Two Noisy Kids

They can think of the funniest things to do,

Those two noisy kids that belong to you;

When you're dreamily sprawled for an evening nap,

Comes Mary to plop herself down in your lap,

Or mother to say that young Bob is to blame

For breaking the neighbor's big bay window pane.

You are wakened, perhaps, in the dead of the night

By some yapping furore and you're worried quite

To the point of distraction to find down there

A stray dog is chained to the basement stair;

And the only excuse that you ever will get

Is that every young fellow must have him a pet.

Then our Mary comes in with a rend in her dress

And her face and her hands are a horrible mess,

It's an awful affair, that's the least you can say,

For a girl celebrating her twelfth natal day.

Yes, dear mother is vexed, and dear mother can mend

But young Bob was to blame, it comes out in the end.

So the teacher's been calling again here today:

She has come round the block and gone out of her way;

Though her visit is brief and her message is short

It has something to do with that young man's report.

She suggests they apply both the rod and the rule,

If he's noisy at home like he is in the school.

But the climax has come in the boist'rous din

when young Mary's piano and Bob's violin

Are both throbbing and booming and screeching away,

As they hurry through practice to be at their play.

Yes, they think of the funniest things to do,

Those two noisy kids that belong to you.

But when you relfect in some moment of calm,

You are vain of the title of "dad" or of "mom."

And you know in your heart that the ultimate truth

Will teach you the hope of the world is in youth,

And you'll long once again for the vanished delight

Of voices that break on the stillness of night.

(Copyright, 1940)