BIBLE,
FAMILY BIBLE

Old Brother Higgins built a shelf

for the family bible to rest itself

lest a sticky finger or grimy thumb

might injure the delicate pages some.

He cautioned his children to touch it not

and it rested there with never a blot

though the Higgins tribe were a troublesome lot.

His neighbor, Miggins, built a shelf

“Come children,” he said, “and help yourself.”

His book is old and ragged and worn,

with some of the choicest pages torn,

where children have fingered and thumbed and read.

But of the Miggins tribe I’ve heard it said,

each carries a bible in his head.

Author unknown