THE ANNUITY I GAED to spend a week in Fife- Her grief brak out sae fierce and fell, I sell't her an annuity. 、 The bargain lookit fair eneugh- I couldna guessed she'd prove sae teugh, But years have come, and years have gane, She's crined' awa' to bane and skin, She munches wi' her wizen'd gums, I read the tables drawn wi' care For an insurance company; Wi' perfect perspicuity. But tables here or tables there, She's lived ten years beyond her share, An''s like to live a dozen mair, To ca' for her annuity. The Annuity Last Yule she had a fearfu' host, I thought a kink might set me free- But deil ma' care-the blast gaed by, If there's a sough o' cholera, Or typhus,-wha sae gleg as she? She doesna need-she's fever proof- Ae day she fell, her arm she brak- It's cured! She handles 't like a flail- Her broozled flesh and broken banes They die when they're exposed to air- If mortal means could nick her thread, Ca't murder, or ca't homicide, I'd justify 't-an' do it tae. 351 But how to fell a withered wife That's carved out o' the tree o' life- I'd try a shot: but whar's the mark?- She might be drowned-but go she'll not Or hanged-if cord could grip a throat It's fitter far to hang the rope— It draws out like a telescope; 'Twad tak a dreadfu' length o' drop To settle her annuity. Will puzion do't?-It has been tried; It's needless to assail her doubts, The Bible says the age o' man Threescore and ten, perchance, may be; She's ninety-four. Let them who can, Explain the incongruity. She should hae lived afore the flood She's come o' patriarchal blood, K. K.-Can't Calculate She's been embalmed inside and oot- Lot's wife was fresh compared to her- The water-drop wears out the rock, It's pay me here, an' pay me there, 353 George Outram. K. K.-CAN'T CALCULATE WHAT poor short-sighted worms we be; With any sort of sartintee, What is to be our fate. These words Prissilla's heart did reach, When first she heard the Elder preach, How true it is what he did state, And thus affected her, That nobody can't calculate When we retire, can't calculate Can't calculate when we come in Can't calculate upon the weather, It always changes so; Hain't got no means of telling whether Can't calculate with no precision Frances M. Whitcher. NORTHERN FARMER NEW STYLE DOSN'T thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaäy? Proputty, proputty, proputty-that's what I 'ears 'em saäy. Proputty, proputty, proputty-Sam, thou's an ass for thy paaïns: Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braaïns. Woä-theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam: yon's parson's 'ouse Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eäther a man or a mouse? Time to think on it, then; for thou'll be twenty to weeäk. Proputty, proputty-woä then, woä-let ma 'ear mysén speäk. Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as beän a-talkin' o' thee; Thou's been talkin' to muther, an' she beän a-tellin' it me. Thou'll not marry for munny-thou's sweet upo' parson's lass Noä-thou'll marry for luvv-an' we boäth of us thinks tha an ass. |