Part 3

And nary a feller could nick my heel.

The crowd that follered, they took my road

As I walked away from the best that mowed.

But I can’t keep up with the boys no more,

My arms are stiff and my cords are sore:

And they’ve given this rusty scythe to me

--It has hung two years in an apple-tree--

And told me to trim along the edge

Where the mowing-machine has skipped the

ledge.

It seems, sah, skurcely a year ago

That I was a-showin’ ’em how to mow,

A-showin’ ’em how, with the tanglin’ grass

Topplin’ and failin’, to let me pass;

A-showing ’em how, with a five-foot steel,

And never a man who could nick my heel.

But now it’s the day of the hot young blood,

And I’m doin’ the job of the fuddy-dud;

Hacking the sides of the dusty road

And the corner clumps where the men ain’

mowed.

And that’s the way, a man gits told,

He’s smaller pettaters when he grows old.

I’VE GOT THEM CALVES TO VEAL

It’s a jolly sort of season, is the spring--is the

spring,

And there isn’t any reason for not feeling like a

king.

The sun has got flirtatious and he kisses Mis-

tress Maine,

And she pouts her lips, a-saying, “Mister, can’t

you come again?”

The hens are all a-laying, the potatoes sprouting

well,

And fodder spent so nicely that I’ll have some

hay to sell.

But when I get to feeling just as well as I can feel,

All to once it comes across me that I’ve got

them calves to veal.

Oh! I can’t go in the stanchion, look them

mothers in the eye,

For I’m meditatin’ murder; planning how their

calves must die.

Every time them little shavers grab a teat, it

wrings my heart,

--Hate to see ’em all so happy, for them cows

and calves must part.

That’s the reason I’m so mournful; that’s the

reason in the spring

I go feeling just like Nero or some other wicked

thing,

For I have to slash and slaughter; have to set

an iron heel

On the feelings of them mothers; I have got

them calves to veal.

Spring is happy for the poet and the lover and

the girl,

But the farmer has to do things that will make

his harslet curl.

And the thing that hits me hardest is to stand

the lonesome moos

Of that stanchion full of critters when they find

they’re going to lose

Little Spark-face, Little Brindle--when the

time has come to part,

And the calves go off a-blatting in a butcher’s

rattling cart.

Though the cash the butcher pays me sort of

smooths things up and salves

All the really rawest feeling when I sell them

little calves,

Still I’m mournful in the springtime; knocks

me off my even keel,

Seeing suffering around me when I have them

calves to veal.

THE OFF SIDE OF THE COW

Old Wendell Hopkins’ hired man is an absent-

minded chap,

He’ll start for a chair, and like as not set down

in some one’s lap.

I happened along where he stopped to bait his

hosses the other day,

--He’d given the hosses his luncheon pail and

was trying to eat their hay,

--A kind of a blame fool sort of a trick for even

a hired man,

But he tackled a different kind of a snag when

he fooled with Matilda Ann,

--When he fooled with Matilda Ann, by jinks,

he got it square in the neck,

And the doctors say, though live he may, he’s a

total human wreck.

He’s wrapped in batting and thinking now

Of the grief in insulting a brindle cow.

Matilda Ann gives down her milk and she

doesn’t switch her tail;

She gives ten quarts--week in, week out, and

she never kicks the pail.

She doesn’t hook and she doesn’t jump, but even

Matilda Ann

Ain’t called to stand all sorts of grief from a

dern fool hired man.

And when he stubbed to the milking-shed in

sort of a dream and tried

To make Matilda “So” and “Whoa” while he

milked on the wrong, off side,

She giv’ him a look to wilt his soul and pugged

him once with her hoof,

And I guess that at last his wits were jogged as

he slammed through the lintel roof.

He’s got a poultice on his brow

Of the size of the foot of a brindle cow.

Now study the ways of the world, my son; oh,

study the ways of life!

