Part 2

The neighbors pitied her starving state, but at

last she stubbornly wouldn’t shoo;

They pounded tattoos on her skinny ribs till it

really seemed they would whack ’em through.

But she got so toughened and callous and hard,

and the stiffened frame of her mortised bones

Formed such an excellent armor-plate against

the broadsides of sticks and stones,

That they “pounded” her then in a different

way--in the village pound--whose walls

would hold

The breachiest cow that ever strayed--and the

notice was posted as I have told.

She stood there a day and she stayed there a

night; she cropped the scanty bushes and

grass,

And moo-ed and loo-ed in a yearning way, when-

ever a person chanced to pass.

--She ate the leaves from some alder sprouts

for a scanty breakfast the second day,

And munched the twigs for her dinner, alas,

and longed, oh, so much, for some meadow

hay.

That night she gnawed at her dry old poke,--

a painful meal, for the slivers ran

In her tongue; so she crouched by the high-

barred gate and seemed deserted of God and

man.

And Hoskins knew that they had his cow, and

Hoskins knew of her solemn fast,

For he’d gone up the highway and looked

through the gate in her dumb, reproachful eyes

as he passed.

Yet what, may I ask, could the poor man do?

He was right in a place where he couldn’t

Pay,

--He had three dollars, ’tis true enough, and ‘twould square the bill, but, you see, that day

The catchers had come and taken his dogs: a

hound, a setter, and brindle-pup,

And a man like Hoskins would ne ’er endure to

have the dog-pound gobble them up,

For he gunned on Sundays behind the hound,

and the bull was entered and backed to fight.

And Hoskins, you see, as a sporting man had a

reputation to keep upright.

I wonder, friends, if you’ve ever thought, while

you’ve stormed at rum as the poor man’s curse,

There are chaps so built on the mental plan that

keeping dogs will warp them worse?

The “dog” man may be reclaimed, but I’ve

been compelled, alas, to see

That there doesn’t appear to be much hope for

the wretched critter condemned to three.

And Hoskins’s duty was plain to him: his

youngsters wailed for the milk they missed,

But Hoskins thought of his poor, poor dogs and

gripped his dollars tight in his fist.

He shut his ears to his children’s cries, he steeled

his heart when he passed the pound,

To the mute appeal in the old cow’s eyes; but

he smiled at last when his dogs were found.

And he gladly proffered the three lone plunks

to sate the greed of the legal hogs,

And proudly he took the highway back, a-lead-

ing his licensed, bailed-out dogs.

And they barked and yipped and yapped and

yawped at a poor old tottering cow they found

Absorbed in a desperate, hungry reach for a

thistle outside the village pound.

AN OLD STUN’ WALL

If ye only knew the backaches in an old stun’

wall!

O, Lordy me,

I’m seventy-three!

--Begun amongst these boulders and I’ve lived

here through it all.

I wasn’t quite to bub’s age there, when dad

commenced to clear

The wust of ninety acres with a hoss team and

a steer.

And we’ve used the stun’s for fencin’ and we’ve

built around the lot,

O, I’ve tugged and worked there, sonny, ontil

gracious me, I’ve sot

And fairly groaned o’ evenings with the twinges

in my back;

Sakes, there warn’t no shirkin,’ them days; it

was tug and lift and sack,

For it needed lots of muscle, lots of gruntin’,

lots of sand

If a feller calculated for to clear a piece of

land.

Bub, it isn’t any wonder that our backs has got

a hump,

That our arms are stretched and awkward like

the handle on a pump,

That our palms are hard and calloused, that we

wobble in our gait

--There’s the reason right before you ’round

the medders in the State.

And I wonder sometimes, sonny, that we’ve

any backs at all

When I figer on the backaches in an

Old

Stun’

Wall.

If ye only knew the backaches in an old stun’

wall!

We read of men

Who with a pen

Have pried away the curses that have crushed

us in their fall.

