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Title: Pine Tree Ballads

Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine

Author: Holman F. Day

Release Date: August 11, 2017 [EBook #55342]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PINE TREE BALLADS ***

Produced by David Widger from page images generously

provided by the Internet Archive

PINE TREE BALLADS

Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur’ Up in Maine

By Holman F. Day

Boston: Small, Maynard & Company

1902

TO THE HONORABLE

JOHN ANDREW PETERS, LL.D.

FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE OF

THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MAINE

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME

IN MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP

AND IN SINCERE APPRECIATION

OF THE JURIST AND WIT

WHO HAS IN ALL DIGNITY

EVER TURNED A SMILING FACE TOWARD HIS MAINE

THAT HAS SMILED LOVINGLY BACK AT HIM

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PINE TREE BALLADS

OUR HOME FOLKS

FEEDIN’ THE STOCK

JOHN W. JONES

DEED OF THE OLD HOME PLACE

OUR HOME FOLKS

THANKSGIVIN’ JIM

“OLD POSH”

THE SUN-BROWNED DADS OF MAINE

“HEAVENLY CROWN” RICH

OLD “FIGGER-FOUR”

PHEBE AND ICHABOD

WHEN OUR HERO COMES TO MAINE

UNCLE TASCUS AND THE DEED

SONGS OF THE SEA AND SHORE

TALE OF A SHAG-EYED SHARK

THE GREAT JEEHOOKIBUS WHALE

“AS BESEEMETH MEN”

THE NIGHT OF THE WHITE REVIEW

THE BALLAD OF ORASMUS NUTE

THE DORYMAN’S SONG

WE FELLERS DIGGIN’ CLAMS

DAN’L AND DUNK

THE AWFUL WAH-HOOH-WOW

SKIPPER JASON ELLISON

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

THE RAPO-GENUS CHRISTMAS BALL

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH

THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS

’BOARD FOR THE ALLEGASH”

THE WANGAN CAMP

PLUG TOBACCO AT SOURDNAHUNK

O’CONNOR FROM THE DRIVE

JUST HUMAN NATURE

BALLAD OF OZY B. ORR

THE BALLAD OF “OLD SCRATCH”

WHEN ’LISH PLAYED OX

OLD “TEN PER CENT”

DIDN’T BUST HIS FORK

MEAN SAM GREEN

DICKERER JIM

BALLAD OF BENJAMIN BRANN

THE HEIRS

A. B. APPLETON, “PIRUT”

NEXT TO THE HEART

WITH LOVE—FROM MOTHER

THE QUAKER WEDDING

THE MADAWASKA WOOING

THE SONG OF THE MAN WHO DRIVES

THE OLD PEWTER PITCHER

OUR GOOD PREVARICATORS

OUR LIARS HERE IN MAINE

THE BALLAD OF DOC PLUFF

THE BALLAD OF HUNNEMAN TWO

ORADUDOLPH MOODY, REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT

TRIBUTE TO MR. ATKINS’S BASS VOICE

JIM’S TRANSLATION

ELIPHALET JONES—INVENTOR

THE PANTS JEMIMY MADE

BALLADS OF “CAPERS AND ACTIONS”

BALLAD OF ELKANAH B. ATKINSON

BALLAD OF OBADI FRYE

AT THE OLD FOLKS’ WHANG

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

DRIVIN’ THE STAGE

“DOC”

ANOTHER “TEA REBELLION”

“LIKE AN OLD COW’S TAIL”

PASSING IT ALONG

A SETTIN’ HEN

BALLAD OF DEACON PEASLEE

THE WORST TEACHER

THE TUCKVILLE GRAND BALL

THE ONE-RING SHOW

THE SWITCH FOR HIRAM BROWN

THE JUMPER

ISHMAEL’S BREED

FOREWORD

|THESE are plain tales of picturesque character-phases in Maine Yankeedom from the Allegash to the ocean. These are the men whose hands are blistered by plow-handle and ax, or whose calloused palms are gouged by the trawls. Their heads are as hard as the stones piled around their acres. Their wit is as keen as the bush-scythes with which they trim their rough pastures. But their hearts are as soft as the feather beds in their spare-rooms.

The frontispiece to this volume is from a photograph of “Uncle Solon” Chase, the widely known sage of Chase’s Mills in Andros-coggin county.

In Greenback days he won national fame as “Them Steers” and his quaint sayings have traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There is no man in Maine who better typifies the homespun humor, honesty, and intelligence of Yankeedom. The picture opposite page 126 is from a photograph of the late Ezra Stephens of Oxford county, famed years ago as “the P. T. Barnum of Maine.” He originated the dancing turkey, the wonderful bird that appears in the story of “Ozy B. Orr.”

In another picture is shown “Jemimy” at her old loom and beside her are the swifts and the spinning wheel. The pictures illustrating “Elkanah B. Atkinson” (a poem commemorating a real episode in the life of Barney McGonldrick of Cherry field Tavern) and “John W. Jones” are character studies that will appeal to those who are acquainted with Maine rural life.

The thanks of the author and of the publish-ers are due to The Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia, The Youth’s Companion, Ainslee’s Magazine, and Everybody’s Magazine, for permission to include in this volume verses which originally appeared in their columns, copyrighted by them.

PINE TREE BALLADS

OUR HOME FOLKS

FEEDIN’ THE STOCK

Hear the chorus in that tie-up, runch, ger-

runch, and runch and runch!

—There’s a row of honest critters! Does me

good to hear ’em munch.

When the barn is gettin’ dusky and the sun’s

behind the drifts,

—Touchin’ last the gable winder where the

dancin’ hay-dust sifts,

When the coaxin’ from the tie-up kind o’ hints

it’s five o’clock—

Wal, I’ve got a job that suits me—that’s the

chore of feedin’ stock.

We’ve got patches down to our house—honest

patches, though, and neat,

But we’d rather have the patches than to skinch

on what we eat.

Lots of work, and grub to back ye—that’s a

mighty wholesome creed.

—Critters fust, s’r, that’s my motto—give the

critters all they need. ‘

And the way we do at our house, marm and

me take what is left,

And—wal,—we ain’t goin’ hungry, as you’ll

notice by our heft.

Drat the man that’s calculatin’ when he meas-

ures out his hay,

Groanin’ ev’ry time he pitches ary forkful out

the bay;

Drat the man who feeds out ruff-scuff, wood

and wire from the swale,

’Cause he wants to press his herds’-grass, send

his clover off for sale.

Down to our house we wear patches, but it

ain’t nobody’s biz

Jest as long as them ‘ere critters git the best of

hay there is.

When the cobwebs on the rafters drip with

winter’s early dusk

And the rows of critters’ noses, damp with

breath as sweet as musk,

Toss and tease me from the tie-up—ain’t a job

that suits me more

Than the feedin’ of the cattle—that’s the reg’-

lar wind-up chore.

When I grain ’em or I meal ’em—wal, there’s

plenty in the bin,

And I give ’em quaker measure ev’ry time I

dip down in;

And the hay, wal, now I’ve cut it, and I own

it and it’s mine

And I jab that blamed old fork in, till you’d

think I’d bust a tine.

I ain’t doin’ it for praises—no one sees me but

the pup,

—And I get his apperbation, ‘cause he pounds

his tail, rup, rup!

No, I do it ‘cause I want to; ‘cause I couldn’t

sleep a wink,

If I thought them poor dumb critters lacked for

fodder or for drink.

And to have the scufflin’ barnful give a jolly

little blat

When you open up o’ mornin’s, ah, there’s com-

fort, friend, in that!

And you’ve prob’ly sometimes noticed, when

his cattle hate a man,

That it’s pretty sure his neighbors size him up

on that same plan.

But I’m solid in my tie-up; when I’ve finished

up that chore,

I enjoy it standin’ list’nin’ for a minit at the

door.

And the rustle of the fodder and the nuzzlin’

in the meal

And the runchin’s of their feedin’ make this

humble feller feel

That there ain’t no greater comfort than this

’ere—to understand

That a dozen faithful critters owe their com-

fort to my hand.

Oh, the dim old barn seems homelike, with its

overhanging mows,

With its warm and battened tie-up, full of well-

fed sheep and cows.

Then I shet the door behind me, drop the bar

and drive the pin

And, with Jeff a-waggin’ after, lug the foamin’

milk pails in.

That’s the style of things to our house—marm

and me we don’t pull up

Until ev’ry critter’s eatin’, from the cattle to

the pup.

Then the biskits and the spare-rib and plum

preserves taste good,

For we’re feelin’, me and mother, that we’re

actin’ ’bout’s we should.

Like as can be, after supper mother sews an-

other patch

And she says the duds look trampy, ’cause she

ain’t got goods to match.

Fust of all, though, comes the mealbins and

the hay-mows; after those

If there’s any extry dollars, wal, we’ll see about

new clothes.

But to-night, why, bless ye, mother, pull the

rug acrost the door;

—Warmth and food and peace and comfort—

let’s not pester God for more.

JOHN W. JONES

A sort of a double-breasted face had old John

W. Jones,

Reddened and roughened by sun and wind,

with angular high cheek-bones.

At the fair, one time, of the Social Guild he re-

ceived unique renown

By being elected unanimously the homeliest

man in town.

The maidens giggled, the women smiled, the

men laughed loud and long,

And old John W. leaned right back and ho-

hawed good and strong.

And never was jest too broad for him—for all

of the quip and chaff

That assailed his queer old mug through life

he had but a hearty laugh.

“Ho, ho”, he’d snort, “haw, haw”, he’d roar;

“that’s me, my friends, that’s me!

Now hain’t that the most skew-angled phiz

that ever ye chanced to see?”

And then he would tell us this little tale.

“’Twas one dark night”, said he,

“I was driving along in a piece of woods and

there wasn’t a ray to see,

And all to once my cart locked wheels with

another old chap’s cart;

We gee-ed and backed but we hung there fast,

and neither of us could start.

Then the stranger man he struck a match, to

see how he’d git away,

And I vum, he had the homeliest face I’ve seen

for many a day.

Wal, jest for a joke I grabbed his throat and

pulled my pipe-case out,

And the stranger reckoned I had a gun, and he

wrassled good and stout.

But I got him down on his back at last and

straddled acrost his chest,

And allowed to him that he’d better plan to

go to his last long rest.

He gasped and groaned he was poor and old

and hadn’t a blessed cent,

And almost blubbering asked to know what

under the sun I meant.

Said I, ‘I’ve sworn if I meet a man that’s

homelier ’n what I be,

I’ll kill him. I reckin I’ve got the man.’ Says

he, ‘Please let me see?’

So I loosened a bit while he struck a match;

he held it with trembling hand

While through the tears in his poor old eyes

my cross-piled face he scanned.

Then he dropped the match and he groaned

and said, ‘If truly ye think that I

Am ha’f as homely as what you be—please

shoot! I want to die.’”

And the story always would start the laugh

and Jones would drop his jaw,

And lean’way back and slap his leg and

laugh,

“Ho, haw—haw—haw-w-w!”

That was Jones,

—John W. Jones,

Queer, Gothic old structure of cob-piled bones;

His droll, red face

Had not a trace

Of comeliness or of special grace;

But I tell you, friends, that candor glowed

In those true old eyes—those deep old

eyes,

And love and faith and manhood showed

Without disguise—without disguise.

Though he certainly won a just renown

As the homeliest man we had in town.

He never had married—that old John Jones;

he’d grubbed on his little patch,

Supported his parents until they died, and then

he had lived “old bach”.

We had some suspicions we couldn’t prove:

for years had an unknown man

Distributed gifts to the poor in town on a sort

of a Santa Claus plan.

If a worthy old widow was needing wood—

some night would that wood be left,

There was garden truck placed in the barns of

those by mishap or drought bereft.

And once when the night was clear and bright

in the glorious month of June,

Poor broken-legged Johnson’s garden was

hoed in the light of the great white moon.

And often some farmer by sickness weighed,

and weary, discouraged and poor,

Would find a wad of worn old bills tucked

carefully under his door.

And the tracks in the sod of this man who trod

by night on his secret routes

Were suspiciously like the other tracks that

were left by John Jones’ boots.

And the wheel-marks wobbled extremely like

the trail of Jones’ old cart,

But whatever his mercies he hid them all in the

depths of his warm old heart.

For whenever the neighbors would pin him

down, he’d lift his faded hat,

“Now, say”, he’d laugh, “can a man be good

with a physog such as that?”

Then came the days—the black, dread days

when the small-pox swept our town,

With pest-house crowded from sill to eaves and

the nurses “taken down.”

And panic reigned and the best went wild and

even the doctors fled,

And scarce was there one to aid the sick or

bury the awful dead.

But there in that pest house day and night a

man with quiet tones

And steady heart kept still at work—and that

was old John Jones.

While ever his joke was, “What! Afraid?

Why, gracious me, I’m fine,

And if I weren’t, a few more dents won’t harm

this face of mine”.

But those who writhed and moaned in pain

within that loathsome place

Saw beauty not of man and earth upon that

gnarled old face.

And when he eased their pain-racked forms or

brought the cooling draught,

They wondered if this saint could be the man

at whom they’d laughed.

And thus he fought, unwearied, brave, until

the Terror passed,

—And then, poor old John W. Jones, he had

the small-pox last.

And worn by vigils, toil, and fast, the fate he

had defied

Descended on him, stern and fierce,—he died,

my friends, he died.

They held one service at the church for all the

village dead.

The pastor, when he came to Jones, he choked

a bit and said:

“If handsome is as handsome does—and now

I say to you

I verily—I honestly believe that saying true.

—If handsome is as handsome does, we had

right here in town

A man whose beauty fairly shone—from

Heaven itself brought down.

At first, perhaps, we failed to grasp the con-

tour of that face,

But now with God’s own light on it we see its

perfect grace.

And so I say our handsomest man”—the pas-

tor hushed his tones,

With streaming eyes looked up and said, “was

old John W. Jones

Such was Jones,

—John W. Jones,

Queer, Gothic old structure of cob-piled bones;

His quaint, red face

Had not a trace

Of comeliness or of special grace.

But I tell you, friends, we drop this shell,

Just over There—just over There!

Good thoughts, good deeds, good hearts will

tell

In moulding souls, serene and fair,

And Jones will stand with harp and crown,

The handsomest angel from our old town.

DEED OF THE OLD HOME PLACE

Slowly the toil-cramped, gnarled old fist

Wrought at the sheet with a rasping pen;

Halted with tremulous quirk and twist,

Staggered, and then went on again.

The wan sun peeped through the wee patched

pane

And checkered the floor where the pale

beams shone

In a quaint old kitchen up in Maine,

With an old man writing there alone.

And the pen wrought on and the head drooped

low

And a tear plashed down on the rusted pen,

As it traced a verse of the long ago

That his grief had brought to his heart

again.

Be kind to thy father for when thou wast

young,

Who loved thee so fondly as lied

He caught the first accents that fell from

thy tongue.

And joined in thy innocent glee.

Be kind to thy father for now he is old,

His locks intermingled with gray;

His footsteps are feeble, once fearless and

bold

Thy father is passing away.

Be kind to thy mother for lo, on her brow,

May traces of sorrow be seen.

Oh, well mayst thou cherish and comfort

her now,

For loving and kind has she been.

Remember thy mother, for thee she will

pray

As long as God giveth her breath

With accents of kindness; then cheer her

hard way

E’en thro’ the dark valley of death.”

OUR HOME FOLKS

Listlessly threshed in a careless court

The poor, plain tale of a home was told,

Furnishing food for the lawyers’ sport

And a jest at the fond and the foolish old.

The counsel said as he winked an eye,

“Deeded the farm to their only son;

And after’twas deeded they didn’t die

Quite as quick as they should have done.”

Drearily dragged the homely case,

Petty and mean in all its parts;

Quest thro’ the law for an old home place,

—Put never a word of two broken hearts.

Only a suit where the son and wife

Pledged themselves when they coaxed the

deed,

To comfort the close of the old folks’ life:

—Only another case where greed

Sneered at the toil of the long, hard years

Of martyrdom to the hoe and axe,

Writ in wrinkles and etched in tears

And told in the curve of the old bent backs,

—Bent in the strife with the rocky soil,

When the grinding work was never done,

With just one rift in the cloud of toil:

—‘Twas all for the sake of their only son.

Simply a tedious legal maze

With neighbors stirring the thing for sport,

too.

And loungers eyeing with listless gaze

This queer old couple dragged to court.

Meekly they would have granted greed

All that it sought for—all its spoil;

Little they valued a forfeit deed,

Nor selfishly reckoned their years of toil.

Heartsick they while the lawyers urged,

Mute when the law vouchsafed their prayer;

—Courts soothe not such grief as surged

In the hearts of the old folks trembling there.

What though the jury’s word restored

The walls and roof of the old home place?

Would it give them back the blessed hoard

Of trust that knew no son’s disgrace?

Would it give them back his boyhood smiles,

His boyhood love, their simple joy,

Would it heal the wounds of these afterwhiles,

And make him again their own dear boy?

Would it soothe the smart of the cruel words,

Of sullen looks and cold neglect?

And dull the taunts that pierced like swords

And slashed where the wielders little recked?

No; Justice gives the walls and roof,

—To palsied hands a cancelled deed,

Rebuking with a stern reproof

A son’s unfilial, shameless greed.

But love that made that old home warm,

And hope that made all labor sweet,

The glow of peace that shamed the storm

And melted on the pane the sleet;

And faith and truth and loving hearts

And tender trust in fellow men—

Ah, these, my friend, no lawyers’ arts

Can give again, can give again.

THANKSGIVIN’ JIM

He always dodged ’round in a ragged old

coat,

With a tattered, blue comforter tied on his

throat.

His dusty old cart used to rattle and bang

As he yelled through the village, “Gid dap!”

and “Go ’lang!”

You’d think from his looks that he wa’n’t wuth

a cent;

—Was poorer than Pooduc, to judge how he

went.

But back in the country don’t reckon on style

To give ye a notion of anyone’s pile.

When he died and they figgered his pus’nal

estate,

He was mighty well-fixed—was old “Squeal-

in’ Jim” Waite.

But say, I’d advise ye to sort of look out

How ye say “Squealin’ Jim” when the’s

widders about.

They’re likely to light on ye, hot tar and pitch,

And give ye some points as to what, where and

which;

For if ever a critter was reckoned a saint

By the widders’round here, I’ll be dinged if he

ain’t.

For please understand that the widders call

him,

—Sheddin’ tears while they’re sayin’ it,—

“Thanksgivin’ Jim”.

He was little—why,

Wa’n’t scarce knee high

To a garden toad. But was mighty spry!

He was all of a whew

If he’d things to do!

’Twas a zip and a streak when Jim went

through.

But his voice was twice as big as him

And the boys all called him “Squealin’ Jim”.

He was always a-hurryin’ all through his life

And said there wa’n’t time for to hunt up a

wife.

So he kept bach’s hall and he worked like a

dog,

—Jest whooped right along at a trottin’ hoss

jog-

There’s a yarn that the fellers that knew him

will tell

If they want to set Jim out and set him out

well:

He was bound for the city on bus’ness one day

And whoosh! scooted down to the depot, they

say.

The depot-man says, “Hain’t no rush, Mr.

Waite,

For the train to the city is ten minutes late

Off flew Squealin’ Jim with his grip, on the

run,

And away down the track he went hoofin’ like

fun.

When he tore out of sight, couldn’t see him

for dust

And he squealed, “Train be jiggered! I’ll git

there, now, fust!”

—So nervous and active he jest wouldn’t wait

When they told him the train was a leetle dite

late.

Now that was Jim!

He was stubby and slim

But it took a spry critter to step up with him.

His height when he’d rise

Made ye laugh, but his eyes

Let ye know that his soul wasn’t much under-

size.

And some old widders we had in town

Insisted, reg’lar, he wore a crown.

As he whoopity-larruped along on his way,

There were people who’d turn up their noses

and say

That Squealin’ Jim Waite wasn’t right in his

head;

He was cranky as blazes, the old growlers said.

I can well understand that some things he

would do

Seemed loony as time to that stingy old crew.

For a fact, there was no one jest like him in

town,

He was most always actin’ the part of a clown;

He would say funny things in his queer,

squealin’ style,

And he talked so’s you’d hear him for more

than a mile.

But ev’ry Thanksgivin’ time Waite he would

start

And clatter through town in his rattlin’ old

cart,

And what do ye s’pose? He would whang

down the street,

Yank up at each widder’s; from under the seat

Would haul out a turkey of yaller-legged chick

And holler, “Here, mother, h’ist out with ye,

quick!”

Then he’d toss down a bouncer right into her

lap

And belt off like fury with, “G’long, there!

Gid dap!”

Didn’t wait for no thanks—couldn’t work ’em

on him,

—Couldn’t catch him to thank him—that

Thanksgivin’ Jim.

’Twas a queer idee

’Round town that he

Was off’n his balance and crazy’s could be.

They’d set and chaw

And stew and jaw,

And projick on what he did it for.

But prob’ly in Heaven old Squealin’ Jim

Found lots of crazy folks jest like him.

“OLD POSH”

Cheerful crab was that old Posh,

—Warn’t afflicted much with dosh,

—Fact, he worked round sawin’ wood,

Earnin’ what few cents he could,

Got that name o’ Posh in fun;

Dad had named him Washington;

Children got to call him “Wash.”

Then at last ’twas jest “Old Posh.”

That’s the way you knew, a name

Sort of fits itself with fame:

If he’d growed some great big gun.

Would have called him Washington.

But “Old Posh” was just as good

For a poor chap sawin’ wood.

Critter never made no talk.

—Made his old saw screak and scrawk,

Earnt his dollar’n ten a day.

—Didn’t leave much time for play.

Had a wife and boys to keep,

Reelly had to skinch his sleep.

I’ve been out sir, late at night

Seen him at it good and tight.

Where he’d took it to be sawed

At a dollar’n ten a cord.

And I’d say. Ye’re at it late.”

Then he’d grunt himself up straight.

Slick his for’ead clear of sweat

And he’d say. “Wal, you jest bet!

Bankin’ hours don’t jibe in good

With this job cf sawin’ wood.

Still, when this ’ere don’t suit me

I kin go and climb a tree.”

That’s the crack he allus sent;

—I donno jest what he meant—

Likely’nough, sir, even he

Didn’t have no clear idee.

Still it seemed to fix the thing;

—He’d commence to saw and sing,

’S if at anytime he could

Git clean shet of sawin’ wood.

So he worked, s’r, all his life,

Kept his children and his wife;

Boys amount to more’n you’d suppose

—Got good jobs and wear good clothes.

If they’d turned out shiftless, gosh,

Never’d took the thing from Posh!

Posh, he died at seventy-one,

—Worked right up till set of sun.

Sawed his reg’lar cord that day,

Et his supper reg’lar way,

Told his wife warn’t feel in’ well:

Said he guessed he’d drowse a spell.

For he reckoned, so he said.

That he’d saw a while ’fore bed.

—Warn’t no need of workin’ so,

Boys was earnin’ well, ye know.

But he couldn’t seem to quit.

—At it stiddy, saw and split.

Set that night there in his chair,

—Got to dreamin’, and I swear,

Snores they sounded near’s they could

Like a feller sawin’ wood.

Last he gave a mighty “plock”

Same’s he’d strike a choppin’ block,

When he’d set his ax an’ say,

“Wal, I guess that’s all to-day.”

Doctor got there quick’s he could,

—Said he couldn’t do no good.

Shock, ye know! It left things slim

When a man has worked like him.

“Hav’ to rest, I guess, a while,”

Posh said, with a crooked smile,

—Shock had twisted round his face,

Alwus does in such a case.

“Hav’ to rest, I reckin, for

Feel too tuckered out to saw.”

Jest a little ’fore he died.

Smiled agin and kind of sighed,

“Guess it’s all that’s left,” said he,

“Reckin’ I’ll go climb a tree.”

THE SUN-BROWNED DADS OF MAINE

Here’s ho for the masterful men o’ Maine,

—Grit and gumption, brawn and brain!

South they go and West they flow,

The men that do and the men that know.

And Fame and Honor, Power and Gain

Come to the call of the men o’ Maine.

But away up back on the rock-piled farms

Are the gnarled old dads with corded arms,

The dads that give these boys o’ Maine

Health and strength and grit and brain.

Now the masterful men who have gone their

ways

Need none of my humble words of praise.

So, here’s best I have for the dads, the ones

Who have slaved and saved to raise those sons.

Here’s hail and again for the Maine-bred lads,

Then a triple hail for the dear old Dads.

They are bowed and bent and wrinkled, and

their hands are browned and knurled

They would never pass as heroes in the busy,

careless world,

For they bear no sword or ribbon, and they

show no victor’s spoil,

Only such as they have wrested from the weeds

and rocky soil.

They have wrung reluctant dollars from the

land, and all their gain

Has been spent to nurture manhood in the

rugged State of Maine.

And they need no decorations, only loving

thanks from those

Who built upon the sacrifice that bought their

books and clothes.

I bring some homely laurel for those wrinkled,

sunburned brows

Of men whose hands are blistered by the

scythe-snaths and the plows,

—For men who wrestle Nature with their bare

and corded arms

In an everlasting struggle with these grudging

old Maine farms,

Who lay their lives and hopes and joys’neath

labor’s bitter rule

To coax from sullen Earth the price that keeps

their boys in school.

In manhood of America—’mongst brawn and

pluck and brain,

Set high these humble heroes of the upland

farms of Maine!

And with the cheers you lavish on the men

behind the guns

Crowd in one honest, sincere shout for those

behind the sons.

They labor here in stern old Maine and every

cent is ground

From out the earth by pluck and plod. In

youth they never found

That open sesame to wealth the cultured mind

employs,

Such as to-day their humble toil bestows upon

their boys.

Those crosses signed by toil-cramped hands in

probate courts in Maine

The wavering quirks and curliques no mortal

can explain,

Those speak with pathos all their own of days

of long ago

When “bound-out” children trudged to school

through miles of drifted snow;

When scattered weeks of schoolin’ in the win-

ter time were doled

To hungry little youngsters, ill-clad and numb

with cold.

Now you’ll find them, grown to manhood,

proud and eager to dilate

On the brightness of the children they have

paid to educate.

They have patiently worn patches that their

boys may wear good clothes;

As they’ve struggled on their acres only God,

the Father, knows

All the makeshifts and privations of these

rocky old Maine farms

Where the boys walk straight to comfort over

toiling dads and marms.

Yet those bent and weary parents ask no

praises from the world,

Their comfort is to push a son as high as their

old, knurled,

And aching muscles can reach up; and, when

they pass away,

To know that he will never work one half as

hard as they.

Such is the stuff our heroes are, and when you

cheer the guns

And those behind them, reckon in the men be-

hind the sons.

The zeal and valor of the land in battle’s crash

and blaze

And deeds of heroes seeking fame must win

due meed of praise,

And yet above them all I set the humble sacri-

fice

Of toiling men who cent by cent amass the

hard-won price

That buys the Future for a boy, bestows the

magic “Can,”

Lays Power in his eager grasp and sends him

forth A Man.

