Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse

Part 4

Chapter 44,415 wordsPublic domain

--Said the thing was pretty even, but he had to

draw it fine,

Then commenced to hunt the index for the next

shade in the line.

I protested, and we had it, this and that, and pro

and con,

And I hung and begged and argued when he

told me to move on.

Till at last he called a cherub, sent the little

chap inside,

Owning up that he was bothered as to how he

should decide.

“But I’ll give you all the show.

That I can,” said he. “You know,

I’ve arranged, in case of doubt,

--When it’s close,--to leave it out

To Uncle Micajah’s trout.”

THE TRUE STORY OF A KICKER

There lived two frogs, so I’ve been told,

In a quiet wayside pool;

And one of those frogs was a blamed bright frog,

But the other frog was a fool.

Now a farmer man with a big milk can

Was wont to pass that way;

And he used to stop and add a drop

Of the aqua pure, they say.

And it chanced one morn in the early dawn,

When the farmer’s sight was dim,

He scooped those frogs in the water he dipped,

--Which same was a joke on him.

The fool frog sank in the swashing tank

As the farmer bumped to town.

But the smart frog flew like a tug-boat screw,

And he swore he’d not go down.

So he kicked and splashed and he slammed and

thrashed,

And he kept on top through all;

And he churned that milk in first-class shape

In a great big butter ball.

Now when the milkman got to town,

And opened the can, there lay

The fool frog drowned; but, hale and sound,

The kicker he hopped away.

MORAL.

Don’t fret your life with needless strife,

Yet let this teaching stick:

You’ll find, old man, in the world’s big can

It sometimes pays to kick.

ZEK’L PRATT’S HARRYCANE

‘Twould make an ox curl up and die

To hear how Zek’l Pratt would lie.

--Why, that blamed Zeke

Could hardly speak

Without he’d let some whopper fly.

Come jest as natchrul to him, too,

--’Twas innocent, and them as knew

Zeke’s failin’s never took great stock,

But jest stood back and let him talk;

Jest let him thrash his peck o’ chart,

Then got behind his back to laugh.

Why, Zeke would--jest hold on and see

What that old liar told to me.

Last fall while gettin’ in his grain

He said he see’d a harrycane

--A cikerloon, as they say West--

A-boomin’ on like all possesst.

And Zekel see’d to his consarn

’Twas bound plumb straight for his new barn.

“’Twas crickitul,” says he. “Thinks I,

I’ve got to be almighty spry.

If somethin’ ain’t done kind o’ brash

That barn will get chawed inter hash.

It don’t take long for me to think,

And what I done was quicker’n wink.

Jest gafflin’ up a couple boards

I sashayed out deerectly to’ards

That howlin’, growlin’ harrycane

That come a-raisin’ merry Cain.

“When I’d got out as fur’s my wind

Would take me, I slacked up and shinned

That cob-piled monnyment o’ stones

Between my land and Bial Jones.

Though I don’t scare

I’ll own, I swear,

It sent a twitter through my bones

When I got where that I could see

The thing ’twas goin’ to tackle me.

’Twas big and round and blacker’n Zip,

--And powerful? My sakes, ’twould grip

A tree or bam or line o’ fence

And make ’em look like thirty cents.

While all the time it growled and chawed

And spit the slivers forty rod.

--As things looked then a bob-tailed darn

Was too much price for Pratt’s new barn.

“But let me tell ye this, my son,

Me’n them boards warn’t there for fun.

I held one underneath each arm;

The ends stuck out

In front about

Ten feet. I held ’em aidge to aidge

And made a fust-class kind of wedge.

I grit my teeth. There was a calm

For jest a minit, kind o’ ’s ef

That harrycane had stopped itse’f

And snickered, snorted, laughed, and yelled,

Then stopped again and sort o’ held

Its breath; then swellin’ up its breast

Swooped down to knock me galley-west.

“It grabbed them boards and then ’twas fight!

But scare me? Not a gol-durned mite!