I don’t begrudge them honor nor the splendor

of their name

For an av’rage Yankee farmer hasn’t any use

for fame,

But the man who lifted curses and the man

who lifted stones

Never’ll hear a mite of diff’runce in the

Heavenly Father’s tones.

For I have the humble notion, bub, that when

all kinds of men,

The chaps that pried with crowbar and the

chaps that pried with pen,

Are waitin’ to be measured for the things

they’ve done below

The angel with the girth-chain’s bound to give

us all fair show.

And the humble man who’s tussled with the

rocks of stubborn Maine

Won’t find that all his labor has been thankless

and in vain.

And while the wise and mighty get the glorious

credit due

The man who took the brunt of toil will be

remembered too.

The man who bent his aching back will earn

his crown, my child,

By the acres he made fertile and the miles of

rocks he piled.

That ain’t my whole religion, for I don’t propose

to shirk

What my duties are to Heaven,--but the gospel

of hard work

Is a mighty solid bed-rock that I’ve built on

more or less;

I believe that God Almighty has it in his heart

to bless

For the good they’ve left behind them rough old

chaps with humped-up backs

Who have gone ahead and smoothed things with

the crowbar and the axe.

For if all our hairs are numbered and He notes

the sparrow’s fall

He understands the backaches in an

Old

Stun’

Wall.

THE STOCK IN THE TIE-UP

I’m workin’ this week in the wood lot; a hearty

old job, you can bet;

I finish my chores with a larntern, and marin has

the table all set

By the time I get in with the milkin’; and after

I wash at the sink,

And marm sets a saucer o’ strainin’s for the cat

and the kittens to drink.

Your uncle is ready for supper, with an appetite

whet to an edge

That’ll cut like a bush-scythe in swale-grass, and

couldn’t be dulled on a ledge.

And marm, she slats open the oven, and pulls

out a heapin’ full tin

Of the rippin’est cream-tartar biskit a man ever

pushed at his chin.

We pile some more wood on the fire, and open

the damper full blare,

And pull up and pitch into supper--and com-

fort--and taste good--wal, there!

And the wind swooshes over the chimbly, and

scrapes at the shingles cross grain,

But good double winders and bankin’ are mighty

good friends here in Maine.

I look ’crost the table to mother, and marm she

looks over at me,

And passes another hot biskit and says, “Won’t

ye have some more tea?”

And while I am stirrin’ the sugar, I relish the

sound of the storm.

For, thank the good Lord, we are cosy and the

stock in the tie-up is warm.

I tell ye, the song o’ the fire and the chirruping

hiss o’ the tea,

The roar of the wind in the chimbly, they sound

dreadful cheerful to me.

But they’d harrer me, plague me, and fret me,

unless as I set here I knew

That the critters are munchin’ their fodder and

bedded and comf’table too.

These biskits are light as a feather, but, boy,

they’d be heavier’n lead

If I thought that my hosses was shiv’rin’, if I

thought that my cattle warn’t fed.

There’s men in the neighborhood ’round me who

pray som’w’at louder than me,

They wear better clothes, sir, on Sunday--chip

in for the heathen Chinee,

But the cracks in the sides o’ their tie-ups are

wide as the door o’ their pew,

And the winter comes in there a-howlin’, with

the sleet and the snow peltin’ through.

Step in there, sir, ary a mornin’ and look at their

critters! ’Twould seem

As if they were bilers or engines, and all o’

them chock full o’ steam.

I’ve got an old-fashioned religion that calkalates

Sundays for rest,

But if there warn’t time, sir, on week days to

batten a tie-up, I’m blest

I’d use up a Sunday or such-like, and let the

durned heathen folks go

While I fastened some boards on the lintel to

keep out the frost and the snow.

I’d stand all the frowns of the parson before I’d

have courage to face

The dumb holler eyes o’ the critters hooked up

in a frosty old place.

And I’ll bet ye that in the Hereafter the men

who have stayed on their knees

And let some poor, fuzzy old cattle stand out in

a tie-up and freeze,

Will find that the heat o’ the Hot Place is keyed

to an extra degree

For the men who forgot to consider that critters

have feelin’s same’s we.

