Judge, 1917-06-16 · page 17 of 28
Judge — June 16, 1917 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This humorous domestic satire depicts the wartime "victory garden" craze—likely WWI era—where Americans, especially women, converted ornamental lawns into vegetable plots for food self-sufficiency. **The Joke:** The narrator's wife unilaterally transforms their property into a garden without permission, disrupting his leisure (golf clubs replaced by hoes, his son now reads bean-cultivation guides instead of romance). The broader point mocks how gardening fervor has consumed the entire household and neighborhood—even neighbors abandon hopes of wartime labor for their own gardens. **Key Satire:** - Wife's domestic authority supersedes husband's property claims - The garden obsession invades every family activity (dinner conversations, children's education, visiting) - Even personal milestones (baby's tooth) are overshadowed by agricultural concerns - The narrator's attempt to turn canned vegetables into social capital ("Champagne shall adorn the table") suggests both patriotic participation and his resigned acceptance of domestic upheaval. The cartoon above shows laborers literally working the soil—emphasizing the physical reality behind the poem's comedy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Swen AF The ploughman- -" Fore!" OU HEN [hie me to my villa, from my busine: She says: “John, you've time to till a little while do it right!” For my wife has made a garden, where the green grass used to grow— Didn't wait to ask my pardon—didn’t even let me kni Tsay: “Wifie, d dinner to be “Dear,” says sh the garden in. ‘Then, I bark my shin—great Moses!—for a pail my path impedes. And her face her grief discloses, for— Look out! It’s full of seeds!” When I go unto the closet where my golf- sticks used to b Not a sign of their deposit on the premises I see “Wifie, tell me quickly—where's my golf-sticks, do you know?” And she giggles,—sort of sickly—“Oh, I swapped em for a hoe Yes, it's “gardening” for dinner, and for breakfast it is “till "— On the iy, I'm a sinner, ‘tis the garden racket still. If I try to ask my neighbor, does he think the war we'll win? “Where,” says he, ‘can I get labor, my poor garden to begin?” In good old detective stories, and the movies of the day, Up to now, my boy just glories—Sherlock Holmes he hoes away! In the garden now I'll find him—all bent double, poor old chap! . every night, now where's Lizzie? Time our the cook is busy, till we get R GARDEN by ALBERT EB. WOT With a garden rake behind him, clad in old last summer's cap. Once, I used to catch him writing to a damsel of his age, Letters full of facts inviting—young romance on every page. That's all over, now, I reckon. Grandad I shall never be! No ancestral honors beckon, all alluringly, to me! One square foot of soil he’s seedit nd I know just what it means, For last night I caught him reading ‘“‘How to Make Good Raising Beans.”” Yestermorn, I asked my daughter: “You to Bessic’s {te will go?” Laughing at me, then, I caught her: “Why, how silly, daddy!” N “First, you see, there is the ing—after that, a while I'll rake. “By and by I'll do the w ch the whole day long will take.” Brother Henry’s daughter's baby is a wonder—so they say So I sort of felt that maybe I’d a bit of news today. In the garden patch I found her—my good wife, in very sooth!— And I shouted, to astound her: “Baby Dick has cut a tooth!” But she hardly seemed to hear me, and she gave me not a hug. She said: “John, I greatly fear me there’s a new potato bug!” Yes—a garden wifie’s planted where our front lawn used to be. All my household gods have panted, all so agriculturally. And next autumn I am planning all the neighbors to invite When she’s finished with her canning—to a spread that’s something right. Champagne shall adorn the table, also self-raised beans I'm game!—and I'll say: “Down both, if able—for they cost me just the same!”