flour sack underwear

When I was just a maiden fair, Mama made our underwear;
With many kids and Dad’s poor pay, We had no fancy lingerie.
Monograms and fancy stitches, Did not adorn our Sunday britches;
Pantywaists that stood the test, Had ‘Gold Medal’ on our breast.
No lace or ruffles to enhance, Just ‘Pride of Bloomington’ on my pants.
One pair of panties beat them all, For it had a scene I still recall —
Harvesters were gleaning wheat, Right across my little seat.
Rougher than a grizzly bear, Was my flour-sack underwear.
Plain, not fancy and two feet wide, And tougher than a hippo’s hide.
All through Depression each, Jill and Jack wore the sturdy garb of sack.
Waste not, want not, we soon learned, That a penny saved is a penny earned.
There were curtains and tea towel too, And that is just to name a few.
But the best beyond compare, Was my flour sack underwear.

Anon

sent by Harold Fox to http://buffaloreflex.com/heritage/a-tale-or-two-flour-sack-underwear/article_2d3a73d6-7bd9-11e8-a3f4-073cf5f02b1a.html

Lady Paying Her Fare

Ladies, have you ever noticed one of your own sex paying her fare on a street car?
 I saw one today and here's what happened.
Woman with satchel enters car, sits down; enter conductor, asks fare; woman opens satchel, takes out purse, shuts satchel, opens purse, takes out dime, shuts purse, opens satchel, puts in purse, shuts satchel, offers dime, receives nickel, opens satchel, takes out purse, shuts satchel, opens purse, puts in nickel, closes purse, opens satchel, puts in purse, closes satchel. "Stop the car, please."

The Diet Squad

Ten plump and chubby matrons started out to diet;
One chanced upon a custard pie and couldn't help but try it.
Nine tubbies had for dinner an olive on a plate!
One smelled the doughnuts cooking and then there were eight!
Eight roly-polies thought that slenderness was heaven;
One went to a picnic and then there were seven.
Seven struggled valiantly their waistlines for to fix;
One walked by a baker's shop and then there were six.
Six chewed their lonesome carrots and tried to Jeep alive;
One attended a bridge luncheon and then there were five.
Five breakfasted on watered bran and vainly longed for more;
Her hubby brought home chocolate creams and then there were four.
Four gnawing, hollow stomachs, courageous as could be;
One day the maid made waffles and then there were three.
Three, stuck to counting calories 'till hollow-eye and blue;
One choked on pie with "a la mode" and then there were two.
Two survived on spinach soup and wished they'd ne'er begun;
A cheese souffle took one away and then there was but one.
One lone survivor weighed herself to see how well she'd done;
She found she'd gained a pound or two-and then there were none!

Eve's Daughter

I waited in the little sunny room
The cool breeze waved the window-lace at play,
The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,
And out upon the bay I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come
Such an old friend-- she would not make me stay
While she bound up her hair." I turned and lo,
Danae in her shower! and fit to slay
All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:
Gold hair, that streamed away,
As round some nymph in sunlit fountain's flow.
"She would not make me wait!" but well I know
She took a good half hour to loose and lay
Those locks - in dazzling disarrangement so

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

What He Wanted It For

Those who attended the sale of animals from Barnum's hippodrome in Bridgeport report the following occurrence. A tiger was being offered. The bid run up to forty-five hundred dollars. This was made by a man who was a stranger.
Barnum, who had been eyeing the stranger uneasily during the bidding, now went up to him and said:
"Pardon me for asking the question; but will you tell me where you are from?"
"Down south a 'bit," responded the man.
“Are you connected with any show?"
"No.”
“And are you buying this animal for yourself?"
"Yes."
Barnum shifted about uneasily for a moment, looking alternately at the man and at the tiger and evidently trying his best to reconcile the two together.
"Now, young man,"" he finally said, "you need not take this animal unless you want to, for there are those here who will take it off your hands."
"I don't want to sell'" was the stranger's reply.
Then Barnam said, in his desperation: “What on earth are you going to do with such an ugly beast, if you have no show of your own and are not buying for some one who is a showman?"
"Well, I'll tell you," said the purchaser. "My wife died about three weeks ago. We had lived together for ten years, and-and I miss her." He paused to wipe his eyes and steady his voice, and then added, "So I've bought this tiger."
“I understand you," said the great showman, in a husky voice.

