They'd tackle him ever' ways;
They'd come to him in the night, and come
On Sundays, and rainy days;
They'd tackle him in corn-plantin' time,
And in harvest, and airly Fall,
But a dose 't of blues in the wintertime,
He 'lowed, was the worst of all!
Said all diseases that ever he had--
The mumps, er the rheumatiz--
Er ever'-other-day-aigger's bad
Purt' nigh as anything is!--
Er a cyarbuncle, say, on the back of his neck,
Er a felon on his thumb,--
But you keep the blues away from him,
And all o' the rest could come!
And he'd moan, "They's nary a leaf below!
Ner a spear o' grass in sight!
And the whole wood-pile's clean under snow!
And the days is dark as night!
You can't go out--ner you can't stay in--
Lay down--stand up--ner set!"
And a tetch o' regular tyfoid-blues
Would double him jest clean shet!
I writ his parents a postal-kyard,
He could stay 'tel Spring-time come;
And Aprile first, as I rickollect,
Was the day we shipped him home!
Most o' his relatives, sence then,
Has either give up, er quit,
Er jest died off; but I understand
He's the same old color yit!
THE BAT.
I.
Thou dread, uncanny thing,
With fuzzy breast and leathern wing,
In mad, zigzagging flight,
Notching the dusk, and buffeting
The black cheeks of the night,
With grim delight!
II.
What witch's hand unhasps
Thy keen claw-cornered wings
From under the barn roof, and flings
Thee forth, with chattering gasps,
To scud the air,
And nip the lady-bug, and tear
Her children's hearts out unaware?
III.
The glow-worm's glimmer, and the bright,
Sad pulsings of the fire-fly's light,
Are banquet lights to thee.
O less than bird, and worse than beast,
Thou Devil's self, or brat, at least,
Grate not thy teeth at me!
THE WAY IT WUZ.
Las' July--an', I persume
'Bout as hot
As the ole Gran'-Jury room
Where they sot!--
Fight 'twixt Mike an' Dock McGriff--
'Pears to me jes' like as if
I'd a dremp' the whole blame thing--
Allus ha'nts me roun' the gizzard
When they're nightmares on the wing,
An' a feller's blood's jes' friz!
Seed the row from a to izzard--
'Cause I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
Tell you the way it wuz--
An' I do n't want to see,
Like _some_ fellers does,
When they 're goern to be
Any kind o' fuss--
On'y makes a rumpus wuss
Far to interfere
When their dander's riz--
But I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
I wuz kind o' strayin'
Past the blame saloon--
Heerd some fiddler playin'
That "ole hee-cup tune!"
Sort o' stopped, you know,
Far a minit er so,
And wuz jes' about
Settin' down, when--_Jeemses-whizz!_
Whole durn winder-sash fell out!
An' there laid Doc McGriff, and Mike
A-straddlin' him, all bloody-like,
An' both a-gittin' down to biz!--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
I wuz the on'y man aroun'--
(Durn old-fogy town!
'Peared more like, to me,
_Sund'y_ 'an _Saturd'y!)_
Dog come 'crost the road
An' tuck a smell
An' put right back;
Mishler driv by 'ith a load
O' cantalo'pes he couldn't sell--
Too mad, 'y jack!
To even ast
What wuz up, as he went past!
Weather most outrageous hot!--
Fairly hear it sizz
Roun' Dock an' Mike--till Dock he shot,
An' Mike he slacked that grip o' his
An' fell, all spraddled out. Dock riz
'Bout half up, a-spittin' red,
An' shuck his head--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
An' Dock he says,
A-whisperin'-like,--
"It hain't no use
A-tryin'!--Mike
He's jes' ripped my daylights loose!--
Git that blame-don fiddler to
Let up, an' come out here--You
Got some burryin' to do,--
Mike makes _one_, an' I expects
In ten seconds I'll make _two_!"
And he drapped back, where he riz,
'Crost Mike's body, black and blue,
Like a great big letter X!--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
THE DRUM.
O the drum!
There is some
Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
Through the clear
And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the car!
There's a part
Of the art
Of thy music-throbbing heart
That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start,
And in rhyme
With the chime
And exactitude of time,
Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime.
And the guest
Of the breast
That thy rolling robs of rest
Is a patriotic spirit as a Continental dressed;
And he looms
From the glooms
Of a century of tombs,
And the blood he spilled at Lexington in living beauty blooms.
And his eyes
Wear the guise
Of a purpose pure and wise,
As the love of them is lifted to a something in the skies
That is bright
Red and white,
With a blur of starry light,
As it laughs in silken ripples to the breezes day and night.
