Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3833/Barbara's Birthday Bear

by Miss Duffin

BARBARA'S BIRTHDAY BEAR.

Barbara's birthday comes once a year,
 And Barbara's age you may surely know
If into the toy-box depths you'll peer
 And count the Teddy-bears all in a row.

For by Barbara's law, which we all obey,
 She claims each year, as the birthday-due
That her loyal subjects must cheerfully pay,
 A new Teddy-bear for the toy-box Zoo.

Some of them growl and some of them squeak,
 And one can play on a rub-a-dub drum,
But till Barbara's birthday last Wednesday week
 Not one of the Teddy-bears was dumb.

The latest addition to Barbara's bears
 Was a splendid fellow when well displayed
In one of the smallest of nursery chairs,
 And his label declared he was "English made."

Barbara called him her "bestest bear,"
 But he tumbled soon from this place of pride;
For she squeezed him here and she pounded him there,
 And "Daddy, he doesn't growl," she cried.

Barbara shook him and flung him down;
 She turned her back and refused to play;
And to every argument said with a frown,
 "He's my worstest bear; he can go away."

We took him back, and we asked instead
 For "A bear like this, that can growl, you see;"
But the shopman smiled and he darkly said,
 "All growls are made, Sir, in Germany."*

* No boubt this defect in the British industry has by now been made good.

 

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