Read at the celebration of the Seventy-second Anniversary of the birthday of Joseph Steele, Dec. 13, 1884.
Dear friends and neighbors, one and all,
I’m pleased to meet you here to-day;
’Tis nice for neighbors thus to call,
In such a social way.
We meet to celebrate a day,
Which people seldom see;
Time flies so rapidly away
’Tis like a dream to me;
Since I, a lad with flaxen hair
First met our friend, so gray;
We both were free from thought and care,
But full of hope and play.
Well Joseph Steele, we may be glad
That we are here to-day,
Although it makes me somewhat sad
To think of friends away.
Of all our schoolboy friends but few
Alas! can now be found,
Not many but myself and you
Are still above the ground.
I count upon my fingers’ ends
About the half, I know.
Of all acquaintances and friends
With whom we used to go;
To Humphreys and Montgomery
To Cochran and to Dance,
And some, who slip my memory,
That used to make us prance,
Whene’er we missed a lesson
Or placed a crooked pin
Just where some one would press on
Enough to drive it in.
O, it was fun alive, I vow,
To see that fellow bounce
And hear him howl and make a row
And threaten he would trounce