So, unto these bowed, weary men with earth-

stained, calloused palms,

Who daily tread the up-turned soil on rough

and rocky farms,

Who pile their hoard of dollars up, by sturdy

labor won,

Who pour those dollars freely out to educate

a son,

To all of these who seek no crown I bring my

wreath of bay

And set it on their sun-tanned brows and on

their locks of gray, ‘

And when their dreary, long campaign, their

bitter toil is done,

God grant that each may live again, new-born

in honored son.

Then three times three, I say again, for

Maine’s true heroes now,

Whose hands are blistered, gnarled, and worn

by scythe-snath and the plow,

Who vow themselves to poverty, accept its

bitter rule

To coax from sullen Earth the price that keeps

their sons in school.

Cheer if you will for those who kill—the men

behind the guns,

But cheer again for those who build—the men

behind the sons.

“HEAVENLY CROWN” RICH

Elias Rich would kneel at night by the wooden

kitchen chair,

He would clutch the rungs and bow his head

and pray his bed-time prayer.

And his prayer was ever the same old plea,

repeated for two-score years:

“Oh, Lord Most High, please hear my cry

from this vale of sin and tears.

I hain’t no ’count and I hain’t done much that’s

worthy in Thy sight,

But I’ve done the best that I could, dear Lord,

accordin’ to my light.

I’ve done as much for my feller man as really,

Lord, I could,

Consid’rin’ my pay is a dollar a day and I’ve

earnt it choppin’ wood.

I’ve never hankered no great on earth for

more’n my food and roof,

And all of the meat that I’ve had to eat was

cut near horn or hoof;

But I thank Thee, Lord, that I’ve earnt my

way and I hain’t got ‘on the town,’

And when I die I know that I shall sartin wear

a crown.”

Whenever he mumbled his simple prayer in

the kitchen by his chair,

Aunt Rich would rattle the supper pans and

sniff with a scornful air.

She’d never “professed,” as the saying is, she

never had felt a “call,”

And she constantly prodded Elias with,

“’Tain’t prayer that counts, it’s sprawl.”

There are some who are born for the pats of

Life and some for the cuffs and whacks,

Elias fought the wolf of want as best he might

with his axe;

He even aided with scanty store some desolate

Tom or Jim,

But at last when his poor old arms gave out no

hands were reached to him.

Folks said that a man who was paralyzed re-

quired some special care,

And allowed that the poor farm was the place;

so they carried the old folks there.

’Twas a heavy cross for Elias’ wife but Elias

ne’er complained,

To all of her frettings he made reply: “When

our Heavenly Home is gained,

’Twill be the sweeter for troubles here and

though we’re on the town,

God keeps up There our mansion fair and He

has our golden crown.”

They were dreary years that Elias lived, one

half of his body dead,

He sat in his cold, bare, town-farm room and

patiently spelled and read

The promise his old black Bible gave, and then

he’d lift his eyes

And look right up through the dingy walls to

his mansion in the skies.

They mockingly called him “Heavenly

Crown” when he talked of his faith, but he

Smiled sweetly ever and meekly said, “I know

what I can see!”

When he died at last and the parson preached

above the stained, pine box,

He said, “Perhaps this simple faith was a bit

too orthodox;

Perhaps allowance should be made for the

metaphors divine

And yet, my friends, I’ll not presume to make

such province mine.

Though in that Book the highest thought can

find transcendent food,

’Tis primer, too, for the poor and plain, the

unlearned and the rude.

And so I say no man to-day should seek to tear

it down,

Nor flout the homely, honest soul that claims

its golden crown.”

Friends placed above Elias’ grave a plain,

white marble stone,

And months went by. Then all at once ’twas

seen that there had grown

Upon the polished marble slab a shading that,

’twas said,

Took on a shape extremely like Elias’ shaggy-

head.

Then soon above the shadowy brows a crown

was slowly limned,

And though Aunt Rich scrubbed zealously the

thing could not be dimmed.

She always scoffed Elias’ faith without rebuke

through life

But now, the neighbors all averred, Elias

braved his wife.

For though with brush and soap and sand she

scrubbed and rubbed by day,

The figure seemed to grow each night and

those there are who say .

That many a time when the moon was dim a

wraith with ghostly skill

Wrought there with spectral brush and limned

that picture deeper still.

And there it is unto this day and strangers

passing by

Turn in and stand above the mound to gaze

with awe-struck eye,

And wonder if Elias came from Heaven steal-

ing down

To mutely say in this quaint way that now he

wears his crown.

OLD “FIGGER-FOUR”

He played when summer sunsets glowed and

twilight deepened down,

His shrilling flute throbbed out and out in the

ears of the little town;

When the chores were done and his cattle fed

and the old horse munched his oats,

He took his flute to his racked old porch and

chirped his wavering notes.

And far and wide on the evening breeze from

the old house on the hill,

Went trinkling off the thin, long strains, like

the cry of the whip-poor-will.

And the women paused with the supper things

and harkened at the door,

And to the questioning stranger said, “Why,

that’s old Figger-Four.”

He bobbed to his work in his little field and

tidied his lonesome home;

He’d the light of peace in his quiet face, though

his shape was that of a gnome.

One knee was angled, hooked and stiff, the

mark of a fever sore,

And the saucy wits of the countryside had

dubbed him “Figger-Four.”

Yet those who knew him never thought of the

twist in the poor, bent limb,

And only strangers had a smile for the name

bestowed on him.

For if ever a man was a neighbor true, that

man, my friend, was he,

And the name he bore of “Figger-Four” was

our symbol of constancy.

’Twas he who came to the stricken homes and

closed the dead men’s eyes;

’Twas he who watched by the poor men’s biers

with a care no money buys;

’Twas he who sat by the fretful sick, and ne’er

could rash complaint

Disturb the placid soul and smile of the gnarled

old village saint.

And all came straight from out his heart, for

when one spoke of pay,

He simply smiled a wistful smile and said:

“That ain’t my way.”

A glistening eye was prized by him above a

golden store;

An. earnest clasp of neighbor’s hand paid every

debt and more.

And when there was no call for him from Tom,

or Dick or Jim,

He took his lip-stained flute and played a good

old gospel hymn.

So, when the placid, sunset skies were banked

above the town,

To every home and every ear those notes came

softly down.

And truly, friend, it used to seem the good old

man would play,

As if, for lack of else to do, to pipe our cares

away.

And tongues were hushed and heads were bent,

and angry home dispute

Gave way to silence, then to smiles, when

“Figger-Four’s” old flute

Sent down its long-drawn, mild reproach from

off the little hill—

Expostulation in its notes, a pleading in its

thrill.

And somehow, though the hearts were hot and

tongues were stirring fray,

Those dripping tones came down like balm and

cooled the wrath away.

He’d lived his lesson in our gaze; he was not

one who talked;

His life was straight, although, alas, he bobbed

so when he walked!

And though we’ve lost our richest men, we

mourn far more, far more,

The man we loved and who loved us, poor bent

old “Figger-Four.”

PHEBE AND ICHABOD

Allus was rowin’ it, early and late,

—Niff against this one an’ niff against that!

With a voice like a whistle, too big for her

weight,

That was the make-up of Aunt Phebe Pratt.

She’d give it to Ichabod, hot-pitch-and-tar,

Yappin’ as soon as he came to the house;

Allus was hankerin’ after a jar,

Allus was ready to kick up a touse.

But Ichabod he was as calm as a lamb,

Never talked back to her, no, s’r, not he—

Reckin that some men would rip out a damn.

But he was the mildest that ever ye see.

He’d set an’ he’d whistle an’ whistle away,

Waitin’ all patient ontil she got through;

She’d scream, “Drat ye, answer!” but Ick

he would say,

“Mother, ye’re talkin’ a plenty for two.

Who-o-o, who-o-o,

Who-o-o, who-o-o!

Nothin’ to say, mother! List’nun to you.”

Phebe is dead an’ has gone to her rest;

Ichabod lives in the house all alone;

—Ick isn’t lonesome because, so ’tis guessed.

He still hears the echoes of Aunt Phebe’s tone.

’Tis reckoned his ears were so used to the clack,

He somehow er’ ruther still thinks she is there;

Kind of imagines that Phebe is back,

An’ still is a-goin’ it, whoopity-tear!

Or p’raps she has ’ranged it by long-distance

line,

From her latest location, Above or Below,

To keep up her reg’lar old yappin’ an’ whine,

For fear the old man will at last have a show.

For he sets there an’ whistles an’ whistles

away,

Whenever there’s nothin’ in ’special to do;

An’ once in a while he’ll look up an’ he’ll say,

“Mother, ye’re talkin’ a plenty for two.

Who-o-o, who-o-o,

Who-o-o, who-o-o!

Nothin’ to say, mother! List’nun to you.”

WHEN OUR HERO COMES TO MAINE

Though the banners greet his coming when our

hero journeys home,

Though the city, wreathed in colors, bears his

name on flag-wrapt dome;

Does he come for speech and music? Does he

come for gay parade,

And to see a moving pageant in its festal hues

arrayed?

No, a gray and rain-washed farmhouse, hid

beside a country lane

Is the goal of all his hurry, when our hero

comes to Maine.

And past spectacle and pageant, bannered street

and brave array

He is rushing, soul on fire, toward a dearer

scene than they;

And the hand that gives him welcome may be

calloused, may be brown,

But the fervor of its greeting can’t be matched

back there in town.

’Tis a plain old dad in drillin’ who will clasp

his hand; and then

He will shout, “Lord, ain’t we tickled! God

bless ye, how’ve ye be’n?

Why, massy me, ye rascal, how like fury ye

have growed!

If I’d met ye in the village, swan, I wouldn’t

scursely knowed,

Your face behind them whiskers; ’fore ye know

it boys are men!

Hey, mother, here’s your youngster! Land

o’ Goshen, how’ve ye be’n?”

And if, you home returning son,

Some tithe of honor you have won,

Sweeter than telling the world of men

Is telling the old folks “how you’ve be’n.”

Though of wealth and brains and beauty, festal

Maine has summoned all

And the banquet gleams in splendor in the

city’s spacious hall,

Does he envy them the viands spread beneath

their flag-wrapt dome?

No, never, as he sits there at the old folks’

board back home.

There are all the dear old good things made

by mother’s loving hands,

—Such things, so he discovers, only mother

understands;

There’s the old and treasured china, figured

blue with gilded rim,

Saved to honor great occasions—now the

whole is spread for him,

And the mother’s eyes are wistful; she’s as-

sailed by constant doubt

Lest, spite of all his fearful raids, he somehow

“won’t make out.”

But, though the wanderer strives to eat, his

heart keeps coming up,

And tears roll out of brimming eyes he lowers

o’er his cup,

And in the throat there swells a lump, not

grief,—and yet akin—

To see the old folks bowed so low, so snowy-

haired and thin.

And yet their happy faces glow, until they’re

young again,

And dad lights up his old crook pipe and says,

“Now how’ve ye be’n?

Set down and tell us how ye’ve fared and tell

us how ye’ve done,

You’ve sent us letters right along, but them

don’t talk it, son.

A minit with ye, face to face, beats hours with

a pen;

God bless ye, bub! Ye’re welcome back! Now

tell us how’ve ye be’n?”

Ah, happy he who brings success

Back here to Maine to cheer and bless

The folks who ask in tenderness,

—Taking you into their arms again,

“God bless ye, dearie, how’ve ye be’n?”

UNCLE TASCUS AND THE DEED

Uncle Peter Tascus Runnels has been feeble

some of late;

He has allus been a worker and he sartinly did

hate

To confess he couldn’t tussle with the spryest

any more,

—That he wasn’t fit for nothin’ but to fub

around an’ chore.

When he climbed the stable scaffold t’other day

he had a spell,

—Kind o’ heart-disease or somethin’—an’ I

heard he like to fell.

Guess the prospect sort o’ scared him; so, that

ev’nin’ after tea,

—After he had smoked a pipeful—pretty sol-

emn, then says he,

“Reckin, son, ye’ve noticed lately that your

dad is gittin’ old,

An’ your marm is nigh as feeble;—much as

ever she can scold!”

Uncle Tascus said so grinnin’; for the folks

around here know

That no better-natured woman ever lived than

old Aunt Jo.

“Now, my son,” said Uncle Tascus, “you’ve

been good to me an’ marm,

An’ you know we allus told ye, ye was sure to

have the farm.

An’ we like your wife Lucindy; there has

never been no touse

As is generly apt to happen with two famblys in

the house.

I can’t manage as I used to; mother’s gittin’

pretty slim,

An’ to hold our prop’ty longer is a whim, bub,

jest a whim!

So I’ll tell ye what I’m plannin’, an’ I know

that marm agrees,

We’ll sign off an’ make it over; then we’ll sort

o’ take our ease.

So, hitch up to-morrer mornin’—drive us down

to Lawyer True,

Me an’ marm will sign the papers, an’ we’ll

deed the place to you.”

Lawyer True looked kind o’ doubtful when

they told him what was on.

“I’ll admit,” said he, “that no one’s got a

better boy than John.

Now don’t think I’m interferin’ or am prophe-

syin’ harm,

When I warn ye not to do it; don’t ye deed

away your farm.

I have seen so many cases—heard ’em tried

most ev’ry term—

Where a deed has busted fam’lies, that, I swow,

it makes me squirm

If I’m asked to write a transfer to a relative

or son.

Tascus, please excuse my meddlin’, but—ye

hold it till ye’re done.”

Uncle Tascus, though, insisted. He was allus

rather sot.

He allowed he’d show the neighbors jest the

kind of son he’d got.

—Said he’d show ’em how a Runnels allus

stuck by kith an’ kin,

So the lawyer drew the papers—an’ they started

home agin,

Uncle Tascus held the webbin’s—he has allus

driv’ the hoss—

John he chuckled kind o’ nervous. Then said

he, “Wal, pa, I’m boss!

Now ye’ve never got to worry—I’m the one to

take the lead,

Things were gettin’ kind o’ logy—guess I’ll

have to put on speed.

An’ as now I head the fam’ly, an’ you’re sort

of on the shelf,

Guess I’ll”—John he took the webbin’s—

“guess I’d better drive, myself.”

Wal, s’r, Uncle Tascus pondered, pondered,

pondered all that day.

An’ that evenin’ still was pond’rin’, as he

rocked an’ smoked away.

John he set dus’ up t’ table, underneath the

hangin’ lamp,

Ciph’rin’ out that legal paper with its seal an’

rev’nue stamp.

Then he folded it an’ chuckled. “That’s all

right an’ tight,” he said,

“Lawyers tie things tighter’n Jehu. Dad, ye’d

better go to bed.

You an’ marm are gettin’ feeble; mustn’t have

ye up so late!

I’m the boss—” John sort o’ te-heed, “so I’ll

have to keep ye straight.

’Sides, I’ll need ye bright an’ early. In the

mornin’ hitch the mare,

Take that paper down t’ court-house. Have it

put on record there.”

Uncle Tascus took the writin’, pulled his specs

down on his nose,

Read it over very careful. Then says he, “My

son, I s’pose

You are jest as good’s they make ’em; I hain’t

got no fault to find,

You are thrifty, smart an’ stiddy; rather bluff,

but allus kind,

An’ I guess you’d prob’ly use us jest as well’s

ye really knew,

But I hain’t so awful sartin that I’m done an’

out an’ through!

—Tell ye, son, I’ve been a-thinkin’ since ye

took an’ driv’ that hoss,

—Since ye sort o’ throwed your shoulders an’

allowed that you was boss!

Hate to act so whiffle-minded, but my father

used to say,

‘Men would sometimes change opinions; mules

would stick the same old way.’”

Uncle Tascus tore the paper twice acrost, then

calmly threw

On the fire the shriv’lin’ pieces. Poof! They

vanished up the flue.

“There, bub, run to bed,” said Tascus, with

his sweet, old-fashioned smile.

“These old hands are sort of shaky, but I guess

I’ll drive a while.”

SONGS OF THE SEA AND SHORE

TALE OF A SHAG-EYED SHARK

The mackerel bit as they crowded an’ fit to

grab at our ganglin’ bait,

We were flappin’ ’em in till the ’midship bin

held dus’ on a thousand weight;

When all of a sudden they shet right down an’

never a one would bite,

An’ the Old Man swore an’ he r’ared an’ tore

till the mains’l nigh turned white,

He’d pass as the heftiest swearin’ man that

ever I heard at sea,

An’ that is allowin’ a powerful lot, as sartinly

you will agree.

Whenever he cursed his arm shot up an’ his

fingers they wiggled about,

Till they seemed to us like a windmill’s fans

a-pumpin’ the cuss-words out.

He swore that day by the fodder hay of the

Great Jeehookibus whale,

By the Big Skedunk, an’ he bit a hunk from

the edge of an iron pail,

For he knowed the reason the fish had dodged,

an’ he swore us stiff an’ stark

As he durned the eyes an’ liver an’ lights of a

shag-eyed, skulkin’ shark.

Then we baited a line all good an’ fine an’ slung

’er over the side,

An’ the shark took holt with a dretful jolt, an’

he yanked an’ chanked an’ tried

To jerk it out, but we held him stout so he

couldn’t duck nor swim,

An’ we h’isted him over—that old sea-rover—

we’d business there with him.

A-yoopin’ for air he laid on deck, an’ the skip-

per he says, says he:

“You’re the wust, dog-gondest, mis’able hog

that swims the whole durn sea.

’Mongst gents as is gents it’s a standin’ rule to

leave each gent his own—

If ye note as ye pass he’s havin’ a cinch, stand

off an’ leave him alone.

But you’ve slobbered along where you don’t

belong, an’ you’ve gone an’ spiled the thing,

An’ now, by the pink-tailed Wah-hoo-fish,

you’ll take your dose, by jing!”

So, actin’ by orders, the cook fetched up our

biggest knife on board,

An’ he ripped that shark in his ’midship bulge;

then the Old Man he explored.

An’ after a while, with a nasty smile, he giv’ a

yank an’ twist,

“Hurroo!” yells he, an’ then we see the liver

clinched in his fist.

Still actin’ by orders, the cook fetched out his

needle an’ biggest twine—

With a herrin’-bone stitch sewed up that shark,

all right an’ tight an’ fine.

We throwed him back with a mighty smack,

an’ the look as he swum away

Was the most reproachfulest kind of a look

I’ve seen for many a day.

An’ the liver was throwed in the scuttle-butt,

to keep it all fresh an’ cool,

Then we up with our sheet an’ off we beat,

a-chasin’ that mackerel school.

We sailed all day in a criss-cross way, but the

school it skipped an’ skived,

It dodged an’ ducked, an’ backed an’ bucked,

an’ scooted an’ swum an’ dived.

An’ we couldn’t catch ’em, the best we’d do—

an’ oh, how the Old Man swore!

He went an’ he gargled his throat in ile, ’twas

peeled so raw an’ sore.

But at last, ’way off at the edge of the sea, we

suddenly chanced to spy

A tall back-fin come fannin’ in, ag’inst the sun-

set sky.

An’ the sea ahead of it shivered an’ gleamed

with a shiftin’ an’ silvery hue,

With here a splash an’ there a dash, an’ a rip-

ple shootin’ through.

An’ the Old Man jumped six feet from deck;

he hollered an’ says, says he:

“Here comes the biggest mackerel school since

the Lord set off the sea!

An’ right behind, if I hain’t blind, by the prong-

jawed dog-fish’s bark,

Is a finnin’ that mis’able hog of the sea, that

liverless, shag-eyed shark!”

But we out with our bait an’ down with our

hooks, an’ we fished an’ fished an’ fished,

While ’round in a circle, a-cuttin’ the sea, that

back-fin whished an’ slished;

An’ we noticed at last he was herdin’ the school

an’ drivin’ ’em on our bait,

An’ they bit an’ they bit an’ we pulled ’em in at

a reg’lar wholesale rate.

We pulled ’em in till the S’airey Ann was wal-

lerin’ with her load,

An’ we stopped at last’cause there wa’n’t no

room for the mackerel to be stowed.

Then up came a-finnin’ that liverless shark, an’

he showed his stitched-up side,

An’ the look in his eyes was such a look that

the Old Man fairly cried.

We rigged a tackle an’ lowered a noose an’

the shark stuck up his neck,

Then long an’ slow, with a heave yo-ho, we

h’isted him up on deck.

The skipper he blubbered an’ grabbed a fin an’

gave it a hearty shake;

Says he, “Old man, don’t lay it up an’ we’ll

have a drop to take.”

An’, actin’ by orders, the cook fetched up our

kag of good old rum;

The shark he had his drink poured first, an’ all

of us then took some.

Still actin’ by orders, the cook he took an’ he

picked them stitches out,

An’ we all turned to, an’ we lent a hand;

though of course we had some doubt

As to how he’d worn it an’ how’twas hitched,

an’ whuther’twas tight or slack,

But as best we could—as we understood—we

put that liver back.

Then we sewed him up, an’ we shook his fin

an’ we giv’ him another drink,

We h’isted him over the rail ag’in an’ he giv’

us a partin’ wink.

Then he swum away, an’ I dast to say, although

he was rather sore,

He felt that he’d started the trouble first, an’

we’d done our best an’ more.

’Cause a dozen times’fore the season closed

an’ the mackerel skipped to sea,

He herded a school an’ drove ’em in, as gen-

tlemanlike as could be.

We’d toss him a drink, an’ he’d tip a wink, as

sociable as ye please,

No kinder nor better-mannered shark has ever

swum the seas.

Now, the moral is, if you cut a friend before

that you know he’s friend,

An’ after he’s shown it, ye do your best his

feelin’s to nicely mend,

He’ll meet ye square, an’ he’ll call you quits,

providin’ he’s got a spark

Of proper feelin’—at least our crew can vouch

this for a shark.

THE GREAT JEEHOOKIBUS WHALE

May health and heartiness never fail

My friend the Whale—my friend the Whale!

There are days when the dog-fish are gnawin’

the bait,

And the mud-eels are saggin’ the trawl;

When the brim and the monk-fish and pucker-

mouthed skate

Are the yield from a three-mile haul;

—When the dory-bow ducks with the weight

that it lugs

Of the riffraff and sculch of the sea,

And sculpins come gogglin’ with wide-open

mugs,

And grinnin’ jocosely at me.

It’s h’ist and lug, and pull and tug—

Bow-pulley chuckerin’—chugity-chug!

And all that ye’re gittin’ won’t pay for the

weight

Of powder to blow ’em to Beelzebub’s

strait.

Then’s the chance to be grum if ye’re taken

that style

And are sort of inclined to the blues;

When luck is ag’in ye’tis whimper or smile,

Whichever’s your notion to choose.

Now I—I am sort of inclined to the grins,

So, after a loaf on the rail,

I whistle him up, my old friend of the fins—

The jolly Jeehookibus Whale!

—The great Jeehookibus, fan-fluke whale,

A genial chap with a swivel tail;

Ready for larks and primed for pranks,

—His jokes are the life of the whole

Grand Banks.

I’ve knowed him sence summer of’Seventy-

four,

When I “chanced” on a hand-liner trip;

I was out in my dory one day and I wore

Oiled petticuts strapped to my hip.

I was thinkin’ and smokin’ and fishin’ away,

As quiet as quiet could be,

When all of a whew there was dickens to pay

In the neighborhood handy to me.

With a whoosh like a rocket I shot in the air,

And it seemed like’twas blowin’ a gale;

As I h’isted sky-hootin’ I looked, sor, and there

Was the jolly Jeehookibus Whale.

The great Jeehookibus, fan-fluke whale

Was under me, swishin’ his swivel tail.

He stood on his head with his tail stuck

up,

And the game he was playin’ was ball-and-

cup.

I dropped, but he caught me and filliped me

quick

And juggled me neat as could be;

’Twas as pretty and clever a sleight-of-tail

trick

As ever ye saw on the sea.

At first I was skittish, as you can see why,

When I found myself up there on air,

But as soon as I noticed the quirk in his eye

I was over my bit of a scare.

’Twas a humorous look he was throwin’ to me

As there I continnered to sail,

While under me, finnin’ and grinnin’ in glee,

Was the jolly Jeehookibus Whale.

The great Jeehookibus, fan-fluke whale

He fanned and fanned with his big, broad

tail,

Till my petticuts filled and I floated there,

Like a thistle-balloon on the summer air.

’Twas the slickest performance, our doryman

swore,

That ever was seen on the Banks;

He lowered me back in my dory once more

And I giv’ him my heartiest thanks.

And I reckon he liked me and thought I was

game,

Because I wa’n’t yowlin’ in fear;

For over and over he’s done jest the same,

This many and many a year.

When dog-fish are gnawin’ and other men

swear

As they jerk at the sculch-loaded trawl,

I know I have some one to cuff away care,

If only I whistle a call.

Then up from his bed on the dulses he spins,

And I boost myself over the rail

For a sail on the tail of my friend of the fins—

The jolly Jeehookibus Whale.

—The great Jeehookibus, fan-fluke whale,

A jovial chap with a swivel tail;

Ready for larks and primed for pranks,

He drives away blues from the whole

Grand Banks.

May health and heartiness never fail

My friend the Whale—my friend the Whale!

“AS BESEEMETH MEN”

We heard her a mile to west’ard—the liner that

cut us through—

As crushing the fog at a twenty-jog she drove

with her double screw.

We heard her a mile to west’ard as she bel-

lowed to clear her path,

The grum, grim grunt of her whistle, a levia-

than’s growl of wrath.

We could tell she was aimed to smash us, so

we clashed at our little bell,

But the sound was shredded by screaming wind

and we simply rung our knell.

And the feeble breath, that screamed at Death

through our horn, was beaten back,

And we knew that doom rode up the sea to-

ward the shell of our tossing smack.

Then out of the fog she thundered, the liner,

smashing to east;

Her green and her red glared overhead and her

bows were spouting yeast.

The eyes of her reddened hawse-holes, her

dripping and towering flanks,

Flashed with no gleam of mercy for her quarry

on the Banks.

She scornfully spurned us under, the while her

whistle brayed,

Nor heeded the crash of our little craft nor the

feeble chirp we made;

And as down we swept, her folk that slept—

they slumbered serenely still,

And even the lookout on the bridge scarce felt

the thud and thrill.

But they jangled her bells and halted; and the

sullen sea they swept

With the goggling gleam of the searchlight’s

beam. A dozen of us had crept

On the mass of the tangled wreckage she con-

temptuously had tossed

A mile astern in the chop and churn. The

others were drowned—were lost!

There was never a whine nor whimper, only

some muttered groans,

As the ocean buffeted martyrs who clung there

with shattered bones,

And those whose grip was broken as the surge

reeled creaming high,

Went out from the ken of the searchlight with

a hoarse but brave “Good-by.”

In the great white light no sign of fright stole

wrinkling o’er a face,

For the men of the Banks know How to die

when Davy trumps their ace.

