SHE is an ideal daughter—mind you, friend,
You must not from my words infer she has
No faults. No angel is my Eve, not she,
But just a faulty fair thing, sweet of face,
And warm of heart, and with a tender flame
In her true eyes so innocent of guile,
With laughter on her lips, and loving words,
With something in each mood to draw
One’s soul the closer to her. Wondrous big
Her nature is—she’s something more than kind.

If sorrow touches me in any way
It is to her I turn for comforting;
If sickness stretches me upon my bed,
And steals my strength and spirits quite away,
I want her near me with her slim cool hands,
Her zeal to nurse me back to health again,
Her smoothing of the pillows underneath
My head, that I may rest the easier;
To her this world is such a pretty place
She likes no one to leave it ere he must.

So plies her remedies with wondrous skill,
And talks the while of pleasant homely things—
The tasks that tarry for my getting well,
The garden showing plainly my neglect,
The swarming bees, the apple trees in bloom,
The lonesome collie blinking in the sun,
The filly being broken for the plough,
My southdown sheep, the green of barley fields,
My neighbors, and the daily wish that I
Might soon be out among them as of old.

This is the sort of nurse a sick man needs,
Not one who is forever breathing sighs,
And talking of the emptiness of life,
And urging one to wean his thoughts from earth,
Nor care a jot for life, since it is such
An empty, barren, disappointing thing.
Life! why, ’tis God’s good gift to each of us,
And some, I think, show much ingratitude
By slurring it forever with the wish
That they were rid of it for good and all.

Now, you have mortgages, and deeds, and bonds,
You have a lordly mansion of your own,
While I—I have a big old-fashioned house,
And a few fields. You sometimes look at me
And sigh to think I am not better off
In this world’s goods. Old friend I like you well
And would not have you waste your pity so;
Why, man, I’m all amazed that you are not
Quite envious of me, since I have got—
What you do lack—a daughter of my own.

It makes a man feel rich to have a girl
Like mine to pet and make ado of him,
To come about him with her tender ways,
And cozening, and pretty tricks of speech,
To cry a little when he goes away,
To watch for his return with eager eyes,
To come to him with laughter on her lips—
Ay, and sometimes a pout that shows itself
But to be kissed away—to keep his heart
From growing old with all the years that pass.

I would not give this little Eve of mine
For twenty times her weight in solid gold,
’Tis a good world—you do not wonder now
That I’m so jolly and content alway;
You’re sighing like a furnace—’tis too bad!
I wish, old friend, you were as rich as I—
With such a glad young thing to come and lay
Her rosy cheek to yours when you are sad!
The man who has no daughter of his own
Is such a pauper, I could cry for him.