My Idea Of A Man

You can't tell much about the grain
By looking at the bark;
And yet from Oregon to Maine,
From daylight until dark,
A lot of people judge a lot
By what you wear or what you've got.

A lot of folks who never tried
To see the sort of man inside.
The bark's perhaps a little rough,
With here and there a scar;
But that is never quite enough
To tell the man you are.

Because the bark is not the test;
It's underneath the bark and vest.
The bark's the unimportant part,
The thing that matters is the heart.

And that is why, you understand,
I'm just a little slow
To praise the clothes and manners grand
Until the man I know.

I want to know, not what you wear,
But how you get and how you share;
How much you help and what you do
To see the grain inside of you.

-F. H. Petty ¬