xactly what your mother is to you.
I am hungry now to see her, but I'm wondering to-day
If Pa's bought another baby in the time I've been away.

Bread and Jam

I wish I was a poet like the men that write in books
The poems that we have to learn on valleys, hills an' brooks;
I'd write of things that children like an' know an' understand,
An' when the kids recited them the folks would call them grand.
If I'd been born a Whittier, instead of what I am,
I'd write a poem now about a piece of bread an' jam.

I'd tell how hungry children get all afternoon in school,
An' sittin' at attention just because it is the rule,
An' lookin' every now an' then up to the clock to see
If that big hand an' little hand would ever get to three.
I'd tell how children hurry home an' give the door a slam
An' ask their mothers can they have a piece of bread an' jam.

Some poets write of things to eat an' sing of dinners fine,
An' praise the dishes they enjoy, an' some folks sing of wine,
But they've forgotten, I suppose, the days when they were small
An' hurried home from school to get the finest food of all;
They don't remember any more how good it was to cram
Inside their hungry little selves a piece of bread an' jam.

I wish I was a Whittier, a Stevenson or Burns,
I wouldn't write of hills an' brooks, or mossy banks or ferns,
I wouldn't write of rolling seas or mountains towering high,
But I would sing of chocolate cake an' good old apple pie,
An' best of all the food there is, beyond the slightest doubt,
Is bread an' jam we always get as soon as school is out.

The Little Woman

The little woman, to her I bow
And doff my hat as I pass her by;
I reverence the furrows that mark her brow,
And the sparkling love light in her eye.
The little woman who stays at home,
And makes no bid for the world's applause;
Who never sighs for a chance to roam,
But toils all day in a grander cause.

The little woman, who seems so weak,
Yet bears her burdens day by day;
And no one has ever heard her speak
In a bitter or loud complaining way.
She sings a snatch of a merry song,
As she toils in her home from morn to night.
Her work is hard and the hours are long
But the little woman's heart is light.

A slave to love is that woman small,
And yearly her burdens heavier grow,
But somehow she seems to bear them all,
As the deep'ning lines in her white cheeks show.
Her children all have a mother's care,
Her hom