The Bequest from the Poorhouse

From 1936 in a now defunct magazine entitled Titbits; The article refers to the time before WWI & reads;

'Many years before the war, an old tramp died in a Chicago workhouse. In a pocket of his tattered jacket this will was found which was read before the Chicago Bar Association and later probated. It became known as "The Bequest from the Poorhouse", and was also known as the most wonderful will in the world.

I give to the good fathers and mothers, in trust for their children, all good little words of praise and encouragement, all quaint pet names and endearments, and I charge said parents to use them justly but generously.

I give to the children, inclusively, but only for the time of their childhood, all and every flower in the field, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely, according to the custom of childhood, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks, and golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odours of the willows that dip therein, and the white clouds that float over the giant trees. And I leave the children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at.

To lovers I devise their imaginary world, with whatever they may need, as the stars of the sky, the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire to figure each other the lastingness and beauty of their love.

To young men I jointly bequeath all the boisterous inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give them the disdain of weakness, and undaunted confidence in their own strength.

And to those who are no longer children or youths or lovers I leave memory, that they may live the old days over again freely and fully without tithe or diminution.To the loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children, until they fall asleep.'