Part 8

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. [Illustration: 0205]

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,