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Oh, if you only knowed how much I like To stand here, when the "old man" ain't around, And watch your soft, white fingers while you pound Away at them there keys! Each time you strike It almost seems to me as though you'd found Some way, while writin' letters, how to play Sweet music on that thing, because the sound Is something I could listen to all day. You're twenty-five or six and I'm fourteen, And you don't hardly ever notice me— But when you do, you call me Willie! Gee, I wisht I'd bundles of the old long green And could be twenty-eight or nine or so, And something happened to your other beau. |
II.
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I heard the old man scoldin' yesterday Because your spellin' didn't suit him quite; He said you'd better go to school at night, And you was rattled when he turned away; You had to tear the letter up and write It all again, and when nobody seen I went and dented in his hat for spite: That's what he got for treatin' you so mean. I wish that you typewrote for me and we Was far off on an island, all alone; I'd fix a place up under some nice tree, And every time your fingers struck a key I'd grab your hands and hold them in my own, And any way you spelt would do for me. |
III.
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I wish a fire'd start up here, some day, And all the rest would run away from you— The boss and that long-legged bookkeeper, too, That you keep smilin' at—and after they Was all down-stairs you'd holler out and say: "Won't no one come and save me? Must I choke And die alone here in the heat and smoke? Oh, cowards that they was to run away!" And then I'd come and grab you up and go Out through the hall and down the stairs, and when I got you saved the crowd would cheer, and then They'd take me to the hospital, and so You'd come and stay beside me there and cry And say you'd hate to live if I would die. |