And better than simply dying—they can cheer-

fully, bravely give

Life, heart, and head in a comrade’s stead if

they deem that he ought to live.

For there in the searchlight’s glory, the night

that they cut us down,

Old Injun Joe gave up his cask that another

might not drown.

Old Joe was a lone world-rover, the other had

babes on land;

No word was said, but Joe went down with a

wave of his dripping hand.

And ere the lifeboats reached us and gathered

our scattered few,

We saw that night what so long we’d known,

that a Glo’ster fishing crew,

Rude and rough and grimed and gruff, had

calmly shown again

That on sea or sod they can meet their God in

the way that beseemeth men!

Then over her sullen bulwarks, as she stamped

and chafed and rolled,

From the night and wreck to her dazzling deck

climbed we—and our tale was told.

And the dainty folk from her staterooms lis-

tened and gazed and said,

As they tiptoed across our dripping trail,

“How awful!”—then went to bed.

And our half-score left, of all bereft—com-

rades and gear and smack—

Sat hoping our wreck would tell no tales till

our scattered few came back.

And haughtily unrepentant, the liner, insolent

still,

Through foam and spume and fog and gloom

drove on to wreak her will.

Were only her zeal less eager, her lust for her

prey less keen,

She must have sensed that horrid chill that

shuddered from One Unseen.

But onward she plunged unheeding that there

in the vast, black sea,

As grim as Fate there lay in wait One mightier

than she.

A ghost in white before her—the fog its som-

bre pall—

And she crushed herself like dead-ripe fruit

against the iceberg’s wall.

Then up from her perfumed cabins came pour-

ing the rich and proud,

And I—poor Glo’ster fisher—I blushed for

that maddened crowd.

There were men in silken night-gear who

fought frail women back,

There were pampered fools who, fierce as

ghouls, left murder in their track;

There were shrieking men whose jeweled

hands dragged children from a boat

And rode away in the babies’ stead when the

life-craft went afloat.

’Tis not for boast that I tell the rest: we’re

not of the boasting kind—

We folks that sail from Glo’ster town; but you

know you’ll sometimes find

A man who sneers at a tattered coat or a sun-

burned fist or face,

And believes that only blood or purse can

honor the human race.

Forlorn and few, our battered crew had stared

at Death that night;

Perhaps we’d known him so long and well his

mien did not affright.

Perhaps we hide here in our hearts, below the

rags and tan,

The honest stuff, unplaned and rough, that

really makes the man.

For we bared our arms and we stormed the

press—of safety took no care;

We dragged those wretches from the boats—

then placed the women there.

No time had we for the courtly “Please!” If

a poltroon answered “No,”

We gave him the thing that a man reserves for

the coward’s case—a blow.

It isn’t a boast, I say again; but we stayed till

all had passed,

Then the ragged coats of those Glo’ster men

went over her lee rail last.

And three of the few of our scattered crew,

who had twice dared Fate that night,

Went down in the rush of the whirlpool’s tow

when the liner swooped from sight.

We ask no praise, we seek no heights above

our chosen place,

But the men of the Banks know how to die

when Davy trumps their ace.

And if need arise for a sacrifice we’ve shown,

and we’ll show again,

That on sea or sod we can meet our God in

the way that beseemeth men.

THE NIGHT OF THE WHITE REVIEW

The mandate that summons them nobody

knows,

Nor whose is the mystical word

That bids the vast breast of the ocean unclose,

When the depths are so eerily stirred.

There are omens of ocean and portents of sky

That the eyes of the banksman may read;

The wind tells its menace by moan or a sigh

To any one giving it heed.

Yet, fathom the whorl of a cloud though he

may—

Interpret the purr of the sea—

No weatherwise fisherman truly may say

When the Drift of the Drowned shall be.

This alone we know:

Ere days of the autumn blow,

Up from the swaying ocean deeps appears the

grisly show.

And woe to the fated crew

Who behold it passing through—

Who gaze on the ghosts of the Gloucester fleets

on the Night of the White Review.

Whence issue these fleets for their grim ren-

dewous

And their hideous cruise, who may know?

Yet they traverse the Banks ere the winter

storms brew,

Their pennon the banner of woe.

We know that from Quero far west to the

Shoals.-

The prodigal bottom is spread

With bones and with timbers—“Went down

with all souls,”

Tells the story of Gloucester’s dead.

And up with those souls come those vessels

again

On that mystical eve in the fall;

Then out of the night to the terror of men

They sail with the fog for a pall.

And down the swimming deep,

As the fishers lie asleep,

These craft loom out of the great, black night,

and past the living sweep.

And woe to that fated crew

Who behold them passing through—

Who gaze on the ghosts of the Gloucester fleets

on the Night of the White Review.

Now here and now yonder some helmsman

sings hail

As the awful procession stalks past,

And the horrified crew tumbles up to the rail

To gaze on the marvel, aghast.

And then through that night, when the fishers

ride near,

There’s a hail and a husky halloo:

“Did you see”—and the voice has a quiver of

fear—

“Did you see the White Banksmen sail

through?”

There are those who may see them—and those

who may not,

Though they peer to the depths of the night;

Ah, ye who behold them, alas for the lot

That grants you such ominous sight.

It augurs death and dole—

That the Gloucester bells will toll—

Means another stone on Windmill Hill: “Went

down with every soul.”

For it’s woe to that fated creva

Who behold them passing through—

Who gaze on the ghosts of the Gloucester -fleets

on the Night of the White Review.

’Tis a mournful monition from those gone

before—

That phantom procession of Fate;

But’tis only the craven that flees to the shore,

For the fisher must work and must wait—

Must wait for the storm that shall carry him

down,

Must work with his dory and trawl;

There are women and babies in Gloucester town

Who are hungry. So God for us all 1

Though mystic and silent and pallid and weird

Those ominous Banksmen may roam,

Though Death trails above them, where’er they

are steered,

We’ll work for the babies at home.

The Banks will claim their toll,

And Fate makes up the roll

Of those with the humble epitaph: “Went

dozen with every soul.”

And it’s woe to that fated crew

Who behold them passing through—

Who gaze on the ghosts of the Gloucester fleets

on the Night of the White Review.

THE BALLAD OF ORASMUS NUTE

There once was a Quaker, Orasmus Nute,

With a physog as stiff as a cowhide boot,

And he skippered a ship from Georgetown, Maine,

In the’way-back days of the pirates’ reign.

And the story I tell it has to do

With Orasmus Nute and a black flag crew;

The tale of the upright course he went

In the face of a certain predicament.

For Orasmus Nute was a godly man

And he faithfully followed the Quaker plan

Of love for all and a peaceful life

And a horror of warfare and bloody strife.

While above the honors of seas and fleets

He prized his place on “the facing seats.”

Ah, Orasmus Nute,

Orasmus Nute,

He never disgraced his plain drab suit.

Now often he sailed for spice and teas

’Way off some place through the Barbary seas;

And once for a venture his good ship bore

Some unhung grindstones, a score or more.

Now, never in all of his trips till then

Had he spoken those godless pirate men.

But it chanced one day near a foreign shore

The sail of a strange craft toward him bore;

And as soon as the rig was clearly seen

The mate allowed’twas a black lateen.

Now a black lateen, as all men knew,

Was the badge of a bold, bad pirate crew.

So the mate he crammed to its rusty neck

A grim “Long Tom” on the quarter deck,

Then leaned on its muzzle a bit to pray

And waited to hear what the skipper would say.

For Orasmus Nute,

Orasmus Nute

Had stepped below for to change his suit.

He asked as he came on deck again,

“Does thee really think those are pirate men?”

“Yea, verily,” answered the Quaker mate,

“And they come at a most unseemly gait.”

Orasmus Nute looked over the rail

At the bulging sweep of the huge black sail;

Said he, “We are keeping our own straight

path,

And I’m sorry to harm those men of wrath

Yet, brother, perchance we are justified

In letting Thomas rebuke their pride.

We’ll simply give ’em a dash of fright.

So be sure, my friend, thee have aimed just

right.”

He squinted his eye along the rust,

“Now shoot,” said he, “if thee thinks thee

must.”

Ker-boomo! the old Long Thomas roared,

And the big lateen flopped overboard.

And Orasmus Nute,

Orasmus Nute,

Seemed puzzled to find that he could shoot.

“Now what are those sinful men about?”

He asked, as he heard a hoarse, long shout.

And the Quaker mate he answered, “Lo!

They’ve out with their oars, and here they

row!”

“Now, what in the name of William Penn,”

Cried Orasmus Nute, “can ail those men?

Perchance they are after our load of stones,

Will thee roll them up here, Brother Jones?

We’ll save them all of the work we can—

As a Quaker should for his fellow man.”

So as soon as the fierce, black pirate drew

Up’longside, that Quaker crew

Rolled those grindstones down pell-mell,

And every stone smashed through the shell

Of the pirate zebec, and down it went,

And all of the rascals to doom were sent,

While Orasmus Nute leaned over the side,

“No thanks, thee’rt welcome, my friends,” he

cried.

It chanced one wretch from the sunken craft

Made a clutch at a rope that was trailing aft,

And up he was swarming with frantic hope,

When Orasmus cried, “Does thee want that

rope? ”

So he cut it away with one swift hack

With a smile for the pirate as he dropped back.

And the Quaker skipper surveyed the sea

“God loveth the generous man,” quoth he.

Then Orasmus Nute,

Orasmus Nute

Went down and resumed his Quaker suit.

THE DORYMAN’S SONG

Dory here an’ Dora there,

They keep a man a-guessin’;

An’ here’s a prayer for a full-bin fare,

—Then home for the parson’s blessin’!

Ruddy an’ round as the skipper’s phiz, out of

the sea he rolls,

—The fisherman’s sun, an’ the day’s begun for

the men on the Grand Bank shoals.

With pipe alight an’ snack stowed tight under

a bulgin’ vest,

I’ll over with dory an’ in with the trawls for

the wind is fair sou’ west.

—The wind is fair sou’ west,

The fish-slick stripes the crest

Of every curlin’, swingin’ an’ swirlin’, billowin’

ocean-guest,

That sweeps to the wind’ard rail

An’ under the bulgin’ sail

Seems wavin’ its welcome with clots of foam

that are tossed by the roguish gale.

Dory here an’ Dora there,

‘Way over yon at Glo’stcr;

Those clots of foam seem letters from

home

To pledge I haven’t lost her.

Friskily kickin’, the dories dance, churnin’ the

foamin’ lee,

With a duck an’ a dive an’ a skip an’ skive—

the bronchos of the sea.

Sheerin’ an’ veerin’ with painter a-flirt, like a

frolicsome filly’s tail,

—Now a sweep on the heavin’ deep, close to

the saggin’ rail,

—Close to the saggin’ rail,

Jump! If you cringe or fail,

You’re doin’ a turn in the wake astern in the

role of a grampus whale.

As she poises herself to spring,

—Nimble an’ mischievous thing,

There’s only the flash of a second of time to

capture her on the wing.

Dory here an’ Dora there!

Sure, they drive me frantic.

For one she swims on the ocean of whims,

An’ one on the broad Atlantic.

Sowin’ the bait from the trawl-heaped tubs, I

pull at my old T. D.

An’ I dream of a pearl of a Glo’ster girl, who’s

waitin’ at home for me;

Statin’ she’s waitin’ is not to say she’s prom-

ised as yet her hand,

For she’s wild as my dory—she keeps me in

worry;—they’re hard to understand.

—They’re hard to understand,

But I’ve got the question planned,

Please God, I’ll know if it’s weal or woe as

soon as I get to land.

For a man who can catch the swing,

Of a dory—mischievous thing—

Has certainly grit to capture a chit of a maid

about to spring.

Dory here an’ Dora there!

They keep a man a-guessin’,

An’ here’s a prayer for a full-bin fare,

Then home for the parson’s blessin’.

WE FELLERS DIGGIN’ CLAMS

Pluck, pluck,

Pluck, pluck!

Stubbin’ acrost the clam-flat muck!

Ev’ry time I lift my huck,

—Hearin’ the heel of my old boot suck,

It seems to me that a word plops out,

And I’ve listened so often there ain’t no

doubt

It’s pluck, pluck, pluck.

And pluck and the job they jest agree

—Dig clams, my lad, for a while and see!

It’s a stiddy kind of bus’ness an’ it ain’t for

shiny boots,

But still—ye know,’tain’t bad!

It ain’t an occurpation for the millionaire ga-

loots,

But’tain’t so mighty wuss, my lad.

It’s a stiddy kind of bus’ness where there ain’t

no room for doubt

As to what’ull be the profit and where ye’re

cornin’ out.

For there ain’t no books and ledgers, and no

botherin’ with deals,

No dodgin’ law and lawyers and no stock con-

trivin’ steals.

Simply take a leaky dory and a basket and a

hoe,

And you’re fixed for doin’ bus’ness—ev’ry fel-

ler has a show.

When the old Atlantic ocean pulls away his

swashin’ tide

Why, the bank is there ‘before you and the

doors are opened wide;

The flats are there etarnal and you never find

the sign

Sayin’, “Bank has shet up business—pres’-

dent’s skipped acrost the line.”

Shuck away yer co’t and weskit, grab the clam-

hoe’s muddy haft,

And endorsed by grit and muscle you’ll get

cash on ev’ry draft.

For yer check-book’s there, the clam flat; and

yer pen, sir, is the hoe,

And accounts are balanced daily by the ocean’s

ebb and flow.

Then the climbin’, crawlin’ water rubs the dig-

gin’ marks away,

And the clams are jest as plenty when you

come another day.

And the sleep that follers labor kind of smooths’-

us, as the tide

Smooths the nickin’s on the clam-flats where

our busy hoes have pried.

So the nights are nights of comfort and I

mostly can forget

That the days are days of diggin’,—cold and

muddy, lame and wet.

For Fd rather have a backache than a rattled,

burnin’ brain,

And I guess I’m fair contented with the clam

flats here in Maine.

For I’m thinkin’ worried critters in the rushin’,

pushin’ jams

Likely’nough ain’t nigh so happy as we fellers

diggin’ clams.

DAN’L AND DUNK

Dan’l and Dunk and the yaller dog were the

owners and crew of the Pollywog,

A hand-line smack that cuffed the seas’twixt

’Tinicus Head and Point Quahaug.

Dunk owned half and Dan owned half, and the

yaller dog was also joint,

They fished and ate and swapped their bait and

always agreed on every point.

—Dunk to Dan and Dan to Dunk,—

Whenever he chawed would pass the

hunk;

Never a “hitch” more friendly than

That of the dog and Dunk and Dan.

They labored steady and labored square, fairly

dividing every fare,

And never could anything break their bonds,

each to the other would often swear.

But alas, one day in a joking way they fell on

the topic of years and age,

And tackled the subject of boughten teeth, and

spirited argument they did wage.

For Dan insisted that sets of teeth were glued

to the sides of the wearers’ jaws,

—Never had seen ’em, he frankly owned, but

he knew ’twas so, “wal, jest because.”

While Dunk, with notions fully as firm, clawed

at his frosty whisker fringe,

And allowed that he knew that sets of teeth

were hitched together with spring and

hinge.

So, still perverse, they argued on—the quarrel,

you see, was their very first;

’Twas as though they had taken a sip of brine;

the more they quaffed, the worse their

thirst.

They argued early and argued late and the dog

surveyed them with wistful look

For, the more they talked the worse they

balked, and forgot to fish or eat or cook.

Dan at Dunk and Dunk at Dan,

—On contention ran and ran,

And rancor spread its sullen fog

‘Twixt Dunk and Dan and the yaller

dog.

At last old Dunk uprose and cried, “Say old

hoss-mack’ril, blast yer hide,

I’m sick of clack and fuss and gab; it’s time, I

reckin, that we divide.

An’ seein’ as how I’ve spoke the fust, I’ll take

the starn-end here for mine.”

With chalk he zoned the dingy deck and roared,

“Git for’rard acrost that line!”

He lighted his pipe and twirled the wheel and

calmly then he crossed his knees.

“Go for’rard,” said he, “this end is mine an’

I’ll steer jest where I gol-durn please.”

For’rard went Dan with never a word, never

protested, never demurred,

But as soon as he reached the cat-head bolt the

sound of hammer on steel was heard.

Splash! went the anchor, and there they swung,

fast to the bottom on Doghead shoal;

“The bow-end’s mine,” yelled Dan to Dunk,

“now steer if ye want to, blast yer soul!”

Dunk to Dan, and Dan to Dunk—

Swore they’d sit there till she sunk.

Neither to compromise would incline,

And the dog stood straddling the mid-

dle line.

I’ll frankly own I cannot state how long en-

dured that sullen wait,

I only know they never returned and no one

ever has learned their fate.

Perhaps a gale with a lashing tail, champing

and roaring and frothing wild,

Clawed them tinder, as there they rode, or a

hooting liner over them piled.

But known it is that for days and weeks the

schooner swayed and sogged and tossed,

Straining her rusty cable-chains, before all

trace of her was lost.

No one knows how they met their death, but

certain it is that Dunk and Dan,

Each decided he’d rather die than surrender a

point to the other man.

Perhaps, at the end of a month or so, Dunk de-

cided he’d sink his half,

Or Dan touched match and burned his end,

then went to death with a scornful laugh.

However it was, this much is sure, that out

from the Grand Banks’ sombre fog,

Never came back the Pollywog smack, or

Dunk or Dan or the yaller dog.

THE AWFUL WAH-HOOH-WOW

She’s ashore in Gloucester harbor, with a

weary, lear y list,

An’ the mud is creepin’, creepin’ to her rail;

She’s sound in ev’ry timber—is the Mary of

the Mist,

But the broom is at her mast-head as a sign

that she’s for sale.

Yet no one wants to try her,

She cannot find a buyer—

The Hoodoo is upon her, an’ here I give the

tale.

(The story has a warnin’ that’s as plain as

plain can be,

An’ ’tis: Never go to triflin’ with the secrets

of the sea.)

Peter Perkinson, a P. I. from Prince Edward

Island, signed

With Foster’s folks of Gloucester for a

“chancin’ trip,” hand-lined;

An’ when we counted noses as we rounded

Giant’s Grist

We found the chap among us on the Mary of

the Mist.

An’ we sized him for a “conjer” ere we’d

fairly got to sea;

The wind was whiffin’ crooked, jest as mean as

mean could be;

“P. I.” is colloquial term for Prince Edward

Islander.

Then the skipper spied the P. I. fubbin’ secret

at the mast,

An’ at once he got suspicious an’ he overhauled

him fast.

The chap had made some markin’s an’ he’d

driven in a nail—

Oh, we understood him perfect—he was raisin’

up a gale.

The skipper gave him tophet, but the damage

then was done—

The gale came up a-roarin’ with the settin’ of

the sun.

Then we wallered to the west’ard an’ we wal-

lered to the east,

An’ we seemed the core an’ bowels of a gob of

wind an’ yeast.

We smashed our way to suth’ard, an’ we clawed

an’ ratched to west,

There was scarcely time for eatin’; there was

never chance for rest,

With the liners slammin’ past us through the

fog an’ spume an’ rain,

An’ the Mary dodgin’ passers like a puppy in a

lane.

The third day found us flappin’ with a mighty

ragged wash,

The lee rail runnin’ under an’ the trawl tubs all

a-swash,

An’ at last the plummet told us we were backin’

to’ards the shoals,

Yet we couldn’t ratch an’ leave ’em with our

canvas rags an’ holes.

T ack—tack—tack—

Still a-slippin’ back;

‘Twas a time for meditatin’ on the prospects

for our souls.

Then up spoke Isaac Innis, with a starin’,

glarin’ glance,

An’ he says: “My friends, I’m lookin’

where I look!

I hain’t a saint in no way, an’ I’ll give a man a

chance,

But I think I see a Jonah if I hain’t a lot

mistook.

I reckon ye discern him,

Now over goes he, durn him,

Unless he squares the Hoodoo that he’s

brought, by hook or crook.”

(We stood there, grim an’ solemn, an’ we

bent our gaze upon

The stranger “conjer” sailor, that P. I.—

Perkinson.)

He never flinched nor quivered, though we’d

reckoned that he would,

He simply turned an’ faced us, an’ he says: “I

meant ye good.

I asked a breeze from suth’ard, but it slipped

an’ got away;

Still, you needn’t worry, shipmates! When I

owe a debt I’ll pay.”

He reeved a coil of hawser that the Mary car-

ried spare,

An’ fastened on a gang-hook an’ baited it with

care.

Then he took a magic vial an’ he sprinkled on

the bait

A charm that Splithoof gave him, it is safe to

calkerlate.

He hitched a dagon-sinker an’ he let the line

run free,

An’ overboard he fired it, kersplasho, in the

sea,

We didn’t get the language of the secret spells

he said,

But we gathered he was fishin’ on the deepest

ocean bed.

We heard him as he muttered an’ it seemed

that he could tell

What kind of fish was bitin’, with an eyesight

straight from hell.

“Ah, brim,” he sort o’ chanted as he gave the

line a twig—

An’ must pay his lawful tribute to the awful

Wah-hooh-wow.

We saw Its neck a-curvin’ an’ we heard Its red

tongue lick

As It drooled an’ swoofed the drippin’s, and

then, as one might pick

A ripe an’ juicy cherry, It grabbed that “con-

jer” man

An’ sank with coils a-flashin’ in the light from

old Cape Ann,

An’ we—we towed with dories till we got to

Gloucester shore—

An’ you’ll never get a Banksman on the Mary

any more.

No—no—no!

Not a man will go,

For her towage fee hain’t settled till the Wah-

hooh-wow takes four.

She’s ashore in Gloucester harbor with a

weary, leary list,

An’ the mud is creepin’, creepin’ to her rail;

She’s sound in ev’ry timber—is the Mary of

the Mist,

But the broom is at her mast-head as a sign

that she’s for sale.

Yet no one wants to try her,

She cannot find a buyer—

The Hoodoo is upon her, an’ I’ve given you the

tale.

(The story has a Warnin’ that’s as plain as

plain can be,

An’ ’tis: Never go to triflin’ with the secrets

of the sea.)

SKIPPER JASON ELLISON

His nose was like a liver hung against a Hub-

bard squash,

—That nose of Jason Ellison, the skipper of

the “Hanks.”

His nose was like a liver and the color wouldn’t

wash,

But the men that “chanced” on trips with him,

they always got the dosh,.

For there wa’n’t another skipper who could

touch him on the Banks.

Whether biz was tight or slack,

—When Jase came sailin’ back

A gang was always coaxin’ for a berth upon

his smack.

Not another Gloucester skipper

Had sech easy job to ship a

Topper-notcher fishin’ crew, with ev’ry man a

crack.

For, you see, he was a wizard;—he did won-

ders with that nose,

He could sniff and tell the weather-sign of ev’ry

gust that rose;

You could figure from its color’twas a most

uncommon snoot,

And whenever he predicted no one ventured to

dispute.

His eye could nail a fish-slick off a league or so

away,

—He could look around a corner, so his fel-

lows used to say;

But the thing’twas most uncommon—where

our whole dependence hung,

Was his long and round and peak-ed champion

taster of a tongue.

’Twas always out and chasin’ round the edges

of his lip;

When a nasty time was brewin’

It was always out and doin’

Like as though it felt responsible for helpin’

handle ship.

It had tasted ev’ry bottom soil from Quero to

the Cow,

It knew the taste and savor, the place and where

and how.

—Darkest night or wildest hurricane that ever

ramped or blew,

We never lost our bearin’s, for old Jason always

knew.

We would take some mutton taller and we’d

fill the hollowed head

Of the plummet, smooth and even, then a man

would throw the lead.

And we’d pass her back to Jason and he’d turn

the plummet up,

Taste the scrimp of soil that stuck there on the

taller in the cup,

And he’d tell us where we headed, though the

night be black’s a coal,

For he knew the taste of bottoms from the Cow

to Quero Shoal.

—Told us easy, off the reel,

What was underneath our keel,

—Didn’t need the sun or quadrant with old

Jason at the wheel;

He was only once mistaken in the memory of

men,

—And we’ve always kept insistin’ that he

wa’n’t mistaken then.

The storm came down upon us from the nor’-

nor’east by east,

—’Twas an equinoctial pealer,

A reg’lar ring-tail squealer,

The sky was hasty puddin’ and the sea beneath

was yeast.

When the Hanks went tossin’ up’ards it really

seemed we flew,

And the sky seemed splittin’ open for to let

our vessel through;

When we wallowed down wher-rooshin’ in the

gulf that gawped beneath,

We’d’a’ left our hearts behind us if we hadn’t

clinched our teeth.

We’d really seem to feel

Old Hankses’ battered keel

Go bumpin’ on the bottom when she made her

downward reel.

But the more she blew and blew,

Old Jason cheered his crew,

—His whiskers whipping snappin’ as the wind

went screamin’ through.

So we hung to brace and riggin’ and we let her

roar and roll,

While each man pinned to Ellison the safety of

his soul.

Then at last we knew’twas night-time by the

thick’nin’ overhead,

And Jason licked his taster and he yelled:

“Now throw the lead!”

An’ we—we blinked to watch him from the

darkness where we clung,

And waited for the verdict, of that long and

peak-ed tongue.

He tasted—then he waited, and he smacked his

lips a spell,

He tasted—tasted—tasted, then he gave an

awful yell:

“My God, ye critters, pray!”

—He slung the lead away,—

And howled: “The world is endin’! It’s the

final Judgment Day!

That plummet, there, has brought us up a hand-

ful of the loam

From the Widder Abbott’s garden on the Neck

ro’d, back at home.

A tidal wave has lifted us—the Hanks has run

away!

—It has tossed’er over Glo’ster,

And we sartin sure have lost’er,

’Less ye pray, ye sin-struck critters,’less ye

pray, pray, pray!”

Each clung to rope and stanchion, each hung to

stay and brace,

Each prayed up at the heavens while the spin-

drift lashed his face;

We prayed and prayed till mornin’

Till the early, yaller dawnin’

Lit up the sea around us, and it also lit our

case;

Then we found an explanation

Of the sing’lar situation

That was figgered in the darkness of the night

by Uncle Jase.

For we noticed there was settin’ up against the

le’ward rail

Some lavender and other yarbs, a-growin’ in a

pail.

—They’d been brought aboard by Jase

Who had worn a meechin’ face,

For his sparkin’ of the widder was the gossip

of the place.

He knowed a flower-garden looked peecooliar

on the Hanks,

But he wanted some momentum of the widder

on the Banks.

Now, the plummet bein’ handled in the dark-

ness of that night

Somehow cuffed that dirt in passin’—as ye

might say, took a bite.

And Jason knew the flavor of that scrimp of

garden loam,

—There wa’n’t a soil to fool him’twixt Quero

Shoal and home.

By the flavor and the feel

He could tell us off the reel,

The name of any bottom that was underneath

our keel.

He was only once mistaken in the memory of

men,

And his crew will keep insistin’ that he wa’n’t

mistaken then.