It’s the hustling chap that gets the cash, or the

girl he wants for a wife;

It’s the feller that spots the place to grab, when

Chance goes swinging by,

Who gets his dab in the juiciest place and the

biggest plum in the pie;

There’s always a chance to milk the world--

there’s a teat, a pail, and a stool;

There’s a place for the chap with sense and grip,

but a dangerous holt for a fool.

For while the feller that’s up to snuff drums a

merry tune in his pail,

The fool sneaks up on the left-hand side and

lands in the grave or in jail.

--It’s an awkard place, as you’ll allow,

The off-hand side of the world or a cow.

THE LYRIC OF THE BUCK-SAW

Ur-r rick, ur-r raw,

Ur-r rick, ur-r raw!

Have you buckled your back to an old buck-saw?

Have you doubled your knee on a knotty stick

And bobbed to the tune of ur-r raw, ur-r rick?

Have you sawed till your eye-balls goggled and

popped,

Till your heart seemed lead and your breath was

stopped?

Have you yeaked her up and yawked her down,

--As doleful a lad as there was in town?

If so, we can talk of the back-bent woe

That followed the youngsters of long ago.

Ah, urban chap, with your anthracite,

Pass on, for you cannot fathom, quite,

The talk that I make with this other chap

Who got no cuddling in Comfort’s lap.

You’ll scarcely follow me when I sing

Of the rasping buck-saw’s dancing spring,

For the rugged rhythm is fashioned for

The ear that remembers ur-r rick, ur-r raw.

Ur-r raw, ur-r rick.

Ur-r raw, ur-r rick!

We pecked at our mountain stick by stick.

Our dad was a man who was mighty good

In getting the women-folks lots of wood.

And as soon as sledding came on to stay

Jack got all work and he got no play.

For daily the ox-sleds creaked and crawked

Till the yard was full and the buck-saws talked.

’Twas rugged toil and we humped our backs,

But we scarce kept pace with dad’s big axe.

There were bitter mornings of “ten below,”

There were days of bluster and days of snow,

But with double mittens, a big wool scarf,

And coon-skin ear-laps, we used to laugh

At the fussiest blast old Boreas shrieked,

And the nippingest pinches Jack Frost tweaked,

We were warm as the blade of the yanking saw

That steamed to the tune of ur-r rick, ur-r raw!

Ur-r raw, ur-r rick,

Ur-r raw, ur-r rick!

Ho, men at the desks, there, dull and sick!

You slap your hands to your stiff old backs

At thought of the days of the saw and axe;

And you press your palms to an aching brow,

And shiver to think of a saw-buck now.

But ah, old fellows, you can’t deny

You hanker a bit for the times gone by,

When the toil of the tasks that filled the day

Made bright by contrast our bits of play.

Oh, grateful the hour at set of sun,

When the tea was hot, and the biscuits “done;”

When chocking his axe in the chopping-block,

Dad sung, u Knock off, boys, five o’clock.”

Now tell me truly, ye wearied men,

Are you ever as happy as you were then,

When you straightened your toil-bent, weary

backs

At the welcome plop of dad’s old axe?

And tell me truly, can you forget

The sight of the table that mother set,

When dropping the saws in the twilight gloom,

We trooped to the cheer of the dear fore-room,

And there in the red shade’s mellow light

Made feast with a grand good appetite?

--Made feast at the sweet old homespun board

On the plum preserves and the “crab jell” stored

For demands like these; and made great holes

In the heaps of the cream o’ tartar rolls?

Ah, gusto! fickle and faint above

The savory viands you used to love,

What wouldn’t you give for the sharp-set tang

That followed those days when the steel teeth

sang?

--For zest was as keen as the bright, swift saw

When you humped to the tune of ur-r rick,

ur-r raw?

MISTER KEAZLE’S EPITAPH

Foster the tinker traversed Maine

From Elkins town to Kittery Point,

With a rattling pack and a rattling brain,

And a general air of “out of joint.”

A gaunt old chap with a shambling gait,

A battered hat, and rusty clothes,

With grimy digits in sorry state,

And a smooch on the end of his big red nose.

