Page:Field Poems of Childhood.djvu/144



ATHER calls me William, sister calls me Will,

Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!

Mighty glad I ain't a girl—ruther be a boy,

Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy!

Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake—

Hate to take the castor-ile they give for belly-ache!

'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,

But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!

Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;

First thing she knows she doesn't know where she is at!

Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,

'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!

But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an' cross,

He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss,

An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"

But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!

Gran'ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,

I'll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,