From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 103-104.
HOUSE CLEANING
This is the time when all wise goofs
Will hide in cellars or on roofs,
When every old experienced bird
Will not be seen and not be heard.
This is the time when shaving mugs
Are lost beneath the piled-up rugs,
When all the house has gone to pot
And where things were they now are not.
Hen Thoreau had the cave man bug,
And in his house there was no rug.
He got his food just any how;
He had no hens, he had no cow,
But lived on berries, sourdock greens,
Molasses, corn-meal mush and beans.
That simple life no longer goes,
As any married fellow knows.
Hank when too far, his scheme was punk;
Some things we need he thought were junk.
But still and all his barren shack
Beat houses full of bric-a-brac.
No female person fat or spare
With dustcloth waving in the air
Arose to chase him from his lair.
[104]
The dark to him was as the day;
He found no whatnot in his way.
He did not tangle up his feet
In heirlooms from Great Uncle Pete.
He walked at night with gleesome grins
And did not cuss nor bark his shins.