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Edgar Guest - Pa And The Monthly Bills
Work rating: Low

When Ma gets out the monthly bills and sets them all in front of Dad,
She makes us children run away because she knows he may get mad;
An` then she smiles a bit and says: "I hope you will not fuss and fret--
There`s nothing here except the things I absolutely had to get!"
An` Pa he looks `em over first. "The things you had to have!" says he;
"I s`pose that we`d have died without that twenty dollar longeree."

Then he starts in to write the checks for laundry  an` for light an` gas,
An` never says a word `bout them--because they`re small he lets `em pass.
But when he starts to grunt an` groan, an` stops the while his pipe he
    fills,
We know that he is gettin` down to where Ma`s hid the bigger bills.
"Just what we had to have," says he, "an` I`m supposed to pay the tolls;
Nine dollars an` a half for--say, what the deuce are camisoles?

"If you should break a leg," says Pa, "an couldn`t get down town to shop,
I`ll bet the dry goods men would see their business take an awful drop,
An` if they missed you for a week, they`d have to fire a dozen clerks!
Say, couldn`t we have got along without this bunch of Billie Burkes?"
But Ma just sits an` grins at him, an` never has a word to say,
Because she says Pa likes to fuss about the bills he has to pay.
Source
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