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
me
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.”
[Illustration: 0129]
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
at
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
top of the postman’s pack;
She rushed to meet him, and scared him blind by
climbing the poor man’s back.
But she got the fish, hit out a hunk, ate postage
stamps and all,
And a happy wife in a happy home lives out in
Denver, Col.
ON THE OLD COAST TUB
Blast from the winter. Wrack-wood and splinter
Adrift in the smother of roaring lee shore:
And a blunt-nosed old coaster; some ancient
sea-wagon,
Sweeps in from the fog no more--no more,
Rolls in from the sea no more.
Bricks make her load and New York her destin-
ation.
(Dern yer hide, ye snoozer, keep a-pumping
there, I say!)
Bricks for a cargo and she leaks like thundera-
tion,
And the gulls a-trailin’ after like the buzzards
sniffin’ prey!
Pump away!
And ev’ry brick a-soakin’ in her innards growls
and grates;
She hesitates--she balks and waits,
And holy hawse-pipe, how she hates
To leave Penobscot Bay!
Pounce! On her bows leap the combers like
a tiger-cat,
(Lift ’er on the handle, there, you loafer,
pump away!)
Lurch! Reels her gait, and her sloshin’ scup-
pers hiccup at
The sight of drunken breakers fightin’ past
’er up the bay.
Pump, I say!
Oh, give her all the rotten sail her leary masts
will lug.
Ka-chig, ka-chug; her ugly mug
Rolls orkord as a driftin’ jug,
And so we slosh away.
Grub to last a week, a quadrant and an alma-
nick;
(Wag ’er there, you rascal, wag ’er lively
there, I say!)
Rotten are her sails and her hold a-roar with
shiftin’ brick,
--Ain’t we up ag’inst it if a norther comes
our way?
Pump, I say!
Stagger down, ye bloated drunkard, wheel and
take the starboard tack!
Ka-slup, ka-smack, now work ’er back,
Jest hear that old black canvas crack.
Ho! Davy Jones, hooray!
Black cordage tangled, dead features mangled,
Adrift in the smother of roaring lee shore.
And a blunt-nosed old coaster;
some broad-bellied wagon
Sweeps in from the sea no more
--Rolls in from the sea no more,
--no more.
TALE OF THE KENNEBEC MARINER
Guess I’ve never told you, sonny, of the strandin’
and the wreck
Of the steamboat “Ezry Johnson” that run up
the Kennebec.
That was ’fore the time of steam-cars, and the
“Johnson” filled the bill
On the route between Augusty and the town of
Water ville.
She was built old-fashined model, with a
bottom’s flat’s your palm,
With a paddle-wheel behind her, druv’ by one
great churnin’ arm.
Couldn’t say that she was speedy--sploshed
along and made a touse,
But she couldn’t go much faster than a man
could tow a house.
Still, she skipped and skived tremendous, dodged
the rocks and skun the shoals,
In a way the boats of these days couldn’t do to
save their souls.
Didn’t draw no ’mount of water, went on top
instead of through.
This is how there come to happen what I’m go-
ing to tell to you.
--Hain’t no need to keep you guessing, for I
know you won’t suspect
How that thunderin’ old “Ez. Johnson” ever
happened to get wrecked.
She was overdue one ev’nin’, fog come down
most awful thick;
’Twas about like navigating round inside a
feather tick.
Proper caper was to anchor, but she seemed to
run all right,
And we humped her--though ’twas resky--
kept her sloshing through the night.
Things went on all right till morning, but along
’bout half-past three
Ship went dizzy, blind, and crazy--waves
seemed wust I ever see.
Up she went and down she scuttered; sometimes
seemed to stand on end,
Then she’d wallopse, sideways, cross-ways, in a
way, by gosh, to send
Shivers down your spine. She’d teeter, fetch a
spring, and take a bounce,
Then squat down, sir, on her haunches with a
most je-roosly jounce.
Folks got up and run a-screaming, forced the
wheelhouse, grabbed at me,
--Thought we’d missed Augusty landin’ and
had gone plum out to sea.
--Fairly shot me full of questions, but I said
’twas jest a blow;
Still, that didn’t seem to soothe ’em, for there
warn’t no wind, you know!
Yas, sir, spite of all that churnin’, warn’t a whis-
per of a breeze
--No excuse for all that upset and those strange
and dretful seas.
Couldn’t spy a thing around us--every way
’twas pitchy black,
And I couldn’t seem to comfort them poor crit-
ters on my back.
Couldn’t give ’em information, for ’twas dark’s
a cellar shelf;
--Couldn’t tell ’em nothing ’bout it--for I
didn’t know myself.
So I gripped the “Johnson’s” tiller, kept the
rudder riggin’ taut,
Kept a-praying, chawed tobacker, give her steam,
and let her swat.
