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Jingles

Chapter 17: Small Town Hotel
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About This Book

A compact collection of short lyrical poems and light verse that shifts between playful sketches and earnest meditations. Recurring subjects include love and courtship, reflections on youth and aging, solitude, and small-town or frontier life. Several pieces celebrate natural settings such as the sea and mountain landscapes, using vivid but plain diction. Some poems employ humor and character sketches to portray everyday figures, while others dwell on memory, loss, and the passage of time. The overall tone balances simple, rhythmic lines with reflective and occasionally wistful moods.

Small Town Hotel

A bed, a washstand, a lamp and a chair,
An old broken comb to dress your hair;
Patch on mirror, crack to hide,
Room that’s nearly six feet wide.
Carpet covering half the floor,
Towel you’ll see done service before.
When you want to retire, blow out the light,
Jump into bed and say, “Goodnight.”
Don’t mind the rats if they nibble your toes,
Report at the office when you lose your clothes;
There’s often in soup a small hair pin—
But don’t mind that, just scramble in.
Next, they’ll serve you cornbeef hash
Flavored with the cook’s mustache.
If in pie there’s button or rim of hat
Don’t worry, they charge nothing extra for that.
Rates are only three dollars a day,
If you want water, by the way,
It’s found in the yard where a well they’ve sunk.
There’s no place for your clothes, so you live in your trunk.
Lots of light, don’t want any more,
All comes from the transom over the door.
All the advantages one can’t tell
That’s found in the good small town hotel.