Inventin’ a jew’s-harp to go by steam, or a new-fangled powder-horn,
While the children’s goin’ barefoot to school and the weeds is chokin’ our corn.
When I’ve been forced to chop the wood, and tend to the farm beside,
And look at ’Bijah a-settin there, I’ve jest dropped down and cried.
We lost the hull of our turnip crop while he was inventin’ a gun;
But I counted it one of my marcies when it bust before ’twas done.
So he turned it into a “burglar alarm.” It ought to give thieves a fright—
’Twould scare an honest man out of his wits, ef he sot it off at night.
Sometimes I wonder ef ’Bijah’s crazy, he does such cur’ous things.
Hev I told you about his bedstead yit?—’Twas full of wheels and springs;