It pulled and tugged and yanked and hauled

And tooted, howled, and squealed and squalled;

It picked up sculch and dirt, and threw,

And followed with a tree or two;

It hit me with a rotten squash,

And give me fits with Marm Jones’ wash.

But ’twarn’t no use, suh, Zek’l Pratt

Ain’t built to scare at things like that.

I jest let into that air tyke

And punched its innards reg’lar-like

With them ’ere boards, and honest true,

I split her square and plumb in two.

One half went yowlin’ by to right

And one to left--and out’ of sight.

While Zek’l Pratt was still on deck

With Marm Jones’ night-gown round his neck.”

THOSE PICKLES OF MARM’S

It doesn’t need eyesight to tell that it’s fall,

Up here in Maine.

Though the glamor of yellow is over it all,

And the cold, swishing rain

Comes peltering down and goes stripping the

leaves,

And smokes in cold spray from the edge of the

eaves.

All, it’s wild out of doors, but come in here with

Where mother’s as busy as busy can be.

And you need not your eyes, sir, to know it is fall

In this stifle and stirring and steam like a pall.

For there’s savor of spices and odorous charms

When your nose gets a sniff of these pickles of

marm’s.

You know it is fall without using your eyes,

Up here in Maine.

There is fragrance that floats as the flower-pot

dies

In the tears of the rain.

And the hand of the frost strips the sheltering

leaves

From the pumpkins, those bombs of the sentinel

sheaves

That stiffly and starkly keep gnard in the field,

A desolate rank without weapon or shield.

And the fragrance of death like a delicate musk

Floats up from the field through the crispness of

dusk;

Yet out from the kitchen, more savory far,

Drifts the fragrance of pickles compounded by

ma.

The autumn sweeps past like a dame to a ball,

Up here in Maine.

Her perfumes would stagger shy Springtime, but

Fall,

Like a matron of Spain,

Puts musk in her bosom and scent on her hair,

And prinks her gay robe with elaborate care.

Yet the fragrance she sheds has the savor of

death,

The brain is turned giddy beneath her fierce

breath,

Till over it all floats the vigorous scent

Of spices and hot things and good things, all

blent.

It’s wonderful, friend, how it tickles and calms,

--That whiff from those simmering pickles of

marm’s.

“THE MAN I KNEW I KILLED”

Ezra Saunders, of Hopkins’ Creek,

Was the next old soldier asked to speak.

He’d seen his share of the thousands slain

In the active days of the Umteenth Maine;

And we settled hack to hear him tell

His reasons for thinking that “War is Hell.”

“Dear comrades of Keesuncook Post and ladies

of the Corps,

I thank you for this invite and I’m proud to

take the floor.

I was thinkin’ as I set here of the battles that

I’ve fought,

Of the suff’rin’ and the slaughter--and the

sudden, awful thought

Come across me that I’d taken very likely scores

of lives,

--Taken fathers from their children, taken

husbands from their wives.

While mad with heat of battle I was pumping

reeking lead,

Not knowing, no, nor caring, where the bullet

found its bed.

Now people they will ask us if we really, truly

know

For a fact that while a-fightin’ we have ever

killed a foe.

But it’s rare you find a soldier who has seen, in

heat of strife,

That the bullet he had fired was the one to take

a life.

Now, to-night, I’m going to tell you, though I

hate to, boys, I swan,

That I know I’ve done my murder; that I know

I’ve killed my man.

“’Twas when we got our rapping at the fight of

Hatcher’s Run;

I was running hard as any;--yes, I threw away

my gun

And the rest of my equipment, and proceeded,

friends, to steer

Just as fast as legs would help me for protection

at the rear.

I was quite a nervy sprinter--‘bout as swift as

you will find,

But I couldn’t shake that Johnny who came

slammin’ on behind;

For he had the Georgy straddle and was sort of

razor-edged,

And if nothin’ special busted, I was spoke for,

so I jedged.

He was hanging to his rifle, but he didn’t try to

shoot,

--He see he had me solid,--but I give the

blame galoot

A standard mile or such-like and had druv him

‘in the list,’

When I stepped upon a hubble, fell, and give

my leg a twist.

