“Sary Emma’s Photygraphs”
Our Sary Emma is possessed ter be at somethin’ queer; She’s allers doin’ loony things, unheard of fur and near. One time there wa’n’t no limit ter the distance she would tramp Ter get a good-fer-nothin’, wuthless, cancelled postage-stamp; Another spell folks couldn’t rest ontil, by hook or crook, She got ’em all ter write their names inside a leetle book; But though them fits was bad enough, the wust is nowadays, Fer now she’s got that pesky freak, the photygraphin’ craze.
She had ter have a camera—and them things cost a sight— So she took up subscriptions fer the “Woman’s Home Delight” And got one fer a premium—a blamed new-fangled thing, That takes a tin-type sudden, when she presses on a spring; And sence she got it, sakes alive! there’s nothin’ on the place That hain’t been pictured lookin’ like a horrible disgrace: The pigs, the cows, the horse, the colt, the chickens large and small; She goes a-gunnin’ fer ’em, and she bags ’em, one and all.
She tuk me once a-settin’ up on top a load er hay:
My feet shets out the wagon, and my head’s a mile away;
She took her Ma in our back yard, a-hanging out the clothes,
With hands as big as buckets, and a face that’s mostly nose.
A yard of tongue and monstrous teeth is what she calls a dog;
The cat’s a kind er fuzzy-lookin’ shadder in a fog;
And I’ve got a suspicion that what killed the brindle calf
Was that he seen his likeness in our Sary’s photygraph.
She’s “tonin’,” er “develerpin’,” er “printin’,” ha’f the time; She’s allers buyin’ pasteboard ter mount up her latest crime: Our front room and the settin’-room is like some awful show, With freaks and framed outrages stuck all ’round ’em in a row: But soon I’ll take them picters, and I’ll fetch some of ’em out And hang ’em ’round the garden when the corn begins ter sprout; We’ll have no crows and blackbirds ner that kind er feathered trash, ’Cause them photygraphs of Sary’s, they beat scarecrows all ter smash.