[Editor: This poem for children, by L. E. Homfray, was published in Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW), 20 September 1925.]
The Doll’s Hospital
All the dollies are very sick,
Please will you fetch the doctor quick.
Then as I think they might get worse
Just ring up for a Red Cross nurse.
Couldn’t you come and help me, too?
Because there is such a lot to do.
Poor old Jean has a broken nose.
This little chap has lost his toes.
Judy says she has got the ’flu.
Poppie, I know, will get it, too.
Molly, I fear, has got bronchitis.
And Bonnie a touch of tonsilitis.
Put on your hat, and off you go.
Really I think you are very slow.
Here’s the money to take a car,
To walk to the doctor, would be too far.
If you should pass a lolly shop
Ask the driver to let you stop.
I want some toffee and almond rock,
And for the babies a cake of “choc.”
Then, Oh, dear! we must have some soap,
There’s money enough for that, I hope.
Because the dolls must be nice and clean,
None of them now are fit to be seen.
We’ll have to wash all their nighties, too,
There’s plenty of work for me and you.
Then if the doctor says we may,
We’ll have them out in the sun to-day.
Oh, dear! I hope they will soon get well.
I don’t like having a hospital.
L. E. HOMFRAY.
Source:
Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW), 20 September 1925, p. 3 of the supplement “Pranks: The Children’s Newspaper”
Editor’s notes:
choc. = an abbreviation of “chocolate”
’flu = influenza
lolly = a piece of confectionary, a candy, a sweet; an abbreviation of “lollypop” (plural: “lollies”)
nightie = (singular spelt “nightie”, also “nighty”; plural for both: “nighties”) nightdress, nightgown (a single-piece bedwear apparel, now usually made for females, with feminine decoration and design; however, single-piece nightgowns were used by males in the past, also known as “nightshirts”)
tonsilitis = an alternative spelling of “tonsillitis”
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