From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, NewYork: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 33-34.
EATING
When in my barefoot boyhood state
I used no sense in what I ate.
Some unripe fruit I’d often take,
Which, later on, was sure to make
My little what-you-call-it ache.
Perhaps I’d go to bed all right,
All free from care and happy quite,
But pains would seize me in the night.
Then I would open up my jowls,
Emitting most unearthly howls.
Poor ma would sigh and pa would swear,
But they would snatch my tummy bare
And rub it gently here and there.
Though long and patiently they knelt,
The more they rubbed the worse I felt.
I’m older now and wiser grown
With broader girth of stomach zone.
I must be careful how I grub it,
For if it aches, no one will rub it.
I feed myself with greatest care,
My apples must be ripe and fair,
And very little pie or ham
Is stowed beneath my diaphragm.
[34]
I turn down this and side-step that
For fear of biliousness or fat.
O brothers, though your table shake
With loads of chicken, squab and steak,
If you, like me, still have a feeling
For eating apples, cores and peeling,
Let’s have a spree, e’en though it hurts
Beneath the buttons of our shirts.
Some half ripe apples let us take,
E’en though we get the belly ache.