Pine Tree Ballads: Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine

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 SINCER...

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 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 sp...

“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 Q...

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.

“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.”

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 ce...

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 ba...

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.

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.

--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: