THE TEA PARTY

A glass, a bowl, a cup of tea,

A table, dainty and small,

A plate of cookies, iced, oh gee!

I’ll tell you now just how it was.

My mother, one day, thought

She’d give a tea, (that’s all she does.)

A social place she sought.

The Greens, the Stones, the Blacks, the Jones’,

She counted on fingers four.

Oh, paper, and pens, and telephones,

And STILL she thought of more.

“Oh, Johnny, dear, get mother a spoon,”

She sweetly called to me.

“And Johnny, bring a saucer soon

I’ll need it, too, I see.”

“Oh, Johnny, hon, do run up stairs

And get my apron, please.

And Johnny, bring those other chairs,

And fetch that cottage cheese.”

Willingly I did all these tasks,

My thoughts were on the cakes

When all at once my mother asks,

“John, go, for goodness sakes.”

The bell had rung, you might have known,

For what did I but hear,

A voice all sweet in stuck-up tone,

“Oh, chawmed, I’m sure, my dear.”

The social elite at last had come.

“They’ll eat it all,” I thought.

They wouldn’t think to leave me some.

“Woe is me, my earthly lot.”

With envious hate my brain burned up.

My one desire unchecked

I grabbed the cakes and drained a cup

And left the cloth all specked.

A week on cushions soft I sat

When Dad heard what I’d done.

Take warning now and don’t do that.

Indeed, it isn’t fun.

The Greens, the Stones, the Blacks, the Jones’

Went home quite shocked I’d say.

My mother cries and often moans,

“You’ve thrown my chance away.”

Who wants those stuck-up ’ristocrats

I’d surely like to know.

They come and talk and gossip and chat

And say, “I told you so.”

My mother doesn’t think that way,

And neither does my dad.

And when they speak of that awful day

It surely makes me sad.

My mother glowers at me now.

My father sternly peers

With cold grey eyes and says he’ll ’low

I’ll hang some day he fears.