SHINGLE-SHORT
Dinner-time: turn’d up with the rest....
Cats an’ kettles! when I come in,
Didn’t Boss get it off his chest?
’N Missis, her eyes was each a oath;
Needed courage to meet ’em both....
Wish’d she squinted,....an’ wa’n’t she wroth!
Fencin’, some o’ the afternoon;
Like that; lengthen’d it, all I could.
Boss, he come an’ tackled it soon,
Sent me blastin’ the blessed wood.
Stop! that’s a libell’d God-send! Why,
Out o’ the blastin’ didn’ you fly?
Two an’ two, an’ two, an’ two,—
Blasted an’ blessed, me an’ you.
Come on rainy; an’ Speck, the brute,
Went an’ poison’d herself with [1]tute—
Started a’waltzin’, ’s if she seen
Satan. I scoots in, sharp’s a bell,
But head over eyes in this machine,
Grabs the ginger what cured Colleen....
Thought she’d ha’ horn’d me into Hell—
Forgot you sluiced it with kerosene.
Luckily, Mick, he come along.
My word! Wa’n’t his condemnin’ strong?
Took some hearin’ to stand the sound:—
Cow couldn’ stick it: she come round.
Evenin’ milkin’: all mud an’ muddle.
Pinch o’ earth to a pint o puddle,
Beasts one steamy, hollerin’ huddle....
- ↑ Tute, correctly tutu (toot): A poisonous native shrub.
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