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Title: When Pa Counts
Author: Edgar A. Guest [
More Titles by Guest]
Pa's not so very big or brave; he can't lift
weights like Uncle Jim;
His hands are soft like little girls'; most anyone
could wallop him.
Ma weighs a whole lot more than Pa. When
they go swimming, she could stay
Out in the river all day long, but Pa gets frozen
right away.
But when the thunder starts to roll, an' lightnin'
spits, Ma says, "Oh, dear,
I'm sure we'll all of us be killed. I only wish
your Pa was here." Pa's cheeks are thin an' kinder pale; he couldn't
rough it worth a cent.
He couldn't stand the hike we had the day the
Boy Scouts camping went.
He has to hire a man to dig the garden, coz his
back gets lame,
An' he'd be crippled for a week, if he should
play a baseball game.
But when a thunder storm comes up, Ma sits an'
shivers in the gloam
An' every time the thunder rolls, she says: "I
wish your Pa was home."
I don't know just what Pa could do if he were
home, he seems so frail,
But every time the skies grow black I notice Ma
gets rather pale.
An' when she's called us children in, an' locked
the windows an' the doors,
She jumps at every lightnin' flash an' trembles
when the thunder roars.
An' when the baby starts to cry, she wrings her
hands an' says: "Oh, dear,
It's terrible! It's terrible! I only wish your
Pa was here."
[The end]
Edgar A. Guest's poem: When Pa Counts
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