The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #91960   Message #1752642
Posted By: Snuffy
04-Jun-06 - 07:48 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Queen Anne Front (Robert Schmertz)
Subject: RE: Origins: Queen Anne Front (Robert Schmertz)
I'd never heard of a Queen Anne front until I came across this yesterday:

Industrious Carpenter Dan


An honest man what loves his trade
Deserves me honest grip ;
And Carpenter Dan was a handy man
To have about the ship.

The things he couldn`t hammer up
Them things he hammered down ;
He sawed the rails and spliced the sails
And done his bizness brown.

He scroll-sawed all the masts and spars
And varnished `em with ile,
Then he shingled the poop of our gallant sloop
With a gable,Queen Anne style

Along the basement porthole sills
He worked for hours and hours
A-building tiers of jardineers
And planting `em with flowers

He filled the deck with rustic seats
And many a grapevine swing —
Yes a handy man was Carpenter Dan,
For he thought of everything

Then pretty soon he got a scheme
To ease the Capting`s cares,
So he fitted the sloop with a fine front stoop
With rugs and Morris chairs

And there we sat a-drinking tea,
The Capting and his crew,
When we heard arise, to our great surprise
A nawful hulleroo

The Capting looked across the rail
And sort of chawed his lip —
For Carpenter Dan was building an
Extension to the ship

"Avast there,Dan", the Capting cried
"What have you gone to do?"
"Don`t bother me man", said Carpenter Dan,
"I`m fixing things for you."

Then he toe-nailed on a rafter beam
And sawed a two by four;
Then he gave a yank to a six-inch plank
And started on the floor.

So Dan he worked three solid weeks
Till on a happy day
A double craft with a Queen Anne aft
We sailed into the bay

And from that bonny lean-to boat
We vowed no more to roam;
From window panes to weather vanes
We loved our stately home

And as we sat among the vines
On many an ocean trip
We vowed that Dan was a handy man
To have about the ship.

- Wallace Irwin