That was the way that Foster went,

--Mixture of shrewdness and folly blent,

Mending the pots and the pans as ordered,

But leaving the leak in his nob unsoldered.

But Foster the tinker was no one’s fool;

He fired an answer every time.

’Twas either a saw or proverb or rule,

Or else a bit of home-made rhyme.

And while he knocked at a pot or a pan

And puffed the coals of his little blaze,

He was ready and primed for the jocose man

Who thought that the tinker was easy to

phase.

It chanced that Foster stopped one night

With a man who thought a master sight

Of being esteemed as smart’s a weasel

--Man by the name of Obed Keazle.

And he pronged at Foster the evening through

While the folks were having a merry laugh;

And they laughed the most when he said, “Now

you

Compose me a good nice epitaph,

And your lodging here shan’t cost a cent.”

So Foster snapped at the chance and said

He would have it ready before he went,

And would make one verse ere they went to

bed.

So Keazle listened with deep delight

While he heard the guileless chap recite,

With his head a-cock like a huge canary,

This sample of his obituary:

Thus he begun

Verse number one:

“A man there was who died of late,

Whom angels did impatient wait,

With outstretched arms and smiles of love

To bear him to the Realms Above.”

Foster the tinker slept that night

On a feather tick that was three feet thick,

And Keazle attended in calm delight

To warm the bed with a nice hot brick.

And the tinker sat at the breakfast board

And blandly smiled and ate and ate,

Then piled on his back his motley hoard

And took his stand at the front yard gate.

He said, “I’ll give ye the other half

Of that strictly fust-class epitaph.”

There are doubts you know as to how it

suited,

But the tinker didn’t wait--he scooted.

For thus ran--whew!

Verse number two:

While angels hovered in the skies

Disputing who should bear the prize,

In slipped the devil like a weasel

And Down Below he kicked old Keazle.”

PLAIN OLD KITCHEN CHAP

Mother’s furnished up the parlor--got a full,

new haircloth set,

And there ain’t a neater parlor in the county,

now, I’ll bet.

She has been a-hoarding pennies for a mighty

tedious time;

She has had the chicken money, and she’s saved

it, every dime.

And she’s put it out in pictures and in easy

chairs and rugs,

--Got the neighbors all a-sniffin’ ’cause we’re

puttin’ on such lugs.

Got up curtains round the winders, whiter’n

snow and all of lace,

Fixed that parlor till, by gracious, I should never

know the place.

And she says as soon’s it’s settled she shall give

a yaller tea.

And invite the whole caboodle of the neighbors

in to see.

Can’t own up that I approve it; seems too much

like fubb and fuss

To a man who’s lived as I have--jest a blamed

old kitchen cuss.

Course we’ve had a front room always; tidy place

enough, I guess,

Couldn’t tell, I never set there, never opened it

unless

Parson called, or sometimes mother give a party

or a bee,

When the women come and quilted and the men

dropped round to tea.

Now we’re goin’ to use it common. Mother

says it’s time to start,

If we’re any better’n heathens, so’s to sweeten

life with art.

Says I’ve grubbed too long with plain things,

haven’t lifted up my soul.

Says I’ve denned there in the kitchen like a

woodchuck in his hole.

--It’s along with other notions mother’s getting

from the club;

But I’ve got no growl a-comin’, mother ain’t let

up on grub!

Still I’m wishin’ she would let me have my

smoke and take my nap

In the corner, side the woodbox; I’m a plain old

kitchen chap.

I have done my stent at farmin’; folks will tell

you I’m no shirk;

There’s the callus on them fingers, that’s the

badge of honest work.

And them hours in the corner when I’ve stum-

bled home to rest

Have been earnt by honest labor and they’ve

been my very best.

Land! If I could have a palace wouldn’t ask no

better nook

Than this corner in the kitchen with my pipe

and some good book.

