To a Little Girl

Oh, little girl with eyes of brown
And smiles that fairly light the town,
I wonder if you really know
Just why it is we love you so,
And why—­with all the little girls
With shining eyes and tangled curls
That throng and dance this big world through—­
Our hearts have room for only you.

Since other little girls are gay
And laugh and sing and romp in play,
And all are beautiful to see,
Why should you mean so much to me? 
And why should Mother, day and night,
Make you her source of all delight,
And always find in your caress
Her greatest sum of happiness?

Oh, there’s a reason good for this,
You laughing little bright-eyed miss! 
In all this town, with all its girls
With shining eyes and sun-kissed curls,
If we should search it through and through
We’d find not one so fair as you;
And none, however fair of face,
Within our hearts could take your place.

For, one glad day not long ago,
God sent you down to us below,
And said that you were ours to keep,
To guard awake and watch asleep;
And ever since the day you came
No other child has seemed the same;
No other smiles are quite so fair
As those which happily you wear.

We seem to live from day to day
To hear the things you have to say;
And just because God gave us you,
We prize the little things you do. 
Though God has filled this world with flowers,
We like you best because you’re ours—­
In you our greatest joys we know,
And that is why we love you so.

A Feller’s Hat

It’s funny ’bout a feller’s hat—­
He can’t remember where it’s at,
Or where he took it off, or when,
The time he’s wantin’ it again. 
He knows just where he leaves his shoes;
His sweater he won’t often lose;
An’ he can find his rubbers, but
He can’t tell where his hat is put.

A feller’s hat gets anywhere. 
Sometimes he’ll find it in a chair,
Or on the sideboard, or maybe
It’s in the kitchen, just where he
Gave it a toss beside the sink
When he came in to get a drink,
An’ then forgot—­but anyhow
He never knows where it is now.

A feller’s hat is never where
He thinks it is when he goes there;
It’s never any use to look
For it upon a closet hook,
’Cause it is always in some place
It shouldn’t be, to his disgrace,
An’ he will find it, like as not,
Behind some radiator hot.

A feller’s hat can get away
From him most any time of day,
So he can’t ever find it when
He wants it to go out again;
It hides in corners dark an’ grim
An’ seems to want to bother him;
It disappears from sight somehow—­
I wish I knew where mine is now.

The Good Little Boy