Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/48

Well, it warn't no easy matter to keep on saying No,
An' disapp'intin' every one. Poor Rube he fretted so,
When I told him the name I'd chosen, that he fairly made me cry.
For I'd planned to name the darlin' Augustus Percival Guy.
Ah! that was a name worth hearin', so 'ristocratic an' grand!
He might 'a' held up his head then with the proudest in the land.
But now—Well, 'tisn't no wonder, when I look at that blessed child,
An' think of the name he's come to, that I can't be reconciled.

At last I coaxed up Reuben, an' a Sabbath mornin' came
When I took my boy to meetin' to git his Christian name.
Jest as proud as a peacock I stood a-waitin' there;
I couldn't hardly listen to the readin' nor the prayer,
For of half a dozen babies, mine was the finest of all;
An' they had sech common names too! But pride must have a fall.

"What will ye call him?" says Parson Brown, bendin' his head, to hear.
Then I handed a bit of paper up, with the names writ full an' clear.
But Uncle Si, 'stead of passin' it, jest reads it over slow,
With sech a wond'rin', puzzled face, as ef he didn't know.
The child was beginnin' to fidget, an' Rube was gittin' red,
So I kinder scowled at Uncle Si, and then I shook my head.
"The name?" says Parson Brown agin; "I'm 'feared I haven't caught it."
"Jee—hoshaphat!" says Uncle Si, out loud, before he thought it.

The parson—he's near-sighted—he couldn't understand,
Though I p'inted to the paper in Uncle Silas' hand.
But that word did the business ; an' before I got my breath
That boy was named Jehoshaphat. I felt a' most like death.
I couldn't keep from cry in' as I hurried down the aisle,
An' I fairly hated Widder Green when I see her kinder smile.
I've never, never called him by that name, an' never will,
An' I can't forgive old Parson Brown, though I bear him no ill-will.

E. T. Corbett, in Harper's.