Chapter 1

Chapter 14,189 wordsPublic domain

Spoon River Anthology

by Edgar Lee Masters

Contents

Altman, Herman Armstrong, Hannah Arnett, Harold Arnett, Justice Atheist, The Village Atherton, Lucius

Ballard, John Barker, Amanda Barrett, Pauline Bartlett, Ezra Bateson, Marie Beatty, Tom Beethoven, Isaiah Bennett, Hon. Henry Bindle, Nicholas Bliss, Mrs. Charles Blood, A. D. Bloyd, Wendell P. Bone, Richard Branson, Caroline Brown, Jim Brown, Sarah Browning, Elijah Burke, Robert Southey Burleson, John Horace Butler, Roy

Cabanis, Flossie Cabanis, John Calhoun, Granville Calhoun, Henry C. Campbell, Calvin Carlisle, Jeremy Carman, Eugene Cheney, Columbus Chicken, Ida Childers, Elizabeth Church, John M. Churchill, Alfonso Clapp, Homer Clark, Nellie Clute, Aner Compton, Seth Conant, Edith Culbertson, E. C.

Davidson, Robert Dement, Silas Dippold the Optician Dixon, Joseph Dobyns, Batterton Drummer, Frank Drummer, Hare Dunlap, Enoch Dye, Shack

Ehrenhardt, Imanuel Epilogue

Fallas, State’s Attorney Fawcett, Clarence Ferguson, Wallace Findlay, Anthony Fluke, Willard Foote, Searcy Ford, Webster Fraser, Benjamin Fraser, Daisy French, Charlie Frickey, Ida

Garber, James Gardner, Samuel Garrick, Amelia Godbey, Jacob Goldman, Le Roy Goode, William Goodhue, Harry Carey Goodpasture, Jacob Graham, Magrady Gray, George Green, Ami Greene, Hamilton Griffy, The Cooper Gustine, Dorcas

Hainsfeather, Barney Hamblin, Carl Hately, Constance Hatfield, Aaron Hawkins, Elliott Hawley, Jeduthan Henry, Chase Herndon, William H. Heston, Roger Higbie, Archibald Hill, Doc Hill, The Hoheimer, Knowlt Holden, Barry Hookey, Sam Houghton, Jonathan Howard, Jefferson Hueffer, Cassius Hummel, Oscar Humphrey, Lydia Hurley, Scholfield Hutchins, Lambert Hyde, Ernest

Iseman, Dr. Siegfried

Jack, Blind James, Godwin Joe, Plymouth Rock Johnson, Voltaire Jones, Fiddler Jones, Franklin Jones, Indignation Jones, Minerva Jones, William Judge, The Circuit

Karr, Elmer Keene, Jonas Kessler, Bert Kessler, Mrs. Killion, Captain Orlando Kincaid, Russell King, Lyman Keene, Kinsey Knapp, Nancy Konovaloff, Ippolit Kritt, Dow

Layton, Henry Lively, Judge Selah

M’Cumber, Daniel McDowell, Rutherford McFarlane, Widow McGee, Fletcher McGee, Ollie M’Grew, Jennie M’Grew, Mickey McGuire, Jack McNeely, Mary McNeely, Paul McNeely, Washington Malloy, Father Marsh, Zilpha Marshal, The Town Marshall, Herbert Mason, Serepta Matheny, Faith Matlock, Davis Matlock, Lucinda Melveny, Abel Merritt, Mrs. Merritt, Tom Metcalf, Willie Meyers, Doctor Meyers, Mrs. Micure, Hamlet Miles, J. Milton Miller, Julia Miner, Georgine Sand Moir, Alfred

Newcomer, Professor Night-Watch, Andy The Nutter, Isa

Osborne, Mabel Otis, John Hancock

Pantier, Benjamin Pantier, Mrs. Benjamin Pantier, Reuben Peet, Rev. Abner Pennington, Willie Penniwit, the Artist Petit, the Poet Phipps, Henry Poague, Peleg Pollard, Edmund Potter, Cooney Puckett, Lydia Purkapile, Mrs. Purkapile, Roscoe Putt, Hod

Reece, Mrs. George Rhodes, Ralph Rhodes, Thomas Richter, Gustav Robbins, Hortense Roberts, Rosie Ross, Thomas, Jr. Russian Sonia Rutledge, Anne

