One time I had an awful pain
    Which made me groan and cry;
It felt like daggers in my head
    Which stabbed at my right eye.

It was the toothache, mother said,
    And as she petted me,
She quite agreed with Bobby Burns
    That nothing worse could be.

Not even chiggers, ainhum, yaws,
    Or leprosy and sprue,
With craw-craw and the Dhobie itch,
    Piedra and goundou.

Beriberi and pinta, too,
    With cholera and boils,
And dengue and bubonic plague
    Or dreadful serpents' coils.

With fevers scarlet, yellow, black
    And measles and the mumps,
Green apple-colic, whooping cough,
    And chicken-pox's bumps.

In Mother's sympathy for me
    No comfort could I find,
And so I sought the dentist's aid,
    Where forceps cruel but kind

Removed the sore and aching tooth,
    And freed me from the pang,
Which by the noted Bobby Burns
    Was called "A venomed stang."

And when the dentist gave to me
    The very little thing
Which for so long had tortured me
    With joy I longed to sing.

And I resolved to sugar it
    And watch it every day,
While it was having dreadful pangs
    And I could laugh and play.