THE OLD BABY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1578, 7 May 1887, Page 1

THE OLD BABY.

Poor " old baby ;" he hung about the hall and on the stairway, and everybody snubbed him and said : " Oh, your nose is out of joint," and be wad told to be quiet or he would disturb the " new baby," and he was sent off to bed alone, and nobody cuddled him or kissed him to sleep. His papa told him he had a little angel brother, but he wanted to be angel brother himself, and he just hated new baby. But one day when the nurse was making gruel in another part of the room he was told he might look at the bundle that lay in his own crib. All he could see was a cross red-face and fisticuffs, Ha 1 a thought struck old babj' A cruel, wicked thought: revenge 1 ! He leans over the bundle, he watches the pink fiDgers unclench, he puts his rosebud mouth down stealthily, he bites! Ihere is a cry from new baby, the nursa drops the gruel, all the family fly to the rescue, and the had old baby is summarily bounced, And he wanders about heartbroken, and at last goes and gets lost in a cave of gloom. And he i« of some consequence after all when they cannot find him, until someone looks under the hall table, where he is asleep with a very dirty face—" A smile on his lip and a tear in his eye," Poor "old baby!"