When you're typewritin' and that long-legged clerk
Tips back there on his chair and smiles at you,
And you look up and get to smilin', too,
I'd like to go and give his chair a jerk
And send him flyin' till his head went through
The door that goes out to the hall, and when
They picked him up he'd be all black and blue
And you'd be nearly busted laughin' then.
But if I done it, maybe you would run
And hold his head and smooth his hair and say
It made you sad that he got dumped that way,
And I'd get h'isted out for what I done—
I wish that he'd get fired and you'd stay
And suddenly I'd be a man some day.
VIII
This morning when that homely, long-legged clerk
Come in he had a rose he got somewhere;
He went and kind of leaned against her chair,
Instead of goin' on about his work,
And stood around and talked to her a while,
Because the boss was out,—and both took care
To watch the door; and when he left her there
He dropped the flower with a sickish smile.
I snuck it from the glass of water she
Had stuck it in, and tore it up and put
It on the floor and smashed it with my foot,
When neither him nor her was watchin' me—
I'd like to rub the stem acrost his nose,
And I wish they'd never be another rose.
XIII
Last night I dreamed about her in my sleep;
I thought that her and me had went away
Out on some hill where birds sung 'round all day,
And I had got a job of herdin' sheep.
I thought that she had went along to keep
Me comp'ny, and we'd set around for hours
Just lovin', and I'd go and gather flowers
And pile them at her feet, all in a heap.
It seemed to me like heaven, bein' there
With only her besides the sheep and birds,
And us not sayin' anything but words
About the way we loved. I wouldn't care
To ever wake again if I could still
Dream we was there forever on the hill.
XXVII
It's over now; the blow has fell at last;
It seems as though the sun can't shine no more,
And nothing looks the way it did before;
The glad thoughts that I used to think are past.
Her desk's shut up to-day, the lid's locked fast;
The keys where she typewrote are still; her chair
Looks sad and lonesome standin' empty there—
I'd like to let the tears come if I dast.