Poem: “Ma And Her Check Book” by Edgar A. Guest

A Heap o’ Livin’

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American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’
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Ma And Her Check Book

  Ma has a dandy little book that’s full of narrow
    slips,
  An’ when she wants to pay a bill a page from
    it she rips;
  She just writes in the dollars and the cents and
    signs her name
  An’ that’s as good as money, though it doesn’t
    look the same.
  When she wants another bonnet or some
    feathers for her neck,
  She promptly goes an’ gets ’em, an’ she writes
    another check.
  I don’t just understand it, but I know she
    sputters when
  Pa says to her at supper: “Well! You’re
    overdrawn again!”

  Ma’s not a business woman, she is much too
    kind of heart
  To squabble over pennies or to play a selfish
    part,
  An’ when someone asks for money, she’s not
    one to stop an’ think
  Of a little piece of paper an’ the cost of pen
    an’ ink.
  She just tells him very sweetly if he’ll only
    wait a bit
  An’ be seated in the parlor, she will write a
    check for it.
  She can write one out for twenty just as easily
    as ten,
  An’ forgets that Pa may grumble: “Well,
    you’re overdrawn again!”

  Pa says it looks as though he’ll have to start in
    workin’ nights
  To gather in the money for the checks that
    mother writes.
  He says that every morning when he’s summoned
    to the phone,
  He’s afraid the bank is calling to make mother’s
    shortage known.
  He tells his friends if ever anything our fortune
    wrecks
  They can trace it to the moment mother started
    writing checks.
  He’s got so that he trembles when he sees her
    fountain pen
  An’ he mutters: “Do be careful! You’ll be
    overdrawn again!”

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The Fishing Cure > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’

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A Heap o’ Livin’

Ma And Her Check Book

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