Читать книгу Boys and Girls - James W. Foley - Страница 17

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OH, there’s never a noise in Nervoustown;

Not the cry of a youngster; and up or down

There’s never a cheer or a whistle shrill;

Just silence, like that of the grave, so still;

The horses trot with a muffled tread,

But the place seems lonesome and drear and dead,

For a cloth-bound head and a nervous frown

Are all you may see in Nervoustown.

Sh-h! you must walk with noiseless tread

For there’s many a hot and aching head;

The doors are closed and the blinds are down,

For it must be dark in Nervoustown.

And you mustn’t whistle or shout or cheer

Or slam the doors! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!

Lest a cloth-bound head and a terrible frown

Poke out at you from Nervoustown.

Oh, there’s never a person there but goes

On the very tip of his tippy-toes;

Nor ever a lad has heard at all

Of follow-my-leader or rude baseball;

It’s much as your life is worth to yell,

The flowers can’t grow for the camphor-smell;

While a big policeman, up and down,

Cries “Sh-h!” through the streets of Nervoustown.

And a little boy, who didn’t know,

Once years and years and years ago,

Gave three loud, lusty cheers one day

For something or other, I can’t say,

And they snipped his head off—Oh! Oh! Oh!

With big, red, rusty shears, you know,

And cloth-bound heads bobbed up and down

With gladness all through Nervoustown.

But, oh, it’s gloomy in Nervoustown,

With the doors tight shut and the blinds all down,

Where the frightened lad his whole life goes

On the very tips of his tippy-toes,

Where the hens don’t cluck and the birds don’t sing,

And even the church bells dare not ring

Lest a cloth-bound head with a terrible frown

Poke out at them from Nervoustown.