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

THE RAPO-GENUS CHRISTMAS BALL

There had been no social doings since the drive

had passed the flume,

And the section from Seboomook to the

Chutes was rather blue;

So the folks at Rapo-genus, where there’s rum

enough and room,

Arranged a Christmas function and invited

Murphy’s crew.

The folks at Rapo-genus hired Ezra Hewson’s

hall,

And posted up the notice for “Our Yearly

Christmas Ball.”

Now Murphy’s crew was willing and they

walked the fifteen miles,

And arrived at Rapo-genus wearing most be-

nignant smiles.

The genial floor director waited near the outer

door,

And pleasantly suggested they remove the

boots they wore.

He said that Rapo-genus wished to make of

this affair

An elegant occasion, “reshershay and day-

bonair;”

So it seemed the town’s opinion, after many

long disputes,

That’twas time to change the custom and ex-

clude the spike-sole boots.

He owned’twas rather drastic and would cause

a social jar

’Twixt Upper Ambejejus and the Twin Deps-

connequah,

“But ’tis settled,” so he told them, “that nary

lady likes

To do these fancy dances with a gent what’s

wearin’ spikes.

So I asks ye very kindly, but I asks ye one and

all,

To leave your brogan calkers on the outside of

this hall.”

“This ’ere is sort o’ sudden,” said the boss of

Murphy’s crew,

“Jest excuse us for a minute, but we don’t

know what to do.

We’ve attended social functions at the Upper

Churchill Chutes,

An’ the smartest set they had there was

a-wearin’ spike-sole boots.

Excuse us for the mention, but we feel com-

pelled to say,

’Tisn’t fair to shift a fashion all a sudden, this

’ere way;

An’ the local delegation, when it came with the

in-vite,

Omitted partunt leathers in its mention of to-

night.

So I guess ye’ll have to take us with these

spikes upon our soles,

We can’t appear in stockin’s,’cause the most of

us have holes.”

But the genial floor director guarded still the

outer door

And declared that “gents with spikers weren’t

allowed upon the floor.”

He said’twas very awkward that special guests

should thus

Be kept in outer darkness, and he didn’t want a

fuss.

But so long as Rapogenusites had issued their

decree

He hadn’t any option, “as a gent with sense

could see.”

So he passed his ultimatum, “Ye must shed

them spike-sole boots!

For we hain’t the sort of humstrums that ye’ll

find at Churchill Chutes.”

Then up spoke Smoky Finnegan, the boss of

Murphy’s crew,

Said he, “The push at Churchill sha’n’t be

slurred by such as you.

We’re gents that’s very gentle an’ we never

make a fuss,

But in slurrin’ folks at Churchill ye are also

slurrin’ us.

We have interduced the fashions up at Church-

ill quite a while,

An’ no Rapo-genus half-breeds have the right

to trig our style.

If ye’ve dropped the vogue of spikers at the

present Christmas ball

We will start the fashion over, good and solid,

that is all!

So, mister, please excuse us, but ye’ll open up

your sluice,

Or God have mercy on ye if I turn these gents

here loose!”

Then the genial floor director shouted back

within the room,

“Ho, men of Rapo-genus, here is trouble at

the boom!”

But even as he shouted, with a rush and crush

and roar,

Like a bursting jam of timber Murphy’s angels

stormed the door.

Then against them rose the sawyers of the

Rapo-genus mill,

Who rallied for the conflict with a most in-

trepid will,

But by new decree of fashion they were wear-

ing boughten suits

And even all the boomsmen had put off their

spike-sole boots.

So that gallant crew of Murphy’s simply trod

upon their feet,

And backward, howling, cursing, they com-

pelled them to retreat.

The air was full of slivers as the spikers chewed

the floor,

And the man whose feet were punctured didn’t

battle any more.

“Now, fellers, boom the outfit,” shouted Fin-

negan, the boss,

His choppers formed a cordon and they swept

the room across;

The people who were standing at the walls in

double ranks,

Were pulled and thrown to center at the order,

“Clear the banks!”

Then they herded Rapo-genus in the middle of

the room,

And slung themselves around it like a human

pocket-boom.

All the matrons and the maidens were as

frightened as could be

When Finnegan commanded, “Now collect the

boomage fee!”

At a corner of the cordon they arranged a sort-

ing-gap

And one by one the women were escorted from

the trap,

And without a word of protest, as they drifted

slowly through,

They paid their tolls in kisses to the men of

Murphy’s crew.

And at last when all the women had been sorted

from the crowd,

The men were “second-raters,” so the boss of

Murphy’s vowed.

“We will raft them down as pulp-stuff!” and

he yelled to close about,

“Now, my hearties, start the windlass,” or-

dered he, “we’ll warp ’em out!”

Through the doorway, down the stairway, grim

and struggling, thronged the press,

—All the brawn of Rapo-genus fighting hard

without success,

They were herded down the middle of the

Rapo-genus street,

—If they tried to buck the center they were

bradded on the feet;

They were yarded at the river; Murphy’s pea-

vies smashed the ice,

Though the men of Rapo-genus couldn’t smash

that human vise

That held them, jammed them, forced them!

When the water touched their toes,

Then at last they fought like demons for to

save their boughten clothes.

But as fierce were Murphy’s hearties, and their

spikers helped them win,

For they kicked and spurred their victims and

they dragged them shrieking in.

Then with water to their shoulders there they

kept them in the wet

While they gave them points on breeding and

the rules of etiquette.

And at midnight’twas decided by a universal

vote

That the strict demands of fashion do not call

for vest or coat;

That’twixt Upper Ambejejus and the Twin

Depsconnequah

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

Shirts of red and checkered flannel are the

smartest form, by far.

And that gents may chew tobacco was declared

in all ways fit

If they only use discretion as to when and

where they spit.

And above all future cavil, sneer or jeer or vain

disputes,

High was set this social edict: “Gents may

wear their spike-sole boots.”

Then the men of Rapo-genus and the men of

Murphy’s crew

They dissolved their joint convention—they

were near dissolving, too!

And to counteract the action of the water on

the skin

They applied some balmy lotion to the proper

parts within.

Then they danced till ruddy morning, and their

drying garments steamed,

And awful was the shrinkage of those seven-

dollar suits!

And the feet of Murphy’s woodsmen gashed

and slashed and clashed and seamed,

Till a steady rain of slivers rained behind

those bradded boots.

—And all disputes of etiquette were buried once

for all,

At that Christmas social function, the Rapo-

genus Ball.

WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH

We’re spurred with the spikes in our soles;

There is water a-swash in our boots;

Our hands are hard-calloused by peavies and

poles,

And we’re drenched with the spume of the

chutes.

We gather our herds at the head

Where the axes have toppled them loose,

And down from the hills where the rivers are

fed

We harry the hemlock and spruce.

We hurroop them with the peavies from their

sullen beds of snow;

With the pickpole for a goadstick, down the

brimming streams we go;

They are hitching, they are halting, and they

lurk and hide and dodge,

They sneak for skulking eddies, they bunt the

bank and lodge.

And we almost can imagine that they hear the

yell of saws

And the grunting of the grinders of the paper-

mills because

They loiter in the shallows and they cob-pile at

the falls,

And they buck like ugly cattle where the broad

deadwater crawls.

But we wallow in and welt ’em with the water

to our waist,

For the driving pitch is dropping and the

Drouth is gasping “Haste!”

Here a dam and there a jam, that is grabbed

by grinning rocks,

Gnawed by the teeth of the ravening ledge that

slavers at our flocks;

Twenty a month for daring Death; for fighting

from dawn to dark—

Twenty and grub and a place to sleep in God’s

great public park;

We roofless go, with the cook’s bateau to fol-

low our hungry crew—

A billion of spruce and hell turned loose when

the Allegash drive goes through.

My lad with the spurs at his heel

Has a cattle-ranch bronco to bust;

A thousand of Texans to wheedle and wheel

To market through smother and dust.

But I with the peavy and pole

Am driving the herds of the pine,

Grant to my brother what suits his soul,

But no bellowing brutes in mine.

He would wince to wade and wallow—and I

hate a horse or steer!

But we stand the kings of herders—he for

There and I for Here.

Though he rides with Death behind him when

he rounds the wild stampede,

I will chop the jamming king-log and I’ll match

him, deed for deed.

And for me the greenwood savor and the lash

across my face

Of the spitting spume that belches from the

back-wash of the race;

The glory of the tumult where the tumbling

torrent rolls

With a half a hundred drivers riding through

with lunging poles.

Here’s huzza for reckless chances! Here’s

hurrah for those who ride

Through the jaws of boiling sluices, yeasty

white from side to side!

Our brawny fists are calloused and we’re mostly

holes and hair,

But if grit were golden bullion we’d have coin

to spend, and spare!

Here some rips and there the lips of a whirl-

pool’s bellowing mouth,

Death we clinch and Time we fight, for be-

hind us gasps the Drouth.

Twenty a month, bateau for a home, and only

a peep at town,

For our money is gone in a brace of nights

after the drive is down;

But with peavies and poles and care-free souls

our ragged and roofless crew

Swarms gayly along with whoop and song

when the Allegash drive does through.

THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS

They had told me to’ware of the “Hulling

Machine,”

But a tenderfoot is a fool!

Though the man that’s new to a birch canoe

Believes that he knows, as a rule.

They had told me to carry a mile above

Where the broad deadwater slips

Into fret and shoal to tumble and roll

In the welter of Schoodic rips;

But knowing it all, as a green man does,

And lazy, as green men are,

I hated to pack on my aching back

My duffle and gear so far.

So, as down the rapids there stretched a strip

With a most encouraging sheen,

I settled the blade of my paddle and made

For the head of the “Hulling Machine.”

It wasn’t because I hadn’t been warned

That I rode full tilt at Death—

It was simply the plan of an indolent man

To save his back and his breath.

For I reckoned I’d slice for the left-hand shore

When the roar of the falls drew near,

And I braced my knees and took my ease—

There was nothing to do but steer.

(There are many savage cataracts, slavering

for prey,

‘Twixt Abol-jackamcgus and the lower Brass-

u-a,

But of all the yowling demons that are wicked

and accurst,

The demon of the Hulling Place is ugliest and

worst.)

Now the strip in that river like burnished steel

Looked comfortable and slow,

But my birch canoe went shooting through

Like an arrow out of a bow.

And the way was hedged by ledges that

grinned

As they shredded the yeasty tide

And hissed and laughed at my racing craft

As it drove on its headlong ride.

I sagged on the paddle and drove it deep,

But it snapped like a pudding-stick,

Then I staked my soul on my steel-shod pole,

And the pole smashed just as quick.

There was nothing to do but to clutch the

thwarts

And crouch in that birchen shell,

And grit my teeth as I viewed beneath

The boil of that watery hell.

I may have cursed—I don’t know now—

I may have prayed or wept,

But I yelled halloo to Connor’s crew

As past their camp I swept.

I yelled halloo and I waved adieu

With a braggart’s shamming mien,

Then over the edge of the foaming ledge

I dropped in the “Hulling Machine.”

(A driver hates a coward as he hates diluted

rye;

Stiff upper-lip for living, stiff backbone when

you die!

They cheered me whcn I passed them; they

followed me with cheers,

That, as bracers for a dying man, are better far

than tears.)

The “Hulling Place” spits a spin of spume

Steaming from brink to brink,

And it seemed that my soul was cuffed in a

bowl

Where a giant was mixing his drink.

And ’twas only by luck or freak or fate,

Or because I’m reserved to be hung,

That I found myself on a boulder shelf

Where I flattened and gasped and clung.

To left the devilment roared and boiled,

To right it boiled and roared;

On either side the furious tide

Denied all hope of ford.

So I clutched at the face of the dripping ledge

And crouched from the lashing rain,

While the thunderous sound of the tumult

ground

Its iron into my brain.

I stared at the sun as he blinked above

Through whorls of the rolling mists,

And I said good-by and prepared to die

As the current wrenched my wrists.

But just as I loosened my dragging clutch,

Out of the spume and fogs

A chap drove through—one o’ Connor’s crew—

Riding two hemlock logs.

He was holding his pick-pole couched at Death

As though it were lance in rest,

And his spike-sole boots, as firm as roots,

In the splintered bark were pressed.

If this be sacrilege, pardon me, pray;

But a robe such as angels wear

Seemed his old red shirt with its smears of dirt,

And a halo his mop of hair;

And never a knight in a tournament

Rode lists with a jauntier mien

Than he of the drive who came alive

Through the hell of the “Hulling Ma-

chine.”

He dragged me aboard with a giant swing,

And he guided the rushing raft

Serenely cool to the foam-flecked pool

Where the dimpling shallows laughed.

And he drawled as he poled to the nearest

shore,

While I stuttered my gratitude:

“I jest came through to show that crew

I’m a match for a sportsman dude.”

There are only two who have raced those falls

And by lucky chance were spared:

Myself dragged there in a fool’s despair

And he, the man who dared!

I make no boast, as you’ll understand,

And there’s never a boast from him;

And even his name is lost to fame—

I simply know’twas “Jim.”

If Jim was a fool, as I hear you say

With a sneer beneath your breath,

So were knights of old who in tourneys bold

Lunged blithesomely down at Death.

And if I who was snatched from the jaws of

hell

Am to name a knight to you,

Here’s the Knight of the Firs, of the Spike-

S’ole Spurs,

That man from Connor’s crew!

’BOARD FOR THE ALLEGASH”

A hundred miles through the wilds of Maine

You soon may ride on a railroad train.

Some Yankee hustlers have planned the scheme

To take the place of the tote-road team.

They have the charter, the grit and cash

To stretch their tracks to the Allegash.

Along the length of the forest route

The woodland creatures will hear the hoot

Of the bullgine’s whistle, where up to now

The big bull moose has called his cow.

And old Katahdin’s long fin-back

Will echo loud with the clickity-clack

Of wheels that merrily clatter and clash

Through the sylvan wastes toward the Allegash.

Sing hey! for the route to Churchill Lake,

But oh, for the chap who twists the brake.

His buckskin gloves will save the wear

On his good stout palms, you know, but where

Will he find relief when his throat is lame

With the wrench of a yard-long Indian name?

’Tis something, friend, of a lingual trick

To say “Seboois” and “Wassataquoick,”

“Lunksoos,” is tame and “Nesourdneheunk,”

But what do you say to a verbal chunk

To chew at once of the size of this:

“Pok-um-kes-wango-mok-kessis”?

I don’t believe’twould phase a man

To bellow out “Lah-kah-hegan

His windpipe scarcely would get a crook

By spouting forth, “Pong-kwahemook,”

And even “Pata-quon-gamis”

Is easy. But just look at this:

Ah, where is he who wouldn’t run

From “Ap-mo-jenen-ma-ganun”?

E’en “Umbazookskus” scratches some,

But doesn’t this just strike you dumb?

“Nahma-juns-kwon-ahgamoc”?

Just think of having that to sock

Athwart the palpitating air

Straight at a frightened passengaire.

Hot bearings can be swabbed with oil,

And busted culverts yield to toil,

One can replace a broken rail

But larynxes are not on sale.

So, while it’s hey for Churchill Lake

It’s oh, for the chap who twists the brake.

THE WANGAN CAMP

The wangan camp! *

The wangan camp!

Did ye ever go a-shoppin’ in the wangan

camp?

You can get some plug tobacker or a lovely

corn-cob pipe,

* The wangan is the woods store that most of the

Maine lumber camps maintain.

Or a pair o’ fuzzy trowsers that was picked

before they’s ripe.

They fit ye like your body had a dreadful

lookin’ twist;

There is shirts that’s red and yaller and with

plaids as big’s your fist;

There are larrigans and shoe-packs for all

makes and shapes of men,

As yaller as the standers of a Cochin China

hen,

The goods is rather shop-worn and purraps a

leetle damp,

—But you take ’em or you leave ’em—either

suits the wangan camp.

The wangan camp!

The wangan camp!

There is never any mark-downs at the

wangan camp.

The folks that knit the stockin’s that they sell

to us, why say—

They’d git as rich as Moses on a half of what

we pay.

I haven’t seen the papers, but I jedge this

Bower war

Is a-raisin’ Ned with prices—they are wust I

ever saw.

I was figg’rin’ t’other ev’nin’ what I’d bought,

—by Jim, I’ll bet

That a few more pairs o’larrigans will fetch me

out in debt.

For I’ve knowed a stiddy worker to go out as

poor’s a tramp

’Cause he traded som’at reg’lar at the com-

p’ny’s wangan camp.

The wangan camp!

The wangan camp!

They tuck it to you solid at the wangan

camp.

PLUG TOBACCO AT SOURDNAHUNK

Now just for a moment I’ll let the machine,

Grind lyrical praise of the base nicotine.

—An ode of a sort of a commonplace stripe

Addressed to plebeian cut-plug and the pipe.

Oh, answer me now, gentle friends of the line,

Who have sought the blest haunts of the

spruce and the pine,

Have you found in the woods that a fragrant

cigar

Tastes worse than an elm-root slopped over

with tar?

Queer thing, that, my friend, but it’s none the

less true,

—This quirk of tobacco—I’ll leave it to you!

But there’s savor in wreaths from the brier and

cob,

In the depths of the forest afar from the mob;

And an incense that’s sweet to ecstatic degree

Curls up from the bowl of the ancient T. D.

While choicest Perfectos smell ranker than

punk

In the shade of the hemlocks of Sourdnahunk.

Ah, here do the tables most wondrously turn!

The city olfactories sniff if you burn

Aught else than the finest Havana in rolls;

Folks turn up their noses at cut-plug in bowls;

You may roam where you like with the base

cigarette

But you can’t smoke your pipe in the house,

now you bet.

For curtains and pictures and hangings and

lace

All flutter rebukingly there in your face;

And wife and the daughters and neighbors all

cough

And wish that the pipe-smoking man would

break off.

But ah, gentle fisher, the woods shout to thee,

With fervent request that you bring the T. D.

For the reek that the flavored tobacco roll pours

Belongs back in town and not here out-of-

doors.

Leave there city manners, creased trousers,

your “job,”

Bring here to the woods your tobacco and cob,

The hemlocks above you will tenderly sigh

As the incense from pipe bowls drifts past to

the sky.

Ah, human magician, the secret is yours!

Would you work mystic charms in the world

out-of-doors?

Take you the alembic of chastened brown bowl.

Touch fire—and visions will comfort your soul,

As you gaze out at Life through the wreaths

from a junk

Of good plug tobacco at Sourdnahunk.

O’CONNOR FROM THE DRIVE

Men who plough the sea, spend they may—and

free!

But nowhere is there prodigal among those

careless Jacks,

Who will toss the hard-won spoil of a year of

lusty toil,

Like the Prodigals of Pick-pole and the Ish-

maels of the Axe.

You could hear him when he started from the

Rapogenus Chutes,

You could hear the cronching-cranching of his

swashing, spike-sole boots,

You could even hear the colors in the flannel

shirt he wore,

And the forest fairly shivered at the way

O’Connor swore.

’Twas averred that in the city, full a hundred

miles away,

They felt a little tremor when O’Connor drew

his pay.

Though he drew it miles away,

When O’Connor drew his pay,

The people in the city felt the shock of it that

day.

And they said in deepest gloom,

“The drive is in the boom,

And O’Connor’s drawn his wages; clear the

track and give him room.”

He rode two giant spruces thro’ the smother of

the Chutes,

He rode them, standing straddled, shod and

spurred in spike-sole boots;

And just for exhibition, when he struck Che-

suncook Rip

He rolled the logs and ran them with never

miss or slip.

For a dozen miles thro* rapids did he balance

on one log,

And he shot the Big Seboomook at a mighty

lively jog.

He reached Megantic Landing where he nim-

bly leaped ashore,

And he bought some liquid fire at the Bemis

wangan store.

For, O’Connor’d drawn his pay,

He was then upon his way

For a little relaxation and a day or two of play.

The drive was in the boom,

Safely past Seboois flume,

And all O’Connor wanted was rum enough—

and room.

O’Connor owned the steamboat from Megantic

to the Cove:

Whatever there was stavable, he forthwith

calmly stove.

He larruped crew and captain when they

wouldn’t let him steer,

Sat down upon the smoke-stack—smoked out

the engineer.

Of course he was arrested when the steamer

got to shore;

A justice fined O’Connor and he paid the fine

—and more!

He had drawn his season’s pay,

He had cash to throw away,

He had cash to burn! O’Connor’d spurn for

clemency to pray.

The drive was safely down,

He was on his way to town;

He was doing up the section and proposed to

do it brown.

O’Connor owned the railroad, as O’Connor’d

owned the craft.

Pie cronched from rear to engine, and he

chaffed and quaffed and laughed.

He smashed the plate-glass windows, for he

didn’t like the styles.

He smashed and promptly settled for a dozen

stove-pipe tiles;

They took him into limbo right and left along

the line,

He pulled his roll and willingly kept peeling off

his fine.

With his portly wad of pay

He paved his genial way,

He’d had no chance to spend it on the far-off

Brass-u-a.

But now the drive was in,

As he’d neither kith nor kin,

There seemed no special reason why he

shouldn’t throw his tin.

O’Connor reached the city and he reached it

with a jar,

He had piled up all the cushions in the center

of the car.

—Had set them all on fire, and around the blaz-

ing pile

He was dancing “dingle breakdowns” in a

very jovial style.

And before they got him cornered they had

rung in three alarms,

And it took the whole department to tie his

legs and arms.

He had spent his last lone copper, but they sold

his spike-sole boots

For enough to pay his freightage back to Rapo-

genus Chutes.

They put him in a crate,

And they shipped him back by freight,

To commence his year of chopping up in Town-

ship Number Eight.

And earnestly he swore,

When they dumped him on the shore,

He had never spent his wages quite so pleas-

urably before.

Men who plough the sea, spend they may—and

free!

But nowhere is there prodigal among those

careless Jacks,

Who will toss the hard-won spoil of a year of

lusty toil,

Like the Prodigals of Pick-pole and the Ish-

maels of the Axe.

JUST HUMAN NATURE

BALLAD OF OZY B. ORR

Here’s a plain and straight story of Ozy B.

Orr—

A ballad unvarnished, but practical, for

It tells how the critter he wouldn’t lie down

When a Hoodoo had reckoned to do him up

brown.

It shows how a Yankee alights on his feet

When folks looking on have concluded he’s

beat

Now Ozy had money and owned a good farm

And matters were working all right to a charm.

When he “went on” some papers to help his

son Bill

Who was all tangled up in a dowel-stock mill.

Now Bill was a quitter, and therefore one day

Those notes became due and his dad had to pay.

So he slapped on a mortgage and then buckled

down

To pay up the int’rest and keep off the town.

Oh, that mortgage, it clung like a sheep-tick in

wool,

And the more she sagged back, harder Ozy

would pull;

But a mortgage can tucker the likeliest man,

And Ozy he found himself flat on hard pan.

He dumped in his stock and his grain and his

hay,

He scrimped and he skived and endeavored to

pay;

He sold off his hay and his grain and his stock

Till the ricky-tick-tack of the auctioneer’s knock

Kept up such a rapping on Ozy’s old farm

That the auctioneer nigh had a kink in his

arm—

And it happened at last,’long o’ Thanksgiving

time,

Old Ozy was stripped to his very last dime.

And he said to his helpmeet: “Poor mummy,

I van

I guess them ’ere critters have got all they can.

For they’ve sued off the stock till the barns

are all bare,

’Cept the old turkey-gobbler, a-peckin’ out

there;

They’d’a’ lifted him, too, for those lawyers are

rough,

But they reckoned that gobbler was rather too

tough.

So they’ve left us our dinner for Thanksgivin’

Day;

Just remember that, mummy, to-night when

you pray.

Now chirk up your appetite, for, with God’s

grace,

We’ll eat all at once all the stock on the place.”

But Ozy he was a cheerful man,

A goodly man, a godly man—

He didn’t repine at Heaven’s plan, but he took

things as they came;

And cheerfully soon he whistled his tune

That he always whistled— ’twas Old Zip

Coon,

And he whistled it all the afternoon with never

a word of blame.

While all unaware of his owner’s care,

The gobbler pecked in the sunshine there,

With a tip-toe, tip-toe Nancy air, and ruffled

like dancing dame;

Till it seemed to Ozy, whistling still

To the ripity-rap of the turkey’s bill,

That the prim old gobbler was keeping time

To the sweep and the swing of the wordless

rhyme:

Pickety-peck,

With arching neck,

The turkey strutted with bow and beck.

And a Yankee notion was thereby born

To Ozy Orr ere another morn.

A practical fellow was Ozy B. Orr,

As keen an old Yankee as ever you saw

A bit of a platform he made out of tin,

With a chance for a kerosene lantern within;

He took his old fiddle and rosined the bow

And took the old turkey—and there was his

show!

You don’t understand? Well, I’ll own up to

you

The crowds that he gathered were mystified,

too.

For he advertised there on his banner unfurled

“A Jig-dancing Turkey—Sole one in the

World.”

And the more the folks saw it, the more and

the more

They flocked with their dimes, and jammed

at the door;

For it really did seem that precocious old bird

At sound of the fiddle was wondrously stirred.

In stateliest fashion the dance would commence,

Then faster and faster, with fervor intense,

Until, at the end, with a shriek of the strings

And a furious gobble and whirlwind of wings,

The turkey would side-step and two-step and

spin,

Then larrup with ardor that echoing tin.

And widely renowned, and regarded with awe,

Was the “Great Dancing Turkey of Ozy B.

Orr.”

And the mortgage was paid by the old gobbler’s

legs—

Now Ozy is heading up money in kegs.

He would calmly tuck beneath his chin

The bulge of his cracked old violin,

He sawed while the turkey whacked the tin,

the people they paid and came;

For swift and soon to the lilting tune,

When he fiddled the measure of Old Zip

Coon,

The gobbler would whirl in a rigadoon—or

something about the same!

While under the tin, tucked snugly in,

Was the worthless Bill, that brand of Sin;

And’twas Bill that made the turkey spin with

the tip of the lantern flame;

For, as ever and ever the tin grew hot

The turkey made haste for to leave that spot,

Till it seemed that the gobbler was keeping time

To the sweep and the swing of the fiddle’s

rhyme.

Pickety-peck,

With snapping neck,

The gobbler gamboled with bow and beck!

Does a notion pay? It doth—it doth!

Just reckon what O. B. Orr is “wuth.”

THE BALLAD OF “OLD SCRATCH”

They have always called him “Scratchy,” Ezry

“Scratch” and “Uncle Scratch,”

Since the time he cut that ding-do in a certain

wrasslin’ match;

’Twas a pesky scaly caper; he deserved to get

the name

—If he lives to be a hundred he will carry it

the same.

He had vummed that he could wallop any feller

in the place,

He allowed that as a wrassler he could sort of

set the pace,

And he bragged so much about it that at last

we came to think.

If he’d lived in time o’ Samson—could have

downed Sam quick’s a wink.

And there wasn’t nary feller in the town nor

round about

Who had grit or grab or gumption to take holt

and shake him out.

And he set around the gros’ry keepin’ up his

steady clack

That there never was a feller who could put

him on his back.

