Samantha Bevins was at war
with Hiram Jenks, the man next door,
whose dog made her yard an eye sore.
For his big St. Bernard would not
evacuate on Hiram’s plot.
No, her yard was it’s favorite spot,
leaving her a bit unstrung
when she observed the piles of dung
which she then had to stroll among.
She near’ became a nervous wreck
each time she had thus to inspect
a yard beyond power to protect.
She craved a verdant landscape where
no mole was ever spotted there
or other source of disrepair.
Thus Hiram’s mammoth St. Bernard
was an anathema in her yard,
wounding her like a petard.
And yet she didn’t have a clue
as to whatever she might do
to keep that animal off-view.
And Hiram didn’t seem to care
that Gentle Ben went anywhere
it wanted whence, when done, would dare
to trot up to Samantha and
wag his tail to beat the band
and then to slobber on her hand.
He
was convivial and she
was glad it acted so friendly
since she, with some temerity,
feared that such a hunk of fluff,
if in a mood considered gruff,
might knock her squarely on her duff!
So there she was, ‘tween love and hate,
watching it evacuate
one morning at the crack of eight,
asking herself, “what can I do
to keep that dog from my purview
and rid myself of its doo doo?”
Such was a puzzle...yes indeed!
Yet from her past there came a seed
which grew into a hardy weed.
For when a girl, she’d lived out west
and at her home one time a guest
invited her to come and test
his newest gun to shoot small game.
“Girls”
he’d said, “should stake a claim
to guns.” He’d talked of Annie’s fame,
Oakley that is, a woman who
could shoot the eye out of a shrew.
Samantha thus knew what to do.
At Hardware Hank’s she bought a gun,
air driven, but with force to stun.
And then she waited under the sun
one day for Hiram’s St. Bernard
to do its business in her yard,
ready to play her new trump card,
whence as that big beast squatted there
she popped it in its derriere,
causing a look of some despair,
magnified when once again
another slug hit Gentle Ben,
which promptly yelped a dog amen
and ran to do its job elsewhere.
Patiently she waited there,
each time he came to hit him square-
ly where it hurt, so it would leave
the scene, an act she wouldn’t grieve.
It neither bobbed now would it weave,
just run to some place out of sight,
attesting thus to Pavlov’s might,
proving his theories were right
as after while it wouldn’t squat
upon what was its favorite spot
since it perceived there’d come a shot
which really wouldn’t ring its chime.
It tried another spot one time
which it considered truly prime,
whence, bam, it got it in the rear!
And thus it became very clear
that this yard was a place to fear!
Samantha’s glee was in high heat.
Though when she was out on the street
she’d try to make each hike complete
by greeting Ben, who’d lick her hand
and wag his tale to beat the band,
as if he didn’t understand
from whom the shell and shot had come
that made his derriere go numb.
But as for Hiram, she played dumb
when he discussed, over the fence,
the change in Ben, one so immense
that it, to him, made little sense.
For Gentle Ben, the St. Bernard,
now pooped, instead, in Hiram’s yard.
Thus Hiram had to be on guard
when strolling all about lest he
be victim to a tragedy
and soil his shoes as once did she.
As for Samantha, one fine day,
her life no more in disarray,
she chose to join the N.R.A.!