And the tumble sort of stunned me so I laid

there quite a spell,

Expectin’ that he’d grab me; just a-harkin’ for

his yell.

But things stayed calm and quiet, so I peeked;

he laid there sprawled

‘Bout a dozen yards behind me. And he looked

so queer I crawled

Slowly back to reconnoitre, got where I could

see his head,

Saw his face was black’s a stove-pipe. Apo-

plexy! He was dead.

And I stood and wept above him, stirred, dear

comrades, to the peth

With the awful, awful pity for that man I’d run

to death.

And my conscience always pricked me and my

heart with grief is filled,

For there ain’t no question, comrades, there’s a

man I know I killed.”

’LONG SHORE CRUISE OF THE “NANCY P.”

We was off Seguin with the “Nancy P.,”

From the Sheepscot bound for Boston way;

We was one day out, and massy me!

What a leak she’d sprung sence she left the bay!

Why, never knowed sech an awful leak,

Gad, we made her old pump squeak,

Gad, we made it whoop and hump,

--Two at a turn, on the stiddy jump,--

Ker-chonk, ker-chump,

With an up yo-ho and a down ker-bump.

But the more we pumped, the more she drawed,

And we all turned to for a mighty pull;

But when we giv’ her the soundin’ rawd,

Why, bless yer soul, she was jam, bang full.

Plumb, jamb full to the soaked old deck,

Full to her gol-durned tarred old neck;

Wonder was how she kept aflo’t,

With the sea a-gozzlin’ in her thro’t;

Ker-do’t, ker-do’t,

--And we couldn’t leave, ’cause there wam’t no

bo’t.

So we hung to the pump and we giv’ her Cain,

Though it didn’t seem to be no use.

We thought of the good dry ground in Maine,

And durned the pelt of that old caboose,

Durned the hide of a tops’l tub,

For we never thought we’d see the Hub;

--Got so scart we forgot to thank

Our lucky stars for a lo’d of plank,

Ker-clink, ker-chank,

And still we bounced that old pump crank.

So we woggled on like a bale of hay,

And we set our teeth and we pumped with

groans.

At last we got to Boston bay;

But our arms were stretched to our ankle bones,

Hands were the size of corn-fed hams,

Eyes bulged out like the horns o’ rams,

We humped like monkeys bound for war,

And ev’ry man had a raw, red paw,

Ker-haw, ker-haw,

We beached that tub--and then we saw--

The “Nancy P.,” she’d grown that old,

Her butts had rotted all away.

Her lo’d of planks still jammed the hold,

But we’d left her bottom in Sheepscot bay.

So there we’d made a tumble try

To pump old ’Lantic ocean dry.

Over our rail, ’twixt you and me,

We’d h’isted, suttin, a mile of sea;

Blame me! But we

Was a darn sick crowd on the “Nancy P.”

TALE OF THE SEA-FARING MAN

I purchased a glass of stiff Maine grog for a

salty son of the sea,

And he confidentially leaned on the bar and

spun this yarn for me:

“ ’Twas down in the aidge of the Saragos’ in the

nineteenth latitood

That I think I see the dumdest sight that ever a

sailor viewed.

“We was dobbin’ along with dumpy sails in a

nigh-about dead calm,

When the forrard watch give a good long squint,

and he yapped a loud alarm.

“And there afloat, two points to port, was a

shark, a reg’lar he’un,

The biggest shark I’ve ever seen outside the

Caribbeun.

“The old man reckoned he’d have his pelt, and

he yelled to the second mate,

Sling over the biggest hook ye’ve got, with a

good big plug o’ bait.’

“We dragged her astern and his nobs come on,

and then with a mighty splosh,

He gulped the pork, he bit the rope, and away

he went, by gosh!

“But when he’d hipered two miles to lee, and

begun to wopse and wheel,

We figgered he found the lunch he had a rayther

too hearty meal.

“Yet right behind the quarter wash the critter

swum next day,

And though he gobbled the bait we threw, he

allus got away.

