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EFFORT
HE BROUGHT me his report card from the teacher and
he said
He wasn t very proud of it and sadly bowed his head.
He was excellent in reading, but arithmetic, was fair,
And I noticed there were several “unsatisfactorys”
there;
But one little bit of credit which was given brought
me joy
He was “excellent in effort,” and I fairly hugged the
boy.
“Oh, it doesn t make much difference what is written
on your card,”
I told that little fellow, “if you re only trying hard.
The very goods and excellents are fine, I must
agree,
But the effort you are making means a whole lot more
to me;
And the thing that s most important when this card is
put aside
Is to know, in spite of failure, that to do your best
you ve tried.
“Just keep excellent in effort all the rest will come
to you.
There isn t any problem but some day you ll learn
to do,
And at last, when you grow older, you will come to
understand
That by hard and patient toiling men have risen to
command
And some day you will discover when a greater goal s
at stake
That better far than brilliance is the effort you will
make.”
SOMEBODY ELSE
SOMEBODY wants a new bonnet to wear;
Somebody wants a new dress;
Somebody needs a new bow for her hair,
And never the wanting grows less.
Oh, this is the reason I labor each day
And this is the joy of my tasks:
That deep in the envelope holding my pay
Is something that somebody asks.
I could go begging for water and bread
And travel the highways of ease,
But somebody wants a roof over his head
And stockings to cover his knees.
I could go shirking the duties of life
And laugh when necessity pleads,
But rather I stand to the toil and the strife
To furnish what somebody needs.
Somebody wants what I ve strength to supply,
And somebody s waiting for me
To come home to-night with money to buy
Her bread and her cake and her tea.
And as I am strong so her laughter will ring,
And as I am true she will smile;
It s the somebody else of the toiler or king
That makes all the struggle worth while.
“Somebody Else
From a charcoal draiving by M. L. BOWER.
Somebody needs all the courage I own,
And somebody s trust is in me;
For never a man who can go it alone,
Whatever his station may be.
So I stand to my task and I stand to my care,
And struggle to come to success,
For the ribbons to tie up somebody s hair,
And my somebody s pretty new dress.
THE LONELY OLD FELLOW
THE ROSES are bedded for winter, the tulips are planted
for spring;
The robins and martins have left us; there are only
the sparrows to sing.
The garden seems solemnly silent, awaiting its blan
kets of snow,
And I feel like a lonely old fellow with nowhere to
turn or to go.
All summer I ve hovered about them, all summer
they ve nodded at me;
I ve wandered and waited among them the first pink
of blossom to see;
I ve known them and loved and caressed them, and
now all their splendor has fled,
And the harsh winds of winter all tell me the friends
of my garden are dead.
I m a lonely old fellow, that s certain. All winter
with nothing to do
But sit by the window recalling the days when my
skies were all blue;
But my heart is not given to sorrow and never my
lips shall complain,
For winter shall pass and the sunshine shall give me
my roses again.
And so for the friends that have vanished, the friends
that they tell me are dead,
Who have traveled the road to God s Acres and sleep
where the willows are spread;
They have left me a lonely old fellow to sit here and
dream by the pane,
But I know, like the friends of my garden, we shall
all meet together again.