TIRED father to his home returns, all jaded by the stress and fray, to
have the rest for which he yearns throughout the long and toilsome day.
His supper’s ready on the board, as good a meal as e’er was sprung, a
meal no worker could afford in olden times, when we were young. He looks
around with frowning brow, and sighs, “Ah, what a lot of junk! This
butter never knew a cow, the coffee is extremely punk. You know I like
potatoes boiled, and so, of course, you dish them fried; this poor old
beefsteak has been broiled until it’s tough as walrus hide. It beats me,
Susan, where you find such doughnuts, which resemble rock; these
biscuits you no doubt designed to act as weights for yonder clock. You
couldn’t fracture with a club the kind of sponge cake that you dish;
alas, for dear old mother’s grub throughout my days I vainly wish.” Then
Susan, burdened with her cares, worn out, discouraged, sad and weak,
sits down beneath the cellar stairs, and weeps in German, French, and
Greek. Alas, the poor, unhappy soul, whose maiden dreams are all a
wreck! She ought to take a ten-foot pole and prod her husband in the
neck.
------------------------------------------------------------------------