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A Vanished Joy
When I was but a little lad of six and seven and eight,
One joy I knew that has been lost in customs up-to-date,
Then Saturday was baking day and Mother used to make,
The while I stood about and watched, the Sunday pies and cake;
And I was there to have fulfilled a small boy’s fondest wish,
The glorious privilege of youth–to scrape the frosting dish!
On Saturdays I never left to wander far away–
I hovered near the kitchen door on Mother’s baking day;
The fragrant smell of cooking seemed to hold me in its grip,
And naught cared I for other sports while there were sweets to sip;
I little cared that all my chums had sought the brook to fish;
I chose to wait that moment glad when I could scrape the dish.
Full many a slice of apple I have lifted from a pie
Before the upper crust went on, escaping Mother’s eye;
Full many a time my fingers small in artfulness have strayed
Into some sweet temptation rare which Mother’s hands had made;
But eager-eyed and watery-mouthed, I craved the greater boon,
When Mother let me clean the dish and lick the frosting spoon.
The baking days of old are gone, our children cannot know
The glorious joys that childhood owned and loved so long ago.
New customs change the lives of all and in their heartless way
They’ve robbed us of the glad event once known as baking day.
The stores provide our every need, yet many a time I wish
Our kids could know that bygone thrill and scrape the frosting dish.
The Spoiler
With a twinkle in his eye
He’d come gayly walkin’ by
An’ he’d whistle to the children
An’ he’d beckon ‘em to come,
Then he’d chuckle low an’ say,
“Come along, I’m on my way,
An’ it’s I that need your company
To buy a little gum.”
When his merry call they’d hear,
All the children, far an’ near,
Would come flyin’ from the gardens
Like the chickens after wheat;
When we’d shake our heads an’ say:
“No, you mustn’t go to-day!”
He’d beg to let him have ‘em
In a pack about his feet.
Oh, he spoiled ‘em, one an’ all;
There was not a youngster small
But was over-fed on candy
An’ was stuffed with lollypops,
An’ I think his greatest joy
Was to get some girl or boy
An’ bring ‘em to their parents
All besmeared by chocolate drops.
Now the children’s hearts are sore
For he comes to them no more,
And no more to them he whistles
And no more for them he stops;
But in Paradise, I think,
With his chuckle and his wink,
He is leading little angels
To the heavenly candy shops.
When We Understand the Plan
I reckon when the world we leave
And cease to smile and cease to grieve,
When each of us shall quit the strife
And drop the working tools of life,
Somewhere, somehow, we’ll come to find
Just what our Maker had in mind.
Perhaps through clearer eyes than these
We’ll read life’s hidden mysteries,
And learn the reason for our tears–
Why sometimes came unhappy years,
And why our dearest joys were brief
And bound so closely unto grief.
There is so much beyond our scope,
As blindly on through life we grope,
So much we cannot understand,
However wisely we have planned,
That all who walk this earth about
Are constantly beset by doubt.
No one of us can truly say
Why loved ones must be called away,
Why hearts are hurt, or e’en explain
Why some must suffer years of pain;
Yet some day all of us shall know
The reason why these things are so.
I reckon in the years to come,
When these poor lips of clay are dumb,
And these poor hands have ceased to toil,
Somewhere upon a fairer soil
God shall to all of us make clear
The purpose of our trials here.