It was a balmeous day in May, when spring was springing high And all amid the buttercups the bees did butterfly; While the butterflies were being enraptured in the flowers, And winsome frogs were singing soft morals to the showers. Green were the emerald grasses which grew upon the plain, And green too were the verdant boughs which rippled in the rain, Far green likewise the apple hue which clad the distant hill, But at the station sat a man who looked far greener still. An ancient man, a boy-like man, a person mild and meek, A being who had little tongue, and nary bit of cheek. And while upon him pleasant-like I saw the ladies look, He sat a-counting money in a brownsome pocket-book. Then to him a policeman spoke: “Unless you feel too proud, You’d better stow away that cash while you’re in this here crowd; There’s many a chap about this spot who’d clean you out like ten.” “And can it be,” exclaimed the man, “there are such wicked men? “Then I will put my greenbacks up all in my pocket-book, And keep it buttoned very tight, and at the button look.” He said it with a simple tone, and gave a simple smile— You never saw a half-grown shad one-half so void of guile. And the bumble-bees kept bumbling away among the flowers, While distant frogs were frogging amid the summer showers, And the tree-toads were tree-toadying in accents sharp or flat— All nature seemed a-naturing as there the old man sat. Then up and down the platform promiscuous he strayed, Amid the waiting passengers he took his lemonade, A-making little kind remarks unto them all at sight, Until he met two travellers who looked cosmopolite. Now even as the old was green, this pair were darkly-brown; They seemed to be of that degree which sports about the town. Amid terrestrial mice, I ween, their destiny was Cat; If ever men were gonoffs,[9] I should say these two were that. And they had watched that old man well with interested look, And gazed him counting greenbacks in that brownsome pocket-book; And the elder softly warbled with benevolential phiz, “Green peas has come to market, and the veg’tables is riz.” Yet still across the heavenly sky the clouds went clouding on, The rush upon the gliding brook kept rushing all alone, While the ducks upon the water were a-ducking just the same, And every mortal human man kept on his little game. And the old man to the strangers very affable let slip How that zealousy policeman had given him the tip, And how his cash was buttoned in his pocket dark and dim, And how he guessed no man alive on earth could gammon him.