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When We First Played "Show"
By James Whitcomb Riley
Wasn't it a good time,
Long Time Ago -
When we all were little tads
And first played "Show"! -
When every newer day
Wore as bright a glow
As the ones we laughed away -
Long Time Ago!
Calf was in the back-lot;
Clover in the red;
Bluebird in the pear-tree;
Pigeons on the shed;
Tom a-chargin' twenty pins
At the barn; and Dan
Spraddled out just like "The
'Injarubber'-Man!"
Me and Bub and Rusty,
Eck and Dunk and Sid,
'Tumblin' on the sawdust
Like the A-rabs did;
Jamesy on the slack-rope
In a wild retreat,
Grappling back, to start again -
When he chalked his feet!
Wasn't Eck a wonder,
In his stocking-tights?
Wasn't Dunk - his leaping lion -
Chief of all delights!
Yes, and wasn't "Little Mack"
Boss of all the Show, -
Both Old Clown and Candy-Butcher -
Long Time Ago!
Sid the Bareback-Rider;
And - oh-me-oh-my! -
Bub, the spruce Ring-master,
Stepping round so spry! -
In his little waist-and-trousers
All made in one,
Was there a prouder youngster
Under the sun!
And NOW - who will tell me, -
Where are they all?
Dunk's a sanatorium doctor,
Up at Waterfall;
Sid's a city street-contractor;
Tom has fifty clerks;
And Jamesy he's the "Iron Magnate"
Of "The Hecla Works."
And Bub's old and bald now,
Yet still he hangs on, -
Dan and Eck and "Little Mack,"
Long, long gone!
But wasn't it a good time,
Long Time Ago -
When we all were little tads
And first played "Show"!
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