There are deep
Hushes creep
O'er the pulses as they leap,
As thy tumult, fainter growing, on the silence falls asleep,
While the prayer
Rising there
Wills the sea and earth and air
As a heritage to Freedom's sons and daughters everywhere.
Then, with sound
As profound
As the thunderings resound,
Come thy wild reverberations in a throe that shakes the ground,
And a cry
Flung on high,
Like the flag it flutters by,
Wings rapturously upward till it nestles in the sky.
O the drum!
There is some
Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
Through the clear
And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the ear!
TOM JOHNSON'S QUIT.
A passel o' the boys last night--
An' me amongst 'em--kindo got
To talkin' Temper'nce left an' right,
An' workin' up "blue-ribbon," _hot_;
An' while we was a-countin' jes'
How many bed gone into hit
An' signed the pledge, some feller says,--
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
We laughed, of course--'cause Tom, you know,
_He's_ spiled more whisky, boy an' man,
And seed more trouble, high an' low,
Than any chap but Tom could stand:
And so, says I "_He's_ too nigh dead.
Far Temper'nce to benefit!"
The feller sighed agin, and said--
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
We all _liked_ Tom, an' that was why
We sorto simmered down agin,
And ast the feller ser'ously
Ef he wa'n't tryin' to draw us in:
He shuck his head--tuck off his hat--
Helt up his hand an' opened hit,
An' says, says he, "I'll _swear_ to that--
Tom Johnson's quit!"
Well, we was stumpt, an' tickled too,--
Because we knowed ef Tom _had_ signed
Ther wa'n't no man 'at wore the "blue"
'At was more honester inclined:
An' then and there we kindo riz,--
The hull dern gang of us 'at bit--
An' th'owed our hats and let 'er whizz,--
"_Tom Johnson's quit!_"
I've heerd 'em holler when the balls
Was buzzin' 'round us wus 'n bees,
An' when the ole flag on the walls
Was flappin' o'er the enemy's,
I've heerd a-many a wild "hooray"
'At made my heart git up an' git--
But Lord!--to hear 'em shout that way!--
"_Tom Johnson's quit!_"
But when we saw the chap 'at fetched
The news wa'n't jinin' in the cheer,
But stood there solemn-like, an' reched
An' kindo wiped away a tear,
We someway sorto' stilled agin,
And listened--I kin hear him yit,
His voice a-wobblin' with his chin,--
"Tom Johnson's quit--
"I hain't a-givin' you no game--
I wisht I was!... An hour ago,
This operator--what's his name--
The one 'at works at night, you know?--
Went out to flag that Ten Express,
And sees a man in front of hit
Th'ow up his hands an' stagger--yes,--
_Tom Johnson's quit_."
LULLABY.
The maple strews the embers of its leaves
O'er the laggard swallows nestled 'neath the eaves;
And the moody cricket falters in his cry--Baby-bye!--
And the lid of night is falling o'er the sky--Baby-bye!--
The lid of night is falling o'er the sky!
The rose is lying pallid, and the cup
Of the frosted calla-lily folded up;
And the breezes through the garden sob and sigh--Baby-bye!--
O'er the sleeping blooms of summer where they lie--Baby-bye!--
O'er the sleeping blooms of summer where they lie!
Yet, Baby--O my Baby, for your sake
This heart of mine is ever wide awake,
And my love may never droop a drowsy eye--Baby-bye!--
Till your own are wet above me when I die--Baby-bye!--
Till your own are wet above me when I die.
IN THE SOUTH.
There is a princess in the South
About whose beauty rumors hum
Like honey-bees about the mouth
Of roses dewdrops falter from;
And O her hair is like the fine
Clear amber of a jostled wine
In tropic revels; and her eyes
Are blue as rifts of Paradise.
Such beauty as may none before
Kneel daringly, to kiss the tips
Of fingers such as knights of yore
Had died to lift against their lips:
Such eyes as might the eyes of gold
Of all the stars of night behold
With glittering envy, and so glare
In dazzling splendor of despair.
So, were I but a minstrel, deft
At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
Of rondels such as rapture sings,--
I'd loop my lyre across my breast,
Nor stay me till my knee found rest
In midnight banks of bud and flower
Beneath my lady's lattice-bower.
And there, drenched with the teary dews,
I'd woo her with such wondrous art
As well might stanch the songs that ooze
Out of the mockbird's breaking heart;
So light, so tender, and so sweet
Should be the words I would repeat,
Her casement, on my gradual sight,
Would blossom as a lily might.
