BACK TO SCHOOL
FELL in the creek twice yesterday!
Slipped and slid from a load of hay,
Stepped on a stone and bruised my toe;
Hardly walk ’cause I’m blistered so;
Hit my knee till it’s blue and black,
Sat in the sun and burned my back
When I went to swim, but my, I’m glad!
Best vacation I ever had.
Slid off the old red barn last week.
Wind all gone so I couldn’t speak
When they laid me in upon the bed
And put cold water on my head.
Got poison-ivy on my legs
When I went in the weeds to look for eggs;
But I’ve had more fun since I don’t know when!
Hate to go back to school again.
Burned my hands till they’re awful sore
When the calf ran out of the big barn door
And I tried to hold the rope and fell
Most twenty feet down the old dry well.
Lost my hat that was almost new,
In the great big lake, when the high wind blew;
And my pants are torn from many a climb,
But I never had such a summer-time.
Ate poison berries by the creek
Till they thought I’d die, I felt so sick;
But they gave me ipecac to take,
And it cured up all my stomach-ache!
Got stung by bees, but I got stung best
When I started home with a hornet’s nest,
And I all swelled up; but I’m gone down now,
And it’s all in a boy’s life, anyhow!
Nose all peeled till it’s red and rough,
Hands all brown, but I’m awful tough
From the exercise, and I’m big and strong,
’Cause I hoed in a corn-field all day long.
And my uncle said that I might stay
For harvest-time, and he’d give me pay;
And I’d like to stay, but I have to go
Back home to school, ’cause my Ma said so.
DISENCHANTMENTS
HERE is the brook where the bold pirates ferried,
Swashbuckling wretches, cold-blooded, unkind;
Here is the tree where vast treasure was buried,
Doubloons we dug for but never could find.
How things have changed since these waters were riven,
Splashed with our paddles and churned into foam!
Since the dark nights when the pickaxe was driven
Where the lost treasure lay under the loam!
Here is the wood with its fastness unbounded,
Whence the red savage stole noiselessly out,
Warning us not till his warwhoop was sounded,
Leaving us scalped on the greensward about.
How things have changed from the steed and the stirrup,
Flintlock and tomahawk whittled from lath,
Where our blood ran there’s no fluid but syrup
From the sap maples along our war path!
Here is the plain where our scouts reconnoitred,
Crawling and creeping through morass and glade,
Sighting some bloodthirsty savage who loitered
Near by the scene of some scalp-lifting raid.
How things have changed since the red deer went leaping,
Since came the bison by hundreds to browse,
Silent the plain where our brave scouts went creeping,
Save for the lowing of far distant cows.