In this humorous little piece, Nathalia imagines organising a brigade of little girls in charge of watching their fathers and preventing their seduction by beautiful young women. Here Flatbush is a neighbourhood of Brooklyn in New York City.

JEALOUSY
by Nathalia Crane

FLATBUSH! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!
See the bobbed-head riding
On the bob-tailed car.
Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!
I saw a big girl staring at my Pa.

She was standing in the corner, she was turning in her toes.
She must have been a senior—by the powder on her nose.

Her hair was bobbed and blond-like and she was someone’s pet,
But I went into action with the battlefield all set.

Rah! Rah! Flatbush! my mother wasn’t there,
But some papas are rather young and need a daughter’s care.

And that is why in Flatbush we have organized a guard,
Made up of little daughters of the men who work so hard.

Some day, of course, I will mature and know a little more,
But now I am content to be my mother’s Signal Corps.

And mother knows when I go out with Pa, things are O. K.,
For I belong to the Flatbush Guards—we don’t let father stray.

Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!
I hold on to father’s hand
When we go very far.
Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!
See the bobbed-head riding on the bob-tailed car.

Source: Nathalia Clara Ruth Crane, The Janitor’s boy, and Other Poems. Thomas Seltzer, New York (1924). Digital version on Internet Archive.

Previously published on Agapeta, 2017/10/11.