Them Flowers

Take a feller 'at's sick and laid up on the shelf, All shaky, and ga'nted, and pore-- Jes all so knocked out he can't handle hisself With a stiff upper-lip any more; Shet him up all alone in the gloom of a room As dark as the tomb, and as grim, And then take and send him some roses in bloom, And you can have fun out o' him! You've ketched him 'fore now--when his liver was sound And his appetite notched like a saw-- A-mockin' you, mayby, fer romancin' round With a big posy-bunch in yer paw; But you ketch him, say, when his health is away, And he's flat on his back in distress, And _then_ you kin trot out yer little bokay And not be insulted, I guess! You see, it's like this, what his weaknesses is,-- Them flowers makes him think of the days Of his innocent youth, and that mother o' his, And the roses that _she_ us't to raise:-- So here, all alone with the roses you send-- Bein' sick and all trimbly and faint,-- My eyes is--my eyes is--my eyes is--old friend-- Is a-leakin'--I'm blamed ef they ain't!