So it went till Penley Peaslee’s oldest boy came

home from school

—And I tell you that’s a shaver that ain’t any-

body’s fool—!

He ain’t tall nor big nor husky and he isn’t

very stout,

But he’s nimble as a cricket and as spry as all

git out!

Well, he heard old Ezry braggin’ and at last

as cool’s could be

Boy says, “Uncle, shed your weskit; I will

take your stump,” says he.

Guess’twas jest about a minute’fore old Ezry

got his breath,

Then says he, “Scat on ye, youngster! I

should squat ye ha’f to death.

What ye think ye know’bout wrasslin’?

S’pose I’m go’n’ to fool with boys?”

But the crowd commenced to hoot him and they

made sech pesky noise

That at last they got him swearing and he

shed his coat and vest

And commenced to stretch his muscles and to

pound against his breast.

“S’pose I’ve got to if ye say so,” says he scorn-

ful as ye please,

“But I’ll throw that little shaver, one hand

tied and on my knees.

I can slat him galley-endways and not use one-

ha’f my strength.

What ye want bub? Take your ch’ice now;

side holts, back holts, or arm’s length?

Collar’n elbow if ye say so. Name yer pizen!

Take your pick!”

“Suit yourself,” the youngster answered;

“long’s ye git to business quick.”

As I’ve said the boy wam’t heavy;—he was

spry, though, quicker’n scat,

And he had old Ezry spinnin’ ’fore he knew

where he was at;

Hooked him solid, give a twister, doubled up

the old gent’s back

And Ez tumbled like a chimbly—smooth and

solid and ker-whack!

Well, he lay there stunned and breathless with

his mouth jam-full o’ dirt

And his both hands full o’ gingham, for he had

the youngster’s shirt.

When the crowd commenced to holler as he

staid there on the ground

Grocer Weaver’s old black tom-cat came on tip-

toe sniffin’ round.

He was just a-gettin’ ready for to gnaw off

Ezry’s nose

When the old man got his senses and he sud-

denly arose.

Then he grabbed that old black tom-cat good

and solid by the tail

And commenced to welt the youngster just as

hard as he could whale.

Ev’ry time he reached and raked him on that

bare white back of his—

Ow! them claws they grabbed in dretful and

they hurt him—ah, gee whiz!

There were howls and yowls and spittin’s; it

was rip and slit and tear,

And the air was full of tom-cat and of flyin’

skin and hair.

Final clip that Ezry hit him it was such a

tarnal clout

That the cat he stuck on solid till they pried

his toe-nails out.

So they’ve always called him “Scratchy” Ezry

“Scratch” and “Uncle Scratch.”

Since the time he cut that ding-do in a certain

wrasslin’ match;

’Twas a pesky scaly caper; he deserved to get

the name,

—If he lives to be a hundred he will carry it

the same.

WHEN ’LISH PLAYED OX

Grouty and gruff,

Profane and rough,

Old’Lish Henderson slammed through life;

Swore at his workers,

—Both honest and shirkers,

Threatened his children and raved at his wife.

Yes,’Lish was a waspish and churlish old man,

Who was certainly built on a porcupine plan,

In all of the section there couldn’t be found

A neighbor whom Henderson hadn’t “stood ‘round.”

And the men that he hired surveyed him with

awe

And cowered whenever he flourished his jaw.

Till it came to the time that he hired John Gile,

A brawny six-footer from Prince Edward’s

Isle.

He wanted a teamster, old Henderson did,

And a number of candidates offered a bid,

But his puffy red face and the glare in his eyes,

And his thunderous tones and his ominous size

And the wealth of his language embarrassed

them so

Their fright made them foolish;—he told them

to go.

And then, gaunt and shambling, with good-

natured smile,

Came bashfully forward the giant John Gile.

“Have ye ever driv’ oxen?” old Henderson

roared.

Gile said he could tell the brad-end of a goad.

Then Henderson grinned at the crowd stand-

ing’round

And he dropped to his hands and his knees on

the ground.

“Here, fellow,” he bellowed, “you take that

’ere gad,

Just imagine I’m oxen; now drive me, my

lad.

Just give me some samples of handlin’ the stick,

I can tell if I want ye and tell ye blame quick.”

Gile fingered the goad hesitatingly, then

As he saw Uncle’Lish grinning up at the men

Who were eyeing the trial, said, “Mister, I

swan,

‘Tain’t fair on a feller—this teamin’ a man.”

“I’m oxen—I’m oxen,” old Henderson cried,

“Git onto your job or git out an’ go hide.”

Then Gile held the goad-stick in uncertain pose

And gingerly swished it near Uncle’Lish’s

nose.

“Wo hysh,” he said gently; “gee up, there,

old Bright!

Wo hysh—wo, wo, hysh,”—but with mischiev-

ous light

In his beady old eyes Uncle’Lish never stirred

And the language he used was the worst ever

heard.

“Why, drat ye,” he roared “hain’t ye got no

more sprawl

Than a five year old girl? Why, ye might as

well call

Your team ‘Mister Oxen,’ and say to ’em,

‘please!’”

And then Uncle’Lish settled down on his

knees.

And he snapped, “Hain’t ye grit enough, man,

to say scat?

Ye’ll never git anywhere, drivin’ like that.

I’ll tell ye right now that the oxen I own

Hain’t driven like kittens; they don’t go alone,

There’s pepper-sass in ’em—they’re r’arin’ an’

hot, .

An’ I—I’m the r’arin’est ox in the lot.”

Then Uncle’Lish Henderson lowered his head

And bellowed and snorted. John Gile calmly

said,

“Of course—oh, of course in a case such as

that—”

He threw out his quid and he threw down his

hat,

Jumped up, cracked his heels, danced around

Uncle’Lish

And yelled like a maniac, “Blast ye, wo hysh!”

Ere Uncle’Lish Henderson knew what was

what

His teeth fairly chattered, he got such a swat

From that vicious ash stick—though that

wasn’t as bad

As when the man gave him two inches of brad,

—Just jabbed it with all of his two-handed

might,

“Wo, haw, there,” he shouted, “gee up there,

old Bright!”

Well, Uncle’Lish gee-ed—there’s no doubt

about that—

Went into the air and he squalled like a cat,

Made a swing and a swoop at that man in a

style

That would show he proposed to annihilate

Gile.

But Gile clinched the goad-stick and hit him a

whack

On the bridge of his nose—sent him staggering

back,

And he reeled and he gasped and he sunk on

his knee,

“Dad-rat ye,” yelled Gile, “don’t ye try to

hook me!

Gee up, there—go’long there; wo haw an’ wo

hysh!”

And again did he bury that brad in old’Lish,

Then he lammed and he basted him, steady and

hard,

He chased and he bradded him all’round the

yard,

Till’Lish fairly screamed, as he dodged like a

fox,

“For heaven’s sake, stranger, let’s play I hain’t

ox.”

Gile bashfully stammered, “Why,’course ye

are not!

But ye’ll have to excuse me—I sort o’ forgot!”

With a twisted smile

‘Lish looked at Gile,

Then he lifted one hand from the place where

he smarted;

And he held it out,

—Gripped good and stout,

“Ye’re hired,” said he; “I reckin I’m

started!”

OLD “TEN PER CENT”

His mouth is pooched and solemn and he’ll

never squeeze a smile,

He’s yeller ’em saffron bitters’cause he’s col-

ored so by bile;

No organ in his system seems to run the way

it should,

—He never has a hearty shake or says a word

of good.

He’ll soften, though, a crumb or so if money’s

to be lent

And some poor strugglin’ devil comes to time

with ten per cent.

He is flingin’ and is dingin’ first at this and

then at that,

And to ev’ry reputation gives a cuff or kick or

slat;

Pretty lately he was spewin’ sland’rous gossip

he had heard,

And our minister was passin’. Wal, the elder

he was stirred

And he says, “Ah, Brother Bowler, if you’d

lived in Jesus’ time

When they brought to him the woman whom

they’d taken in her crime,

That story in the Scriptures would have took

a diff’rent tone,

For I s’picion if you’d been there you’d’a’ up

and thrown the stone.

Yes, I reckon that the woman would have sartin

been a goner,

For you’d thrown the rock—and that hain’t

all! You’d’a’ thrown one with a corner!”

Wal, ye’d think a dig of that sort would have

shamed him ha’f to death,

But, Land o’ Goshen, neighbor,—hain’t no mor-

tifyin’ Seth!

—Jest a waste of breath

To jab at Uncle Seth,

He’s holler where the soul should be—hain’t

got no human peth.

He’s deef to ev’ry cry of want and don’t know

what is meant,

But—bet he’ll hear for ha’f a mile the whisper,

“Ten per cent!”

It took a lot of practicin’ to work his hearin’

down

To where he’s never bothered by the troubles in

our town.

He never hears the sorrows of some woman

who is left

With orphans and a morgidge’bout a thousand

times her heft.

He hain’t the one that worries when she says

she cannot pay,

The morgidge holds her anchored—the farm

can’t git away.

Upon the shattered door-steps of his racked

old tenements

He crowds the wolf of hunger when he goes

to git his rents.

But he never hears the wailin’ of the troubled

folks within,

He simply wants his money and’tis tenant, trot

or tin!

He never hears entreaties of his neighbors in

the lurch

Unless there’s good endorsers. He never hears

the church,

He never hears the knockin’ of a fist upon his

door

Unless he knows the thuddin’ means his ten

per cent—or more.

(His auditory organs sense no waves from

wails of sorrow

But they hear the faintest zephyr from the man

who wants to borrow.)

Now, with ears in that condition, when they’re

extry dulled by death,

On the Resurrection mornin’ I’ll have fears for

Uncle Seth.

When Gab’rel toots his trump

And risen spirits jump,

And up before the Throne of Light forthwith

proceed to hump,

I reckin Seth will slumber on, not knowin’ what

is meant

’Cause Gab’rel won’t take’special pains to hol-

ler, “Ten per cent!”

DIDN’T BUST HIS FORK

He could tell ye what he’d done,

—He was eloquent, my son,

In puttin’ all his doin’s into mighty lively talk.

But I’ve follered him around,

And, by gosh, I never found

That he ever lifted hard enough to

Bust

His

Fork!

Pie was always full o’ brag

‘Bout how he could lift a jag

That would double up a hossfork and make

the horses balk.

But I never see’d no signs

That he ever bent the tines

Or ever bruk’ the handle of his

Old

Pitch

Fork!

MEAN SAM GREEN

Old Sam Green!

What? Mean?

I reckin that a meaner man was skercely ever

seen.

People said he’d skin a fly for sake of hide an’

grease;

He wouldn’t grin—it stretched the skin, an’

he begredged the crease.

Sort o’ squirmed when asked to set—didn’t

want the chance!

We wondered why; we found at last’twas

jest to save his pants.

Never used to shave himself, never combed his

hair;

Used to sort o’ hate to wash, account o’ wear

and tear.

Never beau-ed the wimmen’round, never spent

a cent,

’Cept the time he bought a girl an ounce of

pepperment.

Alius kind o’ groaned o’ that; said the dratted

dunce

Set an’ chawnked an’ chawnked an’ chawnked

an’ et it all to once.

Said he learned a lesson then to last him all

through life;

Said’twould take a millionaire to feed a hearty

wife.

So he planned an’ worked an’ saved an’ grubbed

his little patch,

Allowed he’d ruther plug along, jest like he

was, “old bach.”

Sam, though, shifted later on—the pesky mean

old goat—

He struck a find; she’d had a shock that par-

alyzed her throat! .

Still, she worked most dretful spry—didn’t

need no spurs—

Only “out” that woman had was that ’ere

throat of hers. 1

Married her? you bet he did! Straight—right

off the reel!

Reckoned that she couldn’t eat a reel, good

hearty meal.

Figgered he’d git lots of work an’ only feed her

slim;

Wife, though, wopsed it t’other way an’ got

the laugh on him!

I reckin that a madder man was skercely ever

seen,

Than Green,

Old mean Sam Green.

Soon’s she fairly placed her feet, she called the

doctors in,

An’ they commenced to work on her an’ tap

old Green for tin.

He swore an’ howled, but she was boss—she

run the whole concern—

She said she’d morgidge all he owned to cure

that throat of her’n.

The high-priced doctors far an’ near come

hustlin’ to the place,

An’ fubbed an’ fussed an’ then discussed that

reely puzzlin’ case.

An’ each performed his little stunt with all his

skill an’ will,

An’ said that time would do the rest—an’ then

put in his bill.

Wal, Land o’ Goshen, Sam took on as though

they drawed his blood.

He’d hitch and hunch his wallet out as though

’twas stuck in mud.

Their nuss was quite a hand to tog; she used

to say to us

She wished that corsets laced as tight’s the

straps on that old puss.

Mis’ Green at last got down reel slim; one

night—so nuss, she said,

Old Sam come creepin’, creakin’ in; set down

‘longside the bed.

He stooped an’ poked around a spell, picked up

Lucindy’s shoe,

An’ then—wal, nuss she vums an’ vows this

’ere is honest true:

He routed’round the fireplace an’ got a cinder-

coal,

An’ went to figgerin’ up expense, right there

on ’Cindy’s sole.

He talked the items right out loud, but ’Cindy

didn’t kick

So long’s he only reckoned things she’d had

while she was sick.

But when he got to projickin’ ’bout what

’twould prob’ly cost

To bury her in decent shape, he sort o’ up an’

crossed

The “mean-man” line, the “tarnal mean” an’

even “gaul-durned mean”—

He formed a brand-new class himself; jest

him alone, Sam Green,

Stands serene!

“Green mean,”

Signifies the meanest man that ever ye have

seen.

Die? What! ’Cindy up an’ die? You bet

she didn’t die!

Got so mad to hear him talk she flew right up

sky-high.

Hopped like sixty out o’bed, as hearty’s Paddy’s

goat,

An’ that ’ere kink—whatever’twas—it came

right out her throat.

An’ talk? She hadn’t talked for years, but

soon’s she got her breath,

I swan to man, I reely b’lieve she talked old

Green to death.

For ’fore she’d trod around enough to wear the

coal marks out,

Old Sam curled up an’ passed away. Some

said there wa’n’t much doubt

He’d reely died two years before, but hadn’t

let folks know,

Because these undertakin’ chaps tuck on ex-

penses so.

Perk Todd was tellin’ down t’ the store he had

a dream las’ week—

He dreamed he got in Paradise! Must been

a denied close’ squeak!

Wal, Perk he says an angel there was showin’

him around,

“At last,” says Perk, “I ups an’ asks how

’twas I hadn’t found

No people there from where I’d lived. The

angel says, says he:

‘Here bub’ A cherub scooted up. ‘Go git

the storehouse key.’”

Says Perk: “The angel took me in. An’

where we were, it’peared

That’bout a billion boxed-up things was there

all nicely tiered.

The angel said, ‘When folks on earth do any-

thing that’s small

Their souls git squizzled bit by bit; an’ when

they die, then all

The little, teenty souls that come are packed in

here, ye know,

Jes’ same’s they box tomater plants to giv’ ’em

time to grow.’

He hunted’round an’ found a box. ‘There,’

finally said he,

‘We’ve got about as sing’lar thing as ever ye

will see.’

Inside that box was nested dus’ a dozen boxes

more;

The last box was the smallest box I ever saw

before,

An’ in it was a teenty speck. ‘Is that a soul?’

says I.

‘Oh, no,’ said he, ‘the thing you see’s the eye-

brow of a fly.

You couldn’t see the soul that’s there, to save

your blessed neck,

Because it’s one ten-millionth part as big’s

that leetle speck.

In fact it is the smallest soul that we have ever

seen;

The label says’—he squinted hard—‘it’s one

old Sam’wel Green.’

All serene,

Sam Green

Is ticketed ‘The Limit; Number billion-umpty

steen.’”

DICKERER JIM

That Dickerer Jim—Shenanigan Jim.

I never see’d hoss jockey equal to him.

He’d rather swap hosses than eat a good meal,

He’d take all the chances—and Jim wouldn’t

squeal!

He’d talk like a cyclone on any old skate

—Take a wheezy old pel ter with hopity gait

And he’d make you believe—would that Dick-

erer Jim—

There were all kinds of pedigrees tied up in

him.

And you bet your old boots, if he got you in

range

He could touch you all right for a sale or a

“change.”

—As keen as a brier, as sharp as a knife

He never got phazed except once in his life.

And that was a corker, by ginger, on him,

On Dickerer Jim—Shenanigan Jim.

He loaded a breather—a reg’lar old rip

On a man from the city—just did it by lip.

Talked the man dumb and silly and giv’ him the

hooks

Till the chap forked his money just simply on

looks.

And he went back to town with a big double

cross

In the shape of a whoofity plug of a boss.

Jim—Jim,

Shenanigan Jim,

Didn’t you—didn’t you soak it to him!

Jim—Jim,

As a sample of “trim”

That feller was pruned to the very last limb.

Now Dickerer Jim—Shenanigan Jim—

Was down in the city. His eyesight was dim;

So he couldn’t keep lookout, and first thing he

knew

Right plumb up against him that city chap

blew.

He recognized Jim—Jim hadn’t seen him—

Till the feller grabbed holt; then the chances

seemed slim

For avoidin’ a scrimmage, for seldom is seen

A chap that’s so mad that his face is pea green.

But his tongue wasn’t ready as quick as his

sight;

Now Jim couldn’t see, yet his tongue was all

right,

And away he went, lickity-whizzle! Talk,

talk!

While the feller was still scoring down in a

balk

With his mouth propped apart; oh, he’d plenty

to say,

But Jim, goin’ steady, had levelled away.

And he told that ’ere feller he’d hunted for him,

—Did Dickerer Jim—Shenanigan Jim.

The feller allowed he’d been huntin’ some, too,

But Jim didn’t hesitate—slam-banged it

through!

Says he, “I’ve been sorry I sold you that hoss

And the minit I sold him I knew’twas a loss.

For the very same day that you took him away

I met with a chap that I figger will pay

A clean and cool hundred above what you giv’,

—I can load that ’ere hoss on that chap, sure’s

you live.

That feller he wants him—lie’s anxious to pay;

Now what shall I say to him—what shall I

say?”

Then the sucker he tore and he swore, and says

he,

“Go tell him the same blasted lie you told me!

He’ll buy, don’t you worry! You’ll tag him—

he’s It,

—That’s a lie you can never improve on a bit!”

Jim—Jim,

Shenanigan Jim,

That was a side-windin’ answer for him.

Jim—Jim,

Jest turned and he “clim’”

For he see’d there warn’t stretch in the chap’s

t’other limb.

BALLAD OF BENJAMIN BRANN

Oh, a positive man—a positive man,

So the people discovered, was Benjamin Brann.

With his household and neighbors and children

and hoss

Old Brann allowed he would always be boss.

And the most of the people they’d ruther kow-

tow

To his notions than live in the midst of a row.

And whenever you’d see in a faint-hearted

crowd,

A man who was hollerin’ ’specially loud,

You could calculate suttin that positive man

Was the uncontradicted old Benjamin Brann.

For after a while all the folks stood in awe

Of the roar of his voice and the build of his

jaw;

He was lookin’ for trouble and carried a chip

And chance for a tussle he never let slip;

He hated to think that the world could still go

When he stood at one side and kept hollerin’

“whoa!”

One day he was teamin’ his oxen to town;

He set on the cart tongue., his feet hangin’

down.

And bein’ a positive kind of a chap,

—Pokin’ out o’ his way for the sake of a

scrap—

Whenever he noticed a boulder or stump

He’d gee. and ride over the critter ker-bump!

But it happened one boulder that he came

across

Gave Benjamin’s ox-cart too lively a toss;

He was under the broad-tired wheels, s’r. before

He’d gathered his voice for his usual roar.

But just as the ox-cart rolled over him—oh,

You’d a-fallen down stunned at the way he

yelled “whoa!”

’Twas so loud and so threat’nin’ that Brindle

and Haw

Who bowed to that voice as their Gospel and

Law

Were so eager to stop that they backed, s’r,

and then

The wheel it rolled over the old man again.

There’s a moral to this as you notice, no doubt,

But I haven’t the patience to ravel it out.

I’ll say to reformers and dogmatists, though,

It’s safest to holler a moderate “whoa!”

THE HEIRS

They hastened to the funeral when Aunt Sa-

brina died.

Nephews, nieces, relatives—they came from

far and wide.

They hurried in by boat and train; they came

by stage and team,

In breasts a jealous bitter greed, in eyes a hun-

gry gleam.

I knew the most as decent men, their wives as

honest dames,

Who in the common run of things were careful

of their names.

And yet, alas, we sadly find that many who be-

have

As cooing doves in daily life are buzzards at

the grave.

So while the choir softly purred, and while the

parson prayed,

The lids of mourning eyes were raised and

sneaking glances strayed

From old-style clock to pantry shelf, from par-

lor set to rug,

And knitted brows weighed soberly how much

each heir could lug.

Anon the lustful glances crossed and scowl re-

plied to scowl,

And spoke as plain as though the look were

voiced in sullen growl:

Thus when the parson prayed, “Oh, Lord, take

Thou this way-worn soul,”

I caught a look that plainly spoke: “I’ll take

that china bowl.”

And this look said, “I speak for that,” and

that look spoke for this,

The while the parson droned of love and told

them of the bliss

That cometh after struggles here; “The peace

of rest,” he said,

And then each woman claimed through looks

her aunt’s goose-feather bed.

’Twas thus the kindred flocked to town when

Aunt Sabrina died,

Ostensibly to bury her, but really to divide.

No will was left,’twas catch as can; and each

and every heir,

Came in with desperate intent to scoop the big-

gest share.

They passed around with creaking shoes and

kissed the silent lip,

And pressed the limp, old, withered hand from

out whose jealous grip

The goods of earth had slipped away to heap a

funeral pyre,

A tinder pile where torch of Greed would start

a roaring fire.

They rode behind in solemn show and stood

around the grave,

Until the coffin sank from sight; and then each

jealous knave

Hopped back with great celerity in carriage and

in hack,

And folks who saw averred those heirs raced

horses going back.

This is no fairy tale, my friend! I’m giving

you the facts,

’Tis just an instance where the heirs came

round and brought an axe;

Where folks of pretty honest stripe could

hardly bear to wait

To decently inter the corpse ere carving the

estate;

—All ready at the prayer’s “Amen” to scratch

and haul and claw

With nails of jealous rancor and the talons of

the law.

My brother, I’ve a notion, that it is sinful pride

When we pose before the heathen as a highly

moral guide.

For here in old New England are some capers

that would—hush!—

This is strictly on the quiet—put a savage to

the blush.

You know that when a savage leaves his rela-

tives bereft,

There isn’t any scrapping over what the heathen

left.

They bury all his queer stone tools, his arrows

and his bow,

They stuff his pack with grub for snack; put

in his wampum “dough;”

They kill his horse and slay his dog and then

they sing a song,

And kill off all his weeping wives and send

them right along.

There’s no annoying probate court, no long,

litigious fuss,

No lawyer’s fees, no family row, no will-de-

stroying cuss.

The estate is executed in a brisk and thorough

style

And though some certain features suit all right

a heathen isle,

Some squeamish person might arise and prop-

erly complain

There’s too much execution for adoption here

in Maine.

So I’ll not commend the custom, yet I firmly

will abide

In the notion that we have no right to pose as

moral guide

To the heathen; for it’s evident, untutored

though they are,

The heirs at least show manners in Borrioboola

Gha.

A. B. APPLETON, “PIRUT”

Abbott B. Appleton went to the fair

(Sing hey! for the wind among his whiskers),

Saw curious “dewin’s” while he was down

there

‘Mongst the gamblers, the sports and the frisk-

ers.

He carried his bills in a wallet laid flat—

An old-fashioned calf-skin as black as your hat;

He was feeling so well he was easy to touch—

Then he hadn’t as much; no, there wasn’t as

much.

He noticed a crowd’round a pleasant-faced

man

Whose business seemed based on a curious plan;

He asked for a quarter from each in the crowd,

Put the coin in his hat, and he forthwith al-

lowed

That simply to advertise he would restore

His quarter to each, adding three quarters

more.

Now Abbott B. Appleton he did invest—

Anxious to share in these spoils with the rest.

Man asked for ten dollars, and Abbott, said he:

“Why, sartin! And then we’ll git thutty back

free.”

But the man who was running the charity

game

Informed him it didn’t work always the same,

And Abbott B. Appleton got for his ten

A smile—and the man didn’t play it again.

Then Abbott, in order to make himself square,

Got after the rest of the snides at the fair.

He hunted the pea, but he never could tell

When “the darned little critter” was under

the shell.

He shot at a peg with a big, swinging ball,

Five dollars a shot—didn’t hit it at all.

And he finally found himself “gone all to

smash,”

With wisdom, a lot—and two dollars in cash.

Abbott B. Appleton cursed at the fair

(Sing fie! for a man who ’tended meetin’),

And he said to himself, “Gaul swat it, I swear

Them games is just rigged up for heatin’.

I thought they was honest down here in this

town;

I swow if I hadn’t I wouldn’t come down;

But if cheatin’s their caper I guess there’s idees

That folks up in Augerville have, if ye please.

I’m a pretty straight man when they use me all

square,

But I’m pirut myself at a Pirut-town fair.

I won’t pick their pockets to git back that

dough,

But I reckin’ I’ll giv’ ’em an Augerville show.”

Abbott B. Appleton “barked” at the fair

(Sing sakes! how the people they did gather),

And his cross-the-lot voice it did bellow and

blare

Till it seemed that his lungs were of leather.

He said that he had there inside of his pen

Most singular fowl ever heard of by men:

“The Giant Americanized Cock-a-too,”

With his feathers, some red and some white,

and some blue.

He promised if ever its like lived before

He’d give back their money right there at the

door.

Then he vowed that the sight of the age was

within.

“’Twill never,” he shouted. “be seen here agin..

’Tis an infant white annercononda, jest brought

From the African wilds, where it lately was

caught.

The only one ever heern tell of before,

All wild and untamed, that far foreign shore.”

Abbott B. Appleton raked in the tin.

(Sing chink! for the money that he salted.)

Then he opened the gates and he let ’em all in,

And then—well, then Abbott defaulted.

It was time that he did, for the people had

found

Just a scared Brahma hen squatting there on

the ground;

Her plumage was decked in a way to surprise,

With turkey-tail streamers all colored with

dyes;

And above, on a placard, this sign in plain

sight:

“There’s nothin’ else like her. I trimmed her

last night”

In a little cracked flask was an angle-worm

curled—

“Young annercononda, sole one in the

world.”

And another sign stated, “He’s small, I sup-

pose,

But if he hain’t big enough, wait till he grows.”

And Abbott B. Appleton, speeding afar,

Was counting his roll in a hurrying car,

Saying still, “As a general rule I’m all square,

But I’m pirut myself at a Pirut-town fair.”

NEXT TO THE HEART

WITH LOVE—FROM MOTHER

There’s a letter on the bottom of the pile,

Its envelope a faded, sallow brown,

It has traveled to the city many a mile,

And the postmark names a’way up country

town.