THE OLD HOME BY THE MILL.
This is "The old Home by the Mill"--far we still call it so,
Although the old mill, roof and sill, is all gone long ago.
The old home, though, and old folks, and the old spring, and a few
Old cat-tails, weeds and hartychokes, is left to welcome you!
Here, Marg'et, fetch the man a tin to drink out of' Our spring
Keeps kindo-sorto cavin' in, but don't "taste" anything!
She's kindo agein', Marg'et is--"the old process," like me,
All ham-stringed up with rheumatiz, and on in seventy-three.
Jes' me and Marg'et lives alone here--like in long ago;
The childern all put off and gone, and married, don't you know?
One's millin' way out West somewhere; two other miller-boys
In Minnyopolis they air; and one's in Illinoise.
The oldest gyrl--the first that went--married and died right here;
The next lives in Winn's Settlement--for purt' nigh thirty year!
And youngest one--was allus far the old home here--but no!--
Her man turns in and he packs her 'way off to Idyho!
I don't miss them like _Marg'et_ does--'cause I got _her_, you see;
And when she pines for them--that's 'cause _she's_ only jes' got
_me_!
I laugh, and joke her 'bout it all.--But talkin' sense, I'll say,
When she was tuk so bad last Fall, I laughed the t'other way!
I haint so favorble impressed 'bout dyin'; but ef I
Found I was only second-best when _us two_ come to die,
I'd 'dopt the "new process" in full, ef _Marg'et_ died, you see,--
I'd jes' crawl in my grave and pull the green grass over me!
A LEAVE-TAKING.
She will not smile;
She will not stir;
I marvel while
I look on her.
The lips are chilly
And will not speak;
The ghost of a lily
In either cheek.
Her hair--ah me!
Her hair--her hair!
How helplessly
My hands go there!
But my caresses
Meet not hers,
O golden tresses
That thread my tears!
I kiss the eyes
On either lid,
Where her love lies
Forever hid.
I cease my weeping
And smile and say:
I will be sleeping
Thus, some day!
WAIT FOR THE MORNING.
Wait for the morning:--It will come, indeed,
As surely as the night hath given need.
The yearning eyes, at last, will strain their sight
No more unanswered by the morning light;
No longer will they vainly strive, through tears,
To pierce the darkness of thy doubts and fears,
But, bathed in balmy dews and rays of dawn,
Will smile with rapture o'er the darkness drawn.
Wait for the morning, O thou smitten child,
Scorned, scourged and persecuted and reviled--
Athirst and famishing, none pitying thee,
Crowned with the twisted thorns of agony--
No faintest gleam of sunlight through the dense
Infinity of gloom to lead thee thence--
Wait for the morning:--It will come, indeed,
As surely as the night hath given need.
WHEN JUNE IS HERE.
When June is here--what art have we to sing
The whiteness of the lilies midst the green
Of noon-tranced lawns? Or flash of roses seen
Like redbirds' wings? Or earliest ripening
Prince-Harvest apples, where the cloyed bees cling
Round winey juices oozing down between
The peckings of the robin, while we lean
In under-grasses, lost in marveling.
Or the cool term of morning, and the stir
Of odorous breaths from wood and meadow walks,
The bobwhite's liquid yodel, and the whir
Of sudden flight; and, where the milkmaid talks
Across the bars, on tilted barley-stalks
The dewdrops' glint in webs of gossamer.
THE GILDED ROLL.
Nosing around in an old box--packed away, and lost to memory for
years--an hour ago I found a musty package of gilt paper, or rather, a
roll it was, with the green-tarnished gold of the old sheet for the
outer wrapper. I picked it up mechanically to toss it into some
obscure corner, when, carelessly lifting it by one end, a child's tin
whistle dropped therefrom and fell tinkling on the attic floor. It
lies before me on my writing table now--and so, too, does the roll
entire, though now a roll no longer,--for my eager fingers have
unrolled the gilded covering, and all its precious contents are spread
out beneath my hungry eyes.
Here is a scroll of ink-written music. I don't read music, but I know
the dash and swing of the pen that rained it on the page. Here is a
letter, with the self-same impulse and abandon in every syllable; and
its melody--however sweet the other--is far more sweet to me. And here
are other letters like it--three--five--and seven, at least. Bob wrote
them from the front, and Billy kept them for me when I went to join
him. Dear boy! Dear boy!
