Oh, I'm ever so cross at my nanny!

Mitch Hornbee

She said I shan't go out of doors today, because it's raining and I'd catch my death of pneumonia. It's just a little drizzle. I know why Nanny really doesn't want me to go out. She's afraid I'd get a little mud on my knickers and she might actually have to scrub a little when she washes them and earn her keep, the lazy hag.

I'll tell you something else about my Nanny. She's not just lazy; she's Irish!

Mother says that's why she has headaches so often in the morning and doesn't like me to raise my voice above a whisper. Father says that's the curse of her people.

Well, I say whoever put that curse on her people did the right thing, because Nanny is simply beastly!

When father gets home from the fox hunt, I'm going to demand Nanny get the sack! We could easily find a replacement, and probably even one that wasn't an old wrinkled-up Leprechaun. Or better yet - mother could mind me herself! Oh, that would be delightful!

My mother is simply an angel. She's a beautiful woman of fine breeding with long, shimmering raven locks. She used to take me riding the second Saturday of every third month! It was always a splendid outing, but Nanny told mother not to take me anymore since I got so over-stimulated that I couldn't sleep for four nights straight afterward.

Oh, that nanny!

Nanny calls me her little China Doll and treats me like I might shatter at any moment. But just because I'm asthmatic, pigeon-toed, a hemophiliac, and suffer from the vapors and the sugars doesn't mean I don't have the vim of any other boy! I'd like to give her a right pinch if I didn't fear it might bruise my fingers so like last time.

One evening as Nanny tucked me in for the night, a wave of melancholy overtook me and I asked her why mother never embraces me. She said it was because I was a little precious China Doll and that mother feared holding me in loving arms might harm me. I asked her then if she thought mother loved me.

"Oh, my little one," Nanny cooed in her common brogue. "Of course your mother loves you. You're a little darling that God sent straight down from Heaven with his angels. Your smiles and laughter are the light and the warmth of this dreary old house and we'd none of us get by without you. Your mother loves you very dearly, as any woman with a soul would have no choice but to do."

Oh, now it's raining in earnest! Nanny will never let me out to play now, the smelly old hag!