The War in Gungywamp

They’ve got a war in Europe now,

     Seems like an awful dream;

An’ here in Gungywamp, I vow,

     It is the only theme.

Such war, such strife, such armies rent

     Was never known before;

They’re fightin’ on the continent,

     Also in Stokes’s store.

Jed Martin’s wife, we all surmise,

     Descended from a brewer;

So Jed has got to simypathize

     With Germany, for sure!

Ame Green is English, through an’ through,

     An’ so of course yur know

What he thinks of the Kaiser’s crew

     When he begins to blow.

Bill Dean is sot ag’in the Japs,

     An’ hates the Russian mob;

He gives Ame Green some awful raps,

     An’ keeps right on the job.

An’ so it well divided lies –

     Whoever holds the floor;

The allies an’ their enemies,

     Who fight in Stokes’s store.

Ame Green has got it figgered out,

     The whys an’ wherefores, when

Ol’ Jed will put his scheme to rout,

     An’ capture all his men.

Then all will charge an’ all withdraw,

     An’ count the dead once more;

There ain’t no vacant seat of war

     In Stokes’s grocery store!

Herm Stokes he is the grocer man,

     He’s neutral, so to speak;

He does the very best he can –

     Marks up his goods each week.

An’ when they protest, Herm, says he,

     “You’re healthy soldiers, shaw!

While you fight here it’s up to me

     To pay the costs uv war!”

Sept. 6, 1914

                            

                                         Backs of The War in Gungywamp (top) and The Gungy Christmas Bells (Sept. 7, 1914)