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Category: Funny Juniors Poems
       Classic humorous and funny poems for children, about kids, and for kids of all shapes and sizes.

  LITTLE MAMMA  

Why is it the children don't love me
     As they do Mamma?
That they put her ever above me--
     "Little Mamma?"
I'm sure I do all that I can do,
What more can a rather big man do,
     Who can't be Mamma--
            Little Mamma?

Any game that the tyrants suggest,
"Logomachy,"--which I detest,--
Doll-babies, hop-scotch, or baseball,
I'm always on hand at the call.
When Noah and the others embark,
I'm the elephant saved in the ark.
I creep, and I climb, and I crawl--
By turns am the animals all.
     For the show on the stair
     I'm always the bear,
Chimpanzee, camel, or kangaroo.
     It is never, "Mamma,--
            Little Mamma,--
            Won't you?"

My umbrella's the pony, if any--
None ride on Mamma's parasol:
I'm supposed to have always the penny
For bonbons, and beggars, and all.
My room is the one where they clatter--
Am I reading, or writing, what matter!
My knee is the one for a trot,
My foot is the stirrup for Dot.
If his fractions get into a snarl
Who straightens the tangles for Karl?
Who bounds Massachusetts and Maine,
And tries to bound flimsy old Spain?
            Why,
     It is I,
            Papa,--
     Not Little Mamma!

That the youngsters are ingrates don't say.
I think they love me--in a way--
As one does the old clock on the stair,--
Any curious, cumbrous affair
That one's used to having about,
And would feel rather lonely without.
I think that they love me, I say,
In a sort of a tolerant way;
     But it's plain that Papa
     Isn't Little Mamma.

Thus when twilight comes stealing anear,
When things in the firelight look queer;
And shadows the playroom enwrap,
They never climb into my lap
And toy with my head, smooth and bare,
As they do with Mamma's shining hair;
Nor feel round my throat and my chin
For dimples to put fingers in;
Nor lock my neck in a loving vise,
And say they're "mousies"--that's mice--
     And will nibble my ears,
     Will nibble and bite
With their little mice-teeth, so sharp and so white,
If I do not kiss them this very minute--
Don't-wait-a-bit-but-at-once-begin-it--
     Dear little Papa!
That's what they say and do to Mamma.

If, mildly hinting, I quietly say that
Kissing's a game that more can play at,
They turn up at once those innocent eyes,
And I suddenly learn to my great surprise
     That my face has "prickles"--
     My moustache tickles.
If, storming their camp, I seize a pert shaver,
And take as a right what was asked as a favor,
     It is, "Oh, Papa,
     How horrid you are--
You taste exactly like a cigar!"

But though the rebels protest and pout,
And make a pretence of driving me out,
I hold, after all, the main redoubt,--
Not by force of arms nor the force of will,
But the power of love, which is mightier still.
And very deep in their hearts, I know,
Under the saucy and petulant "Oh,"
The doubtful "Yes," or the naughty "No,"
     They love Papa.

And down in the heart that no one sees,
Where I hold my feasts and my jubilees,
I know that I would not abate one jot
Of the love that is held by my little Dot
Or my great big boy for their little Mamma,
Though out in the cold it crowded Papa.
I would not abate it the tiniest whit,
And I am not jealous the least little bit;
For I'll tell you a secret: Come, my dears,
And I'll whisper it--right-into-your-ears--
     I, too, love Mamma,
     Little Mamma!

                                            Charles Henry Webb.


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