When Ma gets out the monthly bills and sets them all in front of Dad, <br />She makes us children run away because she knows he may get mad; <br />An' then she smiles a bit and says: 'I hope you will not fuss and fret- <br />There's nothing here except the things I absolutely had to get!' <br />An' Pa he looks 'em over first. 'The things you had to have!' says he; <br />'I s'pose that we'd have died without that twenty dollar longeree.' <br /> <br />Then he starts in to write the checks for laundry an' for light an' gas, <br />An' never says a word 'bout them- because they're small he lets 'em pass. <br />But when he starts to grunt an' groan, an' stops the while his pipe he <br /> fills, <br />We know that he is gettin' down to where Ma's hid the bigger bills. <br />'Just what we had to have,' says he, 'an' I'm supposed to pay the tolls; <br />Nine dollars an' a half for- say, what the deuce are camisoles? <br /> <br />'If you should break a leg,' says Pa, 'an couldn't get down town to shop, <br />I'll bet the dry goods men would see their business take an awful drop, <br />An' if they missed you for a week, they'd have to fire a dozen clerks! <br />Say, couldn't we have got along without this bunch of Billie Burkes?' <br />But Ma just sits an' grins at him, an' never has a word to say, <br />Because she says Pa likes to fuss about the bills he has to pay.<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pa-and-the-monthly-bills/