I’m a sort of dull old codger, clear behind the

times, I s’pose;

Stay at home and mind my bus’ness; wear some

pretty rusty clothes;

‘Druther set out here’n the kitchen, have for

forty years or more,

Till the heel of that old rocker’s gouged a holler

in the floor;

Set my boots behind the cook stove, dry my old

blue woolen socks,

Get my knife and plug tobacker from that dented

old tin box,

Set and smoke and look at mother clearing up

the things from tea;

--Rather tame for city fellers, but that’s fun

enough for me.

I am proud of mother’s parlor, but I’m feared

the thing has put

Curi’s notions her noddle, for she says I’m

underfoot;

Thinks we oughter light the parlor, get a crowd

and ontertain,

But I ain’t no city loafer,--I’m a farmer down in

Maine.

Course I can’t hurt mother’s feelin’s, wouldn’t

do it for a mint,

Yet that parlor business sticks me, and I guess

I’ll have to hint

That I ain’t an ontertainer, and I’ll leave that

job to son;

I’ll set out here in the kitchen while the folks

are having fun.

And if marm comes out to get me, I will pull

her on my lap,

And she’ll know--and she’ll forgive me, for I’m

jest a kitchen chap.

TAKIN’ COMFORT

I wouldn’t be an emp’ror after supper’s cleared

away;

I wouldn’t be a king, suh, if I could.

So long as I’ve got health and strength, a home

where I can stay,

And a woodshed full of dry and fitted wood.

For Jimmy brings the bootjack, and mother trims

the light,

And pulls the roller curtains, shettin’ out the

stormy night.

And me and Jim and mother and the cat set

down--

Oh, who in tunket hankers for a crown?

Who wants to spend their ev’nin’s sittin’

starched and prim and straight,

A-warmin’ royal velvet on a throne?

It’s mighty tedious bus’ness settin’ up so

thund’rin’ late,

With not a minit’s time to call your own.

I’d rather take my comfort after workin’ through

the days

With my old blue woolen stockin’s nigh the

fire’s social blaze,

For me and Jim and mother and the old gray cat

Come mighty near to knowin’ where we’re at.

EPHRUM KEPT THREE DOGS

Ephrum Eels he had to scratch durned hard to

keep ahead,

--But he always kept three dogs.

He couldn’t keep a dollar bill to save his life,

they said,

--But he always kept three dogs.

He said he might have been some one if he’d

had half a chance,

But getting grub from day to day giv’ Ephrum

such a dance,

He never got where he could shed the patches

off his pants;

--But he always kept three dogs.

Ephrum’s young ones never looked as though

they was half-fed,

--But he always kept three dogs.

The house would be so cold his folks would

have to go to bed;

--But Ephrum kept three dogs.

One was sort of setter dog and two of ’em was

houn’s,

Their skins was full of Satan; they was always

on their roun’s,

Till people durned their pictures in half a dozen

towns,

--But Ephrum kept his dogs.

They ’bated Ephrum’s poll-tax’cause he was too

poor to pay,

--But Ephrum kept his dogs.

How he scraped up cash to license ’em it ain’t

in me to say,

--But I know he kept his dogs.

And when a suff’rin’ neighbor ambuscaded ’em,

Eph swore--

Then in a kind of homesick way he hustled

round for more;

He struck a lucky bargain and, by thunder, he

bought four!

--Jest kept on a-keepin’ dogs.

LAY OF DRIED-APPLE PIE

Sunning themselves on the southern porch,

Where the warm fall rays from the towering

torch

Of the great sun flash in the glowing noons,

The drying apples, in long festoons,

Drink the breath of the crisp fall days,

Borrow the blush of the warming rays;

Storing their sweetness, their rich bouquet,

Against that savage and wintry day

When the housewife’s fingers shall by and by

Mould them into dried-apple pie.

There they mellow and there they brown,

Homely enough to a man from town,

Merely strings of some shrunken fruit,

Swung in the sun. And yet they’re mute

Memory-ticklers to those who know

The ways of the farm in the long-ago:

--The kitchen table, the heaping store

Of round, red apples upon the floor.

