HOW JACK FOUND THAT BEANS MAY GO BACK -¬ ON A CHAP

Without the slightest basis    

For hypochondriasis  

A widow had forebodings whibh a cloud around her flung,

And with expression cynical

 For half the day a clinical

 Thermometer she held beneath her tongue.

Whene'er she read the papers

She suffered from the vapors,

At every tale of malady or accident she'd groan;

In every new and smart disease,

From housemaid's knee to heart disease,

She recognized the symptoms as her own!

She had a yearning chronic

To try each novel tonic,

Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm; 

And from a homeopathist

Would change to an hydropathist,

And back again, with stupefying calm!

She was nervous, 'catalj')IJtic,

And anemic, and dyspeptic:

Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her fears. 

She dwelt with force fanatical

Upon a twinge rheumatical,

And said she had a buzzing in her ears!

Now aU of this bemoaning

And this grumbling and this groaning

The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored.

 His heart completely hardening,

He gave his time to gardening,

For, raising beans was something he adored.

Each hour in accents morbid

This limp maternal bore bid

Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys. 

She never granted Jack a day

Without some long "Alackaday!"

Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.

But Jack, no panic showing,

Just watched his beanstalk growing,

And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole.

 At all her words funereal

He smiled a smile ethereal,

Or sighed an absent-minded "Bless my soul!"

That hollow-hearted creature

Would never change a feature:

No tear bedimmed his eye, however touching was her talk.

She never fussed or flurried him,

The only thing that worried him

Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!

But then he wabbled loosely

His head, and wept profusely,

And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his tears, 

Exclaimed: "It hasn't got any!"

He found this blow. to botany

Was sadder than were all his mother's fears.

The Moral is that gardeners pine

Whene'er no pods adorn the vine.

Of all sad words experience gleans

The saddest are: "It might have beans."

(I did not make this up myself:

'Twas in a book upon my shelf.

It's witty, but I don't deny

It's rather Whittier than I!)