But the hurried, worried broker pushes all the

others by,

And on the scrawly characters he turns a glis-

tening eye.

He forgets the cares of commerce and his anx-

ious schemes for gain,

The while he reads what mother writes from

up in Maine.

There are quirks and scratchy quavers of the

pen

Where it struggled in the fingers old and bent,

There are places where he has to read again

And think a bit to find what mother meant.

There are letters on his table that inclose some

bouncing checks;

There are letters giving promises of profits on

his “specs.”

But he tosses all the litter by, forgets the

golden rain,

Until he reads what mother writes from up in

Maine.

At last he finds “with love—we all are well,”

And softly lays the homely letter down,

Then dashes at his eager tasks pell-mell,

—Once more the busy, anxious man of town.

But whenever in his duties as the rushing mo-

ments fly

That faded little envelope smiles up to meet

his eye,

He turns again to labor with a stronger, truer

brain,

From thinking on what mother wrote from up

in Maine.

All through the day he dictates brisk replies,

To his amanuensis at his side,

—The curt and stern demands and business

lies,

—The doubting man cajoled, and threat de-

fied.

And then at dusk when all are gone he drops

his worldly mask

And takes his pen and lovingly performs a wel-

come task;

For never shall the clicking- type or shorthand

scrawl profane

The message to the dear old home up there in

Maine.

The penmanship is rounded, schoolboy style,

For mother’s eyes are getting dim, she wrote;

And as he sits and writes there, all the while

A bit of homesick feeling grips his throat.

For all the city friendships here with Tom and

Dick and Jim

And all the ties of later years grow very, very

dim;

While boyhood’s loves in manhood’s heart rise

deep and pure and plain.

Called forth by mother’s homely words from

up in Maine.

THE QUAKER WEDDING

Without, the summer silence lies—

Within, the meeting-house is still;

The hush of First Day hovers o’er

All human-kind on Quaker Hill.

The tethered Dobbins doze and blink

In stolid calm beneath the shed;

In First Day, Quaker attitude,

With half-closed eyes and drooping head.

The cheeping birds, abashed and mute,

Have skittered off to search for shade.

Just one lone roysterer, a bee,

Embarrassed at the noise lie’s made,

Whirrs up against a staring pane

And folds his wings and sits him down,

To gaze with apiarian mirth

On strange drab poke and shining crown.

The elders sit in sober rows,

Upon the long, prim, facing-seats;

—Each visage like an iron mask;

No look of recognition greets

The softened landscape out of doors.

—The shimmer of the summer falls

On unresponsive eyes; The God

Of Nature all unheeded calls.

Their half-veiled gaze droops coldly down,

Fixed on the dusty, worn, old floor,

Unnoting that the gracious Lord

Smiles in God’s sunshine at the door.

The Spirit has not moved the tongue;

Each contrite soul has conned its own;

And in the hush of silent prayer,

Each worshipper has bent alone.

And some are sad and some are stern

And some are smug and others bow

As though, with furtive stealth, to hide

What conscience writes upon the brow.

But hark! the Meeting lifts its eyes

And he who’s sitting at the head

Breaks on the hush with reverent tone:

“If friends,” says he, “have planned to wed

’Tis meet that now they do proceed.”

Forthwith upon the women’s side

A blushing youth stands forth in view

And with him shrinks his Quaker bride.

With trembling hand in shaking palm,

They face the Meeting’s awful hush,

—No minister to question them,

No kindly shield to hide a blush.

Alone they stand, alone must they

Swear matrimony’s solemn oath;

A hundred noses point their way,

Two hundred eyes stare hard at both.

Then twice and thrice the youth’s parched lips

Strive hard to frame the longed-for word;

And twice and thrice he tries again,

Yet not a single sound is heard.

There’s just an upward flash of eyes

Like starlight in a forest pool,

—She may have said, “Take heart, dear

one!”

—She may have said, “Go on, thou fool!

His cheeks flush dark, his lips are gray,

His knees drum fast against the pew.

But by a mighty gasp he speaks,

The dry lips part, a croak comes through:

“Here in the presence of the Lord,

And in the First-Day meeting, I

Take thee, my friend, Susannah Saul

To be my wife. My loving eye

Shall rest on thee, and till the Lord

Is pleased by death to separate

Our lives and loves, I’ll be to thee

An honest, faithful, loving mate.”

As one an echo of a song

Thrums thinly on a single string,

The Quaker maid in trembling tones

Vows to her lord to likewise bring

Love, truth and trust to grace their home.

Their voices cease and side by side

They stand abashed. One honest voice

Rolls out, “Amen;” the knot is tied.

THE MADAWASKA WOOING

Petit Pierre of Attegat,

—Peter, the Little, round and fat,

Balanced himself on the edge of a chair

And gazed in the eyes of Father Claire.

Without on the porch, defiant sat

The prettiest maiden in Attegat.

And here was trouble; for Zelia Dionne

Had vowed to the Virgin she’d be a nun;

But Peter, who loved her more than life,

Was fully as bound she should be his wife.

Yet as often as Peter pressed to wed

The pretty Zelia tossed her head.

“I’m not for the wife of man,” she said.

“I’ve dreamed three times our Mary came

And pressed my brow and spoke my name.

I know she means for me to kneel

And take the vows at St. Basil.”

Though Peter stormed, yet Zelia clung

To her belief and braved his tongue.

“Je t’aime, mon cher,” she shyly said,

And drooped her eyes and bent her head;

“But when our Virgin Mother calls

A maiden to her convent walls,

How shameless she to disobey

And follow her own guilty way!”

“But dearest,” Peter warmly plead,

“’Twould not be guilty if it led

To our own home and our own love!

Our Holy Mother from Above,

Will pardon us—I know she will—”

And yet the maid responded still,

“I dare not, Peter, disobey,

And follow my own guilty way.”

So thus it chanced that Zelia Dionne

Had vowed herself to be a nun.

Though Peter teased for many a day

She pressed her lips and said him nay,

And when he begged that she at least

Would leave the question to the priest,

Although she grudged her faint consent

As meaning doubt, at last she went,

Overpersuaded by Peter’s prayer,

To take the case to Father Clair.

Peter, the Little, of Attegat

Fumbled with trembling hands his hat,

As breathlessly he tried to trace

The thoughts that crossed the father’s face.

“My son,” at length the priest returned,

—How Peter’s heart within him burned—

“If truly by the maid the Queen

Of Most High Heaven hath been seen,

—If only in her maiden dreams—

You must allow it ill beseems

My mouth to speak. It may be sin,

For—well, my son, bring Zelia in!”

She stood before him half abashed

Yet boldly, too;—her dark cheek dashed

With ruddy flame; for all her soul

Burned holily. For now her whole

Rich nature stirred. She was not awed

For had she not been called of God?

And little Peter sat and stared

And marvelled how he’d ever dared

To lift his eyes to such a maid,

Or strive to wreck the choice she’d made.

She told in simple terms the tale.

“And do you wish to take the veil?”

The father asked. “Think long, think twice

And never mourn the sacrifice.”

She quivered, but she said, “I’ve thought;

Our Mary wills it and I ought.”

“And can you gladly say farewell

To earth and love and friends; to dwell

With perfect peace nor ever sigh

For things behind?” She said, “I’ll try.”

But even as she spoke the word,

The old time love for Peter stirred;

And mingling with her quick regret,

There came a sob and Peter’s wet,

Sad eyes peered at her through a rain

Of honest tears. She tried in vain

To choke her grief, but Zelia Dionne

Forgot her vow to be a nun,

And crying, “Pierre, I love you best!”

She flung herself upon his breast.

A moment thus—and then in prayer

Both knelt before good Father Clair.

“My daughter, did that vision speak

That night when motherly and meek,

She pressed her hand upon thy brow?

No? Then, my child, she spoke just now;

And in the promptings of thy heart

Her word is clear. My child, thou art

Blest in this choice, for that caress

Upon thy brow was but to bless

And not to call thee from thy choice.

Depart in peace, wed and rejoice.”

Peter, the Little, of Attegat,

Clapped on his curls, his fuzzy hat,

And clasping the hand of his promised bride

He trudged back home with one at his side,

—No longer the self-vowed, mournful nun,

But laughing, black-eyed Zelia Dionne.

THE SONG OF THE MAN WHO DRIVES

Here’s a toast to the kings and the health of

the queens

Of the echoing oval course;

And a song of the steel that is forged for the

wheel

And the hoof of the blue-blood horse!

There’s the song of the steel that is forged for

the wars—

The song of the long, bright sword;

The chant of the weapon the patriot draws

In defence of his land, in support of its laws—

In the cause that his heart has adored.

But the sword that is bared to the glint of the

sun,

—Who knows when that sword will be

sheathed?

For strife plunges hotly when once’tis begun,

So the steel of the sword I forswear and I

shun,

And the horrors its edge has bequeathed.

No, I vaunt the honest circlet to a worthy use

applied—

The steel that flashes swiftly in the broad two-

minute stride;

The steel that clinking hammers in the forges’

clang and heat

Have shaped with merry music for a trotter’s

twinkling feet.

You may choose the glint of sabres or the gleam

of martial arms,

As for me the vibrant flashing of those hoofs

has greater charms,

As I ride the swaying sulky and we cleave the

singing air,

And I hear the merry rick-tack of the trotting

of my mare.

Now what are the prizes of war, my boy,

Or the honors of kingdom and court

To a chap that’s contented with honester joy

Than desperate ventures that crush and de-

stroy

In the din of the battlefield’s sport?

I envy no prowess of warriors of old

Astride of a mail-clad steed.

And I challenge the right of the furious might

That forces an innocent victim to fight

For human ambition or greed.

But ho, for the rush of the steel-shod feet

When the clink of the bright shoe rings—

When the flickering hoofs down the home-

stretch beat

And I on the perch of the sulky seat

Drive hard in the Sport of Kings.

I pledge to you the honor of the ringing, sing-

ing course,

When the tautened reins are throbbing with the

motion of the horse,

When the glossy shoulders glisten with the

twitching muscles’ play,

Beating time in swift staccato to the slender

sulky’s sway.

Let the roaring stand go crazy as we finish at

the pole—

’Tis no human acclamation that avails to stir

my soul,

’Tis the batter and the clatter of those hoofs

that ring and beat,

’Tis the rhythm and the music of those flashing

little feet—

’Tis the sympathy between us, all a-quiver in

the reins,

Till I almost feel the pulsing of the current in

her veins,

And I have no eye or hearing for the vain ac-

claim of man

When my heart and soul are throbbing with

her hoof-beats’ rataplan.

To the king of the course! To the queen of

the track! .

What matter their breeding or name?

To all that have battled the second-hand back

Here’s tribute in measure the same.

Here’s a toast to the king and the health of the

queen,

Who reign on the oval course,

—To the stout, stout steel! forged true for the

wheel

Or the hoof of the blue-blood horse.

THE OLD PEWTER PITCHER

I festoon for Bacchus no chaplet of roses,

I will vaunt not the vat—I’ve no homage for

wine;

Panegyric of paint for convivial noses

Shall never find place in a lyric of mine.

Unseemly indeed were such rank exhibition

Of scorn for the statutes that seek to restrain,

By beneficent mandate of stern Prohibition,

The lust for the grape in the good State of

Maine.

So a truce to the bowl and its fervid excitement,

And down with the flagon, the goblet and

stein!

My lyric exalts the more balmy enticement

Of a certain old humble companion of mine.

’Tis addressed

With a zest

Springing out of vague unrest

Stirring underneath my vest.

I’m obsessed

By a guest

Who has come at my behest

From the misty days of boyhood, borne se-

renely in the van

Of the friends that I’d forgotten in the cares

that grind the man.

—You were just a pewter pitcher, a demure

and dull old pot—

With a yee-yaw to your nozzle like the grimace

of a sot.

The knob upon your cover had a truly rakish

cant,

Your paunch was apoplectic and your handle

had a slant

Of a most.convivial nature. But despite your

seedy style

Not a guest upon the threshold got a more

benignant smile

Than when upon a platter, flanked by apples

and by pears,

You rose splashing full of cider up the dark old

cellar stairs.

I’m sure that the fruit that we sacrificed duly

Each fall to the cruel embrace of the press

Had quaffed of the honey of Nature and truly

Deserved from her hand a more tender

caress.

Pm sure that the sun kissed both fruit and the

flower

With all the devotion his warm heart could

bring,

Till Alcohol ceded his ominous power

And gall lost its bitter, the adder its sting,

For though round and round went the old pew-

ter pitcher,

And chucklingly filled for us horn after

horn,

We never saw dragon, blue goblin or witch, or

Required a hoop for our heads in the morn.

Here goes!

Here’s to those

Who sat and warmed their toes

Drowning cares and frets and woes.

No one knows

How memory glows

As I see that ancient nose

Gleaming blandly in the circle of the friends of

long ago

Within, the light; without, the night and the

wind and drifting snow.

Then the dented pewter pitcher poured for us

its amber stream

While the tinkling bubbles winked upon the

brink with dancing gleam,

Ah, there was no guile within you as there were

no gauds without

—Just a plain, old-fashioned fellow, with an

awful homely snout;

And you never left us headaches and you didn’t

stir the bile,

And no guest upon the threshold got a more

benignant smile

Than when, upon a platter, flanked by apples

and by pears,

You rose splashing full of cider up the dark old

cellar stairs.

OUR GOOD PREVARICATORS

OUR LIARS HERE IN MAINE

There was Sinon, he of Troy, and Ulysses, too,

and Cain,

Who preceded many centuries the liars here in

Maine.

There was Gulliver, Munchausen, there was

Ananias, too,

A very handsome job of it those gentlemen

could do.

Yet look at Ananias! Why, his story knocked

him dead,

But here in Maine the liar “does” the other

man instead.

And Sinon, he of Troy, had to plan and build

his lie,

But here in Maine the liar doesn’t even have

to try.

For the pure prevarication comes cascading

down his lip

And he never seems to falter or to stub his toe

and trip.

And he walks abroad with honor, and no mortal

will arraign

The pure and worthy motives of the liar here

in Maine.

His strongest hold is fishing, and he fixes with

his eye

The victim who must listen and who never

dares deny.

Each river and pellucid pond, each brooklet and

each stream,

Possesses fifty liars to preserve it in esteem.

And he that owns a yaller dog, and he that

owns a hoss

Will never see their laurels dimmed, if words

can add a gloss.

’Tis true the old inhabitant, narrating ancient

tales,

Occasionally soars to heights where homely

language fails.

So then, alas, he’s hampered some, but note

his kindling eye,

And as he gets his second wind, observe how

he can lie!

’Tis no invidious charge I bring against this

worthy crew,

We love the lies they tell to us and love the

liars too.

They hold to truth in business deals, they’d

never lie to cheat;

But when the “sport” comes down from town,

by gracious he’s their meat.

They “torch” him up with narrative until his

fancy steams

And swogons, yaps, and witherlicks go ramp-

ing through his dreams.

For when our solemn ruminants describe the

olden times

They stimulate a state of mind I can’t describe

in rhymes.

I pen this humble lyric and I bring a wreath of

bay,

For the good prevaricators doing business down

this way.

May their tongues be ever limber, and im-

agination free,

With no interloping infidel to ask how such

can be.

May the plug from which they nibble spice a

piquant, pungent tale,

May words to paint the details of their fiction

never fail.

Let the chips from which they whittle always

have an even grain,

And we’ll challenge all creation with our liars

here in Maine.

THE BALLAD OF DOC PLUFF

Doctor Pluff, who lived in Cornville, he was

hearty, brisk and bluff,

Didn’t have much extry knowledge, but in

some ways knowed enough;

Knowed enough to doctor hosses, cows an’ dogs

an’ hens an’ sheep,

When he come to doctor humans, wal, he wasn’t

quite so deep.

Still, he kind o’ got ambitious, an’ he went an’

stubbed his toe,

When he tried to tackle subjects that he really

didn’t know.

Doc he started out the fust-off as a vet’rinary

doc,

An’ he made a reputation jest as solid as a rock.

Doct’rin’ hosses’ throats or such like, why, there

warn’t a man in town

Who could take a cone of paper, poof the sul-

phur furder down.

He could handle pips an’ garget in a brisk an’

thorough style,

An’ there wan’t a cow’t would hook him when

he give her castor ile.

As V. S. he had us solid, but he loosened up his

hold

When he doctored Uncle Peaslee for his reg’lar

April cold.

Uncle Peaslee allus caught it when he took

his flannels off,

For a week or two he’d wheezle, sniff an’ snee-

zle, bark an’ cough.

An’ at last, in desperation, when the thing be-

came so tough,

He adopted some suggestions that were made

by Doctor Pluff.

Fust o’ March he started early an’ he reg’lar

ev’ry day

From his heavy winter woolens tore a little

strip away.

For the doc he had insisted that the change

could thus be made,

’Cause the system wouldn’t notice such an easy,

steady grade.

Walsir,’bout the last of April, Uncle Peaslee

he had on

Jest the wris’ban’s an’ the collar—all the rest

of it was gone.

Then—with Doctor Pluff advisin’—on a mild

an’ pleasant day,

He took off the collar ‘n wris’ban’s, and he

throwed the things away.

An’ in lesser’n thutty hours he was sudden

tooken down

With the wust case of pneumony that we ever

knowed in town.

An’ he dropped away in no time; it was awful

kind of rough,

An’ we had our fust misgivin’s’bout the skill

of Old Doc Pluff.

Reckoned that ’ere scrape would down him an’

he’d stick to hens an’ cows,

But he’d got to be ambitious, an’ he tackled

Irai Howes.

Uncle Iral’s kind o’ feeble, but was bound to

wean a caff;

Went to pull him off from suckin’ when the

critter’d had his haff.

Caff he turned around an’ bunted—made him’s

mad’s a tyke, ye see—

An’ old Iral’s leg was broken, little ways above

the knee.

T’other doctor couldn’t git there’cause the

goin’ was so rough,

So they had to run their chances and they called

on Doctor Pluff.

Doc he found old Irai groanin’ where they’d

laid him on the bed,

An’ he took his old black finger, rolled up Iral’s

lip an’ said,

“Hay-teeth worn; can’t chaw his vittles!

Vittles therefore disagree,

It’s as tough a case of colic as I think I ever

see.”

Some one started then to tell him, but the doc

he had the floor,

An’ he snapped ’em up so spiteful that the}

didn’t say no more.

Then he wrinkled up his eyebrows, pursed his

lips as tight’s a bung,

Pried apart old Iral’s grinders an’ says he,

“Le’s see your tongue.”

“Why,” says he, “I see the trouble—you’ve

got garget of the blood,

An’ if symptoms hain’t deceivin’, you have also

lost your cud.”

“Blame yer soul,” groaned Uncle Irai, “can’t

ye see what’s ailin’ me?

That ’ere leg is broke!” “Oh, sartin,” says

the doc, “I see! I see!”

Then he pulled off Iral’s trousers, an’ he spit

upon his fist,

Grabbed that leg in good old earnest an’ com-

menced to twist an’ twist.

Irai howled an’ yowled an’ fainted, then come

to an’ howled some more,

He an’ doc they fit an’ wrassled on the bed an’

on the floor.

Doc, though, held him to the wickin’—let old

Irai howl an’ beg,

Said he’d got to do his duty, straight’nin out

his blamed old leg.

When the splints come off, though, later, wal-

sir, Irai was provoked,

Hain’t surprised it made him ugly, for he sar-

tinly was soaked.

Doc had set it so the kneejoint comes behind,

jest like a cow’s,

An’ ’twould make ye die a-laughin’, would that

gait of Irai Howes’.

If that case of Uncle Peaslee wasn’t damagin’

enough,

Bet your life that job on Irai made us shy of

old Doc Pluff.

THE BALLAD OF HUNNEMAN TWO

Now this is the story of Hunneman Two,

Old Hunneman Two from Andover town;

—A tub with the likeliest, heftiest crew

That ever hoorayed in a hot break-’er-down.

And I’ll give you the facts, for if any one knows

It’s me who was Hunneman’s foreman of hose:

Ev’ry feller we mustered was over six feet

And the gang that we brought to a fireman’s

meet

They never was licked and they never was

downed,

And a crowd up against us would likely get

drowned.

Ev’ry man in the forty was six feet and more

And their shirts was the reddest that ever men

wore;

Whenever they hollered they’d jump up a yard

And when they came down they came dreffully

hard.

Ev’ry man had a trumpet and some of them

tew

—And’twas safest to plug up your ears when

they blew.

They’d ballast the tub with a cart-load of stone

And stuff her with sody ontil she would groan

Then they’d spit on their fists and would gaffle

that beam

And whoop fa, la larry, my jinks what a

stream!

’Twas h’ist on the beam till your eyeballs gog-

gled,

Hump-jump-pump!

Give her the tar till her old sides woggled,

Pump-jump-hump!

Down with the beam till it sartin would seem

We were drowndin’ the sun in a hissin’, white

stream.

Oh, there never was anything up with the crew

That buckled the beam of old Hunneman Two.

One time we were playin’ at Andover fair

And old Uncle Boomer drove up with his mare.

She cocked up an eye for to see the stream sail

Then she up with her ears and her head and

her tail;

And whoosh! she was off down the Bunganuck

road

At as lively a clip as a mare ever hoed.

Now the Bunganuck road it was right straight

away,

And jest for a hector we started to play

Right over the tailboard, right into his team,

And we followed him up with old Hunneman’s

stream.

We followed him one mile, we followed him

tew

With the foreman a-swearin’ and all of the

crew

A-breakin’ her down and a-crackin’ their heels

Till we lifted her plum fair and square off the

wheels.

We followed him three miles, we followed him

four

—If he hadn’t shied off we’d a-followed him

more.

Old Boomer got rheumatiz out of wet feet

For we kept his old waggin full, clear to the

seat.

’Twas h’ist on the beam till your eyeballs gog-

gled,

Pump-jump-hump!

Give her the tar till her old sides woggled,

Hump-jump-pump!

Down with the beam till it sartin would seem

We were drownin’ the sun in a hissin’ white

stream.

Oh, there never was anything up with the crew

That buckled the beam of old Hunneman Two.

ORADUDOLPH MOODY, REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT

Bring on your speechifyin’ runts, yes, bring

your biggest gun;

Trot out your high-flown orators, we don’t bar

nary one.

From Quoddy Head to Caribou, from there to

sassy York,

Bring out your braggadosho chaps who think

that they can talk.

We’ve got our man—don’t want no odds’nd

warn you fair and true

So’t when the Legislatoor meets you’ll have

your men there, too.

He’s jest a’goin’ to sweep the floor, we’ll have

you recollect,

—Our Oradudolph Moody, reprusentertive-

elect.

When Mister Moody rises up ’nd ’hams ’nd

clears his thro’t

’Nd loosens up his gallowses ’nd lays aside his

co’t,

I guess he’ll fool the av’rage man, he looks so

cool ’nd carm,

A-dribblin out his words ’nd wavin’ careless-

like his arm.

But pretty soon that arm goes and quivers in

the air,

His hand a-wrigglin’ up a-top, seems ’sif ’twas

spinnin’ there.

It acts as sort of windmill, pumpin’ langwidge

I expect

From Oradudolph Moody, reprusentertive-elect.

When Oradudolph Moody speaks he has the

durndest knack

Of windin’ up opponents so they never an-

swer back.

When yearly meetin’ comes around he alwus

swings the town

On anything he advocates from new school-

houses down.

The elerquence just bubbles up without no

work at all,

He almost mesmerizes everybody in the hall.

’Nd down there to Augusty you’ll parceive the

strange effect

Of Oradudolph Moody, reprusentertive-elect.

Magnetic! He’s a dynamo, his pulley never

slips,

’Nd eelectricity!—It runs right off his finger-

tips.

We’ve tried to send him down before, but no,

he wouldn’t go;

He said he had no time to fool with Legisla-

tors, so

Our town ain’t never had a man to speak, ex-

cept Mulkearn,

Who managed once to stutter out a motion to

adjourn.

But now, by gosh jest set right back and wish-

fully expect

Our Oradudolph Moody, reprusentertive-

elect.

TRIBUTE TO MR. ATKINS’S BASS VOICE

E. Perley Atkins had a low—deep—bass.

The noise came out of his face,

But the place

Whence the sound sprung

And bubbled toward the bung,

When he sung,

To come lolloping up to his tongue,

In long fortissimo hoots,

Or staccato toots,

—That place was suttin’ly down in his boots.

Omp, omp!

That was the kind of a bass

That oozed from the face

Of E. Perley Atkins who lived in our place.

He sung at all the paring bees, the quilting teas,

and parti-ees

He sung at all the shindigees we had for miles

around.

He opened his lip and let her rip and folks were

never obliged to tease,

For he allowed

That he was proud

As well as the rest of the awe-struck crowd

Of the deep, profundo timbre of that sound.

Boomp, boomp!

He wended thus on his deep, bass way

Ready to omp, omp night or day.

He sung in the choir Sunday forenoon

And an hour later furnished a tune

For the Sabbath school and the Bible class,

With a voice that was meller’n apple sass.

At evenin’ meetin’ he came around

Full to the neck with that cream-rich sound,

And the way he would lead Coronation hymn

Would lift ye off’n your pew, by Jim.

On Monday nights he had a call

To sing for the Maltys at Jackson’s Hall.

Tuesdays the Masons and Wednesdays he

Sung like blazes for the I. G. T.

Thursdays, class-meetings, Fridays, sings

With Saturdays open for rackets and things.

A busy week? Well, I guess, but wait,

I mustn’t forget, my friend, to state

There warn’t no fun’ral for ten miles’round,

No dear departed tucked under ground,

No mourners jammed in a settin’ room,

Sozzled in grief and soaked in gloom,

But Perley was there with his rich, cream bass

To trickle like salve on the wounded place.

And the tears would dry on each mourner’s

nose,

They’d perk right up and forget their woes

And nudge each other and say, “Suz me,

What a beautiful funeral voice that be.”

And in time, though he sang for all who asked,

For saint and sinner, still he basked

In especial favor as one whose ease

And voice gave a tone to obsequies.

It’s whispered around, and I guess it’s so

That when he hinted he thought he’d go

To Rome and Paris to train that bass,

A widow and three old maids in the place,

Who were living along, no man knew why,

Decided they’d hurry up and die.

They just stopped breathing and died from

choice

For the sake of having that funeral voice

Draw copious streams from the mourner’s eyes

And give them a send-off toward Paradise.

—No man who’s monkeyed with bass B-flat

Got ever a compliment higher’n that.

He sung at all the paring bees, the quilting teas,

the parti-ees,

He sung at all the shindigees for twenty miles

around.

He opened his lip and let her rip,

Admirers had no need to tease,

And he sprung a bass that joggled the roof and

fairly shook the ground.

While the echoes of his “funeral voice”

Made even the cherubim rejoice,

As the melody pulsed against the skies

And ushered a soul into Paradise.

