The Pioneer Baby
By Erastus Murphy

The story has been told of Pioneer life,
The truth and more, too, maybe
But whoever heard in all their life
The story of the Pioneer baby?

We don't give credit to those babies we should
For the part in that drama they played,
Without them that wilderness would always have stood
And the sunshine they bring us would always have been shade.

Did you ever in sober, solemn thought
While engaged in your daily labors
Think how heavenly things to us are taught
By these sweet loving Pioneer Babies?

The pioneer's life was a ceaseless strife,
Such as none but the Pioneer knew
For a home for himself and his noble wife
And for the pioneer baby too.

At the close of the day, his day's work done
He would enter his rude cabin door;
To his arms that baby so quickly would run
His cup was full and running o'er.

It had blue eyes and soft curly hair,
And a tooth or two – bless its dear heart
But it never once sat in a little high chair
Or went to see Grandma in a baby cart.

It didn't get candy like babies today
For that it was much better off
No soothing bills its dad had to pay
It was rocked to sleep in a sugar trough.

Its playthings were few and homemade too
The bootjack and the big turkey wing
It never wore a bright velvet shoe
Or cut its teeth on a rubber ring.

He never dreamed of Santa Claus
All loaded down with goods
For little girls and little boys
Whose homes were in the woods.

Nor ever thought the time would come
When he'd have a jumping jack
Or have some skates and a little drum
And some peanuts in a sack.

That pioneer baby like others, no doubt
Came freighted with trouble and woe
It would laugh and cry and fret and pout
Had its mamma's temper, you know.

The baby of course had the whooping cough
And later the measles and mumps
And the ague it had it couldn't shake off
His row was full of stumps.

But he lived and grew and went to school
And was petted by his Uncles and Aunts
Who always rejoiced with him, as a rule,
When he wore his first pair of pants.

These pants were new but the cloth was not
They were clean and not much torn
His mamma made them – the fit to a dot –
Out of an old pair his papa had worn.

When he outgrew them, could wear them no more,
They were carefully lain away
Not made into carpet to be put on the floor
"They'll come in hand for Tommy some day".

He grew out of childhood, into manhood's renown
Got married as one might suppose
Other cabins went up and the forest went down
And the land today blooms like a rose.