Hangin' on the      Kitchen Wall
 
     I'M sort of fond of readin' one
     thing and another,
 
     So I've read promiscus like
     whatever cum my way,
 
     And many a friendly argument's cum up 'tween
     me and mother,
 
     'Bout¹ things that I'd be readin' settin' round
     a rainy day.
 
      Sometimes it jist seemed to me thar wa'nt
     no end of books,
 
      Some made fer useful readin' and some jist
     made fer looks;
 
      But of all the different books I've read,
     thar's none comes up at all
 
      To My Old Yaller Almanac, Hangin' on
     the Kitchen Wall.
 
      I've always liked amusement, of the good
     and wholesome² kind,
 
      It's better than a doctor, and it elevates the
     mind;
 
      So, often of an evening, when the farm
     chores all were done,
 
      I'd join the games the boys would play, gosh
     how I liked the fun;
 
      And once thar wuz a minstrel troop, they
     showed at our Town Hall,
 
      A jolly lot of fellers, 'bout twenty of 'em all.
 
      Wall I went down to see 'em, but their
     jokes, I knowed 'em all,
 
      Read 'em in My Old Yaller Almanac,
     Hangin' on the Kitchen Wall.
      Thar wuz Ezra Hoskins, Deacon Brown and
     a lot of us old codgers,
 
      Used to meet down at the grocery store,
     what wuz kept by Jason Rogers.
 
      There we'd set and argufy most every market
     day,
 
      Chawin' tobacker and whittlin' sticks to pass
     the time away;
 
      And many a knotty³ problem has put us on
     our mettle⁴,
 
      Which we felt it wuz our duty to duly solve
     and settle;
 
      Then after they had said their say, who
     thought they knowed it all,
 
      I'd floor 'em with some facts I'd got
 
      From My Old Yaller Almanac, Hangin' on
     the Kitchen Wall.
      It beats a regular cyclopedium, that old
     fashioned yeller book,
 
      And many a pleasant hour in readin' it I've
     took;
 
      Somehow I've never tired of lookin' through
     its pages,
 
      Seein' of the different things that's happened
     in all ages.
 
      One time I wuz elected a Justice of the
     Peace,
 
      To make out legal documents, a mortgage
     or a lease,
 
      Them tricks that lawyers have, you bet I
     knowed them all,
 
      Learned them in My Old Yaller Almanac,
     Hangin' on the Kitchen Wall.
     So now I've bin⁵ to New York, and all your
     sights I've seen,
 
      I s'pose that to you city folks I must look
     most awful green,
 
      Gee⁶ whiz, what lots of fun I've had as I
     walked round the town,
 
      Havin' Bunco Steerers ask me if I wasn't
     Mr. Hiram Brown.
      I've rode on all your trolloly cars, and hung
     onto the straps⁷,
 
      When we flew around the corners, sat on
     other peoples' laps,
 
      Hav'nt had no trouble, not a bit at all,
 
      Read about your city in My Old Yaller
     Almanac, Hangin' on the Kitchen Wall.