I wonder if our Granny was ever aware,
Of the day her grandchildren snuck into her house
When she was not there.
There was something the four of us just had to see,
A small can of sweet snuff now where could it be.

We looked all through Granny’s house high and low,
Where would she hide that magical stuff we didn’t know.
On the very top shelf in the kitchen we found the real stuff,
And it said right there on the label sweet mild snuff.

We got it down and each took a turn holding it in our hand,
Finally, here it was Poppa’s magical sweet snuff in a can.
The four of us had watched Poppa when he would dip snuff,
We pulled our little lips out like he had trying to get enough.

Our play snuff made out of cocoa and sugar tasted real good,
But it wasn’t magical like Poppa’s and didn’t do like his would.
Watching him carefully because we could not ignore,
He could hit his spittoon with out missing or hitting the floor.

None of us had tasted anything so bad in our lives before,
Soon we were all gasping and spitting out Granny’s back door.
We hurried and cleaned up the mess we had made,
All of us so sick and wanting to just go lay in the shade.

There was a very valuable lesson we all learned that day,
To just use our pretend snuff when we wanted to play.
Our Granny if she knew would not have to worry anymore,
Because we would never sneak again through her front door.

© Brenda Sparkman
March 2004

"Partners in Crime" © Tom Sierak