Part 2

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,