My fourth and last choice in Love Songs of Childhood describes in a tender way the noisy and carefree daily routine of a toddler girl.

THE CUNNIN’ LITTLE THING

WHEN baby wakes of mornings,
Then it’s wake, ye people all!
For another day
Of song and play
Has come at our darling’s call!
And, till she gets her dinner,
She makes the welkin ring,
And she won’t keep still till she’s had her fill—
The cunnin’ little thing!

When baby goes a-walking,
Oh, how her paddies fly!
For that’s the way
The babies say
To other folk “by-by”;
The trees bend down to kiss her,
And the birds in rapture sing,
As there she stands and waves her hands—
The cunnin’ little thing!

When baby goes a-rocking
In her bed at close of day,
At hide-and-seek
On her dainty cheek
The dreams and the dimples play;
Then it’s sleep in the tender kisses
The guardian angels bring
From the Far Above to my sweetest love—
You cunnin’ little thing!

Source of the poem: Love-Songs of Childhood by Eugene Field. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1926). Digitised on Internet Archive and as a Project Gutenberg Ebook. The poem is on page 98.

Other source: Poems of Childhood by Eugene Field, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1904). Digitised as a Project Gutenberg Ebook and hypertext version on Wikisource. The poem is on page 186.

The second half of this poem has been reprinted in the collection Amours Enfantines by François Lemonnier. My thanks to him for drawing my attention to this author and this collection.