Poem Of The Foragers

School’s out, and homeward with the ebbing day They come--Tom Jones, Jim Brooks and Eddie Gray; And half a million others far or near, Not much unlike the boys I know right here; With empty dinnerpails and schoolbooks slung Across their shoulders by a strap. The tongue Of boyhood at the kitchen door gives cry: “Ma, can’t I have a doughnut, or some pie?” For, say, the appetite of boys is prime And cannot be content till suppertime.

’Tis four o’clock, and I can hear them go-- A million youngsters--homeward, fast and slow; The drowsy schoolroom clock has dragged its hands Across its face until Time’s signal stands At long-awaited four--that blessed hour When schoolbooks close and teachers lose the power That despot rulers have--and flags unfurled Lead schoolboy armies to a waiting world! And up the back steps bound returning feet: “Ma, can’t I go and get a bite to eat?”

School’s out--what ransacking of cooky jars! What letting down of pantry gates and bars! What dipping into barrels here and there, With heads far down and feet high up in air, For Winesaps, Baldwins, Pippins! What a charge Upon the jars of jam and loaves baked large And round and brown--what a tumultuous cry: “Ma, can’t I have a little piece of pie?” And so this schoolboy army waxes fat Upon its foraged commissariat!

Thanks are due to the Editors of The Saturday Evening Post, The Century Magazine, The New York Times, and The Youth’s Companion, in which papers the greater number of these verses originally appeared, for permission to reprint.