I dasn’t go thinkin’ o’ tie-ups where winter goes

whistlin’ through.

Where cattle are humped at their stanchions

with scarcely the gumption to moo.

But I’m glad for the sake of Hereafter that

mine ain’t the sin and the guilt,

And I tell you I relish my feelin’s when I pull

up the big patchwork quilt.

I can laugh at the pelt o’ the snowflakes, and

grin at the slat o’ the storm,

And thank the good Lord I can sleep now; the

stock in the tie-up is warm.

EPHRUM WADE’S STAND-BY IN HAYING

Ephram Wade sat down in the shade

And took off his haymaker hat, which he laid

On a tussock of grass; and he pulled out the

plug

That jealously gagged the old iron-stone jug.

And cocking his jug on his elbow he rigged

A sort of a “horse-up,” you know, and he

swigged

A pint of hard cider or so at a crack,

And set down the jug with a satisfied smack.

“Aha!” said he, “that grows the hair on ye,

bub,

My rule durin’ hayin’s more cider, less grub.

I take it, sah, wholly to stiddy my nerves,

And up in the stow hole I pitch ’em some

curves

On a drink of straight cider, in harnsomer shape

Than a feller could do on the juice of the grape.

Some new folderinos come ’long every day,

All sorts of new jiggers to help git yer hay.

Improvements on cutter bars, hoss forks, and

rakes,

And tedders and spreaders and all of them fakes.

But all of their patents ain’t fixed it so yit

That hayin’ is done without git-up and git.

If ye want the right stuff, sah, to take up the

slack,

The stuff to put buckram right inter yer back,

The stuff that will limber and ile up yer j’ints,

Just trot out some cider and drink it by pints.

It ain’t got no patents--it helps you make hay

As it helped out our dads in their old-fashioned

way.

Molasses and ginger and water won’t do,

’Twill irrigate some, but it won’t see ye through.

And ice water’ll chill ye, and skim milk is durn

Mean stuff any place, sah, except in a churn.

I’m a temperate man as a general rule,

--The man who gits bit by the adder’s a fool,--

But when it comes hayin’ and folks have to strain,

I tell you, old cider’s a stand-by in Maine.”

Then Ephrum Wade reclined in the shade

And patiently gazed on the hay while it “made.”

RESURRECTION OF EPHRUM WAY

Old Uncle Ephrum Isaac Way

--He had a fit the other day.

A sort of capuluptic spell;

He hasn’t been in no ways well

Since year ago come next July;

He had a sunstroke; come blamed nigh

To passin’ ’crost. And since, for him,

The poor old man’s been dretful slim.

And ’twarn’t surprisin’ none, I say,

That fit of his the other day.

By time that Dr. Blaisdell come

His legs and arms had growed all numb.

He didn’t sense things source at all,

His lower jaw commenced to fall,

And, jedged from looks, there warn’t no doubt

That Ephrum’s soul was passin’ out.

Fact is, they thought that he was dead;

They tied the bandage round his head,

Laid out his shroud--when first they knew,

Eph kicked awhile and then come to;

Got up and stared with all his eyes,

And said, “Why, this ain’t Paradise!

Gol durn the luck, they let me in;

Now here I’m back on earth agin.

I’ve been to Heaven! I’ve been dead,

I’ve seen it All,” so Ephrum said.

And while we gathered round with awe

He told us all the things he saw.

And while he yarned that tale of Death

The parson came, all out of breath,

Exclaiming o ’er and o ’er again,

“A vision! Wondrous! Blest of men!”

And asked, “Oh, tell us, Mr. Way,

How long were you allowed to stay?”

And then the crowd hung breathless round

A-harkin’ until Ephrum found

Some sort of language in his reach,

--For he was sort of dull in speech.