Sayre, Johnnie Scates, Hiram Schirding, Albert Schmidt, Felix Schrœder The Fisherman Scott, Julian Sersmith the Dentist Sewall, Harlan Sharp, Percival Shaw, “Ace” Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shope, Tennessee Claflin Sibley, Amos Sibley, Mrs. Siever, Conrad Simmons, Walter Sissman, Dillard Slack, Margaret Fuller Smith, Louise Soldiers, Many Somers, Jonathan Swift Somers, Judge Sparks, Emily Spears, Lois Spooniad, The Standard, W. Lloyd Garrison Stewart, Lillian Stoddard, Judson

Tanner, Robert Fulton Taylor, Deacon Theodore, The Poet Thornton, English Throckmorton, Alexander Todd, Eugenia Tompkins, Josiah Trainor, the Druggist Trevelyan, Thomas Trimble, George Tripp, Henry Tubbs, Hildrup Turner, Francis Tutt, Oaks

Unknown, The

Wasson, John Wasson, Rebecca Webster, Charles Weirauch, Adam Weldy, “Butch” Wertman, Elsa Whedon, Editor Whitney, Harmon Wiley, Rev. Lemuel Will, Arlo William and Emily Williams, Dora Williams, Mrs. Wilmans, Harry Witt, Zenas

Yee Bow

Zoll, Perry

The Hill

_Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in a jail, One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife— All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?— All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One died in shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire; One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag— All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With venerable men of the revolution?— All, all are sleeping on the hill.

They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed, And their children fatherless, crying— All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where is Old Fiddler Jones Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast, Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary’s Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield._

Hod Putt

Here I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the Bankrupt Law And emerged from it richer than ever Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth Robbed a traveler one Night near Proctor’s Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For which I was tried and hanged. That was my way of going into bankruptcy. Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side.

Ollie McGee

Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave. But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie. In death, therefore, I am avenged.

Fletcher McGee

She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars. She took the pity from my heart, And made it into smiles. She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain. They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eye with sorrow. My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils. It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see. I beat the windows, shook the bolts. I hid me in a corner And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.

Robert Fulton Tanner

If a man could bite the giant hand That catches and destroys him, As I was bitten by a rat While demonstrating my patent trap, In my hardware store that day. But a man can never avenge himself On the monstrous ogre Life. You enter the room—that’s being born; And then you must live—work out your soul, Aha! the bait that you crave is in view: A woman with money you want to marry, Prestige, place, or power in the world. But there’s work to do and things to conquer— Oh, yes! the wires that screen the bait. At last you get in—but you hear a step: The ogre, Life, comes into the room, (He was waiting and heard the clang of the spring) To watch you nibble the wondrous cheese, And stare with his burning eyes at you, And scowl and laugh, and mock and curse you, Running up and down in the trap, Until your misery bores him.

Cassius Hueffer

They have chiseled on my stone the words: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.” Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric. My epitaph should have been: “Life was not gentle to him, And the elements so mixed in him That he made warfare on life In the which he was slain.” While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph Graven by a fool!

Serepta Mason

My life’s blossom might have bloomed on all sides Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals On the side of me which you in the village could see. From the dust I lift a voice of protest: My flowering side you never saw! Ye living ones, ye are fools indeed Who do not know the ways of the wind And the unseen forces That govern the processes of life.

Amanda Barker

Henry got me with child, Knowing that I could not bring forth life Without losing my own. In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust. Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived That Henry loved me with a husband’s love But I proclaim from the dust That he slew me to gratify his hatred.

Constance Hately

You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River, In rearing Irene and Mary, Orphans of my older sister! And you censure Irene and Mary For their contempt for me! But praise not my self-sacrifice. And censure not their contempt; I reared them, I cared for them, true enough!— But I poisoned my benefactions With constant reminders of their dependence.

Chase Henry

In life I was the town drunkard; When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground. The which redounded to my good fortune. For the Protestants bought this lot, And buried my body here, Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas, And of his wife Priscilla. Take note, ye prudent and pious souls, Of the cross—currents in life Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame

Harry Carey Goodhue

You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River, When Chase Henry voted against the saloons To revenge himself for being shut off. But none of you was keen enough To follow my steps, or trace me home As Chase’s spiritual brother. Do you remember when I fought The bank and the courthouse ring, For pocketing the interest on public funds? And when I fought our leading citizens For making the poor the pack-horses of the taxes? And when I fought the water works For stealing streets and raising rates? And when I fought the business men Who fought me in these fights? Then do you remember: That staggering up from the wreck of defeat, And the wreck of a ruined career, I slipped from my cloak my last ideal, Hidden from all eyes until then, Like the cherished jawbone of an ass, And smote the bank and the water works, And the business men with prohibition, And made Spoon River pay the cost Of the fights that I had lost.

