A weary-looking woman,
          With a smile that still was sweet,
        Sewed, on a little garment,
          With a cradle at her feet. 
        Pantaloon stood ready and waiting,
          It was time for the going on;
        But the clown in vain searched wildly—­
          The “property baby” was gone.

        He murmured, impatiently hunting,
          “It’s strange that I cannot find;
        There!  I’ve looked in every corner;
          It must have been left behind!”
        The miners were stamping and shouting,
          They were not patient men;
        The clown bent over the cradle—­
          “I must take you, little Ben.”

        The mother started and shivered,
          But trouble and want were near;
        She lifted her baby gently;
          “You’ll be very careful, dear?”
        “Careful?  You foolish darling”—­
          How tenderly it was said! 
        What a smile shone thro’ the chalk and paint—­
          “I love each hair of his head!”

        The noise rose into an uproar,
          Misrule for a time was king;
        The clown with a foolish chuckle,
          Bolted into the ring. 
        But as, with a squeak and flourish,
          The fiddles closed their tune,
        “You hold him as if he was made of glass!”
          Said the clown to the pantaloon.

        The jovial fellow nodded;
          “I’ve a couple myself,” he said,
        “I know how to handle ’em, bless you;
          Old fellow, go ahead!”
        The fun grew fast and furious,
          And not one of all the crowd
        Had guessed that the baby was alive,
          When he suddenly laughed aloud.

        Oh, that baby laugh! it was echoed
          From the benches with a ring,
        And the roughest customer there sprang up
          With “Boys, it’s the real thing!”
        The ring was jammed in a minute,
          Not a man that did not strive
        For “a shot at holding the baby”—­
          The baby that was “alive!”

        He was thronged by kneeling suitors
          In the midst of the dusty ring,
        And he held his court right royally,
          The fair little baby king;
        Till one of the shouting courtiers,
          A man with a bold, hard face,
        The talk for miles of the country
          And the terror of the place,

        Raised the little king to his shoulder,
          And chuckled, “Look at that!”
        As the chubby fingers clutched his hair,
          Then, “Boys, hand round the hat!”
        There never was such a hatful
          Of silver, and gold, and notes;
        People are not always penniless
          Because they won’t wear coats!