JIM’S TRANSLATION

Couldn’t speak of nothin’ smart—no one strong

or spry—

’Thout old Talleyrand B. Beals to grab right

in an’ lie!

All the thing he’d talk about was chap by name

of Jim,

Ev’ry story that he told was sort of hung round

him.

—Said the critter’d worked for him twenty

years before,

—Yarn at last it got to be the by-word down

t’ th’ store,

When we’d hear of biggish things, “That,”

we’d say, “I swan,

Beats tophet, taxes, time an’ tide an’ Bealses’

hired man.”

Beals, though, clacked right on an’ on; would

set an’ chaw an’ spit,

An’ tell us’bout that hired man—couldn’t make

him quit!

Champyun jump or heft or swim— ’twas all the

same to him,

He’d wait till all the rest had shot, then plug

the mark with Jim.

Had to laugh the other day—boys were down

t’ th’ store,

Talleyrand got started in—the dratted, deef

old bore!

Silas Erskine’s boy spoke up—that’s Ez; wal,

Ez says he,

“Say, Tal, what ever come o’ Jim?” Old

Beals uncrossed his knee,

Said he, “A master cur’us chap, that Jim was,

I must say,

—Seemed to like us fine as silk, but off he

went one day,

—Went right off without a yip—didn’t take his

clothes;

Hank’rin’ struck him all to once—couldn’t

wait, don’t s’pose.

Didn’t even take his pay, which was some sur-

prise,

—Prob’ly, though, a lord or dook, trav’lin’ in

disguise.”

Beals he stopped an’ gnawed his plug; chawed

an’ chawed a while,

Then Ben Haskell hitched around an’ smole a

sing’lar smile.

“Told that hired man,” said he, “I’d never let

it out,

Guess I’d better tell it, though, an’ settle all

this doubt.

Want to say right here an’ now, to back up

Beals,” says Ben,

“His Jim did sartin wear the crown amongst

all hired men.”

S’prised us all when Ben said that,’cause he

us’al planned

All the hector, tricks an’ jokes’t were put on

Talleyrand.

Ben, though, kept right on his talk. Ben says,

then says he,

“Here’s the secret how he went for I’m the man

that see.

Happened down in Allen’s field day he disap-

peared,

Jim came’crost the intervale; straight as H he

steered

To’ards that silver popple tree; up that tree he

dim’,

—Set there, sort o’ lost in thought, a-straddle

of a limb.

Jest as I’d got underneath he sighed an’ took a

piece

Of mutton taller—give his boots a heavy co’t

of grease,

Greased his fingers nice an’ slick an’ then—an’

then, I swear,

Grabbed them boot-straps, give a pull an’ up

he went in air.”

—Ought to heered us critters laugh—gre’t big

“Haw, haw, haw-w-!”

Jason Britt he dropped his teeth, Erskine gulped

his chaw,

Talleyrand jest set there grum—fin’ly snorted

“Sho!

Think ye’re smart, ye pesky fool! Lemme tell

ye, though,

’Tain’t so thund’rin’ big a stretch ye made then

when ye lied,

Bet ye Jim could lift himself, providin’ he had

tried.

Stout? I see’d him boost a rock—” “Minit,

Tal,” says Ben,

“Hain’t got done my story yit! Jest ye wait

till then.

—Soon’s I see’d that critter start, hollered

loud’s a loon,

’Jeero cris’mus, Jim,’ said I, ‘startin’ for the

moon?’

Jim looked down an’ said, says he, ‘Don’t

know where I’ll fetch,

Ner care a rap so long’s I dodge old Beals, the

mean old wretch!

Trouble is, consarn his soul, his feed has been

so slim

I’ve fell away till northen’s left’cept clothes an’

name o’ Jim.

Reckin then I’ll h’ist myself,’cause, ye see, I’ve

found

It’s blame sight easier raisin’ up than holdin’

to the ground.’

“Then he give them straps a tug an’ up he went

from sight,

—Stood an’ watched him till he growed to jest

a leetle mite!

He’s the champyun hired man, sartin sure, be-

cause

Critter went to Paradise, prob’ly jest’s he

was.”

Talleyrand he got so mad he actyal wouldn’t

speak,

Didn’t come t’ th’ store agin for more’n a solid

week. .

Soon’s he edged around some more wa’n’t no

talk from him

’Bout no hired men, you bet! Clack was shet

on Jim.

ELIPHALET JONES—INVENTOR

Inventor Jones—Eliphalet Jones,

Ah, he was the fellow for schemes!

Though critics might carp and his rivals throw

stones,

They never vexed Uncle Eliphalet Jones,

Or troubled his radiant dreams.

He calmly asserted that every day

One hundred inventions, or so, came his way;

They flocked through his mind in such myriad

rout

He hadn’t the leisure to figure them out.

But he said if a fellow should chase him around

With a pencil and notebook’twould surely be

found

That projects prolific were shed from his brain

As a wet bush, when shaken, will scatter the

rain.

When he plowed, when he hoed, when he

sowed, when he mowed

He was steadily throwing off load after load

Of notions, he stated—each notion a mint

For the chap who would take and develop the

hint.

But Eliphalet Jones—Eliphalet Jones

Was so busy with farmwork and clearing off

stones,

So busy with milking and errands and chores

He scattered inventions by dozens and scores

With a liberal hand, but with barren effect,

For they dried on the cold, arid sands of

neglect.

But for all he forgot he would cheerfully say

There were always as many the very next day.

And he figured it up; though enormous it

seems

He had fashioned and fired some ten thousand

schemes.

Now, out of that number a limited few

Eliphalet tackled and engineered through;

A few little notions right out of his head

To help out the farmwork, he carelessly said.

One patent, a holder to hitch a cow’s tail

So she couldn’t keep swatting the man with the

pail;

A few dozen scarecrows of hellish design,

Real impish constructions to jig on a line

That was jerked by a water-wheel down in the

brook;

All the horses that passed, if they got a good

look

Tumbled down stiff and dead or else, frantic

with fear,

Kicked the wagon in bits and spun’round on

one ear.

And he rigged a contrivance by which ev’ry

morn

His old Brahma rooster descending for corn,

Stepped down on a lever that flipped up a lock

And down came the fodder in front of the

stock.

Still, these were but puerile notions beside

The thing that he hoped for—his spur and his

pride,

His climax of schemes ere he went back to

dust—

For he vowed that he’d fathom the secret or

“bust;”

That if motion perpetual ever could be

Discovered by mortal, that man should be he.

So he fussed with his springs and his wee-jees

and wings

And all sorts of queer little duflicker things,

And he builded queer whiz-a-jigs, then with a

frown

He ruthlessly, scornfully cuffed them all down.

Well, the years hurried by, as the years surely

will,

But Eliphalet Jones he was confident still,

For he constantly vowed that some thingumy

spring

Put somewhere “would settle the dad-ratted

thing.”

Yet the years skittered past and his head was

snow-white

And he almost had solved it, but never “jest

quite;”

So the neighbors employed some satirical tones

When they chanced to refer to Perpetual Jones.

But hail to his name and remember his fame!

At the last—at the last, friends, he won the

great game!

He died at the birth of his triumph,’tis true,

And he left only words—yet I give them to

you,

Convinced they’re a gift to the world, without

doubt,

Or will be as soon as the thing is worked out.

He sat in his chair by the window one day

While his grandson was out with a puppy at

play;

And the boy hitched some meat to the tail of

that pup,

Then he gave him a twirl and the puppy “gee-

ed up,”

And he spun and he spun and he spun and he

spun

Just as fast at the last as when he begun,

But the tail and the meat ever kept just ahead

Of the clamorous jaws as the puppy dog sped.

“There she is,” cried Eliphalet, “darned if she

ain’t!

There’s perpetual motion!” and pallid and faint

He fell prone and dying. They lifted him up

And his eyes, glazed with death, looked their

last on that pup.

And through the dark shade of mortality’s fog

He gasped, “All you need is the right kind of

dog.”

Inventor Jones—Eliphalet Jones,

Ah, he was the fellow for schemes;

Though critics might carp and his rivals throw

stones

They never vexed Uncle Eliphalet Jones,

Or troubled his radiant dreams.

THE PANTS JEMIMY MADE

Aunt Brown—Jemimy Brown—

Was a spinster, spinner-weaver of merited re-

nown;

Our town set it down

As a fact beyond disputing there was never

any suiting

Like the suiting that was made by Spinster

Brown.

She raised the wool she made it of, she even

raised the sheep,

She fed ’em on the toughest straw the hired

man could reap

She spun the thread with double-twist and

made a warp and woof

So tarnal tough it really seemed’twas almost

bullet-proof.

And when the cloth was shrunk and dyed and

ready for a suit

The men in town would almost fight, they’d

get in such dispute

Concerning who had spoken first—the farthest

in advance—

And therefore had the prior claim on Aunt

Jemimy’s pants.

The cloth that folks make nowadays is slimpsy,

sleazy stuff;

It’s colored up in fairish style and fashionable

enough!

But blame the goods! It’s made to sell—it

isn’t made to wear—

These trousers here I’ve worn five year, and

that is merely fair.

But when you bought a cut of cloth of Aunt

Jemimy’s weave,

You got some stuff to last you through, you’d

better just believe!

Why, ’bout the time that modern pants are get-

ting worn and thin

A pair of Aunt Jemimy’s pants were scarcely

broken in.

I’ve got a pair up attic now, made forty years

ago

They’re just as tough as iron still and Time

has made no show.

They’ve stood the brunt of honest work and

dulled the tooth of moth,

And there they stand, as stiff’s a slab, good,

plain, old-fashioned cloth.

And so I think it’s only right that tribute

should be paid

To those old sturdy pioneers—the pants Je-

mimy made.

The day I first put on those pants I held a

break-up plough—

The farmers of these later days don’t have

such wrassles now;

I drove six oxen on ahead, a pretty hefty team,

For farming in those old, old days took mus-

cle, grit and steam;

You didn’t stop for rocks and stumps, nor

dodge and skive and skip,

Or else you’d have to lug your meals on ev’ry

furrow’s trip,

And so the only thing to do was make the oxen

tread

And hold the ploughshare deep and true, and

plunk ’er straight ahead.

So back and forth and back and forth I

ploughed and ploughed that day;

I tackled ev’ry rock and snag that dared dispute

my way,

Until the only critter left was one old maple

stump,

And I?—I gave the team the gad—and took

’er on the jump!

She split in halves and through I went, but

back she slapped, ker-whack,

And gripped Jemimy’s pantaloons right where

she’d left the slack.

The team was going double-quick—the oxen

plunged along—

I held the old oak handle-bars, I gripped ’em

good and strong—

And there I was, the living link’twixt stump

and plough, because

The cloth it stuck there good and tight between

those maple jaws.

Jemimy never planned on that, in making pants

for me;

She made ’em solid, yet of course she gave no

guarantee

That they would stand a yank like that—but

still I clung and yelled,

Those oxen plunged and tussled and—Je-

mimy’s pants, they held!

And the stump came out a-kicking, roots and

dirt and stones and all,

But those pants weren’t even started by that

most tremendous haul,

And to prove this ’ere is truthful, should some

scoffer cast a doubt,

I have saved the chips and hewings where they

came and chopped me out.

Aunt Brown—Jemimy Brown—

Was a spinster, spinner-weaver of merited re-

nown;

Our town set it down

As a fact beyond disputing there was never

any suiting

Like the suiting that was made by Spinster

Brown.

BALLADS OF “CAPERS AND ACTIONS”

BALLAD OF ELKANAH B. ATKINSON

Elkanah B. Atkinson’s tarvun was run

On a plan that was strictly his own;

And he “reckoned that dudified sons of a gun”

Would far better leave him alone.

He allowed that he always had plenty to eat

For folks that liked vitt-u-als plain;

An’ when ye came down to pettaters and meat

His house was a credit to Maine.

The garding truck they raised themselves,

They killed their pork; and the but’ry shelves

Jest fairly groaned with jells and jams;

—In a shed out back they smoked their hams.

And old Elkanah used to brag

They laid down pickles by the kag;

And they had the darndest hens to lay

—Got fifty eggs most ev’ry day—

And ev’ry egg was big’s your fist

And fresher’n a whiff of mountain mist.

The whole blamed house it used to shake

When old Elkanah pounded steak,

For he used to say what made meat tough

Was ’cause some cooks warn’t strong enough.

And he piled the grub right on sky-high:

Soup and meat and fish and pie

—All the courses on first whack—

And then Elkanah he’d stand back

And say: “There, people, now hoe in;

When ye’ve et that grub, pass up ag’in;

Of course we hain’t no big hotel,

But some few things, why, we dew well.”

P. Mortimer Perkins came down from New

York,

—A salesman for corsets and things;

With his trousers all creased and a lah-de-dah

walk,

As if he were jiggered by strings;—

Arrived at the Atkinson tarvun one night

And says to Elkanah, says he:

“I want to be called just as soon as it’s light,

For I’m going first train, don’t ye see.

It’s very important I go by first train,

But I find in these country hotels

The service ye get gives a fellah a pain

—They don’t even answer the bells.

Now I want to be called for that train, me good

man,

For it’s very important I go;

Now weally, old chappie, please see if you can

Just do a thing right once, y’ know-

Ye may call me at four, and at half after four

I’ll bweakfast; now recollect, please!

Before I wetire I’ll tell you once more;

—You’ll get the idea by degwees.”

Elkanah B. Atkinson lowered his specs

To the very tip-end of his nose;

Says he: “When a feller he really expec’s

To go by that train, wal—he goes.

Jest fall right asleep and don’t worry a mite;

This hain’t -no big city hotel,

But we’ll git ye to goin’ termorrer all right,

For there’s some things we dew fairly well.”

Elkanah B. Atkinson sat all night

And kept the office fire bright.

He nodded some and yawned and smoked,

And at half-past three he went and poked

The kitchen fire; then pounded steak

And set potatoes in to bake.

Started the coffee and all the rest

And then went up to call his guest.

Bangity, whang! on the cracked old door!

Whangity, bang! It checked a snore.

P. Mortimer Perkins opened his eyes

In the cold dark dawn with much surprise,

And under the coverlet warm and thick

On the good, old-fashioned feather tick,

Felt the cold on his nose like a frosty knife

And was never so sleepy in all his life.

But still bang, whang on the cracked old door!

And Elkanah shouting, “Mos’ ha’f-pas’ four!”

But the louder the old man pounded and yapped

The more the drummer garped and gapped.

At last says he: “Is it stormy—oh-h-h?”

“Wall,” says Elkanah, “she’s spittin’ snow.”

P. Mortimer Perkins snuggled down

And says he, “This isn’t a blamed bad town;

I say, old man, now please go’way,

I’ve changed my mind, and I guess I’ll stay.”

Elkanah B. Atkinson then says he:

“This changin’ minds is a bad idee;

I’ve set in that office there all night

So’s I could git ye up all right.

An’ breakfus’ is on, an’ the coffee’s hot;

Now, friend, ye can go on that train or not,

But I tell ye now, right off- the reel,

Ye’re goin’ to git up and eat that meal.”

P. Mortimer Perkins cursed and swore,

But Elkanah slammed right through that door,

And he pulled that drummer out of bed

And brandished a chair’round over his head;

He poked his ribs and made him dress

So sleepy still that his gait cut S

As he staggered down to the dining-room

And ate his meal in the cheerless gloom,

While over him stood the grim old man

With a stick and a steaming coffee can.

“Now, mister,” allowed Elkanah, “sence

It’s a special breakfus’ it’s thutty cents.”

When the feller paid, as meek’s a pup,

And stuttered “Now, can I be put up?”

“Why, sartin, mister,” Elkanah said;

“Ye can go to tophet or back to bed;

There hain’t hard feelin’s, no, none at all,

But when a feller he leaves a call

At the Atkinson House for an early meal,

He gits it served right up genteel,

An’ when it’s served, wal, now you bet

There hain’t no peace till that meal’s been et.

Of course we hain’t no big hotel,

But some few things we dew quite well.”

BALLAD OF OBADI FRYE

’Twas a battered old, double-B, twisted bass

horn,

With a yaw in the flare at its end;

A left-over veteran, relic forlorn

Of the halcyon days when a band had been

born

To the village of Buckleby Bend.

The band was dismembered by time and by

death

As the years went a-scurrying by,

And only one player was left with his breath

And that was old Obadi’ I.

P. Frye.

Old Obadi’ Isaac Pitt Frye.

With a glow in his eye

He would plaintively try

To puff out the tune that they marched to at

training;

But the tremolo drone

Of the brassy old tone

Quavered queerly enough with his scant breath

remaining.

Ah, the years had been many and bent was his

back,

And caved was his chest and departed his

knack;

So, though he was filled with musicianly pride

And huffed at the mouthpiece and earnestly

tried

To steady his palsied old lip and control

The old-fashioned harmonies stirring his soul—

There was nothing in Buckleby quite so for-

lorn

As the oomp-tooty-oomp of that old bass horn.

To the parties and sociables, quiltings and sings

They invited old Obadi’ Frye;

He’d give ’em doldrums of old-fashioned

things

With occasional bass obligato for strings

—Or at least he would zealously try.

The minister coaxed him to buy a cornet

And chirk up a bit in his tune,

But none could induce him to ever forget

His love for that old bassoon,

Whose tune

Was the solace of life’s afternoon.

So he’d splutter and moan

With his thin, gusty tone

But his empty old lungs balked his anxious en-

deavor.

He hadn’t the starch

For a jig or a march,

And with double-F volume he’d parted forever.

For he hadn’t the breath for a triple note run,

’Twas a whoof and a pouf! and alas, he was

done;

But the pride of his heart was that old double-

bass,

He was happy alone with its lips at his face.

So he sat in his old leather chair day by day

And whooped the one solo he’d power to play,

An anthem entitled, “All Hail Christmas

Morn,”

As rendered by gulps on an old bass horn.

“All hail—hoomp—hoomp—bright Christmas

morn,

Hail—hoomp, hoomp—hoomp—fair

hoomp—hoomp—dawn;

Turn—hoomp—hoomp, eyes

Hoomp—hoomp,

HOOMP—skies,

When—hoomp—hoomp,

hoomp—H O O M P—boom.

While a-tooting one morning his breath flick-

ered out

With a sort of a farewell purr;

Of course there are many to scoff and to scout,

But’twas sucked by that cavernous horn with-

out doubt,

At least, so the neighbors aver.

They laid him away in the churchyard to rest

And with grief that they sought not to hide,

They placed the old battered B-B on his breast

And that Christmas hymn score by his side—

His pride,

‘Twas the tune that he played when he died.

Now, who here denies

That far in the skies

He is probably calmly and placidly winging;

That his spirit new-born

With his score and his horn

Takes flight where the hosts are triumphantly

singing.

Yet it irks me to think that he’s far in that

Land

With only the score of one anthem in hand.

For the music Above must be novel and

strange—

Too intricate far for that double-B range,

But at last when the Christmastide rings in the

skies

There’ll be some queer quavers in fair Para-

dise,

For an humble old spirit will calmly allow

“I reckin I’ll give ’em that horn solo now.”

Up there we are certain there’s no one to carp

Because Obadiah won’t tackle a harp—

Seraphs and cherubs will hush their refrain

When a new note of praise intermingles its

strain,

And he’ll add to the jocund delight of that

morn

With his anthem, “All hail,” on that old bass

horn.

“All hail—hoomp—hoomp—bright Christmas

morn,

Hail—hoomp, hoomp—hoomp—fair

hoomp—hoomp—dawn;

Turn—hoomp—hoomp, eyes

hoomp—hoomp,

HOOMP—skies,

When—hoomp—hoomp,

hoomp—HOOMP—born.”

AT THE OLD FOLKS’ WHANG

Flappy-doodle, flam, flam—whack, whack,

whack!

Balance to the corners and forward folks and

back;

Gaffle holt an’ gallop for an eight hands round,

While the brogans and the cowhides they pessle

and they pound;-

No matter for the Agger providin’ there’s the

time.

Jest cuff’er out and jig’er;—jest hoe’er down

and climb!

No matter’bout your toes or corns; let rheu-

matiz go hang,

For we’re weltin’ out the wickin at the old

folks’ whang.

—At the old folks’ whang

Hear the cowhides bang,

When we “up and down the center” at the old

folks’ whang.

Yang, tangty, yee-yah!—yang, yang, yang!

Old Branscomb plays the fiddle at the old folks’

whang;

And he puts a sight o’ ginger in the chitter of

the string,

—It isn’t frilly playin’ but he makes that fiddle

sing.

He slashes out promis’cus, sort o’ mixin’ up

the tune,

—Takes the Irish Washerivoman, slams’er up

agin Zip Coon;

And he Speeds the Plough a minute, then he’ll

sort o’change his mind

And go off a-gallivantin’ with the Girl I left

Behind.

Oh, he mixes up his music queerest way I ever

saw,

For he shifts the tune he’s playin’ ev’ry time

he shifts his chaw;

But we never mind the changes for he keeps us

on the climb,

—He may twist the tune a little but he’s thun-

der on the time!

So line up and choose your pardners—we’re

the old ones out for fun,

You’ll forgit your stiff rheumaticks jest as soon

as you’ve begun.

’Course we ain’t so spry and spiffy as we used

to be, but yet

We can show them waltzy youngsters jest a

thing or two, you bet.

We will dance the good old contras as we used

to years ago,

Jest as long as Uncle Branscomb has the

strength to yank the bow.

There is no one under sixty—we’ve shet out

the youngster gang

And we’re goin’ to welt the wickin’ at the old

folks’ whang.

—At the old folks’ whang

Hear the cowhides bang,

When we canter up the center at the old folks’

whang.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

O, the sleddin’s gettin’ ragged and it’s dodge

and skip and skive,

Till it’s jest an aggravation for to try to start

and drive.

Fust to this side, then to t’other—here some

ice and there some snow,

—Just continyal gee and holler; fust “Gid-

dap,” and then it’s “Whoa!”

Takes a half a day to git there, round by way

o’ Robin Hood;

Like as not ye’ll bust your riggin’ haulin’ out

your hay and wood.

’Tain’t no way o’ doin’ bus’ness; ’tain’t no

way to haul a load,

—You must do your hefty haulin’ in the mid-

dle of the road.

If ye want to keep a-hoein’

Better wait for settled goin’,

For twice the heft goes easy in the middle of

the road.

O, in dealin’s with your neighbors, brother,

sure as you’re alive,

It’s better to go straight ahead and never skip

or skive.

For the man who keeps a-dodgin’ back and

forth across the way

Like enough will find his outfit in the gutter,

stuck to stay.

Till the road is clear and settled, till with can-

dor in your heart

You can see your way before you, guess ye

hadn’t better start;

For to get there square and easy; and to lug

your honest load,

You’ll find it’s best to travel in the middle of

the road.

—So’s to make an honest showin’

Better wait for settled goin’,

Then, s’r, hustle brisk and stiddy in the mid-

dle of the road.

DRIVIN’ THE STAGE

Drivin’ the stage,

Oh, drivin’ the stage,

With the wind fairly peelin’ your hide with its

aidge!

Jest got to git through with the’Nited States

mail

For the contract provisions don’t have the

word “Fail.”

So it’s out and tread drifts while the snow

howls and sifts

For a dollar a trip—and no extrys—no gifts.

For them star-route contractors they figger it

fine

And take it right out of the chaps on the line.

They set in an office and rake in their slice

While the drivers are tusslin’ the snow and the

ice.

It may howl, it may yowl, it may snow, it may

blow

But that’Nited States mail, wal, it jest has to

go.

So it’s out and unhitch, leave the pung where

it’s stuck,

Lo’d the bags on the hosses and then, durn ye,

huck!

And it’s waller and struggle, walk stun’-walls

and rails

For they don’t stand no foolin’—them’Nited

States mails.

And at last when ye git there, jest tuckered

and beat,

And sling in the bags and crowd up to the

heat,

The gang round the stove they don’t give ye

no praise

But set there and toast themselves’side of the

blaze;

And ev’ry old, wobble-shanked son of a gun

Sets up there and tells ye how he would have

done!

—If there’s any one job gives your temper an

aidge,

It’s drivin’ the stage,

—It’s drivin’ the stage.

“DOC”

In his big, fur coat and with mittens big as

hams,

With his string of bells a-jingling, through the

country side he slams.

There are lots of calls to make and he’s always

on the tear,

A-looming in his cutter like an amiable bear.

And it’s hi-i-i, there!

Johnny don’t ye care,

Though’tis aching something awful and is

most too much to bear.

Just—be—gay!

As soon as it is day,

That pain will go a-flyin’, for the doctor’s on

the way.

There are real, true saints; there are angels all

around,

But there isn’t one that’s welcomer than he is,

I’ll be bound.

When he bustles in the bed-room and he dumps

his buff’ler coat,

And sticks a glass thermometer a-down the

suff’rin throat.

And it’s chirk, cheer up!

Mother, bring a cup!

You’re going to like this bully when you take

a little sup.

There—there—why,

There’s a twinkle in your eye!

You’ll be out again to-morrow, bub; gid-dap,

gid-dap, good-bye!

ANOTHER “TEA REBELLION”

When Mis’ Augusty Nichols joined the Tufts

Minerva Club,

She polished up on manners and she then com-

menced to rub

At the hide of Mister Nichols who, while not

exactly rude,

Was hardly calculated for a howling sort of

dude.

Now when Augusty Nichols got to see how

style was run,

You bet she went for Nichols and she dressed

him down like fun;

And the thing in all his actions that she couldn’t

bear to see

Was to have him fill his saucer and go whoof-

ling up his tea.

After more’n a month of stewing;—making

mis’able his life,

She taught him not to shovel all his vittles

with his knife.

And after more’n a volume of pretty spicy talk

She got him in the hang of eating pie with just

his fork.

She trained him so’s he didn’t slop the vittles

round his plate,

She plagued him till he wouldn’t sit in shirt-

sleeves when he ate,

And then she tried her Waterloo, with faith in

high degree

That she could revolutionize his way of drink-

ing tea.

He drank it as his father always quaffed the

cheering cup,

He poured it in his saucer, raised the brimming

puddle up

And gathered in the liquid with a loud re-

sounding “Swoof”

That now at last inspired Mrs. Nichols’ fierce

reproof.

But here was where the victim—ah, here was

where the worm

Arose and fairly scared her by the vigor of his

squirm,

—Sat down his steaming saucer and with a

dangerous light

A-gleaming in his visage, he upbore a Yan-

kee’s right.

From the days of Boston’s party up to now I

think you’ll see

That a Yankee’s independent when you bother

with his tea.

“Consarn your schoolmarm notions,” thun-

dered Mrs. Nichols’ spouse,

“You’ve kept a’dingin’ at me till I’m meechin

round the house.

I’ve swallered that and t’other for I didn’t like

to row

But ye ain’t a-going to boss me in the thing

ye’ve tackled now.

I’m durned if I’ll be scalded all the time I’m

being stung

So I’ll cool my tea, Mis’ Nichols, while ye jab

me with your tongue.”

