I have learned more than my

mother,

I can drive a better bargain than

my father,

I have struggled long and hard^___I

have achieved something.

Listen:
 
    My father had tree tops full of

singing birds;

    I have chimneys full of soot.
    My father had gray mists on the

lowlands;

    I have black smoke over acres of

smudgy bottoms.

    My father heard a tinkling bell

    and smelled the breath of the
    cows;

    I hear the clang of the milk

wagon and smell gasoline.

    My father had a hired hand at

fifty cents a day and his
keep;

    When I need anything done I

have to pay $2.40 per hour,

    The Union scale.
    My mother had a neighbor girl

helping about the house,

    A dainty miss,
    Fit to go to church with her son;
    I have a slovenly alien slopping

about the flat,

    Quarreling with trades-people,
    Cursing the laundryman^___
    Extremely wasteful,
    A high priestess of the garbage

can.

 
    My mother had clothes to suit the

season;

    I have a straw hat in January

and a fur hat in July.

    My mother had a path fringed

    with sweet alysum

    Winding to the springhouse;
    I have a dirty alley
    With a lot of tin cans,
    And one dead cat.
 
But listen:
    My parents were born to their

condition,

    My father to his cattle and his

hayfields,

    My mother to her lambs-wool

quilts,

    And her feather-beds;
    I have made my world,
    That is, I helped to,
    I had no hand in building the

    skyscrapers,

    But,^___
    I poisoned the cat.

^__Elizabeth N. Barr.