Judge Somers

How does it happen, tell me, That I who was most erudite of lawyers, Who knew Blackstone and Coke Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech The court-house ever heard, and wrote A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese How does it happen, tell me, That I lie here unmarked, forgotten, While Chase Henry, the town drunkard, Has a marble block, topped by an urn Wherein Nature, in a mood ironical, Has sown a flowering weed?

Kinsey Keene

Your attention, Thomas Rhodes, president of the bank; Coolbaugh Whedon, editor of the Argus; Rev. Peet, pastor of the leading church; A. D. Blood, several times Mayor of Spoon River; And finally all of you, members of the Social Purity Club— Your attention to Cambronne’s dying words, Standing with the heroic remnant Of Napoleon’s guard on Mount Saint Jean At the battle field of Waterloo, When Maitland, the Englishman, called to them: “Surrender, brave Frenchmen!”— There at close of day with the battle hopelessly lost, And hordes of men no longer the army Of the great Napoleon Streamed from the field like ragged strips Of thunder clouds in the storm. Well, what Cambronne said to Maitland Ere the English fire made smooth the brow of the hill Against the sinking light of day Say I to you, and all of you, And to you, O world. And I charge you to carve it Upon my stone.

Benjamin Pantier

Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law, And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend. Down the gray road, friends, children, men and women, Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was alone With Nig for partner, bed-fellow; comrade in drink. In the morning of life I knew aspiration and saw glory, The she, who survives me, snared my soul With a snare which bled me to death, Till I, once strong of will, lay broken, indifferent, Living with Nig in a room back of a dingy office. Under my Jaw-bone is snuggled the bony nose of Nig Our story is lost in silence. Go by, mad world!

Mrs. Benjamin Pantier

I know that he told that I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death. And all the men loved him, And most of the women pitied him. But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes, And loathe the smell of whiskey and onions, And the rhythm of Wordsworth’s “Ode” runs in your ears, While he goes about from morning till night Repeating bits of that common thing; “Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?” And then, suppose; You are a woman well endowed, And the only man with whom the law and morality Permit you to have the marital relation Is the very man that fills you with disgust Every time you think of it while you think of it Every time you see him? That’s why I drove him away from home To live with his dog in a dingy room Back of his office.

Reuben Pantier

Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my father and mother; The milliner’s daughter made me trouble And out I went in the world, Where I passed through every peril known Of wine and women and joy of life. One night, in a room in the Rue de Rivoli, I was drinking wine with a black-eyed cocotte, And the tears swam into my eyes. She though they were amorous tears and smiled For thought of her conquest over me. But my soul was three thousand miles away, In the days when you taught me in Spoon River. And just because you no more could love me, Nor pray for me, nor write me letters, The eternal silence of you spoke instead. And the Black-eyed cocotte took the tears for hers, As well as the deceiving kisses I gave her. Somehow, from that hour, I had a new vision Dear Emily Sparks!

Emily Sparks

Where is my boy, my boy In what far part of the world? The boy I loved best of all in the school?— I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart, Who made them all my children. Did I know my boy aright, Thinking of him as a spirit aflame, Active, ever aspiring? Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed In many a watchful hour at night, Do you remember the letter I wrote you Of the beautiful love of Christ? And whether you ever took it or not, My, boy, wherever you are, Work for your soul’s sake, That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you, May yield to the fire of you, Till the fire is nothing but light!… Nothing but light!

Trainor, the Druggist

Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist, What will result from compounding Fluids or solids. And who can tell How men and women will interact On each other, or what children will result? There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife, Good in themselves, but evil toward each other; He oxygen, she hydrogen, Their son, a devastating fire. I Trainor, the druggist, a miser of chemicals, Killed while making an experiment, Lived unwedded.

Daisy Fraser

Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received For supporting candidates for office? Or for writing up the canning factory To get people to invest? Or for suppressing the facts about the bank, When it was rotten and ready to break? Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge Helping anyone except the “Q” railroad, Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. Sibley Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still, Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do, To the building of the water works? But I—Daisy Fraser who always passed Along the street through rows of nods and smiles, And coughs and words such as “there she goes.” Never was taken before Justice Arnett Without contributing ten dollars and costs To the school fund of Spoon River!

