The Striking Storks
THE STRIKING STORKS
THE storks went on a strike one day
For shorter hours or bigger pay,
Maintaining that it wasn't right
That they should work both day and night.
"Besides," they said, "the crop this year
Is very much too large, we hear.
We'll hold all babies now in sight,
And make a corner, good and tight."
At first the world was rather glad;
It slept at night, which wasn't bad,
It used no anticolic pills,
And saved a lot on doctor bills.
The nursing-bottle companies failed,
Perambulator dealers railed,
The milkmen ceased to Pasteurize,
And Christmas trees grew quite a size.
But having had things all its way,
The world got tired of too much play.
It missed the shoes with battered toes,
It missed the little frilly clothes,
It longed for drums and horns and dolls,
For pencil-scratches on the walls,
It wanted babies, good or bad—
In short, the world was baby mad!
And so one day, in Babyland,
With hollow stumps on every hand.
The striking storks, no longer tired,
Perceived that mischief had transpired.
A doctor, large and fat and round,
His satchel open on the ground,
Was stealing babies, black and white.
From all the stumps, with all his might.
The storks had no redress, they knew,
For "scabs" were plenty, storks were few;
And so, from being in arrears,
The census boomed the next few years!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1958, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 65 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse