Jim:
’Twas just about as homely as a hearse
In my young days: but my luck’s turned, it seems.
Judith:
It takes more than four walls to make a home,
And such a home as Michael’s made for Ruth.
Though she’s a fendy lass; she’s too like me,
And needs a helpmate, or she’ll waste herself;
And, with another man, she might have wrecked,
Instead of building. She’s got her man, her mate:
Husband and father, born, day in, day out,
He works to keep a home for wife and weans.
There’s never been a luckier lass than Ruth:
Though she deserves it, too; and it’s but seldom
Good lasses are the lucky ones; and few
Get their deserts in this life.
Jim:
True, egox!
Judith:
Few, good or bad. But Ruth has everything—
A home, a steady husband, and her boys.
There never were such boys.
Jim:
A pretty picture:
It takes my fancy: and the dear old grannie,
Why do you leave her out? And there’s a corner
For granddad in it, surely—an armchair
On the other side of the ingle, with a pipe
And packet of twist, and a pot of nappy beer,
Hot-fettled four-ale, handy on the hob?
Ay: there’s the chair: I’d best secure it now.