The purr of the parer, the mellow snip

As the busy knives thro’ the apples slip.

The merry chatter of boys and girls,

The rosy clutter of paring curls,

As hurrying knives and fingers fly

O ’er the luscious fruit for dried-apple pie.

I’m idly thinking it sure must be

That the rollicking sport of the apple-bee,

--The sweetness of smiles, the touch of the

white

Hands flashing there in the candle-light,--

Must all in a mystic way be blent

In one grand flavor;--that such was lent

To those mellowing strings, those festoons dun

Swinging there in the late fall sun.

For lo, as I look I seem to see

A dream of the past, a fantasy,

--A laughing, black-eyed roguish girl

Whirling a writhing paring curl;

Chanting the words of the old mock spell

That all we children knew so well:

“Three times round and down you go!

Now who is the one that loves me so?”

Merely a fancy, a passing gleam

Of the old, old days;--a sudden dream

Beguiled by some prank of a blurring eye

And the tricking song of a big, blue fly;

--Merely a fancy, and yet, ah me,

How often I’ve wondered where she can be.

There they mellow and there they brown,

Homely objects to folks from town;

Only some apples hung to dry

And doomed to be finally tombed in a pie.

ONLY HELD HIS OWN

Now there’s Hezekiall Adams--nicest man you

ever saw!

Never had a row with no one; never once got

into law;

Always worked like thunderation, but to save

his blessed life,

Never seemed to get forehanded--and I’ve laid

it to his wife,

For she always kept him meechin’; calls him

down with sour tone,

Till the critter hasn’t gumption for to say his

soul’s his own.

T’other day

Happened to ride along his way;

Heseki’,

Like a gingham rag hung out to dry,

Peak-ed and pale,

Lopped on the gate ’cross the upper rail.

“Howdy!” says I,

“Blamed if I know,” says Heseki’.

“Don’t feel sick,

But marm’s kept my back on a big hot brick

Till I can’t tell

Whuther I’m ailin’ or whuther I’m well.”

“Think,” says I,

“It’s too early to hoe when the ground’s so dry?”

Says he, “’Bout all

I’m sartin’ of is, I shall dig come fall.”

Says I, “Things look

Like we farmers can fatten the pocket-book.”

“Mebbe,” says he,

“But inarm vows there ain’t much she can see.”

“Ye can’t jest crawl,”

Says I, “but there’s money for folks with

sprawl.”

Old Hezekiah shifted legs and give a lonesome

groan;

“I begun with these two hands,” said he,

“And I’ve only held my own.”

He has always worked like blazes, but, has

always seemed to fail;

--Made his grabs at prancin’ Fortune, but has

caught the critter’s tail;

Never jumped and gripped the bridle--wouldn’t

darst to on his life;

Always acts too blasted meechin’--and I’ve laid

it to his wife.

GRAMPY SINGS A SONG

Row-diddy, dow de, my little sis,

Hush up your teasin’ and listen to this:

’Tain’t much of a jingle, ’tain’t much of a tune,

But it’s spang-fired truth about Chester Cahoon.

The thund’rinest fireman Lord ever made

Was Chester Cahoon of the Tuttsville Brigade.

He was boss of the tub and the foreman of hose;

When the ’larm rung he’d start, sis, a-sheddin’

his clothes,

--Slung cote and slung wes’cote and kicked off

his shoes,

A-runnin’ like fun, for he’d no time to lose.

And he’d howl down the ro’d in a big cloud of

dust,

For he made it his brag he was allus there fust.

--Allus there fust, with a whoop and a shout,

And he never shut up till the fire was out.

And he’d knock out the winders and save all the

doors,

And tear off the clapboards, and rip up the

floors,

For he allus allowed ’twas a tarnation sin

To ’low ’em to burn, for you’d want ’em agin.

He gen’rally stirred up the most of his touse

In hustling to save the outside of the house.

