's kittie in the bastik here,
All cuddled down to sleep."
Where the applicability of this poem to my nephew's peculiar trouble appeared, I could not see, but as I finished it, his sobs gave place to a sigh of relief.
"Toddie," said I, "do you love your Uncle Harry?"
"Esh, I do love you."
"Then tell me how that ridiculous song comforts you?"
"Makes me feel good, an' all nicey," replied Toddie.
"Wouldn't you feel just as good if I sang, 'Plunged in a gulf of dark despair?'"