“Wal, friends,” he slowly said at last,

“I ricolleet that when I passed

The pearly gates and sills of gold

And see that blessed sight unfold

Before my dim old hazy eyes,

I got a shock of such surprise

I couldn’t move,--I couldn’t speak,

--Jest run my tongue down in my cheek

And sort of numbly pronged and pried

The chaw I took before I died.

--That’s been my habit all my days;

When I am nervous anyways

I don’t fly all to gosh. Instid

I simply, calmly shift my quid.

But jest as I had rolled her ’crost--

Wal, suthin’ dropped and I was lost.

And all of Heaven, friends, I saw

Was while I shifted that air chaw.”

I think, dear sir, I scarce need add

That seldom do you see so glad

A resurrection time as they

Who stood there gave old Ephrum Way.

The parson first he tried to screw

His face up solemn, but that crew

Broke out and howled like they was daft.

And so he laughed and laughed and laughed.

LOOK OUT FOR YOUR THUMB

Hindsight is clearer than foresight,

But foresight is better and safer, old chap.

Experiment teaches, but common sense reaches

And tests the bright baubles in Dame Future’s

lap.

I’m telling you what Eph Landers did

The time that the critter lost his fid.

He was sort of a quick, impulsive man;

--When others walked, he always ran.

He never waited to calmly view,

But he got right up and slam-banged through.

Believed that the moments a feller took

To give the future a good square look

Was simply so much wasted time;

His plan was, “Never look up; just climb.”

He was yankin’ boulders a week ago

And things got balky and movin’ slow.

He strung the chain ’round a good big rock

And found that he lost the little block

To catch the link; it’s used instid

Of a hook and link, and it’s called a fid.

And Eph, he held the unhooked chain

By the ends, and he looked and he got profane.

But he couldn’t find it and wouldn’t wait,

--He was mad as a bug and desperate,

And the crack-brained critter--what do ye

think?

Why, he stuck his thumb in the unhooked link.

He didn’t consider that ’twarn’t his fid,

But the oxen started--and then he did!

He see’d his mistake, as most men do,

When the deed is done and the thing is through:

You stick your thumb where it don’t belong

And the world will yank it, good and strong.

_Hindsight is clearer than foresight,

But you’d better ask foresight to give ye a

point;

Or, first thing you’re knowin’, Old World will be

goin’,

And he’ll laugh while you howl with your thumb

out of joint_.

THE TRIUMPH OF MODEST MARIA

Maria’s comb hung lopsy-wise

And flapped athwart her filmy eyes,

Exactly like a slattern’s hair

On washing day; and I declare

She was the slouchiest-looking hen

That pecked in T. B. Tucker’s pen.

Cah-dah! Cah-dut!

She was the butt

Of every sort of jibe and cut.

Maria was a Brahma dame,

Broad and squat and plucked and lame.

The Leghorns cast a pitying smile

Upon her queer, old-fashioned style.

The Plymouth Rocks would jeer and flout

Because her legs were feathered out.

The cocks would strut,

Pah-rutt! Pah-rutt!

And snigger at her bloomers’ cut.

The trim white Cochins tip-toed by

And froze her with disdainful eye;

Each tufted Houdan tossed her plume

And glared Maria’s social doom.

Where ’er she strolled in all the yard

Maria got it good and hard!

Cah-dut! Cah-dah!

Each social star

Just dropped Maria with a jar.

But she pursued her quiet way,

And picked and scratched the livelong day,

Kept early hours and ate bran mash,

Nor sought to cut a social dash.

And then one day she left her nest

With pallid comb and swelling breast.

Cah-dut! Cah-dah!

Hooray, hurrah!

Maria, you’re a queen, you are!

The news went cackling round the pen

--An egg! It measured twelve by ten.

And T. B. Tucker drove to town

To take that gor-rammed big egg down.

The editor put on his specs,

The villagers turned rubber necks,

And some collecting feller paid

Right smart for what Maria laid.

And European news was set

Aside that week by the Gazette

In order that a glowing pen

Might pay due praise to that old hen.