“And at last, do ye know, we liked the cuss for

the way he showed his spunk,

And we named him Pete, and shared salt hoss,

and tossed him a daily junk.

“He got the orts of the fish we caught and, all

in all, I’ll bet

A two-hoss waggin wouldn’t haul the stuff that

critter et.

“Then one day Jones, the heftiest man we had

in all the crew,

Went off the rail with a swinging sail, and Pete

he et him too.

“From that time on we tipped our caps to the

razor-backed old brute,

--We tipped our caps and pulled a bow in a

most profound salute;

“For ’twas only due from a decent crew to honor

a comrade’s grave,

Though ’twas odd, I’ll own, to have a tomb afloat

on the ocean wave.

“And the old man ordered the fish lines coiled,

for he ’lowed ’twarn’t proper game

To bob behind for a grave-yard lot; so Pete

swum on the same,

“--Swum on the same, though we come to see

that he didn’t act quite right.

For he grew as thin’s a belayin’ pin on that gol-

durned appetite.

“And we couldn’t figger the secret out, though

the second mate was firm

That stowed ’tween decks in the shark’s insides

was a bastin’ big tape-worm.

“As we didn’t have no vermifuge we could only

mourn for Pete,

And steal salt hoss when the mate wam’t round,

and give him lots to eat.

“But at last he rolled his glassy eyes and give

an awful chum,

And turned his belly up to view and drifted off

astern.

“He rolled and sogged on a logy swell like a

nut-cake dropped in fat,

And it ’peared to all there was suthin’ wrong

with the shark we was lookin’ at.

“So the old man ordered the gig crew up, and

the bos’n piped a tune,

And away we sploshed with the mate ahead

a-grippin’ a big harpoon.

“He slung the thing when we drew abreast and

we hacked like all-possessed;

But the shark was sleepin’ sound, you bet, for

we never broke his rest.

“--We never broke his peaceful snooze, though

plunk to the eyelet head

Went rippin’ in that big harpoon,--for, you see,

the shark was dead.

“And the old man ordered an ortopsy, for the

thing seemed mighty queer

That an able-bodied, hearty shark was deader’n

a door-knob here.

“So the mate was medical ’xaminer, and he

straddled the critter’s back

And laid him open from deck to keel with one

almighty whack.

“Now listen close while I tell the rest, for this is

the story’s peth,

--You may take my nob for a scuttle-butt if

the shark warn’t starved to death.

“Starved to death, though the sea was full of

the fattest kind of fish,

--Starved, though a seaman plump and sound

had tumbled in his dish,

“--Starved though he had in his gorged insides

I’ll bet a hundredweight

Of every kind of a floating thing from codfish

down to bait.

“And this was how: He’d spied, we judged, an

empty cask afloat,

And bein’ a glutten he grabbed the thing and

tucked it down his throat.

“The cask, we found, had an open end--the

bottom was good and stout

--The shark had swallowed the whole end fust

--the open end was out.

“And ev’ry mossel the critter et was scooped by

the cask inside;

His vittles failed to reach the spot, and so the

poor shark died.”

This is a sample of weird, wild yarns the marin-

ers relate

Under the spur of a glass of grog in a Prohibi-

tion State.

CAP’N NUTTER OF THE “PUDDENTAME”

The foam bells tinkle at gilded prow

--There’s a creamy wake to the far horizon.

And she tiptoes along with a New York bow

To the curt’sying waves, and we’ll all allow,

She’s the daintiest yacht we have set our eyes

on.

While sneaking after, in grimy shame,

Rolls tops’l schooner, the “Puddentame.”

On the rocking surge swings the millionaire,

And about him splendor and music and

laughter;

The glint of jewels and ladies fair;

Jollity throned, and Old King Care

Drowned in the brine and dragging after.

But the billows lift and toss the same

Old Cap’n Nutter in the “Puddentame.”

Under the gloom of the Porcupines,

In the gleam of the lights of the summer city,

In a tapestried cabin the rich man dines,

And toasts his friends in his bubbling wines,

While the repartee and the careless ditty

Float from the lips of squire and dame

To Cap’n Nutter of the “Puddentame.”

