Page 50 - Poetry-Family

Keturah Brown, she beats the world
On bakin’ bread and’ pies,
But her best hold is fightin’ dirt
And circumventin’ flies.

Her temper’s like her pie-crust, which
They’re both uncommon short;
An’ tho’ I’m free-and-easy like,
Sometimes she makes me snort.
There ain’t no sense in having things
So awful all-fired neat,
Nor sayin ev’ry time I step,
“Now, Zek’el, wipe your feet!”

I can’t sit down in our best room,
It is so slick and spruce;
Fact is, most everything we’ve got’s
Too good for common use.
Though next to godliness the Book
Puts cleanliness, I’m bound
To say Keturah’s mighty apt
To run it in the ground.

There ain’t no use in kickin’, I’m
Prepared to bear my cross;
Some day, perhaps, I’ll wear my crown;
Keturah she can’t boss
Things round in heaven. An’ since we’re told
That there no moth nor rust
Comes to corrupt, I guess it’s safe
To say there ain’t no dust.

But, oh, what will Keturah do
Within those pearly gates,
If she no longer finds the dirt
That she so dearly hates?
O’ershadowed heaven itself will be
Engulfed in awful gloom,
When my Keturah enters in
And cannot use a broom.

—(Portland Transcript)

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