Mothering a Boy Scout

The Boy Scout's Mother to Her Friends
Edna Linsley Gressitt

Will you walk into my parlor?
Flags for signalling are there;
A handbook and a bug net
Will yield to you a chair;
These raccoon tracks in plaster
Are works of art, no doubt.
Do you savvy you are stalking

The trail of a Boy Scout?
Will you come and have some tea
Upon my dining table?
The caterpillars I'll remove
As fast as I am able.
The star map and the snake skin
I'll dare you to throw out!
For I believe in scouting,
And I'm glad my boy's a Scout.

When I go to cook there's resin
On the stove a-melting down;
The sink has sample leaves and bark
Of all the trees in town;
Scout pants with coffee grains get dyed
In a tub beneath the spout;
So I savvy I am stalking
The trail of a Boy Scout.

He does not have "a skeleton
In the closet," as they say,
But bones of beasts upon his desk
Enjoy the light of day;
He sleeps well with a million
Mounted insects round about;
So I believe in scouting,
And I'm glad my boy's a Scout.

This poem originally appeared in the volume Lyrics By The Way, a book of poems written by my paternal great aunt Edna Linsley Gressitt. In the next week, I will publish more of her witty poems.