No longer may I eat my lunch
  In quietude and contemplation;
I must foregather with the bunch
  To raise a fund to save the nation. 
And I must talk of plans and schemes
  The while a scanty bite I’m eating,
Until I vow to-day it seems
  My life is one committee meeting.

When over me the night shall fall,
  And my poor soul goes upwards winging
Unto that heavenly realm, where all
  Is bright with joy and gay with singing,
I hope to hear St. Peter say—­
  And I shall thank him for the greeting: 
“Come in and rest from day to day;
  Here there is no committee meeting!”

Pa and the Monthly Bills

When Ma gets out the monthly bills and sets them all in front of Dad,
She makes us children run away because she knows he may get mad;
An’ then she smiles a bit and says:  “I hope you will not fuss and fret—­
There’s nothing here except the things I absolutely had to get!”
An’ Pa he looks ’em over first.  “The things you had to have!” says he;
“I s’pose that we’d have died without that twenty dollar longeree.”

Then he starts in to write the checks for laundry an’ for light an’ gas,
An’ never says a word ’bout them—­because they’re small he lets ’em pass. 
But when he starts to grunt an’ groan, an’ stops the while his pipe he
    fills,
We know that he is gettin’ down to where Ma’s hid the bigger bills. 
“Just what we had to have,” says he, “an’ I’m supposed to pay the tolls;
Nine dollars an’ a half for—­say, what the deuce are camisoles?

“If you should break a leg,” says Pa, “an couldn’t get down town to shop,
I’ll bet the dry goods men would see their business take an awful drop,
An’ if they missed you for a week, they’d have to fire a dozen clerks! 
Say, couldn’t we have got along without this bunch of Billie Burkes?”
But Ma just sits an’ grins at him, an’ never has a word to say,
Because she says Pa likes to fuss about the bills he has to pay.

Bob White

Out near the links where I go to play
My favorite game from day to day,
There’s a friend of mine that I’ve never met
Walked with or broken bread with, yet
I’ve talked to him oft and he’s talked to me
Whenever I’ve been where he’s chanced to be;
He’s a cheery old chap who keeps out of sight,
A gay little fellow whose name is Bob White.

Bob White!  Bob White!  I can hear him call
As I follow the trail to my little ball—­
Bob White!  Bob White! with a note of cheer
That was just designed for a mortal ear. 
Then I drift far off from the world of men
And I send an answer right back to him then;
An’ we whistle away to each other there,
Glad of the life which is ours to share.

Bob White!  Bob White!  May you live to be
The head of a numerous family! 
May you boldly call to your friends out here,
With never an enemy’s gun to fear. 
I’m a better man as I pass along,
For your cheery call and your bit of song. 
May your food be plenty and skies be bright
To the end of your days, good friend Bob White!