Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AFTER SCHOOL, by BURGES JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AFTER SCHOOL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It's strange to think how much may come from just / a little thing
Last Line: "and grandma says, ""oh, go to bed,—I've dropped another stitch!"
Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Children; Classmates; Courtship; Grandparents; Love - Beginnings; Past; Childhood; Schoolmates; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers


It's strange to think how much may come from just a little thing;
Just as they tell you mighty oaks from little acorns spring.
My Grandpa says a kettle once boiled up a bit too free
And if it hadn't, so he says, there'd not be any Me!
Then Grandma lays her knitting down, and says in tones severe,
"Don't talk such nonsense to that child,—his bedtime's very near."

"Why, I remember," Grandpa says, "as if 't was yesterday,
That kettle setting on the stove and bubbling away,
While twenty pairs of youngsters' eyes would watch it dance and hum,
Instead of conning alphabets or figgering a sum.

"Then suddenly I recollect that kettle lid went pop!
And water ran all down the stove as if 't would never stop;
And two young people laughed out loud, which was against the rule,
And so the master chided 'em and kept 'em after school.

"Now one of those young laughers was a very shy young lad,
And 't other was a little girl,—the prettiest they had.
Hey, Grandma! 'Member how the boys all waited on the fence?"
"I didn't hear you," Grandma says. "Why don't you talk some sense?"

"Ah me," says Grandpa, "there they sat about an hour or more,
While that young lad scraped courage up he'd never had before,—
And wrote it down in billy-dous,—he must have written reams,—
While Master polished up the stove and maybe dreamed his dreams.

"Ah me, that little school is gone," says Grandpa, sighing hard;
"The woodland path they used to tread is now a boulevard.
'T was close to ninety years ago." Cries Grandma, "Sakes alive,
You ought to really be ashamed, 't was only sixty-five!"

"Ah well," says Grandpa, "those two chicks walked hand in hand that day,
It grew to sech a habit that they couldn't break away.
And then she married him. Just why, I've often wondered sence,
With all the other boys in town a-waiting on the fence.
I guess she mightn't, if she'd known he wasn't very rich!"
And Grandma says, "Oh, go to bed,—I've dropped another stitch!"





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