A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing

One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself
And he said, "Why not?"

In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood
And he said, "Just it."

And he said, "That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm."

It was not enough of a garden
Her father said, to plough;
So she had to work it all by hand
But she don't mind now

She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load
And hid from anyone passing
And then she begged the seed
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed

A hill each of potatoes
Radishes, lettuce, peas
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn
And even fruit trees

And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers
Or at least may be

Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done
A little bit of everything
A great deal of none

Now when she sees in the village
How village things go
Just when it seems to come in right
She says, "I know!

It's as when I was a farmer--"
Oh, never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice