Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/351

 KITTY S CAT AND MINE. 345

And if he is bad now and then, And makes a great racketing noise,

They only look over their specs

And say, &quot;Ah, these boys will be boys!

Life is only so short at the best ;

Let the children be happy to-day.&quot; Then they look for a while at the sky,

And the hills that are far, far away.

Quite often, as twilight comes on, Grandmothers sing hymns very low

To themselves as they rock by the fire, About heaven, and when they shall go.

And then a boy stopping to think

Will find a hot tear in his eye, To know what must come at the last,

For grandmothers all have to die.

I wish they could stay here and pray,

For a boy needs their prayers ev ry night ;

Some boys more than others, I s pose ; Such fellers as me need a sight.

��KITTY S CAT AND MINE.

KlTTY s cat has fresh blue ribbon Knotted on its throat of snow; Mine has but a dingy fragment, Though I love the creature so.

�� �