The Adams’s children, they make enough noise
In the yard where they live for three times as much boys,
And sometimes they laugh and you hear it as clear
As can be up to Tinker’s and way over here;
And they’ve got a dog which is almost the same
As the rest of the boys and will play every game,
And bark all the time, and he makes so much noise
He’s just like the rest of the Adams’s boys.
The Adams’s children, they go out to ride
On a pony of theirs, with them all three astride,
And the boy up in front makes him kick up and then
The boy way behind, he gets thrown off again;
And the Adams’s pony, he looks just as though
He’s trying to laugh when the others laugh so;
It looks like a laugh, but he can’t make a noise
Like the dog or the rest of the Adams’s boys.
The Adams’s children, they go out to play
And sometimes their mother don’t see them all day,
But she never frets, ’cause the world is too small,
So she said, for three boys to get lost in it all.
And sometimes she listens outdoors and she hears
The laughing and barking way over to Geer’s,
Which is most half a mile, and she smiles, because then
She knows they’ll be home when they’re hungry again.
The Adams’s children, they get on as though
They were three great chums and not brothers, you know;
And folks like to hear them, when they’re going past,
With the big one ahead and the little one last.
They’ve always got playmates of their very own,
And don’t have to do chores or to study alone,
And everything seems to be three times the fun
For the Adams’s children as though there’s just one!
THE ADAMS’S BOYS
BILLY PEEBLE’S CHRISTMAS
BILLY Peeble, he ain’t got no parents—never had none, ’cause
When he’s borned he was an orfunt; an’ he said ’at Santa Claus
Never didn’t leave him nothin’, ’cause he was a county charge,
An’ the overseer told him that his fambly was too large
To remember orfunt children; so I ast Ma couldn’t we
Have Bill Peeble up to our house, so’s to see our Christmas tree.
An’ she ast me if he’s dirty; an’ I said I guessed he was,
But I didn’t think it makes no difference with Santa Claus.