"J. RUFUS JINKS is stepping high, the light of pride is in his eye, and peace is throned upon his brow, for he's become a granddad now." The local paper printed this, concerning Rufus and his bliss. I said, "Perhaps that old galoot will now set up a good cheroot, since this promotion he has won, and is the grandsire of a son." I found him at the corner store, where he was seated, glum and sore. He didn't prance around with glee, or show new brands of ecstasy. "I am not filled with gaudy pride, but feel like twenty cents," he sighed. "I've always held that I was young, until this new born babe was sprung; now such pretensions are no use; posterity has cooked my goose. When 'Granddad' is your given name, you might as well forsake the game; though you may try, you can't begin to make folks think you're not all in. It is no use glad clothes to wear; it is no use to dye my hair; it is no use for me to say how like a colt I feel today. The town would merely grin and scoff, for all men see where I get off. I bend beneath this worst of strokes, and will not pass around the smokes." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...REMEMBRANCE by JOHN HENRY BONER TO THOMAS MOORE (1) by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE CHURCH OF A DREAM; TO BERNHARD BERENSON by LIONEL PIGOT JOHNSON THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER by FRANCIS SCOTT KEY THE TWO MASKS by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |