“SARY EMMA'S PHOTYGRAPHS”

Our Sary Emma is possessed ter be at somethin’ queer;

She's allers doin’ loony things, unheard of fur and near.

One time there wa'n' t no limit ter the distance she would tramp

Ter get a good-fer-nothin’, wuthless, cancelled postage-stamp;

Another spell folks could n't rest ontil, by hook or crook,

She got‘ em all ter write their names inside a leetle book;

But though them fits was bad enough, the wust is nowadays,

Fer now she's got that pesky freak, the photygraphin’ craze.

She had ter have a camera — and them things cost a sight —

So she took up subscriptions fer the “Woman's Home Delight”

And got one fer a premium — a blamed new-fangled thing,

That takes a tin-type sudden, when she presses on a spring;

And sence she got it, sakes alive! there's nothin’ on the place

That hai n't been pictured lookin’ like a horrible disgrace:

The pigs, the cows, the horse, the colt, the chickens large and small;

She goes a-gunnin’ fer‘ em, and she bags‘ em, one and all.

She tuk me once a-settin’ up on top a load er hay:

My feet shets out the wagon, and my head's a mile away;

She took her Ma in our back yard, a-hanging out the clothes,

With hands as big as buckets, and a face that's mostly nose.

A yard of tongue and monstrous teeth is what she calls a dog;

The cat's a kind er fuzzy-lookin’ shadder in a fog;

And I've got a suspicion that what killed the brindle calf

Was that he seen his likeness in our Sary's photygraph.

She's “tonin’,” er “develerpin’,” er “printin’,” ha'f the time;

She's allers buyin’ pasteboard ter mount up her latest crime:

Our front room and the settin’ - room is like some awful show,

With freaks and framed outrages stuck all‘ round‘ em in a row:

But soon I'll take them picters, and I'll fetch some of‘ em out

And hang‘ em‘ round the garden when the corn begins ter sprout;

We'll have no crows and blackbirds ner that kind er feathered trash,

‘ Cause them photygraphs of Sary's, they beat scarecrows all ter smash.