 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
ONE OF THE SAINTS
Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,And he looks as good as ever he can;
And he's such a cold and a chaste Big Smith
That snowflakes all are his kin and kith.
Wherever his eye he chances to throw
The crystals of ice begin to grow,
And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost
By the singeing touch of a sudden frost.
The women all shiver whenever he's near,
And look upon us with a look austere—
Effect of the Smithian atmosphere.
Such, in a word, is the moral plan
Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man.
When told that Madame Ferrier had taught
Hernani in school, his fist he brought
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And he roared: “Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see
If the public's time she dares devote
To the educatin' of any dam goat!”
“You do not entirely comprehend—
Hernani's a play,” said his learned friend,
“By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad.
What's worse, it's French!” “Well, well, my lad,”
Said Smith, “if he cuts a swath so wide
I'll have him took re'glar up and tried.”
And he smiled so sweetly the other chap
Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp
Caught in a storm of his native snows,
With a purple ear and an azure nose.
The Smith continued: “I never pursue
Immoral readin'.” And that is true:
He's a saint of remarkably high degree,
With a mind as chaste as a mind can be;
But read!—the devil a word can he.
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |