He's No Shakespeare...

...but my paternal grandparents loved his poetry; and I currently have a volume of his work on the little table by the chair where I nurse Moriah in the night.  During those times of sleepiness, I can't seem to wake up enough to read anything too heavy, but his writings are just right for such times.

I'm talking about the poetry of Edgar Guest, a poet with whose work I was not well acquainted at all.  But a week or two ago, as my hand was moving along the bookshelf, searching for the next book to read during night nursings, I chose to pull an old volume off the shelf; and when I opened it, I saw the inscription "The J.S. Huffmans" written in my grandmother's handwriting.  The book is copyright 1919, and the poems are sweet and sentimental.  Many of them extol the value of home and family and faithful, simple living; but this one just made me laugh, especially because my granddad was an old country doctor, and I can easily envision him doing a trick like this Dr. Johnson did.  ;-)

Dr. Johnson's Picture Cow

Got a sliver in my hand
An' it hurt t' beat the band,
An' got white around it, too;
Then the first thing that I knew
It was all swelled up, an' Pa
Said: "There's no use fussin', Ma,
Jes' put on his coat an' hat;
Doctor Johnson must see that."


I was scared an' yelled, because
One time when the doctor was 
At our house he made me smell
Something funny, an' I fell
Fast asleep, an' when I woke
Seemed like I was goin' t' choke;
An' the folks who stood about
Said I'd had my tonsils out.


An' my throat felt awful sore
An' I couldn't eat no more,
An' it hurt me when I'd talk,
An' they wouldn't let me walk.
So when Pa said I must go
To the doctor's, I said: "No,
I don't want to go to-night,
'Cause my hand will be all right."


Pa said: "Take him, Ma," an' so
I jes' knew I had t' go.
An' the doctor looked an' said:
"It is very sore an' red--
Much too sore to touch at all.
See that picture on the wall,
That one over yonder, Bud,
With the old cow in the mud?


"Once I owned a cow like that,
Jes' as brown an' big an' fat,
An' one day I pulled her tail
An' she kicked an' knocked the pail
Full o' milk clean over me."
Then I looked up there t' see
His old cow above the couch,
An' right then I hollered, 'ouch.'


"Bud," says he, "what's wrong with you;
Did the old cow kick you, too?"
An' he laughed, an' Ma said: "Son,
Never mind, now, it's all done."
Pretty soon we came away
An' my hand's all well to-day.
But that's first time that I knew
Picture cows could kick at you.