p. 11 | Quite Too Sweeping

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1905

Quite Too Sweeping

THERE once was a woman so wofully neat That she swept her whole family into the street.

She lectured on tidiness, day after day, Till her children ran off to the neighbor’s to play. And sometimes, the “lord of the manor” would roam

From his beautiful house which was never a home’; ’Twas a splendid expression of beauty and art, But it did not possess home’s one requi- site, heart.

But this woman worked on with her brush and her broom, With her servants she battled through room after room; She waxed and she polished her beau- tiful floors Till her friends hardly ventured inside of her doors.

Her carpets, so velvety, one would refuse To walk on, until he had dusted his shoes; Her chairs all so tidied, without and within, That to sit on them seemed little less than a sin.

Her children had toys which they never could spread O’er immaculate floors; nor could cook- ies or bread Be eaten where crumbs might be scat- tered about, For her house was like “waxwork” within and without.

Of dust, just the least little innocent bit Would bring on a something akin to a fit, And a tidy or picture a trifle awry Could never escape her most diligent eye.

Her children grew up, and they hurried away As soon as they could, scarcely caring to stay Where brooms were a-whisking; they sighed for a nest, Still neat, but inviting a spirit of rest.

And the day when the last of her little ones left, And the home of their smiles was for- ever bereft, She said, while for dust she still searched up and down, “They know I’m the finest housekeeper in town.”

— Good Housekeeping.