Black Beetles in Amber

Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,

And he looks as good as ever he can;

And he's such a cold and a chaste Big Smith

That snowflakes all are his kin and kith.

Wherever his eye he chances to throw

The crystals of ice begin to grow;

And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost

By the singeing touch of a sudden frost.

The women all shiver whenever he's near,

And look upon us with a look austere—

Effect of the Smithian atmosphere.

Such, in a word, is the moral plan

Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man.

When told that Madame Ferrier had taught

Hernani in school, his fist he brought

Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee,

And he roared: "Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see

If the public's time she dares devote

To the educatin' of any dam goat!"

"You do not entirely comprehend—

Hernani's a play," said his learned friend,

"By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad.

What's worse, it's French!" "Well, well, my lad,"

Said Smith, "if he cuts a swath so wide

I'll have him took re'glar up and tried!"

And he smiled so sweetly the other chap

Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp

Caught in a storm of his native snows,

With a purple ear and an azure nose.

The Smith continued: "I never pursue

Immoral readin'." And that is true:

He's a saint of remarkably high degree,

With a mind as chaste as a mind can be;

But read!—the devil a word can he!