And the old man munches his bread and cheese

In the gloom and grime of his little cuddy;

--Through the mirk of the dusty deadlight sees

This riot of riches; then on his knees

--This sea-stained, warped old fuddy-duddy--

He prays for their souls in the Saviour’s

name,

---Does Cap’n Nutter of the u Puddentame.

And they?--Why, they neither know nor care

That the honest chap has knelt and pleaded.

For just at the edge of the dazzling glare

From the rocking yacht of the millionaire,

The old craft swings and sways unheeded.

Yet who’ll sleep better, jaded Fame

Or Cap’n Nutter of the “Puddentame”?

GOOD-BY, LOBSTER

We’ve gazed with resignation on the passing of

the auk,

Nor care a continental for the legendary rok;

And the dodo and the bison and the ornith-o-

rhyn-chus

May go and yet their passing brings no shade of

woe to us.

We entertain no sorrow that the megatherium

Forever and forever is departed, dead and

dumb:

But a woe that hovers o ’er us brings a keen and

bitter pain

As we weep to see the lobster vanish off the

coast of Maine.

Oh, dear crustacean dainty of the dodge-holes

of the sea,

I tune my lute in minor in a threnody for thee.

You’ve been the nation’s martyr and ’twas wrong

to treat you so,

And you may not think we love you; yet we

hate to see you go.

We’ve given you the blazes and hot-potted you,

and yet

We’ve loved you better martyred than when

living, now you bet.

You have no ears to listen, so, alas, we can’t

explain

The sorrow that you bring us as you leave the

coast of Maine.

Do you fail to mark our feeling as we bitterly

deplore

The passing of the hero of the dinner at the

shore?

Ah, what’s the use of living if you also can’t

survive

Until you die to furnish us the joy of one

“broiled live”?

And what can e ’er supplant you as a cold dish

on the side?

Or what assuage our longings when to salads

you’re denied?

Or what can furnish thunder to the legislative

brain

When ruthless Fate has swept you from the rocky

coast of Maine?

I see, and sigh in seeing, in some distant, future

age

Your varnished shell reposing under glass upon

a stage,

The while some pundit lectures on the curios of

the past,

And dainty ladies shudder as they gaze on you

aghast.

And all the folks that listen will wonder vaguely

The fact that once lived heathen who could eat

a Thing like that.

Ah, that’s the fate you’re facing--but laments

are all in vain

--Tell the dodo that you saw us when you

lived down here in Maine.

CURE FOR HOMESICKNESS

She wrote to her daddy in Portland, Maine, from

out in Denver, Col.,

And she wrote, alas, despondently that life had

commenced to pall;

And this was a woful, woful case, for she was

a six months’ bride

Who was won and wed in the State of Maine by

the side of the bounding tide.

And ah, alack, she was writing back that she

longed for Portland, Maine,

Till oh, her feelings had been that wrenched she

could hardly stand the strain!

Though her hubby dear was still sincere, she

sighed the livelong day

For a good old sniff of the sewers and salt from

the breast of Casco bay.

And she wrote she sighed, and she said she’d

cried, and her appetite fell off,

And she’d grown as thin’s a belaying-pin, with a

terrible hacking cough;

And she sort of hinted that pretty soon she’d

start on a reckless scoot

And hook for her home in Portland, Maine, by

the very shortest route.

But her daddy dear was a man of sense, and he

handles fish wholesale,

And he sat and fanned himself awhile with a

big broad codfish tail;

And he recollected the way he felt when he

dwelt in the World’s Fair whirl.

He slapped his head. “By hake,” he said, “I

know what ails that girl.”

And he went to a ten-cord pile of cod and he

pulled the biggest out,

A jib-shaped critter, broad’s a sail,--three feet

from tail to snout.

And he pasted a sheet of postage stamps from

snout clear down to tail,

Put on a quick delivery stamp, and sent the cod

by mail.

She smelled it a-coming two blocks off on the