It was a long, boring day in the hot month of July.
So hot, there were puddles of sweat from the kids 'bout to die.
The sun was beating down, hotter than yesterday and back.
People toiled and shuffled along the old, beaten track.

Yes, it was the dog days of summer at the hottest they'd been.
Then, with the cheerful tunes and smile, the ice cream man came in!
The children flocked to him like birds to their birdseed feeders.
They came with their money, these miniscule ice cream eaters.

This went on, as it should, for days, then for weeks 'till August.
The heat wave came, so hot that the sun would scorch the browned dust.
The ice cream man was much busier than he had ever been before.
Then, suddenly, the ice cream man didn't come anymore.

They were dumbfounded, totally shocked, and very surprised.
Because he disappeared, they baked in the heat they despised.
This was torture and the children suffered the worst hardship.
For their friend, the ice cream man, was gone, vanished, nowhere, zip.

Then, one day, some much needed help came to a loud, "Hooray!"
For some clues to the ice cream man's whereabouts showed that day.
There were signs of a struggle that had happened weeks ago.
There seemed to be splatter around from a very hard blow.

This dumbfounded the children who wondered, "Who had done this?"
They would soon find out that this assumption was a very big miss.
A mistake from which those with pride might not have recovered.
For other circum stances transpired, they discovered.

For then they found the truth of what had come to transpire.
The ice cream man had cursed at some kids, and had thus been fired.
But then what would explain the tell tale spots of the splatter?
It was a woman, who off her sill spilled some cake batter.