(The Rhyme of the Old Cook)
There are things you dream,
And they often seem
To have happened real and true,
And the story which
I am going to pitch
He told while he stirred the stew.
He had got his name
When at first he came
To cook on a grading pike,
He had just one leg
And a lumber peg,
So they called him Wooden Mike.
The things he had done
With his traps and gun,
Were wonderful to relate.
But strangest of all
Was once in the fall,
This story I heard him state.
He had gone that fall,
At an urgent call,
To cook for a lumber firm,
Where he worked so quick
That he had to lick
His hands so they wouldn't burn.
When he fried the cakes,
That a fellow makes
For breakfast, the griddle style,
To have worked the way
That they do to-day
Would have taken quite awhile.
So he hired a man
For to grease the pan,
Its size would be hard to beat;
And the guy would skate
Right across the plate
With bacon rinds on his feet.
Now I wondered much
As I thought of such,
And asked him about the fire;
The amount it took
For the stuff to cook,
The fuel that it would require.
So he scratched his head
As he quietly said
The amount he'd clean forgot,
But he understood
That he used more wood
Than ever the comp'ny got.
When he made his pie
He would never try
To finish them one by one;
With an oven large
As a young garage,
The baking was quickly done.
With his pies all lined,
And the man behind,
They close to the oven drew,
He would throw the pie
To the other guy,
Which baked as it travelled through.
He'd a cycle path
That was made of lath
Where the men at dinner sat,
And the waiter rode
With a ready load
Of eatables on his back.
He was soaked with grease,
But he couldn't cease,
For washing to think about,
So he lined his bunk
With some sandy junk
To keep him from slipping out.
He had lost his leg,
While at sea he said—
Got wrecked on a desert isle,
Where the cannibals,
And the animals
Had given themselves the bile.
They had tried to eat
Some of Mike's own meat,
And one of his legs prepared,
But they found the stuff
Was exceeding tough,
So that's why his life was spared.
* * * * * * * *
Now I don't ask you.
To believe it's true,
For Mike was a bad old man.
I with him agreed,
For to get a feed,
Believing it like a lamb.