Here are some cards of bristol-board. Ah! when Bob came to these there
were no blotches then. What faces--what expressions! The droll,
ridiculous, good-for-nothing genius, with his "sad mouth," as he
called it, "upside down," laughing always--at everything, at big
rallies, and mass-meetings and conventions, county fairs, and floral
halls, booths, watermelon-wagons, dancing-tents, the swing,
Daguerrean-car, the "lung-barometer," and the air-gun man. Oh! what a
gifted, good-for-nothing boy Bob was in those old days! And here 's a
picture of a girlish face--a very faded photograph--even fresh from
"the gallery," five and twenty years ago it was a faded thing. But the
living face--how bright and clear that was!--for "Doc," Bob's awful
name for her, was a pretty girl, and brilliant, clever, lovable every
way. No wonder Bob fancied her! And you could see some hint of her
jaunty loveliness in every fairy face he drew, and you could find her
happy ways and dainty tastes unconsciously assumed in all he did--the
books he read--the poems he admired, and those he wrote; and, ringing
clear and pure and jubilant, the vibrant beauty of her voice could
clearly be defined and traced through all his music. Now, there's the
happy pair of them--Bob and Doc. Make of them just whatever your good
fancy may dictate, but keep in mind the stern, relentless ways of
destiny.
You are not at the beginning of a novel, only at the threshold of one
of a hundred experiences that lie buried in the past, and this
particular one most happily resurrected by these odds and ends found
in the gilded roll.
You see, dating away back, the contents of this package, mainly, were
hastily gathered together after a week's visit out at the old Mills
farm; the gilt paper, and the whistle, and the pictures, they were
Billy's; the music pages, Bob's, or Doc's; the letters and some other
manuscripts were mine.
The Mills girls were great friends of Doc's, and often came to visit
her in town; and so Doc often visited the Mills's. This is the way
that Bob first got out there, and won them all, and "shaped the thing"
for me, as he would put it; and lastly, we had lugged in Billy,--such
a handy boy, you know, to hold the horses on picnic excursions, and to
watch the carriage and the luncheon, and all that.--"Yes, and," Bob
would say, "such a serviceable boy in getting all the fishing tackle
in proper order, and digging bait, and promenading in our wake up and
down the creek all day, with the minnow-bucket hanging on his arm,
don't you know!"
But jolly as the days were, I think jollier were the long evenings at
the farm. After the supper in the grove, where, when the weather
permitted, always stood the table, ankle-deep in the cool green plush
of the sward; and after the lounge upon the grass, and the cigars, and
the new fish stories, and the general invoice of the old ones, it was
delectable to get back to the girls again, and in the old "best room"
hear once more the lilt of the old songs and the stacattoed laughter
of the piano mingling with the alto and falsetto voices of the Mills
girls, and the gallant soprano of the dear girl Doc.
This is the scene I want you to look in upon, as, in fancy, I do
now--and here are the materials for it all, husked from the gilded
roll:
Bob, the master, leans at the piano now, and Doc is at the keys, her
glad face often thrown up sidewise toward his own. His face is
boyish--for there is yet but the ghost of a mustache upon his lip. His
eyes are dark and clear, of over-size when looking at you, but now
their lids are drooped above his violin, whose melody has, for the
time, almost smoothed away the upward kinkings of the corners of his
mouth. And wonderfully quiet now is every one, and the chords of the
piano, too, are low and faltering; and so, at last, the tune itself
swoons into the universal hush, and--Bob is rasping, in its stead, the
ridiculous, but marvelously perfect imitation of the "priming" of a
pump, while Billy's hands forget the "chiggers" on the bare backs of
his feet, as, with clapping palms, he dances round the room in
ungovernable spasms of delight. And then we all laugh; and Billy,
taking advantage of the general tumult, pulls Bob's head down and
whispers, "Git 'em to stay up 'way late to-night!" And Bob, perhaps
remembering that we go back home to-morrow, winks at the little fellow
and whispers, "You let me manage 'em! Stay up till broad daylight if
we take a notion--eh?" And Billy dances off again in newer glee, while
the inspired musician is plunking a banjo imitation on his enchanted
instrument, which is unceremoniously drowned out by a circus-tune from
Doc that is absolutely inspiring to everyone but the barefooted
brother, who drops back listlessly to his old position on the floor
and sullenly renews operations on his "chigger" claims.
"Thought you was goin' to have pop-corn to-night all so fast!" he
says, doggedly, in the midst of a momentary lull that has fallen on a
game of whist. And then the oldest Mills girl, who thinks cards stupid
anyhow, says: "That's so, Billy; and we're going to have it, too; and
right away, for this game's just ending, and I shan't submit to being
bored with another. I say 'pop-corn' with Billy! And after that," she
continues, rising and addressing the party in general, "we must have
another literary and artistic tournament, and that's been in
contemplation and preparation long enough; so you gentlemen can be
pulling your wits together for the exercises, while us girls see to
the refreshments."
