My father bought an undershirt
Of bright and flaming red—
“All wool, I'm ready to assert,
Fleece-dyed,” the merchant said;
“Your size is thirty-eight, I think;
A forty you should get,
Since all-wool goods are bound to shrink
A trifle when they 're wet.”

That shirt two weeks my father wore—
Two washings, that was all;
From forty down to thirty-four
It shrank like leaf in fall.
I wore it then a day or two,
But when 't was washed again
My wife said, “Now 't will only do
For little brother Ben.”

A fortnight Ben squeezed into it;
At last he said it hurt.
We put it on our babe—the fit
Was good as any shirt.
We ne'er will wash it more while yet
We see its flickering light,
For if again that shirt is wet
'T will vanish from our sight.