Indiscretions of Archie

My children, if you fail to shine
or triumph in your special line;
if, let us say, your hopes are bent
on some day being President,
and folks ignore your proper worth,
and say you've not a chance on earth—
Cheer up! for in these stirring days
Fame may be won in many ways.
Consider, when your spirits fall,
the case of Washington McCall. 

Yes, cast your eye on Washy, please!
He looks just like a piece of cheese:
he's not a brilliant sort of chap:
he has a dull and vacant map:
his eyes are blank, his face is red,
his ears stick out beside his head.
In fact, to end these compliments,
he would be dear at thirty cents.
Yet Fame has welcomed to her Hall
this self-same Washington McCall. 

His mother (nee Miss Cora Bates)
is one who frequently orates
upon the proper kind of food
which every menu should include.
With eloquence the world she weans
from chops and steaks and pork and beans.
Such horrid things she'd like to crush,
and make us live on milk and mush.

But oh! the thing that makes her sigh
is when she sees us eating pie.
(We heard her lecture last July
upon "The Nation's Menace—Pie.")
Alas, the hit it made was small
with Master Washington McCall. 

For yesterday we took a trip
to see the great Pie Championship,
where men with bulging cheeks and eyes
consume vast quantities of pies.
A fashionable West Side crowd
beheld the champion, Spike O'Dowd,
endeavour to defend his throne
against an upstart, Blake's Unknown.
He wasn't an Unknown at all.
He was young Washington McCall. 

We freely own we'd give a leg
if we could borrow, steal, or beg
the skill old Homer used to show.
(He wrote the Iliad, you know.)
Old Homer swung a wicked pen,
but we are ordinary men,
and cannot even start to dream
of doing justice to our theme.
The subject of that great repast
is too magnificent and vast.
We can't describe (or even try)
the way those rivals wolfed their pie.

Enough to say that, when for hours
each had extended all his pow'rs,
toward the quiet evenfall
O'Dowd succumbed to young McCall. 

The champion was a willing lad.
He gave the public all he had.
His was a genuine fighting soul.
He'd lots of speed and much control.
No yellow streak did he evince. 
He tackled apple-pie and mince.
This was the motto on his shield—
"O'Dowds may burst. They never yield."
His eyes began to start and roll.
He eased his belt another hole.
Poor fellow! With a single glance
one saw that he had not a chance.
A python would have had to crawl and 
own defeat from young McCall. 

At last, long last, the finish came.
His features overcast with shame,
O'Dowd, who'd faltered once or twice,
declined to eat another slice.
He tottered off, and kindly men
rallied around with oxygen.

But Washy, Cora Bates's son,
seemed disappointed it was done.
He somehow made those present feel
he'd barely started on his meal.
We ask him, "Aren't you feeling bad?"
"Me!" said the lion-hearted lad.
"Lead me"—he started for the street—
"where I can get a bite to eat!"
Oh, what a lesson does it teach
to all of us, that splendid speech!

How better can the curtain fall
on Master Washington McCall!