Cah-lip! Cah-lop!

You’ll find, sure pop,

That modest merit lands on top.

SON HAS GOT THE DEED

Mother fights with Marshy, and Marshy fights

with her,

--Don’t give up yer proputty, I’m tellin’ on yer,

sir!

Don’t give up yer proputty to nary blessed one,

--Don’t keer whuther brother, sir, or nephy,

sir, or son.

Don’t make over northin’, sir, ontil you’re done

and through,

Or ye’ll cuss the day ye done it till the air is

black and blue..

Me and marm got feeble and we couldn’t run

the farm,

Son was newly married and we couldn’t see the

harm

In makin’ on it over, we to have the ell and shed,

Use the sittin’ room in common--and a room

for one spare bed.

And so we made the papers and we signed ’em,

me and wife,

’Lowin’ them the stand and stock, and us our

keep for life.

Twelvemonth isn’t finished, but the trouble has

begun,

An’ it’s one continyal rowin’ ’twixt us and her

and son.

Marshy dings at mother and mother dings at her,

’F things ain’t settled somehow, sir, they’ll git

to clawin’ fur.

Don’t give up yer proputty, I’m tellin’ on ye

straight.

Don’t keer who your family is, ye’ll rue it sure

as fate.

’Fore ye sign the papers they’ll come round ye

slicker’n cream,

But ye’ll notice little later, sir, that things ain’t

what they seem.

Man that’s got his proputty, he’s looked to with

respect;

Relations they come meechin’ round to

scratch, sir, where he’s pecked.

Ye see, he rules the family roost and leads the

family flock,

As proud and full of manners as a Cochin China

cock.

But if the years have loosened up his intellect

and grip,

And if he thinks his folks are straight, and lets

the old farm slip,

He’ll find the grin becomes a frown and sweet-

ness turns to greed,

For folks see things in different light when once

they’ve got a deed.

Now Marshy snarls at mother and mother sends

it back,

And all the time, from sun to sun, it’s clack and

clack and clack!

Don’t give up yer propputy, hang on till death,

I say;

It’s time when you are done with it to give your

all away.

Oh, how the devil snickers round when some

old codger drools

About “the laying down of cares”--and jines

the ranks of fools!

And how the lawyers laugh and joke, and how

the angels weep,

To see some old folks deed away their farm for

board and keep!

--Never see’d no better cook than Marshy

used to be,

When first along she’d ask us down to dinner

or to tea.

Used to sweeten grub with smiles when she

would pass a plate,

And me and marm, like two old coots, we swal-

lowed hook and bait.

You bet we git some diff’rent looks, we git some

different feed,

Jest like they’d throw it out to dogs, now son

has got the deed.

An’ Marshy growls at mother, and mother’s

growlin’ wuss,

An’ I--wal, I jest set and smoke and cuss--

and cuss--and cuss!

AN IDYL OF COLD WEATHER

When all the sky seems blazing down, and sun-

shine curls the bricks,

And General Humidity puts in his biggest licks,

I welcome with a moist and dripping

palm,

A placid old philosopher who runs a little farm,

Who says imagination helps a deal in keeping

cool,

And who to comfort other men makes this his

simple rule:

To talk of piping, biting days, and drifting

winter storm

Whene ’er the weather pipes it up and gets too

thunderin’ warm.

They’re better far than fizz or smash or juleps,

sure’s you’re born,

--The honest little narratives of Frigid Weather

John.

For though the sizzling summer time may boil

and steam and hiss,

Who’d ever, ever think of it while listening to

this?

“I never see’d a winter have a durnder, sharper

aidge

Than in the year of Sixty-one, the year that I

drove stage.

I never had so hard a job attendin’ to my biz,

For everything was frizable, that year you bet

was friz.

At last I done a caper that I hadn’t done for

years:

I got a little careless and I friz up both my ears.

The roads was awful drifted and I trod ten

miles of snow,

And all the time that zippin’ wind did nothin’,

sah, but blow.

