At the same time she affirms with the utmost steadiness
Her perfect readiness
To take any other fellow on as a brother.
Still, she means to marry her father, and to be his wife,
And to live happily with him all the rest of her life.
This contract is made without consideration,
And is subject to later ratification.
The said contractress had it read through
to see that nothing was missed,
And she took her pen, and she held it tight
in a chubby and cramped-up fist,
And she made her mark with a blotted cross,
instead of signing her name;
And the said contractor he signed in full,
and they mean to observe the same._
"Now give me, Peg, that old brown shoe, that battered shoe of yours,
I'll stow the contract in its toe, and, if the shoe endures,
When sixteen years or so are gone, I'll hunt for it myself
And take it gently from its drawer, or get it from its shelf.
"And when, mid clouds of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl
A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl,
Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim,
I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and fling the lot at him."
JOHN
He's a boy,
And that's the long and (chiefly) the short of it,
And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it;
A two-year-old with a taste for a toy,
And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it,
And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it;
And a short stout couple of sturdy legs
As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs;
And a jolly round head, so fairly round
You could easily roll it,
Or take it and bowl it
With never a bump along the ground.
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