Be fair with him,
And share with him
An hour of time in a restful place,
Brother to brother and face to face,
And he’ll whisper low
Of the long ago,
Of a loved one dead
And the tears he shed;
And you’ll come to see
That in suffering he,
With you, is hurt by the self-same rod
And turns for help to the self-same God.

You hope as he,
You dream of splendors, and so does he;
His children must be as you’d have yours be;
He shares your love
For the Flag above,
He laughs and sings
For the self-same things;
When he’s understood
He is mostly good,
Thoughtful of others and kind and true,
Brave, devoted—­and much like you.

Under the toiler’s grimy shirt,
Under the sweat and the grease and dirt,
Under the rough outside you view,
Is a man who thinks and feels as you.

When We Understand the Plan

I reckon when the world we leave
And cease to smile and cease to grieve,
When each of us shall quit the strife
And drop the working tools of life,
Somewhere, somehow, we’ll come to find
Just what our Maker had in mind.

Perhaps through clearer eyes than these
We’ll read life’s hidden mysteries,
And learn the reason for our tears—­
Why sometimes came unhappy years,
And why our dearest joys were brief
And bound so closely unto grief.

There is so much beyond our scope,
As blindly on through life we grope,
So much we cannot understand,
However wisely we have planned,
That all who walk this earth about
Are constantly beset by doubt.

No one of us can truly say
Why loved ones must be called away,
Why hearts are hurt, or e’en explain
Why some must suffer years of pain;
Yet some day all of us shall know
The reason why these things are so.

I reckon in the years to come,
When these poor lips of clay are dumb,
And these poor hands have ceased to toil,
Somewhere upon a fairer soil
God shall to all of us make clear
The purpose of our trials here.

The Spoiler

With a twinkle in his eye
He’d come gayly walkin’ by
An’ he’d whistle to the children
  An’ he’d beckon ’em to come,
Then he’d chuckle low an’ say,
“Come along, I’m on my way,
An’ it’s I that need your company
  To buy a little gum.”

When his merry call they’d hear,
All the children, far an’ near,
Would come flyin’ from the gardens
  Like the chickens after wheat;
When we’d shake our heads an’ say: 
“No, you mustn’t go to-day!”
He’d beg to let him have ’em
  In a pack about his feet.

Oh, he spoiled ’em, one an’ all;
There was not a youngster small
But was over-fed on candy
  An’ was stuffed with lollypops,
An’ I think his greatest joy
Was to get some girl or boy
An’ bring ’em to their parents
  All besmeared by chocolate drops.