Back on the farm in the fifties,

How often I heard father say,

“Don’t growl if you can’t have it all, boy,

Take what you can get—that’s the way!”

There were days in the spring during planting,

When I couldn’t go over the hill,

With my books and slate strapped on my shoulder,

To the little red school by the mill.

“Never mind,” father said, at my pouting,

“If you do have to stay home, my lad,

There are weeks of the term yet before you,

Take what you can get and be glad!”

We often for birds went a-hunting,—

There was game in the woods in his day,

And wasn’t it just jolly tramping,—

I really wished no better play!

But oh! it was so disappointing,

When only one bird I would hit;

“Cheer up!” father’s voice was so merry,

“And be glad of the one you did get!”

There are shrubs in the path by the schoolhouse,

I stay now at home every day,

But not to drop corn for my father,—

But I hear those wise words when I grumble,

Just as sweet as of old and as mild:

“You can’t have it all, so be thankful

With what you can get of it, child!”