J. M. BAILEY.

Good Neighbor

She will bake a custard for an ailing neighbor,
Apple-pies for husbands whose wives are out of town!
She has no style or beauty, but everybody sees her
As a ministering angel in a printed cotton gown!

She makes the lightest sponge cakes,
wins prizes with her pickles;
Her cookie-crock is always full,
she knows what children are.

For crisp molasses cookies,
and sugar-dusted doughnuts;
She keeps her saucepans shining
and her kitchen-door ajar!

Her husband died some 11 years ago,
but she is never lonely,
For neighbors drop in all day long
because they like the talk

Of this cheerful saint in gingham,
whose words of loving wisdom
Have made a pilgrim's pathway
out of her flagstone-walk!

PAULINE HAVARD.

Three Friends

To walk with Nora is to walk
Beside a, shallow pool where lie
The passive sand and stone revealed
Beneath an unreflected sky.

To walk with Susan is to lean
Above deep water, willow-hung,
To watch the shifting sun and shade
In varied velvet, richly flung.

Yet when I walk at Mary's side
I always bend and drink my fill
From out a little bubbling spring
That runs in laughter down a hill.

ISABELLE BRYANS LONGFELLOW.

Sport Togs

I like to see the younger girls
In slacks or shorts;
Such clothing was designed, I know,
For active sports.
But housing scrawny middle-age
Or buxom dames make them the rage,
The scene is out of sorts.
There are out-sizes who prefer
The age old skirt,
Refuse to have their bosoms bulge
An outing shirt,
Remaining incog as they can,
¬Not merely "mutton dressed as lamb,"
The silhouette doesn't hurt.
But when a bouncing forty-two
Appears in gear,
Modeled from size fourteen,
And a younger year,
Displaying heft both fore and aft,-
A Clydesdale hitched to racing shaft,
I could really shed a tear.

A. B. JACKSON.

A Woman's Question

I am fair and young, but the rose will fade
 From my soft young cheek one day;
Will you love then, mid the falling leaves,
 As you did mid the bloom of May?
Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep
 I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
 On the day she is made a bride.

 I require all things that are grand and true,
 All things that a man should be;
If you give this all, I would stake my life
 To be all you demand of me.
If you can not do this a laundress and cook
 You can hire with little pay;
But a woman's heart and a woman's life
 Are not to be won that way.

 -Elizabeth Browning

Met His Match

He had fought the polar bear
And the lion in his lair,
He had monkeyed with gorillas on the shores of Benguela;
With a boa constrictor big
He had often danced a jig,
And he kept a petted monster of the dread name of Gila.

He had ridden on the tail
Of a North Pacific whale,
He'd attended shark reunions off the coast of Madagascar;
He had flipped the heel and toe
With an elephant or so,
And had fought a dozen duels with the deep and deadly Lascar.

But he took himself a wife
In the very prime of life,
And she sent him out for ribbons and some things that he might fetch her;
And he started on a hop
To the very nearest shop;
But just fifteen minutes later he was brought home on a stretcher.

-Thomas L. Masson

creating women

Tzashtri, the god Vulcan of the Hindu mythology, created the world, but on his commencing to create woman he discovered that for man he had exhausted all his creative materials, and that not one solid element had been left.
 This, of course, greatly perplexed Tzashtri, and caused, him to fall into profound meditation. When he arose from his meditation he proceeded like this:
 He took The roundness of the moon;
The undulating curve of the serpent;
The graceful twist of the creeping plant;
The light shivering of the grass-blade and the slenderness of the willow;
The velvet of the flowers;
The lightness of the feather;
The frolicsomeness of the dancing sunbeam;
The tears of the cloud;
The inconsistency of the wind;
The timidity of the hare;
The vanity of the peacock;
The hardness of the diamond;
The cruelty of the tiger;
The chill of the snow;
The cackling of the parrot;
The cooing of the turtle-dove;
All these he mixed together and formed a woman.

