Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A VERMONT SUNDAY DINNER, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A VERMONT SUNDAY DINNER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Two sermons, sunday school between
Last Line: To get dried beef for dinner.
Subject(s): Beef; Dinners & Dining; Food & Eating; Vermont


TWO Sermons, Sunday school between,
Three sandy miles of going—
That's what we youngsters had to face
To make a Sunday showing;
When home we got nobody cared
If they was saint or sinner,
Our only hope was good dried beef
A-cooked in cream for dinner.

We got so hot a-driving back
We all was near to fainting;
The sand scaled off the wheels like paint
From off a job of painting;
And every time the harness squeaked
We felt our waists grow thinner—
Our only hope, as I've jest said,
Was creamed dried beef for dinner.

We got so cold a-driving back
The load was near to freezing,
And part of us a-coughed and hacked
Awhile the rest was wheezing;
And once we thought we'd have to send
For Doc "Lobelia" Skinner
To thaw us out, but we was cured
Before we'd finished dinner.

I've never seen such handsome beef,
No Sir; nor any sweeter,
A-cured in our old wooden bowl
With brine and saltedpeter;
It spruced the outer man right up
And satisfied the inner—
That creamed dried beef, that good dried beef
We had for Sunday dinner.

We hewed if off before we went
And put some water to it,
And jest the minute we got home
The stove begun to stew it;
Then in we stirred the sun-kist cream
That made the dish a winner—
I Vow! I'd go to meeting now
To get dried beef for dinner.





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