From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, NewYork: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 37-38.
CULTURE
No wonder that these rhymes are rude;
Before my present wife I wooed,
Some ways of mine were very crude.
Ere I was married to the same,
I had no manners worth the name.
My shirt and necktie did not match,
And when I itched I used to scratch.
Before I up and married Hannah
I packed a very red bandanna,
And often found that hanky trusty
To wipe my shoes when they were dusty.
I’d learned quite early in my life
Some ways to sling a table knife,
And that in mansion, cot or hovel
One should not use it as a shovel,
But still I found it slippery work
With certain foods to ply a fork,
And often chose to use a spoon
Where social codes refuse the boon.
Yea, even yet I bust the rules
That govern these here table tools.
When in the heavy work of eating
With certain folks I am competing,
[38]
I’m apt to glance around and find
That I am some three forks behind.
Of spoons I either have not any
Or else I have too doggone many.
O, any wife or lean or chubby,
Who starts to civilize her hubby,
Will find him, though the fight seems won,
A tricky cuss when all is done.
Unless reproved I often stoop
To crumble crackers in my soup.
I sometimes break my bread slice up
And soak it in my coffee cup,
Or seek some post behind the shack
To lean thereon and scratch my back.