Now, my friend, jest listen stiddy: when the sun
come out at four,
We warn’t tossin’ in the breakers off no stern
and rockbound shore;
But I’d missed the gol-durned river, and I swow
this ’ere is true,
I had sailed eight miles ’cross country in a heavy
autumn dew.
There I was clear up in Sidney, and the tossings
and the rolls
Simply happened ’cause we tackled sev’ral miles
of cradle knolls.
Sun come out and dried the dew up; there she
was a stranded wreck,
And they soaked me eighteen dollars’ cartage to
the Kennebec.
DRIVE, CAMP, AND WANGAN
THE LAW ’GAINST SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS
It’s a case of scuff in your stocking-feet, from
Seboomook down, my hearties;
Sling your spikers around your neck and swear
your way to town.
The dudes that we sent to legislate, and figger
at balls and parties,
Haye tinkered the laws to suit themselves, and
they’ve done us good and brown.
There’s a howl, you bet, from the Medway dam
across to the Caucmogummac,
For the laws came up in the tote-team mail, and
we’ve got the new statoots,
And of all the things that was ever planned to
give us a gripe in the stomach,
The worst is the corker that t’runs us down for
a-wearin’ our old calked boots.
You can’t chank on to a hotel floor,
You’ve got to leave calked boots at the door.
They make ye peel your hucks in the street
And walk to the bar in your stocking-feet.
It’s a blank of a note that a man with chink
Can’t prance to the rail and get his drink,
But it’s five and costs if ye mar the paint,
And ten if the feller that makes complaint
Gets mad at a playful push in the eyes
And goes into court with a lot of lies.
It’s ten if ye sliver a steam-bo’t’s deck
--There ain’t no argue--it’s right in the neck.
And they soak you, too, on the railroad train;
--Why, there’s hardly a loggin’ crew in Maine
But what has claimed, as a nat’ral right,
A chance to holler and heller and fight,
And knock the stuffin’ out of the seats,
Rip off the blinds and club with the cleats.
But now if the bloomin’ brakeman talks,
And you vaccinate him once with calks;
If you feel like a man with a royal flush
And, jest for the joke of it, rip some plush,
Oh, they take that law and they peel you sore;
You pay for the damage, and ten plunks more.
’Tain’t much like the days when we had some
rights,
When we roosters sharpened our spurs in fights,
When never a crowd put up galoots
That could scrap with the fellers with spike-sole
boots.
It’s a case of step to the wangan camp, and buy
some partent leathers;
And go a-snoopin’ along to town like a dude on
his weddin’-trip;
And the only thing you can do to a guy is to tickle
his nose with feathers,
And curl in your seats in the smokin’-car when
a drummer gives you lip.
There was fun, by gee, in the good old days
when we whooped ’er into the city,
And you trailed our way by the slivers we left
from the railroad down to the dives,
And we owned the town where we left our cash;
and now it’s a thunderin’ pity
If all of a sudden you’ve grown too good for the
boys who are off the drives.
Oh, make the laws, go make the laws with your
derned old Legislature,
Jest give us orders to wear plug hats and come
down in full dress suits.
We’ll wear the togs; but give us spikes, or
you’ve busted the laws of nature,
For angels can just as well shed wings as a
driver his spike-sole boots.
THE CHAP THAT SWINGS THE AXE
Sing a song of paper; first the tall, straight
spruce,
Torn from off the mountains for the roaring
presses’ use.
--A shrieking laceration by the “barker” and
the saw;
A slow, grim maceration in the grinder’s grum-
bling maw;
A dizzy dash through calenders and over whir-
ring rolls,
--And the press can smut the paper so to save
or damn your souls;
The press has got the paper, it can give you lies
or facts
--That vexes not the fellow up in Maine who
swings the axe.
Chock!
Chock!
Chock!
The throb stuttered up from the heart of the
wood,
Erratic and faint, yet the trees understood,
--Though distant and dull like the tick of a
clock
It started a tremor through all the great flock.
King Spruce was a-shiver and rooted with dread,
While past him to safety the wood people fled;
The fox with his muzzle turned backward to
snuff
The bear trundling on like an animate muff,
And rabbits up-ending in wonder and fright,
Then scudding once more with the others in
flight.
Yet that which has reason most urgent to flee
Stands grim in the rout of the panic--the
Tree!
While up the long slope, glaring red ’gainst the
snow,--
His shirt of the hue of the butcher,--the foe,
Beating fierce at the trunks with relentless
attacks,
Comes on to the slaughter, the Man with the Axe.
Chock!
Chock!
Chock!
Shudder and totter and shiver and rock!
--Pygmy assailing with dull steady knock.
Trunk yawning wide with a hideous gash.
Snow-covered limbs thrown a-sprawl; and
then crash!
The pens and the presses are waiting, and eyes