I SAVED five dollars every week, against the day that's wet and dank. Sometimes it made my spirit shriek, to put that plunder in the bank. For there were sights I longed to see, and junketings I wished to make; to save was such a strain on me, I thought my old tin heart would break. But Susan Jane, my thrifty wife, was always watching at my side; and she would say, "You bet your life, you do not let the kopecks slide. Our strongbox must not spring a leak," my wife would say, in solemn tones; "and at the end of every week, you'll pickle five gun-metal bones." I used to wish that Susan Jane were more like other wives I know, that she would think it safe and sane to let the coin for pleasure go. Then I lay down with divers ills, and spent three weary months in bed, my stomach full of drugs and pills, and poultices upon my head. We paid the druggist and the nurse, the doc, who brought me back to health; and if I dodged the village hearse, it was because I'd saved some wealth. To every man there comes a day when Fortune wears a gloomy frown; and, while you're earning coin, I say, it's wise to salt some roubles down. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PLAYING SOMEONE ELSE'S PIANO by KAREN SWENSON THE COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER TO HIS EMPTY PURSE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW by ABRAHAM COWLEY THE GARDEN SEAT by THOMAS HARDY JIM BLUDSO [OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE] by JOHN MILTON HAY |