"Have you done anything toward it!" queries Bob, when the girls are
gone, with the alert Billy in their wake.
"Just an outline," I reply. "How with you?"
"Clean forgot it--that is, the preparation; but I've got a little old
second-hand idea, if you'll all help me out with it, that'll amuse us
some, and tickle Billy I'm certain."
So that's agreed upon; and while Bob produces his portfolio, drawing
paper, pencils and so on, I turn to my note-book in a dazed way and
begin counting my fingers in a depth of profound abstraction, from
which I am barely aroused by the reappearance of the girls and Billy.
"Goody, goody, goody! Bob's goin' to make pictures!" cries Billy, in
additional transport to that the cake pop-corn has produced.
"Now, you girls," says Bob, gently detaching the affectionate Billy
from one leg and moving a chair to the table, with a backward glance
of intelligence toward the boy,--"you girls are to help us all you
can, and we can all work; but, as I'll have all the illustrations to
do, I want you to do as many of the verses as you can--that'll be
easy, you know,--because the work entire is just to consist of a
series of fool-epigrams, such as, for instance.--Listen, Billy:
Here lies a young man
Who in childhood began
To swear, and to smoke, and to drink,--
In his twentieth year
He quit swearing and beer,
And yet is still smoking, I think."
And the rest of his instructions are delivered in lower tones, that
the boy may not hear; and then, all matters seemingly arranged, he
turns to the boy with--"And now, Billy, no lookin' over shoulders, you
know, or swinging on my chair-back while I'm at work. When the
pictures are all finished, then you can take a squint at 'em, and not
before. Is that all hunky, now?"
"Oh! who's a-goin' to look over your shoulder--only _Doc_." And as the
radiant Doc hastily quits that very post, and dives for the offending
brother, he scrambles under the piano and laughs derisively.
And then a silence falls upon the group--a gracious quiet, only
intruded upon by the very juicy and exuberant munching of an apple
from a remote fastness of the room, and the occasional thumping of a
bare heel against the floor.
At last I close my note-book with a half slam.
"That means," says Bob, laying down his pencil, and addressing the
girls,--"That means he's concluded his poem, and that he's not pleased
with it in any manner, and that he intends declining to read it, for
that self-acknowledged reason, and that he expects us to believe every
affected word of his entire speech--"
"Oh, don't!" I exclaim.
"Then give us the wretched production, in all its hideous deformity!"
And the girls all laugh so sympathetically, and Bob joins them so
gently, and yet with a tone, I know, that can be changed so quickly to
my further discomfiture, that I arise at once and read, without
apology or excuse, this primitive and very callow poem recovered here
to-day from the gilded roll:
A BACKWARD LOOK.
As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday,
And lazily leaning back in my chair,
Enjoying myself in a general way--
Allowing my thoughts a holiday
From weariness, toil and care,--
My fancies--doubtless, for ventilation--
Left ajar the gates of my mind,--
And Memory, seeing the situation,
Slipped out in street of "Auld Lang Syne."
Wandering ever with tireless feet
Through scenes of silence, and jubilee
Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet
Were thronging the shadowy side of the street
As far as the eye could see;
Dreaming again, in anticipation,
The same old dreams of our boyhood's days
That never come true, from the vague sensation
Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways.
Away to the house where I was born!
And there was the selfsame clock that ticked
From the close of dusk to the burst of morn,
When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn
And helped when the apples were picked.
And the "chany-dog" on the mantel-shelf,
With the gilded collar and yellow eyes,
Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself
Sound asleep with the dear surprise.
And down to the swing in the locust tree,
Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground,
And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three
Or four such other boys used to be
Doin' "sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round:"
And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest,
And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed
Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed,
The old ghosts romp through the best days dead!
And again I gazed from the old school-room
With a wistful look of a long June day,
When on my cheek was the hectic bloom
Caught of Mischief, as I presume--
He had such a "partial" way,
It seemed, toward me.--And again I thought
Of a probable likelihood to be
Kept in after school--for a girl was caught
Catching a note from me.
And down through the woods to the swimming-hole--
Where the big, white, hollow, old sycamore grows,--
And we never cared when the water was cold,
And always "ducked" the boy that told
On the fellow that tied the clothes.--
When life went so like a dreamy rhyme,
That it seems to me now that then
The world was having a jollier time
Than it ever will have again.