amos visits kinfolk

Editor’s Note: Amos is a churchmouse, unable to use the keyboard shift keys and unschooled in the art of punctuation.

With the coming of summer and the annual dust bowl weather on the Plains, amos started feeling a little lonely. Every time he saw a little daisy sprouting through the ground or the tender young grass blades blowing in the wind, he became more and more homesick to see some of his family — especially his little niece, Annie Marie.

boss i guess you heard

that i was trying to

leave town on the next

mouse train

it s true i ve packed

my samsonite cheesecloth

traveling bags and i m

on my way to the

bugtussle train station

i can t wait to see

some of my country

cousin field mice in

house melrose muleshoe

and some even in the

faraway stretches of

the texas panhandle

but the one i really

want to see is my

little niece annie

marie i tell you boss

she sets the prairie

ablaze with her mousy

beauty and youthful

joie de vivre

but boss when she looks

up at me with those

big brown eyes

my old gray whiskers

droop to the floor

and soon i m playing

horsey or hide-and-seek

or cheeseball keepaway

or sometimes we ll

just sit on a couple of

padded thimbles and

watch big bird and bert

and ernie on sesame

street

so boss as i sit in the

bugtussle train

station waiting for

the midnight mouse

express it seemed so

natural just to grab

a notepad and pen

and jot down a little

poem for annie marie

ode to annie marie

once upon a

snuffle-up-a-gus

there was a

russle-on-a-mus

now he was kin to a

rhine-os-a-pot-a-mus

but he was such an

awful-little-cuss

and mean as an ornery

hic-a-pus

but one day while riding on his

snuffle-up-a-gus

he decided to jump off and hop

on a hustle-bustle-bus

you see he wanted to stir up

a rumple-stumple-fuss

and chew on some

fuzzy-ruffle-stuff

but when he jumped on the

hustle-bustle-bus

his tail-er-ron-a-mus got stuck

in the swinging

swack-a-sore-e-us

and he yelled to high

hassel-dor-e-us

and never again was he a mean

and ornery hic-a-pus

but he was the nicest

russel-on-a-mus

to ever ride on a

snuffle-up-a-gus

amos

p s — boss sometimes it

takes a little pain to

straighten us out and get

us back on the right path

again as the russel-on-a-mus

found out in the poem

i ll be back next

week be sure to keep the

coffee brewing

i think i ll take

your suggestion and

try a little sugar and

creamer in it because

it still makes my

tail too kinky