And after he’d wrassled and hollered and pried,

He’d let up and tackle the stuff ’twas inside.

To see him you’d think he was daft as a loon,

But that was jest habit with Chester Cahoon.

Row diddy-iddy, my little sis,

Now see what ye think of a doin’ like this:

The time of the fire at Jenkins’ old place

It got a big start--was a desprit case;

The fambly they didn’t know which way to turn.

And by gracious, it looked like it all was to burn.

But Chester Cahoon--oh, that Chester Cahoon,

He sailed to the roof like a reg’lar balloon;

Donno how he done it, but done it he did,

--Went down through the scuttle and shet

down the lid.

And five minutes later that critter he came

To the second floor winder surrounded by

flame.

He lugged in his arms, sis, a stove and a bed,

And balanced a bureau right square on his head.

His hands they was loaded with crockery stuff,

China and glass; as if that warn’t enough,

He’d rolls of big quilts round his neck like a

wreath,

And carried Mis’ Jenkins’ old aunt with his

teeth.

You’re right--gospel right, little sis,--didn’t

seem

The critter’d git down, but he called for the

stream.

And when it comes strong and big round as my

wrist

He stuck out his legs, sis, and give ’em a

twist;

And he hooked round the water jes’ if ’twas a

rope

And down he come easin’ himself on the slope,

--So almighty spry that he made that ’ere

stream

As fit for his pupp’us’ as if ’twas a beam.

Oh, the thund’rinest fireman Lord ever made

Was Chester Cahoon of the Tuttsville Brigade.

UNCLE MICAJAH STROUT

Guess that more’n a dozen lawyers, off and on,

from time to time,

Tried to settle down in Hudson, but they

couldn’t earn a dime.

Never got a speck of business, never had a single

case,

Said they never in their travels struck so

blimmed-blammed funny place.

People did a lot of hustling, town was flourish-

ing enough,

--Everybody but the lawyers had his fingers

full of stuff.

Lawyers stayed till they got hungry, then they’d

pull their shingles down

And go tearing off to somewhere, damning right

and left the town.

Told the lawyers round the county, “Hudson’s

bound to starve you out

Till some patriot up and poisons one old cuss

down there named Strout.

’Cause they won’t fork up a fee,

Long’s he’s round to referee.

’Case of difference or doubt

Folks say, 6 Wal, we’ll leave her out

To Uncle Micajah Strout.’”

If a farmer bought a heifer and she didn’t run

to milk,

If a dickerer in horse trades struck a snag or

tried to bilk,

If two parties got to haggling over what a farm

was worth,

Or if breeders split in squabbling over weight or

age or girth;

If a stubborn line-fence quarrel, right-of-way dis-

pute, or deed,

Claim of heirship or of debtor, honest error,

biassed greed,

Rose to foster litigation, no one scurried to the law,

No one belched out objurgations, sputtered oaths,

or threatened war,

For there was a ready resource in a certain plain

old gent,

Unassuming, blunt, and honest. When he said

a thing it went.

So there was no chance for wrangle, disputations,

snarls, or fray,

When the people of the village universally could

say,

“Oh, what’s the use to fuss?

We shall only make a muss.

We can fix it in about

Half a minute. Leave it out

To Uncle Micajah Strout.”

So no wonder all the lawyers banned and cursed

the place, and left;

For contention was but fleeting and the town

was never cleft

By a quarrel or dissension. Rows were always

settled young

By the pacifying magic of. Micajah’s ready

tongue.

When at last his days were ended and he passed

--well, now you bet

That he had the biggest funeral ever seen in

Somerset.

Miss him? Guess we miss Micajah, but if ever

dreams come true,

I’ve a sort of sneaking notion that he hasn’t yet

got through

Settling things for us in Hudson; for I dreamed

--and this is straight--

That I died and went to Heaven, but was yanked

up at the gate.

Peter showed me facts and figures, all the

records, and allowed

That I’d have to take my chances down below

with t’other crowd;