"Do they just 'buse 'em?
Come here to your old auntie, sweetems, and we'll go walkee.

I saw a bow-wow--such a tunnin' ickey wickey bow-wow on the steps when I came in.

Come, we go see ickey wickey bow-wow ?" "Aunt Hannah, _please!_" protested Billy, both hands upraised in horror.
"_Won't_ you say 'dog,' and leave out that dreadful 'ickey wickey'?
Of course he can't understand things now, really, but we never know when he'll begin to, and we aren't ever going to let him hear baby-talk at all, if we can help it.

And truly, when you come to think of it, it is absurd to expect a child to talk sensibly and rationally on the mental diet of 'moo-moos' and 'choo-choos' served out to them.

Our Professor of Metaphysics and Ideology in our Child Study Course says that nothing is so receptive and plastic as the Mind of a Little Child, and that it is perfectly appalling how we fill it with trivial absurdities that haven't even the virtue of being accurate.