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Title: The Servants
Author: Franklin P. Adams [
More Titles by Adams]
With genuflexions to Kipling's "The Ladies"
We've taken our cooks where we've found 'em;
We've answered many an ad;
We've had our pickin' o' servants,
And most of the lot was bad.
Some was Norahs an' Bridgets;
Tillie she came last fall;
Claras and Fannies and Lenas and Annies,
And now we've got none at all.
Now, we don't know much about servants,
For, takin' 'em all along,
You never can tell till you've tried 'em,
And then you are like to be wrong.
There's times when you'll think that they're perfect;
There's times when you'll think that they're bum,
But the things you'll learn from those that have gone
May help you with those to come.
Norah, she landed from Dublin,
Green as acushla machree;
Norah was willing and anxious
To learn what a servant should be.
We told Mrs. Kirk all about her--
She offered her seven more per--
Now Norah she works, as you know, for the Kirks--
And we learned about servants from her.
Lena we got from an "office";
Lena was saving and Dutch--
Thought that our bills were enormous,
And told us we spent far too much.
Lena decamped with some silver,
Jewelry, laces and fur--
She was loving and kind, with a Socialist mind--
And we learned about servants from her.
Tillie blew in from the Indies,
Black as the middle of night--
Cooked like a regular Savarin--
Kitchen was shiny an' bright.
Everything ran along lovely
Until--it was bound to occur--
She ran away with a porter one day--
But we learned about servants from her.
We've taken our cooks where we've found them,
Yellow and black and white;
Some was better than others,
But none of the lot was right.
And the end of it's only worry
And trouble and bother and fuss--
When you answer an ad., think of those we have had
And learn about servants from us.
[The end]
Franklin P. Adams's poem: Servants
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