Yawcob Strauss and Other Poems/Yankee Shrewdness


 * In a little country village,
 * Not many years ago,
 * There lived a real "live Yankee,"
 * Whom they called "Old Uncle Snow."


 * In trade he had no equal;
 * And storekeepers would say,
 * "We're always 'out of pocket'
 * When Snow comes round this way."


 * 'Twas the custom of the villagers —
 * Few of them being rich —
 * To trade their surplus "garden-sass"
 * For groceries and " sich."


 * One store supplied the village
 * With goods of every kind,
 * Including wines and liquors
 * For those that way inclined.


 * A counter in the "sample-room"
 * Was fixed up very neat;
 * And after every "barter-trade"
 * The storekeeper would "treat."


 * Old Snow brought in, one morning,
 * An egg fresh from the barn,
 * And said, "Give me a needle:
 * My woman wants to darn."




 * The trade was made: the storekeeper
 * Asked him to take a drink.
 * "I'll humor him," he said, aside,
 * As the lookers-on did wink.


 * "Don't care, naow, ef I do," says Snow;
 * "And, as your goin' to treat,
 * Just put a leetle sugar in,—
 * I like my liquor sweet.


 * "And, say, while you're about it, —
 * Though I don't like to beg,—
 * 'Twill taste a leetle better
 * If you drop in an egg."


 * "All right, friend," says the grocer,
 * Now being fairly "caught,"
 * And dropped into the tumbler
 * The egg that Snow had brought!


 * The egg contained a double yolk.
 * Says Snow, "Here, this won't do:
 * Give me another needle, 'Squire;
 * This egg's the same as two!"