When We First Played "Show"

Wasn't it a good time,
Long Time Ago--
When we all were little tads
And first played "Show"!--
When every newer day
Wore as bright a glow
As the ones we laughed away--
Long Time Ago!

Calf was in the back-lot;
Clover in the red;
Bluebird in the pear-tree;
Pigeons on the shed;
Tom a-chargin' twenty pins
At the barn; and Dan
Spraddled out just like "The
'Injarubber'-Man!"

Me and Bub and Rusty,
Eck and Dunk and Sid,
'Tumblin' on the sawdust
Like the A-rabs did;
Jamesy on the slack-rope
In a wild retreat,
Grappling back, to start again--
When he chalked his feet!

Wasn't Eck a wonder,
In his stocking-tights?

Wasn't Dunk--his leaping lion--
Chief of all delights!
Yes, and wasn't "Little Mack"
Boss of all the Show,--
Both Old Clown and Candy-Butcher--
Long Time Ago!

Sid the Bareback-Rider;
And--oh-me-oh-my!--
Bub, the spruce Ring-master,
Stepping round so spry!--
In his little waist-and-trousers
All made in one,
Was there a prouder youngster
Under the sun!

And NOW--who will tell me,--
Where are they all?
Dunk's a sanatorium doctor,
Up at Waterfall;
Sid's a city street-contractor;
Tom has fifty clerks;
And Jamesy he's the "Iron Magnate"
Of "The Hecla Works."

And Bub's old and bald now,
Yet still he hangs on,--
Dan and Eck and "Little Mack,"
Long, long gone!
But wasn't it a good time,
Long Time Ago--
When we all were little tads
And first played "Show"!