SHINGLE-SHORT
(Pulls clothing out of a chest, and carefully lowers boat into it.)
Needn’t get nervous: lock is strong.
...I beg your pardon that you’re wrong!
Maybe you’d rather I should take
An’ break you,—bein’ a mistake?
Please don’t! You’re clean ridicculous,
An’ like no livin’ barge, that’s true;
But still,—I like the feel o’ you....
I made you.... an’ you’re company—
Now that you’re here, there’s two of us,
Both bein’ shingle-short, you see.
You’ll feel pounds better with the paint,
An’ though, great Gum! I know you ain’t
No value, not the least half-mite,
But mean, an’ mockable, an’ odd:
Yet, dunno how you’ve managed it—
You kind o’ been some good to-night:
—Wreck, you’ve a-sailed me home to God,
All-wrong, you’ve show’d me the All-Right!
Time to notify up at the house,
An’ start caressin’ them jolly cows.
—Hallo, Sun! You’re the bestest friend!
Dull’s the dinginess you can’t mend,
Burstin’ out with your kind old face,
Chuckin’ cheeriness round the place.
Ain’t the rain got the paddicks green?
—“If rain was honey, mud ’ud be money”—
Don’ the black o’ the logs look clean?
Dandy, them puddles in between!
Each a-winkin’ his bright blue eye—
39
