After All

Life Among the Mormons: MIA

By Virginia Maughan Kammeyer

It’s almost seven thirty:

The music starts to play;

The teachers take their places;

It’s time for MIA.

The superintendent is seated

His officers amid.

The chorister is ready—

But where is every kid?

The Beehive girls are reading

A bunch of comic books.

The Mia Maids are checking

Each other’s hair and looks.

A group of noisy Boy Scouts

Is playing basketball;

The Laurels and Explorers

Are talking in the hall.

It’s evident to leaders

And teachers put-upon

The youth of the noble birthright

Know how to carry on!

Next month: Summer Camp

Said a four-year-old, in a family home evening closing prayer: “And help us to be patient when Mom says, ‘Just a minute.’”

—Glenda Hecht, Gomaringen, West Germany

God Talks to Children

By Lorraine Tolman Pace

God talks to children, this I know,

For with my children it is so.

How else could infant souls teach me

So much about eternity?

Sign on a Harvard University bulletin board, during the wage and price freeze: “The wages of sin are not frozen.”

—Joel C. Peterson, Boston, Mass.

“Office clothes a man. It rests as a coat upon his shoulders. Beneath and within is the man himself, never wholly hidden. If the man be strong and righteous, his office is well administered; if weak or wicked, every official act will be tainted. In human affairs, men, not offices, are of first consideration.”

Elder John A. Widtsoe
Of the Council of the Twelve

“How can we tell the Church of Christ?” asked a Junior Sunday School teacher. One small hand crept up, and a timid voice replied, “It’s the building with all the lights on every night except Monday night.”

—R. Earle Sanders, Ogden, Utah

The Phantom Accompanist

By Bernice Jacobs Manwaring

Have you seen that apparition

(One meets it everywhere)—

A most perplexing phantom,

The pianist who isn’t there?

Miss Thomas sings soprano,

Miss Jensen plays the flute,

Tom Johnson plays the trumpet,

Jan Jackson plays the lute.

And each of these performers

Is aided and abetted,

After hours of toil and practice

(Time spent was not regretted),

By one who all too often

Remains, alas, unnamed,

Our good old friend Anonymous—

Praised? Perhaps. (If bad, she’s blamed.)

Since seldom is she recognized

From programs, pulpits, stands,

One must assume the piano

Is played by angels’ hands.

“Pianists Lib” unite, rise up!

Declare a full-time strike!

Let them all sing a cappella—

Stage a recognition strike!

If they bill a “cello solo,”

Let the solo, solo be,

Pianists stay unseen, unheard,

Until they also mention thee!