"I'm weary of my empty rooms
And stockings never mended.
If you could think of some nice girl
I'd feel myself befriended."
I sat and pondered for a space,
And then I spake up gaily:
"You just go down the Ferry road
And ask for Mary Bailey.
"She's bright as is a new-made cent
And smart as any steel trap;
I tell you grass will never grow
Beneath her restless heel-tap.
"A wiser little head than hers
Was never found a hat in;
She reads a thousand books a year,
And talks in Dutch and Latin.
"She always has a stylish dress,
And dainty slippered feet,
She's money in the savings-bank
Her every want to meet."
He sadly mused, "That sort of thing
Will never do, you see.
A wife that's all accomplishments
Is not the wife for me."
A lucky thought was mine. I kicked
Right off my old brogan,
And pulled my trousers to the knee.
"Look here, you foolish man!
"These stockings by her hands were knit."
"Why, sakes alive," cried he.
"The modern girl who knits like that
Is just the girl for me."
—By John Greenleaf Whittier.