The Path to Home. Edgar A. Guest

Pleasure's Signs 69 Right Family, The 182 Selling the Old Home 50 Service 38 Shut-Ins 146 Silver Stripes, The 136 Snooping 'Round 70 Song of Loved Ones, The 123 Spoiling Them 14 St. Valentine's Day 33 Story-Time 18 Test, The 126 There Will Always Be Something to Do 119 Thoughts of a Father 153 Tied Down 74 Tinkerin' at Home 138 To the Boy 156 Tommy Atkins' Way 180 Tonsils 163 Toys and Life 100 Toy-Strewn Home, The 30 Tramp, The 133 Under the Roof Where the Laughter Rings 32 United States 105 Unknown Friends, The 43 What Father Knows 80 When a Little Baby Dies 155 When an Old Man Gets to Thinking 140 When Mother Made an Angel Cake 96 When My Ship Comes In 106

The Path to Home

       Table of Contents

      There's the mother at the doorway, and the children at the gate,

       And the little parlor windows with the curtains white and straight.

       There are shaggy asters blooming in the bed that lines the fence,

       And the simplest of the blossoms seems of mighty consequence.

       Oh, there isn't any mansion underneath God's starry dome

       That can rest a weary pilgrim like the little place called home.

      Men have sought for gold and silver; men have dreamed at night of fame;

       In the heat of youth they've struggled for achievement's honored name;

       But the selfish crowns are tinsel, and their shining jewels paste,

       And the wine of pomp and glory soon grows bitter to the taste.

       For there's never any laughter, howsoever far you roam,

       Like the laughter of the loved ones in the happiness of home.

      There is nothing so important as the mother's lullabies,

       Filled with peace and sweet contentment, when the moon begins to rise—

       Nothing real except the beauty and the calm upon her face

       And the shouting of the children as they scamper round the place.

       For the greatest of man's duties is to keep his loved ones glad

       And to have his children glory in the father they have had.

      So where'er a man may wander, and whatever be his care,

       You'll find his soul still stretching to the home he left somewhere.