Benjamin Fraser

Their spirits beat upon mine Like the wings of a thousand butterflies. I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating. I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes, And when they turned their heads; And when their garments clung to them, Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies. Their spirits watched my ecstasy With wide looks of starry unconcern. Their spirits looked upon my torture; They drank it as it were the water of life; With reddened cheeks, brightened eyes, The rising flame of my soul made their spirits gilt, Like the wings of a butterfly drifting suddenly into sunlight. And they cried to me for life, life, life. But in taking life for myself, In seizing and crushing their souls, As a child crushes grapes and drinks From its palms the purple juice, I came to this wingless void, Where neither red, nor gold, nor wine, Nor the rhythm of life are known.

Minerva Jones

I am Minerva, the village poetess, Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk, And all the more when “Butch” Weldy Captured me after a brutal hunt. He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers; And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up, Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice. Will some one go to the village newspaper, And gather into a book the verses I wrote?— I thirsted so for love I hungered so for life!

“Indignation” Jones

You would not believe, would you That I came from good Welsh stock? That I was purer blooded than the white trash here? And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon River? You would not believe that I had been to school And read some books. You saw me only as a run-down man With matted hair and beard And ragged clothes. Sometimes a man’s life turns into a cancer From being bruised and continually bruised, And swells into a purplish mass Like growths on stalks of corn. Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow, With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter, Whom you tormented and drove to death. So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days Of my life. No more you hear my footsteps in the morning, Resounding on the hollow sidewalk Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal And a nickel’s worth of bacon.

“Butch” Weldy

After I got religion and steadied down They gave me a job in the canning works, And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline, That fed the blow-fires in the sheds To heat the soldering irons. And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it, Carrying buckets full of the stuff. One morning, as I stood there pouring, The air grew still and seemed to heave, And I shot up as the tank exploded, And down I came with both legs broken, And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs. For someone left a blow—fire going, And something sucked the flame in the tank. The Circuit Judge said whoever did it Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so Old Rhodes’ son didn’t have to pay me. And I sat on the witness stand as blind As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over, “I didn’t know him at all.”

Doctor Meyers

No other man, unless it was Doc Hill, Did more for people in this town than I. And all the weak, the halt, the improvident And those who could not pay flocked to me. I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Meyers. I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune, Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised, All wedded, doing well in the world. And then one night, Minerva, the poetess, Came to me in her trouble, crying. I tried to help her out—she died— They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me, My wife perished of a broken heart. And pneumonia finished me.

Mrs. Meyers

He protested all his life long The newspapers lied about him villainously; That he was not at fault for Minerva’s fall, But only tried to help her. Poor soul so sunk in sin he could not see That even trying to help her, as he called it, He had broken the law human and divine. Passers by, an ancient admonition to you: If your ways would be ways of pleasantness, And all your pathways peace, Love God and keep his commandments.

Knowlt Hoheimer

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, Instead of running away and joining the army. Rather a thousand times the county jail Than to lie under this marble figure with wings, And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.” What do they mean, anyway?

Lydia Puckett

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war The day before Curl Trenary Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett For stealing hogs. But that’s not the reason he turned a soldier. He caught me running with Lucius Atherton. We quarreled and I told him never again To cross my path. Then he stole the hogs and went to the war— Back of every soldier is a woman.

Frank Drummer

Out of a cell into this darkened space— The end at twenty-five! My tongue could not speak what stirred within me, And the village thought me a fool. Yet at the start there was a clear vision, A high and urgent purpose in my soul Which drove me on trying to memorize The Encyclopedia Britannica!

Hare Drummer

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s For cider, after school, in late September? Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? For many times with the laughing girls and boys Played I along the road and over the hills When the sun was low and the air was cool, Stopping to club the walnut tree Standing leafless against a flaming west. Now, the smell of the autumn smoke, And the dropping acorns, And the echoes about the vales Bring dreams of life. They hover over me. They question me: Where are those laughing comrades? How many are with me, how many In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s, And in the woods that overlook The quiet water?

Conrad Siever

Not in that wasted garden Where bodies are drawn into grass That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens That bear no fruit— There where along the shaded walks Vain sighs are heard, And vainer dreams are dreamed Of close communion with departed souls— But here under the apple tree I loved and watched and pruned With gnarled hands In the long, long years; Here under the roots of this northern-spy To move in the chemic change and circle of life, Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree, And into the living epitaphs Of redder apples!

Doc Hill