There was an old fellow named Adam,
Who lived in the Garden with Madam.
When the critters they came
All demanding a name
He thought for a minute he "had 'em!"
I don't think I shall ever forget the result of my father's horrified reading of the lines. All my grandfathers back to Adam himself were there, and wrath, fear, and consternation were depicted on every countenance when the last line was delivered, and then every eye was turned on me. If there had been any way of disappearing I should have faded away instantly, but alas, every avenue of escape was closed, and before I left the room each separate and distinct ancestor had turned me over his knee and lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of one kind or another.
One little piece that I recall had to do with the frequency with which I was punished for small delinquencies. It was called
WHEN FATHER SPANKED ME
My Father larruped me, and yet
I could but note his eyes were wet,
When lying there across his knee
I got what he had had for me—
It seemed to fill him with regret.
"It hurt me worse than you," he said,
When later on I went to bed,
And I—the truth would not be hid—
Replied, "I'm gug-gug-glad it did!"
There were other verses written as I grew older that, while I do not regard them as masterpieces, I nevertheless think compare favorably with a great deal of the alleged poetry that has crept into print of late years. A trifle dashed off on a brick with a piece of charcoal one morning shortly after my hundredth birthday, comes back to me. The original I regret to say was lost through the careless act of one of my cousins, who flung it at a pterodactyl as it winged its flight across our meadows some years after. I reproduce it from memory.
THE JUNE-BUG
The merry, merry June-bug
Now butts at all in sight.
He butts the wall o' mornings,
He rams the ceil at night.
He caroms from the book-case
Off to the window-pane,
Then bounces from my table
Back to the case again.