The Need Of The Hour

The Need of the Hour
502

Now Molly scrubs the kitchen clean
And fumigates the food,
She germicides the soup tureen
And also boils the wood;
And ere she goes, at twilight cool,
To do the milking now,
She boils her hands, the milking stool,
And also boils the cow

She polishes the kitchen range
With antiseptic black,
And fumigates the bit of change
The huckster gives her back;
And ere the grocer’s boy into
The kitchen comes inside
She bids him steep each septic shoe
In strong formaldehyde

She boils the cook-book ere she takes
It from the pantry shelf,
She sterilizes what she bakes
And fumigates herself
And when she tests the pies and cakes,
Her teeth, so clean and white,
She scrubs with stuff before she takes
Her antiseptic bite

She scrubs the iceman’s scanty dole
With prophylactic stuff,
She sprays the kitchen wood and coal
Until it cries enough
And in the flue she has a pan
Of sulphur put a-soak,
A quite effective, novel plan
To sterilize the smoke

So let the world of foods impure
Go wagging as it will,
My peace of mind shall long endure
When others fare but ill:
For not a germ will dare to hide
In any septic nook,
Since she has come for aye to bide:
The Antiseptic Cook!
-J W Foley