22
TO MY MOTHER.
And crowed for you to take him in his pretty baby way.Then you put aside your sewing, rocked your little one to rest,While I kissed his chubby fingers as they lay upon your breast.Many years beneath the violets his sunny head has lain,I can never see his darling, little dimpled hand again.Beside my older brother, who had been the first toThey laid your precious "Tommy" gently, tenderly, and low.I remember, too, the letter.saying grandmamma had died—And father read it to you sitting on the steps, and cried.She had left a little daughter, eight years old the letter said,And they wanted you to have her, now that grandmamma was dead.She came—you called her "Betty," as you kissed her childish brow,And told me I must love her as an older sister now;