There are rights ye cannot smother, tyrants,

whoso’er ye be,

And the good, New England Yankee’s mighty

touchy, sir, on tea.

“LIKE AN OLD COW’S TAIL”

When I was a youngster and lived on the farm

It sickened my heart—did that morning alarm!

When dad came along to the foot of the stairs

And summoned me back to my duties and

cares;

—Put all of my glorious visions to rout

With “Breakfast is ready! LP h’ist out there,

h’ist out!”

And when I came yawningly, sleepily down,

My eyes “full of sticks” and my face all

a-frown,

I got for a greeting this jocular hail,

“Wal, always behind like an old cow’s tail.”

I’ll own to you, neighbor, that work on the

farm

Had features not wholly surrounded by charm.

And when I am fashioning lyrical praise

For matters bucolic of earlier days,

You’ll note that my lyre, sir, operates best

When I tune up and sing of the blessings of

rest.

I’ve stood in the stow-hole and “tread” on the

load,

And waltzed with a bush scythe and worked

on the road,

But somehow or other the language won’t

spring

When prowess of muscle I venture to sing.

But when I am piping of “resting” or fun

Or lauding the time after chores are all done,

Why, somehow—why, blame it, as sure as

you’re born,

I mentally feel that my trolley is on!

And a trolley, you know, would be certain to

fail,

Unless’twas behind like an old cow’s tail.

PASSING IT ALONG

The elephant he started in and made tremen-

dous fuss

Alleging he was crowded by the hippopotamus;

He entertained misgivings that the earth was

growing small,

And arrived at the conclusion that there wasn’t

room for all.

Then the hippo got to thinking and he was

frightened too

And so he passed the word along and sassed the

kangaroo.

The kangaroo as promptly took alarm and

talked of doom

And ordered all the monkeys off the earth to

give him room.

And the monkeys jawed the squirrels and the

squirrels jawed the bees,

While the bees gave Hail Columby to the

minges and the fleas,

—In the microscopic kingdom of the microbes,

I will bet

That word of greedy jealousy is on its travels

yet;

All just because the elephant got scared and

made a fuss

Alleging he was crowded by the hippopotamus.

A SETTIN’ HEN

When a hen is bound to set,

Seems as though ’tain’t etiket

Dowsin’ her in water till

She’s connected with a chill.

Seems as though ’twas skursely right

Givin’ her a dreadful fright,

Tyin’ rags around her tail,

Poundin’ on an old tin pail,

Chasin’ her around the yard.

—Seems as though ’twas kind of hard

Bein’ kicked and slammed and shooed

’Cause she wants to raise a brood.

I sh’d say it’s gettin’ gay

Jest’cause natur’ wants its way.

—While ago my neighbor, Penn,

Started bustin’ up a hen;

Went to yank her off the nest,

Hen, though, made a peck and jest

Grabbed his thumb-nail good and stout,

Almost yanked the darn thing out.

Penn he twitched away and then

Tried again to grab that hen.

But, by ginger, she had spunk

’Cause she took and nipped a junk

Big’s a bean right out his palm,

Swallered it, and cool and calm

Hi’sted up and yelled “Cah-dah,”

—Sounded like she said “Hoo-rah.”

Wal, sir, when that hen done that

Penn he bowed, took off his hat,

—Spunk jest suits him, you can bet,

“Set,” says he, “gol darn ye, SET.”

BALLAD OF DEACON PEASLEE

There was Uncle Ezry Cyphers and Uncle

Jonas Goff,

And Deacon Simon Peaslee, with his solemn

vestry cough;

Mis’ Ann Matilda Bellows and Aunt Almiry

Hunt,

—At all the social meetings they performed

their earnest stunt.

They were strong in exhortation, and pro-

foundly entertained

The belief that talking did it if a Heavenly

Home were gained.

So they rose on Tuesday evening, at Friday

meeting, too,

And informed their friends and neighbors what

the sinners ought to do;

They explained the route to Heaven and ex-

horted all to go

In the straight and narrow pathway through

the blandishments below;

They were good and they were earnest, but,

alas, a little tame,

For month by month and year by year their

talks were just the same,

Until the folks who’d listened all those many

years could start

And declaim those exhortations, for they had

’em all by heart.

And those old folks talked so constant there

was scarcely time to sing,

For they just let in regardless and monopolized

the thing.

Now, benign old Parson Johnson died at last.

There’s scarcely doubt

That those prosy dissertations sort of wore

the old man out.

And he promptly was succeeded ere the church

had dried its tears

By a cocky, youthful pastor, who was full of

new ideas.

Now, he sized the situation ere he’d been in

town a week,

And he set to work to fix it by a plan that was

unique,

For he saw unless he did so—and the Lord

allowed them breath,

Those devoted saints would surely talk that

wearied church to death.

So he came to Tuesday meeting and upon his

desk he placed

A nickeled teacher’s call-bell and blandly then

he faced

An astonished congregation and explained he

thought it best

To condense the exhortations so as not to

crowd the rest;

For he said that in the worship all the members

ought to share,

And monopoly of talking by the elders wasn’t

fair;

Therefore, each could have five minutes, and

he’d ring to let each know

When ’twas time to cut the discourse and give

t’other one a show.

There were scowls from Uncle Ezry—there

were grunts from Uncle Goff,

And Deacon Simon Peaslee gave a scornful

vestry cough.

Then he laid his cane beside him and he strug-

gled to his feet

And commenced his regular discourse in re-

gard to tares and wheat.

He was scarcely fairly going on the punish-

ments of hell

When the pastor smiled and nodded and ding-

clink-ling went the bell!

All the old folks gasped in horror and a titter

soft and low

Ran along the youthful sinners who were back

on Devil’s Row;

And for just a thrilling instant Deacon Simon

lost his force,

With astonished jaws a-gaping—then continued

on his course.

To the pastor’s youthful visage swept a sudden

flush of wrath,

As the obstinate old deacon brushed him calmly

from his path,

And with all the college muscle that he had at

his command

The parson cuffed the call-bell with a swift

and steady hand.

There was riot in the vestry—deacon vieing

with the bell,

As he strove to paint the terrors of the hot,

John Wesley hell,

Till at last he balked and stuttered, gasped a

while and tried to speak,

Then sat down with tears a-dropping through

the furrows on his cheek.

There he bent in voiceless anguish with his old

gray head bowed low,

While the hushed and pitying people mourned

to see him grieving so;

And the parson left the platform and contritely

crept across

To the side of Deacon Simon and expressed his

deep remorse.

But the deacon raised his visage, and, with tears

still streaming down,

Glared upon his trembling pastor with a fierce

and scornful frown.

“Drat yer hide,” roared Deacon Simon, “do

ye think that leetle bell

Scart a warrior sech as I am out of talking

truths on hell?

’Tain’t no passon sets me down, sah! ’Tain’t

no bell ye ever saw,

But ye went and got me narvous and ye’ve

made me eat my chaw.”

Then the deacon, stern and angry, arm in arm

with Jonas Goff,

And with Uncle Cyphers trailing, stalked in

righteous dudgeon off,

And the sympathizing parish held a meeting

there and then,

And extolled the absent deacon as the most

abused of men;

And the parson’s walking papers hit his neck

below the jaw

In about the same location that the deacon lost

his chaw.

THE WORST TEACHER

That teacher was the worst we ever tackled,

He warnt so very tall, and he was light.

—It is best to lay your egg before you’ve

cackled,

Though we never had a notion he could fight.

He acted sort of meechin’ when he opened up

the school,

—We sort of got the notion he was “It”—

and we tagged gool,

We gave him lots of jolly in a free and easy

way,

And showed him how we handled guys as got

to acting gay.

We showed him where the other one had torn

away the door

When we lugged him out and dumped him in

the snow the year before.

And soon’s we thought we’d scared him, we sat

and chawed and spit,

And kind o’ thought we’d run the school—con-

cludin’ he was “It.”

It worked along in that way, sir, till Friday

afternoon.

—We hadn’t lugged him out that week, but

’lowed to do it soon.

That Friday,’long about three o’clock, he said

there’d be recess,

And said, “The smaller kids and girls can go

for good, I guess.”

And he mentioned smooth and smily, but with

kind of greenish eyes,

That the big boys were requested to remain

for exercise.

And when he called us in again he up and

locked the door,

Shucked off his co’t and weskit, took the mid-

dle of the floor,

And talked about gymnastys in a quiet little

speech,

—Then he made a pass at Haskell, who was

nearest one in reach.

’Twas hot and stiff and sudden and it took him

on the jaw,

And that was all the exercise the Haskell feller

saw.

Then jumpin’ over Haskell’s seat, he sauntered

up the aisle,

A-hittin’ right and hittin’ left and wearin’ that

same smile.

And when a feller started up and tried to hit

him back,

’Twas slipper-slapper, whacko-cracker, whango-

bango-crack!!

And never, sir, in all your life, did you see

flippers whiz

In such a blame, chain-lightnin’ style as them

’ere hands of his.

And though we hit and though we dodged—or

rushed by twos and threes,

He simply strolled around that room and licked

us all with ease.

And when the thing was nicely done, he

dumped us in the yard,

He clicked the padlock on the door and passed

us all a card.

And this was what was printed there: “Pro-

fessor Joseph Tate,

Athletics made a specialty and champion mid-

dleweight.”

That teacher was the worst we ever tackled,

He warn’t so very tall and he was light.

—It is best to lay your egg before you’ve

cackled,

Though we never had a notion he could fight.

THE TUCKVILLE GRAND BALL

Origen Dickerson called the figgers

With a voice like a cart ex that needed some

grease.

He and his partner would fiddle like niggers

For supper an’ dollar an’ fifty apiece.

With forty couple upon the floor—

There wasn’t an inch for no one more,

We done the honors for all three towns

At the high, old Tuckville spanker-downs.

Yeak, yawk,

Grab for your pardners!

Yawk, yawk,

Wo’ hi-i-ish inter line!

Yankity, yump-de,

Yankity, yah-h de!

—For a fife and two fiddles that music was

fine.

And we pelted the floor and sashayed through

the door,

And balanced to pardners and sashayed some

more.

And when we got orders to “all hands

around!”

Warn’t half of the girls that could stay on the

ground.

For-rud and back! Wo’ haw, there, to Ella.

Wo’ buck inter line and balance to Grace.

Grab holt o’ hands, there, and swing by yer

feller,

Clek—clek, gid-dap-along, git inter place.

And the dust would rise and the lamps would

shake

Till ye’d think their chimblys was goin’ to

break.

For we’tended to dancin’ right up brown

At a high old Tuckville spanker-down.

Squeak, squawk,

Pick out yer feller!

Raw-w-wk, raw-w-wk,

Form on your set!

High-deedle, do-o-o de,

High-deedle, dah-h-h-de!

We swung by the waist in them dances, you

bet.

There wasn’t kid slippers, there wasn’t tight

boots,

There wasn’t silk dresses, there wasn’t dude

suits,

There wasn’t no banquet—ten dollars for two—

But a good brimmin’ bowlful of hot oyster

stew.

We’d darnce twenty numbers and all the en-

cores,

—Get home in the mornin’ ’bout time for the

chores—

And all the next day the work was like play,

The girls doin’ housework would waltz and

sashay;

The boys would astonish the stock in the yard

By forgettin’ and yellin’, “Hi, all promunard!”

Hi-i-i, yah-h-h!

Ladies to center, there!

Hi-i-i, yah-h-h!

Balance ye all!

Wo’ hi-ish up the middle, bear down on the

fiddle,

By ginger,’twas fun at the Tuckville Grand

Ball.

THE ONE-RING SHOW

The street parade was gorgeous and the show

was mighty fine

—Them fellers on the trick trapeze was cork-

ers in their line,

And all the lady riders was as pretty as they’re

made,

And kept the climate fully up to ninety in the

shade.

The chaps that did the tumbling acts and every

funny clown

Was just as slick an article as ever came to

town.

I’ve got to tell yon, neighbor, that it all was up

in G,

Including all the things I saw and what I

didn’t see.

But though I did a master sight of rubber-

neckin’ ’round,

A-lookin’ here and gawpin’ there, why, gra-

cious, me, I found

From what the folks have told me since, I

missed the finest things,

—I hadn’t eyes and neck enough for all them

three big rings.

And honest, if 1 had my choice, I’d good deal

ruther go

To just a good, old-fashioned sort of hayseed,

one-ring show.

The people used to gather when Van Amburgh

came to town

With a lion and an elephant, a camel and a

clown.

There wasn’t “miles of splendor,” as the cir-

cus programs say,

But folks got up at daylight, drove in early in

the day;

And they perched along the fences while the

dozen carts or so

Came trailin’ through the village with the old

Van Amburgh show.

It wasn’t just “stupendous,” but the people

didn’t jeer

And say it wasn’t up to what the circus was

last year!

O, no, they crunched their peanuts and they

took things as they’d come,

And heard a lot of music in the rump-rump of

the drum.

For things, you know, seemed fresher in the

days when we were young,

And tinsel passed for solid stuff when lady

riders sprung

Through papered hoops, or danced and frisked

upon their charger’s rump

And vaulters spun to dizzy heights with one

jer-oosly jump.

They did those ding-does master fine some

twenty years ago

And you never missed a wiggle at a one-ring

show.

I won’t pick flaws with modern ways of doing

all these things,

For folks have got to living on the gauge of

three big rings.

But while the whirl is going on, it seems, my

friend, to me

That half of what goes past your nose is things

that you don’t see.

And when the angel cries, “All done,” and

when the lights go out,

You’ll jostle to the dark Beyond amidst a diz-

zied rout.

And life that’s lived at three ring pace I fear

will only seem

A useless sort of patchwork thing—a mixed-

up fruitless dream.

Why wasn’t “father’s way” the best? Though

there was less array,

Though men had less of creeds and cults than

what they have to-day,

The old folks then from Life’s great tent went

slowly thronging out

With calm, well-ordered years behind, unvexed

by care or doubt.

And though in old Van Amburgh’s days the

thing moved rather slow,

You didn’t sprain your moral neck in looking

at Life’s Show.

THE SWITCH FOR HIRAM BROWN

That Hiram Brown he come to school and

brung in seven ticks;

He picked them off his father’s sheep—jes’ like

his dratted tricks!

One day that critter put a toad right in our

teacher’s chair,

She squatted down—and then got up! And

warn’t she mad for fair?

He brung in crawly bugs and things, a mouse

and onct a rat,

An’ then he sort o’ wound things up with

suthin’ wusser’n that.

The teacher cotched him that time, though, and

my! she combed him down

An’ I was sent to cut the switch that walloped

Hiram Brown.

Them ticks was in a pill-box doctor left when

Bill was sick,

An’ they was measly lookin’ things;—say,

j’ever see a tick?

While we was readin’ testermunt Hi stirred

’em with a pin,

—We all was wond’rin’ what he’d got, for he

was on the grin.

Then when the teacher turned her back, Hi

made for Ozy Blair

An’ turned the whole blamed seven ticks right

loose in Ozy’s hair.

Then Ozy had a spasm fit like what he’s sub-

jick to;

He squalled and clawed and bumped around till

he was black an’ blue.

An’ teacher took her fine-toothed comb an’

raked an’ scraped his head,

—It come nigh bustin’ up the school that way

that he raised Ned!

The teacher made us all set up as stiff and

straight as sticks,

An’ then says she, all raspy-like, “Who was it

brung them ticks?”

We couldn’t help it—swow to man!—We

looked at Hiram Brown

An’ Hi he set there redd’nin’ up and sort o’

lookin’ down.

An’ teacher sniffed an’ then she scowled an’

giv’ her sleeves a twitch,

An’ turned to me an’ then says she, “Ike, go

an’ cut a switch.”

’Twas dretful nice outdoors that day—it set a

feller wishin’

That he could cut an’ run from school an’ put

his time in fishin’.

’Twas one them soft’nin’ sort of days an’ while

I was a-pickin’

A switch, it come acrost me what a shame to git

a lickin’

On such a mighty pleasant day. So I shinned

up a tree

An’ cut a slimpsy popple switch that wouldn’t

hurt a flea.

Then I went in—there teacher was, a-waitin’

by the door,

The scholars set as still as death an’ Bill stood

in the floor.

But how they snickered when they see that

dinky little switch,

—The teacher broke it up on me an’ giv’ my

ear a twitch,

Says she, “You try that on agin, you’ll

git it

worse, you clown!

Now go, an’ see’f you know enough to cut

that switch for Brown.”

Seems’s if it warn’t so nice outdoors. It kind

o’ stirred my mad

To divvy up that way with Hi—’Cause ’twasn’t

me ’twas bad!

Says I, “By jing, I’ll even up.” I took my

biggest blade

An’ cut a switch that, honest true, it almost

made me ’fraid.

I didn’t trim it very dus’—by snummy, I felt

wicked,

I left the knobs all stickin’ out—an’ some of ’em

was pick-ed.

I passed ’er in. The teacher she ker-wished it

through the air,

An’ Hi he shivered; ’twas enough to fairly

curl his hair.

She fixed her hairpins so’s her pug it couldn’t

tumble down,

An’ then says she, like bitin’ nails, “Take off

your coat, Hi Brown.”

Then Hiram Brown he got right down an’

begged an’ teased an’ prayed,

She hit him once—an easy clip—an’ then he

fairly brayed.

He acted out in master style;—why, sence he’s

come of age

He’s makin’ money like all sin, play-actin’ on

the stage.

Our teacher was an easy mark—the tender

hearted kind—

When Hiram got to takin on she went and

changed her mind.

Says she, “You’ve been a naughty boy but if

you now repent

I’ll spare the rod but punish you in this way.”

Jee, she went

An’ sent that Hi acrost the room to sit with

Helen Dean,

The girl I liked the best in school; an’ Hi was

jest serene!

That warn’t the wust, for after school he licked

me like the deuce

Because I left them knobs all on. Oh, thun-

der, what’s the use

Of tryin’ to be good, sometimes? I know it’s

wicked talk

To intimate that vice may ride when virtue has

to walk;

To hint that folks of honest ways but moderate

in wits

May have their noses rubbed in dirt by rascal

hypocrites,

But truly, friends, it does appear that only mar-

tyrs’ crowns

Are passed to worth down here on earth;—the

rest to Hiram Browns.

THE JUMPER

Ba gor! J jomp an’ jomp all tam’

Bot jos’ can’t halp dat—dere she am!

Cos’ w’en som’ fellaire he say “Boo!”

Morgee! I jomp an’ holler, too.

Long tam’,’way back ma broder, Joe,

Hav’ gon’roun’ house, an’ off she go.

—Go bang, r-rat clos’ op side ma ear;

Sence w’en I ac’ dis way—dat queer!

I tak’ med’ceen—don’t geet som’ cure.

Gass I got jomp-ops now for sure.

An’ mos’ all tam’ som’ son er gon

T’ink mak’ me jomp—wal, dat ban fon.

I’ll tal yo’ wan t’ing dat ban true—

Las’ spreeng dey beeld dat r-ra’ltrack t’rough

R-rat pas’ ma house, an’ w’at yo’ s’pose?

Dem ra’ltrack fellaires, wal, he goes

Sot pos’ for whees-el side ma door,

An’ den—wal, p’rap I didn’t swore!

Wan tra’n com’ pas’ long jos’ ’bout noon,

An’ go “whoot-toot!” Wal, bamby, soon,

Wa’n’t no whol’ deeshes ’round—for why?

’Cos’, sacre, I jomp op sky-high

An’ keeck dat table’roun’ dat plac’

An’ lat som’ howl com’ off ma face.

Dat vife he skeer mos’ near on death,

An’ all dem shildreen hoi’ deir breath

For saw deir fadder ac’ lak’ dat

An’ geeve dose dinnaire wan beeg slat.

An’ wan tra’n she go pas’ on night,

Long ’bout de tarn’ I sle’p mos’ tight.

An’ w’en she whees-el, “Whoot-too-too!”

I jomp lak’ wil’ cat, I tal you.

I heet ma vife gre’t beeg hard slams

An’ black her eye mos’ seexteen tarn’s.

Till las’ she go off sle’p down stair,

—She say I worse as greezly bear,

Bot w’at yo’ t’ink? I swore dis true,

I nevaire know w’at t’ing I do.

Wal, w’en t’ings geet bos’ op dat way,

I ban saw ra’ltrack boss wan day.

I tal heem ’bout I poun’ ma vife,

—Can’t halp dat t’ing for save ma life—

An’ he—he blor-rt, lak’ wan gre’t caff,

An’ lean way back an’ laff an’ laff.

I don’t saw nottin’s dere for fon

’Bout havin’ dat ol’ ra’ltrack ron

Op pas’ ma house an’ hav’ dem car

Male’ me bos’ op ma home, ba gar!

I tol’ heem dat bam-by dat soun’

Ban mak’ me keeck dat whol’ house down.

“I’ll tal yo’ w’at,” say he bam-by,

—He wap’ hees eye off lak’ he cry—

“I’ll tol’ yo’ w’at dees ro’d weell do:

We’ll send op our construckshong crew,

We’ll beeld, to show dat we hain’t mean,

Wan good, beeg cage an’ pot yo’ een.”

Ba gar! Dat all I geet off heem!

—I weesh dey not fin’ out dat steam!

ISHMAEL’S BREED

Horde of the Great Unwashed! Hobo and

moucher and bum,

Vag and yag and grafter and tramp, we care-

lessly go and come.

Of the morrow we take no heed, no care infests

the day,

Plenty of gump and a train to jump—a grip on

the rods and away!

To the grab for the gear of greed we give no

thought or care,

We own with you the arch of blue—our share

of God’s good air;

—A coin to clear the law, a section of rubber

hose

To soften the chafe of the truss and rod—our

portion of cast-off clothes;

And ours the world—the world! a heritage

won by right,

—By tacit deed to the nomad breed with the

taint of the Ishmaelite.

Some from the wastes of the sage-brush,

some from the orange land,

Some from “God’s own country,” dusty and

tattered and tanned.

Wherefore? ’Tis idle to tell you—you’d

never understand.

Hither and fro,

We come—we go,

Old Father Ishmael’s band.

Yags-will sometimes walk, a tramp will hit the

grit,

But a hobo never will count the ties so long as

he keeps his wit.

There’s the truss of the Wagner freight, the

rods and the jolting truck,

You can grab and swing at the yard-line post

if you’ve muscle enough and pluck.

There’s the perch of the pilot, too, where you’re

target for lumps of coal,

For a shack or a fireman never thinks we’ve

either nerves or soul.

If you’ve taken the full degrees and have cov-

ered the “Honey Route,”

Have fired a rock at the “Fox Train crew,” and

knocked a Doughface out,

You are man for the king-pin act! Here’s hop-

ing you have success

When you risk your neck on the smoke-swept

“deck” of the Limited Express.

Some from the slopes of the Rockies, some

from the Ogden route,

Where the meek old Mormon matrons hand

the milk and honey out,

—West and south and northward—and

t’other way about,

On tank and wall,

You’ll find the scrawl

Of the tramp’s monarka-scout.

Taint of the nomad’s blood! God, if we could

but burst

From the thrall of vags and drop our rags and

cleave to the best—not worst!

Each day on a town’s main-drag, as we’re

flaggin’ some house for prog,

The smile of a child or a maiden’s face will give

our hearts a jog.

And I—yes, even I, have flicked at a sudden tear

And have turned my back on Smoky Jack lest

he see the thing and jeer.

Spur of the nomad’s taint! Back to the ring-

ing rails

That coaxingly curve to the far unknown!

Confusion to courts and jails!

The “goat” is coughing the grade; grab for

the rods, there, Jack,

Look out for your grip, for a bit of a slip will

toss you to grease the track.

Bound for the Greasers’ sage-brush, under

the roaring train,

Decking the fast expresses from Texas north

to Maine,

Grimy and tattered and blinded, Ishmael’s

blood our bane,

We ride—we ride,

To hope denied,

Cursed with the curse of Cain.

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Table of Contents

PINE TREE BALLADS

Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur’ Up in Maine

Boston: Small, Maynard & Company

1902

FOREWORD

PINE TREE BALLADS

OUR HOME FOLKS

FEEDIN’ THE STOCK

JOHN W. JONES

DEED OF THE OLD HOME PLACE

OUR HOME FOLKS

THANKSGIVIN’ JIM

“OLD POSH”

THE SUN-BROWNED DADS OF MAINE

“HEAVENLY CROWN” RICH

OLD “FIGGER-FOUR”

PHEBE AND ICHABOD

WHEN OUR HERO COMES TO MAINE

UNCLE TASCUS AND THE DEED

SONGS OF THE SEA AND SHORE

TALE OF A SHAG-EYED SHARK

THE GREAT JEEHOOKIBUS WHALE

“AS BESEEMETH MEN”

THE NIGHT OF THE WHITE REVIEW

THE BALLAD OF ORASMUS NUTE

THE DORYMAN’S SONG

WE FELLERS DIGGIN’ CLAMS

DAN’L AND DUNK

THE AWFUL WAH-HOOH-WOW

SKIPPER JASON ELLISON

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

THE RAPO-GENUS CHRISTMAS BALL

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH

THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS

’BOARD FOR THE ALLEGASH”

THE WANGAN CAMP

PLUG TOBACCO AT SOURDNAHUNK

O’CONNOR FROM THE DRIVE

JUST HUMAN NATURE

BALLAD OF OZY B. ORR

THE BALLAD OF “OLD SCRATCH”

WHEN ’LISH PLAYED OX

OLD “TEN PER CENT”

DIDN’T BUST HIS FORK

MEAN SAM GREEN

DICKERER JIM

BALLAD OF BENJAMIN BRANN

THE HEIRS

A. B. APPLETON, “PIRUT”

NEXT TO THE HEART

WITH LOVE—FROM MOTHER

THE QUAKER WEDDING

THE MADAWASKA WOOING

THE SONG OF THE MAN WHO DRIVES

THE OLD PEWTER PITCHER

OUR GOOD PREVARICATORS

OUR LIARS HERE IN MAINE

THE BALLAD OF DOC PLUFF

THE BALLAD OF HUNNEMAN TWO

ORADUDOLPH MOODY, REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT

TRIBUTE TO MR. ATKINS’S BASS VOICE

JIM’S TRANSLATION

ELIPHALET JONES—INVENTOR

THE PANTS JEMIMY MADE

BALLADS OF “CAPERS AND ACTIONS”

BALLAD OF ELKANAH B. ATKINSON

BALLAD OF OBADI FRYE

AT THE OLD FOLKS’ WHANG

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

DRIVIN’ THE STAGE

“DOC”

ANOTHER “TEA REBELLION”

“LIKE AN OLD COW’S TAIL”

PASSING IT ALONG

A SETTIN’ HEN

BALLAD OF DEACON PEASLEE

THE WORST TEACHER

THE TUCKVILLE GRAND BALL

THE ONE-RING SHOW

THE SWITCH FOR HIRAM BROWN

THE JUMPER

ISHMAEL’S BREED