You say your grandma's dead, my lad, and you, bowed down with woe, to see her laid beneath the mold believe you ought to go; and so you ask a half day off, and you may have that same; alas, that grannies always die when there's a baseball game! Last spring, if I remember right, three grandmas died for you, and you bewailed the passing, then, of souls so warm and true; and then another grandma died—a tall and stately dame; the day they buried her there was a fourteen-inning game. And when the balmy breeze of June among the willows sighed, another grandma closed her eyes and crossed the Great Divide; they laid her gently to her rest beside the churchyard wall, the day we lammed the stuffing from the Rubes from Minnepaul. Go forth, my son, and mourn your dead, and shed the scalding tear, and lay a simple wreath upon your eighteenth grandma's bier; while you perform this solemn task I'll to the grandstand go, and watch our pennant-winning team make soupbones of the foe.