FIVE minutes chasing butterflies
Way over, off the road;
Five minutes watching Willie Price
Do tricks with his pet toad;
Five minutes helping Gibbsie get
His pig back in the pen—
I wonder if it’s school-time yet?
I guess I’m late again.
I think I lost a little time
Because I walked so slow
Where Johnny Watkins lost a dime
A day or two ago.
It’s underneath the leaves somewhere,
And Johnny feels so blue
That I just stopped a minute there
Because he asked me to.
And then it rained a little bit,
And Dominick McPhee
Had his straw hat and had to sit
Under a good thick tree,
Or else he’d get it spoiled and get
The top all swelled. You see,
A straw hat is not safe to wet—
His kind, especially.
And after we had saved his hat
From getting spoiled for him,
A big woodpecker came and sat
Upon a rotten limb;
And Johnny said when they’re about,
Somebody told the boys,
You see a lot of worms come out
To see what makes the noise.
So then we boys all stayed about
A couple minutes more,
In hopes to see the worms come out
Which he was rapping for;
But after he went b-r-r-r! and b-r-r-r!
A while, he flew away,
And Johnny said he guessed there were
No worms at home that day.
So then we hurried up, and ran
As fast as we could run,
To get there just as school began.
And just when it’s begun
I had to run back to the tree
To get my slate and rule;
And yet the teacher cannot see
Why boys are late for school.
A PRESENT FOR LITTLE BOY BLUE
OUR Neighbor, he calls me his Little Boy Blue
Whenever he goes by our yard;
And he says, “Good-morning” or “How-do-you-do?”
But sometimes he winks awful hard.
I guess he don’t know what my name really is,
Or else he forgot, if he knew;
And my! You would think I am really part his—
He calls me his Little Boy Blue!
Our Neighbor, he told me that Little Boy Blue
Once stood all his toys in a row,
And said, “Now, don’t go till I come back for you”—
But that was a long time ago.
And one time, at Christmas, when I had a tree,
He brought me a sled, all brand-new,
And smiled when he said it was partly for me
And partly for Little Boy Blue.
Our Neighbor, he’s not going to have any tree,
So he says the best he can do
Is try to get something to partly give me
And partly give Little Boy Blue,
Because, if he’s here, it would make him so glad,
And he said he knew it was true
That ever and ever so many folks had
A boy just like Little Boy Blue.