YOUNG KNIGHT

 

There is a genius on our street
     A boy with light blue eyes

Whose mind works overtime to beat
     Restraining apron ties.

 

His mother's kind and helpful ways

     Bring but a hectic life
For Gerald's thot up a new craze

     To add to boyhood strife.

 

Now as a toddling infant bold
     He played beneath the stove

And in and out the oven cold.
     Right merrily he'd rove.

 

Of course he burned himself a bit
     But finally chanced to learn

That baking days are hardly fit.
      Now hot stoves he will spurn.

 

But still his mind with curious twist

     Impelles him to explore
The inner side of things, he^'ll wist

     What's hind that closet door.

 

One day his mother washing clothes

      Came in all disarranged
He'd put a marble up his nose

     Now you know boys are strange.

 

We fixed him up with pepper

     His ears stayed on 'tis true

But it was straining on the eyes
     As out the marble blew.

 

Well thing's were quiet for a spell

     Altho his quest went on.
His Dad poured concrete o'er the well

     To guard the errant son.

 

I said thing's had calmed down a bit

     But that was rhetoric,
For scarce an hour they had to sit

     That kid sure made them sick.

 

I spied the mother lead the pest
      Fast up the street one day,

And she was mad, by every test
     Out on that paved road way.

 

They waited while the street car came

      Of course I sauntered up
And they were playing a new game

     Tho it was time to sup.

 

The tears were standing in her eyes
      Her breath came short and fast

She said to me, "Boys I despise
      I hope this ones the last."

 

I've fished him out of boxes tight
      I^''ve pulled him down from trees
Yet every day it is a fight

      To keep him off his knees."

 

Then slapped him on the paper bag

     She had jerked o'er his head

"We^'re headed now for Doctor Krag

      And I am seeing red,"

To calm her then I smiled and said
      "I see his visorss down
Young knight wears helmet high on head,
     Why cover up that frown?

With her fore-finger coolly cruel

      She snapped that paper bag
It rang as does a kettle cool

      I knew it was no gag.

 

"He's got a granite chamber tight

      Hung underneath his ears
What ever can we do tonight?"

     And forth with burst in tears.

 

I helped her then to board the shay
      Walked gravely to the room
Watched Doc with tin shears cut away

      The all enclosing doom.

 

I'll bet that kid, beginning now

      Will surely watch his ways
And not go poking like a cow 
        Do dumb things in a daze.

 

 

G.H.Prosser
7/20/41