Author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Boy Fortune Hunters in the Yucatan, Daughters of Destiny, etc.
Originally published in the Quincy Daily Herald, April 14, 1903. This newspaper article by an unnamed reporter contains a verse by L. Frank Baum in response to an elaborate gift from Baum's friend George Stahl, resident of Quincy, Illinois.
George H. Stahl sent an Easter surprise by express to Frank Baum, author of “Father Goose” and the “Wizard of Oz,” who spent part of last summer in Quincy. He got three handsome Leghorn chickens and dyed one a brilliant purple, another a vivid red and the third a bright green. He had a coop especially made for them and in one corner fixed up a nest filled with fancifully dyed Easter eggs. The only inscription on the box was “Father Goose, Hiz Burds,” yet it was delivered at Mr. Baum’s home in Chicago bright and early Easter morning. Mr. Stahl knows they were delivered properly because yesterday he received the following poetic message by wire from Chicago:
The chicks are here in all their pride—
The purple, red, and green;
And though alive they are all “died”
The slickest ever seen.
So all the flock of Father Goose
Return your Easter greeting,
We’ll put your gorgeous gift to use—
If it is fit for eating.
Peace, love, and happiness be thine
Throughout the coming year;
We’ll drink your health in sparkling wine—
As we are out of beer.
THE FORGETFUL POET
By Ruth Plumly Thompson
Originally published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, August 8, 1920.
Puzzle Corner
The Forgetful Poet was in a great hurry this week and he really didn’t have time to write out any new puzzles. He dashed into the office and breathlessly gave me the answers to last week’s, which are:
If a barrel laughed would it give a hoop?
How many sous in a bowl of soup?
What have a tree, a ship and a dog in common? A bark.
The foolish old manatee
Was known far and wide for her vanity,
She was ugly and fat, but she didn’t know that
And was proud to the point of insanity.
As he disappeared out of the door I heard him say, “I’m off to the shore and maybe I’ll visit the mountains before I get back.” So I know he is taking a vacation.
Copyright © 2016 Eric Shanower and David Maxine. All rights reserved.
