Goin’ T’ School
The Pail I Lugged to School
I know my confession is homely, but Yankees are Yankees clean through,
Their dollars make shells like a turtle’s, but their hearts, my dear fellow, are true
To the dear, sacred days of their childhood, and luxury loses its charm:
—The only good things are the old things to the fellow brought up on the farm.
And I’d trade all the cheer of a banquet, I’d
“swop” them, as grandpap would say,
For the tang of the infinite gusto that came to me, when, after play,
I lifted the battered tin cover and squared my brown arms to assail
The grub that this hearty young shaver had carried to school in his pail.
God bless her, that darling old mother! She cherished the honest conceit
That the groundwork of boyish good morals is, first of all, plenty to eat.
And though I went barefoot in summer, with trousers cut over from Jim’s,
We scampered to school every morning with dinner pails filled to their brims.
There were doughnuts, both holed ones and twisters, and always a bottle of cream,
And jell cakes and tarts and all such like—oh, bow the kids’ eyes used to gleam!
I pitied the poor little shavers who slunk to a corner to eat,
Who brought only bread and potatoes and never had anything sweet;
And some carried grub in their pockets, and hid with a child’s bitter shame
To choke down the crust and the cooky before some rude fun-maker came.
But out of such manhood’s successes of which
I’ve a right to be proud
There never was one I’ve uncovered, with such a delight, to the crowd
As that pail with its bountiful dinner, each cake and each jelly-tipped tart
A dumb but an eloquent voucher of a thoughtful and true mother-heart.
And, neighbors, from things I have noted, I think it’s a pretty good rule
To size up a mother’s devotion by the grub her child carries to school.
Those savors that float from my childhood dull all the delights of my board;
The good things from mother’s old kitchen my dollars can never afford,
And I’d trade all these delicate dishes—a clean unconditional sale—
For the tang of the infinite gusto from the depths of that old dinner pail.