A view from the sky tram in Jasper on a family holiday
When I was growing up, my older brothers and sisters had already left home to seek their fortune.
That left just me at home with my parents and my younger brother. Our dad was fifty years older than I was and sometimes like many young people, we got feeling we knew quite a bit about a lot of things, maybe even more than he did sometimes. My brother and I often backed each other up. Our father loved literature and many times he quoted the following poem to us, when he felt he needed to bring us back to proper respect. Even though it was annoying to have the poem directed to us, I felt ashamed for how I had acted. Now I remember the words with fondness and I think of my dad with tender feelings. The fact that I also loved literature, probably helped me accept the message it carried. My parents raised eight children. He probably had lots of opportunity to quote it to the others before we came along. When he was almost eighty-eight, I made a recording of him and if I remember correctly, I asked him to quote it. I know I have it recorded somewhere. He was very good at reciting with feeling and I can still hear him in my head. The poem comes from McGuffey's third reader. Enjoy. The Pert Chicken by Marian Douglas There was once a pretty chicken, But his friends were very few, For he thought that there was nothing In the world but what he knew. So he always in the farmyard Had a very forward way, Telling all the hens and turkeys What they ought to do and say. "Mrs. Goose," he said, "I wonder That your goslings you should let Go out paddling in the water; It will kill them to get wet. "And I wish, my old Aunt Dorking," He began to her one day, "That you wouldn't sit all summer In your nest upon the hay; Won't you come out to the meadow, Where the grass with seeds is filled? " "If I should," said Mrs. Dorking, "Then my eggs would get all chilled." " No, they won't," replied the chicken; " And no matter if they do. Eggs are really good for nothing. What's an egg to me or you? " "What’s an egg?" said Mrs. Dorking, "Can it be you do not know? You yourself were in an eggshell Just a little month ago, And if kind wings had not warmed you, You would not be out today, Telling hens, and geese, and turkeys What they ought to do or say." To be very wise and show it, Is a pleasant thing, no doubt; But when young folks talk to old folks, They should know what they're about.
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