HATTIE'S  BOY

Our kids were  grown and on their own,

And we had  a vacation,
So Ma and  I  just  tho'g we’d try

A new style  recreation.

We’d head back home to Tennessee
To look the old  place over,      .

And  visit   farms and  places dear
We knew  in days of yore.

We rambled into Knoxville soon

One sunny Sunday morn,
And took the new road out of town

To where we both were born.
 

Ma and I talked of days gone by,

Of wagon trips to town.
Of Ben and Hattie and their boy,

Of new things that we found.

We figured that they'd go to church
Where our folks were at rest,

And so we idled on our way    -
To time our latest quest.

We missed the road where we should turn --
The country side was strange,

But helpful neighbors soon set right
What twenty years will change !

We drove up to the old church house,
Sat quiet in the car,

And watched the folks who gathered in
Spied on them from afar.

We hardly knew a single soul

The faces were all new.
But still we waited, watched and prayed

To find an old friend true.

Well, Ma’s new glasses helped her out

She beat me by a mile—
Caught Ben and Hattie in the yard.

Together all did smile.

The service was as years gone by—

My mind was just the same;
It wandered on eternally,

Of which I was ashamed.

They asked us home to dinner then.

Of course we did agree,
‘Cause I was raised right thereabout,

Wished many things to see.

Their only boy was full size grown,
But backward quite in school,

And eating was his stock in trade,
Or I am badly fool(ed) .

As we walked in the door that day,
"When do we eat?" he said,

"I haven't et since breakfast time,
And I am almost dead."

Well, Ma helped in the kitchen;

Ben and I held the porch,
And Junior stormed and whined about

Because the biscuits scorched.

Ma brought them in and set them down
Beside the butter plate.

Then Junior took his seat to say,
"I can no longer wait."

He hogged a hunk of butter off,
Then speared a slab of honey,

And stirred and mashed the mixture up
A hungry boy's not funny.

He sopped the biscuits in the spread--
They passed from view apace,

And soon his plate was bare again.
It was an awful race.

There still were lots of biscuits left
He tho't he'd start all over,

So filled his plate with butter gold
And honey made from clover.

Just then his mother placed a plate

Of chicken, fried, piled high,
Then said, "Come on and get it folks,
We'll finish off with pie."

The boy was stuck with a full plate.

I tho't he'd lost the race,
But he was fast to call the deal

And drew another place

He passed his full plate to his mom

And snatched her plate away.
"Wild onions in the butter, folks
Was all he had to say.

May 3, 1941
George H. Prosser