Martha's Broom

She lay awake in her tiny bed

And she waited for the dawn,

For then she’d be turning five, they said,

The day that she was born,

She hid her head right under the sheet

And she giggled, now and then,

Thinking about the presents like

They’d given once, to Ben.

 

For Ben was her older brother and

He’d recently been eight,

Was given a bike, though second-hand,

And Ben had thought it great,

He’d fallen off it a dozen times

And she saw he’d skinned his knees,

But how she would love a bike like his,

She lay and she whispered, ‘Please!’

 

He’d also got lots of lollipops

And he wouldn’t even share,

The one that she stole got sticky, and

Got tangled up in her hair,

But best of all was the parcel that

Unwrapped, was a railway train,

It puffed real steam and its livery gleamed

Til he left it out in the rain.

 

The sun peeped over the window-sill

And she thought she’d take a look,

For lying there on her counterpane

Was a well-thumbed Cookery Book,

And dimly, stood in the corner of

Her sparsely furnished room,

Was a brush and pan and a black lead can

And a new, short-handled broom.

 

‘You’re old enough for the chores,’ she heard

As her mother watched her sob,

‘You can start by filling the kettle,

Then you can place it on the hob,

You’ll use the pan for the ashes that

You’ll be scraping from the grate,

Then spread them out by the roses, on

The ones by the garden gate.’

 

‘You’ll sweep the floors in the morning with

That nice new broom you got,

Attend to all of the blacking when

The oven’s not so hot,

And then you’ll help with the cooking, so

You’ll come home straight from school,

Your Da’ has need of his supper, so

You’ll work, not play the fool.’

 

The broom had come from a gypsy van

That was camped out on the green,

Was shaped and whittled by gypsy men

To whisk the meadow clean,

It carried with it a gypsy spell

That was woven in a hearse,

To whisk it well, or a taste of hell,

Along with a gypsy curse.

 

When Martha picked up the broom she felt

The power spread in her hands,

She whisked away to a gypsy tune

She’d heard from the caravans,

She whisked the ashes over the floor,

Put blacking over her nose,

Spilled the kettle over the hob

And ruined her father’s clothes.

 

Her mother started to beat the girl

But the broom then beat her back,

Whisking her out through the open door

And putting her under attack,

It swept the porch right into a heap

It piled the boards of the floor,

Tearing them up from the joists, and then

Sweeping them out the door.

 

It whisked the lid off the blacking can

And spread black over the walls,

Til Martha’s mother ran down the street

To the sound of squeals and squalls,

So Martha’s father bought her a doll

That could do all kinds of tricks,

While Martha waved the broom at her Ma,

‘Just wait til I am six!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[B.J]

I wish I had a broom like that when I was a young mother of 2 girls. I could not help but giggle as I read your work

[Marie]

Be careful where you buy brooms. The Gypsies make good bargains for themselves, not for the Gorgios.

[TL Boehm]

what a great little story. I need a broom like that.

[MomzillaNC]

Ha! I loved that! I wish I'd had that broom when I was growing up! Your meter and rhyme, as always, are superlative!