My Mother Was A Lady, or If Only Jack Were Here

Two drummers sat at dinner, in a grand hotel one day,
While dining they were chatting in a jolly sort of way,
And when a pretty waitress brought them a tray of food,
They spoke to her familiarly in a manner rather rude;
At first she did not notice them or make the least reply,
But one remark was passed that brought the tear drops to her eye.
And facing her tormentor, with cheeks now burning red,
She looked a perfect picture as appealingly she said:

Chorus:
"My mother was a lady-like yours you will allow,
And you may have a sister, who needs protection now,
I've come to this great city to find a brother dear,
And you wouldn't dare insult me, Sir, if Jack were only here."

It's true one touch of nature, it makes the whole world kin,
And ev'ry word she uttered seemed to touch their hearts within,
They sat there stunned and silent, until one cried in shame,
"Forgive me, Miss! I meant no harm, pray tell me what's your name?"
She told him and he cried again, "I know your brother, too,
 Why we've been friends for many years and he often speaks of you,
He'll be glad to see you, and if you'll only wed,
I'll take you to him as my wife, for I love you since you said:

(Chorus.)

Edward B. Marks

Large sighs

What happens to the gals who wear a twenty
 When dresses all are twelves?
 For cute tricks there are coverings a-plenty.
 For poppets, pigmies, elves.
They say that Cleopatra once was rolled
 In rugs, to call on Caesar;
 Perhaps she shopped where only tens were sold
 It took eighteen to please 'er
So bring a tent, a toga at my call.
 Or else find standing there
 A daughter of the gods, divinely tall
 And most divinely bare.

ERNESTINE MERCER.

Shakespeare said it

I have no other but a woman's reason:
I think him so, because I think him so.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A woman with a mission

She declaimed with fervid vigor, on the misery of the Digger,
 cut a most dramatic figure while lamenting his condition.
And she said the bare Numidian, and the much tanned Abyssinian,
 and the Cannibal and Guinean, overflowed her with contrition.

And her deep sighs filled the breezes, for those lands where bread and cheese is;
 for the Turks and the Chineses she was filled with deep emotion.
 And her ardent love was greater, all the more she strove to cater
 to the tribes beyond th' Equator or across a distant ocean.

 And like Rachel, the sweet Jewess, she wept tears as thick as glue is,
 at the action of St. Louis and Chicago's degradation;
And that these towns, where such sin is, such a race for golden guineas,
might be made as good as Lynn is, was her prayer and supplication.

 For the wild man of Alaska, or of far off Madagascar,
she would say if you would ask her, that her love was deep and tender.
While her husband, luckless victim, looked as if his wife had licked him,
and through back streets where she kicked him, walked about with one suspender.

-Anon

homes and houses

The men of the earth build houses;
 Build turrets, roofs and domes;
 But the women of the earth--God knows;
 The women build the homes.

A WOMAN'S QUESTION, and a Man's reply

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
 Ever made by the Hand above?
A woman's heart and a woman's life,
 And a woman's wonderful love?

 Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
 As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win,
 With the reckless dash of a boy?

 You have written my lesson of duty out,
 Manlike, you have questioned me;
Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul
 Until I shall question thee.

 You require your mutton shall always be hot,
 Your socks and your shirt shall be whole;
 I require your heart shall be true as God's stars,
 As pure as heaven your soul.

 You require a cook for your mutton and beef;
 I require a far better thing;
A seamstress you're wanting for stockings and shirt
 I look for a man and a king.

 A king for a beautiful realm called Home,
 And a man that the maker, God,
Shall look upon as He did the first,
 And say: "It is very good."

 I am fair and young, but the roses will fade
 From my soft young cheek one day;
Will you love me then, 'mid the falling leaves,
 As you did 'mid the bloom of May?

