YOU MIGHT HAVE THAID “OH!”
By Minnie Leone Upton
I was hard at work in my study,
When I heard a gentle tap,
“Come in!” and in came my Josie,
Tearful from some mishap,
And I knew that she was longing
To be cuddled in my lap. “I bruithied my finder orful,
And papa, it doeth ache tho!”
“Well, well, run away to mama,
For I can’t help it, Jo.”
She raised her tear-wet lashes—
“Papa, you might have thaid ‘Oh!’” The study door closed softly,
And I was left alone,
With nothing to hinder my writing
But the thought of a tender tone,
So loving and so reproachful
’Twould have touched a heart of stone. And I sat and looked at my paper,
But somehow I couldn’t write,
And there broke on me in the silence
The dawn of a clearer light;
The touch of that aching finger
Had given me my sight. Have a tender word, my brothers,
For the little troubles and pains.
It was not beneath our Master,
It is far above our gains;
It will hasten the heavenly kingdom,
Where only love remains. —Minnie Leone Upton, in the American Mother.