The Mushroom Expert
Bill is a mushroom expert, and Bill is a friend of mine,
He has studied the amanita and all its ancestral line;
He goes to the fields each autumn to harvest a dinner treat
For he knows which are deadly fungi, and which are the ones to eat.
Bill can talk by the hour on mushrooms and he laughs at my timid fears,
He is still in the land of the living and has eaten the things for years;
He is wise in the lore of the meadow, the swamp and the dark ravine,
And I'd say, of the mushroom experts, he's the best that I've ever seen.
If ever I gathered mushrooms I'd carry them back to Bill
And ask him to look them over and pick out the ones that kill;
I'd trust to his certain knowledge and bank on his judgment, too,
For he is a shark on that stuff and can spiel it right off to you.
Bill knows 'em and loves 'em and eats 'em, and all through the days of fall
He's out with his little basket in search of the snowy ball;
And never I doubt his knowledge, I grant it surpasses mine—
But during the mushroom season I don't go to Bill's to dine.
The Town of Used to Be
Used to think I'd like to go
To the town I used to know
As a little bare-foot lad,
Tanned of cheek an' always glad.
But it's been so long since I
Told the good old friends good-bye
An' set out for wealth an' fame,
That it cannot be the same,
An' maybe I'd better not
Spoil the picture that I've got.
Bill's been back, an' he tells me
Town's not what it used to be;
That old Barker's grocery store
Isn't open any more,
An' most folks we knew are gone,
Moved away or traveled on
To a brighter realm than this;
An' the girls we used to kiss
An' go courtin' with, somehow
Don't seem half so pretty now.