 Is your heart an ocean so wide and deep
 I may launch my all on its tide?
 A loving woman finds heaven or hell
 On the day' she is made a bride.

 I require all things that are grand and true,
 All things that a man should be;
 If you give this all, I would stake my life
 To be all you demand of me.

 If you cannot do this, a laundress and cook
 You may hire with little pay;
 But a woman's heart and a woman's life
 Are not to be won that way.

Mary T. Lathrop


A MAN'S REPLY
 Yes, I have asked for a priceless thing,
 For a gem beyond all compare,
With which all the richest mountains of earth
 Nor the ocean can compare.

 But have I come with empty hands?
 In return have I offered aught?
Can a man bring more to the woman he loves
 Than I unto you have brought?

 No seamstress or cook have I sought, 
For they can be hired, I ween;
Naught have I said of mutton or shirt,
 I want and must have a Queen.

 You say that you want a man and a King
 A very Prince of the race;
 I look for a kind and generous heart,
 And not a queenly face.

 You require all things that are good and true,
 All things that a man should be;
I ask for a woman, with all that implies,
 And that is sufficient for me.

 You ask for a man without a fault,
 To live with here on earth;
 I ask for a woman, faults and all,
 For by faults, I may judge of worth.

 I ask for a woman, made as of old,
 A higher form of man;
His comforter, helper, adviser and friend,
 As in the original plan.

 A woman who has an aim in life,
 Who finds life worth the living;
Who makes the world better for being here,
 And for others her life is giving

 To be all that a man should be
 Shall be my aim in life;
To love but me and only me,
 Is all that I ask of my wife.

 For your heart and life and wonderful love
 Are sacred things to me,
And I'll stake my life to be to you
 Whatever I ought to be.

 Thus, at the bar of your woman's soul
 I have stood and answered thee;
And again, I ask for that priceless thing
 Say, what shall the answer be?

 -Unknown

Who and what is this woman?

LE BRET

Who and what is this woman?

CYRANO

Dangerous

            Mortally, without meaning; exquisite

Without imagining. Nature's own snare

            To allure manhood. A white rose wherein

Love lies in ambush for his natural prey.      ­

Who knows her smile has known a perfect thing.

 She creates grace in her own image, brings­

Heaven to earth in one movement of her hand-­

Nor thou, 0 Venus! balancing thy shell

Over the Mediterranean blue, nor thou,

Diana! marching through broad, blossoming woods,

Art so divine as when she mounts her chair,

And goes abroad through Paris!

LE BRET

Oh, well- of course,

That makes everything clear!

Lord Erskine's Simile

LORD ERSKINE, at woman presuming to rail,

Called a wife a tin canister tied to one's tail;

And fair Lady Anne, while this raillery he carries on,

Seems hurt at his lordship's degrading comparison.

But wherefore degrading, if taken aright?

A canister's useful and polished and bright,

And if dirt its original purity hide,

'Tis the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.

A WOMAN'S QUESTION

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing

   Ever made by the Hand above­

A woman's heart and a woman's life,

   And a woman's wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing

   As a child might ask for a toy?

Demanding what others have died to win,

   With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,

   Manlike, you have questioned me;

Now stand at the bar of my womans’ soul

   Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,

   Your socks and your shirt shall be whole;

I require your heart shall be true as God's stars,

   As pure as heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef;

   I require a far better thing;

A seamstress you're wanting for stockings and shirts-­

   I look for a man and a king.

A king for a beautiful realm called Home,

   And a man that the maker, God,

Shall look upon as He did the first,

   And say "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the roses will fade

   From my soft young cheek one day;

Will you love me, then, 'mid the falling leaves.

   As you did 'mid the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so wide and deep

   I may launch my all on its tide?

A loving woman finds heaven or hell

   On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,

   All things that a man should be;

If you would give this all, I would stake my life

   To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot do this, a laundress and cook

   You hire with little pay;

But a woman's heart and a woman's life

   Are not to be won that way.

                                  Elizabeth Barrett Browning.