When We First Played "Show"

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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"!

© James Whitcomb Riley