Them ears of mine was froze so hard, stuck out

so bloomin’ straight,

I thought the wind would snap ’em off, it blew

at such a rate.

And when at last I hauled up home, the missus

bust in tears

And hollered, ‘John, oh, massy me, you’re going

to lose your ears.’

But I--why, land o’ goodness, I was cooler’n I

be now,”

--And he passed his red bandanna up across

his steaming brow,--

“I jest got out my hatchet and I chopped two

cakes of ice

And held ’em on my friz-up ears--’twas

Granpy Jones’ advice.

I didn’t dast go in the house, but set there in

the shed

A-holdin’ them two chunks of ice to either

side my head.

The chunks weighed fifty pounds apiece--that

doctorin’ didn’t cost--

And so I got ’em big enough to take out all the

frost.

My wife came out at last to see what made me

keep so still,

And there I was, sound asleep and snorin’

fit to kill.

She got me in and gave me tea and helped me

inter bed,

With that ’ere ice a-frozen tight and solid to my

head.

’Twas sort of curi’s, I confess, but still I slept

complete,

A crystal palace on my head and soapstones on

my feet.

It wasn’t really what you’d call a calm and rest-

ful night,

But when the ice peeled off next day them ears

come out all right.”

They’re better far than fizz or smash or juleps,

sure’s you’re born,

--These honest little narratives from Frigid

Weather John.

BUSTED THE “TEST YOUR STRENGTH”

When pa was down to Topsham fair

I snooped around and heard him swear

To Jotham Briggs that it seemed to him

That muscle nowadays was slim,

For he said he’d stood there quite a length,

Seein’ folks whang at the “test your strength,”

And there wasn’t a one in all that spell

Who’d hit a crack that had tapped the bell.

And pa talked loud and he sassed the crowd,

And the crowd sassed pa, and he allowed

He’d show ’em what; and so old Jote

Just held his hat and his vest and coat;

And pa he rolled his sleeves up tight,

Hauled out his plug and took a bite.

He whirled one arm in wind-mill style,

--Then whirled the other one awhile.

He picked his pessle out at length

And sassed the great, tall “test your strength.”

“I’m goin’ to soak ye now,” says pa,

“You’ll think it’s y’earthquakes by the jar.

Git out the way and giv’ me swing,

--I’ll bust the ha’slet out the thing.”

And pa he spit in both his fists

And give the handle two three twists,

And swung the beetle round and round

To give one big, gol-rippin’ pound.

One knee was right up’ginst his chin,

His eyes stuck out, his lips sucked in,

And down he fetched her with a jolt,

But pa--but pa--he missed his holt!

He lost his grip, the pessle flew,

And folks they scattered, I tell you.

Some chaps fell down and some they ducked,

And them fur off, by gosh, they hucked.

For that air pessle, sir, it come

Sky-hootin’ like a ten-inch bomb.

It landed more’n eight rods away

Right through the top of Drew’s new shay,

--Right ’twixt the gal and Ezry Drew,

And hully gee, it scart ’em blue.

While pa--wal, pa, he jest turned green

--Gawked fust at Drew, then that machine.

And hammed and stuttered out at length,

“I aimed ’er at that to test your strength’!”

“Good eye!” says Ez, as mad as sin,

And then he snorted, “Drunk agin!”

And pa--wal, warn’t a thing to say,

’Cept pull,--and ask Ez, “What’s to pay?”

“WHEN A MAN GETS OLD”

The clash and the clatter of mowing-machines

Float up where the old man stands and leans

His trembling hands on the worn old snath,

As he looks afar in the broadening path,

Where the shivering grasses melt beneath

A seven-foot bar and its chattering teeth.

When a man gits old, says he,

When a man gits old,

He is mighty small pettaters

As I’ve just been told.

I used to mow at the head of the crew,

And I cut a swath that was wide as two.

--Covered a yard, sah, at every sweep;

The man that follered me had to leap.

I made the best of the critters squeal,