[Editor: This poem by John O’Brien was published in Around the Boree Log and Other Verses, 1921.]
The Tidy Little Body
Faith, and little Miss McCroddie was the tidy little body,
Just as trim and prim and handy as you’d ever wish to see
(She was well upon the weather-beaten side of thirty-three);
And she’d chuckle and she’d titter when the people used to twit her
On the most pronounced attentions of one Lanty Hallissey
(Now this Lanty was a bachelor of some antiquity).
Well, he’d said good-bye to fifty; he was solemn, he was thrifty,
And he’d come to Mass each Sunday decorated handsomely
(With an eye upon the Tidy Little Body, don’t you see);
And you’d see him titivated in a much abbreviated
Kind o’ sort o’ style of swallow-tail that flogged him viciously
(Which it needed the judicious use of treacle at the knee);
And his hat was like a Quaker’s; but some fifteen hundred acres
More than evened up the lee-way of the said deficiency
(Faith, he had a tidy cottage on the little property).
So, when Mass at length was over, round his jinker he would hover,
While the women teased the Tidy Little Body merrily
(And my hero was unconscious of their jesting, homely glee);
There he’d fool about, and truckle with a strap or with a buckle,
And tighten this, and loosen that, a-gammon he do be
(With the eye out for the Tidy Little Body, don’t you see).
And the more they used to tease her, well, the more it seemed to please her;
And she wriggled and she giggled, and she tittered girlishly —
“Oh, it’s all so very silly. Picture Mr. Hallissey!”
But, bedad, for all her stricture on the paintin’ of the picture,
There were some of ’em a-bouncin’ in the swithers — true for me —
When the Tidy Little Body married Lanty Hallissey.
Published in:
John O’Brien. Around the Boree Log and Other Verses, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1921
Editor’s notes:
bedad = an Irish exclamation, a euphemism for “By God”
swithers = to be in a state of agitation (alternatively, to be perplexed or hesitant)
This poem is about my grandmother on my mothers side. Elsie Hallissey. She used to get so cross that she had been put down in history as on “the weather beaten side of 33” she was early 20s. Pa, Pat Hallissey, was not 30. John O’Brien (Fr Hartigan) was the Priest who performed their marriage.
Hi Greg, I knew your grandmother very well. In fact when she lived in Daylesford, even though my wife and I and our 3 children lived in Melbourne we used to go to Daylesford to our old holiday house most weekends. When Mrs Hallissey told me it cost her $15 to get her grass cut I said I would do it for her for nothing. Then our youngest child Daniel, now nearly 50, loved coming with me as Mrs Hallissey always had chocolates biscuits as a treat.
And, I came from The Rock in NSW and her brother, a farmer, Ern Poulter lived there. I remember him well. There was daughter Roma and can’t remember son’s name.
And so, as I also remember your parents Carmel and Wal well. In fact when I gave a run down of (ie my wife Vikki, known as Sue) our time spent as volunteers at Kalumburu Mission in WA Wal with a group of his fellow Knights came to the gathering at Geelong. And I remember Carmel writing to me, knowing I kept a copy from the Daylesford paper of Mrs Hallissey’s farewell. Unfortunately, sometime after that I loaned Around the Boree Log to someone and didn’t get it back. That was the 2nd one I lost. But. …… the good news is, a few weeks ago on our way to see Daniel and Family at Sawtell we stayed at Narrandera, visited John O’Brien Heritage House and bought the last copy they had of the book. Not loaning this one out.
My mother went to Boarding School at Goulburn and she used to tell me about Fr Hartigan, the Inspector of schools, located in Albury, visiting their school, suppose annually. Of course he became Monsignor Hartigan at St Mel’s Narrandera. One of his Curates was Fr R O’Donovan who informed me that my father was the first person he anointed when he arrived in Australia from Ireland. We became friends when I spent a year in the Post Office at Holbrook before moving to Daylesford. Fr O’Donovan was PP at Holbrook. He is buried at Wagga and we always visit his grave when visiting graves of many of our family.
And, so Greg, you will be tired of this long epistle, so will finish off by saying I probably would have said hi to you at times when in West Street when you were a nipper.
Take care and enjoy life. With very best wishes from Brian Lloyd.
(I am now 84 so pushing a bit, aye?)