THE TRIUMPH OF MODEST MARIA
Maria’s comb hung lopsy-wise
And flapped athwart her filmy eyes,
Exactly like a slattern’s hair
On washing day; and I declare
She was the slouchiest-looking hen
That pecked in T. B. Tucker’s pen.
Cah-dah! Cah-dut!
She was the butt
Of every sort of jibe and cut.
Maria was a Brahma dame,
Broad and squat and plucked and lame.
The Leghorns cast a pitying smile
Upon her queer, old-fashioned style.
The Plymouth Rocks would jeer and flout
Because her legs were feathered out.
The cocks would strut,
Pah-rutt! Pah-rutt!
And snigger at her bloomers’ cut.
The trim white Cochins tip-toed by
And froze her with disdainful eye;
Each tufted Houdan tossed her plume
And glared Maria’s social doom.
Where ’er she strolled in all the yard
Maria got it good and hard!
Cah-dut! Cah-dah!
Each social star
Just dropped Maria with a jar.
But she pursued her quiet way,
And picked and scratched the livelong day,
Kept early hours and ate bran mash,
Nor sought to cut a social dash.
And then one day she left her nest
With pallid comb and swelling breast.
Cah-dut! Cah-dah!
Hooray, hurrah!
Maria, you’re a queen, you are!
The news went cackling round the pen
—An egg! It measured twelve by ten.
And T. B. Tucker drove to town
To take that gor-rammed big egg down.
The editor put on his specs,
The villagers turned rubber necks,
And some collecting feller paid
Right smart for what Maria laid.
And European news was set
Aside that week by the Gazette
In order that a glowing pen
Might pay due praise to that old hen.
Cah-lip! Cah-lop!
You’ll find, sure pop,
That modest merit lands on top.