Each morning my mother, with all of her power, would leave to tend to her patients.
And I’d stay with dad and sit by him as he wrote and illustrated.
And then he’d make dinner and mom would come in and they’d smile so big and so winsome.
And it was right there in the small town of Verton that they passed on their wisdom!

[Lights up on the Clover family kitchen.]

If you make your bed and lie in it, you’ll mess up all the sheets.
So don’t make your bed, make up your mind to go straight to sleep.
Or lie and say you slept there and then sleep it off instead.
Two wrongs will make it right; you’ll upright with a bedder head.

And if it’s happily
You’re after, my darling,
Don’t wait for ever; if you’re clever, it’s calling.

There’s plenty of fish in the barrel and the dead ones go with the flow.
It’s rude to shoot your suitors, if they’re cold, let ‘em go.
But if you shoot the breeze instead of where that fish is at,
You’ve gone fishing with the wind, if you catch and release my draft.

And if it’s happily
You’re after, my darling,
Don’t wait for ever; if you’re clever, it’s calling.

Everybody hurts, but the words can never do it,
So blame the sticks and stones, you know the wolf can blow right through it.
Wolfish words are nothing when you’re rubber and they’re glue.
Nothing hurts you if you let it, so don’t go feeling blue.

Glue that nothing to a page, stick your stony words upon it,
Throw the page against the wall and hang up those phony phonics.
If that’s a heavy load, this happy home will grin and bear it.
Divided houses fall, but ours will stand and share it.

And if it’s happily
You’re after, my darling,
Don’t wait for ever; if you’re clever, it’s calling.

There’s calm before the dawn and there’s dark before the storm.
Between those cumulo-nitwits’ lines you’ll find your form.
Half those lines are silver, and half of them are gold,
You just need something borrowed, we’ll put that book on hold.

And when it’s family
You need for anything,
We’ll be here always, just you call and you will see.