The Pendulum of Time

From The Topeka State Journal, February 21, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 I remember back in the eighties when Hank Frisby went to school
 Everybody in the village had him doped out for a fool.
 Fer he was so gol dum homely, all the critics in the place
 Said there wasn’t no intelligence or larnin’ in his face.
 He was tall, rawboned and knockneed and as awkward as a cow
 And the gals they always passed him by and never smiled nohow.
 He was bashful and was awkward and he seemed to have no vim
 And the fellows round the school house always poked their fun at him.
 

 Nuthin’ much was said about it when he left our town one day
 Hardly anybody knowed the fact that he had gone away.
 Once in a while they’d mention Hank and wonder where he went
 But nobody ever found out, fer they didn’t care a cent.
 Nigh a dozen years passed by and then one day a thing occurred
 And it caused more lively gossip than the town had ever heard.
 Great big auto came a-tearin’ down the main street with a yank
 And the feller in the back seat givin’ orders—he was Hank.
 

 Hank had been out west and struck a vein of ore both wide and deep
 And he picked up half a million while our town folks were asleep.
 When he jumped out of his auto full of vigor and of vim
 You should have seen the town folks all a toadyin’ to him.
 He put up a splendid mansion and he wed the village belle
 And he has his dinner evenin’s—or at least that’s what they tell.
 He’s mayor now and owns a mill, a railroad and a bank
 And there’ no one in the village who ain’t mighty proud of Hank.