Last year my fam'ly went abroad an' travelled all aroun',
An' saw 'most all ther' wuz to see in ev'ry for'n town.
They didn' stop much more'n a day or two in any place,
But jus' rushed on as if they'd been a-runnin' in a race.
They took me 'long, and must ha' made me walk a thousand miles
Through gal'ries and palaces of a hundred diff'rent styles.
They wouldn' stop at toy-stores, or take me out to see
The soldiers drillin' in the park, or th' wild m'nageriee.
Ther' wuzn't any fun fer me in all that sort o' thing—
'Cause, what'd I care 'bout lookin' at th' pictures o' the king?
There was one place in Switz'rland where I did have some fun
(If 't hadn't ben fer ol' Loocern I dunno what I'd done!).
The fam'ly'd all gone off ter climb a mountain in a train,
An' left me with the hotel man 'til they got back again.
I went out in the garden, in the afternoon, to play,
An' found another boy out there—been lef' behind, same way.
He said he wuz an English boy—an' I said mighty quick,
"I'm an American boy, young kid, no English boy can lick!"
So then he got to boastin' 'bout the things th't he could do,
An' said his school wuz bigger'n mine, which I said wuzn't true.
He said he had an uncle was a nobleman—a Duke;
I tol' him 's how them fam'ly things was jus' a kind o' fluke.
"Well, England's got more soldiers than th' Americans ever had!"
"But we can lick 'em ev'ry time!" That made him awful mad.
"An' England's got a lot of ships, an' guns, an' cannon-balls...."
"But you 'ain't got nothin' half so good as our Niag'ra Falls!"
"You don't have 's many holidays," went on the little fool;
"On Guy Fawks day American boys all have to go to school."
So I ran up an' said, "You red-coat British kid," says I,
"There's one day you don't celebrate, an' that's the Fourth of July!"
An' by that time I'd got so mad with all his monkey-trickin',
I jus' sailed in an' guv that English boy a good sound lickin'.
Albert Lee.
ANIMAL AMENITIES.
A Black Bear met a Gray Fox, and to him remarked, "Good-day,
It seems to me you're rather young to be so very gray."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Begun in Harper's Round Table No. 857.