Mother Goose for Grownups/The Remarkable Regimen of the Sprat Family
The Sprats were four in number,
Including twins in kilts:
All day Jack carted lumber,
All day his wife made quilts.
Thus heartlessly neglected
Twelve hours in twenty-four,
As might have been expected,
The twins sat on the floor:
And all the buttons, I should state,
They chanced to find, they promptly ate.
This was not meat, but still it’s true
We did the same when we were two.
The wife (whose name was Julia)
Maintained an ample board,
But one thing was peculiar,
Lean meat she quite abhorred.
Here also should be stated
Another fact: ’tis that
Her spouse abominated
The very taste of fat.
This contrast curious of taste
Precluded any thought of waste,
For all they left of any meal
No self-respecting dog would steal.
No generous table d’hôte meal,
No dainties packed in tins,
But only bowls of oatmeal
They gave the wretched twins;
And yet like princes pampered
Had lived those babes accursed,
Could they have fed unhampered:—
I have not told the worst!
Since nothing from the dining-room
Was left to feed the cook and groom,
It seems that these domestics cruel
Were led to steal the children’s gruel!
The twins, all hopes resigning,
And wounded to the core,
Confined themselves to dining
On buttons off the floor.
No passionate resentment
The docile babes displayed:
Each day in calm contentment
Three hearty meals they made.
And daily Jack and Mrs. Sprat
Ate all the lean and all the fat,
And every day the groom and cook
The children’s meal contrived to hook.
But when the twins grew older,
As twins are apt to do,
And, shoulder touching shoulder,
Sat Sundays in their pew.
They saw no Christian glory
In parting with a dime,
And in the offertory
Dropped buttons every time.
Said they: “What’s good enough for Sprats
Is good enough for heathen brats.”
(I most sincerely wish I knew
What was the heathen’s point of view.)
The moral: Anecdotes abound
Of buttons in collections found.
Thus on the wheels of progress go,
And heathens reap what Christians sew!